Thursday, June 28, 2007
Immigration Reform Senate Doings
I haven't read the bill, and frankly, I doubt whether too many of the Senators "debating" it have, either. But I gotta say if the accounts of how the proponents of this bill are pushing it through are true, my opinion is that it deserves to be defeated.
Up front, I believe that Job #1 is to get control of the Nation's borders, including the border with Mexico, certainly, but also the border with Canada and all of our seaports and international airports. There's a lot more than illegal immigrants coming over those borders and through those ports, and as a matter of national security we need to get a handle on that problem. That said, I think we ought to make it easier for people who wish to become citizens to immigrate legally to the US, whether they come from Mexico, Asia, Africa or South America. But I think we need to stick with the "melting pot" paradigm rather than the multi-culti thinking that has led to so many problems in Europe and even Canada with its Quebec separatists. Multi-culti is, in the end, divisive and tends to balkanize, and that's not what this country is about.
As for the 12 million or so illegals that are already here, why is it so imperative that we do something about them right this minute? The problem has existed since at least the Reagan administration, and our elected representatives (I hesitate to use the term "leaders") have been sitting on their hands with this issue for a couple of decades. Nothing new has occurred that justifies passing a bill that was negotiated in secret and has been ramrodded through the Senate without so much as a single committee hearing and with extremely limited opportunities to amend it. I hope cloture is defeated, and the Senators are voting as I write.
This whole episode has me thoroughly disgusted. Last fall I changed my registration from Republican to "Declines to State" because of the GOP's inanity in the off-year elections. The Republicans have been going downhill for years, and, frankly, they haven't had an attractive candidate for President since Reagan. Bush 41 campaigned for his second term like he didn't really want to keep the job, and we got Clinton. Bob Dole didn't do much better and we got Clinton again. Bush 43 won only because Gore has the personality of the giant robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still. No, I take that back--Gort is more lovable. Bush 43 won again because Kerry is downright repulsive to a lot of people. But my point is that the Repubs don't campaign with any fire in the belly, and they are beginning to emulate the Dems in not coming up with any new ideas.
Both parties, in my opinion, are approaching vast problems with half-vast solutions, and the public knows it. Hence the abysmal approval ratings for nearly everyone at the federal level. I don't know what we can do about all this, because we only have the candidates that run to choose from, and third parties don't do well in this country.
Update 20070628:0936PDT: What Captain Ed said.
Update 20070628:1421PDT: What Dean Barnett said.
Update 20070628:2239PDT: What Glenn Reynolds said.
Up front, I believe that Job #1 is to get control of the Nation's borders, including the border with Mexico, certainly, but also the border with Canada and all of our seaports and international airports. There's a lot more than illegal immigrants coming over those borders and through those ports, and as a matter of national security we need to get a handle on that problem. That said, I think we ought to make it easier for people who wish to become citizens to immigrate legally to the US, whether they come from Mexico, Asia, Africa or South America. But I think we need to stick with the "melting pot" paradigm rather than the multi-culti thinking that has led to so many problems in Europe and even Canada with its Quebec separatists. Multi-culti is, in the end, divisive and tends to balkanize, and that's not what this country is about.
As for the 12 million or so illegals that are already here, why is it so imperative that we do something about them right this minute? The problem has existed since at least the Reagan administration, and our elected representatives (I hesitate to use the term "leaders") have been sitting on their hands with this issue for a couple of decades. Nothing new has occurred that justifies passing a bill that was negotiated in secret and has been ramrodded through the Senate without so much as a single committee hearing and with extremely limited opportunities to amend it. I hope cloture is defeated, and the Senators are voting as I write.
This whole episode has me thoroughly disgusted. Last fall I changed my registration from Republican to "Declines to State" because of the GOP's inanity in the off-year elections. The Republicans have been going downhill for years, and, frankly, they haven't had an attractive candidate for President since Reagan. Bush 41 campaigned for his second term like he didn't really want to keep the job, and we got Clinton. Bob Dole didn't do much better and we got Clinton again. Bush 43 won only because Gore has the personality of the giant robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still. No, I take that back--Gort is more lovable. Bush 43 won again because Kerry is downright repulsive to a lot of people. But my point is that the Repubs don't campaign with any fire in the belly, and they are beginning to emulate the Dems in not coming up with any new ideas.
Both parties, in my opinion, are approaching vast problems with half-vast solutions, and the public knows it. Hence the abysmal approval ratings for nearly everyone at the federal level. I don't know what we can do about all this, because we only have the candidates that run to choose from, and third parties don't do well in this country.
Update 20070628:0936PDT: What Captain Ed said.
Update 20070628:1421PDT: What Dean Barnett said.
Update 20070628:2239PDT: What Glenn Reynolds said.
Comments:
Post a Comment
