2006
Si, se puede! (on Election Day)
I’ll be live-blogging the immigration speech by President Bush tonight in this post, but a few critical things to remember are:
-President Bush will not be running for re-election. Ever.
-What your Congressman and Senators do in response to this speech is what is critical. And before you blast them, read their immigration report card to get an idea of their overall record.
-Not voting at all is foolish and unpatriotic. Make the effort. If you are enraged enough about this issue to stay home, then you ought to be enraged enough to vote third party. I recommend the Constitution Party if possible, or a write-in candidate if you don’t have a Constitution Party candidate. They won’t win, but a good boost in the numbers might qualify them for federal funding and it will send a message that is far more clear than low voter turnout.
Now the big question is whether or not to play the drinking game. 
OR 
Well, the suspense is long over. The substance of the speech has already been released and it is just what I and hundreds of conservative bloggers, from Higher Beings all the way down to Insignificant Microbes, predicted. Bush has no intention of deviating from his course of opening the borders even wider. The Anchoress has made the point that overall, Bush has been a good president, and that one man alone cannot fix a problem that has been contributed to by thousands of Congresscritters for the last thirty years. That is certainly true - but the complaint that I and many others have about President Bush on this issue is that he is not just one man bravely fighting this battle against entrenched bureaucracy and thirty years of bad policy and a corrupt Congress. No. He is actively working against any efforts to slow the invasion.
7:02 He’s already apologizing for the illegals. They’re outside the “reach and protection” of American law only because they choose to be.
7:04 Securing the borders is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation? Who knew? He’s bragging about having beefed up the border enforcement, and by the end of 2008!! he’ll do even more. He’s going to spend millions on high tech fences. Motion sensors, etc. What’s wrong with a REAL WALL?! Cheap, easy, fast, and effective. He admits this will take time. No kidding! So he’s sending “up to” 6,000 National Guard who will have no enforcement power whatsoever. Great. For ONE YEAR. Even better.
7:08 He’s finally going to admit that state and local law enforcement should be involved with enforcement. That’s encouraging. And he admits that catch and release is “unacceptable” and he’ll end it by adding beds, cutting deportation time, and telling foreign governments that they have to take their people back.
7:09 I like how he keeps using the word “sneak.”
7:10 Now the sob story about how people try so hard to get here, and why we need a guest worker program. Ask France and Germany how well that’s working out for them, Mr. President.
7:11 Holding employers to account has not been your strong suit. You do it even less than President Clinton did. Biometric cards sound good though. Oh, I know we’ll be hearing about the mark of the beast, etc. from some folks. National ID is NOT it, relax. And this is not a national ID, this is only for “guest” workers.
7:12 At least he admits that amnesty is only going to bring in more people, but then he gives us a straw man; the only other option to mass deportation is to allow lawbreakers to get away with it. The back of the line IS, in fact, amnesty, it’s just slower.
7:14 At least he approves of using English - but I notice the White House has a Spanish language web site.
7:15 Now the nation of immigrants pap… oh please… and the inspiring story of an illegal immigrant who served in Iraq in the Marines. For every story like that one, there are a hundred more who are sucking the economy dry.
President Bush conceded NOTHING meaningful. Not. One. Thing. However, the key point, at this point, is to make sure your Senators know how you feel. The House bill is pretty good, the Senate bill as it is now is completely unacceptable. If the Senate bill can be killed or considerably weakened, by the time they reconcile the two we might be okay. As for President Bush, his numbers are going to tank on this one. Rank and file voters on BOTH sides of the aisle want the border secured, and we know that the high-tech stuff isn’t going to cut it. A wall like the one Israel is building has been proved to be extremely effective. Aside from giving to my church and other donation commitments that I have, every spare dime I can put together is going to the Minutemen to build a wall.
Update: One more thing - I didn’t play the Immigration Drinking Game. Again, I don’t think that alcohol is completely out of bounds, just drunkenness. I figured if I played I’d end up drunk, because whatever else you can say about the President, he’s no slave to public opinion. But even that wasn’t why I didn’t drink. I decided my motive - wanting to have a brief, numb respite from the fact that our country is being dismantled by the people we elected to serve it - was wrong. I love America, and I’m a patriot. But at the end of the day, I am mindful of the wisdom of those who have come before me:
They did not receive the things God had promised, but from a long way off they saw them and welcomed them, and admitted openly that they were foreigners and refugees on earth. Those who say such things make it clear that they are looking for a country of their own. They did not keep thinking about the country they had left; if they had, they would have had the chance to return. Instead, it was a better country they longed for, the heavenly country. And so God is not ashamed for them to call him their God, because he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13-16)
I love America and I believe it is the best country in the world, but this isn’t really my home.
May 15th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
People in Washington are all wealthy and don’t have to live with la bamba blaring in their ears. They don’t have to endure the trash, the crime or the fact that they are stealing our jobs and driving down wages. The only thing that will ever chamge that will be total and complete anarchy from the American people. In the immortal words from “Network”: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
May 15th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
I agree completely. I’m lucky, I have a conservative Congressman and one conservative Senator. We need to really keep their feet to the fire on this one.
May 15th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
Tancredo is on O’Reilly. O’Reilly is declining the reality check. We need a lot more Tancredos.
May 15th, 2006 at 8:05 pm
i only caught the tail end of it, but what i saw was exactly what i expected - a lot of double speak and empty rhetoric.
i get the feeling that the ‘learning english’ part was thrown in to appease people like my mom; whenever she gets going, her only focus is on “when your grandparents came over here they had to learn english! (the US government) didn’t put everything in polish for them! it’s ridiculous that everything is in spanish now!”
of course, she’s talking about the spanish-speaking lady that she hears when calling citibank or sbc, not some spanish-speaking lady at the state-run dmv. i told her that private business has the right to put their outgoing message in whatever language they want, and all she says is “it’s still not right!”
what i’m getting at is that, rightly or wrongly so, my mother is fixated on the language thing. i can just picture her and millions of others, sitting and watching the speech, seething the whole time over every word out of the president’s mouth, but then triumphantly declaring “damn right!” when he mentioned the speaking english part at the end.
in reality, the president made no promises about requiring that immigrants learn english. not only does he have no control over private entities, but the federal government has little control over state-run programs (eg public school).
the president didn’t really say a whole lot of anything, did he?
a related question that i thought of while writing that: are louisiana govt materials also printed in a second language, eg french or creole?
May 15th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
I agree, he gave us nothing meaningful in the way of reform. His assurances to Vicente Fox earlier today were far more sincere than the ones he just gave us. As far as I’ve ever seen, government materials here are in English and Spanish. It could be that other languages are available upon request, but those are the two you see all the time. I believe President Clinton was the one who opened the gates on the multi-lingual government form thing, but I can’t swear to it.
Here in New Orleans we have a massive, sudden increase of illegal immigrants, so it’s a very hot topic for me. Even my grocery store has started carrying items in Spanish. The first time I saw the Kraft “Cream of Rice” box in Spanish was a bit jarring. Not dual language. It was only Spanish. And that’s happening a fair amount.
May 15th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Are you anti-Cream of Wheat-en-espanol? Or are you mentioning it to illustrate how the neighborhood has changed quickly due to an influx of illegals?
I ask because the language thing doesn’t really bother me. Of the many problems that illegal immigration brings, I just don’t see language as being a big one.
Besides, have you any idea how hard it is to get a decent pack of flour tortillas when there isn’t a large mexican section?
May 15th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
What, you don’t make your own tortillas?!
You should, it’s easy and they’re much better fresh. I was trying to illustrate how quickly New Orleans has changed. Dual-language, “day labor” gas stations, the ER is so packed that even though my husband had admit papers from our doctor’s office the wait was projected at 24+ hours.
Yes, the language thing bothers me a great deal. I understand Spanish reasonably well, I took it for four years in high school, but allowing enclaves of ANY subset of society in this way - and language is a large part of that - is a terrible idea. There are places in Miami, and plenty along the border, that if you don’t speak Spanish, you can’t get along too well. That kind of Balkanization is a really bad idea.
May 15th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
i’ll admit, it’s not ideal to have a multi-language society. but that’s life. the US has no official language. In my opinion, fwiw, that’s rightfully so.
if the language of an area is changing that change is being driven by social & economic forces that the government really has no business meddling in. it would be foolish for a government to even try to meddle in those areas. in each and every rematch of the epic bout of man vs nature, nature is still undefeated.
what we’re talking about is a natural change being driven by free-market forces. if a business wants to cater to english-speakers, more power to them. but if that business can’t stay IN business by operating only in english, then that business is no longer serving the people and it soon either learns to adapt or it goes out of business. why would it be any different with government?
just 20-30 years ago, there were large parts of chicago that you couldn’t get by in if you didn’t speak polish. same was true for italian and new york/new jersey. when wisconsin became a state in 1848 all government operations, including debate in the state legislature, were carried out in german.
i agree with you about the dangers of balkanization. what would you offer as a solution? i think that scaling back or stopping bilingual services will only serve to further isolate those people that you’re looking to convert to english speakers.
May 15th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
I don’t really blame a business for catering to the market. I do the same, within limits. As far as government services, I believe they should be completely in English, and that English should be the official language. Offering government services in a different language is a pretty recent development, and I think it’s a bad one. I think that people should be encouraged, nagged, hounded, whatever it takes, to get them to learn English. And because that overall provides a benefit to society, use taxpayer funds to teach them. Heck, give them some kind of stipend for it, if a carrot is needed in addition to the stick.
I have no problem whatsoever with how people speak in their homes or out in public, etc. but expecting the government to provide taxpayer funded services, when, if a person is here legally, they were supposed to pass an English proficiency exam, is ridiculous. And if that person is not here legally, I want them to be as uncomfortable as possible until they leave or assimilate. That goes for any foreign person, not just Latinos. There are a lot of things I admire about Mexico, and their border enforcement and immigration laws are high on the list. I don’t really have any brilliant ideas for stopping the balkanization other than getting people to speak the language.
May 16th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
I know i’m almost two days late - but I just read your post it had me laughing hysterically. Loved it!
I agree with you, too - what sense does it make to send all these people to the border so they can stand around pretending to be doing something for the next year?
BUILD THE WALL AND BE DONE WITH IT!