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"Comprehensive" Cynicism

Posted by BrianR on Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:23:55 AM
 
Once again the issue of illegal aliens flooding into our country seems to be heating up, and I think it’s time to reexamine it here on the Island since my state, Leftifornia, is one that stands in the forefront of its effects.

I think it’s necessary to clear the air as far as what we’re talking about. It’s pretty much accepted across the board that there are somewhere between 12 million and 25 million illegals in the country. But let’s also be honest in admitting that the majority are Latinos that have come across our southern border. A year ago, when a couple hundred thousand (reportedly, though I doubt the number) took to the streets of LA to demonstrate for citizenship “rights” and amnesty, that crowd wasn’t made up of Iranians (though LA’s nickname is Teherangeles), or Armenians, or Canadians, or South Africans, or Cambodians, or anyone else. It was Latinos. I think it’s important to acknowledge this because the Left has a tendency to try to paint the issue as racism or xenophobia, and that’s simply an attempt at throwing a red herring into the discussion. The simple fact of the matter is that it’s easier to sneak into the country across a long contiguous border than by boat across a very large ocean, or by airplane with all the security measures that entails. And who is on the other side of that border? Not the Danes, if you need a hint.

Further, though I have no doubt that all of the aforementioned groups are represented in the illegal population, not one of them is running around demanding “rights”.

I well remember how in 1986, when the odious amnesty bill was passed and signed into law by Reagan (which he later rued as the worst mistake of his administration) we were promised as a palliative that it was a “one time measure only”, that there would never again be another amnesty, and that this – with its employer sanctions -- would address the problem for perpetuity. At that time there were only about 3 million illegals in the country (funny how nowadays that qualifies as an “only”), and we were supposed to see a DECLINE in that number. Now, a little over 20 years later, the number is 4 to 8 times as large. Evidently, amnesty isn’t a very effective tool for stemming the tide. Res ipsa loquitur.

Now we’re being told – AGAIN -- that passage of a “comprehensive” bill with border security, guest workers programs, and fines with a path to “regularization” (read “amnesty”) will solve our illegal alien problem. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Bush (who seems to think his constituency is in Ensenada instead of the US) has dug his heels in for his program of “comprehensive” reform, to the point that his presidency has suffered a huge hit in poll numbers. Backed by a coalition of business interests (looking for cheap labor), liberals, and alien-rights special interest backers, he seems willing to bet his legacy on this issue.

The rationale for the “guest worker” program is that illegals will “do jobs Americans won’t do”. What baloney. Illegals will do jobs Americans won’t do for the lousy pay that’s offered. This is the same rationale used by the South to justify slavery, for Pete’s sake. Amazing that they don’t see the cynical hypocrisy embodied by that justification. Further, we’re told that eliminating illegals from our economy will lead to much higher prices for goods, especially agricultural products. Nonsense! Another cynical shell game. We’re already paying the higher prices through the taxes required to provide the infrastructure required by the illegals, particularly in healthcare, education, etc. At least if the price shows up directly in a head of lettuce, I can make the choice of whether or not to buy it. Further, it’s conservatively estimated that $20 billion annually is sent into Mexico by our illegal population; as a matter of fact, it’s Mexico’s second most important source of income, only behind oil. That’s $20 billion sucked out of our economy, for the most part without even being taxed.

We’re told it’s impossible to “round up” 12 million people and deport them. Maybe so. It’s also impossible to throw every murderer in prison. That doesn’t mean we make murder legal. We do our best, that’s all. Further, if the employer-sanctions aspect of the 1986 law would simply be put into use, the problem becomes self-solving: dry up the jobs and you eliminate the magnet that draws the illegals here.

Here’s where the cynicism really comes into play. We’re constantly told by the chattering classes that the only “effective” solution to the problem is the “comprehensive” approach blending border security, guest worker program, and amnesty. My question: Why? There are many problems that are solved one step at a time. If your house is damaged in an earthquake, the first thing you do, before repairing the interior damage, is fix the foundation. This is no different, and the foundation here is border security. Nothing else will matter if that doesn’t happen.

So I’ll answer my own question. It’s obvious that the problem could be taken one step at a time. Fix the border, then deal with the illegals already in the country. But the reason Bush & Company don’t want to take that approach is that they know border security is hugely popular, while amnesty is hugely unpopular. If they did the first, there’s no way on God’s green Earth that the people would stand by while they tried to do the second separately.

Cynical indeed.
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Are Principles Irrelevant?

Posted by BrianR on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 12:17:10 PM


Since my return to this site, I’ve had many debates with other posters, both here on my blog and in the comments on the columns, as to why the Republican party is in so much trouble. Typically, my opponent will take the position that if one opposes liberalism one must hold one’s nose and vote for whatever candidate the Republican party selects, because the alternative would be so much worse: last year it was the bogeyman of “Speaker Pelosi”, now it’s the spectre of “President Hillary”. Generally, they’re taking this position when voicing their support for McCain and/or Giuliani (or as I call them, McCrazy and Bald Hillary).

The following exchange is a good example:

Poster: “Brian, the GOP is NOT going to be what you want them to be because what you want is unelectable.
And your ‘hold my breath until I die’ has run its course. The GOP will move to the middle because that is where most of the American voter is. They will walk away from you and yours and not depend on or want your vote.
You will become irrelevant...is that what you want?”

BrianR: “I reject your conclusions as being too limited; the GOP may and can be forced back to more faithful representation of core principles. As a matter of fact, as I've written so many times, the more they become the ‘party of compromise’ the worse their electoral outcomes are. They have always enjoyed their largest margins of victory when they have loudly stood by, in word and deed, conservative principles.

"But if not, then in answer to your question about my being ‘irrelevant’, the answer is yes. If standing by my principles makes me irrelevant, then so be it, though that will be a very sad statement for the state of our nation.”

There are two points worth considering here: the Poster says “The GOP will move to the middle…”, and moving to the middle always seems to entail the Repubs doing the moving, never the libs. The net result is the Leftification of the Republican party, because as they move left so do the Democrats. It seems the Republicans are always trying to catch up by moving ever leftward.

But another exchange with the same Poster was also revealing:

Poster: “THIS WAR WITH ISLAMIC TERRORIST SUPERCEDES EVERYTHING ELSE. Including your pet issue and mine.”

BrianR: “You don't seem aware of your OWN absolutism.”

And that is an interesting point. The ultimate shield from criticism of capitulating one’s principles: “The war made me do it”. But there’s a very real reason why the oath taken by Congresspeople at the start of each term includes the pledge to defend against all “enemies, foreign and domestic”; the dangers to the American way of life are just as real if they come from within as from without. Letting the war become such a distraction that no further attention is paid to our internal problems, and the drift from our core values, poses at least as much of a threat. This country is still an essentially conservative one. However, as the two parties become ever more indistinguishable from each other, ever fewer conservatives are showing up at the polls to vote for Republicans. The best examples of this are Bush's two recent victories against demonstrably incompetent opponents, Gore and Kerry, leftists from the McGovern/Sheehan/Carter/Michael Moore wing of the Dem party. Instead of a Reaganesque trouncing of his opponents, in both cases Bush eked out a victory measured by the hundreds (Florida 2000) or few thousands (Ohio 2004) of voters.

It is incumbent on those of us who do hold our principles dear to stand up and clearly say that we will NOT go along while our core values are simply ground into the dust. Our country is at stake. It is the only hope for forcing the Republican party back onto the track of conservatism which has, not coincidentally, given them their largest margins of victory.

Otherwise, the answer to the title question will be, sadly, “yes”. At that point principles will have become irrelevant, and our country will be irrevocably changed for the worse.


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The Greatest Thief

Posted by BrianR on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 10:35:08 PM
 

“If I could save time in a bottle…”
Jim Croce






I have a daughter, Nikki, of whom I’m very proud. She’s come a long way in her life, and is on the threshold of some major advancements during the course of this year. In September, she’ll turn twenty-one, a milestone in everyone’s life. Later that month, she’s getting married. A few months after that, she’ll be graduating from college.

My daughter is the light of my life, and fathering her was the best and most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I saw her born. I was there when she took her first steps, and captured it on videotape. I well remember her dancing to music videos in the family room as a little girl. Every night, we had “Special Time” – time we dedicated to an activity together – and she would get to choose what we did. When I was a young man, if anybody had ever told me I’d be lying on the living room floor playing the “Barbie’s Dream Date” game, I’d have laughed in their face.

Sometimes Nikki would choose dancing. I’d put a Beach Boys CD on the stereo, and we’d dance, which entailed me carrying her in my arms while I danced around to the music. Only one of us worked up a sweat. We both loved “Kokomo”.

She wanted to go everywhere with me. We were quite the couple at Lumber City. I sometimes took her with me to the construction sites; she really loved that. When I took her flying, I’d let her take the controls after I had the plane trimmed out. She vowed she wanted to be an airline pilot when she grew up.

She used to hold my hand wherever we went, until the time came when she felt she was too old for that anymore, but didn’t know how to break it to me without hurting my feelings. When I’d take her to school, at the curb I’d hold out my hand for hers, but all of a sudden she’d “need” to adjust the straps on her backpack, or cover her mouth for a coughing fit, either of which coincidentally lasted for the amount of time it took to cross the street. Of course, I knew what was happening, but I let it continue for a few days until the day when her contortions were so extreme that I burst out laughing, and told her I understood the situation.

My pet name for her was “Doodles”, short for “Doodle-Bug”. I’ve forgotten how old she was when she forbade me from using her nickname anymore; mid-teens, I think. Now and then she’ll still sign her name on greeting cards that way, though. She loves her Old Man.

We went through some of the typical teenage angst together, but she and I have always had a special bond, and that period wasn’t too bad. Some extra gray hairs; I’ll survive. More importantly, she did. She looked beautiful for her Junior Prom. She looked absolutely stunning for her Senior Prom. I’ve got the pictures to prove it.

Now, she’s become a young woman, acquiring grace and poise. Sure, there are still the minor – and occasional major – crises. We deal with them. But every time I see her, I’m simply stunned at the young lady in front of me.

And every time I see her, I also see the little girl she used to be. It’s funny, the tricks your mind plays on you. Life is a collage of vignettes, a montage of scenes and mental snapshots, translucent images projected onto the screen of reality.

All of these things seem like they happened only yesterday.

Time is the greatest thief of all.

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Leftifornia RINOism in Action

Posted by BrianR on Monday, March 05, 2007 1:30:40 PM
 

Well, this is what happens when Republicans who don’t have their principles firmly rooted in conservatism are elected to office. And where better to find such folks than in Leftifornia?

There is a bill working its way through the state Senate that would give every newborn a $500 cash deposit in a savings account. For the full text of the bill, click the following link:

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_0751-0800/sb_752_bill_20070223_introduced.html

One of the co-authors of the bill was State Senator Robert Dutton, Republican from the 31st District, Rancho Cucamonga. The bill doesn’t have any residency requirements regarding the children, so in addition to being a government giveaway of money (talk about fiscal irresponsibility, with no constitutional authority), it would be a $500 gift to all the babies of illegal aliens, so-called “anchor babies”.

Last week Dutton was a guest on a local radio talk show hosted by John & Ken, and they took him to task over his support for this bill. Evidently, his office was flooded with calls excoriating him for his actions. Within two days, he had withdrawn his sponsorship and support from this bill. Read here:

http://www.sacbee.com/391/story/132092.html

What’s interesting is the part of Dutton’s statement in which he tried to justify his original support: "I have never seen a tax cut that I didn't like," he said. "I will continue to work to assist California's families by looking into tax breaks and other opportunities." Somehow, in Dutton’s mind, a giveaway of $500 to every newborn child, which has to be paid for somehow – to the annual tune of $280 million – is a “tax cut”. Maybe for the baby, but sure as hell not for the taxpaying citizens of Kalifornia who have to finance this boondoggle.



PS

3/5/2007

On a somewhat side issue, but not really since we're talking about RINOs, did anybody catch Giuliani's speech to the CPAC gathering last weekend? Here's a notable quote:

" We don’t all agree on everything. I don’t agree with myself on everything.’’

Um, does this strike anyone other than me as being one of the most bizarre statements of all time?

Is this pandering of the most egregious order, or what?

I don't know about anyone else here, but I do happen to agree with myself all the time, on all the issues.

Further, if this guy has trouble agreeing with himself, assuming he's not the male equivalent of Sybill, is this a guy we want with his finger on the nuclear "Go" button?

This is actually worth an essay in itself, but I'd already published this one, I didn't want to wait, the giggle factor was too high, and the guy is JUST TOO WEIRD.




 

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