Posted on 01/31/2014 4:11:14 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
Out of the Republican retreat on Maryland’s Eastern shore comes word that the House leadership is raising the white flag of surrender on immigration.
The GOP will agree to halt the deportation of 12 million illegal aliens, and sign on to a blanket amnesty. It only asks that the 12 million not be put on a path to citizenship.
Sorry, but losers do not dictate terms. Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO says amnesty is no longer enough. Illegal aliens must be put on a path to citizenship and given green cards to work — and join unions.
Rep. Paul Ryan and the Wall Street Journal are for throwing in the towel. Legalize them all and start them on the path to citizenship.
A full and final capitulation. Let’s get it over with.
To understand why and how the Republican Party lost Middle America, and faces demographic death, we need to go back to Bush I.
At the Cold War’s end, the GOP reached a fork in the road. The determination of Middle Americans to preserve the country they grew up in, suddenly collided with the profit motive of Corporate America.
The Fortune 500 wanted to close factories in the USA and ship production abroad — where unions did not exist, regulations were light, taxes were low, and wages were a fraction of what they were here in America.
Corporate America was going global and wanted to be rid of its American work force, the best paid on earth, and replace it with cheap foreign labor.
While manufacturing sought to move production abroad, hotels, motels, bars, restaurants, farms and construction companies that could not move abroad also wanted to replace their expensive American workers.
Thanks to the Republican Party, Corporate America got it all.
U.S. factories in the scores of thousands were shut down, shedding their American workers. Foreign-made goods poured in, filling U.S. stores and killing the manufacturers who had stayed behind, loyal to their U.S. workers.
The Reagan prosperity was exported to Asia and China by the Bush Republicans. And the Reagan Democrats reciprocated by deserting the Bush Republican Party and going home. But this was not the end of what this writer described in his 1998 book, “The Great Betrayal.”
As those hotels, motels, restaurants, bars, fast-food shops, car washes, groceries and other service industries also relished the rewards of cheap foreign labor, they got government assistance in replacing their American workers.
Since 1990, some 30 to 40 million immigrants, legal and illegal, have entered the country.
This huge increase in the labor force, at the same time the U.S. was shipping factories abroad, brought massive downward pressure on wages. The real wages of Middle Americans have stagnated for decades.
What was wildly wonderful for Corporate America was hell on Middle America. But the Republican Party had made its choice. It had sold its soul to the multinationals. And as it went along with NAFTA, GATT, fast track and mass immigration, to appease Corporate America, it lost Middle America.
The party went with the folks who paid for their campaigns, only to lose the folks who had given them their landslides.
When Republicans accede to the demand for amnesty, and immigration without end, it does not take a political genius to see what is going to happen. For it is happening now.
Almost all of those breaking our laws, crossing the border, and overstaying their visas are young, poor or working class. Between 80 and 90 percent are from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
They are Third World peoples. They believe in government action and government programs that provide their families with free education, health care, housing, food, and income subsidies. They are not Bob Taft or Barry Goldwater conservatives.
Perhaps 85 percent of all immigrants, legal and illegal, more than a million a year now, are people of color. And while over 70 percent of Hispanics and Asians voted Democratic for Obama, among voters of African descent, the Obama vote was well above 90 percent.
Four of every five U.S. citizens of Asian, African and Hispanic descent vote Democratic in presidential elections. And it is their numbers that are growing. Already they are well over a third of the U.S. population.
As has been observed often, America, demographically, is going to look like California. And while Nixon won California all five times he was on a national ticket, and Reagan won California in landslides all four times he ran, California has not gone Republican in six straight presidential elections.
Democrats outnumber Republicans there by more than two-to-one in the Congressional delegation and in the state assembly, and not a single Republican holds statewide office.
If Bush I had built that border fence back in 1992 and declared a moratorium on legal immigration that fall, as many implored him to do, the party of the Bushes would not be facing its demise well before midcentury.
Good comment that is worth re posting.
bttt
After the Civil War, the Democrats were free traders and the ee-vil Republicans were protectionists--just as the Whigs, the Federalists, and George Washington were before them.
Pat is actually right about several things. But most Heartland Republicans are "Bible-thumpers" (as their enemies call them) and they will never vote for someone who is anti-Israel.
Even leaving aside the Objective Truth of the Torah and the Jewish G-d (which is really all that matters in the long run), consider that American Protestantism has no ancient history to look back on other than Biblical Israel. Biblical Israel is the only (lehavdil) "chrstendom" it has never known. European chrstians have two thousand years of history and heroes--American chrstians have Saul, David, and Solomon (among any number of other Hebrew names).
The "palaeo" Right may rant and rave about "the rooted people," but unlike in Europe, Middle America's religious roots are in 'Eretz Yisra'el. They don't allegorize it or turn it into chrstological parables the way Europeans do. Jerusalem means Jerusalem--it does not mean Rome or Berlin or Washington DC.
Another of Pat's problems is a common one among "palaeos": his religion is civilizational. Civilizational religion is not fundamentalist religion. It is pragmatic and utilitarian, considered merely a glue that holds together an ethnic group or civilization and ties them to their land. However right wing the politics of civilizationists might be, they are atheists at heart. Like liberals, their moral/ethical system is based on something other than the Decrees of G-d. And however much the positions of "palaeos" may appeal to Middle America, there is the stench of brimstone about them for just this reason.
Yes I realize that, what is your point?
The first civil war was about states rights, not slavery or tariffs. I happen to think the South would have benefited form protectionism, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in states rights. If my fellow state citizens vote to secede then I secede too. Once the die is cast the reasons for a state to secede seem to take a back seat to ongoing events.
In that case I have no quarrel with you on this issue.
Many neo-Confederates hypocritically adopt very non-Southern, non-Confederate positions (such as Federalist protectionism or Midwestern Germanophilic non-interventionism) just to stay "politically correct" with "palaeo-conservatives." I admire people like you who are consistent, however much I may disagree with some of your other positions.
PS: Even Federalists ultimately believe in the right to secede. Every hear of the Essex Junto or Hartford Convention?
There is nothing wrong with trade reciprocity.
Thanks, interesting read.
screw free trade!!
Perot was right about NAFTA and that giant sucking sound. We are becoming a service nation. That does not build wealth. We are going to have to get manufacturing back in the USA and get rid of the unions so we can compete.
No nation can absorb the entire underclass of another nation and that is what Mexico is asking us to do.
The whole basis of the argument in favor of free trade: i.e. that each nation will produce what it's best (most efficient at) producing, assumes that capital stays in the country of origin. The alleged "benefits" of free trade disappear when you have large-scale capital flight from the first world to the third.
Most of the GOP was never sincere in opposing amnesty to begin with. They paid lip service to it in order to make their conservative constituents think they were actually doing something. The GOP could have fought on this issue if it wanted to - it didn't.
Sorry, but losers do not dictate terms. Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO says amnesty is no longer enough. Illegal aliens must be put on a path to citizenship and given green cards to work — and join unions.
Trumka and other labor leaders who support amnesty for illegals are unwittingly cutting their own throats. Labor unions used to oppose illegal immigration because they realized that nothing undercuts wages like "undocumented" labor. But apparently toeing the liberal Democrat line on EVERY issue trumps their alleged concern for falling wages.
Rep. Paul Ryan and the Wall Street Journal are for throwing in the towel. Legalize them all and start them on the path to citizenship.
They aren't "throwing in the towel." They were against deportation and enforcing immigration laws from the get-go. And anybody who is stupid enough to believe the latest GOP con (i.e. "we'll give them amnesty if we get border enforcement in return") is in for a big surprise. These con artists have no more interest in keeping another wave of illegal third world immigrants out than they have in getting rid of the ones we already have.
Incidentally, have you noticed how pro-amnesty Republicans seem to hold the border enforcement issue hostage? Why should we bypass laws that are already on the books to give amnesty, and then and only then then talk about enforcing existing laws?
Weird dichotomies existed then and exist now. Lee and Grant fought each other to the death on the battlefield but ironically believed in the other's cause.
You really can't blame the government of a nation for wanting to dump its surplus undesirable riffraff off on somebody else. Mexico's government is just pursuing its own rational self-interest in pushing for open borders. What's really unforgivable is when that "somebody else" (our government - both parties) is so happy to oblige.
They would have their hearts in the right place but their mind is lagging then...
Amnesty is a line in the sand for me. I’ll just stop voting after 40+ years of voting for the most conservative republican available.
It’s time to write/fax/email/call our US Congressmen again - they are making another attempt to harm America with amnesty & open borders!
Tell them to vote NO! on any immigration bill and that what is listed below is what we need to do ASAP to protect America and preserve her freedom from illegal aliens/criminals:
1) Secure our borders
2) Enforce existing law
3) Not allow any amnesty provisions of any kind
4) Improve our visa system
5) Prosecute and fine those businesses which knowingly employ illegal workers
6) Give law enforcement officials the necessary resources and authority to combat illegal immigration
7) Deport illegal aliens violating the law after being fingerprinted, photographed, iris scanned, charged with a felony, and their information placed in a national database.
8) Send a bill for deportation/prison costs to the embassy of the illegal immigrant’s national origin.
9) 2nd time and thereafter repeat offenses by illegal aliens should be sent to work prison camps for a maximum of 6 months - building the southern fence/wall.
10) Seize and liquidate all assets from illegal aliens and use the proceeds for our military and local law enforcement.
11) Must not give illegal immigrants government welfare benefits of any kind, including Social Security
12) Designate English as our national language
13) Change the 14th Amendment regarding birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants
14) Put pressure on the Mexican government and other nations to reduce illegal immigration to America.
15) Encourage only legal immigration and citizenship to for those wanting to become Americans.
These ENFORCED changes would strengthen America greatly.
Any elected official (especially Republicans) who can’t see this are either incompetent, stupid, or evil - or a combination of all three - and need to be voted out ASAP and replaced with true Constitutional conservatives.
And yet idiot GOP strategists like Karl Rove worry more about scaring off the largely imaginary pool of Mexican GOP voters than they do about repelling people like you, who actually vote(d) Republican.
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