Tom Tancredo deserves kudos for not showing up, and for boycotting this travesty. As he correctly says,
It is the law that to become a naturalized citizen of this country you must have knowledge and understanding of English, including a basic ability to read, write, and speak the language," [...] "So what may I ask are our presidential candidates doing participating in a Spanish-speaking debate?"
What indeed? They are legitimizing the idea that people can come here, refuse to learn our language, and expect to participate in our political system while being part of a non-English speaking, culturally isolated enclave.
But here are the other candidates, trying to outpander each other, while at the same time, mindful that their base, their English-speaking constituents, are listening in on this Spanish shindig. It's almost entertaining, in a perverse way, to witness their twists and turns over the past few weeks as Huckabee and Romney and McCain, in particular go back and forth from promoting amnesty to talking tough, and then back again, depending on whose votes they are whoring after at the moment. So here they are, truckling to Hispanics, leavening their tough talk about illegal immigration with fawning praise and flattery to Hispanics.
GOP candidates clash over immigration
CORAL GABLES, Fla. - On the tricky question of what to do with the 12 million immigrants here illegally, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain Sunday night stood out in a Republican presidential field that has clashed harshly over illegal immigration.
Only Giuliani and McCain indicated that many undocumented immigrants could stay in this country while seeking legal status, while the others demanded that "the rule of law" be enforced and that the immigrants return to their home countries first.
But in the first GOP forum on Hispanic issues, broadcast in Spanish by Univision from the University of Miami to millions of households, seven candidates sought to soften their contentious language as they appealed to a group that polls say is abandoning their party.
That erosion of support among the fastest-growing immigrant group in America, amid the GOP's fierce internal battle over immigration, led comprehensive immigration reform sponsor McCain to sound an alarm. "I'll say to you what I said at the last debate before a non-Hispanic audience," McCain said. "And that is: We have to address this issue with compassion and love, because these are human beings."
Well, John, how about some compassion and love for your American constituents, who are tired of violence on the border, bankrupt hospitals, overcrowded schools, crime waves, neighborhoods destroyed, and exotic diseases being introduced into our country -- all of which require taxpayers' money to deal with, or even American lives lost? Where is your love and compassion for your own? What a sorry generation of 'leaders', leading our country over a cliff. Blind leaders of the blind.
I think some of the rhetoric that many Hispanics hear about illegal immigration makes some of them believe that we are not in favor of or seek the support of Hispanic citizens in this country," he said.''
Well, Hispanic citizens -- if indeed they are citizens, and most it seems are not -- supposedly have the same interests and concerns as the rest of us Americans. At least that is what the politically correct party line holds. So why should these Hispanic citizens -- Americans, ostensibly -- be overconcerned with illegal aliens? And why should politicians court only certain races and ethnicities? We already had, historically, a special group of people that demands coddling and catering 24/7, and now you politicians have made sure that we have an even larger group of overgrown children who will demand special treatment and coddling and concessions. If you politicians would stop babying these people and truckling to them, they might not be so demanding. Instead, you politicians have created another high-maintenance, childish constituency who will need special attention.
Immigration dominated the 90-minute forum -- its moderators said that 85 percent of the questions viewers submitted had to do with that issue. But the discussion, which was simultaneously translated to and from Spanish and English, ranged over many issues, including education and foreign policy.''
So 85 percent of the questions submitted from viewers had to do with immigration. No surprise there; the immigrant apologists, the nice goody-two-shoes types, always say that Hispanics think just as we do on these issues; they are opposed to illegal immigration and amnesty. Wrong. Clearly they are in favor, or these candidates would not be pandering on that issue. And the only foreign policy questions they seemed to care about were involving Spanish-speaking nations. What an ethnocentric, insular attitude.
None of the candidates changed positions -- all demanded a border fence and tough enforcement. But they differed on those already here.
Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee both demanded the illegal immigrants leave.''
Yes, but for Huckabee, at least, this seems to be a technicality since he supports some kind of touchback program where illegals go through the motions of returning to Mexico and coming back legally. It's a farce and a sham, and a sop to the simple-minded who will accept it as a way of 'making the illegals go home and come back the right way.' Here is what he said to Chris Wallace on Fox News:
But that pathway to get back here legally doesn't take years. It would take days, maybe weeks, and then people could come back in the workforce.
Let me tell you why that's important. Two reasons. Number one, the American people say, "Do something. Do it now. We don't want to have this country ignoring the illegal problem." I get it.
Secondly, I want people who are in this country to hold their heads up high. You know, right now there are a lot of people who really are here because they're trying to feed their families. I don't begrudge them that.
I say every day I thank God I'm in a country people are trying to break into, not break out of. But let's give them a means by which they can get here through the door legally, and when they're here they don't have to hide, they don't have to keep their heads down and hope nobody catches them, they have their heads held high.
Everyone living within the borders of the United States ought to do so with dignity and with a sense of pride, not a sense of fear.''
Huck if people were trying to break into your house and steal things, would you give them a key? That's what you're doing.
And I'm really tired of this liberal twaddle about how everybody deserves 'dignity.' Who dictated that? Sneak thieves, liars, and frauds don't deserve dignity. Dignity, like respect, has to be earned and deserved. It isn't a freebie, and it isn't something anyone can demand or anything politicians can extort from citizens on behalf of the illegals.
As for this sickly-sweet talk about how the poor illegals have 'a sense of fear' and how they can't hold their heads up, this is nonsense. I have never yet seen an illegal who behaved timidly or fearfully. They look us in the eye brazenly as if to say, 'here I am gringo, and you can't do a thing about it.' But Huckabee and McCain and the other bleeding-hearts are flaunting their compassion and their moral superiority, like the Pharisee praying loudly in public.
In this debate, rescheduled from earlier this year when only Mike Huckabee agreed to participate, the GOP contenders found themselves walking a fine line, seeking to soothe Hispanics while trying not to alienate the mostly white conservative base in Iowa.'
Well, good luck, guys; we will see if your mostly white conservative base is fooled by your contortions and your doubletalk. I am sad to say, I fear they may be taken in.
The softer tone of the forum was made possible in part by the absence of contender Tom Tancredo, who is running as the anti-immigration candidate.''
What a cheap shot at Tancredo: the 'softer tone' was due to his absence. Well, so much the worse for the truth, which was in short supply in Tom Tancredo's absence.
This Spanish-language debate business will probably become a regular thing now, and if our quisling politicians have their way, a generation or so in the future, if there is a United States of America, we will be lucky if there is an English-language debate.
And if there is any justice, these pandering sell-out politicians will all be out of a job, replaced by people like Villaraigosa, Bill 'Richardson' Lopez (who will by then have dropped the superflous 'Richardson' from his name) and Melquiades Martinez. These presidential wannabees are fools if they think they can join up with what they perceive as the winning side; they are hoping they can maintain their place in a Spanish-speaking America. Well, buena suerte with that, guys.
