Monday, April 10, 2006

Conservative no more?

Increasingly, that is what it is looking like I will be saying in the wake of this immigration debate.

The immigration debate has become that bad. It seems that on the right, if one does not agree with the positions of a Michelle Malkin or a Michael Savage, you are for "open borders" or worse. Furthermore, they seem determined to sabotage any compromise that features what they have come to call "amnesty".

To be blunt, this is the right's version of "Medicare cuts". There is no amnesty. Those who are here illegally pay a penalty. It is merely not the penalty that is sought by Malkin, Savage, and Tancredo. Furthermore, they are claiming there is no serious enforcement. Well, what have CBP and ICE been doing all this time, playing tiddlywinks?! This has to be an insult to the personnel of both agencies who put their lives on the line. Not to mention who are already deporting dangerous criminals (1,300 in soxth months by the Buffalo, New York, Field Office). No enforcement? That claim ranks right up there with "Medicare cuts" in terms of whoppers told for political advantage.

It is just getting impossible to continue to associate myself with a movement that is embracing these lies. And that is leading me to openly question whether my beliefs can really be pegged into one particular movement. Hugh Hewitt said that immigration was an issue that could cause a civil war in the Republican Party. In this, he is wrong. The civil war is already upon us. It now remains to be decided whether the vision that triumphs is Ronald Reagan's or Tom Tancredo's.

No comments: