Posted on 03/31/2006 3:41:14 AM PST by pageonetoo
As Congress battles over immigration, the consequences are likely to be far greater than the details of border walls or green cards. The most important political outcome may turn out to be the message that Republicans send about the kind of the party they are and hope to be.
To wit, do Republicans want to continue in the Reagan tradition of American optimism and faith in assimilation that sends a message of inclusiveness to all races? Or will they take another one of their historical detours into a cramped, exclusionary policy that tells millions of new immigrants, and especially Hispanics, that they belong somewhere else?...
...The immediate danger is that Republicans will ignore their longer-term interests by passing a punitive, and poll-driven, anti-immigration bill this election year. Any bill that merely harasses immigrants and employers, and stacks more cops on the border, may win cheers in the right-wing blogosphere. However, it will do nothing to address the economic incentives that will continue to exist for poor migrants to come to America to feed their families. And it will make permanent enemies of millions of Hispanics, without doing anything to draw illegals out of the shadows and help them assimilate into the mainstream of American culture and citizenship.
This is not Ronald Reagan's view of America as a "shining city on a hill." It is the chauvinist conservatism usually associated with the European right. How Republicans conduct and conclude their immigration debate will show the country which kind of "conservative" party they want to be.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Kinda of an ironic situation for someone who is Jewish, and all of the sudden demands to see "papers", IMO.
I've asked, several people in fact, which is the same thing.
Neither do I find anything at all ironic about a Jew asking an individual for identification, "papers". I've done it many times in my life, in many different contexts, including employment, as have many friends. I admit to being puzzeled as to the meaning of the "Jewish" comment, are you suggesting that Jewish employers are lax in documenting employees, as contrasted with Christian or Muslim employers?
Huh you didn't with your "friend" that you described in reply #147. You "trusted" him.
Bad FROBL Freeper.
That's the Buchanan view. You always have the Buchanan view.
Have the Reagan view. You'll be happier and you'll help bring it about.
I guess you have no idea what the word Illegal means. Legal immigration is fine. This is illegal. One day there will be a settling of accounts for members of the 5th column such as yourself. Quisling is too fine a word for you.
No, he was not.
Oh is it?
"We have a representative government and expect our reps to enforce our laws as expressed in our founding documents."
You go ahead and wait for the gubmint to take care of wha ails you...OK?
We walked on freedom road that day.
I wish I still had that picture.
Completely and totally wrong. If you knew any Scripture, you would know that Jesus was referring to the Pharisees here. The context is Jesus describing himself as the Shepherd. There are three marks, he declares, by which we can tell the true Shepherd: First, "He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber; but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep." What does he mean, "the door?" He is referring, of course, to the normal, proper entrance to a sheepfold. If you dont' know what a "sheepfold" is, look it up.
The prophets had predicted the way the Shepherd would come to the sheep. They had foretold where he would be born, whom he would be born to, and the unusual character of his birth. They had predicted how he would appear to the nation, how he would be introduced, where he would live, what he would say, and what he would do when he came. This is what our Lord means. He came the predicted way, the normal, expected way. The Pharisees were attempting to sneak in as false shepherds. They were not entering the sheepfold through the proper gate, but were sneaking over the fence. They are false shepherds, not illegal immigrants.
Don't bother responding back because you are an ignorant wretch and you wouldn't admit you were wrong if the facts were laid bare for you. I don't debate liberals much because no matter how wrong they are they would never admit it, kinda like you.
6th column please... 5th column is just so 20th century.
Don't bother responding back because you are an ignorant wretch and you wouldn't admit you were wrong if the facts were laid bare for you.
#1 rule of the Buchanan pitchfork playbook, when confronted with facts, throw ad hominems.
BTW, normy can you tell me why all 125,000 of the Japanese-Amricans living at the time in WWII Americaz were put into internment camps, and the 10,000,000 or so German and Italian Americans were not.
"Immigration and the GOP Is it still the party of Reagan, or of Tom Tancredo?"
Tancredo, I hope. Reagan was willing to admit mistakes (like when he started out as a liberal) and his mid-80s amnesty was a huge mistake. We can't repeat that mistake again.
Tancredo BUMP.
What a crock of bantha foodoo.
The Hispanics who are here illegally, have NO intention of assimilating into anything. It's obvious because they bring their culture, their language, their music and traditions with them.
If they want to come be Americans, then BE Americans, leave that pisshole country they come from behind and do it LEGALLY!
Your the man.
"BTW, normy can you tell me why all 125,000 of the Japanese-Amricans living at the time in WWII Americaz were put into internment camps, and the 10,000,000 or so German and Italian Americans were not."
I don't know how many Germans were interned or otherwise closedly monitored in America during WWII, but I've known a lot that were.
Irredentism can be a powerful force in politics. Hitler used it as an excuse to annex Austria, the Sudetenland, Alsace-Lorraine, and parts of Poland. Stalin, though theoretically an internationalist, strove to restore the boundaries of the Tsarist Empire in Eastern Europe. While there is a lot of anti-Americanism in Canada, the Canadians and British successfully repulsed American invasion attempts during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. OTOH, Mexico was humiliated by the loss of Texas, and later of the rest of the Southwest, in the 1830s and 1840s. American response to Mexican incursions was swift and forceful in the 1910s, when the U.S. Navy captured Vera Cruz and the U.S. Army invaded northern Mexico to stop Pancho Villa's cross-border raids.
It is self-evident that the American government and people do not have the will to resist that their predecessors did. Starting in 1965, immigration laws were liberalized, and the 1986 amnesty program essentially forgave a past generation of illegal immigrants. Mexicans and others have recognized the softness on the part of the United States. Cities like Los Angeles and areas like the Rio Grande Valley that were once more mixed ethnically have become more and more Hispanic. When a population becomes sufficiently large that they have their own cultural and media infrastructure and little contact with outsiders, there develops little desire for assimilation. There is precedent for long standing non-English speaking communities in America. Some farming communities in Pennsylvania and the Midwest settled by Germans remained German speaking until well into the last century. Additionally, Cajun communities remained French speaking until after World War II.
Much has been made about how Italians, Poles, Jews, Greeks, etc., who arrived in the 1880-1920 immigration wave became Americanized, as of course they did. However, an important reason for their assimilation was the restrictions placed on immigration following World War I. With the flow of immigration ended, there were no new immigrants who would keep their predecessors current on the culture and politics of the old country. Additionally, the immigrants in question had arrived legally and by having this status, they did not enter the country already at odds with the authorities.
The immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico, is more like what happened in Kosovo where Albanian immigrants became a majority in the last century. By the 1990s, rather than submit to the Serbian authorities, they rebelled and established their own government, expelling the remaining Serbs. Continued unchecked immigration will cause a similar situation to develop in the Southwest.
Instead of engaging in a multitude of activities, the vast majority of which were never intended by the Founding Fathers, the Federal government must engage in its Constitutional duty in protecting our borders by whatever means necessary.
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