Posted on 06/02/2007 10:48:26 AM PDT by JohnLocke23
Conservatives are sometimes blind to what's in their own best interest. This is especially true on immigration, all the more so on the narrower matter of the bipartisan immigration reform bill now before the Senate. The bill gives conservatives a large chunk of what they've wanted for years, plus some things they don't want. The balance is heavily in their favor, though, and they're crazy to oppose this once-in-a-lifetime chance to stop illegal immigration and enact sensible policies for legal immigration.
At the top of the list of what conservatives can get is significantly beefed-up security along America's southern border. And that's just what's in the initial bill negotiated by Republican senator Jon Kyl and Democratic senator Ted Kennedy. Without blowing up the Kyl-Kennedy compromise, border enforcement can be further strengthened through amendments. Indeed, it was strengthened, in the first week of debate in May, with an amendment by Republican senator Judd Gregg that requires "demonstrated" operational control of the entire border with Mexico.
Then there's the "trigger," a brainstorm of Republican senator Johnny Isakson. It delays further reform--including issuance of Z visas allowing the estimated 12 million illegals in the United States to stay indefinitely--until all the steps to tighten border security have been taken.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
It’s a sad state of affairs all around. Lets say this does get stopped. Since this whole issue has a ‘republican face’ to it, stopping it will bring a backlash against republicans from Hispanics, who are becoming a political force. The GOP are pretty much in a dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t situation. I believe passing it will bring a faster end to the GOP because of all the new voters, so there we are in a general disagreement. Where I do agree with you, is that the future of our country isn’t a good one, it’s only a matter of time....
Not so. It is a hodgepodge and Rudy has come out strongly against it.
are you passive agreesive JohnLocke23
This was your first post May 28, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu3BIzbnYwo
Fred Barns is a Bush sock puppet and therefore a shill for the pro-criminal axis pushing amnesty. He’s what we used to call a “Rockefeller Republican” but the more liberal strain that should now be called the “Bush Republicans”.
Hell, it’s not even BS.
Cut off their free medical (which I can’t get) Cut off Their Food Stamps (which I can’t get) Cut off Their Welfare Benefits (which I can’t get)
and most of all STOP MAKING THEIR CHILDREN, who are born here citizens....
and they will find their way back to whence they came.
I agree with you. All of those programs need to be cut out now. If all of those freebies didn't exist there wouldn't be such an attraction to America. Those people are so poor, I'm sure anything they get here is better than what they've got now. If all of those programs were ended they would have no choice to go back to Mexico.
I see you live in eastern TN. Do you have a lot of illegals in your area? I'm wondering how many are really in the US. I suspect it's more like 25 to 30 million.
Some of the lead Senators pushing this bizarre notion of what ought to be done actually seem to be senile, if not suffering from dementia. This has made even their allies leary of the bill.
I have to say, people on here who say Fred Barnes is a liberal are wrong. He is a pretty reliable conservative, and so is Jon Kyl.
You can say Barnes and Kyl are fools, morons or idiots for not thinking through the real-life consequences of passing this legislation.
Sometimes even smart guys get their pockets picked, get fooled in a business deal, or make a major miscalculation.
So say they are fools, but not liberals.
One thing for sure we don't do is surrender. We fight for our party and take it back...not hand it over to these loons and rhinos!!
I quit watching that chucklehead years ago.
I've been making this point in all these threads for years ~ there's always someone around who figures he's found a new way around the Thirteenth Amendment.
This Senate thing is just the latest incarnation of the same old scheme ~ put poor people in a bind and squeeze them so they take less.
Virtually all of our states have anti-slavery statutes. They could be brought to bear on the employer problem ~ just find one illegal alien to testify that someone paid him less than the minimum wage or (prevailing rate) to do some sort of labor, and then we can stick the employer away for years and years and years.
Actually, that seems like me to be fun ~ track down modern slavers, bust 'em, stick 'em in jail for life.
Good grief do I feel good thinking about that. Think I'll go check and see if any of my neighbors been hiring illegals ~
I’m actually in favor of an expanded guest worker program, I don’t think a huge border fence will do anything more than make them find some other route in (I’m in favor of it around some heavily trafficked areas near cities, though), and I agree that some people here probably are motivated by dislike of Hispanics: but even I find the bill awful, not only ineffectual, but something that will make a bad situation worse by enshrining it as a permanent feature.
I really don’t see anything to like in it, with the possible exception of the halt to the “family reunification system,” which has been responsible for LEGALLY bringing some very undesirable people into our country. But I think even that has been weakened by the Dems so much that it is, like the rest of the bill, meaningless.
Something has to be done, but this sure isn’t it.
“Once in a life time chance to stop illegal immigration and enact sensible policies toward legal immigration” Anything Ted has his hands in is illegal! This Fred Barnes charactor is deaf, dumb, blind and stupid if he thinks we are going to believe this rubbish. Was the first Illegal Amnesty bill a sensible policy? Was it monitored and followed up (as we are being told it will be today) by any governement agency? Could you be more rediculous in your obersvation than you already are Fred? The answers my friend are not blowing in the wind they are in the 2008 elections and beyond! BE THERE OR WE CAN KISS THIS PLACE GOODBYE!
IIRC, Barnes also tried to sell the one that passed the Senate last year, but got stopped in the House.
HAHAHA! What a crock. When are these weasels going to figure out that we DON’T TRUST THEM?
What a nightmare.
Rooty is good at doubletalk and he's hoodwinked many people on many issues. That includes the immigration issue.
Giuliani is willing to compromise on granting amnesty to illegal aliens, but only if this latest comprehensive immigration reform ---- AKA. liberal immigration reform proposal ---- includes tamperproof ID cards and a database of foreigners. Giuliani remains a lifelong supporter of liberal issues and liberal causes. That includes granting amnesty to 15 million illegals.
The House bill from Dec 2005, HR 4437, is the ONLY proposal that will work. Enforcement FIRST! Anything less, anything that allows illegals a road to citizenship, will further pull the GOP leftward and that will eventually destroy it.
Following your “logic” then we must raise all taxes now, just a little, so we don’t get screwed down the road even faster and worse when we don’t have a scintilla of power. Yup. Good plan. Report to the White House for duty.
and Musolini made the trains run on time...
this is the BS they tried with offering a “virtual fence” to silence the rubes.
They offer a few bread crumbs to try and have people miss the elephant.
This kind of delusion or willful intellectual dishonesty, coming from conservatives, just makes me sad.
Sure, you can argue that Bush and Congress have not done enough on border security, but then you'd have to deal with facts, which seems too much for many freepers. But to claim that Bush has made the border less secure -- leave alone the hyperbolic claim that he's "eliminating" it -- is just a flat out lie.
The fact is that Bush has so far more than doubled spending on border security, from 4.6 billion in 2001 to 10.4 billion in 2007; border patrol agents have been increased from 9,000 to 12,000, and thousands more will be added just in the coming year; thousands of beds have been added to detention facilities, eliminating the decades long practice of "catch and release;" deportations have gone up dramatically; and so on.
Again you may well argue that all this is not enough, and in fact I would agree with you. But don't lie, and caterwaul, like a leftist fer chrissake. Or maybe even worse, like calex59 at the top of the thread, start channeling algore and asserting that debating the relative value of this bill is out of bounds and any attempt to do so is a barfer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.