June 10, 2007

The Axis of Amnesty

My new VDARE.com column is up. Here's an excerpt:

Fifth, the Achilles heel of the Axis of Amnesty’s putsch was that the bill had to be posted on the Internet.

The legislation was written in secret. Committee hearings on it were blocked. It was far too long for many busy Senators and their staffers to read.

But networks of highly intelligent citizens examined it carefully and emailed each other with what they found. For example, Thursday's VDARE.com article, Ten Reasons The Amnesty/Immigration Surge Bill Is Appalling, by 'An Economist,' grew out of an email list utilized by a brilliant economist-turned-highly successful businessman, who has been devoting a lot of his extraordinary energy to immigration.

Sixth, it has become obvious over last three weeks that there is a strong correlation between one's level of factual knowledge about immigration and one's level of skepticism about the Kennedy-Bush Immigration Surge scheme.

Indeed, that helps explain something that baffled the clueless MSM. According to the press' interpretation of their own polls, the public thought the Kennedy-Bush plan was a swell idea. The "Gallup Guru," Frank Newport of the Gallup Poll organization, influentially claimed on May 22: "Senate immigration bill in sync with American public opinion."

In particular, the Washington Post didn't just drink the Inside-the-Beltway Kool-Aid about the popularity of amnesty, it brewed up vast new quantities. Even on Saturday morning, June 9, the Post's immigration "reporter" Jonathan Weisman [Send him mail](who was culpable for last Monday's notoriously wrong agitprop classic Backers of Immigration Bill More Optimistic: Lawmakers Cite Sense of Urgency was still proclaiming:

"Within policy circles, immigration reform is viewed as vital, addressing both the growing demand for workers and the social costs of an illegal underclass. The public also generally supports the idea."

Yet, when push came to shove, an unexpected majority of Senators ran away from the Kennedy-Bush bill—because their constituents had made clear to them over the Memorial Day break that they opposed it.

That’s opposed—NOT supported. There’s a difference.

To his credit, Gallup's Newport looked deeper into the topic. He reported on June 6:

"Those Americans who are following the debate closely are highly likely to be opponents of the bill. Among those who know enough to have an opinion, the bill is opposed by almost a three to one margin. Among those who say they are following the news about the bill very closely, opposition outweighs support by almost a four to one margin." [While Majority Unsure About Immigration Bill, Those With Opinion Are Strongly Opposed, Gallup News Service, June 06, 2007]

In other words, pro-amnesty pollsters manipulated the ignorant into expressing approval of the Kennedy-Bush plan by presenting them with a few carefully crafted talking points about what its sponsors claimed it would do.

[More]


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another point of weakness of S1348, was the lack of moral self-confidence shown by the need for speed, secrecy, and foreshortening of debate.
Similarly, there was lack of confidence in the rational force of what was proposed, since a reasonable proposal can take public scrutiny and full inquiry.
Alternatively, the attitude of the proponents of the bill, may have been that the public is highly immoral and irrational, in such degree that the only chance would be to fool them.
If so, then, couldn't there be some elite forum where, especially afterwards, some rational arguments could be put forward?
Instead, the elite response appears to be just the same smears and sentimental indulgence as before; toothless yahoos got up and scuttled a noble piece of work, which was worthy of the unvandalized Statue of Liberty, and
missed out on their chance to have their pensions paid by [illiterate?] immigrants.

Anonymous said...

isteve: this is another exceptionally good article.

i read a couple of the other blogger thread links where you participated. my impression is that your posts land on the battlefield of ideas like stun grenades. everybodys firing off snarky emotional stuff and then boom! here comes sailer wiht the inconvenient ........facts.

libs don't like facts. facts can hurt feelings. insufferable "petey" at yglesias blog managed to call you names. how many debate points does that get again? "mixner" sounded like an old rival or somethign. please someone post a link to where isteve loses the argument. i have read many of these threads in the past and it really is point sputter call names gameplan.

Anonymous said...

Steve, Anon 1:03 AM is right about your impact on discussions. I know this through the influence you have on me. Friends have practically excommunicated me due to arguments I've been making these past years most of which were inspired by your irreverent "factualism" -- though we must be careful here: facts don't/can't speak unless the listener understands their pregnant silence by connecting the proverbial dots.


JD

Anonymous said...

I think resistance to amnesty may indeed be miles wide, but perhaps not very deep, meaning in most people's minds it's based largely on indignation about the 'law and order' (better: lack of same) aspect -- it's not right to reward law-breaking illegals with legal status etc. But this may have limited shelf life: I have a hard time seeing the status quo (millions 'living in the shadows') being accepted in a quasi-official way via lack of further attempts to push through an amnesty. Further enforcement resulting in significantly more deportations and voluntary departures is also doubtful -- 'human interest' weighs against this (a beefed up border is more likely). To counter all that you'd need a 'deeper' discussion about whether or not most of the illegals are desirable as permanent additions to the country even if they'd come legally (e.g. originally as 'guest' workers). And the difficulty of that was recently mentioned.

eh

Anonymous said...

Steve,

I think you are a huge help to the good guys here! Thanks for all you do.

Anonymous said...

Another point of weakness of S 1348

I ain't into numerology, but doesn't 1348 seem like rather an unlucky number? It was the year the Black Death arrived in England.

I guess if it had passed we could have called it our own Black Death - or Amnesty Plague?

Anonymous said...

I think resistance to amnesty may indeed be miles wide, but perhaps not very deep, meaning in most people's minds it's based largely on indignation about the 'law and order'

No, I think the more this whole thing gets debated in public, the more great reasons people learn of to oppose amnesty, and perhaps even mass immigration in general. All the taboos are falling down. Galileo has been freed from house arrest - and he ain't going back in.

===================================

Steve,

One issue that I haven't seen addressed here or on VDare or Mickey Kaus or NRO or anywhere else is this: why do y'all think Congress is choosing to address this issue now? After all, the open borders nuts had it pretty good: 1.5 million legal & illegal immigrants a year, 400,000 anchor babies a year, zero enforcement of the law, etc. Why risk putting an end to that?

Two reasons come to my mind:

1) Illegal immigration is reaching a saturation point: there are only so many jobs that can be done in our economy by people with no legal status or credentials, and with no reason to be assured of legal status (and therefore to learn English, etc.)

Therefore, the CoC and other folks want to move these people into legal jobs so that yet even more illegals can come in to take their place.

2) The CoC, The Race, et al, are getting more and more worried about state and local efforts to deal with the issue. Hazelton, PA, Colorado, Farmer's Branch and many more have passed laws to make illegal's lives more difficult. They need to head these efforts off at the pass, by giving them no illegals to target.

Anonymous said...

eh:

The main problem many of us have with any form of amnesty is that the government reneged on its promise to improve enforcement after the 1986 amnesty, and what's more, we have little confidence in the willingness of the current administration to enforce the law.

As a way around this, I would suggest a temporary amnesty that would be limited in duration (say, 2 or 3 years) and also capped numerically (say, at 4 million). This would give the government time to get its act together on enforcement for employers. An employer verification system could be included in the legislation. At the end of 2 or 3 years, new legislation would be required to extend the temporary amnesty, so in the worst case scenario, if the government once again backed out of its promise to enforce the law for employers, we would only return to the status quo.

Anonymous said...

"I think resistance to amnesty may indeed be miles wide, but perhaps not very deep, meaning in most people's minds it's based largely on indignation about the 'law and order' (better: lack of same) aspect -- it's not right to reward law-breaking illegals with legal status etc."

To my surprise, the battle over amnesty has helped bring up the issue of legal immigration, the supposed "good" immigration.

Establishment consrvatives are now talking about how to better reform legal immigration due to Bush's insane policies.

For instance The Heritage foundation has recently come out in favor of eliminating family reunification except for spouse and minor children, making our immigration system skill based, eliminating birth right citizenship and asserted that unskilled legal immigration is a financial burden on the taxpayer.

http://www.heritage.org/research/immigration/SR14.cfm

This is good progress, and the country may be able to implement these ideas if we can elect someone reasonable on the immigration issue like Romney or Fred Thompson.

Old Right

Anonymous said...

I fully agree with the first Anonymous above. Steve is the most insightful, thoughtful and provocative journalist around. If we didnt have Steve, we'd to invent him as a matter of international importance.

Anonymous said...

Mark

Your analysis may be unto something, but are we entirely sure that the biggest part of the "illegal" problem is about a blind obsession with cheap labor on the part of big business?

Let's think: if you were, say, a giant auto-manufacturer, and if you knew that if you had your plant in the US where even the illegals had to be provided certain minimums, and even the "low pay" CANNOT be less than $15/hr at best instead of the local union rates of $35/hr; whereas if you had transferred your plant to, say, Romania where you could pay the locals $2.5/hr, wouldn't you prefer to move to Romania instead of having to deal with the risks of having umpteen illegals on your plant in the US?

What I'm saying here is, maybe it is not the biggest big business that is after "cheap" labor but, say, local construction contractors who, by definition, cannot move to a place like Romania.

Has it been entirely researched who are the most dependent on the labor of these people?

And then, there's the political side. We know that Hispanics are new and large constituencies for them. Then there's the educartel and health cartel. All these "providers" feed on huge sums of government money, and the higher the number of *their* clients, the more funds they receive. (Don't they?)

I'm an outsider and only speculating, but maybe this needs more research.


JD

Anonymous said...

Bush is planning on visiting congress personally to fight for this bill YET AGAIN. Here is the Breitbart column on it:


"US President George W. Bush was confident Monday that the most sweeping overhaul of US immigration laws in two decades will ultimately clear Congress once he gets home from his European tour.
Speaking in Bulgaria's capital Sofia, Bush acknowledged disappointment that the legislation -- aimed at bringing 12 million illegal immigrants out of the shadows -- collapsed Thursday in the Democratic-controlled Congress.

"Listen, the immigration debate is a tough debate. I'm under no illusions about how hard it is," he told a news conference.

"There are people in my (Republican) party that don't want a comprehensive bill. There are people in the Democrat Party that don't seem to want a comprehensive bill."

But he said that he would, upon his return to Washington, get in touch with leading Democrats and Republicans who do support the legislation to get it firmly back on track.

"I'll be going to the Senate to talk about a way forward on the piece of legislation," he said.


"I'm going to work with those who are focused on getting an immigration bill done and start taking some steps forward again. I believe we can get it done. I'll see you at the bill signing."

Harry Reid, the Democratic leader of the Senate, withdrew the bill Thursday after senators, seeking to add amendments, voted twice within nine hours not to move it towards a final vote as he had demanded.

Billed as a "grand bargain," the proposed law would grant a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants, establishing a merit-based points system for future immigrants, and create a low-wage temporary worker program.

It also envisions a border security crackdown, punishment for employers who hire illegal immigrants and an attempt to wipe out a backlog of visa applications from those who have gone through legal channels.

Bush, who has made immigration reform a top priority of his second presidential term, is due to attend a Senate Republican policy lunch on Tuesday following his trip to Europe. "


Folks, it ain't over until we have a new president in place. Bush will fight for this monstrosity until his last day in office. He is the worst president of my lifetime.

Anonymous said...

Steve --

These are all good points but I think you missed the central one.

People do not wish to live in Mexico. Or Mexico Alta. This bill promised to turn the US into Mexico and failed for precisely that reason.

The resistance to that is only going to grow, because it's Jacksonian populist and the elites are neither trusted nor competent or seen as having the best interests of the average person at heart.

All this triumphal "we will replace the average white American" rhetoric finally bit them in the ass, and we are also seeing very predictably White Identity Politics. It's not overtly discussed as such, but it certainly is there, wrapped in national symbols such as the Flag, etc.

I think you were flat out wrong in your assertion that the race for elite status would preclude any significant White Identity politics. Every other group has it and now so too do the average White Americans. It's covert and stealthy, but certainly there.

At a time when job growth, wage growth, and the economy are fairly lousy (the WSJ reported the Business Week effort to factor in offshoring in manufacturing and service jobs, that factor alone accounted for about 70% of wage and job growth IIRC) people don't want change, much less losing their country to Mexico Alta with attendant punishments. Once offshoring and outsourcing are factored into corporate profits.

Every Average American could figure out:

1. His tax rate would go sky-high to pay for the Mexican deluge.
2. He would be officially discriminated against because he was not La Raza.

These are the reasons the bill failed. It might have worked had the economy been good and people very confident and scrambling for status. But that's clearly not the case. People are unhappy and fearful.

Anonymous said...

Why now?

Becuase they want to do it as far away in time from the next election as possible.

Anything within a year of the next election will not be enough time for the pol to distance himself from the vote.

Thus, if they don't get it done by september I don't think they will get it done.

Anonymous said...

In my pursuit of members of the "Axis of Amnesty", I set up google alerts for articles and blogs referring to illegal immigration. So far I've received a list of blog comments from blogs against amnesty and no articles.

Ideas on words to use in the search would be appreciated. I gather I should've used amnesty, and maybe immigration separate from illegal, any other ideas?

Anonymous said...

Okay, this is a really minor nitpicky point, but for me it stuck out as a nagging annoyance.

Who brews Kool-aid? Coffee or tea, maybe, but Kool-aid. It's just flavored sugar you mix with water. No need to brew.

Eric

Anonymous said...

All this triumphal "we will replace the average white American" rhetoric finally bit them in the ass, and we are also seeing very predictably White Identity Politics.

No doubt. I get tired and annoyed by constantly reading/hearing in the press that we are becoming a minority and so, therefore, we need "encourage diversity" and whatever.

And what happens when you try to reform immigration, so that minority status isn't inevitable? They say you're afraid of change. They say "it's inevitable, so accept it."

Kinda like rape, I guess.

No it's not inevitable. No, I don't have to accept it. That's what democracy is all about. But these buttheads, who claim to think that disparities in income and education and crime stats aren't inevitable and can be affected by the government suddenly claim that immigration can't be affected by government action - or, worse, that we don't even have the right to affect it.

NRO has a piece today from Linda "conservatives hate Mexicans" Chavez. What's she claiming now? First, she claims the The Derb is racist because he thinks nations should be allowed to determine their ethnic mix.

Well, Linda: South Korea is allowed to determine its ethnic mix; Japan is allowed to determine its ethnic mix; India is allowed to determine its ethnic mix. And what they have all pretty much determined is that they want Koreans, Japanese, and Indians, respectively, to remain the majority.

And you know what? I don't blame them. I don't feel the least bit offended if they either a) don't want me; or b) don't want people like me (WASP) to become the majority; or c) don't want people like me to become a large minority.

It's their right. To operate peacefully and successfully it is beneficial to societies to retain a certain amount of cultural/racial/ethnic unformity.

So what does Chavez say to defend herself after calling all the anti-amnesty folks racists? "On reflection, I went too far. I blew off some steam and in the process offended some erstwhile allies." In other words, she did precisely what her readers did when they told her to go back to Mexico. So she expects forgiveness for what she doesn't forgive her own repsondents for. Problem is, her respondents have a helluvalot more right to be frustrated than her. After all, Linda Chavez and her cronies have been getting their way on immigration (and getting away with calling opponents racists) for decades. Linda has power and influence. Her respondents, average citizens entirely, have no such influence; have been ignored for decades; and have been repeatedely lied to by their own politicians.

And how does she defend her claim that controlling the ethnic mix is bad? By claiming that "we aspire to be a colorblind society."

Let me correct that Linda: I aspire for the US to be a colorblind society - to a degree. When it comes to government law, jobs, benefits, etc., all citizens should be treated equally regardless of color. That does not extend to a) legitimate profiling (of say, potential illegals, or of terrorists, or of military recruits); or to b) immigration, which by necessity must have limits. Non-citizens have no rights not to be discriminated against. They have no right to come here. Period.

Anonymous said...

Why now? Becuase they want to do it as far away in time from the next election as possible. - daveg

I guess I meant "Why, at all?"

Face it: there is practically no enforcement of laws ata ll. They were pretty much getting their way, with virtually none of the media bothering them about it. When the amnesty bill isn't on the table, most of the press ignores immigration altogether.

Since that's the case then why not simply ignore it?

It returns to five possibilities that I can think of:

1) They really are out-of-touch with the citizens - highly probable. ( A) How many of Ted Kennedy's or Mitch McConnell's neighbors, do ya think, face any employment competition from illegals? B) How many do you think hire them?)

(Answers: A) None, zilch, nada; B) All of them.)

2) There are only so many jobs illegals can do, so they have to move them into legal positions to make way for more illegals - somewhat probable.

3) They want to increase immigration even more (this bill increases legal immigration and encourages more illegals to come) - highly probable.

4) They're scared of the action that individual states and locales are trying to take, and are trying to stop it - highly probable.

5) They want to give them citizenship so they can vote, and soon - highly probable, especially for Dems and RINOs.

Anonymous said...

The time to offer an amnesty certainly isn't right after a huge real estate/construction boom that drew in millions of new Mexican laborers. If the government were going to offer amnesty as part of a comprehensive deal though, it would need to be done in such a way that it wouldn't encourage new Mexicans to sneak in here to take advantage of it. The only way to do that is to make the Mexicans apply at a U.S. consulate in Mexico.

I would do it something like this: if illegals want a shot at legal status, they would need to go to a U.S. consulate in Mexico within the next six months, pony up $5k in cash, submit to a health check, and fill out the paper work/finger prints, etc., for a background check. Then they would need to come back to the consulate 90 days later to get their temporary visa (if they passed the health and criminal background checks), or find out they were rejected. The key is to make them come to Mexico either way, so the rejected folks are already out of the country and you don't have to deport them (this requires some sort of fence to prevent them from walking back, of course). In either case, the applicants would get their $5k back, minus a small processing fee. Asking for $5k up front helps limit this to illegals who are valuable workers, since only trusted employees could get their employers to loan them $5k.

For those who passed the background checks, they would get three year visas, and have half of their take-home pay withheld in an interest-bearing trust account. At the end of those three years, the visa holders would have to go back to an American consulate in Mexico and take a test to demonstrate English fluency. If they pass it and have no criminal record, they would get their pay that was withheld and a green card to return to America; if not, they would get their withheld pay and get to stay in Mexico. If they didn't show up at the consulate after three years, they would forfeit the withheld salary and their employer on record would be checked to see if the visa holder still worked there. If so, the employer would get a massive fine.

Anonymous said...

In an NPR interview yesterday, Kyl says that 'in the abstract' (does he mean as a matter of principle?) he's against amnesty, but when it's part of a larger bill that's also accepted by the Democrats (bipartisanship), then it's OK with him. What do you call someone like that? At least the interviewer went after him a little about enforcement.

Also from planet NPR:

Bulgaria's welcome for Bush, however, had one notable gaffe. On the president's motorcade route, every other American flag was accidentally mounted upside down.

Exactly how was it an 'accident' if half the flags were upside down?

eh

Anonymous said...

Hey, Steve, isn't it strange to be living in these times? When the elites are so overtly hostile to us janes and joes? The speeches, the microphone mendacity, it's all extremely hostile. The lies are so brazen, it's the kind of thing you say to someone (the public) you do not respect at all.

I guess all of the focus group consultants have advised the politicians to just keep pounding out the buzzwords, no matter what. This legislative and propaganda push is, in my view, unprecedented in its scope for a social policy issue. It's the kind of political energy they usually save up for going to war. In fact, when you think about, all the political capital Bush has left in the tank is going into this amnesty. Which means that the push for attacks on Iran after this debacle will be incredibly difficult.

This is new territory. I am a middle aged American. I cannot ever remember our ruling class being in cahoots against us like this. I guess we're heading back to the Gilded Age, with the vicious strike breaking and the trusts and all. People forget that working folks actually had to fight with clubs and knives for decent working conditions. Pitched battles were waged in the streets.

Amnesty Act 2007 is the most dishonest bill to come down the pike in a long time. And its defenders are shameless in their sophistry. This is new territory. What do we imagine is being said behind closed doors inside the beltway and around the country these days?

btw I just saw that Wind Shakes Barley IRA movie and thought it had problems. But it sure did make me appreciate our Second Amendment. I think we're gonna need it, boys!

Anonymous said...

Vindicated:

4) They're scared of the action that individual states and locales are trying to take, and are trying to stop it - highly probable.

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff just did an interview on a local news station. One of the reasons supporting the amnesty he mentioned was that individual states and locales are starting to pass their own laws to control the illegal problem.

Now let's see: states and cities are starting to do the job that Big Brother has refused to do; enforcing laws that people want them to enforce, and that's supposed to be a bad thing? Because why, exactly?

And why does Chertoff claim these laws are a problem? Because businesses would have different laws in different states and cities they'd have to deal with. Now gee: whuda thunk that we might have different states and different cities passing different laws in a federalist nation? Hard to imagine...

John Kyl, in his interview with the Wall Street Urinal, said something similar. He said that without an amnesty, local governments would start to pass their own enforcement and guestworker laws.

How does a state pass its own guestworker law?

Given the statements of of Chertoff and Kyl, clearly, the press for local enforcement has got these people very, very nervous.

Sorry, Cherty: our government is designed to serve the citizens, not the naked financial interests of big business.

Anonymous said...

Vindicated again: Chertoff was just on Fox, and he made the same point: the concern by big business that individual locales are now starting to enforce the laws that the feds refuse to.

Anonymous said...

here's a link, and no it is not off-topic. it's william perry former sec of defense in a NYT editorial talking about what we should do after one or more nuclear attacks on american soil.

btw the doomsday clock was moved 5 minutes to midnight in january...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock

...this is not off-topic because if we had actual control of our borders this event would be much less likely to occur, no?

Anonymous said...

"I cannot ever remember our ruling class being in cahoots against us like this."

I'm only 29 and I had wondered if I was witnessing something unprecedented with the strong suspicion that this was new.

Europeans have been dealing with this longer than we have: an elite that passes measures that are totally at odds with what the public wants. However, after enough time passes, the public readjusts itself (for example: citizens of former Communist countries really are more atheistic).

The reason we weren't like Europe was always explained thus: Our system is more conservative and oriented towards liberty.
As Auster would say: Bush and other supposed "Conservatives" are really Liberals. Thus what we are witnessing.

I miss Ronald Reagan.

Anonymous said...

Former Senator George Allen on Hannity & Colmes:

"If WalMart were trying to builf a store in a community it's get more discussin than the amnesty bill."

Coming from a town that held a referendum on letting a WalMart go in, I can vouch for that.

(And I can tell you that if there's ever a referendum on a WalMart in your town, you will find how very well organized they are.)

Anonymous said...

Last anon -- there will be no attack on Iran. GWB has nothing left after Iraq. Even there he just "gave up" about 2005 or so. He's lazy. A terrible President.

HOWEVER, there WILL be an Iranian attack on US. They've been attacking us since 1979: Beirut, Khobar Towers, the arming of the Taliban with EFPs in Afghanistan, the arming of AQI and the Shia in Iraq, etc.

We have taught them with our "please sir can I have another" attitude towards their aggression that we won't do anything when they attack. So it will be one gigantic disaster when the attack comes. Which it surely will. Iran has staked well, everything on pushing us out of the Gulf.

That's the kicker. Pakistan is probably more of a threat, since it's slow-mo falling into AQ/Taliban control. But regardless another big terror attack (which is coming, anyone can see that) will probably derail Amnesty.

Bush's only major political issue was open borders with Fox before 9/11 killed it. Another big terror attack will possibly kill another Bush open borders plan.

Spot on with the Elite hatred of the Average Joe and Jane. Never have I seen such bile. The elites despise the people and want a new one to replace us.

I don't think people understand how extraordinary this is. Brezhnev, Jaruzelski, and Honecker never wanted a new people. Your average autocrat instead posed as the people's protector.

Anonymous said...

Yes we know Bush is The Worst Damn President Period(he's all endless war and immigration and hiring his dummy friends like -snicker-Al Gonzales :D)but,uhm,who am I supposed to vote for next time? If we can get a Republican who is half- lucid on immigration,he might be a true believer about Iraq.Voting back the Repub's might be taken as a sign that we believe in their idiotic war. A vote for a Democrat is like drinking Kool-Aid! 'Specially with the crowd theyre pushing this time around.The Dem House falls into 2 categories:the dumb(Pelosi) and the Evil(Emmanuel). My 2 Senators are Durbin and...that other guy! No way in hell is Illinois gonna get a Rep senator! I guess i'll be stuck trying to put the next Republican in,I cant imagine voting for a Democrat for ANY office,the Prez least of all!

Unknown said...

The "Axis of Amnesty" strikes again. See the LA Times article by Janet Hook, "Large Majority Supports Path to Citizenship". Using an LA Times/Bloomberg poll Hook proves that a "large" majority 63 % supports a path to citizenship for illegals.

They proudly display their poll question at the end of the article. The path to citizenship question is equated with S. 1348. Questions about attrition by enforcement are conspicuously absent.

Anonymous said...

Spot on with the Elite hatred of the Average Joe and Jane. Never have I seen such bile. The elites despise the people and want a new one to replace us.

I don't see bile, really. It's more of a perverse paternalism; they think they're doing what's best for everyone and honestly don't understand why everyone's so upset apart from 'racism'.

I agree the Dems probably want to shift the demographic mix in their favor, but the Republican elite seems mostly interested in making a quick buck (they are businessmen after all).

Anonymous said...

HOWEVER, there WILL be an Iranian attack on US. They've been attacking us since 1979: Beirut, Khobar Towers, the arming of the Taliban with EFPs in Afghanistan, the arming of AQI and the Shia in Iraq, etc.

Joe Leiberman, is that you?

Iran hasn't attacked another nation for over 100 years. That can't be said for the United States or Israel.

And do you think Iran can inflict a higher level of injuries on us than we are sustaining in Iraq right now? Extremely doubtful.

So it would save lives to leave Iraq and take the few attacks that Iran could inflict on us from afar. (This numbe is probably zero, BTW.)

And you need to remember that it was the US who sold arms in afghanistan during the war against the soviets.

As far as arming the shia, they are our friends, no? Maybe we should be thanking the Iranians?

Oh yeah, we also sold weapons directly to Iran in the arms for hostage deals. Probably to old to be used against us now, but you never know.

Anonymous said...

"They proudly display their poll question at the end of the article. The path to citizenship question is equated with S. 1348. Questions about attrition by enforcement are conspicuously absent."

The problem with these pollsters is that they frame the question so that the negative consequences of legalization are never suggested.

The questions are leading.

For instance, by asking "do you support a path to citizenship for illegals if they pay back taxes" the question assumes that the illegals are playing by the rules and contributing to society.

If you asked "would you support legalization if illegals become immediately elligable for all public services enjoyed by citizens and legal residents" you would get a VERY different response.

All you have to do is bring up the potential downside of legalization and support crumbles, which is why the bill itself is not unpopular.

Old Right

Anonymous said...

Iran hasn't attacked another nation for over 100 years. That can't be said for the United States or Israel.

I wouldn't go that far. I don't foresee any action against Iran in the near future, but it is quite obvious that Iran has had its hand in a wide range of terrorist activities from Argentina to Lebanon to Saudi Arabia to Iraq and Afghanistan over the years that would, if done less discreetly, constitute acts of war.

togo said...

Israel has committed at least two acts of war against the US: the Lavon Affair and the attack on the USS liberty.

No one contests the facts of the Lavon Affair, but there is still a false controversy re the attack on the Liberty.

Unknown said...

Let's think: if you were, say, a giant auto-manufacturer, and if you knew that if you had your plant in the US where even the illegals had to be provided certain minimums, and even the "low pay" CANNOT be less than $15/hr at best instead of the local union rates of $35/hr; whereas if you had transferred your plant to, say, Romania where you could pay the locals $2.5/hr, wouldn't you prefer to move to Romania instead of having to deal with the risks of having umpteen illegals on your plant in the US?

The globalist strategy on cheap labor is twofold. First, export as many jobs as possible overseas to exploit cheap labor. Second, import as much cheap labor from overseas as possible to devalue the labor for jobs you can't export (the guy who cooks your food, the gal who serves it, the guy who mows your lawn, the gal who picks your fruit, etc.).

What I'm saying here is, maybe it is not the biggest big business that is after "cheap" labor but, say, local construction contractors who, by definition, cannot move to a place like Romania.

Absolutely, not all big business is equally invested in importing wage slavery. But, since PC is now firmly entrenched as corporate policy (all big business now has a vested interest in destroying the west, as a PR investment, if that isn't too depressingly Bizarro World for you), the open-borders lobby can rely on at least inch-deep support from all of the corporate sector.

Anonymous said...

If you asked "would you support legalization if illegals become immediately eligible for all public services enjoyed by citizens and legal residents" you would get a VERY different response.

How about a reminder that legalization qualifies the former illegals for racial preferences?

It occurs to me that the monstrous S. 1348 does NOT provide for a "path to citizenship"; it provides for a path to super-citizenship.

Legalization means accession to a legal status above that of the 74% of the native population that is white. Show me a poll that has asked about a "path to super-citizenship", and then we'll talk.