Posted on 08/09/2007 10:20:24 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
When the American people rose up in wrath a couple of months ago and stopped dead in its tracks a bipartisan effort to ram a phony immigration "reform" bill through the Senate, I warned that our triumph was inspiring but very probably short-lived. It is extremely difficult to focus the attention of the people at large on any policy, however bad, that is wanted eagerly by an influential minority.
The policy in question -- namely, to legalize the status of the 10 or 15 million illegal aliens in this country, keep them working here for peanuts, put them on track for citizenship and open the doors to millions more (all in the name of "reform") -- has the support of not one, but two powerful minorities: professional Democratic politicians, who calculate that the great majority of them will vote Democrat if they ever become citizens, and greedy businessmen (mostly Republican), who want their cheap labor no matter what the social consequences for the country.
My fellow columnist M. Stanton Evans is responsible for the brilliant perception that the Republicans (in John Stuart Mill's formulation, transposed from Britain) are "the stupid party" and the Democrats are "the evil party." Every once in a while they get together and hatch some policy that is both stupid and evil. This is called "bipartisanship," and the immigration reform bill was a spectacular example of it.
But, as I say, our victory almost certainly won't last. Having lost the battle for the moment, the proponents of what amounts to "open borders" are already preparing to win the war a little bit at a time. We will be offered small sips from the fatal cup, at first so minor and seemingly innocent that we will be tempted to let down our guard. But gradually, over a period of years, the whole draught will be imbibed.
The first innocent little sip, in fact, is already being presented to the Senate by Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., (who was also, of course, one of the big supporters of the defeated "reform" bill). This proposal, which already has bipartisan support, would give illegal immigrants who are high school graduates a path to U.S. citizenship if they complete two years of college or military service. Durbin has attached his inspiration as an amendment to some military authorization legislation that the Senate is expected to take up in September. Now, who could possibly oppose such a sweet little idea? The illegal immigrants in question are, after all, already high school graduates, which speaks well for their general ability. And if they top that off with two years in college, or two years of service in the military, who could possibly argue that they are not the very sort of people America should long to welcome as citizens?
So this teensy little exception in favor of a particularly choice category of illegal aliens is quite likely to be whooped through Congress next month as an amendment to a military authorization bill, with the moist-eyed approval of all right-thinking people. And behind it, as further amendments to other pieces of virtuous legislation, will come special treatment for all sorts of other favored categories of illegal immigrants: those, say, who have children in the top third of their grade-school class, etc. (And, of course, the wives or husbands and close relatives of these chosen few -- for who would be so cruel as to sunder families?)
And when all the exceptions have been made for all the imaginable categories of particularly deserving illegal immigrants, who would argue against continuing to exclude the rest? The unfortunate who served only 18 months in the military, or whose adorable child is only in the second third of her grade-school class?
Give up, Americans. Durbin can outwait you.
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Dems always play the race card - maybe it’s our turn...
Better watch it. A Bushbot moderator suspended my posting privileges about a month ago because I was spelling the president's name like you do.
Sadly, some moderators are Republicans first and conservatives second.
Oh, all right. I shoulda spelled it “Jorge Arbusto.” My apologies.
Mexico is not a good neighbor, but it is said that good fences make good neighbors. Build the fence stop the invasion!
Then we begin talk of deportation, but without the fence deporting only means another long walk and yet another illegal crossing.
There are rich Democrats who are tightwad businessmen too.
The DNC itself even seeks exemptions from minimum wage laws when it comes to paying workers.
The first strategy is the one the article alludes to, which is to slowly, incrementally move the unwilling in the desired direction. This strategy relies on the tactics of deception, stealth and patience. Small pieces of the whole will be carefully reworded in innocuous terms, hidden deeply in unrelated work and slowly accumulate into an ugly whole.
The first phase of the second strategy has already been done. The strategy goes something like this: Push really hard for a policy that is so far over the top, so astonishing, so bold that its opponents will literally sputter in anger against it. Heads reel as people try to wrap their brains around the magnitude of the changes and sacrifices you propose. Finally, at the peak of the opposition's fervor, you relinquish and remove the proposal.
But now, you've stretched the boundaries. You've pushed the envelope. Because your first proposal was so colossally scary, the more modest follow-up proposal is much more likely to be accepted, simply because it isn't as bad as the first.
Where workers might well complain about orders to increase their productivity by 5%, they'll be happy to get there after they've first suffered a month of whipping and berating in pursuit of a 25% increase!
The Pols ALWAYS tie unrelated matters together to get the obnoxious parts through - e.g. Child Medical and Smoking Tax - UNRELATED. As far as I know, illegals who sign up for the military can become citizens, so any thing else is BS.
I see how this works.
First, bash the military, then get recruiting banned from campuses, then they can use the argument that recruiting is down, so we need the illegal immigrants.
Then they will start saying, no, that’s targeting the poor and uneducated, so we just have to give them citizenship without the military service.
And voila.
Brilliant analysis, Chris. As one of my political mentors, Huck Walther, used to explain: “The extremes determine the middle. Unfortunately for those of us on the Right, no group is taking the proper “extreme”: Now that we have stopped amnesty, let’s start rounding up and shipping back the lawbreakers. That’s what our position ought to be. But, infortunately, our side seems to be resting on its laurels.
This will be just like what happened to our colleges when college deferments were available during the Vietnam War. The liberal professors could not bring themselves to give anyone a bad grade as it might result in them being drafted. Many large Universities, like the one in my state, did away with F's and flunking out. Grade inflation was so rampant the universities destroyed their credibility. I don't think they have recovered to this day to pre-Vietnam standards.
Not only would this "dream" act be an unwarranted amnesty for illegal aliens, it would bring our college system down to a level even lower than where it is now.
They are called "illegals" for a reason, they're not going to wait to become citizens before they vote straight Democrat. Millions will show up at the voting booth with a utility bill and demand to vote.
ping
Except I don’t play the “voila”...;-)
So I’ll stick to the side that plays “other” types of instruments...
hahah, I sent them that peso too, to the RNC.
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