Friday, March 31, 2006
More on Bush and illegal immigration
Illegal aliens, for the state's former governor, George W. Bush, are nothing except hard workers. Super-liberal Molly Ivans agrees:
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers--the hardest-working, poorest people in America--are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
Aren't y'all grateful that we're down here doing exactly nothing for the people of our state, legal or illegal? Think what a terrible message it would send if you swapped Texas with Vermont, and they all got healthcare. In Texas, we never worry about illegals taking advantage of social benefits provided by our taxpayers. Incredibly clever, no?
But there are lots of federal government benefits for poor people that illegal aliens don't use only because their illegal status renders them ineligible. (Documentation here.)
Once given amnesty, or made guestworkers, they can belly up to the public trough like anyone else. Too many liberals have transformed the American Dream of achievement through self-reliance and hard work into a hope that one day everyone will be dependent upon the government.
|posted by Jim on 3:50 PM|
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La Raza opposes bill because it is "very strong on patriotism"
See a copy for yourself. (H/T National Review Online.)
|posted by Jim on 3:39 PM|
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Thursday, March 30, 2006
The Cost of Amnesty to American Taxpayers
was my topic in National Review Online today. After listening to some of today's Senate debate, I think that my article if anything understates the problem.
Senators were told by amnesty advocates that illegal aliens pay "local taxes" and "property taxes." In my state of Virginia, my car must have a sticker on the front windshield demonstrating I have paid those taxes. Those who don't pay their property taxes are listed in the newspaper and can lose their property. Evidently, we are to commend people for simply paying taxes they cannot otherwise evade?
The question of illegal aliens use of taxpayer-funded benefits once they are made eligible via amnesty or guestworker is one thing amnesty advocates avoid.
Illegal aliens do work, we are reminded, that "Americans won't do." Yet for much of our history, most Americans worked hard at dirty and dangerous jobs for a pittance. What changed everything was the 1960's, notes Myron Magnet's The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass:
[T]he culture of the Haves withdrew respect from the humble but decent working life in the process of embracing the idea that the poor were victims of an unfair society. ... If he takes welfare, he should not be stigmatized: welfare is no more than his right.
At that moment the very thing that gives a hardworking poor person his decisive moral superiority over the noworking poor person starts to dissolve. ... If it is not blameworthy not to work, no definitive praise attaches to someone who works and supports his family.
Starting in the 1960's, there were actual marches by "welfare rights" demonstrators, just like the public marches by illegal aliens we saw last weekend. (We are told these people must "hide in the shadows," yet they issue press releases?)
Does anyone seriously thing that illegal immigrants are morally superior to every other human being and will continue to resist the pull of the welfare state once they are legally allowed to take advange of it?
In fact, some amnesty advocates accidentally reveal their true intentions on this front. Nathan Newman argues for the unionization of illegal aliens:
Raise the minimum wage, reinforce freedom to form unions, and increase enforcement of labor laws. Give all workers, including undocumented immigrants, the ability to enforce those rights through triple damages for every dollar stolen from those workers-- and even more serious sanctions for any employer who fires a worker for exercising those rights [emphasis added].
Union organizers tell people that joining a union means less work for more money. I doubt their message to illegal aliens will be any different.
Government agencies now advertise for people to come in and apply for benefits. Only their illegality keeps most illegal aliens from that easy money.
President Bush's view of illegal aliens is likely a product of his Texas experience. Texas welfare benefits are such that only the desperate apply and the rewards are few. Illegals in Texas, like other Texans, have no choice but to work.
The situation is quite different in places like New York and Massachusetts. Residents of those states who though their generosity to the poor made them welfare magnets should just wait until an amnesty kicks in.
|posted by Jim on 5:29 PM|
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Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Why a Guestworker Program Would Only Create More Language Problems(Women's Golf Edition)
Korean players on the women's golf tour (LPGA) complained to ESPN of a lack of translators because "of 32 Koreans on tour, only 10 speak "functional" English. Three of this year's top five money-winners -- Seon Hwa Lee and tournament winners Meena Lee and Joo Mi Kim -- still are only beginning to grasp the language."
They complain because "The LPGA has given Korean golfers a computer program for learning English, but a source within the organization says not a single Korean tour member has completed it, in part because American computer keyboards have English letters.
Only at the bottom of the story do we learn that they don't care about learning English because they are really only here to play golf:
There is also the feeling among the Koreans that any extra time should be spent practicing.
"I don't know if there's a great deal of motivation [to learn English]," says Bivens.
These Korean golfers are in reality "guest workers" and like other guest workers, they have no reason to adapt to America becasue they do not plan to stay here.
If you want to make America's language problem even worse, support a guest worker program.
|posted by Jim on 5:54 PM|
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U.S. Senate to Debate Official English as Soon as This Week
Show your support for the Inhofe amendment here.
|posted by Jim on 5:02 PM|
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The Nation opts for unpatriotic nonassimilation
From "Strangers in the Land" (April 10, 2006 issue). This is not a parody:
[W]hy should linguistic competence be a factor--or acceptable as an item of democratic debate--in determining citizenship? As my comrade for a day in Los Angeles would attest, a non-English speaker in the United States not only can get and hold down a job; she can also turn out the vote. Why should a non-English speaker be allowed to mobilize for American democracy but not to join it as a citizen?
Conversely, why should we require "a certain proof of civic literacy" for immigrants seeking to become citizens? I know a great many native-born Americans who could not pass such a test. Why should immigrants have to prove that which the native-born need not--and, in some cases, could not--prove?
|posted by Jim on 5:00 PM|
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Lost in Translation: In Spanish, Bush Backs Off Border Fence
Sort of like the late Yasser Arafat who would only denounce violence against Jews in English while saying something else entirely in Arabic, via ABC News "The Note" and the Houston Chronicle today:
In an interview Tuesday on CNN en Espanol, the president pulled away slightly from his previous strong support for the border enforcement-only bill the House passed last December.
Included in the House bill are provisions that would impose criminal penalties on illegal immigrants and on individuals who provide humanitarian aid or counseling. The bill also calls for a 700-mile fence along the Texas-Mexico border.
"It's impractical to fence off the border," Bush told CNN.
|posted by Jim on 4:51 PM|
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Thursday, March 02, 2006
Courtroom Olympics: Shani Davis Goes For the Gold
If lawsuit filing was an Olympic event, the United States would have retired the gold medal decades ago. U.S. speedskater Shani Davis, who medaled in Italy now seeks more gold in a Chicago court room:
Speedskating gold medalist Shani Davis is part of a lawsuit against the city of Chicago and former police superintendent Terry Hillard.
The suit, filed March 24, 2003, alleges that Davis and two other plaintiffs were stopped in 2001 because they are black, reports The Associated Press.
Harvey Grossman, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said: “The case challenges indiscriminate street stops of young men, and there are two components to the case."
He adds, “The first is to get systemic relief in the form of an injunction to get the police department to change its practices. They’ve changed a lot of them, but they have not gone the final steps. The other component is to get monetary damages for each of the individuals.”
Davis, like many members of minority groups has been indoctrinated into finding racism everywhere. Evidently he has learned his lessons all too well, to the detriment of his future:
I've got bad news for Davis. When you behave as unprofessionally as he did with NBC supposedly out of anger at critical remarks made by Bob Costas, when speed skating legend Bonnie Blair is afraid to mutter your name because your mother, Cherie, told her not to discuss you, it just kills all your sincere intentions.
Davis said upon winning his medal: "If people in America are excited and thrilled to have a black Olympic champion in speedskating," he said, "then I'm happy that I can make people happy."
Another "victory" for the multicultural agenda: an Olympic champion seething with anger against the people who make up the nation he represented.
|posted by Jim on 6:05 PM|
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