Posted on 02/02/2005 11:06:49 PM PST by DoughtyOne
There is a fine line that one should walk these days, when discussing the Presidency of George W. Bush. I say this because I firmly believe that the President is a good man. I believe that he is truly a Christian. Unlike a recent occupant of the White House, he does love and honor not only his wife, but his children, his parents, his extended family, his supporters and his God.
President Bush was handed a difficult task, in September of 2001. He has met that task head on, and in a number of ways, has provided an excellent response. His directives concerning Afghanistan and Iraq have been masterful. I am so glad that he had the foresight to appoint Donald Rumsfeld his Secretary of Defense, and Condoliza Rice his National Security Advisor. Both these individuals are sharp as tacks, and have obviously contributed towards the goals the President set for the nation, and seems to be achieving. Threading a fine line between being too receptive to those who wanted him to hold off some military moves, and taking a harder line suggested by the other end of the spectrum, President Bush seems well on his way to liberating for generations to come, the inhabitants of two nations in the middle-east.
There have been times when I wondered if the President were doing the right thing at certain points. This last Sunday, I along with others were pleasantly surprised at how well things have come together. The Iraqi people went to the polls in great numbers. Even those who had wished the President well in his efforts in Iraq, were relieved that the elections were so successful, I among them.
When it comes to the war in Iraq, when it comes to standing up against the leaders of Europe, when it comes to defining the path that we will take to repair Social Security, the President has my full support. I am very glad to have someone in the White House who advances policies on these issues, the way he does. His talk on these and a number of other issues is like sweet music to my ears. How sad I am that I must now talk about the fingernails on the chalkboard issue of our time, illegal immigration.
The President for all his power, for all his positives and all his good intentions, is still a man. He is a man that has many fine qualities. He is also a man that can and sometimes does make a mistake. I consider his desires to change certain aspects of our immigration policies, to be a colossal misjudgment. Unlike Iraq where I felt very uneasy, but avoided for the most part challenging the President's actions early on at Fallujah, and a few other places, I can see no room for compromise concerning the ongoing invasion of the United States.
This evening the President once again addressed the issue of immigration. Once again the meaning was crystal clear to those of us who disagree with him on that subject. Before I continue I want to be clear about something. I address this issue, because this is the issue where I find fault with the President. I don't do this because I am happy to have one issue to disagree with him on. I am very unhappy that I have to address this issue. I shouldn't have to at all, but this issue is important enough that I am going to address it continuously until the issue is resolved, the policies I cannot endorse are changed to protect this nation. That should be our overriding concern here. It is mine.
Here is what President Bush said this evening. This is the way I see the issues he raised.
America's immigration system is also outdated - unsuited to the needs of our economy and to the values of our country.
There are three issues in this charged sentence. I do believe that there are areas for improvement regarding the guidelines and procedures that govern Visas and short term visitors to the United States. I have no problem with the President trying to get a handle on who is entering our nation, how long they stay and whether they actually go home or not. This is not just an issue with Mexico. It's an issue that confronts us across the board with all who enter this nation. In this, I can support the President. I believe he is wise to address this component of the immigration issue.
Where the President and I part ways, is when he implies that our economy can't meet it's needs without poor, uneducated, unable to be financialy responsible for themselves, men and women from foreign countries. If the President were addressing the problems of the world's poor, I might be more inclined to listen to his proposals, but he isn't. This isn't about the world's poor. It's about one nation's poor. Yes, illegal immigration has an multi-national component to it, but it is primarily one nation that is flooding ours with it's citizens. I can't help but address this fact. It's true and so this one nation is addressed more than any other, for it's sordid practices.
When it comes to the issue of values, it is clear the United States is second to none when it comes to philanthropy. Our citizens give medical, educational, housing and other forms of help to the citizens of Mexico in Mexico. Physicians, nurses, teachers, aid workers, volunteers have been conducting mission work in Mexico for as long as I can remember. This represents our values. We are a good-hearted people who wish the best for the Mexican people. We gain no pleasure from seeing their national leaders abuse them, and I am firmly convinced this is the true condition of Mexico.
Values are not one-dimensional, and they don't exist in a vacuum. Extending a helping hand to millions of new Mexican poor each year is an admirable goal. The question is, how do you achieve that? Do you allow them to pour across your frontier in an endless stream that creates instant slums where ever they go? Do you allow them to swamp your communities, health care and education resources? Do you allow them to soak up tens of billions of dollars of funding that citizens have every right to expect to be spent on their local community and state needs? The answers to these question are a resounding no.
If I want to help someone out, I dig in my pocket and donate the appropriate amount based on what I can afford, what the actual need is. If you were to do that with my money it wouldn't be right. When the government does it, it's not right either. In fact, it would show a complete avoidance of reasoned values to do such a thing. Please don't talk to me about this nations values, while suggesting that I and hundreds of millions of other U.S. Citizens will have to hand over our hospitals, schools, infrastructure, and even a portion of our futures, so this can be facilitated.
We should not be content with laws that punish hardworking people who want only to provide for their families, and deny businesses willing workers, and invite chaos at our border.
These sentences are some of the most charged sentences I've ever seen. At once they are complex, a misdirecting slight of hand, and dishonest.
Mr. President, your fellow citizens are hard working people who are trying to provide for their families. What about folks like us? Why do you seek to punish us so that others can get services for free that we cannot? Why should non-citizens get free health care while we have to pay through the ying-yang to get it? Does it really seem like good values to you, to allow businesses to pay sub-scale so that illegals can work, when I and my fellow citizens have to pay so much for their health care, education, and other assorted freebies? Why should we subsidize these businesses this way? Does it seem like a good idea to flood this nation with people who have only a 4th to 8th grade education? How will they put a roof over their head on minimum wage? Who will feed clothe and house them? Who will pay for the deliveries of their children? What community can thrive with tens of thousands of these poor people in their midst? We are talking about instant slums across this nation. Some localities will be besieged in greater numbers than others. Where is your compassion for them?
Mr. President, there is only one group causing chaos at our border. It is the illegal alien who has shown themselves unwilling to respect the laws of our nation. When you frame the debate the way you have, you simply side with them. And I might add, you side with them against us. Why? What did we do to deserve this?
It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take, that rejects amnesty, that tells us who is entering and leaving our country, and that closes the border to drug dealers and terrorists.
Mr. President, I'll make a deal with you. If you respect me, I'll respect you. Please do not insult my intelligence by claiming these will be guest workers. At this very minute, you are loathe to send anyone back to their nation of origin. How can you expect me to believe that in six years, you'll be sending anyone back to the nation of their origin then? You know as well as I do that these guest workers will bring families that we, not they, will pay for. They will develop homes here. They will invest years of their lives here. Who are you trying to kid? You're not going to send even one of these people home. Instead you will be asking to up the quota.
Here's another question for you Mr. President. Is it fair to the other citizens of the world to have millions of Mexican citizens enter our nation through expanded immigration quotas, while they have to go through all the same procedures they always have? Would it be a good idea to open up our guest worker program to all the world's poor? Should we allow millions from every poor nation around the world, to enter our nation each year? If not, then how do we justify it for one nation?
Here's a problem you haven't seemed to consider. If we allow two million worker permits per year, do you think that will end illegal immigration? It won't. Those who can't get in under any quota you set, will continue to come over the border as they always have. You'll immediately have a worker entry program, the continued illegal immigration on top of that, and the folks who were here when it all started. We're looking at thirty million people within five years. We have ten to fifteen now. We'll let another million or two in each year legally. We'll still have illegal immigration. And while all this goes on, we'll still have hospitals and schools inundated at a rate double what it has been.
Where is the solution in this Mr. President? What will it resolve? We'll have infrastructure crumbling faster than before, health care and education already on the ropes, placed on life support.
Illegal immigration will still see millions of undocumenteds coming across. Gang and terrorist group members among them.
You see Mr. President, you would have to close the borders to illegal immigrants for this plan to work. Unfortunately, you have refused to do that. In light of that your plan will never work. This nation will just be torn apart one neighborhood at a time at an even faster rate than it has been, until someone finally turns out the lights.
I sure wish I didn't have to address this issue. This plan doesn't make sense on any level. With that last comment, I'll just concede that folks in Washington won't be able to resist it. What a sad day for America it will be, when this plan hits the ground running.
Or we could stop killing our children.
Besides insulting American workers, no one is making the connection as to how much this continued invasion will totally overwhelm all the cherished institutions that Pres. Bush is attempting to preserve - Social Security, Health Care and Education. Connect the dots. It's compassion run a muck.
Where does the money come from?
The fraud will bankrupt the country and nothing mentioned in SOTU speech cut back any of the government's waste at all. The is no fiscal concervatism here at all, just the opposite. Did Pres. Bush catch this disease from Clinton?
Hummm.......now there's an original idea!
I wonder if that would work?
Mine [airline], of which several departments have already been outsourced inside the US to minimum wage workers, the Spanish International desk has been outsourced to an office IN Mexico [putting legal Spanish speaking hispanics out of work ironically enough], and now another department is undergoing a "new home-based worker" program that is hiring people off the street with no money and no benefits..the beginning of the end for the rest of us.
[I guess now that the manufacturing is gone, customer service is the next target.] "JobsAmericansWon'tDoIsALIE!" [Jobs that increase the bottom line is what it is all about. Prices and the cost of living keep going up, and wages go down. Who wins? The bottom line..except it isn't OUR bottom line. Our balance sheets go further into the red as wages get cut and the cost of living goes up.]
Follow the money for the reason why this agenda is being pushed so hard. It isn't about "jobsamericanswontdo" or "doingwhatisright" or any of the other bleeding heart phrases.
They provide essential services.
They "provide" nothing, and take away from you and me. I could write a book on this; in fact, it has been done.
Bush has proposed a guest worker program that would eliminate illegal labors.
I love your logic. I could declare all felons in prisons as "guest citizens" and set them free. What would change besides the nomenclature? Logic of a fool. [Oh yes, if Buchanan supports it, then it is automatically bad out of hand?]
we need them and they need us..
You got half of it right.
If I went back and checked your posts, how many bleeding heart phrases might I find? Why, I bet if I looked hard enough in this post alone (the one that I'm relying to), I could find some here as well...
Would you look at that, I am correct!
Excellent.
Never mind that you call anyone who wants the illegal alien problem solved in a different manner than you a racist.
That's your defense mechanism, we all know it.
Stop the BS bayourod.
No one here thinks all Hispanics are criminals and you know it.
But since you want to bring crime and race to the front of the pack, let’s take a look at it.
Whites are the majority of Americans, yet whites commit the least amount of crime.
Blacks and Hispanics are the two largest minorities, yet, together they commit approximately 90% of the crime in this country.
Why is that bayourod?
Now let’s look at illegal immigration.
Mexicans are approximately 95% of the illegal population and other Hispanics boost that number to approximately 99%. That leaves 1% for the rest of the world.
Of course that one is easy to figure out, Mexico is right next door.
Now, very few people care about the race of the illegal alien; it's not about race, it's about crime and the cost of that criminal activity.
Now if you wish to keep bring race into the argument fine, I'll keep pointing out that Hispanics commit more crime then whites, a fact you argue with.
Let’s look at the Texas top ten most wanted; 9 Hispanics and a Black; Very telling.
LAPD’s top ten is the same. New York’s top 25 is split about 50/50 Black and Hispanic.
This is the funniest argument in support of illegal immigration you've made yet, Bay. Thanks for the chuckle.
This is the funniest argument in support of illegal immigration you've made yet, Bay. Thanks for the chuckle.>>>>>>>
You must have missed this one.......'rods' reason Toyota built in Tijuana rather than CA......
"That plant would have paid a lot of taxes if Bush's guest worker program had been operative and they could have legally hired 700 laborers currently living and working in California illegally."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1331487/posts
'rod' just loves all that CHEEEP labor building all those CHEEEP houses in his 3 MILLION dollar neighborhood, that he says he posting from.........:o)
WOW! What a great post! Thank you!
Toyota must've chose TJ because of Mexico's stringent anti-trust laws.
Otherwise Ford might have swept in to snap up all those valuable labor resources.
An outstanding post !
Yeah, TJ such nice community, their reporting *only* MORE than 30 murders since the new year (on Jan 29th).
Sad to hear 'rod' reporting there's not 700 *legal* workers to be found in S. CA anymore.
/all sarcasm
Nicely done.
Good observation. I was a general contractor (a partner in a medium size 2/4 mil annual billings)
The wages are less now than they were 20 years ago, While some may cheer that, to me as a builder it represents a smaller customer base.
I've got a great name for Bush's "guest worker" program - "No American Worker Left Employed" Act. Think I ought to send my idea to the White House? :)
Good post.
You give Bush more credit than I do. It is my opinion that CFR is the reason that this illegal immigration was not brought up during the campaign. Even on FR we were basicallly warned not to speak of it.
Being that I am from Texas, I can see first hand that California is NOT the only place that panders to illegals. In Houston 80% of all the children in the public school system are on free lunches or subsidized lunches. Down here in the valley where the unemployment rate is in the double digits, all the children get free lunches (a subsidy from the American taxpayer). Another subsidy that you people of California and the rest of the US is paying is our health care. The American taxpayer pays 75% to 80% of all the health care in the valley of south Texas.
"I am very unhappy that I have to address this issue. I shouldn't have to at all, but this issue is important enough that I am going to address it continuously until the issue is resolved, the policies I cannot endorse are changed to protect this nation. That should be our overriding concern here. It is mine."
You have expressed the thoughts of most of us. Thanks.
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