The Amnesty President is telling us that those who oppose his plan "don’t want to do what’s right for America."
Were you aware that if you oppose amnesty for illegal aliens, you “don’t want to do what’s right for America?” President Bush said exactly that about those who oppose the “immigration reform” bill that he and Teddy Kennedy wish to cram down our throats.
Bush made his remarks in a speech to students and instructors at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga. In the ultimate act of chutzpah, Bush championed the secretly negotiated bill that rewards millions of lawbreakers, in front of those who have chosen law enforcement as a career. Hardly the example I would want or expect from a U.S. president.
President Bush has repeated, mantra-like, that the “guest worker” program he favors isn’t amnesty. He can say it until he’s blue in the face, but any program that enables illegals to obtain a probationary card right away, in order to live and work in the U.S., is amnesty, regardless of what Mr. Bush wishes to call it.
The President is fond of claiming that the bill will “secure our border.” Does anyone really believe that our congress critters (or the President) are serious about securing the border? Remember last year, when Congress approved with much fanfare the building of a 700-mile fence along our southern border? They then quietly never appropriated the money for it. The new bill (Senate Bill 1348), calls for only 370 miles of fence along the southern border. If they keep adjusting downward, they can probably just borrow the fence from Bush’s ranch in Crawford. Actually, Bush can probably just leave it where it is and announce, “mission accomplished” – at least he would have “border security” against the illegals, even if the rest of us don’t.
Bush also said in his remarks that the bill would “uphold the great immigrant tradition of the United States of America.” What tradition is that Mr. President? The tradition I remember is one in which immigrants came to this nation legally – not by breaking our laws. They came here to learn our language (that would be English, Mr. Bush). They came to learn our culture, our traditions and our history. They came to assimilate, and become proud Americans. They waited their turn, and they played by the rules.
This bill rewards those who have no desire to do any of that, and is an insult to all those who have. Our immigrant tradition was one of a “melting pot.” This bill doesn’t simply throw out the pot – it breaks it in the process.
“Don’t want to do what’s right for America” also begs the question, “which America?” I suspect Bush means a North America with no borders. Author and columnist Jerome Corsi has written of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, concerning the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. According to Corsi, the Bush Administration is “secretly on the path to create a North American Union, a new currency – the amero – along the same stealth path that was used in Europe, keeping everything below the radar, by administrative decree, making it too late to stop before the American people finally realize what’s going on.”
Whether or not you buy into a coming “North American Union,” there can be little doubt that this President is a globalist. His stance on immigration (legal and illegal), coupled with plans for a “NAFTA Superhighway,” are the reflections of someone who is not concerned with such “petty” issues as border control or our national sovereignty. Mr. Bush seems to believe that the more immigrants, the better.
Why? Cheap labor, of course. And of course there’s the notion that the illegals “do the jobs Americans won’t do.” The President should know the basic dishonesty of this myth – it isn’t that Americans won’t do those jobs, it’s that they won’t do them that cheaply. As I heard a local radio talkshow host say recently, “If you want a salad with your dinner, pony up the extra nickel so that an American citizen will pick your damn lettuce!”
That’s what this whole thing really comes down to – money. The reason the illegals come here is for money, and U.S. services (which cost us money). The drain on our resources is staggering. Hospitals in border towns have closed due to losses from treating illegal aliens with no insurance. All manner of services, including welfare, food stamps and the like, have been consumed due to the “anchor baby” provision in our current law. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has just released a comprehensive report on the cost of illegal aliens. It is far too lengthy to cover in a short column, but its conclusions are astounding. From purely a taxes-to-benefits paid ratio, low-income immigrant households are receiving about three dollars in benefits and services for every dollar they pay in taxes. In business, that would be a negative cash flow problem of epic proportions.
Senate Bill 1348 must be stopped, but it will take continued grassroots action to do so.
You can stick a fork in the President – he’s done. True conservatives and those who wish to preserve the American culture know which side he is on. Call your congressmen and urge them to stop this destruction of our nation. Especially call those up for re-election in 2008.
The way to solve our crisis is not with lofty sounding “immigration reform” bills, nor “pathways to citizenship” – no, the answer lies in cutting off the source. Make the penalties so severe against employers knowingly hiring illegal aliens, that it becomes no longer worth the risk. Also cut out the “goodies” – reverse the law granting instant citizenship to babies born to illegal aliens while in the country (anchor babies). If the lure of jobs and “free” services dries up, so will the number of those would try to sneak over our border. That would be doing what is right for America.
chipslogic@capitolhillcoffeehouse.com
http://capitolhillcoffeehouse.com
Read more articles by Chip McLean
It is time to impeach Bush for intentionally failing to protect our borders. Write your elected officials and ask for the impeachment on these grounds. On the current bill:
Everyone take the pledge and share it with elected officials at every level:
“I will vote for the opponent of anyone voting for any form of amnesty, earned citizenship, parole, or other politically correct name for amnesty UNLESS the opponent also voted for the amnesty THEN I will vote for a write-in candidate, maybe even Mickey G”.
Things are getting so bad we should recall our troops from places like Bosnia, Korea, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Turkey, etal. so that we can put them on our borders. Unlike the Berlin wall this is intended to keep people out!
By the way my Irish ancestors did not have free medical care, education for free (kids had to work), food stamps, and other welfare state benefits, and the country was sparsely populated…in other words things are different now than they were then and the attempt to overuse the "we're a nation of immigrants" is just so much distraction to hide the magicians real move.
Comment by Mickey G | June 3, 2007
Thank you for the link to the Heritage Foundation article. I will be reading this tonight. I also recommend reading the book by Gilcrist and Corsi, "Minutemen, The Battle to Secure America's Borders" to anyone who has not yet done so. You owe it to yourself to know what is going on at the border and behind the scenes.
Comment by Robert W. Stapler | June 3, 2007
Does it take a study and a 'comprehensive report' to convince geniuses what the real immigration problem is? Trouble is, even with all the evidence exposing the root failure, politics is blind to solutions.
This is the failure or our Constitution - democratic (mob) socialism trumps liberty. The only way to restore peace, liberty, and prosperity is to get rid of socialist policy.
"Peaceful Cooperation or Opportunistic Invasion?"
Income redistribution and the vain pursuit of economic equality always lead to lower standards of living and inefficiency of production.
Once again, the culprit is socialist policy, not the immigrant.
The 'legalizing' of the immigrants in question would not, of itself, negatively impact economic activity. It is the additional societal burden of income redistribution in the form of entitlements that wreak economic havoc.
In a free society and a free market, immigrants are free to fail or succeed just as any other individual. Productive immigrants will contribute and prosper economically. Unsuccessful immigrants would not be a burden on the economy or society because they would either return home or receive charity.
We cannot blame the poor immigrant for economic woes, only the failure of socialist policy. The poor immigrant is only taking advantage of those policies to fulfill….
quote:
"THE FATAL TENDENCY OF MANKIND"
Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing.
But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce, and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man — in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain. - Fredric Bastiat
The solution to the immigration policy, then, is restoring control of the product of ones labor to the individual - PRIVATE PROPERTY.
The failure of liberty and private property today is easy to discern by asking one simple question: "Do you own yourself and the product of your labor?"
An immigrant is no threat to the economy if each individual owns the product of their labor.
Comment by g8r hed | June 4, 2007
That's all well and good G8r hed, but it overlooks the other negative impacts of this "immigration reform", such as amnesty for criminals and terrorists.
Nothing is ever one dimensional. Socialism may be part of the problem, but it's not everything.
Comment by WolvenBear | June 4, 2007
A problem with these “fight amnesty, keep em’ out and deport those already here” essays is they ignore two fundamental issues. The first issue is the propensity of Americans to cannibalize each other whenever government benefits are up for grabs.
In 1994, Californians passed Prop. 187, a law designed to deny health and welfare services to illegal immigrants. We’re not the living, breathing blonde jokes most Americans think we are and this proposition was a grassroots effort to prevent our state from being overrun with illegals. Emergency medical care was exempt and would be always provided to illegals, no questions asked, but other health and welfare services provided illegals would be reported to the attorney general. Upon its passage, Prop. 187 was immediately tied up in the courts and the Republican governor, Pete Wilson, eventually declined to fight for implementation.
The interesting part of the battle prior to passage was the coalition of special interests that opposed 187. Medical workers, teachers unions, contractors, etc. vehemently opposed the proposition, strictly for humanitarian reasons to be sure. But, in reality, those Californians who would directly benefit from government subsidies for illegals feared the immediate and long-term threat to their personal interests and economic well-being.
Illegals don’t often check into private clinics in Beverly Hills for facelifts or liposuction, but health care professionals weren’t overly concerned with protecting their share of the illegal immigrant cosmetic surgery market. Like the teachers’ union, health care professionals worried over a significant drop in monetary subsidies and the subsidies in question were provided by American taxpayers, either directly or indirectly, to care for and provide various health services to illegals. When their economic welfare is at stake, many Americans support illegal immigration and amnesty as fiercely as La Raza.
The second issue is the Constitution doesn’t mandate a citizen’s right to competent government. In our government’s attempt to control every facet of our lives, the many obligations and roles taken on by the federal government have proved overwhelming to competent administration and those concrete actions needed to solve problems. After 9/11, we heard the excuses offered up to explain the endemic failure within the various government agencies charged with our protection. But the Founding Fathers were focused on limiting government control over citizens’ lives, not on requiring government’s competence. As in the aftermath to 9/11, the solution to incompetence in immigration enforcement is more government overall, expanded oversight roles, increased government employment and higher agency budgets. The Constitution doesn’t prohibit this approach, but nowhere does it require that such an approach actually solve problems.
And the government expansion when amnesty is enacted will fuel the cannibalistic cycle once again. More legal American citizens will see the personal benefits that can be garnered from illegal immigration and amnesty issues within the proposed legislation; in fact that’s what the Senate is counting on. Winston Churchill said: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Churchill was a wise man, but he knew nothing about how cannibals democratically decide who will be guest of honor at the next feast.
Comment by Pat Skurka | June 4, 2007
Churchill also said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.”
Security is critical, but I'd like to focus on the economics of this issue, which were succinctly summarized:
". . . it isn’t that Americans won’t do those jobs, it’s that they won’t do them that cheaply."
Which points the finger at each of us. As long as we continue to insist on cheap food, inexpensive childcare and well-trimmed yards, what incentive is there to pay a wage that a non-immigrant would deem appropriate, when the law is so easily skirted?
I suspect I'm complicit - I eat carrots and fruit that I can't verify were picked by legal farm workers. A contractor I've hired had a crewmember who may or may not have been legal (I didn't check - I just needed the job done, and it's a business relationship I need to maintain). I see it on construction sites and in cabbage fields, but I confront nobody with it, and I've never called authorities.
I suspect it's time to start. But if I do, and start insisting upon verifiable legal status from those who perform services I take advantage of, I jeopardize my edge against my competitors, and drain my bank account faster on identical food products. As to the portion of my taxes that I'm paying to support illegal immigrants, it's a nominal expense to me, and my competitor's paying that, too, so it's a wash. CODB.
And if we successfully choke off the borders, we raise the cost of border patrol AND increase the cost of food, dry walling services, manual labor, restaurant help . . .
In the end, this bill's going nowhere, which means status quo, which means the President wins by default. And as long as illegal immigrants have a competitive advantage in the marketplace, there remains a strong disincentive to change the system.
I guess it starts with me and you. Boycott illegal immigrant help and products rendered by illegal immigrant labor.
Go ahead.
Comment by teleblaster | June 5, 2007