“When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it—without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud—to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed.” — Frederic Bastiat (The Law)
Yesterday I quoted extensively from a Column by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post. In his column Mr. Krauthammer wrote referring to the future of the Republican Party:
“They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.
The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example). The principal reason they go Democratic is the issue of illegal immigrants. In securing the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney made the strategic error of (unnecessarily) going to the right of Rick Perry. Romney could never successfully tack back.
For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.”
While this may or may not be a strategy for winning elections by increasing the Hispanic vote conservatives must take a very cautious approach to this issue. It was Ronald Reagan who followed a similar course, but was sabotaged by Congress when they failed to secure the border allowing millions illegals to cross over our southern border.
Hispanic amnesty activists are expanding their goals beyond the so-called “DREAM Act” youth amnesty, towards a national amnesty for roughly 11 million Hispanic illegals.
President Barack Obama and Congress “need to come together to deliver change on immigration policy, and by that we mean a roadmap to citizenship for our parents and communities,” said Cristina Jimenez, director of an advocacy group, United We Dream.
According to an article in the Daily Caller Jimenez was born in Ecuador and arrived in this country as an illegal immigrant.
“Deporting members of our community is irresponsible and unacceptable,” added Lorella Praeli, the group’s policy director.
Their demand is an opening salvo in a post-election campaign to persuade the House GOP to provide “a path to citizenship” for roughly 11 million illegal immigrants, most of whom are low-skill laborers who compete for jobs against low-skill Americans.
The amnesty goal is supported by many progressive groups, in part, because most Hispanics prefer generous welfare policies, and so usually vote for Democratic candidates.
In contrast, many Republican advocates and legislators favor high-skill immigration, partly because high-skilled workers spur the economy and lower unemployment.
But the issue has been gridlocked because most GOP leaders prefer high-skill immigration, while most progressives believe that continued arrival of low-skill immigrants boosts their political power.
For example, the board of Jimenez’s group includes Josh Bernstein, the “immigration director” for the Service Employees International Union. That union’s membership has been boosted by the recruitment of many foreigners working without legal permission in the United States.
Polls show some support for amnesty, but other polls of working-class Americans in swing states show opposition.
Gov. Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, in part, because of low turnout by blue-collar workers in Ohio and other states.
The renewed advocacy for an national amnesty comes as the formal unemployment rate among Americans ticked up to 7.9 percent.
Roughly 23 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Many additional low-skill workers Americans are paid low wages because employers have many potential job-applicants.
In June, Obama announced a temporary amnesty for roughly 800,000 younger illegal-immigrants.
That move greatly boosted Obama’s political support among Latinos prior to the Nov. 6 election.
Under this so-called “Deferred Action” measure, up to 1.76 million illegal immigrants could get work permits, according to an estimate by the Migration Policy Institute.
Only 6 percent of the eligible illegals have college educations, the MPI estimated.
However, Obama’s June decision isn’t enough, said Sonia Martinez, another young illegal immigrant working with the United We Dream group.
“I’m undocumented [and Deferred Action] is really important for me and my daughter. But we believe that Deferred Action is not enough for us,” she said.
“We’ll be fighting to keep families together,” instead of winning amnesty for younger illegal immigrants, she said.
The call for Republicans to discard their opposition to immigration amnesty will grow deafening in the wake of President Obama’s victory. Hispanics supported Obama by a margin of nearly 75 percent to 25 percent, and may have provided important margins in some swing states. If only Republicans relented on their Neanderthal views regarding the immigration rule of law, the message will run, they would release the inner Republican waiting to emerge in the Hispanic population.
If Republicans want to change their stance on immigration, they should do so on the merits, not out of a belief that only immigration policy stands between them and a Republican Hispanic majority. It is not immigration policy that creates the strong bond between Hispanics and the Democratic party, but the core Democratic principles of a more generous safety net, strong government intervention in the economy, and progressive taxation. Hispanics will prove to be even more decisive in the victory of Governor Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30, which raised upper-income taxes and the sales tax, than in the Obama election.
And California is the wave of the future. A March 2011 poll by Moore Information found that Republican economic policies were a stronger turn-off for Hispanic voters in California than Republican positions on illegal immigration. Twenty-nine percent of Hispanic voters were suspicious of the Republican Party on class-warfare grounds — “it favors only the rich”; “Republicans are selfish and out for themselves”; “Republicans don’t represent the average person”– compared with 7 percent who objected to Republican immigration stances.
It is estimated that each illegal immigrant costs the people of the State of California $22,000 per year. That’s equivalent to the cost of a very good new car each year or a year’s worth of payments on a $200.000 home mortgage. The County of Los Angeles is going broke with the burden imposed by the welfare and health care costs of illegal immigrants, people who have broken our laws by coming here illegally.
To me I cannot understand how giving illegals amnesty will help Republicans as according to the law a person cannot vote in a presidential election unless they are a citizen. This is an issue the Democrats have advanced on a purely emotional level in attempt to get the votes of citizens of Hispanic heritage. It is an issue the Republicans have not adequately explained to Hispanics or the American People on the whole.
According to Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute writing in National Review On “Line Why Hispanics Don’t Vote for Republicans:”
“I spoke last year with John Echeveste, founder of the oldest Latino marketing firm in southern California, about Hispanic politics. “What Republicans mean by ‘family values’ and what Hispanics mean are two completely different things,” he said. “We are a very compassionate people, we care about other people and understand that government has a role to play in helping people.”
And a strong reason for that support for big government is that so many Hispanics use government programs. U.S.-born Hispanic households in California use welfare programs at twice the rate of native-born non-Hispanic households. And that is because nearly one-quarter of all Hispanics are poor in California, compared to a little over one-tenth of non-Hispanics. Nearly seven in ten poor children in the state are Hispanic, and one in three Hispanic children is poor, compared to less than one in six non-Hispanic children. One can see that disparity in classrooms across the state, which are chock full of social workers and teachers’ aides trying to boost Hispanic educational performance.
The idea of the “social issues” Hispanic voter is also a mirage. A majority of Hispanics now support gay marriage, a Pew Research Center poll from last month found. The Hispanic out-of-wedlock birth rate is 53 percent, about twice that of whites.
The demographic changes set into motion by official and de facto immigration policy favoring low-skilled over high-skilled immigrants mean that a Republican party that purports to stand for small government and free markets faces an uncertain future.”
On election night, as the camera panned the audience waiting to hear Barack Obama give his victory speech, what struck me was that the audience was primarily young people and minorities. My thought was, "These are the very people who will suffer the most under a second Obama administration. Don't they know they are voting against their own best interest?"
And then I thought about it and came to the conclusion: "No, they don't." They don't because they are, by and large, uneducated. Oh, some of them may have college degrees or even graduate degrees, but they are still substantially uneducated. I would bet that very few of them know the difference between Keynesian economics and Austrian School economics. I am sure that most of them have never heard of the Laffer Curve. I would guess that most of them aren't familiar with the first principles behind the origin of our country. I doubt that many of them know what evil lies in Socialism or Communism, or unbridled leftism. Or are even aware that Barack Obama is a man of the left, and what that means. They, for the most part, have no idea what the concept of individual liberty is, nor how a big, powerful central government reduces that liberty. I also am pretty sure that they feel that Barack Obama is someone who cares about the poor, women, minorities, and the "middle class," and that Republicans don't. I would stake my substance on the fact that they don't know what is meant by a limited government, or what the Tenth Amendment says. I am certain that most of them don't know anything about Benghazi. Substantially uneducated!
For the past 40 or so years most of our K-12 (and college) educators have been teaching a progressive agenda and class warfare to their students. From kindergarten up they use text books that focus on social issues and downplay our heritage. In many of the urban school districts classes are taught in Spanish so as to provide this progressive agenda without the need for learning English. They are providing these students a crutch, a crutch that will keep them in low paying jobs and poverty so they will be dependent on government for their existence. Also this lack of learning to common language of the United States along with the lack of exposure to our founding principles and heritage tends to keep these immigrants (legal and illegal) in ghettos where politicians can exploit them for their support and votes and they become easy prey for unions like SEIU.
If you live in Germany, France or Italy you need to learn the language to exist. Unlike the United States in these countries official documents are in the native language. You cannot get a license to drive a vehicle unless you take a test in the native language and all ballots are only printed in the native language. The Bundestag or French Parliament does not have a black caucus or Hispanic caucus. Their legislatures are concerned with all of the people not just certain racial or ethnic special interest victim groups. You are either German, French or Italian or you are not.
If you talk with a student in Germany, which I have, they will tell you, in detail, about their history, legal system, culture, and politics. Upper grade students will also tell you a great deal about the American system of government — much more than the average urban black or Hispanic students can.
To summarize — the children in our K-12 urban public school system, for the most part, believe the following:
a) Republicans care about only the rich — the top 1% — and don't care about anyone else.
b) Republicans hate people of color and especially Latinos.
c) Republicans hate gays.
d) Republicans are racist. Many do not know that it was the Republicans under the leadership or Abraham Lincoln who emancipated the slaves and Republicans who advanced the civil rights legislation of the 1960s while the Democrat party led by Al Gore senior, Richard Byrd, and J. William Fulbright who attempted to block it.
e) It is the government that provides jobs. When asked that question many times in classrooms or assemblies — "who is it that creates jobs in America?" The answer is invariably, without hesitation, "the government." This is what they learn from their teachers and parents.
f) Corporations are bad, and profits are very bad. Business shouldn't make profits; they should give any excess money they make to their employees.
g) Taxes are good; they provide the money for the government to take care of people.
h) Government should expand and take care of everyone in the country.
i) America, rather than being a force for good in the world, has been a force for evil.
j) Government has an unlimited source of funds. (When asked "where is the government going to get the money to do all these things you want it to do?," the answer is "taxes.")
These children will soon be voters. How is it, in America, that we are raising children to believe that bigger government is better, that government is the engine that provides jobs, that profits are bad, that Republicans care about only the rich, that we are racist, and that we hate minorities and gays.
This is not something to be ignored. Our country is being changed forever by children who have had this type of indoctrination. We must figure out how to stop it. We need to create a love of country in our children as we once did. We need to have our children say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag every morning or the Preamble to the Constitution (in English), as we once did. We need to teach our children that America has been a force for good in the world. We need to teach them that it is not the role of government to "take care" of people. We need to teach civics once again, and the Constitution. And above all we must stop this culture destroying policy of bi-lingual education. English should not be a second language, but the language of this Republic.
Until this problem is dealt with, and it needs to be soon, we will be raising generations of children who believe in an ever-larger government and who will permanently change America into Greece. There will be no Republican Party or conservative candidates who will win elections as more and more of the population is indoctrinated with leftist thinking. Goodbye to the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free if we don't act on this issue.
If you look at the county by county map of how this nation voted in this last presidential election you will see how the Democrats dominated the urban population centers while the rest of the nation voted Republican. (You can click on the map for a larger view). You can also see a more interactive detailed view of the California vote for President and Jerry Brown’s enormous tax raising Proposition 30 by clicking the links shown.
In State after State and district after district, Democrats won by promising that government would do something for the people hearing their message. Subsidize their healthcare, pay for their prescriptions, finance their schooling, guarantee their retirement… the list goes on and on. It’s the 21st century version of promising a chicken in every pot.
And, folks, let’s face it. It worked. What happens when a majority of voters are told they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury, if they’ll only put the “right people” in charge?
We saw the answer Tuesday. They’ll stand in line for hours to vote to keep the goodies coming.
It’s going to be awfully hard to outwork, outspend and outvote them. The silent majority is being replaced by a “gimme” society. What’s going to prevent them from dragging this country over a fiscal cliff — and us along with them?
I don’t know. Do you?
Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but I’m stunned and saddened over the results of Tuesday’s elections. I thought it was one of the clearest choices between two different directions for this country I’ve ever seen. And I’m scared to death of the decision a majority of voters just made.
Ah, well, there is one positive thing I can say about the outcome. It will give this humble scribe — and the other conservative and libertarian writers — plenty to write about for the next few years.
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