Recently, I've been watching (admittedly with some glee) as the Republican Party tears itself apart over the issue of illegal immigration and immigration reform.
My advice to you? Relax before you drop a major nut.
To listen to you conservative Republicans, one would think an enormous, murderous Mexican horde is storming the southern border of the United States intent on ravaging the countryside. This is hardly rational. It's hard to make the case that illegals are doing anything but coming here to work, raise their families, and drive around with thirty people to a pick-up truck. You know, American Dream stuff.
Spastic xenophobes like Lou Dobbs attribute just about every ill our country experiences - from drugs to murder - to this ‘Mexican invasion.' If Dobbs is covering a violent crime, pay close attention. Within a minute, he will point out that the drug dealer/rapist/pedophile/supervillain is a Mexican. That train is never late. In fact, I'm surprised that Michael Vick's pseudonym, ‘Ron Mexico' didn't prompt Dobbs to claim that Mexicans like to execute puppies.
And while that vein in Dobbs's forehead just keeps getting bigger (I've lovingly named the vein Pepe), the rhetoric about ‘the end of America' just keeps getting more and more irrational. The way he's churning up this fervor, you'd think Lou's ratings depended on it! Oh, wait...
Our immigration situation, no doubt, is a problem. But is it a crisis? Was it a crisis a few years ago? Of course not. Nobody was worried about immigration a few years ago, because the Republicans' backs weren't up against the wall and fixin' to lose both houses of Congress.
Here's a poorly kept secret many of you Republicans won't want to hear: illegal immigration was brought up to be a visceral, emotional campaign issue in 2006 to drum up Republican passion for the midterm elections. And while it succeeded at riling up the Republican base, it didn't translate into votes. Instead, what the Republicans got was a ‘thumpin'' as Mr. Bush suggested. (Congratulations, Mr. President, you've just been nominated for the Understatement Of The Year Award.)
The Republican Party is infamous for raising these emotional, gut-churning issues. You know the issues I'm talking about: abortion, gay marriage, and the Purple Teletubbie, the most fiendish Australian plot to subvert traditional American values since Outback Steakhouse. Bloomin' onions? More like bloomin' depravity!
But this time, the attempt to expand their red state voter rolls backfired. Ironically, now Republicans are in a mess of their own making. The Republicans bit off way more than they could chew when they chose immigration as a campaign issue. They lost the elections in 2006, but they were still left with the hyperbolic anti-immigrant rhetoric and no practical way to solve the problem. Now that the conservative masses are adequately stoked for action, that genie ain't getting back in the bottle anytime soon.
Here's another secret you may not want to hear: every major Republican candidate for President, despite what they said, wanted the recent immigration reform bill to pass. If it had passed, the issue would have been over and they wouldn't have had to deal with the tough questions on it anymore. They can say they did what they could to oppose the bill, show their conservative chops, stand up to the President (it's about fuckin' time, by the way), and they would have had yet another rallying issue to revisit on even-numbered years (or as I like to call them, Rabid Republican Years).
You see, as the Republican ‘brand name' gets more tarnished, the party is shrinking. And guess what part of the party is eroding? I'll give you a hint: Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter still have their membership cards. (Interesting side note: Ann Coulter's Adam's apple actually has its own membership card.) That's right; it's the moderates that are leaving in droves. So all the party is left with is passionate righties who are quickly transforming themselves into a smaller and smaller party of xenophobic, near-vigilante rabble.
There's no doubt that the issue has divided the party. At the height of the immigration controversy, conservative Senators Saxby Chambliss and Lindsey Graham (both of whom clearly have silly names) were booed in their home states by conservative crowds over their support of the President's immigration reform bill. Getting booed by conservative home state crowds? Ouch. That's like Elvis Presley getting booed at Graceland.
Far right nutbars like Pat Buchanan have called this immigration boom "A Third World Invasion." Really? It's not like they're bringing the Third World with them. They're not building corrugated tin shanty towns with roaming, malnourished goats in our suburbs. We're not experiencing breakouts of malaria or dysentery (unless you count Taco Bell, but you can hardly blame Taco Bell on Mexicans). So, Mr. Buchanan, I'd suggest you grab a paper bag and take a few deep breaths before you talk about ‘the end of America as we know it.'
So what is this really about? This is about Republicans not wanting their idea of America to change. I know the thought of having to hear ‘para Español, marca dos' every time you call your stock broker makes your hair stand on end, mostly because you have no idea what it means. 'What?? Was that a coded terrorist threat??' The bottom line is that Republicans think that America will no longer be a majority white country.
Look, I'm not saying you Republicans are racist; I just... don't know how to end that sentence. I'm sure I'll be accused of race baiting, but what else can you call it? Bill O'Reilly himself has said that he's afraid of the white, Christian, male power structure in this country being toppled by Latin American immigrants. Jesus, you conservatives used to at least try to veil your racist statements with vague subtleties like ‘there goes the neighborhood', or ‘some of my best friends are colored', and so on. Now you're talking about the ‘white, Christian, male power structure'? That's progress for you.
I also hear you conservatives talk about how people come to this country illegally and then have ‘anchor babies' to keep them here. Then you say things along the lines of ‘it's ok to break up these families because they're just anchor babies' as though they weren't real children! You do realize that the phrase ‘anchor babies' doesn't mean that these children are literally two-ton wrought iron behemoths, right?
And aren't you supposed to be the party of Christian values? Ah yes, because when I ask myself what Jesus would do, the answer is inevitably, ‘love thy neighbor... unless thy neighbors haveth brown babies. In which case, fuck ‘em, for nothing sayeth mercy like punishing a child because of thine parents' birthplace.' I'm no theologian, but I think that passage is in the book of Cruelty, verse 3, chapter 5.
Again, Republicans, relax. Consult your history books: every time a large-scale immigrant influx has occurred in this country there has been this same spastic, convulsively bigoted reaction. When Italians came en masse in the late 19th and early 20th century, everyone was terrified of their hand-talking, their spicy meat-a-balls, and gravity defying mustaches. When the Irish came to this country around the same time, people were petrified that eventually, the entire country would smell like boiled potatoes and Jameson's Whiskey vomit.
But guess what? Both of those populations became so integrated into the fabric of our national identity that those previous jokes are at most only mildly offensive.
That's one thing we Americans do better than any other industrialized nation. We integrate newcomers into our society. We do it better than any country in Europe, better than Australia, better than Japan. We can integrate anyone... except those filthy, freeloading, carp-eating Swedes.
Now I know many conservatives will say that this is an issue of law and order, not race and ethnicity. Horseshit.
I'm sorry, but if Canadians were rushing the Northern border being all agreeable and polite and whatever else Canadians do, you wouldn't have a problem. If it were New Zealanders that were overstaying their Visas, you wouldn't be taking to the streets shouting to ‘send the hobbits back to Mordor!' If it were the French who... OK, admittedly that would be a bad example.
Look, I'm not faulting you for your natural inclination towards prejudice. In fact, I understand why you'd be scared about having signs in Spanish all over the place. Conservatives by nature don't like change, tolerance, or non-English speakers. (And sex. They hate sex.)
But guess what? The human brain is a remarkable instrument capable of holding more than one language. Oh yeah, It's true! Look at Europe. There are many countries where people need to speak three or four languages just to get by. And do you ever hear even the most dim-witted of Luxemburgers complain? No! By the way, I'm not sure what the actual term is for people from Luxembourg, but ‘Luxemburgers' is a damn funny word.
To that argument, I've often heard conservatives say, ‘Why should I have to learn a new language?' You don't. Just like your parents and grandparents didn't have to learn to use a computer, a VCR, or an electric toothbrush. But it sure would have made them look a lot less like retards wouldn't it?
America is nothing if not resilient. It is by nature a changing country. So if the time comes when America does become a bilingual society (which I highly doubt), go with the flow. Relax. Have a margarita, and buy yourself a copy of ‘Spanish for Complete Fucktards.'
Calm yourselves. The guy picking grapes in subhuman conditions or the fry cook working at Wendy's is not a threat to you, your livelihoods, or your daughters' respective virginities.
Look, I'm trying to do you a solid. While most Democrats are on the sidelines of this increasingly moronic debate, often giggling with glee and watching you destroy yourselves over this non-issue, I'm trying to help you out. My guess is Republicans will not relax and they'll continue to fracture and shrink their own party. What can I say? I tried. Now I'm just licking my chops for 2008.
Let freedom ring. With justice, liberty, and salsa con queso for all...
Signed,
Your friendly neighborhood liberal
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