Immigration "Reform": Two Victories

Now Playing: "Les Lignes de Nos Mains" - Patou ca. 1997, serious gooseflesh material for me - 'makes me feel like I'm standing on a Parisian street corner after a light rain...which in point of fact I was, shortly after I first heard this...

This has been a momentous week on a number of fronts - a lethal terrorist bombing averted in Britain, the Fed leaving interest rates alone, Bigelow Aerospace's unmanned test module for their private space station successfully launched to Earth orbit, and of course the infamous "comprehensive immigration reform" bill was defeated in the U.S. Senate under an avalanche of angry opposition from the American people.

Defeat of the immigration bill is an overwhelming relief, qualified by the fact that we've only regained zero, not progressed in any measure toward a proper immigration policy.

More significant than the bill's defeat itself was the manner in which it was defeated by the American people, and on the downside the backlash of censorship demands it provoked from the most corrupt of American politicians.

The bill itself was by all accounts a monstrosity, nearly 800 pages that few in Congress who voted on it either for or against had even read (understandably if not justifiably.) Not meaning to shock anyone, but it left the "public assistance" (read: welfare) dole and the government's atrocious education monopoly untouched - which implies the "internationalizing" of America's welfare state; It was utterly toothless in establishing English as a common language, which implies the eventual Balkanization of the United States; It did little or nothing to squeeze off the alarming conduit for terrorism that our borders have become in recent years; It made no significant streamlining of the process of legal immigration for those waiting patiently in line in their home countries.

The one most significant feature of the immigration "reform" debate has been what is absent from it, namely: A call to end welfare.

Again, excluding criminals, untreated communicable disease carriers and terrorist or revanchist agents, the only way in which any immigrant, legal or otherwise, can be a burden on American citizens is if he latches onto the government dole and begins feeding off of their taxed property.

The bill also did not raise a peep about correcting the root cause of the exodus from Mexico: that nation's needless economic inertia and resulting poverty.

Mexico is analogous to an emaciated man in rags sitting on a cache of buried treasure. Mexico's oil fields are reportedly as vast as those of the Mideast, albeit of a lesser grade of crude, which means it's somewhat more expensive to refine; Mexico therefore ought to be one of the most prosperous, vibrant and thriving economies on Earth. If our government were to adopt a focused policy of working with the Mexican government to establish laissez faire on a foundation of individual rights, one can envision a future in which Americans might be flocking south of the border for lucrative jobs.

None of that, however. Actually solving a problem by addressing its root causes would be out of character for government functionaries. So how does one account for the inexplicable and bizarre alliance of a Republican President with hardcore, goose-stepping leftists like Kennedy, Reid and Feinkenstein? Simple.

What the "reform" bill would have done, at least in the eyes of its "bipartisan" supporters, is buy gobs and gobs of future votes - at the cost of selling out America's identity, perhaps even sovereignty. The President is naïve and unprincipled enough to believe that currying favor with illegals rather than eliminating the mechanisms by which they become a detriment to American citizens will somehow translate to election wins down the road; Democrat-Socialists are merely acting in a manner consistent with their normal, countercultural corruption. The lot of them are little more than pragmatist power-whores.

On a different level, the defeat of the immigration monstrosity is probably the single most dramatic, tangible triumph for the American people-at-large over insular, monarchic government bureaucrats since the second Reagan landslide. This defeat was a smackdown of out-of-control, power-crazed politicians by the American rank & file, and we WON. Big.

More of this, please.

On a significant downside, a number of militantly-corrupt government officious are "considering" running our priceless and untouchable First Amendment through a fine-pitch industrial shredder. As evidenced by:

Diane Feinstein and her ideological blood-brother Trent Lott;

Democrat-Socialist Dennis Kucinich;

Senator and former D-S Presidential candidate John Kerry;

And of course yesterday on the floor of the Senate, majority leader Harry Reid vilified his opposition in talk radio and elsewhere - as "generators of simplicity" who are "filled with hate," etc. The jury's out as to whether his oration was a simple whine or a threat. I think both, and I find that chilling.

We have a lot of reason to be encouraged when we contemplate the actual mechanism by which the omnibus bill was defeated. As reported in the above-referenced Washington Post article, the outpouring of opposition on the bill was so overwhelming today that it shut down the Senate switchboard. The losers on the immigration bill are blaming the First Amendment, in so many words. Naturally.

Each talk radio host, each blogger (such as this one,) each podcaster, each commentator in any forum, is the de facto leader of a kind of coalition of American citizens - the audience for that commentary. Every instance of such a "coalition" gathering to listen to a radio show or surfing to a blog site, is an instance of Americans exercising their untouchable First Amendment rights.

Those talk show hosts, bloggers, podcasters, publishers are exercising their right to speak and print freely;

Their respective audiences, whether in the tens or in the millions, are exercising their right to assemble peaceably and exercising their freedom of conscience in considering whatever viewpoint they choose - regardless of how acceptible any given viewpoint is to others;

Those who subsequently choose to contact their elected officials - among both the commentators and their audiences - are exercising their right to petition government.

With the exception of the clauses on religion (which don't come up in this context,) the opposition press and audience that the neo-fascists are trying to demonize are the very embodiment of our Constitution's First Amendment in its every application.

Now back away a step or two and marvel at the sheer benevolent genius of America's Founders. One cannot help but experience a sense of awe at the magnificent system they built into our Constitution - yet another safeguard against the abuse of power by that most dangerous of entities, the state.

In this one crucial issue - how we are to handle immigration - the American people sensed a dangerous disconnect among elected officials on their sworn duty to represent, not dictate, and rose up to remind them of that duty. Our First Amendment has operated like a finely-tuned, well-oiled, precision machine, empowering the rank-and-file of American citizenry to rein in an insular, monarchic and power-crazed government. The astounding thing is that this mechanism operated spontaneously, as a function of the marketplace of ideas.

The rights enumerated in that Amendment apply equally to print, to the airwaves, to electronics. Speech is speech, the printed word is the printed word. The mechanism by which they are delivered to their audience is immaterial - but that is what those clamoring for censorship are hoping you won't realize.

The out-of-control government officials at the receiving end of that public outrage are predictably livid at having been brought to heel - that all of that opposition welled up as a function of free people exercising rights they (the politicians,) are Constitutionally forbidden to tamper with. Led by the fascist wing of the Democrat-Socialist Party - Kerry, Pelosi, Reid, Feinstein, etc. - they're expressing a desire to smash that machine, our First Amendment rights, so as to wield monarchic power without any pesky feedback from us plebes.

And as I posted previously, the time has come for GOP lawmakers to begin taking the offensive on this. Legislation should be introduced to penalize - via censure or whatever other penalties are appropriate - any Congressman who proposes legislation that by its very nature represents a violation of that member's oath to uphold and defend the United States Constitution.

As for the rest of us, that lurch to Constitution-shredding needs to be smacked down even more decisively than was the "immigration reform" monstrosity. Every politician currently jabbering about "fairness doctrines" and "net neutrality" needs to hear from us - loudly and proudly. Our system functions magnificently by design - but it cannot abide internal vandalism.

The assault on America's Constitution must end, now.