Friday, April 28, 2006
President Bush sorta gets a language issue right
U.S. President George Bush has criticized a new Spanish-language version of the American national anthem.
The anti-American reacted in its typical understated way:
So, what is President Bush's solution to all of these brown people who dare to sing his national anthem in their native languages? Send them soldiers and bombs and McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken and demand that they form a new government? Cut out their tongues so they can't sing at all?
Of course, there is an agenda here:
A remix to be released in June contains several lines in English that condemn U.S. immigration laws. Among them: "These kids have no parents, cause all of these mean laws ... let's not start a war with all these hard workers, they can't help where they were born."
Now that President Bush has discovered the virtues of English, will he do something practical, like repealing Clinton Executive Order 13166? Faith without works is dead.
|posted by Jim on 5:45 PM|
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Thursday, April 13, 2006
An Open Letter to President Bush
(Received via e-mail. Author unknown.)
Dear President Bush:
I'm about to plan a little trip with my family and extended family, and I would like to ask you to assist me. I'm going to walk across the border from
the U.S. into Mexico, and I need to make a few
arrangements. I know you can help with this.
I plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws. I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, Mexican President Vicente Fox, that I'm on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:
1. Free medical care for my entire family.
2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.
3. All government forms need to be printed in English.
4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.
5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.
6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the flag pole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.
7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.
8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.
9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won't make any effort to learn local traffic laws.
10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all police officers speak English.
11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.
12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, and don't enforce any labor laws or tax laws.
13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on the economy.
I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico. I am sure that Pres. Fox won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.
|posted by Jim on 4:34 PM|
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A Spot-On Noonan Offering
From Peggy Noonan's column today:
I think open-borders proponents are, simply, wrong. I think those who call good people like members of the voluntary border patrols "yahoos" are snobs. I think those whose primary concern is preserving the Hispanic vote for the Democratic Party, or not losing the Hispanic vote for the Republican Party, are being cynical, selfish, and stupid, too. It's not all about who gets what vote, it's about continuing a system of laws that has allowed America to become, among many other things, a place immigrants want to come to. And it's about admitting immigrants in a coherent, orderly, legal manner, with an eye first to what America needs. That's how you continue a good thing, which is what we've had.
|posted by Jim on 4:27 PM|
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006
English First Cited by Rush Limbaugh Today
Imagine my surprise to hear an old article of mine quoted from by Rush Limbaugh on his show today. You can read the full article, "Will Noncitizens Decide the Election," here.
I did not hear the entire program, so I can't really comment upon what Rush said. The point of my article was show how one political party in 1996, in this case the Democrats, sought to manipulate the "learn English" requirement of both the 1986 amnesty and the long-standing English requirement dating back to the turn of the 20th century.
This is why I remain aggressively unimpressed with the English "requirements" contained in the McCain-Kennedy-whoever "compromise" immigration bill. There is no way to force someone to learn English who does not wish to do so. Even if there were, those doing the enforcing of any "learn English" requirement are generally not interested in being strict. Political considerations alone will ensure that someone who can spell "cat" after ten tries will pass someone's idea of an English test.
Now making the government address everyone in English, just as the Mexican government addresses all in Spanish, is something that can be done and easily enforced. Once immigrants learn that if they need a translator, it is their job -- not ours -- to bring one, a good many more immigrants will be investigating English classes.
This idea, making the government speak only English, is precisely what Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)'s proposed amendment to the immigration bill would do. Senate Democrats blocked a vote on the Inhofe amendment last week. Wonder why?
You can e-mail your two Senators in support of the Inhofe amendment here.
|posted by Jim on 4:38 PM|
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Friday, April 07, 2006
Lessons of "The West Wing" for President Bush
This Sunday marks the conclusion of the seven-year run of "The West Wing." A television show about a Democratic White House is concluding just as a real life Republican White House seems to have hit rock bottom after one bad decision after another.
The last season of the West Wing offers an important lesson for President Bush.
Most of the loyalists who staffed the Bartlett White House have moved on to other things by now. Those who remain are few (Toby, C.J) and seen overwhelmed by the pressure of doing what was once divided among two or three other, super bright people like Sam, Donna and Josh.
The Bush White House, with its continued insistence upon demonstrated, super-long-term loyalty to George Bush as a condition of employment, is simply running out of able loyalists. The result is burnout of the competent as they compensate for vacancies and the elevation of the less competent to key posts.
Former Clinton official Bruce Reed mentioned another problem facing the Bush Administration in Slate recently:
[I]t isn't easy to breathe new life into a waning administration. Beyond Bush's diminished popularity, [new chief of staff Josh] Bolten must overcome the problem of supply and demand. When Clinton was elected in 1992, his administration received 50,000 résumés from around the country. When he was re-elected in 1996—by a much wider margin—only 5,000 résumés came in.
In the last years of a second term, people turn down jobs they would have killed to have a few years before. Senior Hill staffers don't want to give up secure positions of power to join an administration that will soon disband.
This is why the last two years of the Clinton Administration were dominated by ideologues, like Bill Lann Lee, who seized their opportunities to sneak around the rejection of their views by the body politic.
The Bush Administration has far fewer ideologues, because a commitment to any particular world view might hinder one's total support of President George W. Bush.
This means two things, for the final days of the Bush Administration, neither one of them good.
First, their commitment to President Bush will ensure that the White House staff will be even more indifferent to criticism and still more politically tone deaf ("Our base hates the amnesty bill." "Well only racists oppose amnesty.")
Second, the final years of the Bush presidency can more easily be dominated by Democrats who do have ideas, thank you very much, and are eager to implement them.
|posted by Jim on 3:48 PM|
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Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Missing the Point on the Economics of Amnesty
Larry Kudlow's column states: "Princeton professor Douglas Massey estimates that roughly two-thirds of undocumented immigrants pay the FICA payroll tax."
Commending illegals for paying FICA or Medicare or property taxes is to applaud the sun for continuing to rise in the East. Illegals pay taxes they cannot otherwise evade, just like anyone else.
Mr. Kudlow also claims that illegal aliens use few government benefits, which begs this question: Will their avoidance of the bliss of the welfare state continue once they are legal?
|posted by Jim on 6:56 PM|
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