Thread: What Does 'Comprehensive' Really Mean?

In countless speeches and press releases, Bush and others have touted the need for so-called ‘comprehensive’ immigration reform:

We're making progress toward a comprehensive goal," Bush said of Washington legislators.

http://www.currentargus.com/apps/pbcs.d ... 70307/1001

The reason I want a comprehensive reform package is because I want whatever we do to work.

http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunic ... 5712&src=0

The President is leading the country and the Republican Party in a direction he thinks is right, and opinion polls show Americans strongly support a comprehensive approach.

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15382

But what does comprehensive really mean? The dictionary defines it as meaning ‘inclusive’, i.e. ‘covering many things or a wide area’. Bush and others are underestimating our intelligence if they assume that we accept this as a positive connotation.

Hurricane Katrina was comprehensive. The Holocaust was comprehensive. Will immigration legislation be 'comprehensive' in the same manner? Our government has shown time and time again that it is incapable of handling complex matters or those with many different levels such as immigration reform.

Why can’t they accept this and keep it simple? I would much rather have five simple bills that address five separate issues than a comprehensive bill that would simultaneously cloud the issue while adding layers of bureaucracy to an already overburdened system.

Senators and Representatives, respect the obvious limitations you face. Address the issue of border security while you still have a chance of making a difference.

I'll tell you here and now what COMPREHENSIVE means in this sell-out bill.
It means "S-C-R-E-W Y-O-U, Americans!!!!!"

I would much rather have five simple bills that address five separate issues than a comprehensive bill that would simultaneously cloud the issue while adding layers of bureaucracy to an already overburdened system.

That's because you want a solution to the problem, while all the politicians want is a sound bite. By saying it's "comprehensive", they leave it to each voter's imagination as to what they mean to do.

Later, when the plan fails miserably (except for amnesty), they'll blame you for not understanding what they meant to do.

Hi there - a newbie here.

The following quotes by a rather famous guy named Orwell may be appropriate here:

"In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. "

"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "

-George Orwell

(from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/autho ... rwell.html)

It's amazing how Orwell's quotes have withstood the test of time. Sadly, they are all still too true.

I gather that "comprehensive" means not a piece at at time, but everything at once. Sean Hannity is always calling for "just take care of the border first and then look at the other things once the border is secured. That wouldn't be considered comprehensive.

It means different things to different groups however. When my Congressman calls for comprehensive immigration, to him it only meets the definition if it includes open borders. Others who cover many aspects, but crack down on illegal immigration wouldn't be called "comprehensive" by open border activists.

I have seen the term comprehensive as being a code word for the open border crowd.