So I was reading this morning about how “Violence on the border endangers Americans,” and it got me to thinking about what Nishi and happy have been obliquely arguing of late — namely, that should conservatives / classical liberals become vocal over forthcoming high-profile immigration “reform” proposals, their subsequent depiction by both the media and lawmakers (of both parties, potentially) as ravaging nativists and xenophobes will go a long way toward reinforcing already stock stereotypes being used to characterize those who demand adherence to our immigration laws as “fringe” “extremists,” rednecked yahoos and neo-Nazi types who hate them some brown people, and in their wildings act in direct opposition to the spirit of this country’s immigrant-welcoming roots.
To Nishi, the Obama Administration’s move to bring immigration reform to the forefront in order to flush out the protesters and label them racist, is a brilliant bit of strategy: if the endgame is power, it pays to find, isolate, and then destroy your enemies — even if that means tethering them to hatreds they don’t possess while simultaneously depicting yourselves as morally superior through (contrived) juxtaposition.
To happy, the very thought of how the Administration and media will be able to market such contrived “hatreds” fills him with dread; and so he’d just as soon conservatives avoid being drawn into a debate over immigration reform at all. Which leaves them cornered: either they remain relatively staid in their protests and avoid the kind of propaganda campaign that the progressives have in store for them (and in so doing, they essentially green light comprehensive immigration reform, which will be given GOP cover by a number of feckless Republican lawmakers); or else they protest vocally, which, while that may delay or defeat certain measures of comprehensive “reform,” will almost certainly result in a campaign that paints the protesters as cousinfucking hatey haters who hate and hate and hate — and such a campaign could tarnish conservatism’s brand, resulting in a loss of independents and moderates (and a certain brand of libertarian), and more electoral defeat.
Either way, checkmate.
— That is, unless the power of those attempts to blacken conservatism / classical liberalism is itself diminishing; and I find it hard to believe that, with Tea Party demographics being what they are, a whole host of people haven’t begun to look at the cynical attempts to cast ordinary citizens as fringe “racists” as the dishonest political ploy that it is.
So the question becomes, what is the most effective strategy going forward with respect to the Administration’s gambit to foreground immigration reform? Do conservatives speak up — to begin with, by loudly and unequivocally rejecting the premise that resistance to “reform” is merely coded racism and xenophobia; or do they try to assure moderates and independents that they, too, wish to adhere to immigrant spirit that has built this country — and so make a great show of reaching across the aisle and compromising on any number of issues that, in the long run, will almost certainly prove problematic, either economically or politically; but in the short run might at least get them back to power, where they can get to work on walking back, eg., Obamacare?
To get you thinking on this, here’s a bit from Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny that I found interesting:
In the 1960’s, Cesar Chavez, one of the founders of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union, vehemently opposed illegal immigration, arguing it undermined his efforts to unionize farm workers and improve working conditions and wages for American citizen workers. The UFW even reported illegal immigrants to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In 1969, Chavez led a march, accompanied by Ralph Abernathy, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Senator Walter Mondale, along the border with Mexico, protesting the farmers’ use of illegal immigrants.
But most unions soon changed course and today they lobby to confer amnesty and ultimately citizenship on illegal aliens. These include: American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Farm Labor Organizing Committee; Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union; Laborers’ International Union of North America; Service Employees International Union; Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees; United Farm Workers; and United Food and Commercial Workers.
The unions view the large influx of both legal and illegal immigrants as a new source of political clout that favors their allies in the Democratic Party and potentially adds membership to their own dwindling numbers. They came to the same realization as historian Samuel Lubell, who noted that the voting-age children of the first great migration constituted “The big-city masses [who] furnished the votes which re-elected [Franklin] Roosevelt again and again — and, in the process, ended the traditional Republican majority in this country.” And there can be no doubt, as a practical matter, that the Statist’s benefits-for-votes promises is an attractive albeit destructive enticement. […]
The Statist tolerates the illegal alien’s violations of working, wage, and environmental standards, because the alien’s babies born in America are, under the current interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, treated as United States citizens. And under the Hart-Caller Act, upon turning twenty-one years of age, the child can sponsor additional family members for citizenship. From the Statist’s perspective, the pool of future administrative state constituents and sympathetic voters is potentially bottomless.
So. What to do?
Discuss.
We have no choice. We HAVE to vocally oppose. Happy’s just gonna have to deal. Nishi can piss up a rope.
What to do? Well clearly the GOP needs to unite behind a pro-amnesty pragmatist who can cross the aisle, work with the Democrats, and win over the moderates. As the 2008 election showed, that’s a formula for guaranteed success.
and “Avatar” ruelz! lawls.
Given most of the grapes are coming from Chile now, perhaps the action is now south of the border?
Find/create/co-opt a party. Clearly state principles (preferably only a few, easily explicable principles – e.g., smaller more efficient government, less government spending, term-limits, sensible LEGAL immigration policy, flat tax, whatever). Find/support/promote/get-elected those individuals who support your principles.
DO NOT DEVIATE FROM PRINCIPLES. Tell people clearly what your party believes and have individuals come to the party. Do not worry about being a “big tent”.
Stand for something or fall for anything.
Little as I desire to have to do so, we pay closer attention to illegal immigration obsessed Mark Krikorian and his organization, if only in order to become better instructed in the complex length and breadth of law on the books and the various rationales with which those laws were underwritten or intended over time. For one.
Economically, amnesty is a disaster. 20 million illegal immigrants granted legal work status explodes the hiring pool at the bottom of the economic ladder. Not only does this increase unemployment for those in that pool, it allows employers greater leverage to decrease wages for middle income employees due to the ready availability of cheap labor. (It may be more economical to hire and train a low income worker who ends up with 2/3 the salary of the middle income worker.) There would be a significant trickle-up effect for the glut of low-cost labor.
The end result is that the poorest citizens would be the hardest hit by amnesty, but the effects would ripple out through the middle class by depressing wages. The upper class would be the prime beneficiary, being able to produce goods and hire servants (those who provide service) at reduced cost.
So the question is, why do Progressives hate the poor and middle class? Why are progressives such willing tools of the rich?
Why not just turn over California to Mexico? Reno and Vegas would make great border towns, I think.
Or maybe we could compromise, and just give them everything west of the I-5?
If Conservatives and the GOP operate from fear, they hand the enemy a weapon to be used against them.
That said, the GOP and Conservatives have to stop thinking MSM is engaged in mainstream reporting. Most MSM is indistinguishable from the DNC.
Most polls I’ve seen say that a large majority of Americans want the borders closed.
MSM and the White House are allowing 35% of the population to drive the narrative.
So, if anyone who supports closing the borders is challenged with a “have you stopped beating your wife” type of question, they need to point out the fallacy of that question. That kind of question should never be answered. It should be dismissed in a very succint manner.
To be clear, I think both Nishi and happy have valid points — one couched as triumphalism the other as concern, but both essentially the same.
So. What do you say to the suggestion that, should the gambit work, the Democrats retain power; which means we should bite our tongues, regain power, and then work from within to roll back things like ObamaCare?
Move first, establish the parameters of the debate, call out lies and untruths, and do not allow the opposition to characterize the individual in an attempt to derail discussion through a canard.
You know… all the things we have been discussing for the last year+ Outlaw and all that, wot wot
I want to read and think on this but I have to put a thing together for NG
oh it’s for sure a boy btw she found out yesterday
Congrats!
Unless she decides it isn’t, naturally.
Taking your enemies advise on how to oppose them always works well, right?
The main problem for many years has been getting the Left minority to drop the cloak that has allowed them to play the part of being normal friendly competitors for political office. “Hale fellow, well met” is the image they wish us to see.
Exposing them is the only option that will work. Obama and company is being helpful in this. That in itself is worrisome even if helpful.
OT: re, Jeep. Needs a new clutch. Yippeeeeee!
If only cheap labor was available to fix it…
Pablo, don’t be a bad boy. I’ll have to drag out a whip for tonight’s “Backyard Interpretive Dance.”
Both based on how effective the left can be at lying. Meh.
Geoffb —
So then you are opposed to the knee-jerk “good man” strategy — in which your opponent is well-meaning but a bit misguided, while your own side is filled with racists that need ferreting out, blowhards that need to watch what they say, and violent violence threateners who play the race card and, as pseudo-intellectuals (the real intellectuals being SEK, Thersites, et al. — you know, anyone who agrees with a certain idea about language) are men of no real substance?
I say. That’s troubling stuff. Tut tut.
Absolutely. But “real” in that they have had success, and the success has translated into opinions that themselves translate into votes.
You all know where I’ve stood on this. But I think the questions are well worth raising.
Clutch but not tranny? That’s a good thing.
Had the master cylinder replaced a few months back.
Now the clutch.
These are the first and only problems I’ve ever had with the Jeep. First car I bought myself, by the way. A 1994 Wrangler Sahara. Snatched it off the lot the day it was rolled out.
My other car is a ’93 Land Cruiser. We need a new car, but that ain’t gonna happen for a bit, I’m afraid. Because both these are paid for.
I’ve generally tended to avoid clutching trannies. And I grew up in California where that’s more difficult than in, say, Georgia.
Re: #18,
Yes.
I once tried to write on this at the pub but my skills were/are not up to the subject so I pulled it down.
Mom always said I was “trouble”. I try to live up to it.
I’d refer you to the Tea Party numbers (both composition and favorability) and suggest that the Alinsky shit just ain’t working like it used to.
Carin, I’ll leave the peanut butter out, k?
My little brother owns a Wrangler Sahara that he bought just like you did. It has broken down on at least 2 continents, but he swears it is the greatest car ever. I prefer the older CJ7 with the huge gas guzzling engines, but that’s just the way I roll.
I don’t think a strategic retreat is the way to go. The race card is getting worn out from overuse, to the point where a majority of the country has been targeted at least once. When you and your friends have all been smeared as racists for base political reasons, you can’t help but wake up to the nature of the weapon being used.
At the same time, we’re finding outlets for our message while the old media continue to shrivel. It’s certainly not a fair fight yet, but the momentum is in the right direction. It makes sense to press the advantage.
I think the best tactic here, much like with the tea party movement at large, is to put the cultural debate aside and focus on the economics. We can embrace the rise of futbol and cinco de mayo parties and decent mexican restaurants, which should blunt much of the racism attacks. But we need to hammer away at the economic and social problems. Bringing millions of unskilled workers into a market depresses wages, outstrips the supply of affordable housing, and puts a ton of pressure on social welfare programs that are already unsustainable. These are just the facts, and if our opponents want to say that the Universe is racist and ignorant, let them make those arguments, and then poke fun at their idiocy.
Arguments of fairness are addressed by the unfairness of allowing a single country to dominate our immigration based solely on location. Point out our friends in Africa and Asia and the rest of the Americas, and ask how it’s fair that they’re locked out because Mexico took all their spots illegally.
Above all, we need to cultivate our own set of trolls. Every day, we insult and revile our resident trolls, and they keep coming back. They distract; they bring up unrelated talking points; they speak in non-sequiturs and they do their best to keep us off balance. Imagine for a moment what could be accomplished by a talking head who had that kind of indifference to the rules of debate, but was armed with evidence and talking points that actually hold together. Imagine the Sunday morning round table hosts trying to pin down a guy who refuses to follow the script. It would be EPIC!
On the port side they just get banned.
Yeah. CJs are known for rolling like that.
The Jeep I have has an inline 6 engine: everything is easy to get to, everything is easy to fix. I suppose after 16 years, clutches go. But I’ve loved the car since day 1 — and I can’t believe the car, were it a kid, would be old enough this year to get its own drivers’ license.
Seems like only yesterday I brought it home — even though I didn’t yet know how to drive stick. Taught myself by taking it out on hills late at night. Good times.
I feel myself saying “that is a fucking lie, and you are a fucking liar” quite a bit in my future. Like every time nishit gets her filthy little disgusting genocide-lovin hands on a keyboard.
This is merely coded racism.
Nativist.
In my experience the rank and file Union guys are vehemently anti-illegal immigrant. The best thing that could happen for common sense is for the Democrats to start talking amnesty while the economy is still in the shitter (sorry Bernanke, I know you tried, but no one bought it). If Obama wants to add another 40 – 50% to the Tea Party crowd, let him start spouting off, seriously, on “immigration reform” as another crisis he was elected to solve. Please.
I believe, contrary to most of the world, that Republican voters are more open to “immigration reform” or amnesty than most voting Democrats. It’ll be the “hard hats” and the line workers who will react most strongly to this gambit, and provided the moron Republicans left in Congress play it right, they can use that to their advantage.
If the GOP was smart, (and I know they aren’t, but if they were) they would turn populist and frame this as a free trade argument, another give away to the “big corporations” who want a larger labor pool to keep wages down. Make it the next Nafta, get as many quotes from Mexican and Central American politicians as they can and let Lou Dobbs make their case for them.
Of course there’s always the chance that they could use “immigration reform” to jam through card check. Now that would get it done, but there’d be real political hell to pay, not that
these kamikaze bastardsthe Democratic leadership really gives a shit.Hell, you might even see a Dobbs-Palin ticket in ’12!
Electoral history says that openly racist parties are more popular with the voters against whom they’re racist than the Republican Party currently is with the voters against whom it’s supposedly racist.
So if you’re a Party man, one who thinks an empowered Party is the vehicle for good stuff, your best bet is for the GOP to go full Nazi rhetorically and quietly open the border legislatively. The libertarian types’ votes you lose will be more than offset by Nazi Mexicans — and Jews and black people and whoever else you talk Nazi shit about. And you’ll stop losing the female vote, because chicks love Nazis.
Then I guess you could do some good not-Nazi stuff.
Jeff – I wrecked my brother’s Sahara in a creekbed in Colorado Springs. Got the whole damn thing stuck on top of a rock, somehow with all 4 wheels off of the ground. Really fucked up the undercarriage, cracked the radiator. Good times.
What do you all think about pushing for more legal immigration? — and for better border control? I mean, read that article I linked: is Obama ignoring what’s happening down there just to goad the political right into exasperation and, potentially, “vile” speech?
psycho is right about who, in actuality, has the biggest problem with immigration reform. Unfortunately, those people also tend to be habit voters, who pull the D lever out of some sense of “heritage.”
Better Half’s family despises illegal immigration, being legal immigrants and all.
I bet it still runs well though.
Until my wife started taking it to work (with me using the Land Cruiser to shuttle the kid to and from school), I’d kept the mileage remarkably low — even though it’s been driven cross country between Colorado and Baltimore / Ithaca, NY several times.
Nothing better than taking the doors and top off in the summer.
I’d get another in a heartbeat.
Always wanted a Land Rover Defender. If I can find one used one day, I wouldn’t mind picking that up, either.
JD,
Are you my little brother? Sound just like him at one time.
We had to replace the oil pan after that one, but yes, over 200,000 miles later, it still runs well.
Defenders rock. Big time.
psycho is right about who, in actuality, has the biggest problem with immigration reform. Unfortunately, those people also tend to be habit voters, who pull the D lever out of some sense of “heritage.”
Yes, but the economy + an immigration “reform” they might not be happy with could equal them sitting out the election.
The race card is getting worn out from overuse, to the point where a majority of the country has been targeted at least once.
I concur. The media is currently engaged in a tactical pull back from confronting the TEA party people. I attribute at least some of this to recognition that the ‘racism’ approach was proving, not just ineffective, but counterproductive.
The time to go on the offensive is now. If all they have to defend amnesty is cries of racism, force them to repeat those slanders now, while the last round is still fresh in everyone’s minds. Get it over with quick so that the impact will be least.
Seize the initiative and keep them on the retreat.
More legal immigration is the bee’s knees.
Better border control (hell, ANY border control) is the cat’s meow.
What do you think about a concerted campaign to paint Obama as the de facto h8r based on the fact that people are dying in cross-border incidents and he’s doing nothing about it to score political points?
Jeff, I would submit that all three of you are operating from a false premise, namely, that it is either possible or desirable to have a rational discussion with Leftists. Which is why I took delivery on 500 more rounds of 7.62 x 39 last week.
There is no example from all of history of slavery being reversed without bloodshed. We will not be the first.
Push for more legal immigration and they’ll back-door amnesty. It’s a loser argument. You can’t It’s the right thing to do, I think, but I don’t count.
What do you all think about pushing for more legal immigration?
I’m all for it. And I’m comfortable with positively massive numbers of legal immigrants (in the long run we are gonna need ’em.) But it has to be legal, and it has to be done after we squash amnesty and after we secure the borders.
We only want people who play by the rules.
I mean, you can’t increase legal immigration without the argument over what to do about the illegals.
I’d say that pushing for more legal immigration (broad based from around the world) is both good policy and good politics.
Heck, we’d even be able to have some fun with asking the Dems why they hate people from countries x, y, and z so much.
Also, I think any sort of battle over immigration reform is going to finally destroy Obama politically. With the economic outlook and unemployment like this? Poison.
The enviro-whackos will go ape-shit over a large scale increase in legal immigration, as that will result in more cars driving, more sprawl, more consumption of food, etc … win/win.
I don’t think that fighting amnesty is something we need to be afraid of. Depending on the poll, 70% – 80% of the American people oppose it (something like 60% strongly opposed), and they already slammed us with the racism charge for a fully year in 2007/2008 when all the Mexican race marches were going on across the country. Didn’t faze anything but the Congressional switchboards.
I say damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
We’re gonna need the doctors.
ThomasD – why do we need massive numbers of legal immigrants? I have no problem with legal immigration, I just don’t get why we “need” “massive numbers” of immigrants.
Cote d’Azurian doctors for everyone !!!
We’re gonna need the doctors.
We already do, and that’s already a large slice of current legal immigration. Take a spin through central Appalachia and see the names on the medical office buildings.
The question, and it’s been around for a few years now, is when those countries that currently supply a large portion of their MDs to the US and UK will stop doing so.
LMC, I agree, and that’s always been the sticking point. Personally I recommend kick the bastards out, but I’m a hardhearted SOB and a raaaaacist-sexist-bigoted-homophobe type.
More realistically, I think part of expanding legal immigration has to be creating a path for illegals already here to become legal through some means. The nuts and bolts are of course debatable, will of course be unfair in some manner, and will cause strife in a way that creates faux-outrage in the Leftosphere.
I seem to remember the Republican move for “comprehensive immigration reform” depressing conservative turn out in 2006. I also remember 77% of the population against any kind of amnesty. That number for black people is in the 70s% as well. Guess black people want to take away the rights of “undocumented workers,” much like they voted 2 to 1 against same sex marriage back in 2008 in California. Quite the conundrum that all these liberals would make common cause with a huge group of racists and homophobes.
“So. What to do?”
The classical liberal answer is easy: ease protectionism. More immigration. Supply and demand, bro.
And you can’t put immigration enforcement into an amnesty bill, either. You get the amnesty, and then they never fund or carry out the enforcement portion.
Shift the debate from “Amnesty for those who found a way to get here” (an entitlement to USA citizenship)too a reform of the legal immigration system which establishes criteria,timing and numbers. Let’s debate and agree on the process and numbers of accepted immigrants.
Great post, Jeff. Your thoughtful examination of the nuances involved in achieving a true conservative consensus for this crucial issue is prescient and exquisitely balanced as always.
#52
We will need them to continue any semblance of real growth and also to offset the lack of native births. Better that we take on those who are willing and able to live productive lives than have them languish at home or go somewhere else.
Part of the debate should center on the needs of the work force given our current 10% unemployment.
The problem with supply and demand, fost, is that we’ve created a vast supply of entitlements whose only requirement is breathing, and NOT created a demand for only allowing people in who can produce more than they consume for some portion of their lives.
MOST OF THEM ARE ONLY GOING TO HATE US ANYWAY….repeat this until it sinks in.
happyfeet and other immigration romantics just don’t get it.
Nishi and other Commiecrats are only going to smear us anyway.
Oh, and #61, you’ll find that there are plenty of births, but too many of them are Sarah Palin types for the Left’s taste. Leftists need to import more bodies because they abort their offspring.
“The classical liberal answer is easy: ease protectionism. More immigration. Supply and demand, bro.”
This is where “libertarians” founder on the rocks of reality.
When the time comes to vote in Commiecrat socialism, the “open border” types will have imported the underclass with which to do it.
Seriously, everytime you are afraid of being called names by the Demunists and the media (BIRM), remember and repeat to yourself again and again and again: They’re only going to hate you anyway…
Democrats see jobs as a product of government, as if business exist for the purpose of creating employment.
Ultimately they have little, if any, interest in what workers accomplish through their labors. Their sole focus is that a prole, who may do otherwise sits idle, may thus become a vehicle for some other political agitator to use in pursuit of power.
…and may thus become…
Oh, I see what you did there.
What do you say to the suggestion that, should the gambit work, the Democrats retain power; which means we should bite our tongues, regain power, and then work from within to roll back things like ObamaCare?
You cannot roll back immigrants.
Or if you do, it will be far worse for appearances (and probably fact at that point too!) than opposing amnesty and illegal immigration up front.
Mexico is a socialist hellhole for a REASON.
It’s not the geography, or the resources. You can say ‘it’s the politics’, ok yes, but who is responsible for the politics? The people.
I don’t suggest it is race. I suggest it is culture. But, whatever you pin it on, it is. The illegals are gonna be voting democrat.
Look what England did. It’s come out now that Labor very intentionally decided to fire and replace their electorate with a more suitable one.
For that matter let me pontificate on assimilation.
1st generation illegal immigrants are hard workin’, salt of the earth folk. But they are illegal for a REASON. They can’t get no visas. Smart and wealthy Mexicans get visas, or at least good forged papers.
These guys running across the desert are unskilled and uneducated and destitute.
They will live better here then in Mexico, but they will still live piss poor. They’ll live in what is for all effects ghettos. They’ll not turn down any social welfare offered to them. They haven’t the skills to justify a wage to afford anything better. They are use to a patronage system of vote-bribery, they have known nothing else. They’ve lived their whole life in an impoverished and corrupt People’s kleptocracy run by drug lords. They are old dogs and old dogs struggle with new tricks.
Their children will go to public schools and be assimilated all right. Except they get assimilated into inner-city ghetto culture. As it is now.
Oh great.
And for that matter, I can think of no better way to raise an army of tiny socialists then to half-validate Class theories by making an ethnic caste of menial laborers out of their parents, who really HAVEN’T BEEN equally equiped to have opportunity to succeed in our system, where the only jobs available to them are ones that our labor laws effectively prevents white people from even doing.
What Entropy said. The Rule of Anyway in spades.
“The classical liberal answer is easy: ease protectionism. More immigration. Supply and demand, bro.”
No.
This is the laissez-faire economics answer to immigration. Which a lot of libertarian economists promote.
But economists have a tendency to overuse economics (no small feat, given the scope of economics, but still, models of Homo Economicus break down).
It is the same kind of failed thinking that leads them to believe they can create mass Libertarian exodus to New Hampshire. FAIL. Life is more complex than that, not so neat. Little kids think they can solve traffic by suggesting that everyone live by where they work.
What is at where you live? Families, friends, climates, sub-cultures, a job, a history, a homestead… people do not relocate across the country and abandon whole lives so easily. Similarly, people don’t just up and follow the jobs. At least not people who aren’t rich ass New York Ph.D. economists or Libertarian political pundits who already spend half their time jetting around the globe to begin with.
People are not goods and services. People are more than the sum of the goods and services they produce.
You cannot treat people like a commodity. It will backfire. They’ll do something irrational and then you’ll complain because reality isn’t what it should be and off on the road to Utopia you go.
If you think all you’re importing is gardeners, you’ve got another thing coming. They’re fully formed human beings who are more then just a profession.
I realize this. Which is why I presented it as a trade off.
Clutches are easy, Jeff. I’ve dropped the gearbox on my old Volvo and reinstalled it over a lunch hour. You’ll probably want a transmission jack; my gearbox was light enough (cast-iron housing, aluminum bell-housing and all) to pull and drop by hand when I was 25, but probably too heavy for me now. A Jeep tranny is probably a bit more stout, and the 4WD part a bit more complicated.
Now that I think about it, you might be better off calling around and seeing what folks are charging. Definitely avoid the dealership unless it’s the only trustworthy outfit around. My guy’s shop is walking distance and he’ll change out a CV joint for $100, which is IMO money well spent.
The lefts immigration policy:
Provide opportunity for the underprivileged by establishing a world entitlement to USA citizenship:
1. Immigration based on what’s good for the emigrant..Family relationship etc.
2. Limited border control along with periodic “amnesty” granted based on how long they have lived here, pay a fine etc.
3. Provide for a continuous flow thru chain migrations.
4. Continue with the 14th (I think) amendment which provides US citizenship for illegal offspring.
I think we can do better starting with the premise. The policy should be focused on meeting the needs of the USA. No entitlements. Secure borders. Reinterpret the 14th.
“It’s not coded racism; it’s simple arithmetic. If you think that adding a hundred thousand uneducated workers to this county is going to make it easier to find affordable housing and social services, by all means spell out how that’s going to work. If you think adding 500 illiterate high schoolers to our district will somehow make our teachers’ jobs easier, show me how. If you think that a hundred thousand unemployed workers aren’t going to give management all kinds of leverage to tell the unions to pound sand, I’d love to hear your explanation.
“Until then, let’s assume that the only group I really hate are NPR tote-baggers who wring their hands over the plight of “poor brown people” but refuse to address any of the real issues that have crippled our cities over the past three generations.”
Something like that might make good TV, I think.
We will need them to continue any semblance of real growth and also to offset the lack of native births.
So do you contend that YOU are qualified to decide what the optimum number of people in the country is, better than spontaneous order, and so should manage the number of our populace?
Or do you contend that everything must simply grow, bigger, larger, more, more, forward, forever, like housing prices, onward to the end of History?
“… loudly and unequivocally rejecting the premise that resistance to “reform” is merely coded racism and xenophobia”
My answer?
Fuck you, I married an immigrant.
“people do not relocate across the country and abandon whole lives so easily. Similarly, people don’t just up and follow the jobs.”
The whole immigration situation seems to be happening because people are abandoning their lives and moving.
“If you think all you’re importing is gardeners, you’ve got another thing coming. They’re fully formed human beings who are more then just a profession.”
It’s not like I’m ignoring how humanitarian increased immigration is…
wait now I’m an immigration romantic?
The turtles were a giveaway.
Jeff, I have a 92 four-banger. I replaced the clutch myself 9 years ago when I had to replace the slave cylinder… Just made sense because to get to the one was the same as the other. Dirty job, alot of steps, and the replacement itself was all of 15 minutes (AT MOST). But to get to it, I had to drop the tranny and that takes alot of patience. Saved a bundle, but I did have access to the Auto Hobby Shop (and a lift). Four years ago I had to replace the slave, again, but did not have the time to do it myself. That was about 1,500 bucks. As we speak, the little lady is getting a new engine. I just did not trust myself with that job. Sure, by now, I may be putting more into her than she is worth on the market, but to me she is priceless. Oh.. at 160,000 miles, but too many of them were harder miles than I would want to admit committing.
I can’t really argue with how Mr. Jeff says my view is cause that’s really close.
It’s flavored with the idea that if you don;t close the border and then bitch and moan about illegal immigrants you are a big sillyhead I think.
And our little country does not have the balls or fortitude to do something as brave and stalwart as to close a border. Not anymore.
So Team R immigration reform is always an exercise of pissing into the wind, and the higher you score on the Tancredo scale the more urine gets in your eyes and you’re like goddamn how did all this urine get in my eyes I think this sucks you got any paper towels please
“Do conservatives speak up — to begin with, by loudly and unequivocally rejecting the premise that resistance to “reform” is merely coded racism and xenophobia…”
Most certainly they do! And additionally articulate just what the deleterious effects on the wages of lower and middle class Americans will result from such blanket amnesty; make clear that there are economic reasons for limiting the amount of immigrants per year. Additionally, point out that there are also numerical limits on the amount of immigrants that can reasonable be expected to assimilate into American society per year as well. And just as there are economic ramifications for unrestrained immigrant influx, so too will it accelerate the fragmentation of American culture; in effect, hasten the divisive multi-culturalists dream of changing America from a “melting pot” into a “patchwork quilt” society-and in doing so surrender one of the underlying pillars of our nations strength.
Every time the left tries to paint conservatives as anti-immigrant, beause of amnesty opposition, that suggestion must be strongly challenged right there, immediately; and refuted by citing the factually based reasons for the opposition sketched out so far.
As an aside, it might also be a handy time to weave into the rebuttal narrative the fact that previous immigrant waves weren’t immediately suckled at the government teat like they are today.
At any rate, the answer is to fight it on principle, but FIGHT!; lest we surrender the initiative much as Obama has done vis-a-vis US strategic defense.
Never surrender the initiative…
Fuck you, I married an immigrant.
I bet you keep her barefoot and chained to the kitchen sink. You horrible hatey racist, you!
“Arguments of fairness are addressed by the unfairness of allowing a single country to dominate our immigration based solely on location. Point out our friends in Africa and Asia and the rest of the Americas, and ask how it’s fair that they’re locked out because Mexico took all their spots illegally.”
An excellent point Squid that I had overlook in my ascent up on the soapbox!
The whole immigration situation seems to be happening because people are abandoning their lives and moving.
Out of deseperation. People who are rioting over tortilla prices because they cannot eat. That is the level you must sink to for that hierarchy to kick in. People still live in Detroit. And they will not be happy about it, either. It’s Grapes of Wrath/Mice and Men time. And much before that, if they can, if our system can still afford it, they’ll vote for the guy who promises to force the jobs to come back.
So yes. They’ll move. They’ll move when the choice becomes move or die, if you want to let it get there. And they’ll feel wronged for having to do it.
It’s not like I’m ignoring how humanitarian increased immigration is…
More than that. You’re ignoring everything.
Reading this post right after the one above, “Getting What You Paid For”, should make one possible approach apparent. Just point out who is working the jobs the 19% of black men don’t have. Point out who is competing with black citizens for unemployment and welfare benefits.
I say fuck it, go Alinsky right back at them. Divide and conquer. Plus it is the truth.
Entropy,
You are basically espousing Rush’s tenant that the only restrictions we have are self-imposed.
I have to move every 3-4 years. Actually, from 2002-2006 we PCS’d four times. Including one to Europe and one back to the states after a 14 month assignment. And I am the trailing spouse.
“even if that means tethering them to hatreds they don’t possess”
oh, bullshytt. A goodly proportion of the base does possess exactly those hatreds, and more to the point they are entirely stupid enough to flaunt them on poorly spelled signs.
Your only solution is to grow enough nads to educate your base that racism is wrong….and, btw, so retrograde.
Instead you flail about denying the genuine racist component of your base….well….they are there….and they wont shutup and they wont go away.
My personal favorite.
Read my lips….until you reform these goons or condemn them out of the tea party movement, (instead of just denying they exist), you will NEVAH attract minority or youth votes in the necessary numbers.
here you go feets..a little Cobra Starship….. good girls go bad.
kinda what happened to me, huh?
So do you contend that YOU are qualified to decide what the optimum number of people in the country is, better than spontaneous order, and so should manage the number of our populace?
I contend that I am qualified to have, and to express an opinion on such matters.
Such opinions serving to shape spontaneous order since such order is predicated on some amount of immigration, legal or otherwise, nonzero or otherwise.
Do YOU have a problem with that?
Either way, feel free to disagree.
Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.
It’s a war of ideas, so it seems that advice from a warrior would be in order. The left will use the tactic of making this argument not over the merits of immigration reform, but as they always do over how those who oppose their will are evil and unworthy of consideration. There is simply no way around this, because those who control the distribution of this debate want it this way. In the long term we need to change this fact, but for now it is just another aspect of the battlefield that we need to deal with. We need to identify the potential extraordinary moments and be ready for them. We need to have arguments that bring this issue home to people, that allows them to put themselves into the issue. If the problems and dangers of unobstructed illegal immigration can’t be personalized, then our very libertarian nature will lead the majority to the “live and let live” conclusion. IMO.
A goodly proportion of the base does possess exactly those hatreds, and more to the point they are entirely stupid enough to flaunt them on poorly spelled signs.
What proportion, Eugenia? “Goodly” is a cop-out word used by those without any real argument. What’s the actual proportion, and how does it compare to the proportion of racists at all the anti-Bush rallies we’ve seen over the past decade? Also, how do poor spelling and grammar signify hatred and racism?
Everybody wave to the griefer!
Can’t I just point and laugh?
That works too, Thomas.
Kate thinks, therefore I h8.
A pomo Descartes she ain’t.
It’s flavored with the idea that if you don’t close the border and then bitch and moan about illegal immigrants you are a big sillyhead I think.
That is correct. However, every one of the candidates who have run on this issue is all in favor of closing the border.
And our little country does not have the balls or fortitude to do something as brave and stalwart as to close a border. Not anymore.
Sorry, some of us are not so doom-and-gloom. If you really feel that way, then why bother opposing *any* of the Demunist Commiecrat agenda?
Kate thinks, therefore I h8.
There’s no thinking there, Darth. Just a griefer griefing. Don’t expect logic, arguments, facts or substance. The only intent is to wind you up.
Such opinions serving to shape spontaneous order since such order is predicated on some amount of immigration, legal or otherwise, nonzero or otherwise.
Rather then say “we need”, why don’t you just admit “I’d like more people”.
We don’t need to compensate for any lack. It’s just your preferance we’re discussing here.
RE: your balloon-juice link, there nishi.
So the fact that most militias are made up of populist, protectionist, rural Democrats spouting the same tired, old Fr. Coughlin crap means nothing because only Racist Republicans can’t spell. You guys are fucking brilliant.
I live out here in the boonies, so trust me, militia types aren’t big fans of the Republicans, Wal-Mart, Free Traders, Catholics, Skull and Bones, Masons or Jews. And all of them vote Democrat. Remember who coined the phrase “New World Order”? You might find it in Wikipedia. You also might find that a lot of the shit leftists spout sounds chapter and verse like the printouts from Stormfront I get shoved in my mailbox every May Day. Just replace the word “Jew” with the word “banker” and the word “communist” with the word “Republican”. You can leave the word “worker” right where it is.
Let me ask, for the consideration of all:
What is the root of all difference between the United States of America, and Mexico, or the United Kingdom, or Russia, or Zimbabwe?
It would be so fitting if Nishi was assaulted and worse by the illegals she is so eager to import. It would teach her the origins of the term “machismo”.
I am going to lala Cobra for now cause youtubes are blocked here
hah! it says that has Leighton Meester in it!! I loved her since Surface
I am doom and gloom cause we are doomed and it is gloomy.
You are a half-assed curmudgeon I think.
“Reading this post right after the one above, “Getting What You Paid For”, should make one possible approach apparent. Just point out who is working the jobs the 19% of black men don’t have. Point out who is competing with black citizens for unemployment and welfare benefits.”
This sounds like a winner. Sure to make you lots of friends.
Nishi’s not eager for anything. She’s bored. So she thinks the highest calling is to shake shit up and see what happens.
Only the world isn’t her personal snow globe. Which one day Nishi will learn, when things don’t settle down all nice and “goodly” as they were before the shaking.
You say this like you’re hoping to fill a dance card.
Incidentally, I’m all for increased immigration. But it should be accompanied by an adherence to law. If you aren’t going to follow the laws you have on the books, have the balls to do away with them. Otherwise, don’t accuse those who want them followed of anything other than wanting them followed.
Immigrants from Mexico are of better character than most Americans I think. They help each other more better than Americans, particularly white trash Americans, and they’re much braver than Americans. Up and moving like that and all.
Americans wouldn’t immigrate anywhere ever unless there was a FREE MONEY government program what sent a moving crew to move their lazy fat indebted asses. Americans on balance are scared scared scared of life unless the government holds their hand and promises to wipe their lazy coward asses for them.
Wretched refuse indeed.
I’m having trouble communicating how disgusted I am with our little country.
Mr. Happyfeet is one of our best customers.
feets: Desperate poverty breeds desperate courage. I don’t think that comparing the characters of Mexicans and Americans can be so broadly brushed.
Or … are they cowardly for fleeing their poverty rather than digging in and making a go of it? You see what I did there? Changed the narrative into another generalization that, inevitably, will have me branded a racist.
Well, branding or no, I’m with you in that the law should be enforced and the border closed. Once done, then the entire immigration system should be overhauled. Secure borders first.
As written by the grandson of immigrants times four, who came to this country legally and earned their citizenship. Don’t hate the messenger.
this is innovative so you know it wasn’t made by dumb-ass loser Americans who would have made it for sure except there were liability concerns plus they weren’t sure if the r&d tax credit was going to expire plus it would have been a lot of work and American Idol was on
If you read Levin, he’ll tell you that such is precisely the sentiment that the left uses to animate reform — this idea of the noble savage, that immigrants are somehow superior to citizens, harder working, more spiritual, braver, etc. Which makes the lazy lessers plans to keep them out immoral and greedy.
I love immigrants legal ones and the ones that are just happy to be here even if they can’t get all the paperwork done.
This is why there needs to be a wall. To protect America from people like me.
I’ve emigrated and immigrated so many times, I’ve lost count.
They are of better character Mr. Jeff. They’re not all about voting themselves other people’s money. That’s what piece of shit Americans do, and they are the backbone of our little country, those ones.
Michelle Obama will be whuppin’ your ass for that paean to obesity and sloth, feets.
You may like it but I doubt it.
Is a two generations removed from immigration Portuguese person a noble savage and, if so, where do I get the ceremonial headgear?
They vote overwhelmingly Democrat.
Strange way to show you aren’t all about voting yourself other people’s money — given that Democrats these days are social democrats, not actual liberals.
Is a two generations removed from immigration Portuguese person a noble savage…
How brown is your skin, BJ? That’s the deciding factor the proggs use to decide your noble or eeeeevil raaaaacist status.
America use to have an economy that could absorb ginormous oodles of immigrants. Those days are gone. But is the answer to crack down on immigrants? I don’t think so. America’s destiny is to become a hovel state that no one in their right mind would want to immigrate to, and we’re making tremendous strides every day.
no Mr. BJ, you are letting Mr. Jeff frame the discussion… which is ok but I usually come out looking bad when that happens. Specially lately.
Don’t mess with the Braceros – shoot the unions.
Incidentally, I’m all for increased immigration
Sorry, Jeff, but no. Certain categories of *legal* immigration are grossly abused.
1. “Refugee” status. Has been abused too often and the people who use it tend to become welfare junkies. Look up the Hmong people for a very sharp case in point. Sure from 1975-1990 they could claim justifiable persecution from the communists. But today, the Soviet empire is gone and Vietnam and Laos are trying to curry favor with the West. And even our vets are returning there for visits.
2. Family immigration “daisy chains”. The result here was bringing in Grandma and Grandpa to get on SSI.
3. H-1B visas. Indentured servants for the tech industry, and sometimes it does not stop there. These are the least objectionable because they are skilled and English speaking. However, if you are an American student who studied your engineering and programming hard and played by the rules, doesn’t it just annoy you that your hard work was just devalued? And they want American kids to work and study hard? When something pays less, you get less of it.
4. The “diversity lottery”. This asinine program does not select immigrants on the basis of skills or even family reunification, but on the utterly false premise that “Diversity is Strength” (War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery). It also treats US citizenship like it is a lotto prize.
And frankly, culture ad especially language does matter, immgrants from cultures more similar to ours, and already speaking the language, are a better pick, given that we just can’t open the flood gates to anybody.
*used* to have an economy I mean…
I remember they gave us monies for so we could get a new tv set-top box for so our watching tv wouldn’t get interrupted.
That was an apex of something. Definitely.
If you read Levin, he’ll tell you that such is precisely the sentiment that the left uses to animate reform — this idea of the noble savage, that immigrants are somehow superior to citizens, harder working, more spiritual, braver, etc. Which makes the lazy lessers plans to keep them out immoral and greedy.
Like I said, immigration romantics.
feets: Is La Raza about character? Last I checked they were muy, muy into the entitlements and the instant amnesty and the health care and the Social Security.
That broadest of brush does not speak well of you.
They’re not all about voting themselves other people’s money….
Yet.
You just don’t get it, do you? Import an underclass of people predisposed to “la mordida” corrupt government, and they vote Commiecrat. This explains what happened to California and what is happening to the rest of the Western states.
Abusing legal immigration is quite different than ignoring the law. We have plenty of room for legal immigration. What we can’t absorb is all the illegals, mostly coming from the same place, mostly providing the same set of workforce skills.
happy — I’m not trying to make you look bad. I’m honestly trying to have a discussion, and I think that you and Nishi have a valid strategic point. I’m wondering how best to negotiate it is all.
If you want me not to address myself to you that’s fine.
La Raza is a goofy fringe group BJ. Like these ones which are even worser. And they will both have an important role to play in the dismantling of our once-proud and prosperous little country.
Mr. Jeff I think the answer is simple.
plus they weren’t sure if the r&d tax credit was going to expire
Well, why should they, if they are only going to be punished for it? Even the Eurotrash have low corporate tax rates, no matter how outrageous their personal ones are. Do you not get this?
La Raza is a goofy fringe group BJ. Like these ones which are even worser. And they will both have an important role to play in the dismantling of our once-proud and prosperous little country.
Gee, how about not importing more foot soldiers for them? And given the disgusting “identity politics”, foot soldiers they will be. Do you not get this either?
So we put them on unemployment and Obamacare and wonder who they will vote for. Great plan for team R, there, hf.
So articulate it then, happyfeet.
Team R has to focus like a laser on the idea of fiscal responsibility. If they want to yammer about immigrants they need to do it through a lens of fiscal responsibility. If they want to yammer about health care they need to do it through a lens of fiscal responsibility.
If an issue arises what they cannot address through a lens of fiscal responsibility, then this issue is a Cunning Trick and they should ignore it.
I sorta agree with that, ‘feets.
What to do?
The answer is simple. Make the border real.
1) Increase the depth and the flow of the Rio Grande.
2) Take a page from the Israelis and build a double wall.
Walls work. None of this “virtual wall” bupkis, but an honest to god double wall, anchored to a 10-15′ depth with a road in between. On certain day, drive a large, heavy vehicle down that road to collapse any tunneling efforts.
That clears up the Mexican border.
Now, for the other half of the problem, simply make it ruinously expensive to hire an illegal. High fines levied on a per-instance basis would probably do the trick…
As for accusations of nativism, take a page from the liberal play-book and high-light the criminality of illegal immigrants, the more lurid, the better — if it bleeds, it leads. Rub the bastards noses into what their policies have wrought and will continue to inflict on the law-abiding citizens and legal immigrants of the United States.
The part I don’t agree with is the Cunning Trick part. Some issues simply aren’t economic. They’re not all carefully crafted plots from super intelligent Dem strategists.
“Team R has to focus like a laser on the idea of fiscal responsibility. If they want to yammer about immigrants they need to do it through a lens of fiscal responsibility.”
Gee, from Pete Wilson (1994) forward, that is exactly what so many of them have done, only to be smeared anyway. Just like Charlie Rangel said, the New Klan talks about cutting taxes.
You. Still. Just. Don’t. Get. It.
So how fiscally responsible is it to grant “amnesty” to millions of people we don’t have jobs for?
As for accusations of nativism, take a page from the liberal play-book and high-light the criminality of illegal immigrants, the more lurid, the better — if it bleeds, it leads. Rub the bastards noses into what their policies have wrought and will continue to inflict on the law-abiding citizens and legal immigrants of the United States.
Well said. However, the lamestream media self-censors all this, so we will need another network (maybe Dobbs can start one). It is amazing to see here in California how quickly a local story about a murderer or rapist disappears when it turns out he’s an illegal alien.
#137 works for me. I don’t want any other issue to overwhelm fiscal responsibility. Anybody who’s talking about spending government money to fund some social program cost effectively (I’m looking at you, Mitt! You too, Huckabee!) is tossed into the crap can. Period.
I am so done with compassionate conservatism while our country goes broke. I’d like to see more of Paul Ryan saying, plainly, that Medicare is “broke” and the courage of a Chris Christy to say “this is all the money we have so there are going to be some very painful cuts.”
Everyone else can just shut the hell up.
#139 works for me too.
Mr. bh in the near term – 2010 & 2012 -there simply aren’t any salient issues apart from fiscal responsibility. Our little country is fast fast fast losing the luxury of issues that don’t involve debt servicing.
help us Paul Ryan you’re our only hope
No, there is one other…
I’m thinking specifically about national security issues, ‘feets. Other than that though, yeah, if we don’t get a handle on the economy and the budget, game over.
While we’re at it, put paid to this sort of foolishness…
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14833731
that’s a good point but it’s hard to explain why defense monies need to be spent… better to focus like laser and etc I think
Immigrants from Mexico are of better character than most Americans I think. They help each other more better than Americans, particularly white trash Americans, and they’re much braver than Americans. Up and moving like that and all.
Broad based statement that is generally insulting to those who would read it. Yeah, it’s a wonder that people are giving you so much shit lately. A real head scratcher.
Ants find the sugar. It is a lot easier to just clean up the sugar than try to ant proof the house.
Without A border wall, more enforcement, means hiring more public servants to enforce, more money required to pay enforcement, higher taxes to businesses for enforcement, less profit because of higher taxes, lower starting wage, fewer candidates for lower paying job because of higher taxes, more illegals to fill lower paying jobs, dog chasing tail. Build the fence first.
When there is a hole in a boat, does it make sense to bail out water without fixing the leak? That is what is being done when we surrender on building the great wall/fence border security and focus on internal enforcement.
Building a wall reduces the flow, which in turn allows enforcement to be less overwhelmed and have a more focused effort.
Pet peeve: lasers focus in pretty much the same way that any other light-emitters do: with lenses.
I think you slight the character of the immigrants. They really are good people, and Americans really are a slovenly and helpless and stupid lot. Ask anyone in Europe.
lasers were the future
Find me a people across the vast sweep of history what have pissed away as much as you Americans have, and so cheaply. And so fast.
your government is a fucking car dealership for Christ’s sake
Sure, hf… never mind they’re (illegal immigrants) pretty much definitively breaking the law by being here… a goodly percentage are evading taxes while consuming public goods… then there’s the felons — the drug dealers, the murderers, the rapists…
Do not conflate illegal immigrants with legal immigrants — apples and lemons.
No, hf, merely the president is a blow-up doll for the UAW… not quite the same thing.
No I get it, hf. Americans suck. Everyone else is good, noble and pure of heart.
Like you wouldn’t do it Mr. Cthulu. You’d be over that river faster than you could figure out how to say Jason Mraz’s last name I think. The vast majority of Americans would be there lickety split if they thought there was FREE GOVERNMENT MONEY waiting.
You pathetic Americans let your government write you a check for trading in your car. You let your government bribe you into buying a house. A dim and sheeplike people you are become.
Losers.
Sure… just ask the Swedes about the Arab immigrants in Malmo… or how about the Chechen’s about the Russians (or the Russians about the Chechens, come to think of it…)
we were opposed to be better than that Mr. Cthulhu.
Fail.
Losers.
Only 52%, happy.
“You say this like you’re hoping to fill a dance card.”
There is the question of what’s going to get your closer to your goals. That takes convincing people. This one isn’t so much about “getting to yes” as it is about “g etting to self satisfaction.”
“We have plenty of room for legal immigration. What we can’t absorb is all the illegals, mostly coming from the same place, mostly providing the same set of workforce skills.”
What we don’t have are plenty of ways for legal immigration.
Immigrants from Mexico are of better character than most Americans I think.
Living in a bordertown would quickly disabuse you of that notion.
Only 52%, true. But still they are so many.
And they are definitional.
Well the answer is obvious. In order to become good, noble and pure we just need to allow the government to become more corrupt and more inclined to just give shit away to those that want it. Then, when those of us who are currently inclined to be industrious, to have jobs, families, ambitions and goals, can go to some other magical land where WE will be better then THEM. It’s gonna fuckin’ rock dude.
Like you have a choice.
The United States — any nation, in fact, has a legal right to maintain and defend its borders and to regulate immigration.
Illegal immigrants are, by definition, law-breakers. Those who take extra-legal methods to enter the country should be intercepted, given a good meal and put on a bus back to the border. That there are criminals — felons fleeing their criminal records south of the border — makes this worse.
I am willing to compromise — why not let the United States have the same policy positions on illegal immigration that Mexico applies to its southern border.
Sure, I’ll just follow the model of the Mexicans who chose not to stay in their country to fix the problems but decided it was better to just up and move myself to some other place. It’s the way good people do it.
So you can stop fighting happy. The Mexicans are showing you the way.
@fost
As opposed to the suppression of wages caused by the availability of illegal labor to be exploited?
As for “more regulation,” you’re wrong — it would merely be enforcing the current labor law — you are aware that one has to demonstrate one’s eligibility to work (i.e. be a citizen or a green-card holder) to be legally employed in the US?
I’m curious though. If an American national gives a job to an illegal Mexican immigrant, does the nobility of the Mexican rub off on him, or is the taint of slovenly permanent and intractable?
speaking of Cthulhu
@Makewi
Actually, the Mexican take a dim view of illegal migrants entering their nation via its Southern border.
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p17844.xml
Mr. Makewi I’m sorry you live in a laughable dirty socialist cesspool but it’s not my fault. I tried to stop it.
I tried really hard.
“As opposed to the suppression of wages caused by the availability of illegal labor to be exploited?”
If there is to be suppression, I prefer that the suppression of wages be caused by the availability of legal labor in the free market.
Dread
Yep. As it happens I have in laws that are Mexicans. They actually live, own property and a business in Mexico City. I am not at all unfamiliar with issues regarding Mexico and Mexicans, nor am I easily distracted by the crap happy is currently trying to peddle.
And you still think that you’re so it
Cause you know so and so, and you made a hit
But you can’t hear it being played
Cause you my friend have had your day
“As for “more regulation,” you’re wrong — it would merely be enforcing the current labor law — you are aware that one has to demonstrate one’s eligibility to work (i.e. be a citizen or a green-card holder) to be legally employed in the US?”
I think you know what I mean. Increasing enforcement increases the impact of existing regulation. But proposals aren’t just to increase enforcement.
@ fost
Ah, but that’s not suppression. That is the supply of legal labor and the demand for legal labor. The illegal immigrant provides an alternative to legal labor, which some take advantage of because it is cheaper than hiring a citizen or a legal immigrant.
The rational, conservative, fiscally responsible answer is to make that illegal labor too expensive to consider.
Laughably socialist is the default trajectory of humanity. The founders knew this, as has everyone who came after them who has “fought it real hard”. It seems to me that you are fighting this real hard in the same sort of way that the large breasted McCain one is, by pointing out how much Americans in general, and Republicans in specific, suck.
Doesn’t seem like much of a winning strategy to me, but then I’m wrong a lot. So who knows.
Find me a people across the vast sweep of history what have pissed away as much as you Americans have, and so cheaply. And so fast.
It’s as though you’ve never heard of the Fifth Republic, ‘feets.
So more protectionism and more regulations on business? Sounds good!
Well, we could start by simply enforcing the existing laws we have. That requires no new regulation at all. And as an added bonus, if we actually start going after businesses that are hiring illegals, again using existing laws, the jobs for illegals would tend to dry up and they would, for the most part, self-deport themselves. Which pretty much eviscerates the “we can’t deport 20 million illegal!!!” argument.
Our little country pissed away more than the French ever dreamed of I think.
We’re #1!
Mr. Makewi there is no winning. This pitiful little country is ass-raped six ways to Sunday.
Would you like to see a graph?
Unless you set up a guest worker program that will allow the continuation of a cheap labor force to party with a productive class who wants to get shit done for profit, then enforcement is always going to be a joke. Because of the economy and all.
who’s a loser little country?
ooh I know! It’s America!…
hey isn’t that same as where we live?
ohnoes.
Ass rape is worse than normal rape, IMO. Because of the ass part, but also the rape part. I don’t think anyone needs a graph to prove that out.
happyfeet isn’t taking the first reply to this thread very well, I think. He’s renamed all of his turtle friends, I think. The girl ones are called “Surrender” and the boy ones are called “Defeat” now.
You speak as if that graph is etched in stone, happyfeet. Some of us are trying to keep that from happening. We’d like your help, but the keg at your little pity party seems to be bottomless.
A lot of that graph is the ghost of Christmas future. We just need to wake up buy a big assed turkey and get our selves down to Tiny Tim’s house is all.
OTOH, if we really are going down in flames for sure, I’d say it’s way past time for legalizing a bunch of drugs.
it ain’t right, Mr. Makewi
Paul Ryan is hopeful. Paul Ryan’s sensibility is hopeful. But he is too late I think.
Looking at the graph, anyway.
“Racism” is a code word for self-preservation, ie looking out for your own. Our ancestors were mostly right to be wary of outsiders.
Does the leftie not put his own family first in real life? Maybe not.
Mr. Squid I tried to be hopeful and Team R gave me McCain. I tried to be hopeful and Team R gave me Sarah Palin. I tried to be hopeful and Team R gave me Michael Steele.
A little pikachu, he only has him so much hope.
It’s only too late when you’re dead.
When I get down I listen to Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine.” I find it impossible to stay depressed while I’m listening to that song.
Thinking about having it hardwired into my right ear.
Despair is like climbing back into the womb. It’s warm and cuddly and you don’t have to do anything at all. Just float.
Find me a people across the vast sweep of history what have pissed away as much as you Americans have, and so cheaply. And so fast.
You? So you are not one of us?
your government is a fucking car dealership for Christ’s sake
And the Eurotrash did that first. See also
I think you slight the character of the immigrants. They really are good people, and Americans really are a slovenly and helpless and stupid lot. Ask anyone in Europe.
The troll gets tiresome.
#193 Sure, happy, sitting around and wallowing in our inevitable losing-loserness is one option. Or we could maybe try to alter our course so that we DON’T end up on the rocks.
You know who’s trying to do that? Those bitter racist tea-partier persons I’ve been hearing about. Laugh at their grammar and spelling-challenged signs all you want, but at least they’re out there doing SOMETHING.
I have a lot more respect for someone making even a small effort than I do for someone whining “Game over, man. Game over!” to everyone within earshot.
The only way to save America is to watch lame Japanese cartoons and type in 1337-speak.
It’s Bobby McFerrins “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” for me. Spent a month of my post high school graduation summer hanging out in Richmond with the most beautiful southern honey who thought my down from New York ass was the coolest thing ever. That song played on the radio constantly during that time. True story.
We can take back our little country we just have to be plucky!
here is my happy song what makes me happy
Americans really are a slovenly and helpless and stupid lot. Ask anyone in Europe.
I’ll care what Europeans think when they get their own people off the dole and kick out the radical Islamists.
We can take back our little country we just have to be plucky!
People cross the street to avoid the guy waving the “end of the world is near!” sign. Just saying.
‘feets, we started this country to avoid thinking or living like Europeans.
I know that Mr. SDN.
But we failed.
“The rational, conservative, fiscally responsible answer is to make that illegal labor too expensive to consider.”
Or legal — you have no problem with that right? Since you’ve oddly defined that as ‘not suppression.’ Let’s run with that.
Mr. Makewi there’s a wee bit of reality what needs must intrude.
Our seed corn. We ated it.
Failure is a choice, and only 52% of Americans chose failure. The other 48% did not.
If Chrysler is owned by the government, I want my new clutch. 90 thousand people will only have to pay a penny each and it’s paid for. What can be more fair?
Hell — to show what a good sport I am, I’ll even throw in my own penny. So make it 89,999 people.
Not all the seed corn got ate. Some of it was taken from some and given to others who have been using it to make more. When those guys fall asleep we’ll go over there and take it back.
Here’s my happy song.
happyfeet,
I hope that you’re trying to be sardonic, because some of the things you’ve been saying are pretty insulting to the 48% of us who didn’t vote for the socialist that masqueraded as a centrist.
Some love this “little country” so and chose to forego monetary success, the concomitant social status, and years of carefree while and pursuit of pastimes in order to serve her needs. And, regardless of political struggle still believe in American exceptionalism; and that the political “disease” effecting us now can be cured through the efforts of the normally low involvement folks and silent majority that the Tea-Partiers, in large part, represent.
I hope you’re right but you don’t have a graph.
Immigrants from Mexico are of better character than most Americans I think.
Yeah, so strong of character — they leave their homeland to sink into corruption and chaos so they can suck off the labor of Americans.
Fuck you, ‘feets.
I think it’s scary for Americans to contemplate what it means to live in a homeland what is sinking into corruption and chaos and what you do not love or respect.
They’ll need to get over this at some point.
everyday in our little country the ass-raping commences afresh
our little country has sided with tyranny in Honduras
our little country has taken a shit on our Israeli allies
our British allies, our Indian allies
our little country has subjugated its people in service of a dirty socialist redistribution scheme under cover of “health care reform”
our little country is thieving
our little country is weak
Hi chickens you must be very thirsty.
the black precedent’s greed ruins a country in need
RomneyPawlentyPalin!
it all looks so good I can’t decide
ok that failed again
Addressing this to no one in particular – dammit folks, it was over roughly a hundred years ago. When exactly do we realize the the finest Cloward-Piven ever devised was the Wilson-era federal reserve act on which was piled an arsenal of statist tools that brought us through the Roosevelt era, the Social Security era, the welfare-era, the entitlement era, the Democrat era right to the fucking State era State.
Did we think we’d put a solid debate on the table now about what happened that our grandparents didn’t stop then.
It really is all about the economy. And we can’t mount as much as five percent of the debate we’d need to change that fucker. Not the way the piece of shit is configured.
We’ll be serious when we figure out how to unshackle ourselves. We have no idea.
And I think ‘feets and JG are both right. How that works I don’t know.
Sorry, a bit late, but it needs to be said.
Rather then say “we need”, why don’t you just admit “I’d like more people”.
How’s about you not fucking presume to tell me the appropriate method for expressing my opinions?
Capice?
They are of better character Mr. Jeff. They’re not all about voting themselves other people’s money. That’s what piece of shit Americans do, and they are the backbone of our little country, those ones.
Are you kidding me?
Take a look at Mexico.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=la+mordida&form=QBRE&qs=HS&sk=&pq=la+mord&sp=1&sc=1-7
Pet peeve: lasers focus in pretty much the same way that any other light-emitters do: with lenses.
I think Happy got that from Michael Medved.
Way too much Medved, happy. Try Limbaugh.
How’s about you not fucking presume to tell me the appropriate method for expressing my opinions?
What happened to the free country?
What, only you get an opinion?
No, no thanks.
hi Entropy I don’t know you very well. What I mean is the ones what come here are escaping the corruptions. They want no part of it, meaning.
Hey have you seen Sleep Dealer?
link success!
JHo is right. This long steady precipitous decline started with a Republican “progressive” in Roosevelt. Sure, JHo started with Wilson, but Teddy planted the “progressive” seed.
Happyfeet, I’m not sure what your end game is here, but the forlorn stuff is just a little over the top. I, also think you’re not thinking some comments through, such as the “Immigrants from Mexico are of better character than most Americans I think” comment. Gross generalizations are the province of the simple mind. I don’t think that really befits you. Your nishi hardon notwithstanding. Those immigrants, as Jeff and others have alluded to, vote democrat mostly. Why do you suppose that is? Human nature seems to be to take the path of least resistance. Well, immigrants are human. If we can educate them in the beauty and righteousness of liberty and freedom, then that is great. I’m not so sure you’ve espoused doing just that. You’ve kind of emoted.
I have no end game. Go back and read from before the dirty socialist ascension. Read what I wrote. It wasn’t over the top it was … apt I think.
And they are apt today, the comments I comment I think.
Voting democrat doesn’t make people bad people Mr. OI. There certainly was no virtue in voting for Meghan’s daddy. Me at least I felt sullied.
But if there is hope it will require vast numbers of people logging onto wakethefuckup.com and realizing that what is happening is surpassingly dire to where dire is a wholly inadequate word.
We’ve been been lied to. We were told we lived in a free country. A prosperous country. A good country. They taught us songs to sing. But God, his grace upon us he sheds no longer, and round the decay of the colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away I think.
There is no way to win if you will not join the battle. Fight them on immigration or lose.
Do the Yankees (how appropo is that?) worry about being offensive when they drub some secong tier team with a box of cancelled checks?
In a word: No.
Gird. Your. Loins.
Just making them defend amnesty is death for the Democrats. They are teetering on the edge of havind everyone hate them, Ev-er-e-won.
But more to the point Mr. OI, immigrants bless their hearts but they are flipping irrelevant to the very pressing challenges our little country is facing and actually it’s a little discomfiting to see scapegoateyness flourish in our little country midst these perilous times of decay and decline.
People are gonna get hurt.
Racist!!!! Not directed at one person, just a general “racist” to clear the pallet.
speak and read only spanish. trapped into spanish ghetto that has la raza as their spokesthing. go figure. maybe the stupid party should have some spanish speaking propaganda.
The ones who control the Democrats and currently run 2 of the 3 branches of our Government are also “a goofy fringe group“. One which is finally being exposed for the goofy shits they are to many who thought them otherwise. They, the “goofy fringe group” are the “little country” in #225. America is a Big Country under the thumb of some shitty little goofy fringe types, for now.
But God, his grace upon us he sheds no longer, and round the decay of the colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away I think.
Phelps would say this is because of the homos. Also lady Gaga.
Lady Gaga is odd. But I somehow like the music.
For the record, I don’t think it is because of the homos. Or lady Gaga.
lady gaga is very America I think
The Fame is a damn good record. Also that Beyonce one is good. I think the Grammy’s get a lot right, or at least mostly right.
Beyonce is a good Texas girl She works hard and is very pretty.
I am on a Kings of Leon kick, again.
Beyonce just released the first track on her album as a single, which is the one I thought should have been the first single. Which made me feel very Simon Cowellish. Only less British.
She is very pretty. Nice voice too.
Kings of Leon made enough money on that one to buy the world I think. Which is right and proper seeing as it is pretty awesome.
The Grammy nominees are mostly like a shopping list for me. Adele’s 19 and Maxwell’s Black Summer’s Night are both very good IMO. Also the Black Eyed Peas mostly always kick some musical ass, which they did again. I also found Dave Matthew’s one pretty not bad, despite my not being a fan of that particular dirty hippy for the last few albums. Haven’t gotten around to Pink yet, but she’s on my list.
geoff the people what control the democrats have made of our little country a beggar nation… a nation of hapless mendicants dependent on government for health and happiness and cheese…
There’s not an app for that.
Oh, Don’t know how I left Taylor Swift off that list. Good stuff that. Her first one too, if you’re into country at all. Which I am.
I tried to learn to appreciate Taylor Swift.
I really did. Her and Colbie Caillat.
Ack.
I tried.
My daughter listens to nothing but Taylor Swift, Hannah/Mylie, and High School Musical 1-3. I have a perpetual headache.
This song is very soothing for moments of great calamity and despair. If I ever own an opium den (fingers crossed!) I’d put it on heavy rotation.
To each his own. For my money “Love Story” was one of the better singles from last year. I’m still not sick of it.
Colbie Caillat works more in the Tammi Terrel type position. Which isn’t a bad place to be for her.
I will try that one.
oh. Love Story I tried that one already.
And these are smilemakers. One and two.
I’m trying your twangy twangy one right now bh.
Skipping to the smiley ones.
I like that one but one and two are same same.
The videos are different.
“…immigrants bless their hearts but they are flipping irrelevant to the very pressing challenges our little country is facing…”
In a macro sense you may be right happyfeet,
But if the Democrats are going to make this an issue, and put in public play-politically speaking, then a stand has to be made; a stand based on principle, not optics.
I tend to agree with some of the other commenters on this thread; the Democrats would be insane to bring up an issue like this, one that’s unpopular with the vast majority of Americans, right after the kamikaze Obamacare vote. And if they do, so be it…
In addition to the underlying principle of obeying the laws of the land, there are real economic ramifications that would resonate with the public especially effectively with unemployment like it is now.
What’s important when opposing it is to make a point of being outspoken in support of legal immigration, securing the borders, the cost to the entitlement systems that these new citizens will impose, and the rate at which the economy could absorb the immigrants as well as the rate which they could assimilate into American society.
Someone linked these guys in the pub a month or so ago. They are smile worthy, I think. I’ll try to find the “Dream On” thing they did with a heaping helping of Supertramp.
screw feet zono, dance bitch
oh I saw that
here I am kind of listening to… I didn’t like it at first but then the girl starts singing and she has this line…
young love never seems to last
hearts are young until they have a past
I thought that was charming.
Sweet. Here it is.
*hic*
I just don’t agree Bob. Immigration is not a win for Team R.
And whipping up economic resentment against illegal immigrants is not keeping the eye on the fiscal responsibility ball I don’t think.
Team R does not have the leadership skills to craft a united front on immigration, and this issue will prove highly damaging I think.
Plus also Michelle Malkin will be hoarse cause she’ll shriek her fool head off.
Happyfeet, I never said or implied that people, immigrants or not, who vote for democrats are bad. However, as you know and have expressed yourself, voting yourself free shit, which is basically the promise of the modern democratic party is leacherous. The ethnicity of the group doing that is not important at all. Immigration seemed to be where the conversation drifted so I commented on it.
As for tough music to swallow, have a pre teen girl who is in love with Justin Bieber. If I hear “Baby, Baby” one more time, my head is going to explode.
you are right you did not say that
Those crack me up, Hadlowe.
That’s a visually fun video, ‘feets. I want that director to make a movie now. Hey, were you the one who linked the General Electriks awhile back? I’ve been listened to them a lot since.
Friends of Dean play George’s Summertime, so till that morning there’s a’nothing can harm you with daddy and mamma standin by.
yes! I added GEs to my lala so I listen to them at work a lot…
my new band is Young Love though
they are goofs but very sincere
Btw, to cleanse my palate after being subjected to the aforementioned Justin bieber, I’ve been listening to this little group called Dashboard Saviors. B Moe (I’f you’re out there) you guys were/are very good. Props. All mad and like.
If I have kids I’m hoping they’re born deaf.
Calexico got shook up by that quake last week.
Check out the comments to that video. They’re arguing about whether or not the lead singer is Michael Cera. lol
poor guy
he did this and it was a choice he made to do that
just choice was supposed to be italicky
Los Super Seven haz a Margarita. Tasty.
Yeah, deviation of any sort means absolute ruin.
And to think, I had a golf outing planned for 2024.
You guys are KILLING me with the music tonight.
[puts on some Tool to drown out thoughts of Kings of Leon]
El Picador, he’s the stabby one.
He won me over when he high-fived the guitar playing gorilla.
Gorilla?! ZOMFG you vile RACIST !!!!!!!!!
that’s not sourced easy
There’s no tortillas, there’s only bread. But tacos for two, s’ok.
that is a yellow room
you don’t like conservative woman.
If you don’t the graph I linked is accurate, pick a year from 1930 onward, find out the GDP, then compare it to the graph I linked.
Based on my knowledge it is accurate and telling.
Happy, go here. You can input whatever countries you like, then compare their GDP to America’s and the world. It’s real interactive and fun-like.
Check out India and China combined to compared to our, er, I guess my, little country’s.
That’s lots of billions of people compared to our little 300+ million.
Re-legitimize National Sovereignty. After all, respect for multicultural diversity demands it.
More seriously, the electorate should be reminded the the citizens of a nation have the right to determine immigration policy without regard for foreign opinion. The U.S. could, by electing given Congresses, ban immigration or completely open the borders, and no one’s rights would be violated.
Easyliving1,
Re China and India.
This fascinating TEDTalks video gives some temporal context:
Hans Rosling’s talk on Asia’s rise. How and When?
I’d also recommend this one:
Let my dataset change your mindset.
Purely for context. I favor tightly-controlled immigration policies for Western countries. The world is far, far bigger than we are. We cannot absorb more than a tiny part of it. Much better to invest there. And as the charts show, it’s working.
tightly controlled sounds scary how you say it.
ok that was fun easy but it’s still dire, what is happening.
We could all die.
fatty fat dirty socialist stealing our money. mexicans go home and start a revolution a la american. si asshats!
mexicans are our friends they help us in many ways
bienvenidos amigos!
here is the twirliest mexican in the whole world of mexicans
They are of better character Mr. Jeff. They’re not all about voting themselves other people’s money.
¿De veras, ‘feets? ¿Y cómo sabes tanto del caracter de los imigrantes latinos? Porque yo los conozco, y sé que no les da vergüenza vivir como dependientes del gobierno para nada. No tienen en su historía una época en que el honor exijía que no se aceptara la caridad. No tiene la herencia de la ética protestante del trabajo.
No son de mejor carácter que nosotros, ‘feets. Algunos son de carácter excelente; otros son mediocres y otros son vagos y degenerados.
Es una locura romantizar a la gente de otros países para evitar la mancha del racismo. La gente es la gente.
Además, hay muchos mejicanos que creen que tienen el derecho de ocupar la tierra que les “robamos” en 1848; por eso, no les importa que hayan violado las leyes. Los no bien educados son muy supersticiosos y creen en una cantidad de mentiras y disparates.
Sé que tú has conocido varios imigrantes de carácter impresionante; pero sólo sabes que lo son porque has podido hablar con ellos: aprendieron inglés. Los tontos y imbéciles no aprenden inglés, entonces no puedes saber cuán tontos son.
Yo sí. Yo sé lo que digo. Tengo la experiencia de comunicarme con ellos por muchos años.
i cannot unnerstan the words what are coming out of your mouf
they do not have a protestant work ethic
so?
I don’t think they’re anymore government-dependent than Americans.
Americans are very very dependent on government. They’re feeble and helpless without government’s steady guiding hand.
some are nice and some are not nice… ok the not nice ones we can shoot in the cabeza
la gente!! I has a song! brb
para mi gente
it has peewee in it is how I know it cause peewee is too cool for escuela
I hope you’re right but you don’t have a graph.
Wanna bet?
my friend D money will love that
I don’t think they’re anymore government-dependent than Americans.
(a) They will all hasten to remind you that they’re Americans too, three entire continents having been named “America.” That we don’t have a adjective to describe ourselves is not their problem.
(b) Immigrants are nearly twice as likely to be on welfare as natives, and the annual cost of public benefits to recent immigrants is estimated at $75 billion a year.*
(c) Perhaps you can see what immigration, legal and non, has done to California.
(d) Facing reality about dollars and cents and closed emergency departments and obstetrics services and floundering schools isn’t racist; it’s prudent.
Immigrants are nearly twice as likely to be on welfare as natives
italics hate me
Translation of my #301:
Really, ‘feets? And how is it you know so much about the character of Latino immigrants? Because I know them, and I know that they have no shame at all about being dependent on the government. In their history, they don’t have an epoch in which honor demanded that you not accept charity. They didn’t inherit the Protestant work ethic.
They’re of no better character than we are, ‘feets. Some have excelent charater, others are mediocre, and others are slackers and degenerates.
It’s insane to romanticize people from other countries to avoid the stain of racism. People are people.
Besides, there are a lot of Mexicans who believe they have the right to occupy the land that we “stole” from them in 1848; therefore, they don’t care if they’ve violated our laws. The uneducated are very supersticious and they believe in a lot of lies and stupidities.
I know that you have known several impressive immigrants, but you only know that they’re impressive because you can speak with them: they learned English. The idiots and morons don’t learn English, so you don’t know how stupid they are.
I do. I know what I’m talking about. I have the experience of communicating with them for many years.
I know the immigrants cause of I am from the South Texas! I used to work a lot with them cause of we hired lots of illegals! My dad did. For work crews. Illegals and some not illegals and black people and Chuck. Chuck was white.
And they did a lot of business with us. The illegal immigrants gave us many monies really. My dad they knew they could trust him and he would treat them fair.
And then the 80s came and the recession and so dad started a different business. And lots of the mexicans were citizens now and so they still gave him monies.
I remember my cleaning lady one summer I helped her study for the test for so she could be an American like me. Then a few years later when I came home from college with friends this little mexican lady barreled out of a car in Waco and hugged me to pieces.
And then the place what sells the colima dogs. I have lots of stories.
I love the hispanic peoples.
My dad’s foreman was his dad’s foreman and he was a black man what went by his initials. We never knew what they stood for. He had gotten his head beat with racism when he was younger so the one eye kind of was messed up and wouldn’t look where the other eye was looking.
He died while mom and dad were in Spain. So me and grandma and my little brother went out to the unincorporated town where he lived and that was the only black funeral I ever went to with the beautiful hats and the singing.
My grandmother was the awesomest lady.
Anyway. Our relationship with this guy was of another era. So hard to explain and you don’t really want to try. It had to do with loyalty is all I know.
We knew dad was still looking after the widow when he died but nobody knew where she was and mom asked and asked but couldn’t find her. I always thought that was desperately sad that she couldn’t find her.
homesick now thanks di
Immigrants are nearly twice as likely to be on welfare as natives
that’s mostly cause they’re poor I think.
That’s a tautology, ‘feets, and you just contradicted yourself. You asserted that they’re no more likely to be dependent on the government as we are, and I just showed you that they’re on welfare at double the rate.
If they’re of such excellent character, why are they living on money that someone else earned and that they obtained using forged papers and bribes?
La mordida, the bribe, is SOP in Mexico. Everyone from el Presidente to the lowest cop will ask for and accept a bribe—not because they need it, but because you’re a sucker if you don’t do what everyone else is.
What, you think they come here and magically stop being corrupt? Those who aren’t had character before they got here, and I’m very glad to have them.
They’ve got some other unsavory cultural habits that I’d rather not see taking root in my little country:
• Informal bigamy
• Wife abuse and other machismo
• Echando piropos, the infuriating habit of men to mutter crap under their breaths when they pass women on the street. This also extends to bus groping and other sexist behavior. I nearly decked several of them in Colombia.
• Class consciousness and yes, racism
• The aforementioned casual attitude about rule of law
• Lack of emphasis on education
• Little to no discipline of their children
• The male habit of taking a leak wherever they happen to be
• The morbid fascination with car wrecks; their tabloids have either naked women or horrific gore; they have no problem with interviewing people from their hospital beds, the more tubes and bandages the better.
• Superstition out the wazoo. Just try convincing them that immersing warm hands in cold water doesn’t cause arthritis.
Lest you think I hate them or whatever, I’ll list their virtues:
• They’re very extroverted and welcoming to people they don’t know. We warm up to strangers gradually; they start from the assumption that you’re grand friends. However, this openness leaves them vulnerable to hurt, and they’re easily offended (for real, not as a pose).
• They’re more neighborly, probably because the warm weather of their homelands permitted them to spend the evenings sitting in front of their houses, watching the people who were out for a walk, saying adios and que hubo and all that.
• They don’t have much concept of privacy, which is how they can live all crowded together, three families or more to a house.
• They’re more formal when it comes to rites and expressions of courtesy.
• They will privilege relationships over “getting things done.” If you need to talk and they have somewhere to be, they’ll stop to talk, schedule be damned.
• I asked a Guatemalan what she found the hardest to get used to here, and she said it killed her that you have to make an appointment to visit a friend. Latinos are used to dropping in unannounced whenever they want, and nobody minds.
• They are deeply spiritual, often having dreams where God or Jesus speaks with them, or even where they see the future. For real, I mean. I’ve seen it.
• They’re very sentimental, meaning on the one hand that they go for what we consider to be tacky schlock, and on the other hand they are very open emotionally, not leaving you guessing about what they feel.
OK?
I like Latinos too, ‘feets. How can you live among them, speak their language, eat their food, wear their cloths, get bit by their fleas, and listen to their music, and not like them? They’re a delightful people.
But please think of the inverse. What if after our stupid country collapses we start surging over their border, squatting in shantytowns on the outside of their cities, refusing to learn Spanish, taking advantage of their tendency to defer to the lighter-skinned among them to manipulate them into giving us the farm?
Tsk tsk.
you’re conflating welfare with government dependence… I think it’s more complicated
but overall I see what your saying
Plainly speaking, I just think if our little country is going to be an oppressive embarrassing dirty socialist shit-hole anyway then what do a few immigrants matter?
They’ll figure it out before we do I bet, that we’re a lost cause. At least they have a home to go back to.
you make me want to visit guatemala
Do you know, that if all the people of the Americas formed a loose economic union, comparable to an earlier stage of the EU say, that the total population would reach around 1.2 Billion or so, by about mid-century.
That would make it an economic unit of comparable size to India or China.
What could possibly go wrong?
then we could eat all the potatoes
JD,
What could possibly go wrong?
No safe paths into the future there are, only different kinds of dangers.
Which country gets to play Greece? Maybe that’ll be us.
Seriously though, there’s no way to project what economies will look like that far out. Simply impossible. Get the growth rate wrong by just a percentage point or two and over 40 years you’re looking at two drastically different outcomes.
Further, is it really a goal to be a larger economic entity than a smaller one for its own sake? Citizens would more rationally care more about per capita income than any aggregate. If it’s a matter of “oh no, others will grow” to our size, that’s an odd concern. Foreign nations with higher GDP’s are good for everyone. People don’t take their new wealth and hide it in their mattresses, they buy things or invest.
There are countries with high per capita income levels and low GDPs and there are countries with low per capita income levels and high GDPs. Which would you prefer to live in?
Which would you prefer to live in?
Me? I will be safely dead by then.
bh – This one, like all of the others, does not actually engage.
Or, let’s look at it another way. Let’s say adding an easy $100 billion in our combined GDP could be accomplished by simply adding a new country. But, by adding that country to the collective you just tilted the political scales away from growth oriented policies and towards stagnant statism. In that case, the short term GDP bump would come with a huge price tag.
That’s ‘cos it’s not my problem JD.
I put it out there to see your reactions. Then I feed the data into my mental models.
Then what is the point of your inanity babbling?
we must have added Cuba last year sometime
Well, I just added to my mental model the possibility that you might consider it feasible to project extremely complex systems 40 yrs into the future, Keid A.
And, yes, ‘feets, we’ve apparently just added Cuba and Venezuela.
Okay, later, guys.
What was inane?
You can see the population models here.
I guess Humanity is my passion.
I believe in nothing higher.
The best Cubans are already in Florida.
Sorry folks, I’m resigning from the Staunch Party.
Good luck.
The best Cubans are already in Florida.
Oh, not all of them, Mike.
What was inane?
Yeah! I’m having Soylent Green for breakfast today, myself.
Do you really not see the parallels between the overblown “population explosion” models of the 70s and the overblown “global warming” models of today?
The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer.
Hint: that didn’t happen.
Well, I know that it’s far, far bigger than I am. I also know that some people think the world is spherical but it’s really a lumpy ellipsoid. The world is also daily stretched out because it rotates in the presence of the moon’s and the sun’s gravitational field gradient.
Plus a whole lot of other cool, irrelevantly true stuff about the world. But I’ll share if anyone is interested.
Also, if we took the Earth and Venus and maybe Mars and smashed them together, we’d still be smaller than Jupiter. Wierd, huh?
Yes. Those have us passing 7b around last week. They’re about 300 million off. They’re off by a good chunk of the US population.
I think it’s still a problem, though. The AGW crowd don’t even bother addressing population reduction as a solution to their problem, which is weird because the fewer the people, the lower the consumption.
Oh. Maybe 2 years from now, instead. Not enough coffee yet.
Barbed wire fences like the ones in “The Great Escape”. Like that really exist between Switzerland and France and then everyone that wants to come in gets a motorcycle to use and if they can sucessfully jump the fence like Steve McQuenn almost did in the aforementioned movie they’re in. They can stay. Ta da!
“Americans on balance are scared scared scared of life unless the government holds their hand and promises to wipe their lazy coward asses for them.”
That and the crap about Mexicans being better character than Americans makes me a bit cranky.
I wish you could meet about a million of my close friends in the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard. We don’t really need anyone to hold our hands or wipe anything. I’ll stick my DD214 in the mail to ya if you’d like proof, in my case at least. You can look in the Citations category.
The years I spent as head of the Kane County SAO Domestic Violence division, Aurora, IL branch court and as part of the Child Advocacy Center did much to disabuse me of the Noble Savage view you seem to have of those that come here from South of the Border.
I guess Humanity is my passion. I believe in nothing higher.
Aim high, brothah! Millenia of oppression, cruelty, injustice, slaughter, bigotry, and genocide, but we gave women the vote and elected a minority to the presidency, and wOOt! Progress!
“What proportion, Eugenia? “Goodly” is a cop-out word used by those without any real argument. What’s the actual proportion”
Squid, appearance is reality. As long those people make signs and get filmed, that is what people that watch television see.
People that fear racism will have their conformation bias confimed.
How to change the image of the teabaggers?
You have to educate the base, reform the base.
Homo sapiens sapiens is highly visually oriented……statistics and semiotics wont change anyones mind.
Sure, mebbe its a fringe…..but unless you can muzzle them, they are the Face of the teabaggers.
Squid, appearance is reality.
You appear to be a vapid griefer, and your chum Mr A. a vacuous, pretentious dolt. Reality?
Man landed on the Moon dicentra.
We discovered DNA, and the genetic code, the secret of life.
We discovered nuclear energy, the power that lights the Sun and the stars.
We have seen the galaxies, we have seen almost to the edge of the visible universe.
We have measured the heat from the cosmic fireball that attended the birth of the universe.
We have seen and imaged the atoms, and we have detected subatomic quanta.
I could go on and on, but modesty forbids….
you and other brave stalwart and true Americans are outliers LTC
I never said Noble Savage that was Mr. Jeff.
I just said they’re good peeps …. more meaning that if people want to be in the people-selecting business, which is the business the anti-immigrant people are in, they can start with getting rid of the preponderance of Americans what aren’t value-added. But Americans have no business being in the people-selecting business.
America is a sad fucking joke what needs to look in the mirror and be appalled at it’s disease-ridden crack whore visage I think.
*its* disease-ridden crack whore visage I mean
Hi Nishi!!
(waves at Nishi across the internet)
People say the deficit is bad. Like it was some thing you can point to what is apart from us. No. The deficit is who we fucking are. It defines our character and is the full measure of our little country’s soul.
Depleted.
Man landed on the Moon dicentra.
We discovered DNA, and the genetic code, the secret of life.
We discovered nuclear energy, the power that lights the Sun and the stars.
We have seen the galaxies, we have seen almost to the edge of the visible universe.
We have measured the heat from the cosmic fireball that attended the birth of the universe.
We have seen and imaged the atoms, and we have detected subatomic quanta.
I could go on and on, but modesty forbids….
I say, you have been busy. It’s a wonder you have time to wash and iron your underpants.
hmmm…
that should have been anti-illegal immigrant at #348 I guess just … it’s like at #311 … I don’t know how much stock to put in that distinction really
Squid, appearance is reality.
This is oddly similar to this comment, where the brain donor in question qoth:
Nope, sorry nishi but appearance is only your reality. That you think it’s all of reality only speaks to an overweening narcissism. And at this point I have to give up again, because such accusations hurled by figments of your imagination can hardly do much damage, can they?
here is a graph I got in response to dicentra’s
And your reality is fiction, or sci-fi to be precise. Avatar rulez!
Imagine a blockquote in that last comment and IT WILL EXIST!
SW,
I say, you have been busy. It’s a wonder you have time to wash and iron your underpants.
I count myself priveledged to have been alive to witness many of these discoveries being made in my lifetime.
Many of them were made in the United States of America, in her greatest century.
Though certainly USA was far from alone, in the almost 500-year quest for knowledge since Copernicus.
I speak graphs, too.
see how is what nishi says even controversial I don’t get that
People that fear racism will have their confirmation bias confirmed.
this is at the very heart of this discussion really… and she’s being very honest in identifying the dynamic as fear-centered…
So. Extrapolate that dynamic to the illegal immigrant conundrum. Team R needs to invoke fears as well… but of illegal immigration as unaffordable, not of illegal immigrants themselves.
simple as that
I count myself priveledged to have been alive to witness many of these discoveries being made in my lifetime.
Many of them were made in the United States of America, in her greatest century.
Though certainly USA was far from alone, in the almost 500-year quest for knowledge since Copernicus.
I do have to hand it to you, Keid. You have the truism down pat. Almost as an art form.
The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club!
burritos! I haven’t done those in awhile… the only good ones Ralph’s has they don’t freeze, and I don’t know how much I trust them not to give me a disease to where I throw up
Trader Joe’s is where you have to go for the tasty burritos now but I just never go lately cause on the other hand Ralph’s has these new tasty salads what are guy-sized.
*
Yeah. Anti-law breaker vs. anti-Other / Xenophobe — why, it’s like almost identical!
Yes, I’m totally blown away by nishi’s ability to occasionally grasp the obvious.
Of course, today she’s saying it’s the fringe. On other days she’s said the totality is empirically racist. And tomorrow she’ll say something else.
Hey griefer! *** waves ***
no that is not my argument Mr. Jeff
I said it twice already.
A little country what can’t get its act together to build a happy dividey wall doesn’t get screech Malkinesquely when the illegal immigrants pop over to sample the tasty welfares.
You live in a welfare state.
Deal.
get *to* screech Malkinesquely I mean
So what you’re saying, with Nishi, is that we needn’t battle the propaganda that makes such confirmation bias possible; instead we should work hard at not being who they think we are based on the propaganda that’s been used to make them think that.
No wonder you’re so high on Frey.
I give it three more months and you’ll be a regular at balloon juice, taking swipes at the knuckle-dragging retards over here…
you are not in your happy place today mister
Mr. Jeff, it is hopeless for Team R to try and halt their steady alienation of brown people unless they use the fiscal responsibility lens.
That’s for reals what I think. I’ve been paying attention is why I say that.
It’s worse than that, Jeff. We have to work hard at being the opposite of who they think we are. To do that, we have to become like-minded abusers of language.
This is nonsensical. If the people getting all screechy were the ones with the power to build a wall and didn’t do so, that’d be a different story. As it stands, they want one thing, the rest of the country wants something else, and each battles for the political will to get done what they want to see done.
That one side has failed doesn’t mean they support what the other side has done.
And it’s just wrong and inflammatory to even suggest that supporting a check on illegal immigration is anything remotely like being “anti-immigrant.”
and Mr. Frey is very very law and order about the illegal immigrants. He’s like Sheriff Pat some days really.
Stop quoting me!
hf, if you call it discrimination against brown people when brown people are what are doing the crimes, you are being a fucking racist.
By my definition, anyway. Prove me wrong!
It is not nonsensical Jeff. Not when Team R had every opportunity to make the happy fence and they decided to make a virtual fence they picked out from Boeing’s Christmas catalog.
You know, hf, this is one of the most highly retarded ideas in the entire arena of immigration debate. It’s right up there with the balloon fence and mile-high earth berm in its feasibility and cost-effectiveness.
crap late gtg
Keid:
You’re listing technological achievements. “Millenia of oppression, cruelty, injustice, slaughter, bigotry, and genocide” speaks to moral failings. Every Big Step in technology was accompanied by a starry-eyed scientist envisioning how finally mankind could better understand one another, which would lead to World Peace.
Telephony? Telemarketers.
Airplanes? Bombers.
Rocketry? Missiles.
Television? Need I say?
“We have seen and imaged the atoms, and we have detected subatomic quanta.”
Dude.
Technology makes it easier to perform tasks, and to perform tasks we couldn’t perform before. It doesn’t make us less cruel, less selfish, less power-hungry, or less bigoted.
Salvation cometh not from this fount.
technology is what the virtual fence was made of
Well, that and unicorn rainbows
No matter, dicentra. Keid will adjust his red undies (worn outside his blue lycra bodysuit) and fly off to new horizons. For TRVTH! JVSTICE! AND HVMANITY!
dicentra,
You are arguing with someone who stated that Humanity is evolving to a more moral state. That it is happening, no assembly required.
Didn’t you make a prediction just a little while back?
you did.
I must have missed Senator Malkin’s duplicity on the issue.
dicentra,
I was listing mainly scientific achievements. Discoveries about Nature and our place in it.
Only the landing on the Moon was mainly a technological achievement. A triumph of engineering.
People often get them confused.
It doesn’t make us less cruel, less selfish, less power-hungry, or less bigoted.
We are what we are because that is what Nature has made us.
These are some of the traits that helped our ancestors to survive.
But for every negative we also have positives.
We can also be generous and kind, humble and open-minded.
Survival requires both kinds of qualities, which is why we have both kinds.
We are optimised to survive in an often-hostile natural order, not a moral one.
That’s why we are failures judged by moral standards, but successes at survival.
And our numbers fill the Earth to bursting – To the point where our success itself becomes a problem.
she’s screechy and alienatey to where the brown people don’t trust Team R is where she comes in… she’s part of what makes a Team R’s attempt to engage the immigration debate without looking like hatey haters a nigh impossibility
i cannot make the words good when I am late
You have no idea. Even the Great Wall of China doesn’t do a great job of keeping people, one at a time, from climbing over it. There is 1500 miles of US/Mexico border, not counting the fractal length of the Texas portion.
I suppose it’s irrelevant at this point to underscore that Malkin is, in fact, “brown people”.
You missed the point entirely.
From what I can see, what Team R needs to do is shut the fuck up and like it, especially the wimmens being the filthy whores that they are. Otherwise, people will talk.
Salvation cometh not from this fount.
I’m not interested in “salvation” dicentra.
I care only about Human survival and our advancement in power and knowledge.
My ego is a temporary state.
Genes can create new brains and new egos any time they need them.
OT, but if people haven’t seen this yet: “Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens retiring”*
Ah. People are genes’ way of making more genes.
Is it her? Or how she’s depicted.
I know Michele. She’s been to my house and I to hers. She’s a very nice person — one who happens to believe illegal immigration is a big problem.
Nishi constantly reminds us that we need to change how we are being seen — “perception is reality,” blah blah blah. I say we go about changing that very premise; you and Frey want to play the game under a set of rules that will never, ever work for us in the current media and educational climate. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever.
I don’t understand how someone as intelligent as you are can’t see that your attacks on Malkin, Palin, et al., play right into the hands of those who WANT us nominating “mavericks” like McCain.
And because I don’t believe you can’t see it, I’m more and more tempted to believe that you do see it — and that you just don’t care.
I’m not interested in losing more slowly. I’d rather just lose and be done with it — or, if all goes well, win by backing principles that I believe in, and that I believe will sell, if we just spent time selling them (and not pretending we don’t hold them, so that the left — or you, or Pat, or Nishi — doesn’t call us icky).
I care only about Human survival and our advancement in power and knowledge.
And people called Plato fascistic…
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
When we’ve all lost it to the statists then we’ll really see how ugly freedom can be.
Of course, people are generally as ignorant about Plato as they are about the intentions of conservatives.
Genes can create new brains and new egos any time they need them.
Vanity, vanity! All is vanity!
Screw humans, screw genes. We are merely advanced support systems for mitochondria. And those little ladies are sure high maintenance, I tells ya.
My selfish gene and I spoke the other day. Had a real blow-out over who was going to pick up the dinner check for sashimi.
Little bastard never pays.
[uh oh. I think I just stumbled onto a new series. Yippee!]
Heh. The conversation with your selfish gene while you’re buying condoms would be teh funny.
And people called Plato fascistic…
Against whom am I fascistic? – Against inanimate Nature.
Power and knowledge enables intelligent lifeforms to survive in a dangerous and often lethal cosmos.
Don’t worry. In the end Nature wins. We die.
I’ve read the ending.
Little boy you really need to go do your homework. And don’t forget to clean your room.
Here’s how you get the brown people on your side with much respect:
Man, I love the tolerant, literate left.
On the bright side, Chris Matthews was able to forget, for about an hour.
She can be nice all day long but she’s very shrieky about immigration and doesn’t focus like a laser on the fiscal responsibility and so she is part of the problem of how Team R and their dirty socialist media antagonist allies work together to alienate our mexican american friends.
nishi is a very nice person too I bet if you met her.
But you are not understanding me Mr. Jeff. Mavericks are gayer than American Idol, which is mostly just fancy. But the gay now occupy all the spaces in the boolean circles what do not focus on the non-national security issues through a lens of fiscal responsibility.
There is nothing wrong with a message what says that we aspire to one day welcome immigrants in their multitudes but right now we need to put our house in order, and a wall is one helpful tool to that end blah blah blah… but this is not an issue what rewards passion.
Not in an American what’s geting more browner by the second if NG has anything to do with it.
She’s using the word for their own good, Pablo. She doesn’t want to see them used. Which means they must all vote Democrat and stick to the plantation.
Master knows best.
Q.E.D.
Not in an *America* I mean
Mr. Jeff. We are in a dire situation, and it is a situation where demagoguery is not welcome… and the way Team R is apt to approach immigration is to excite their base. This is not helpful. If Team R’s gay-assed base isn’t excited already by the rapings of the liberties then they’re hopeless anyway, but I think they are plenty excited without going full malkin on immigration or gay marriage of the fetuses or any of the other contrived and tangential issues Team R is given to wallowing in during a normal not-dire election cycle.
If Team R fails it’s not just our liberties at stake, the entire legacy of the freedoms what our little country has given the whole world is at stake at well I think.
It’s time these Team R bastards performed.
She is shrieky by whose standards?
So let it drop, even if it matters, because it doesn’t sell.
Well, see, you’ve answered the question I raised in the post then. You think it better to win back power even if to do so conservatives must downplay some of the issues they believe are of pressing import. Or at the very least, frame those issues in a way that you deem less “shrieky,” which would involve, presumably, framing them in a way that the media and the opposing party can’t spin as “shrieky.”
Me, I think we should do something different: and that is, tell them that we don’t accept their characterizations, that these are real issues that are of real import to the country, not only from an economic perspective, but from the perspective of considering ourselves a nation of laws — and that if they want to try to shout every disagreement down as racist or sexist or homophobic, we are no longer going to reply in good faith, and will rather begin taking our message directly to the people.
By, say, organizing big political protests.
We can call them Tea Parties or some such…
*or* the fetuses I mean jeez today is a struggle
One would think that selling a message that proclaimed enslavement to such a lie as N A Granny’s lie wouldn’t be all that hard a sell to people desirous of freedom, seeking respect among men. How odd is it that a pittance in handouts can easily overcome the simpler proposition?
She is shrieky by my standards. She makes me wince. Remember her Dubai Ports World episode. OMG. I bet she is a loverly person though.
Mr. Jeff you are still misunderstanding me.
Our little country has to bolt through a fast-closing door or it simply doesn’t fucking matter what they do. And the was to scoot through that door is by ditching all the baggage Team R loves to carry.
Immigration is not relevant to the direness at hand. Fiscal responsibility is, and that’s an area where Team Homopublican has some work to do. So they need to buckle down and gitter done.
I think Team R needs to remember that we are not dealing with a little country enamored of freedom and personal responsibility and opportunity and liberty.
We’re dealing with America.
Are you completely unfuckingfamiliar with the left side of our discourse? Demagoguery is all they’ve got. Day in, day out. And your answer to that is what, exactly?
Be Free!
Throw off the chains!
So you want to counter demagoguery with 110% more effective Team R brand demagoguery?
Our Team R? They are inept. They need simple messages they can write on their hands.
I think Team R needs to remember that we are not dealing with a little country enamored of freedom and personal responsibility and opportunity and liberty.
Again, what about the 48% of Americans who didn’t vote for socialism in the first place? Shall we just give up on them?
Then don’t listen to her. Even in Obamerica you still have that freedom.
Damn right. They’re too shrieky.
We are merely advanced support systems for mitochondria. And those little ladies are sure high maintenance, I tells ya.
That was spectacularly funny, DarthRove. And true in every detail.
I don’t listen to her cause of the wincing I’m just saying she is not a good model for the immigration discussion proposed in the post.
Some of that 48% voted for McCain and not just against the dirty socialist ascendancy, so the real number of Americans what heart liberty is smaller than that.
Did I say that? I don’t think so. I made a statement of observable fact, IIRC.
Damn right. They’re too shrieky.
In that case we might as well go the full monty with shrieky. Palin-Malkin 2012!
I was answering your question about the answer to that is what exactly.
You know, this is all just so hard. It would be a lot easier, seeing as how you can’t beat ’em, to jump on the Hopenchange Express.
Otherwise, people are gonna talk.
Y’all are so trapped in 2009.
We are a full-blown dirty socialist monstrosity now. It’s not theoretical. The future is now. America has become an active force for evil in the world.
This is not a good thing, and Team R is ill-prepared and floundering.
Oh, so you answered my question about what you plan to do about the flood of demagoguery with a question about whether I want to do a different flavor of demagoguery? I can’t imagine how I didn’t see an answer to my question there.
Demagoguery is demos + agoge, peoples + leading. Do you want to lead them or not? Cause it isn’t going to get done with scientific papers.
#415: Mr. Jeff you are still misunderstanding me.
Feets, it appears that he’s understanding you just fine.
This is not a good thing, and Team R is ill-prepared and floundering.
Let’s just say fuck Team R, and concentrate on throwing the Team D bums out at the midterms, huh?
Oh, so you answered my question about what you plan to do about the flood of demagoguery with a question about whether I want to do a different flavor of demagoguery?
yes. Yes I did.
sdferr, we should make some movies. In 3D, probably. The kids like that, I hear.
I’m just saying the Team R we know and love is not competent enough to be allowed to play with hot-button issues like immigration.
Be Free! Throw off the chains!
Can’t say I’ve ever loved Team R, happy. Team R can go sit on a saguaro, for all I care. Team CL rocks.
I agree Mr. Whistle, but everybody thinks I’m a squish.
It’s disheartening.
I’m the staunchestest one!
No. No you didn’t.
What do you do?
I can’t experience the youtubes here.
Y’all can call me Silver – ain’t no Misters around here.
*
in the leg
No, happyfeet. There are plenty of people here as staunch or more staunch than you.
I wrote this post to get us talking about your point of view. I understand it perfectly. I’ve said that I don’t think trying to get conservatives to adopt a unified message tracks with my idea of how classical liberalism works or should work.
From a strategic standpoint, I see clearly what you are saying. And from a strategic standpoint, I’ve offered a way to counter what are your concerns — namely, to take away their power as concerns.
What is your solution? A unified narrative that concentrates only on the issue of fiscal responsibility (sorry, but we’re going to have to take away your free shit. Vote for us!)? Because I don’t think that will sell without it being attached to other classical liberal principles: the rule of law, individual freedom, a less intrusive government, legal conservatism/libertarianism.
I don’t think we should be foregrounding abortion as an issue; but the premise here is that it would be team Obama forcing immigration reform to the forefront. If that’s the case, how are conservatives to react? Ignore it? Keep from being “shrieky”? What?
Repent! And beg forgiveness. For the perception.
I said they should discuss immigration in terms of it being an unaffordable burden on a woefully burdened little country. More in sadness than in anger, really.
You don’t want to be all angry when you’re talking about people everyone thinks you hate cause of they are brown.
I think happyfeets is really really shrieky on abortion.
Look Mr. Jeff. There is one scintilla of hope to which a clinger might cling.
And that is that in the midterms Team R can win an unambiguous mandate to control spending.
This means they can’t be seen to demagogue the brown people or have a fainting spell about gay marriage or salivate about the fetuses. They can’t give the dirty socialist press, which is smarter than they are, an opportunity to muddy that mandate.
They have to keep their eye on the ball. Or none of this fucking matters.
The only way conservatives can win is by not advocating conservatism!
I am not shrieky on abortion set against superbowl ads Mr. Slarticus. A merest whisper I am.
I dunno, happyfeets. You’ve probably chewed up 100x more of my attention span shrieking about abortion, here, than Pam & Tim chewed up in any commercials.
Sarah Palin is live on C-Span right now.
that’s sweet of you to say Mr. Slart
I’d agree on the real primacy of fiscal issues at the moment… but, other issues will come up. Both from allies doing what they think best (hey, free country, eh?) and from enemies striving to achieve their goals. So, those battles are going to get fought whether we like it or not.
That’s why the Jeff Project™ is important. Because we’ll continue to lose all of them (including the mega superest important goal of remaining a solvent nation) unless we change tactics.
My 2 cents anyways. Time to go eat some Thai food.
Be Free! Throw off the chains of your own making! Before it’s too late!
It wasn’t meant sweetly, hf. Really, you are much more intrusively shrieky than any of the people you call shrieky.
I really don’t understand you. You fling about accusations of shriekiness with shrill abandon, and then you talk about demagoguery while warning us all of dirty socialists. It’s almost as if you have no sense of irony at all.
Btw, that’s almost exactly how I’d pitch it, sdferr.
Perception is reality. Just ask the Ukraine circa 1932-1933.
111 happyfeet:
That is simply the silliest thing I have read on this blog, and there have been some very silly things written here. I live on the Texas/Mexico border, and not one thing you wrote was remotely true. They have the path to ILLEGALLY move to the US for econ omic reasons smothed by the government of Mexico, which realizes that illegals in the US are one of their biggest economic assets, transferring BILLIONS of dollars to Mexico without the Mexican government having to do anything. They constantly kill each other over drugs, money, or simply a drunken argument in a local bar, they screw each other over constantly, as well as any time they can screw over their employers. The level of child abuse and child molestation down here is incredible, and you can sit there with a straight face and claim that they are better than Americans?
Ol’ Hobbes didn’t miss a trick on the Mexicans, did he?
One way they can not be seen in such a way is for people on their own “side” to stop insisting that they are “shrieky” or “icky” or “possibly racist (READER POLL!)” or ill-mannered in the way they proclaim that they hope the socialism fails.
In fact, there’s a blog out there somewhere that discusses this kind of thing all the time. Let me see if I can find you a link.
The dirty socialists are real, Slart. They drink our little country’s milkshake.
Team R has a very genuine problem with how it alienates people. This is how the dirty socialists were able to win the power to desecrate America and make of her something twisted and vile.
But our little republic is falling down falling down falling down and and so maybe feckless Team R might could step away from the tried and true and get serious.
And embracing Palin Romney Pawlenty is not fucking serious.
Ok Celtic then let me recast my point as being more that as vile as Team R finds our mexican visitors to be, for real Americans who stood by while their little country became a depraved Jew-hating economy-wrecking freedom-desecrating piece of shit are much much worse I think.
“They drink our little country’s milkshake.”
Well, except the last thing they’d be caught doing it drilling anywhere for anything. But, I take your point.
You lie.
They lie.
I’m seeing a campaign theme here.
I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to get that the gates of hell have opened upon this earth and the petty political concerns of yesterday are but kindling for the fires.
I agree. The only way for Team R to beat back the socialists is to start promising them free shit in exchange for votes.
In fact, if they’re smart, they’ll just run as progressives. That’ll assure them of getting elected!
McCain/Graham ’12!
Please Pablo. A Team R what embraces a widely reviled hoochie that is a joke and a laughingstiok and a farce like she was some sort of Answer is the very definition of alienatey.
“…the petty political concerns of yesterday are but kindling for the fires.
When has this ever, in the whole of man’s passage on the earth, not been a problem at hand?
*laughingstock* I mean I used the wrong letters
sdferr this time it’s different
pfffeh, I’ve heard that un too many times the last twenty years.
mark my words mister
Be Free! Throw off the chains of your own making! Before it’s too late!
Mark well.
marked
dr. everything will be alright will make everything go wrong
pills and thrills and daffodils will kill
hang tough children
Funny how Baracky felt the need to tangle with her yesterday and to preempt her speech just now. But I don’t know what that has to do with President McCain and Vice-President Graham. The brown people will LOVE that ticket. I asked my Mom, and it is totally true.
Like how when they call the President and his wife dirty, skeezy, ghetto trash socialists?
They are dirty, skeezy, ghetto trash socialists.
What were sanctified beyond reason or precedent.
I’ll take “Things a Racist Would Say” for $1000, Alex.
ALIENATOR!
You’re just mad cause your piece of shit little country is doomed.
world without end, amen
I think one thing that needs to be considered is that neither party actually wants to stop the flow of workers from the south into the US.
No demagoguing here, no sirree. That’s next door!
You’re just mad cause your piece of shit little country is doomed.
You saying this because you’re mad, or is this really what you believe? Is it a piece of shit country? Is it doomed?
I don’t find our Mexican visitors to be vile, just not the paragons of hard work and bravery that you seem to find them. They are people, no more no less, but people who come from a VASTLY different, and to me, poorer culture, and they DON’T assimilate, not when they cluster. And where do you see them not clustering? Nowhere, that’s where. It’s taken something like 100 years for the Mexicans from the initial influxes to assimilate, and even then it hasn’t total. What makes you think that it won’t take another 100 years for the current bunch to? Or are we just supposed to smile, learn Spanish and sink into oblivion as a distinct nation and culture?
Please tone down the shriekiness, hf. People might talk.
I think that’s a given, Makewi. Which is precisely why those who are concerned need to be vociferous. Malkin is often most “shrieky” against her own side’s leadership on the issue, is she not? [response @489]
“for real Americans who stood by while their little country became a depraved Jew-hating economy-wrecking freedom-desecrating piece of shit are much much worse I think.”
happyfeet,
I don’t really think that “team R”, or the 48% that didn’t vote for Obama, are just standing passively and watching while NerObama fiddles while America burns. There’s been a load of public opposition to his policies that are reflected by both the Tea-Partiers and the polling data.
I think that the ones you’re talking about are exactly the folks that are creating the propaganda lies about conservatives and conservatism that Jeff and many of us here are talking about taking on; instead of accepting those lies as being the natural terrain of the political battelfield.
Allowing the lies inherent in the progressive left’s meta-narrative to go unchallenged is, to use a military analogy, like surrendering the initiative to your adversary.
That’s something you almost never willingly do! Ask Colonel John, I think he’d attest to the truth of my statement; at least from the military side of my analogy.
I don’t presume to speak to anyone’s political opinions but my own.
Hush.
Keep it down, now.
Voices carry.
“They are people, no more no less…”
Aha! So that’s how Hobbes pulled that off! Tricksy!
And remember to keep your spacing. Don’t bunch up.
Mr. Reed the best provacateurism in the year of our lord 2010 is doom doom doom and gloom.
It resonates is why.
And focuses the mind.
And bonus! It’s true.
Let’s fight it with surrender! Who’s with me? CHARGE!
OK, but can we work the whole, “NerObama fiddling while America burns”, into the marketing campaign somehow?
I don’t want any royalties, just a by-line…
sdferr, he’s a spooky smart one, that Hobbes…;-)
Mr. Jeff I’m saying what I think a little pikachu can do what is maximally effective is to remind people
that this is an existential battle that they are losing.
Team R lacks clarity.
Our little country is becoming something that is not America.
It’s cause of the spendings and the taxings.
It’s not cause of Angel Ramirez.
Focus, people.
But yes Mr. Reed I just caution that Team R is vastly more prone to fiddlings midst burnings than you might would allow I think.
Jeff, do you really charge into a surrender? Because, you know, chargeing is soooo, hostile and everything. Maybe we could just like, slouch into surrendering. That’ll work…
She is Jeff. The last time this came up in a big way she was very critical of the Bush administration and the GOP. I don’t where she stands on a guest worker program.
I know the left hates the idea, with the argument being they are against the creation of a permanent underclass or some other class based bullshit.
And happy,
I don’t know how old you are exactly, but do you remember the late 70’s? There were a whole lot of folks then ridin’ on the whole doom and gloom train then, hangin around in the Jimmy Carter memorial malaise car.
This guy named Ronnie Reagan seemed to enjoy a lot of success then, by challenging their whole meta-narrative of conservatives as hatey-haters by telling folks all about the fundamental greatness of America, the awesomeness of their personal freedoms, and how everything was going to be alright if government got out of the way, out of their pockets, and stopped trying to micromanage their individual lives, the economy, and the nation as a whole.
A lot of folks thought he could never win without dropping that whole approach, and instead, resorting to the same Nelson-Rockefeller-esque, squishy RINO-like, “we give you a chicken in every pot too, just the pot is smaller” approach.
I seem to recall he did pretty good following his instincts. And I’m thinking that it might work again.
He didn’t allow the liberals to shape the political battlefield, and we shouldn’t either; especially with the wide-spread buyers remorse and Obama fatigue setting, and the decline of the legacy media.
But you’re right about the fiddlin’ over the last 8 years happy, I’ll freely admit that. I for what didn’t worry about the WOT, but that whole medicare D thing and the expansion of the dept of ed?
That was more fiddling than Charlie Daniels in concert right there.
this is different I promise … it is not morning in America it’s mourning for America I think.
But ok.
Here is my question for you Mr. Bob. When Team R wins the mid-terms, what would you like the takeaway to be? What will they have been tasked with?
I thought it was very odd for Mr. Bush to put immigration on the table. I think that had to have been a pay-off to Meghan’s daddy for support on Iraq.
Meghan’s daddy is…
I think you know how I feel.
Not so odd. He was the governor of Texas at one point. Plus there was that whole al Quada plans on infiltration across the southern border bit.
I don’t think exactly… you keep terrorists out with walls, not fanciful doodles on Boeing letterhead.
This smacked of McCain.
If team R wins the mid-terms they will have many tasks. Foremost will be immediately acting to drastically cut spending. This will go hand in hand with repealing or reshaping healthcare reform to be free-market based actual reform, along the lines Paul Ryan-and others-have advocated for throughout the process. They will also have been given the task of reversing some of the defense policy neutering that Obama has so far inflicted. And they will also have to act as a brake against his other socialistic schemes such as cap-n-trade.
There’s more, but only so much will be able to realistically be accomplished, or substantially undertaken, in two years.
They need to accomplish positive things for our future and stimulate job growth. But do it the right way, by lowering various tax rates; and cutting spending as well!
The whole entitlement reform agenda is going to be a big part of the 2012 Presidential race I believe; with a healthy dose of re-establishing our position in the world and mending strained relations with our important allies.
It’s not about team R with me so much happy, it about team America!
that sounds very nice actually Mr. Reed.
I will tuck that under my pillow.
“I don’t think we should be foregrounding abortion as an issue; but the premise here is that it would be team Obama forcing immigration reform to the forefront. If that’s the case, how are conservatives to react? Ignore it? Keep from being “shrieky”? What?”
Jeff,
I skimmed through the comments and unless i missed one I don’t think anyone addressed the strategic approach to the issue.
I’d suggest that the Republicans should take the four corner approach and stall EVERY effort that Democrats push (including immigration “reform”). They should revoke unanimous consent and require the reading of every bill and amendment. Sure the Democrats will shriek “they’re the NO-party” but so what? The Republicans can counter with they’re the party that can’t read! It’s true that the stall did not succeed for healthcare but this congress has less than six more months left and the healthcare bill took almost a year to push through.
The Republicans are not likely to gain enough seats in this election to push through a rational immigration plan over Obama’s veto so they may have to settle with incremental improvements to border control coupled with walking back the healthcare takeover.
At the very least they should be able to portray Obama as President NO-bama! No-hope No-change and No-second term homeboy!
Or I could have just waited for Bob Reed to chime in;)
AOCC advised me of your presence in the pattern Danger.
And anyway, you know what they say about great minds thinking alike and all.
I liked the way you worked in the Basketball D term though, it’s very…seasonal!
this will make you feel like a more fortunate Bob Bob
You didn’t get the memo Bob? Paul Ryan is a progressive. Fehs.
Freelance communicator? Is he an indepent advertising/marketing guy, or professional astroturfer? Is this someone who your firm has used?
His site makes him look pretty successful, but I guess that’s the point. I’m thinkin’ he feels pretty fortunate too!
Me? I feel fortunate every day; ‘cuz you know what they say in the old westerns?
“Every day above ground is a good day, son!”
ok that was fail
Yeah, I’m aware of what Beck said, and I don’t know if I’m buying into that sdferr.
I’m aware of what he said, but I think he was trying to make the point that the progressive left is not what they market themselves to be; albeit in a ham-fisted way. He may need some fellows to help him with his speechwriting a bit…
He’s a pretty conscientious fellow though, I’m pretty sure we could drop him a line and he’d clarify it; it might take a while though.
I’m still likin’ the guy a whole lot. I’d really like for him to be on someones ticket in 2012; who’s I don’t see yet-heck maybe his own!
I don’t know if it was so much fail hf; his last name gave me a chuckle if that’s what you mean.
Oh noes! But if you read Ryan’s speech to the Oklahomans, doesn’t Ryan’s progressivity just leap off the page to get at your throat? Run away!
ok then so there’s that
“doesn’t Ryan’s progressivity just leap off the page to get at your throat?”
OK, that’s pretty funny right there. Believe you me, if I thought he went over to the dark side I would be pretty upset. Might make me move back to the hills and become a hermit or something extreme like that.
If my wife would let me, of course…
Oh, but if it doesn’t come to throttle you, that just means that he’s a cleverer son of a bitch than I gave him credit for being: see how he hides his secret worship of Hegel and Marx, the scurrilous sneak.
Why, I’ll bet he has them tattooed on each bicep; inscribed in a red heart! Or, was it in the typical ribbon flourish like the archetypal “Mom” inks.
And photos in a locket around his neck too!
Hopefully the only lasting effect from that bit of Beckery is Ryan dropping the Wisconsin Idea section of his background pitch. I don’t think that’s even a good sell here in the state anymore.
Thing about that? It’s kind of like giving in to dishonesty. But hey, who’s counting?
You know what’s good about Wisconsin? The Packers, Lake Winnebago, deer season, beer, the Violent Femmes, and all the curvy blond German girls. Good government types haven’t been on that list for quite awhile.
I think it falls under the heading that it’s better than not being talked about at all.
I hear what you’re saying, sdferr. (Haven’t followed the Beck specifics though.)
It’s just… well, so tangential to all he really has to offer.
one day I was walking home from my friend P’s and I found a wallet… I had to do a lot of figuring out cause of the id was a fake id but finally I tracked the kid down in Wisconsin and got him his wallet back… he sent me a t-shirt what says “Badgers” on it. I still where it sometimes.
Ryan‘s big mistake was taking all those PoliSci courses at UMiamiOh and finding the subject interesting.
I agree sdferr. Ryan might just needs to refine what he was trying to say there in a mo’ better fashion I think. In principle, I don’t think it such a bad hook to be saying that the original, authentic, progressives would be ashamed of the straight up commie BS the ObamaFascists are trying to pull off; and that modern progressives are just old school far-left liberals who needed a re-branding in order to
horn-swaggleconvince the public to vote for them again-you know, shedding a poisened brand so to speak.I didn’t hear the Beck segment myself, and was told that he walked back from his initial attack of the vapors and all, but the whole episode sounded a bit knee-jerkish to me. That said, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt since I didn’t listen myself.
I wrote I still where it sometimes.
I’m special.
“…that modern progressives are just old school far-left liberals…”
Let’s call them PowerMad Nihilists instead? Whaddaya say?
Ryan is one of those I heart enough to where he doesn’t have to agree with me on everything.
Just use your best judgment Mr. Ryan and we’ll be all good ok thank you.
Daniels. Ryan. Rubio. Who else is on this list?
Happyfeet, friend to the cheeseheads!
I knew a girl who occasionally wore Bucky Badger underwear. It always seemed like a bad word for being on a girl’s underwear to me but I never said anything because when I saw it I was in a good mood.
The badger is named Bucky?
And bh has a good point when he says that Beck is doing a good job educating and motivating otherwise low information/ low involvement voters on the principles this nation was founded on and why that measn they should oppose the eeeevvvoolllls of Obamism.
But, you know, with great power comes great responsibilities. Like not getting the vapors off of a jerked knee misunderstanding.
Geez, wonder what the Oregonians get?
It’s not a long list, JD.
It is a toothless badger.
Then it’s a metaphor.
“Let’s call them PowerMad Nihilists instead?”
I’m down wif it. But then, I’m a hatey racist running-dog capitalist who only opposes Obama and the pips in Congress because he’s, well, you know…
Yep, Bucky. He’s mean and punchy and walks upright like a human.
He’s not toothless! That’s an Illini lie!
I think Native Americans without dental plans are more likely to be toothless, JD.
You forgot sausage.
Observe a wise observer observing. But who will read the enemy within the corridors of power?
That’s what she said.
curvy blond German girls.
The last time I was in Wisconsin – couple years ago – all I saw were ginormous fat people. But maybe I’m bitter because I asked the order boy at some restaurant what cheese curds were and he ran into the back to bring everyone out to laugh at us.
They make some decent cheese there, too. And the Apostle Islands are terrific.
Some of those “ginormous fat people” were once curvy young women drinking Hamm’s and getting frisky in a corn field.
Abe,
It’s the little band of gold on their finger that makes them fat. Well, that and the beer. And the sausages. And the cheese.
I’m think I’m gonna have a flashback with a sappy Journey song in the background. brb.
… don’t stop believin’… hold on to that feelin’…
Arnold Kling, doin’ his thing. But hey, whatthefuck is that link to a progg doing there? Jezuszs, can’t escape the bastards.
Okay, I’ve been made interested in the topic. Here‘s the video of Beck on Ryan.
sdferr,
You’re getting some pretty good mileage out of the Beck-Ryan thing.
Might one say, you’re running on vapors?
I know…I know…Don’t quit my day job.
You also forgot the Wisconsin Dells. How could you forget the Wisconsin Dells?
In a climate of calls for better Representatives Bob, what else can I do but lend a hand to ripping down the promising with the ringing bell of TRVTH!
Whenever I’m in Wisconsin it’s because my habit when visiting relatives in Minneapolis is to hang out in Chicago first and then rent a car. I’ve only seen the large animal game preserves that line the route between them. But Wisconsin Dells may be the funniest town I’ve ever seen.
Okay, I listened to it. Beck couldn’t have misread Ryan more if he tried.
WTF?
Oh well. It’s not like Ryan is presenting the most conservative economic solutions possible or anything. We don’t need him. He’s just another McCain. He’s a progressive fascist. Hates the Republic.
At one point he says, I don’t know much about this Ryan guy.
Really? Really? How about doing your fucking homework before tarring one of our most promising up and comers.
TRUTH
Like I said, Beck is doing good work organizing and motivating opposition and all. But, even he admits that he didn’t start to educate himself on the founders and, you know, the actual history until relatively recently in his life.
And I know his style is frenetic and typical of an OCD recovering addict by his own characterization.
As I said, with great power comes great responsibility.
Heh, that said, I still wouldn’t mind Ryan dropping the Wisconsin Idea/old school progressivism stuff.
The teeny episode did result in the even teenier episode of ushering Scott Baker in to a momentary loss for words yesterday (and noted as such at the time), though I’m skeptical as to whether he was actually at a loss for words rather than that he found himself in a position of having the words yet not wanting to say them aloud. But, ymmv.
For bh
sdferr,
You might be able to get more intel on the Scott Baker loss of words from Dan Collins, as he works with Liz and Scott of B-Cast fame.
Excellent, Geoff. I love that song. It’s stuck in my head. Like the Empire commercials in Chicago.
I later came to love Eagleman.
I’m vaguely aware of the connection Bob, and thanks for the tip, but don’t really need further dope on the sityation as regards Baker. Witnessing it was more than sufficient.
It reminds me of being at my Uncle’s house in Downers Grove when I was a kid watching the Sox. Spotted this one after which fits you better.
an active force for evil in the world like David E. Kelley or those people what tell you not to eat meat
Someone should ask him about that. See what’s up, yanno?
Oh good idea! Let’s start a rumor!
Even when Glen Beck is wrong it’s hard not to like him cause he seems so nice.
I’ll do better than that Gentlemen, I’ll write the good Congressman a letter over this weekend, asking him to elucidate further, using Beck’s mistaken impression as a motivation for my question.
While not a constituent, I get the impression that he’s the kind of guy who’ll give me an answer. And for good measure I’ll follow up my mail with a telephone call to raise the probability of that answer…
Anything you all would like me to add? Besides of course, “Yo man, are you really a stealth crypto-progg!1!1!! like that dood Beck sez”?
tell him I think he’s aces
Ask him what he thinks of Robert G. Ingersoll Bob. Y’know, like has he memorized any of Ol’ Bob G.’s stemwinders?
Shouldn’t we listen to stuff he actually says? Your way sounds sorta sleezy.
Too close to Beck’s modus operandi?
Or we could just read Ryan too.
That’s exactly what Beck did. Read Ryan’s words out loud. And disagree with him.
Did that stop being OK at some point?
Oh, wait. Nov ’08. I remember now.
Hold on. Ryan’s white. It should be OK.
Funny, Ryan’s words were in a speech. Did Beck read the speech (not outloud)? Is there any reason to doubt that Beck read the speech? Hmmmm.
I’m confuzzled.
He certainly found the part about progressivism. Which, he’s Glenn Beck, notorious for having a thing about progressivism. And Woodrow Wilson.
Was he supposed to give Ryan’s entire speech before discussing the part of it that really caught his eye?
That some serious research right there, I’m tellin’ you.
Could he have reflected on the man’s career, his outstanding budgetary proposals, the rest of the text, before turning the knob to 11 over a paragraph or two?
I’d be more likely to trust him as a source if he had.
sdferr,
You’re joking about Ingersoll, right?
happy,
I plan to tell him a lot of us think highly of him.
If y’all think I’m blowing smoke…I say what I mean, and mean what I say; not to get to Theodor Geisel about it. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.
I would love to hear. He’s a light in a sea of darkness I think.
“You’re joking…”
Hell no. And yes.
Glen Beck is just a cable news flunky though. He’s programming. Product, if you will. He sells mini-vans and condiments.
Now Paul Ryan, he is a vessel what carries the hopes of a forlorn and desperate people.
I just grabbed the entirety of the Ryan discussion on Beck’s show, breaks and all, ‘cept for where I tried to skip over the dead air. Doing so, I listened to it for the 4th time I think, keeping the complaints herein in mind. I continue to fail to see the problem.
Anyone want a 27MB MP3?
Nope, but a transcript sure would be handy.
I’d like it, Pablo.
Too, how many in the listening audience are going to listen to the thing four times, or seven or eight (least the parts available) like I have? One ten-millionth of one-percent?
Yes Pablo,
HighMach at att dot net
Thanks Pablo,
I forgot to tell you that…
How many in the listening audience will have read Ryan’s speech to the Oklahomans? Even fewer maybe?
Is he trying to be a source, bh? Or is he arguing with what Ryan said out loud, in public? Ryan said X, Beck takes issue with it. Declares him wrong, in fact. All while saying “I’ve heard nothing but good things, we should get him on the show, etc…’
Was he supposed to ask permission before discussing progressivism vis a vis Ryan? If so, from whom?
Paul Ryan is a big boy. And he’s not stupid, which I know because he can do math. I love people in Congress that can do math. And I’ll bet he can stick up for himself and defend his ideas, which is um, helpful. I’d like to hear him defend Woodrow Wilson to Beck, though. I’d suggest he pack a lunch.
jdsalinger@mail.com, if you would. Thanks.
How many in the listening audience will have a clue as to who Robert La Follette was, what he did and didn’t do in politics, whether he or T Roosevelt was the more important in the Progressive movement of the late 19th – early 20th century? How many in that audience have read Max Weber? GWF Hegel? Woody Wilson?
Defend? Shit.
Shit. Hotmail won’t let me send it. Sorry, Bob.
I’ll find a place to park it. brb.
Hey, I’ve already said I’d like to see him drop the Wisconsin Idea/old school progressivism angle. Even though I think he was employing it as a rhetorical device with a side of “I’m a Wisco good governance type”.
Yes, he can defend himself just fine and Beck can do what Beck wants to do. In a way, I think we just saw the primary season start in earnest (12? 16?, I don’t know).
it is squirrel but he has powers
Hey, maybe they should have that conversation. Maybe on the radio or something. I think Mr. Ryan has an invite. Should be good, no?
Sure, good. Under the circumstances, should have been unnecessary too. But hey, whatever floats Beck’s boat.
I’m not saying this happened but that’d be a way to get guests on the show, wouldn’t it? Give someone a hard time in front of a large conservative audience and then invite them on to clear things up?
Not saying that happened. But, if I was Ryan, I’d be wondering it a little.
I suspect that if I was Ryan (and how fucking crazy a thing is that to write?) I’d be inclined to let Beck go hang himself, but hey, that’s just me.
Beck-Ryan, 4-8-10.mp3
That oughta do it.
Thanks, Pablo.
Just said access denied.
That CK MacLeod bugs the hell out of me, btw. Felt like mentioning that.
OK, should be fixed. I warn y’all that there’s only enough bandwith for about 10 downloads a day. So, you snooze you lose, until tomorrow.
Outside this bit of shitstirring, I’d never read anything by him/her. But I’m not favorably impressed, perhaps needless to add.
It’s basically 3 segments, one long one (which you’ve heard) and two short. When he starts talking about Breitbart and the union thug lady, you’ve heard all you’re going to hear on the subject.
Thanks, that worked. It’s downloading now.
Yes, he’s tedious and confused. A writer full of tl;dr.
Many thanks for the mp3 Pablo.
You’re entirely welcome.
tl;dr
Like a lot of my commentary!
Heh. Hey!, any Germans in Wisconsin back toward the end of the 19th century bh?
Revolutionary La Follette! Wants popular primary process! Argggh!
If I answer that Abe Froman might come back through and call them giant fatasses, sdferr.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off-topic, but I was just flipping channels, and ran across a lady minister who was talking in tongues. As much as I wanted to, I could not change channels.
He’s not huge on politician guests. And as Debra Medina can attest, an appearance on his show can end your political career if you’re an idiot. Occam’s Razor suggests that he saw what Ryan had to say about early proggs and he took issue with it. He’s been slagging that very group as the cause of our current situation for a year or more, very publicly. I don’t see where he was the least bit unfair to him, particularly with the qualifiers before and after the argument with Ryan’s own words.
I’m starting to get a “good man” vibe here, which is weird because if I had to guess, I’d say that on balance, Paul Ryan is a pretty good man.
“…too many in Washington, and too many in America are on the progressive bandwagon, (and I’m sure Paul Ryan has a lot of great ideas I don’t know that much about him and he may be a great guy and everything else) but I’m trying to figure out who is going to lead our country and we don’t – need – another – John – McCain – who’s following the man who started the Progressive Party, Teddy Roosevelt [actually, not, but Robert La Follette, but hey who’s counting?] Progressivism always progresses, it never stays static, it will always grow into a CANCER that will consume your freedom.”
Progressive Territory, raised and indoctrinated, marinated in the Progressive Stew.
And?
And Beck is an ass? ;-)
he has to fill a lot of hours it’s just bound to happen here and there
Best it should happen with the one guy who has something on the ball though, don’t you think hf?
that was unfortunate but Mr. Ryan can’t be tarnished by the likes of cable news flunky Mr. Beck.
Paul Ryan has a date with destiny.
Tarnished, probably not since he hasn’t done anything tarnishable. He can get his time wasted in glubbery-glups though, if he don’t watch out.
Great. Something new.
I’m not sure how to interpret that, Pablo. If you’re attributing that sentiment to me, I don’t think it’s fitting. The previous “good man” talk was based on family life and the like while ignoring the policy positions and past actions.
Simply put, I thought Beck was over the top. And that he was over the top about someone who shows little to no progressive tendencies in his legislative actions. He’s one of the few people out there presenting fiscally sane policy options. So, to draw a parallel like, “we don’t need another McCain”? Yeah, I think that’s over the top.
I’ve kinda liked some of what Beck has done, bothered himself to do. I’ve said so here and there. But what he’s done that I’ve liked, I wish to hell he would take himself seriously there, y’know, not fly off half-cocked, bother to read just a little bit more before waxing all hypothetical on another man’s political principles. That would be better.
No, no, no, no. If you have to wonder, it ain’t you.
You could call it “Showing the way” or something.
break for to smile you just have to click
this is heroic I think
Okay, fun as always, guys. Time to pop in a movie.
Such clean produce hf. That ain’t my mercado, fershur.
it’s like if michael cera did high school musical
here is cool
earthquake footage from down the way
If Ryan is seriously considering a run at a higher office, this is a valuable learning experience for him. If he can’t overcome a little friendly fire over an imprecise statement like that, what the hell is a hostile national media going to do to him over the course of a campaign?
Hip, shotgun, some assembly required. ;p
“…an imprecise statement like that…”
B Moe, the statement isn’t imprecise when taken in the context of the speech. It’s as simple as that, really. It’s a perfectly obvious rhetorical ploy, intended to set modern proggs off in a worse light than early progressives, who though they may have been faulty in political principle from our (and Ryan’s) point of view, at least were capable of fighting against entrenched interests as La Follette is shown to do above.
I think anyone who reads the speech given to the Oklahomans who doesn’t start with a desire to make Ryan into a progressive, as MacCleod apparently does as per his/her article entire, won’t come away with any thought that Ryan is a progressive in principle.
But is MacCleod an important figure here in his/her own right in comparison to either Beck or Ryan (that is, outside the notoriety of publishing at HotAir or gained in this incident?) that I should chase down more of his/her writings to get to know him/her better? Really?
After all, Beck says more than once I think, that he’s heard all sorts of people and all sorts of praise for Paul Ryan. And Ryan wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet at the White House Health Care confab. Did Beck see none of that? Maybe. Beck says he hates politics. He’s only interested in principle, he says. So, good, says I. See what Ryan says his principles are. Start by reading his speech, as blowhard suggested above. Do at least a little work on the thing.
Or do you actually think you’ve got me in a bind with regard to MacCleod? That’s just weird. Like I can’t read? Is that it?
Read my last phrase again: “what the hell is a hostile national media going to do to him over the course of a campaign?”
The statement isn’t imprecise to me or you or any honest, intelligent listener, but that isn’t who he is going to be dealing with in the next couple of years if he makes a move up the ladder.
They are going to twist his words and attack him no matter what, but he needs to not make it any easier for them.
“…he needs to not make it any easier for them.”
Oh, great. Retreat again is it? Tread vewy caewfuwy with your whetowical tools because Glenn Beck, who’s ostensibly on your side of the issues, won’t bother to read your speeches entire?
Beck just needs to have CK MacCleod on his show in Ryan’s stead, since it’s actually MacCleod Beck has a difference with. But that’s too small a fish, I’d guess.
Ryan’s speech, titled by RCP as “Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom?”, for anyone who’s finding themselves curious what the brouhaha is over. MacCleod’s article, for contrast.
Actually, sdferr, I am beginning to wonder if you can read.
What part of “a hostile national media” are you not understanding? I don’t really give a shit about Glen Beck or this MacLeod fellow, I am talking about what Ryan would face in a National Presidential Campaign, and I am not talking about retreat, I am talking about not hanging any over the plate for the cocksuckers.
See: Palin, Sarah.
Yeah, that’s it B Moe. You’ve got it now. Charge right hard ahead man. Show me how I’ve got MacCleod all wrong with your smartass
I haven’t been making a case for Ryan to run a national campaign. I’ve been consistently focused on Beck’s poor choices as he dealt with this MacCleod article. That Ryan happens to be one of the shining lights in the Republican party has been pointed out not to tout Ryan for national office but to show how reckless Beck has been attacking the guy without having bothered to get to know anything about him. Or do you think you can go back upthread and find an instance of any touting Ryan for president at my fingertips?
Again,” I don’t really give a shit about Glen Beck or this MacLeod fellow, I am talking about what Ryan would face in a National Presidential Campaign.”
I am talking about a national campaign, not you, I.
I understand your point about Beck and MacLeod, especially since you have repeated it now about 100 times. I am trying to take the conversation forward, to discuss the actual implications of what has happened.
Ok. So Ryan runs for congress again this fall, does another four years in the House (because he wins of course), then runs for the Senate in 2014 when Kohl’s seat is up again. By that time, we may surmise, he will have garnered quite a following as the architect of American economic resurgence by means of his astute law-writing and budget crafting in the House. How’s that for a scenario?
No wait, that won’t work since Kohl is in the 2012 tranche, so strike the four years and replace with two. In which event, Ryan won’t have had time to garner support for American economic resurgence, he’ll have to do that while in the Senate, having kicked Kohl’s ass (assuming Kohl doesn’t come down with a case of the Stupak in the meantime).
That was a good one about the fjords by the way. Slart would approve.
Following on the party dictum that states “No legislators for executive offices” Ryan decides to continue his good works in the US Senate for two whole terms, and quietly passes on a third in 2024, retiring to life in Wisconsin and Oklahoma, divided summer and winter, respectively. He teaches Political Science in Madison and Norman, and writes his memoir on the dark days of 2010-2012 in American politics. finis
You do realize you are breaking poor happyfeets heart with these, don’t you?
Ha, good, serves him right the scamp.
I just ran into Andrew Ferguson’s new piece at Weekly Standard. Man can that guy write up a storm.
Like for instance:
the key is 2008 I think… whoever wins then will set the tone
this Mae Andersen cooze is a vicious dirty socialist propagandist I think.
her point seems to be that yes Wal-Mart is cutting prices and yes it is cheaper than other stores but you know what? Fuck them.
okey doke. So where do you suggest I shop, Mae? Are you retarded?
Be careful jumping to that unsupported conclusion. You don’t want to get hurt.
But don’t quote it verbatim. That’s just wrong.
Excellent article sdferr,
My favorite part (especially the 2nd paragraph):
“Behavioral economists deny any ideological intent in their work. The closest I’ve seen any of them come to conceding a political point of view was when Thaler, in a recent interview, said, “If there’s a regulatory philosophy in behavioral economics, it’s that we should recognize that people in the economy are human and that there are people out there trying to take advantage of them.” In this sense, behavioral economics is just conventional 1960s liberalism—and conventional 1960s economics, too—that assumes the free market itself is a kind of unending con game, with the smart guys exploiting the saps. As an advocate for the market’s hapless victims, the government has the responsibility to undo the con, a task that will require only the smartest administrators operating according to only the latest scientific research and making the most exquisite moral judgments.
You can see how useful the notion of irrational man is to a would-be regulator. It is less helpful to the rest of us, because it runs counter to every intuition a person has about himself. Nobody sees himself always as a boob, constantly misunderstanding his place in the world and the effect he has upon it. Surely the behavioral economists don’t see themselves that way. Only rational people can police the irrationality of others according to the principles of an advanced scientific discipline. If the behavioralists were boobs too, their entire edifice would collapse from its own contradictions. Somebody’s got to be smart enough to see how silly the rest of us are.”
Here’s my problem with behavioral economics:
Say the BE’s find and publish some great new research – a new effect.
Now let’s suppose there’s some canny market operators who read the research, and work out a way to profit from the inefficiency. Naturally as they take profits from the inefficiency, they arbitrage away the innefficiency itself. So the market becomes more theoretically rational.
Next time you look, the effect isn’t there any more because the canny players have traded it away!!!
A quantum observer effect in markets! The inefficiency can be there only as long as no one knows about it or talks about it. The moment anyone notices it, it goes away.
And this might also explain why an effect can show up in student experiments, yet not show up in real markets.
The markets may already have noticed the effect and arbed it away, before the researchers discovered it in the students.
I find Beck to be mucho shrieky.
Don’t quote a small part of his speech, a part orthogonal to Ryan’s own position, a small part wherein Ryan describes someone else’s behavior and principle motivation and then turn around and attribute that behavior and principle motivation to Ryan, right, that is just wrong, as I have said repeatedly as B Moe points out, and now have to say again because you decide to play the word game Pablo. But it’s all just a game, as Ludwig said, so no biggie.
FTFY.
Great, we are to be ruled by Skinnerists. Just marvy.
That was a simply fantastic piece by Ferguson. Should be mandatory reading in class.
He nails both the methodological and philosophical issues at play. And it’s a piece that could quite easily be expanded upon to other fields. Bravo.
Had he done that, you’d have a point. But he didn’t, so….
Not to wave the pom poms too much but Beck has been calling Cass Sunstein the most dangerous man in America for months, if not a year. Because he gets to nudge.
I find Beck to be more of a spaz. Levin is shrieky, IMHO.
677, McGehee, good job.
HF, it appears, thinks that we’re all hatey, which is just what the Left and the Media (but I repeat myself) want people to think. Nishi is just being herself.
i like them both. baracky et al makes me scared.
where did I ever say that Mr. Block?
more I think you are shiny thing-challenged, if you’d like some broad brushings
I don’t particularly care for either group. I also don’t care for John McCain. And Barack Obama has done a hell of a job fighting against entrenched interests. Yet, I’m unimpressed.
My bold.
The Proctor and Gamble politicians. Always “New” and “Improved and in ever smaller but pricier and flashier packages.
smaller gov’t=fewer rent seekers no?
It sounds utterly progressive, doesn’t it, geoffb? Always new and better.
My understanding of your 388, HF.
well what I mean there Mr. Block is like how I said the immigration debate is more better framed as being an issue of costliness in a time when our little country simply can’t afford certain costs associated with immigrationings… but your Malkins and their ilk are never content to leave it at that… they have to employ screechings, and brown people hate hate hate screechings. Brown people are shockingly white people-like I think.
Yeah, it’s like all the time with the hate for the brown people, especially when it’s from that brown hootchie. Just ask Keef Olbermann.
I didn’t say hate for the brown people I said screechings. Screechings are worrisomely malleable.
That’s what this post is about.
“Always new and better.”
They call it evolution.
I call it change.
They say it has a direction, toward perfection.
What I see is Brownian Motion.