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.
You know i've seen this vote the bums out of office comment, but who are you going to vote for a dumbocrat..There seems to be no one out there taking the side of the people. I don't get mad often but this is so maddening.
In my home county the hospital closed it's doors. That was the only hospital in the entire county. Where are people supposed to go in an emergency? How many tax paying American citizens have died because there is no medical facility in the whole county? BTW, we're talking Texas sized counties - an hour drive from one side to the other.
My property taxes have skyrocketed from what 10 years ago amounted to 2 weeks takehome pay to nearly 2 MONTHS takehome pay. And this with the same job and same house. It's all due to the school district having to more than double it's buildings, increase the ESL classes, and not only is the free lunch program growing but now we have free breakfast.
Lou is doing a superb job Mr. Leo and yes the country is indeed ready for a Dobbsian program of opposing illegal immigration and for "throwing the bums out of Washington" and staying wary of international trade Arab sell-outs of American national security interests. At least get the facts straight just like Mr. Dobbs does night after night.
You know what, i don't think its Bush's fault. But the push for a guest working and amnesty program yet again is. He's not standing up doing what's best for the contry. His answer was you can't deport these people. He and the Repulicans in congress need to advocate following the law. Not rewarding law breakers.
I really feel like this, they figure they got 40 million new voters here and they are all pandering. Why 40 million because everyone you start on the road that eventually leads to citizenship means they can bring their family member to the contry legally.
I am a naturalized American. It took us 7 years to finalize my paperwork and it costed my parents and my grandparents alot of money to do this. I take huge offense and these people that don't want to follow the law and the lawmakers who don't want to follow the law.
They really have jumped the shark here and i think this is a huge turning point for the country.
I've personally held my nose once too often and voted for a Republican even when he/she was far more liberal than the RAT running. Somehow this insanity must be stopped.
Sort of like NOLA where they are paying illegals $12 an hour to do "jobs American's won't do." /sarc
Indiana?? My God, now they have the midwest too.
"Somehow this insanity must be stopped.
87 posted on 05/08/2006 2:03:19 PM PDT by zerosix (Romans 5:8)
Vote the globalist SOB's out!
What we are seeing is unprecedented. It didn't just happen on Bush's watch, but over decades. We are witnessing an invasion. Based on US census data, the number of states where Mexican-born residents are the largest group increased from 18 in 1990 to 30 states today. One out of every 8 Californians was born in Mexico and about one out of every three Californians is Hispanic.
The foreign-born population of the United States is currently 33.1 million, equal to 11.5 percent of the U.S. population. Of this total, the Census Bureau estimates 8-9 million are illegal immigrants. Other estimates indicate a considerably higher number of illegal immigrants, 20 to 25 million. \
Approximately 1 million people receive permanent residency annually. In addition, the Census Bureau estimates a net increase of 500,000 illegal immigrants annually.
The present level of immigration is significantly higher than the average historical level of immigration. This flow may be attributed, in part, to the extraordinary broadening of U.S. immigration policy in 1965. Since 1970, more than 30 million legal and illegal immigrants have settled in the U.S., representing more than one-third of all people ever to come to America's shores.
At the peak of the Great Wave of immigration in 1910, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. was less than half of what it is today, though the percentage of the population was slightly higher. The annual arrival of 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants, coupled with 750,000 annual births to immigrant women, is the determinate factor— or three-fourths— of all U.S. population growth.
We have lost control over our borders, which, after 9/11, is unacceptable. We can't allow our intake of immigrants to be determined by anyone who can cross the border. The reason that the problem of illegal immigration is becoming more visible has more to do with the growing number of illegals than it has to do with alarmists. It is a problem no longer confined to the border states. many
A lot of folks in the illegal camp feel that way. And Kosovo shows what happens when separatist passions are coupled with massive population growth of the same demographic.
I am the one lacking common sense in thinking that maybe, just maybe, Bush hasnt advocated amnesty
No, but history shows what he is promoting amounts to a de facto 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
Not nearly enough in a post-911 world.
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.
Sorry, but most folks I see on my side would like nothing more than for Bush to do his job in securing the border. They have come to this point because of Bush's actions, not because of some ulterior agenda. And Bush could arrest this overnight by dropping his guest worker program and coming out soundly behind the House bill.
But what has he done? Caucaused with Senate Dems and RINOs while excluding Senate conservatives.
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
As you disparage the motives of those against illegal immigration? Spare me the righteous indignation.
"Activists who take the toughest stance against illegal immigration have formed too many groups to count, and more seem to crop up every week."
That this isn't recognized by the office holder as the threat that it actually is to the office holders authority and power is very possibly an indication of a rather steep dropoff in the intelligent cunning once found in Office Holders in general.
It also indicates a weak grasp of History.
"plenty of Mexicans have assimilated into the US over the years."
If they come in legally and assimilate I don't think many on this board would have ANY problem with that. I certainly don't.
I spent many summers on my uncle's ranch in Mexico (State of Chihuahua) as a youth.
I really liked all the Mexicans that I worked with and came into contact with while there. They are mostly good, hard working people.
What I really don't like is paying for ILLEGALS with our tax dollars while subsidizing corporations use of cheap labor.
THAT IS NOT FAIR TO AMERICANS OF ANY ETHNIC BACKGROUND!!!
My brother's daughter is a registered nurse in Maryland. She says they are getting a lot of Mexican walk-ins. They have no money or insurance y ellos no haban Ingles. And it's the same situation here in the Ohio river valley.
Now,somebody's paying for those ER visits, and it sure ain't Presidente Fox.
I consider *that* state of affairs to be "sinister", and I refuse to allow pseudo-cons to smear me as a bigot or racist because I don't want to pay for the medical treatment of foreigners here breaking our laws.
For anyone who takes exception to that, next time you're in a restaurant, when it comes time to pay the tab ask the waitress to give it to someone of a different race. When they object, accuse them of racism . . . there it is.
Life is so much simpler for liberals you know. They're right about everything, of course, and we're monsters. Or bigots or `xenophobes'. (la de da)
When the OBLs start losing the argument, they start with the name calling. I'm used to that with leftys, I just don't expect to hear that kind of stuff here.
"As you disparage the motives of those against illegal immigration? Spare me the righteous indignation."
Bout time somebody said it. BUMP!
How can anyone be copmfortable that the DOHS be responsible for our security when it was created by the ultraliberal Rand Corporation and the NGO CSIS,and they are receiving huge grants from the government to set it up and run it?
"Between the contractors that work them and them out operating under the law themselves it has put many Americans out of work along with many contractors that would not work the illegals."
Tens of thousands of American construction workers have lost their jobs just in California.
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