This article is a great review of the importance of citizen involvement in the politics of today. We can still guide this country in the direction it needs to stay as long as we get involved. Sure some Senators like Clinton and Schumer our own reps will continue to ignore us on these issues, but there are the ones that will. It should never have been allowed to get to this point of us getting as mad as hell and refusing to take it anymore. We all should be diligent in the agenda of Washington DC and the politicians that have no clue any longer as to what life is really like on the streets of the US.. Like Louise Slaughter, she could care less about the district that she is supposed to represent, she cares only about what goes on in DC…and she is my congress critter.
I get tired of being called a racist because I am against illegals breaking the Law to get here. We are a Nation of Laws, a government that is supposed to be “for the People, by the People, by the consent of the governed… Do those words even sound remotely familiar? They do to me and they are at the Heart of our History as a Nation. March 4th 1976 I swore an Oath to Protect and Defend the Constitution of this Country from all enemies, there is no expiration date on that Oath.
We have Laws that need to be enforced at the border. Border Patrol Agents that need to be allowed to do their job, not imprisoned for protecting our borders and responding in self defense.
For all of you living in the North like the Buffalo area, you have no idea what it is like in the border states unless you have lived there and tried to survive there. Who do you think is building the homes, apartment complexes, commercial buildings? Contractors and developers that want to build them at the lowest price per square foot, not for the purchase price but for the labor price. Drive through a construction site in a Border Patrol vehicle some time and then watch it empty as fast as you drive through.
Who gets hurt here? Everyone except the builder/developer. The American construction worker because they can no longer survive in the market on the wages that they are forced to accept or move on. The illegal immigrant because they work for sub standard wages and working conditions. The home buyer because they get a home that is not plumb, square and are built by the cheap labor industry, the illegal immigrant, yet you pay top dollar per square foot. The sad thing is it is allowed by the very people that are supposed to represent us and promote the general welfare of the people.
So before you tell me they are doing the jobs Americans don’t want to do, keep in mind how the illegals have driven down the labor rate by being here.
Who do you think is rebuilding New Orleans, Mississippi, Florida and Texas after Katrina?
The Incredible Importance of Today’s Senate Vote
(Hint: It’s Not Really About Immigration!)
MindBender26
The Washington political bloc and national news analysts are missing the tremendous significance of today’s immigration bill vote in the Senate. It’s not just about one distasteful potential law. For the first time in a decade, perhaps for the first time since HillaryCare died a prolonged death, Americans have told Washington that it’s our country; that does not belong to the well-connected or well-financed special interests.
Outside the Beltway the dislike for the immigration bill was almost universal. In the past, public aversion for proposed legislation has been marshaled by groups opposed to it. When HillaryCare was proposed, the AMA, the insurance lobby and others organized and paid for expensive media campaigns to fight it. As a result of the onslaught of TV spots and full page newspaper advertisements, the Capitol Hill switchboards were flooded with negative phone calls. America didn’t want HillaryCare, and it died just as surely as a corpse with a three hour duration flat line EKG.
The immigration issue was different. There was no massive paid media campaign against it. Coverage from the mainstream news media was overwhelmingly favorable, even laudatory. But despite the incredible efforts by the media and Washington’s most powerful, it went down to a crashing defeat. In the end, the Senators listened to the overwhelming message of the phone calls, read the tea leaves, and voted against the bill.
But how was so much negative public attention focused on the bill when there was little if any organized opposition against it?
The answer lies in how America and information sharing have changed. 20 years ago, we all received our daily news briefings from men who lived within 50 miles of each other. Regardless of whether it was NBC, ABC, CBS or the New York Times, the thought leaders of those media all came from the same clique. They partied together, worked in close proximity of each other and it was a rare man (yes, they were all men back then) among them who dared to think differently. They were all liberal lemmings, all committed to following each other over the cliff of rationality to promote their own personal liberal agendas.
But now it’s different. Listener-driven talk radio and the broad spectrum of vox populi called the internet let millions of Americans share their feelings that this bill was simply wrong. It wasn’t so much a liberal idea against a conservative idea or a Republican program versus a Democratic one; this bill simply rang wrong for most Americans. It was if a hundred million Howard Beales were all shouting at the Washington Beltway Brethren, “I’m Mad As Hell and I’m Not Going To Take It Anymore!”
Those Washington insiders will spend the next few weeks trying to discern what this all means. They will end up patting each other on the back reassuringly and blame it all on a citizens’ temper tantrum… and they will be wrong. America relearned this week that we can drive politics and policies. If the Washington Elite ever understood that Right-Wing talk radio is not about Rush, Sean or Savage; but it’s really about the tens of millions who have been awakened by their programs, they could comprehend this groundswell of new public empowerment. But they will not. Just as Nero fiddled as Rome burned, the oh-so-self- important Washingtonians will fiddle faddle as America turns.
The bottom line: This could be as significant as the Reagan election of 1980 and the Gingrich-inspired, midterm election of 1994. It’s not significant because it put new national leadership in place, but, like the Reagan and 1994 Clinton-rejecting elections, it shows we are empowered to take our country back. This was not a First Tuesday in November when everyone’s attention is focused on elections. It was just slow week in June when we all said; “Enough is enough.” We didn’t need news coverage of an important election to get us involved. We knew right from wrong and had the communications tools, the internet and talk radio, to get us organized.
Prediction: This is horrible long-term news for Washington insiders depending on their status to win them votes in 2008. It’s very bad for Hillary, and very good for Fred Thompson. Today proved that Americans know right from wrong and we care enough to do something about it. As I said, that’s very bad news for Hillary.
Tags: Congress Abuse
Even President Bush called it an amnesty bill. We tried that once, it just encouraged more illegal immigration.
Many of us come from different backgrounds, but our ancestors came here legally. It’s something the left just doesn’t get…