Americans must maintain the same pressure that brought about today’s victory.
by Winston Smith
www.thepoliticalcesspool.org
Earlier today, the odious illegal immigration amnesty bill was killed in the Senate. The bill’s supporters on Capitol Hill, the White House, and elsewhere have begun the autopsy on the corpse, and they are well into assigning blame for the death.
A CNN.com poll asked, “How do you feel about the Senate defeating the immigration reform bill backed by President Bush?” Now, there are at least three things wrong with this question. First, the Senate didn’t defeat the Bill – the American people did, sending so many emails to Senators and making so many calls to the Capitol that the Senate switchboard shut down. Millions of Americans voiced their opposition and demanded that their elected representatives represent them, not illegal aliens or political parties. This brings up the second thing wrong with the CNN poll question: the illegal immigration amnesty bill wasn’t defeated – the United States Senate was defeated. Poll upon poll showed that between 80% and 90% of Americans didn’t want that bill, and yet Senator after Senator pledged to support it, prompting one Senator to ask, “What part of ‘no’ do we not understand?” Make no mistake about it – it was the Senate that was defeated, not the legislation. The third thing wrong with the CNN poll question has to do with the implication that only President Bush backed the Bill. But the Bill was backed also by Senators, liberal lobbying groups, and violent racist Mestizo organizations like La Raza, which actually took part in crafting the legislation. Trying to portray the bill as “Bush’s bill defeated by the Senate” is a rickety attempt by CNN to spin the incident as a victory over Bush for the Democrat-controlled Senate. The plain truth is that the bill’s defeat is a victory for the American people over a special interest-controlled Senate and White House.President Bush played his own blame game, saying, “Congress really needs to prove to the American people that it can come together on hard issues.” The fact is the Senate did come together on this issue, although the “togetherness” was brought about by the American people dragging Senators kicking and screaming into it.
The illegal immigration amnesty bill’s chief architect, Ted Kennedy (arguably the most ill-chosen front man for any issue), has said that passing the Immigration Reform Bill would be an affirmation of our humanity. This remark is a backhand against those of us who believe the right and proper solution to the illegal alien invasion is to deport all who are in this country illegally. Demagogues like Kennedy wring their hands and weep and wail that we simply can’t do that; many illegal aliens are children who had no choice in entering the country, and we shouldn’t make them suffer for the wrongs of their parents. We are told that many illegal aliens have been here for years and have deep roots in their communities, and have become residents in the truest sense of the word, and it would be cruel to force them to leave the lives they’ve established. In addition to being cruel, we are told, the move to deport illegal aliens is rooted in racism and xenophobia, and passing the amnesty bill would send a clear message that Americans are not racists.
Accusations of cruelty and racism resonate strongly with Americans, because Americans are the most generous and caring people in the world. Americans, especially White Americans, are generous to a fault, the fault being that we will gladly give aid to just about anyone, even those who we know mean us harm. Most Americans give aid simply because it’s the right thing to do; we believe it’s wrong to allow a fellow human being to suffer when it’s in our power to stop their suffering. We rightly see such generosity and mercy as virtues.
But what most people see as virtues to be exercised, other see as weaknesses to be exploited. And in the illegal immigration issue, our virtue is being exploited to our detriment. Politicians like Ted Kennedy, Arlen Specter, and Lindsey Graham are using our virtue against us in an effort to force a law upon us that we don’t want. Racist organizations like La Raza are counting upon our kindness to aid them in bring about our demise. And my friends, that is conniving, that is mean-spirited, and that is cruel.
The results of the illegal alien invasion are indisputable – the increased crime, the introduction of disease, the extreme burden on social services such as hospitals and public schools, the economic havoc from lowered wages and unemployed Americans, the ethnic tension in neighborhoods with houses containing five times as many people as they were designed for, and so on. These things have been quantified and are statements of fact. But the lobbying firm of Kennedy, Specter, Graham and La Raza are trying to force Americans into the untenable choice of either surrendering their communities and their livelihoods to illegal aliens, or dealing with being called racists and xenophobes. They are acting like prosecuting attorneys who give an innocent man a choice between pleading guilty to a lesser charge, or risk being convicted of a greater charge. It’s sort of like the old “have you stopped beating your wife” ploy. There’s no good answer for the question because the question is bad. It is mean-spirited to force Americans to choose between cultural suicide and ill-repute. But that is precisely the choice being given us by the Senate supporters of illegal alien amnesty legislation.
And let’s not ignore the cruelty of the illegal aliens themselves. It is they who uprooted their families and exposed their women and children to the dangers of trekking across the border. It is they who exploit our birth citizenship laws with their “anchor babies.” It is they who are suppressing wages and lowering the standard of living for Americans. It is they who are introducing new diseases like Chagas Disease into America, and it is they who are reintroducing previously banished diseases like tuberculosis. And they do all this knowing full well that we Americans are unwilling to turn away those in need, even if giving the aid causes hardship for ourselves. In this, illegal aliens have recognized and affirmed our generosity and decency – they’ve counted on our virtue. How dare they, and how dare our own damned politicians, either imply or state explicitly that we are cruel or inhumane!
In his novel Light In August, William Faulkner writes of a woman who robs from her egg money in order to help a pregnant girl who is temporarily staying in her home. The woman knows she can not afford to give the girl money, but she gives it nonetheless. The woman’s conflict between what she’s able to do and what her morals say needs to be done makes her nearly violent. She gives against her better judgment, but she does so on her terms. Faulkner’s observation is that it is possible to be kind to someone without being good to them. It’s frustrating when such a situation occurs in the natural course of life. We call it a dilemma, and at those times we Americans will more often than not help out even to our own hardship. But we insist on exercising our virtue on our terms. But when someone purposely sets out to manipulate you into a position of helping others to your detriment, when you are being forced to give on someone else’s terms, we call it extortion. You have every right – indeed, you have the duty – to be violently angry with anyone who would connive you into such a predicament, especially when that person or those persons are arrogant elected representatives who have betrayed your trust.
Americans should be able to rejoice over the illegal immigration amnesty bill’s death. But there isn’t time for rejoicing. Shortly after the vote, Arlen Specter said the defeat was just a bump on the road, but it’s a road that he and amnesty’s supporters are determined to stay on. Americans must maintain the same pressure that brought about today’s victory, until Specter and his ilk see that their road is a dead-end.
Winston Smith is a staff member of The Political Cesspool Radio Program. He can be e-mailed here: winstonsmith_99@yahoo.com