The monster returns.
By Paul J Cella Posted in Immigration — Comments (32) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
In a suitably appropriate gesture, the Plutocracy’s immigration bill rises again with a bribe. The immigration bill is revived, and all it took was $4.4 billion in promised funds. As if funding was the cause of the popular revolt against the Dispossession Bill. We have heard a conjecture still more appropriate for the Plutocracy: namely, that the design of the amnesty, and the source its urgency, is to undermine state and local enforcement efforts. Not content to usurp the sovereignty of the Federal Union by calculated negligence, the Plutocracy prepares now to subvert the Several States — many of which, despairing of Federal enforcement of our territorial integrity, have endeavored to do so themselves. The radicalism of this project is breathtaking in its scope. It unites the principled anti-American Left, which sees any notion of American national identity as a mere nativist oppression, with the corporatist Right, for which national identity is but another form of currency, a means of exchange. And there is always gain to be had in the inflation of a currency. In short the Plutocracy which contrives our dispossession is, like all plutocracies, an aristocracy of wealth and privilege which aims at plunder. Today it stands poised to brush aside the haggard ranks of the people themselves like some servile nuisance. Your national laws mean nothing, it decrees, for we will not enforce them with any vigor; and your state and locals laws will be deprived of vigor, if not simply rendered null and void. What will be left of the Republic, once she has been taught so brazen a lesson of subjection and contempt?
Today at a National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast a prominent senator spoke of supernatural intervention. Now as it happens, this senator is not one generally given to such invocations; but today the architects of our dispossession have cause for rejoicing indeed. “I think all of your groups here were praying, perhaps, that wisdom would come to the United States Senate. And those prayers were answered.” Thus Senator Kennedy; and: “Sometimes, [prayers are] not always answered the way we want, but they get answered. Well, last night, they got answered the way you want.” Yes, friends, the Plutocracy has cause today for rejoicing; but the people of the Republic have cause to suspect the real rejoicing rings from below.
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The monster returns. 32 Comments (0 topical, 32 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
We have been sold, betrayed.
How did it come to this: 240 million American oppose and they are driven, beaten, ridiculed, ignored, slandered--all for the self-apotheosis of a few Senators and an obstinate Executive.
How did it come to this: 240 million American oppose and they are driven, beaten, ridiculed, ignored, slandered--all for the self-apotheosis of a few Senators and an obstinate Executive.
Every poll suggests that, although voters view illegal immigration as serious and disapprove of the president and Congress' handling of the issue, they agree with what is called "comprehensive" reform (aka, "amnesty" in certain cicles): see, e.g., http://www.pollingreport.com/immigration.htm
You and Paul are loud, but you're in the minority. Which explains why you need to keep making things up:
1. This is not the bill of the Plutocracy, unless you define "Plutocracy" as 63-67% of the electorate. (Admittedly, given the economic gains we've made, that may not be far from the truth.)
2. Your minority view does not represent "240 million Americans".
For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.
Yeah but that Comprehensive reform means actually getting it done. Whether it is one bill or separate bills. People want comprehensive RESULTS not freakin' word games.
"Comprehensive Reform" the way our elected elite use it is pass a huge long bill and enforce what you want to.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
have been the most dishonest I have ever seen. I put no faith in them.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
it would seem, have been those least likely to contort to achieve a result. And the legit polls show no support for this legislation, no support for increased immigration of any type, and a huge preference to secure borders and employer enforcement prior to status adjustment. That last has been consistent even in those polls skewed to achieve a result.
"The legitimate pollsters like Rasmussen"
You note that, under this criteria, only Rasmussen is a legitimate pollster because no other pollster agrees with Rasmussen. Note the LA Times, not Fox, not CNN, not CBS, not the WSJ, not Bloomberg, not Gallup, not USA Today, not Quinnipiac, not Newsweek, not the AP, not the NYT, not the Washington post. These polls generally show: (1) support for a path toward legalization based on a modest fine and (2) at least a plurality of support for a guest working program.
For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.
What I take from that is that none of these polls are trustworthy.
You got laughers like this one in there:
"Creating a program that would allow illegal immigrants already living in the United States for a number of years to stay in this country and apply for U.S. citizenship if they had a job and paid back taxes"
5/4-6/07 80 19 1
4/10-12/07 77 21 2
5/16-17/06 79 18 3
80% support amnesty? That don't come close to jiving with the other polls.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
legislation is supported by a majority or even a plurality? I don't mean platitutdes and nebulous concepts, but what is in this particular bill?
The only consistent result in polls has been what I laid out:
1. A demand for border security.
2. Opposition to increased immigration levels (even legal, which is not the immediate issue).
Now the nebulous "path to citizenship" does garner majority support in the other polls you cite. But when asked what they want first, you have to really contort to say it is anything other than enforcement and secured borders. That's the constant.
Gallup is not on your side here. Try to keep up.
The fact is that of course the results depend on how the questions are phrased. But its absurd to pretend that the results that favor you from this process are true and those that don't are false.
Ask a sample of American people "Do you favor giving a path to American citizenship to those who entered the country illegaly and use forged IDs and SSN's" will give you a different result than asking the same sample "Do you favor providing a path to US citizenship to those undocumented workers who have jobs, have been in America for several years, and have never been convicted of a crime".
Given that reality, the fact remains that the former question is a much more accuate description of the reality of this bill than the latter.
Follow the link:
http://www.slate.com/id/2168226/
The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal has plenty of numbers suggesting that getting the immigration bill through the Senate -- and then the House -- won't be easy. In it, 46% believe immigration helps more than it hurts, while almost the same amount (44%) think the opposite. In addition, majorities oppose some of the Senate immigration bill's legalization provisions: 64% are against allowing illegal workers to receive an automatic work visa if they pay a fine, and 55% oppose allowing illegal workers apply for permanent residency if they return home to their counties and pay additional fines. [E.A.]
It seems that even those Polls you are citing show a strong percentage of Americans against this bill. They just did not report the findings...coming from the WSJ that's not surprising.
Well, of course you put "no faith" in the "dishonest" polls. They don't support your views. But putting "no faith" in the evidence does not affirmatively create the evidence required to support your assertions.
For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.
Yet your tendentious polling mind tricks are not fooling anyone. Push pollers may be able to get large numbers of people, with varying levels of familiarity with the issue, to agree to fuzzy statements about 'comprehensive' immigration reform, but, cf. Rasumussen, people don't want *this* bill, and for good reason. If passed, it will fail to achieve the ends those rosy poll questions presume and will encourage continued illegal immigration and erode our national sovereignty. Do you have any polls to support your argument that offer those as choices?
This bill 'solves' the illegal immigration problem by declaring everyone legal. Problem solved!
Appeal to polling, in substitute of an argument. .... Yet your tendentious polling mind tricks are not fooling anyone.
I am not substituting polling for an argument. Paul and others make various factual assertions regarding who supports comprehensive reform and who does not. They claim that a majority supports their position, while only some self-interested fat-cat minority supports mine. A factual claim, however, can and should be tested on the evidence -- and one piece of that evidence is, of course, polling. Indeed, that may be the only way of testing Paul's claim that his position is the more popular one. (Note I did not say "correct"; the issue is popularity.
By the waying, piling on the adjectives and pejoritives -- tendentious, mind tricks -- does not make your argument stronger. It makes you look weaker, because it reveals that you have no facts.
For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.
http://fe28.news.re3.yahoo.com/s/rasmussen/20070613/pl_rasmussen/immigra...
I would suggest my poll says your minority view does not represent 69 percent of Americans and the money quote from the link above "Sixty-nine percent (69%) of voters would favor an approach that focuses exclusively on "exclusively on securing the border and reducing illegal immigration."
Rasmussen has long been an outlier on this one, probably because his questions are loaded. The cite I provided allows you to look at multiple polls, each with differently-word questions, taken over more than a year. They virtually all disagree with Rasmussen.
You and others are correct that polls can be wrong or manipulated. But keep in mind that this argument applies equally to the lone outlier, upon which you place exclusive reliance.
For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.
I'll bet the MSM questions aren't loaded. Nope, nosiree, they're as clean as fresh-fallen snow. No bias there, no way.
Here is a poll for you.
There is strong agreement on several measures to fix the immigration problem. Three in four (74%) voters agree that we need to stop the flow of illegal immigrants before we address what to do about those already here. Two in three (63%) Latino voters agree with this statement as well. Voters cite the employment of illegal immigrants as a key factor in eliminating the problem. Voters think the best way to secure the United States-Mexican border is to prevent illegal immigrants from being hired for jobs in the United States (36%). Additionally, voters also say that the best way to stop illegal immigration is to stop employers from hiring illegal immigrants (23%).
The survey tested various immigration proposals relating to cultural assimilation, identification and tracking systems, deportation, border security, social services, citizenship, and worker programs, and several proposals received widespread support. There is strong support for proposals in favor of immigrants learning and using the English language. Requiring that all students in public schools who cannot read English be enrolled in English immersion classes receives 88% support among voters and Latino voters. Similarly, making English the official language of the United States is supported by 80% of voters and 62% of Latino voters.
Voters also seem to be in favor of tougher laws on deportation. Repealing local sanctuary laws that protect illegal immigrants by requiring local and state police to detain illegal immigrants when they are arrested or stopped for other crimes and to hold them for deportation is supported by 77% of voters and 67% of Latino voters. Nearly seven in 10 voters (68%) support enacting a new immigration policy of “zero tolerance,” where any illegal immigrant in the United States would be deported to their country of citizenship. Fewer Latino voters (56%) support this proposal.
You can see the full set of data and the questions asked by following the link. If you think the questions asked are slanted or misleading, tell me how.
I am sure that you base this on your careful study of the questions he asked, and can explain how the questions are loaded.
Thank you for your input and continued loyalty to the GOP but I must take issue with your statement:
"Every poll suggests that, although voters view illegal immigration as serious and disapprove of the president and Congress' handling of the issue, they agree with what is called "comprehensive" reform"
And here is exactly why:
"Just 20% of American voters want Congress to try and pass the immigration reform bill that failed in the Senate last week. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 51% would like their legislators to “take smaller steps towards reform” while 16% believe they should wait until next year. The survey was conducted on Monday and Tuesday night as the President was publicly attempting to rally support for the legislation."
Let me sum it up for you to clear up your confusion. If we lived in a direct democracy and the voters were given a ballot initiative to pass/fail your COMPREHENSIVE immigration reform - it would go down to crushing and humiliating defeat.
Everyone but the aforementioned plutocrats, open borders leftists, racial (La Raza) agitators, Senate Republicans and you are against this bill.
How does it feel to be in the elite 20%?
Ah, yes the LA Times poll... You say that the majority of Americans want amnesty for illegal invaders because the LA Times says so? Well, the LA Times also said that Governor Davis would not be recalled by the citizens of California and Arnold Schwarzenegger would never take Davis' seat in the governor's mansion. How accurate was that LA Times poll?
A more accurate poll would be Rasmussen, which shows that only 26% (and falling) favor S.1348. With 66% beliving that it doesn't make sense to debate new immigration laws until we can first control our borders and enforce existing laws.
Please try to quote from accurate polling organizations and forget about ever using an LA Times poll to make your argument. It only makes you look like a fool or a propagandist for the enemies of this Republic.
"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
As noted above, if you think I only provided a cite to an LA Times poll, you didn't actually scroll up and down the link. There are at least a dozen different polls from multiple sources cited on the link I provide. They are nearly all (if not all - I haven't confirmed) at odds with Rasmussen.
For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.
The average person is not educated about the bias in polls. They take them on their face and assume they are accurate.
Someone had a link to a video with Penn & Teller at some activist rally. They had a woman sign people to a petition to ban dihydromonoxide and people willingly signed up not realizing it was H2O.
10 out of 10 of my friends and relatives love all my posts at RS.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
The fallout from this betrayal will be terrible for the R's even if it fails.
The fallout for the country will be catastrophic if it passes.
In either case, the republican party has been damaged for the forseeable future. Conservatives no longer have a home with the R's and it is a sad day.
This link is to voter turnout figures for federal elections since 1960. With the exception of the 60's, participation has barely topped 50% of eligible voters.
I'm not saying how the other 40 something percent would necessarily have voted but...
We must endeavor to raise the alarm and get people off their butts to vote!
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Thomas Jefferson
A vast elected elite conspiracy. Distance themselves from voters so no individual thinks they can make a difference or get in the way of the elected elite agenda. Kiss and make up just enough to get re-elected, then blam...they don't call or write for another few years.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
"It unites the principled anti-American Left, which sees any notion of American national identity as a mere nativist oppression, with the corporatist Right, for which national identity is but another form of currency, a means of exchange."
In addition to those on the anti-American left that see the notion of American national identity as a mere nativist oppression, there are also those who say they are conservatives who possess the same belief.
"The defense of our nation begins with the defense of our borders." - Rep. Tom Tancredo
This is a bloodless coup attempt with a legal facade; it is long past time to call things what they are. I still think this particular bill will fail, but remain depressed that the law and the Republic will continue to be subverted even under the guise of republican government.
Polls showing support for 'comprehensive' reform and its 'path to citizenship' are built upon deception and misinformation.
They make 'comprehensive' reform sound tough by listing all of the hurdles (fines, learning English) that of course will never be enforced.
They often falsely present the issue as a choice between a 'path to citizenship' and 'rounding up and deporting 12 million people.
They fail to point out how 'comprehensive' reform will greatly increase already high levels of legal immigration. This little nugget is something the Bushes, Kennedys, McCains, Grahams, and Pelosis of the world never see fit to inform us rubes of. Its important because polling has showed for years that American oppose increasing immigration levels, even if its legal. So what do you think most people would say if they knew how the 'comprehensive' reform would add a minimum of several hundred thousand additional immigrants on top of the million or so current law would admit?
As to the provisions that Kyl and other 'hard-liners' allegedly forced into the bill, well lets take them one at a time;
1. They say illegals must pay hefty fines and learn English before attainting citizenship, but such provisions will never be enforced, especially if the Dems have the White House and Congress. English proficiency is supposed to be a requirement for naturalization now, but the proliferation of non-English ballots and other public documents shows how hollow this is. As to the fine, well its not hard to imagine the barrage of anti-fine stories the media will do. And if it becomes clear that the fine is preventing a lot of Z-visa holders from becoming citizens -- and thus slowing the growth in the number of Democratic voters -- then you can expect the Democrats to go full out to repeal or waive the fines.
2. They say it will end chain migration and go towards a point-based merit system, but of course this won't happen for eight years, during which chain migration will be greatly increased to 'clear the backlog', and even then the merit system would only account for somewhere between 30-40% of immigration. And again, just imagine the incessant media stories about how the new law will 'tear families apart.' And again, if the Dems have power (or if a liberal on immigration Republican is President, you know, like Bush), then who thinks this change will ever actually take place? Pelosi already says its a deal-breaker, and is there any doubt that this is one the things which Kennedy says can be fixed (i.e. jettisoned or nixed) at a later time? And even if the change did take place, what then would the approximate level of immigration be? Would it be the million or so we now admit, or would it be more? I would ask if it could be less, but that is highly improbable. With all due respect to Senator Kyl, if he had really gotten concessions here, then the change would take effect much sooner, and would include hard caps on numbers.
3. They say it has a genuine Guest Worker Program, made up of people who will actually return home when their temporary worker term expires, but of course it turns out that some of the inducements to staying permanently remain. It turns out that some 'guests' will be allowed to bring family, while most will be allowed to bring in family members for short visits. And why exactly will the 'guests' return home if they don't want to? Who will make them? Are we going to round up and deport hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of hard-working guest workers?
Sadly, one of the biggest problems with immigration policy today was not even addressed in the bill (I wonder if it even crossed the minds of Kyl, Lott, et al to bring it up), and that is its insane collision with public policies of racial/ethnic preferences. Why isn't there a provision saying immigrants and their family cannot receive preferences, or more realistically, why not a push to end all direct and indirect federal support of preferences? It is a total disgrace that our Republican leaders are completely silent on this crazy spectacle of newcomers receiving both the gift of being allowed to come here, and then a preference over natives. If mass immigration is to continue, then the diversity rationale for things like college admissions and public contracting must be abolished, or else we are just asking for serious racial and ethnic discord.
The amnesty bill is only the first step. Next is the super highway from Mexico to Canada. Then there is going to be merging of Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Congress has little say as this is going to happen behind Congress's backs. It is already happening. The key is to stop any amnesty bill NOW! Has the amnesty bill presented how much this is going to cost the American taxpayer? And yes, all gang members have to do is to swear that they will not be a part of a gang again. Secure the boarder, the president says the money to secure the boarder will be paid by illegals. And of course they will record who is in the county illegally. Right... Brought to you by the president who said the Iraq government had weapons of mass destruction. Who has not enforced the previous immigration law. Was going to have the government fight the war on terror (oh yes, with open boarders). What about the war on drugs? And no child left behind program?
What makes you think that he will enforce a new law? He won't be in office to ensure it's enforced!
I like this Plutocracy description, as it describes what we are dealing with.
Tacitus related how the Celt Agricola described the Romans :
Brigands of the world, they have exhausted the land by their indiscriminate plunder, and now they ransack the sea. The wealth of an enemy excites their cupidity, his poverty their lust of power. East and West have failed to glut their maw. They are unique in being as violently tempted to attack the poor as the wealthy. Robbery, butchery, rapine, the liars call Empire; they create a desolation and call it peace.
Were Tacitus with us today, the Plutocracy would be described thus:
Brigands of America, the Plutocracy has abetted the indiscriminate invasion of the land, and now they beg amnesty for the crime. The illegal’s moil excites their cupidity, his vote their lust for power. A million score illegals have failed to glut their maw. They are unique in being as violently tempted to exploit the poor as to tax the wealthy. Amnesty, fraud, giveaways, the liars call reform. They inherited an America and bequeath a Brazil.
Must. Get. 41. NOs.