Posted on 05/08/2006 12:20:20 PM PDT by Mount Athos
One of the bloggers suggests that 2006 may be the year of the Lou Dobbs voter. The blogger, the Influence Peddler, is no fan. He considers Dobbs a demagogue, but he wonders whether voters are ready for a Dobbsian program of opposing illegal immigration, "throwing the bums out of Washington" and staying wary of international trade.
On immigration, this suggestion may reflect a shift in public opinion after the May 1 marches, away from the belief that the pro-illegals lobby had decisively altered public opinion, toward the realization that the marches may have created a powerful backlash.
Citing Arizona's new anti-smuggling law, the sheriff of Maricopa County (Phoenix) announced that a posse of a hundred deputies and volunteers would begin patrolling the desert. This appears to be an act of official frustration, not one of those cosmetic attempts to placate the right. The Minutemen, denounced as vigilantes by President Bush but greatly respected in the state, are now building a fence on private land along the Mexican border. They are going national too, with chapters popping up in Virginia and elsewhere.
The frustration level in Arizona is so high that a local prosecutor, Andrew Thomas of Maricopa County, organized a national immigration conference and gave a fiery speech on the chaos, crime and cost of the tide of illegals. Last spring, I managed to get lost in one of the rugged canyons of southeast Arizona, and stumbled on two camping areas for illegals, each with about as much debris as you might expect from an airliner crash.
Mercedes Maharis, who lives near that canyon, has just released a documentary on DVD, "Cochise County, USA: Cries From the Border." The eeriest footage is infrared photography of illegals, maybe a hundred or more, swarming across the border at night. The turning point for one woman came when she set up a tepee in her back yard and noticed one morning that a group of illegals was living in it. The withering remarks in the film are not aimed at the illegals, but at Washington for abandoning its constitutional duty to guard the border.
The national news media, which spent most of its energies covering the marches as a heartwarming civil rights effort, is belatedly recognizing that much of America doesn't see it that way. As the Los Angeles Times reports, "Activists who take the toughest stance against illegal immigration have formed too many groups to count, and more seem to crop up every week."
Around 67 percent of Americans have been telling pollsters for years that they want illegal immigration curtailed. Soon the media will notice the populist appeal of this huge constituency facing off against two sets of entrenched elites, the corporate elites of the right, supported by Republican politicians, and the academic elites of the left, supported by Democratic politicians.
Editorialists seem to discuss the illegals mostly in terms of compassion and the impossibility of deporting the 11 million already here. But the core of the problem is that illegal entry is a never-ending process. An amnesty-light compromise in Washington is unlikely to do much more about this than the allegedly tough amnesty-light program of 1986. In a poll last August, about 40 percent of adults surveyed in Mexico said they would like to move to the United States. If so, there would be another 28 million people. Mexico has a high birthrate, a broken political culture and a government determined to dump its poor on the United States. It even publishes a comic book showing illegals how to avoid the U.S. border patrol.
High and continuous immigration is occurring under conditions of bilingualism and multiculturalism, rather than assimilation. In the name of diversity, the academic elites have encouraged immigrants to maintain their birth-country cultures and to adopt a stance of separatism and pugnacious victimization. Political scientist Samuel Huntington argues that this amounts to a deconstruction of American identity that has been "gradually created over three centuries." In his book "Mexifornia," Victor Davis Hanson says California is not quite Mexico, but not quite the United States either.
The political culture of Washington, focused on cheap labor and Latino votes, is nowhere near recognizing what is happening.
Illegal immigration has been a problem for a long time but now we are at WAR.
That changes things significantly. Bin Ladin or Zarqawi could don sombreros and walk across the border undetected. Is that what national security is about?
It is perfectly ok to send our troops 7200 miles across the globe to fight and die for a bunch of illiterate 3rd worlders but it's out of the question to send them 200 miles south to the border to defend American territory? Does that seem ridiculous to anyone else?
< /snide >
Oh so your post and "misdirection" is more appropro then my post.
Get a clue, chief...lots of hysteria going on around here in regard to illegal aliens and not enough rational thought. And, to your point brainiac, plenty of Mexicans have assimilated into the US over the years.
They learned from the Dubai Ports deal.
It's about politics. You know how I know that? The UAE bought Doncasters, a UK manufacturing company with nine plants in the US, in February. CFIUS approved the sale after a 30 day review, and Bush signed the transfer of those plants LAST WEEK. Those plants supply materials to the military, such as parts for the M-1 tank.
Imagine. A UAE company now owns plants that make US military equipment.
There was nary a peep in the press, and nary a peep on FR.
Everybody was too preoccupied with illegals to notice.
Quite the contrary. Reagan's amnesty failed. Bush's guest worker rumblings and Senate RINO amnesty proposals have significantly increase the movement of illegals into this country.
The ones being irrational are those who refuse to learn from history and fail to adhere to the common-sense notion that if you reward illegal behavior, you will get a lot more of it.
Gee, that's a real toughie.
think think think think think.
Do you think it possibly could be because Bush continues to promote his guest worker proposal despite the fact that so many in the GOP vehemently oppose such an action?
Nah, it can't possibly be Bush's fault. /sarcasm
I take it you don't live in a Southwestern Border state where they are driving our hospitals out of business and our schools can't keep up -- all on the taxpayers backs???
I would like to think that these would be wonderful places for land mines.
I see your point, I'm just not sure I agree. No doubt that is happening to some degree but most of the "hysteria" was brought on by massive marches in the streets by illegals and their communist supporters brandishing quite hateful and racist messages towards white America.
Granted there was a "movement" led by the Minutemen before the marches but not like there is now. Those marches have hurt their cause more than they will ever know.
I knew about it in January, from the WSJ. It's one of those things that happens regularly.
The only reason Dubai buying P&O became an issue is because Chuck Schumer scared the feckless GOP Congress to death, along with some gullible and xenophobic American citizens.
Just goes to show how people can be manipulated.
Yeah...that's right...I am the one claiming that Mexafornia is going to exist.
I am the one lacking common sense in thinking that maybe, just maybe, Bush hasnt advocated amnesty...do a little research...that is a wild claim, and a perpetuated myth on these threads by those looking to bash the administration on immigration. That maybe, DHS has increased funding to border control...that maybe Bush has made overtures to Vicente Fox, that there are things being done.
But, my point, the current situation is being fueled by political opportunists with little or no real solution to the problem (or worse wild hair brained ideas), only an agenda to remove the Republican leadership...sick of that krap.
I could go on...but my blood pressure can't take the intellectually dishonest people who routinely post on the threads about "doomsday" illegal immigration woes.
I distance myself far away from loose talk of killing on this article I posted
Let's see...30 years ago there were not 12 - 25 million illegals in this country. 30 years ago we didn't have this war on terror that calls for tight security except at the border. 30 years ago we didn't have millions and millions of illegal aliens of whom many do not want to assimilate nor be Americans. 30 years ago we did not have a bi-lingual problem. 30 years ago we did not have massive public services drain from illegal immigrants, 30 years ago we did not have puplic school systems that were overwhelmed trying to deal with massive failure and bi-lingual education. 30 years ago we did not have a President not Senators and Representatives who not only support but outright encourage this continued invasion...
TOUCHE' BUMP!
Enhancing drug-enforcement capabilities. Joint policies should be developed to combat drug trafficking in a way that confers responsibility to law-enforcement in each nation. Common objectives should be adopted.
Given Fox wants to sign the bill legallizing drugs -- I don't see a common objective there,
Then there is the section on energy sharing; PEMEX has said they will reneg on supplying crude for the planned refinery in Yuma so they are now negotiating to bring crude from Alberta, Canada down the coast and then pipeline to the refinery... if they can't work that out, the refinery is DOA. Yep, Mexico is a real friend to the USA. /sarc
I wish the media and our politicians would have one iota of compassion in their stainless steel hearts for the 4 to 5 million who have been in line to legally immigrate here for 8 to 25 years.
C'mon...I live in Texas.
My point, again, is not that illegal immigration "isnt" a problem...my point is the administration's views and actions on it are being twisted by political opportunists...who are using it (illegal immigration issues) as an instrument to remove the republican leadership. These people, chiefly democrats, have no real solution of their own...perhaps, would even perpetuate the problem.
The Rats will allow this "new" hot issue to mire the POTUS, and republicans, in order to gain seats in the House and Senate...that's what is currently driving this issue...an issue, which has been around for decades but is now is somehow Bush's "sole" fault.
Folks, you can keep on flaming away. However, I know I am right.
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