Sad to say got sold down the river....
(Scroll for round-up and reacts, I will be adding to it for a while.)
http://www.sfphblog.com/serendipity/ind ... r.....html

I have been working on immigration issues for a decade, writing about it for over 3 years and as the crisis developed over that time I kept telling myself that each new outrage was the tipping point, the final straw. Each act would be the one to finally wake up the American people and then their elected representatives and finally something would be done about illegal immigration.

I was in denial.

The financial costs are known. The moral costs are known. The cost to our national identity, the health threats, the quality of life issues, the Reconquista warriors, the rampant crime and drug problems, identity theft, voter fraud, hospital closings, housing shortages, de facto slave labor and the threat of terrorist infiltration - all well known and documented.

And the American people have woken up. Over 70% of us want enforcement and deportation. We, who live on the front lines in this war of attrition and invasion are demanding our representatives take action and do something that we have no other way to rectify. As much as I and others like me support a federalist approach, this is one issue that cannot be solved at a local level. We are dependant on the federal government to take action.

And with a Republican congress and a Republican president whom we've supported through thick and thin (except for the Myers debacle and the Dubai ports deal, perhaps) we are ignored. Politicians are looking at demographics and actuarial tables and at Social Security projections for retiring baby boomers and see the answers to all their problems in selling out the citizens of this great nation for the promise of cheap labor provided by a dependant class who will, the pols hope, remember them come election day.

Disgusting.

I've lived in Massachusetts a long time. I understand how machine politics works. The identity politics and the fractured issue advocacy that has long driven Democratic policy is part and parcel of the same Tammany Hall system spawned in New York 150 years ago. And now, as then, the corrupt power brokers are dependant on immigrants to provide them a power base. It's that simple. And it's as short-sighted now as it was then. The Irish immigrant base rose up and defied Tammany eventually, and took over New York City's halls of power. The same events will happen, on a much larger scale, with a far more foreign culture. History repeats itself.

President Bush and the "leaders" in the Senate are embarking on a process that will radically transform our nation into one that we will hardly recognize a generation from now. 100 million 200 million new immigrants, legal and illegal within 20 years. No drive for assimilation. No loyalty to our nation.

This bill, if passed will sound the death knell for America. President Bush and Congress will have done what Al Qaeda and Iran, China and Chavez and Kim and Castro all long to do, what the Soviets and Nazis, Islamic Barbary pirates and former globe-spanning European empires were unable to do. They are embarking us on the path to ruin.

The same optimistic tendencies that deluded me into thinking that we could prevent this has be holding out hope for some third way out of this. A party. A leader. Something. A revolt of the electorate. Anything. But the Hagel/Martinez bill is a can of worms that the President is within weeks of opening. I fear that the damage will have been done long before a correction in November or a full fledged revolt in 2008 can rectify matters.

In short, we're doomed.

Mark Levin agrees; "I didn't spend 35 years in the conservative movement for this...This is pure idiocy, and it has the potential of being far more damaging to this nation than any big-government power-grab perpetrated by any previous president and Congress."

Michelle Malkin is outraged at the same old same old.

Bryan Preston sees a wasted opportunity and Allah rounds up.

Confederate Yankee says Jorge is a divider, not a uniter.

NRO has a symposium with reacts. The Corner has more.

John at Powerline says "He had his chance and blew it."


President Bush is being destroyed by vicious people who hate him. So far, he hasn't seemed to notice. Apparently, he doesn't think he needs any allies. He certainly didn't win any with tonight's speech...President Bush doesn't have many chances left to salvage his second term. After tonight, he might not have any.


Mark Tapscott says this speech really was the same old, same old.

Expose the left has the video of the speech, as well as the CNN "blooper" reel.

Stop the ACLU reports that the ACLU is (surprise, surprise) against the meager move of troops on the border.

All Things Beautiful goes into detail of the numbers game our glorious leaders are playing and says:

[T]he Hagel/Martinez Immigration Bill may just be what the Doctor ordered; it may prove to be the smartest long-term offensive against economic sclerosis and marginalization of the U.S. in the face of growing global competitiveness. It may replicate the baby boomer phenomenon by effectively pushing the U.S. into an economic cycle akin to that of a developing country. Nothing rivals the power to boost any economy more than the net increase in spending on a large scale by a newly emerging middle class. And the Immigration Bill may just have that effect.


All things being equal, I'd agree. Unfortunately, the influx of an entirely different culture, enough to overtake the majority is not comparable to the Chinese and Indian population advantage.

The immigration debate has lead to a schism at PoliPundit as Lorie Byrd has departed. That's a shame, but given this post, where Alexander K. McClure basically tells the owner of the blog that he is "[N]ot a Republican...not a conservative. You are a LIAR. A LIAR"[emphasis in the original] for not buying into the Bush plan, it isn't difficult to see why.

Captain Ed links to a "reprehensible" appeal to a final solution by Vox at WND. We are having a tough enough time getting people to vocally support real reform, Vox suggesting the Nazi's efficiency at rounding up 6 million Jews can be duplicated by us with illegals does nothing to help matters.

Hugh Hewitt does a 180 on the President, as the speech initially impresses and then Julie Myers brings him back to reality. If you don't have Hugh on your side, Mr. President, then you are not going to have much support.

Karl Maher thinks those who feel strongly about illegal immigration are destroying the conservative movement and the Republican party for not standing with Bush on this matter. If he doesn't understand the damage this is doing to the country and the danger Bush's attempt to play to the middle places us in by now than I don't know what to say to convince him. Are we hysterical over this? Yes, probably, but with good reason.

RWN has a nice round up of reacts and says the dispassionate approval of the 10 to 25% in the 'sphere who approved of the speech is nearly as indicative of it's success as the 75 to 90% disapproval.

These guys have the right idea. Freedom Folks agrees.

Marc Cooper says the main mission of the National Guard isn't to protect the border but to protect the President's right flank.

IOWAVoice says Bush is out of touch with what Americans want.

Prof. Bainbridge, a supporter of some sort of guest worker program sees much he agrees with in the President's speech and takes issue with other points made by Bush last night.

Flopping Aces takes folks like me to task. He asks "[W]here were these folks when Reagan granted Amnesty? Did they talk about impeachment?"

I was a freshman in college and, being a reflexively liberal, Reagan-Democrat, I supported the amnesty then. I think many did hoping it would end the problem as it would be coupled with enforcement. The numbers were far less than what we are dealing with today. And we learned the hard way amnesty created an increase in illegals and the enforcement never came. Granting the same good faith to politicians who are tone-deaf enough to parrot the "work Americans wont do" line, expecting them to follow through with the promise of future enforcement after they get what they want through amnesty is foolish.

It's naive to believe that, even giving Bush the benefit of the doubt and assuming his sincerity in his new found concern about securing the border, that once the demographics shift against the Republicans, or when their inability to control spending and their tendencies to run further and further to the left leave them out of power, that the enforcement will continue.

It's equally naive to believe that the same government that has failed to secure the border up till now, the same government that has thrown up it's hands on enforcement or even making a dent in deportations will be able to screen the millions of applicants, track their locations, enforce the guest worker plan as it stands. It's naive to believe that, when the first case of "injustice" creeps into the MSM that calls from the left to scrap the modest protections in the plan won't leave it toothless.

I understand the concern that we are driving the party or movement over a cliff by demanding enforcement first, but we are trying to seize the wheel to prevent the party from running over the nation, and I'm sorry my loyalty is to that first, party second.

AJ Strata takes a similar tone as FA, listing what we have to be grateful for in the Bush presidency. I agree, he has done much to make this country better. He really has when he has stayed true to conservative principles. When he has drifted left, channeling his father, he has had devastating failures. NCLB, the prescription plan, campaign finance reform and immigration. Of those only illegal immigration reform, as envisioned in the Senate bill, has the ability to ruin this nation. 15 years of ignoring the issue has lead to this crisis and giving in and going with the flow is not going to solve it.

We are not asking for all or nothing. We are asking for real enforcement first, any other immigration changes second. That isn't unreasonable, it's the only workable way to solve this problem. That's not a zero sum game. It's common sense.

Has the split at Polipundit mirrored the split in rightly bloggers over immigration? I doubt it. We are united by so much more. None of those on my "all or nothing" side are going to, absent a real and viable alternative, pull a Perot and doom the nation to Democrat rule. The assumptions that our failure to be blindly loyal to a president who has served us well means that we are immature brats who will "take our ball and go home" come election day is insulting.

Just for clarification, while we would like all those here illegally to leave ASAP, we are not stupid. We understand that there is a need to import some labor. We know that many who come here are harder working and more productive than the generations raised in the Great Society. We are not nativists or xenophobes. Many of us support free trade and globalization of the economy. But not at the expense of our sovereignty and national identity.

To say that our inability to support the president and the Senate bill shows a disloyalty to the party and the president who has done so much for our cause misses the point. We are not betraying him, he is betraying us. Much of what he accomplished came directly from our support. He is our elected representitive, not the Pope.


Riehl World View says Bush has ensured his legacy with this speech - "Unfortunately, visitors to a Bush '43' Library may have to cross the border into Mexico to take it all in."

END UPDATE: I'm gong to take a break from this. Been going for hours and am getting increasingly depressed. Luckily, life is calling, as it always does, to carry on with it. Be back later on a different post if anything changes.

OK I LIED: Rich Lowry has a devastating piece on NRO, issuing the ultimate insult to Bush, calling him Clintonian. It's a must read.

And honestly what is the difference between Clinton's platitudes like "Mend it don't end it" and "the end of big government" and "the end of welfare as we know it" and Bush's lip service to assimilation and English first? It is nothing more than a smokescreen for the rubes.
Posted by coondawg at 02:36 | Comments (4) | Trackback (1)


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everything i've predicted is coming to pass--which is too bad because i basically predicted our doom on this immigration thing. ah well, as has been stated before:

america--not quite the staying power of rome, but decidedly better hygiene

such is the footnote in history of a once fine country
#1 turdfrgsn on 2006-05-16 08:27 (Reply)
"such is the footnote in history of a once fine country"

What drivel. What self-righteous, pouty, whiny, victim-card carrying drivel.

The United States will not cease to exist because people willing to work are hopping the border, and the Republic will continue to exist long after this issue fades away as it always does, within a year, leaving only the usual populists to cry about "Jorge" not building a Great Wall of China, complete with moats, minefields, and turrets to DEFEND 'MERICA from a vicious army of gardeners, maids and busboys.

DU
#2 Dan (Link) on 2006-05-16 12:46 (Reply)
and MS-13 members, Islamic terrorists, slavers, coyotes, drug and gun runners and epidemics of dieases long thought eradicated in the US.

Hospitals closing, prisons overcrowding, housing inflation, in NC over 1/3 of all DUI's are illegal, in California over 1/3 of inmates are illegals. In Ma. identity theft and insurance fraud is at all time highs effecting thousands of citizens and commited by illegals.

This isn't some PAT '96 holdovers carrying pitchforks.

Wake up. 3 million given amnesty 15 years ago. 20 million today. 200 million 20 years from now (becasue it's working out so well currently)

The United States will cease to exist once the culture is no longer shared by a majority. In many areas that has already happened and not just on the border. In Minn, Ohio, NC, MD, ME, MA, RI and Conn. It's everywhere and growing. No assimilation and costing us over 10bil a year. 30bil if amnest passes. then it grows exponentially.
#3 coondawg on 2006-05-16 13:54 (Reply)
That's a PE ref by the way, councilor.
#4 coondawg on 2006-05-16 14:46 (Reply)