I’ve deleted Polipundit from the links under “David Likes” in the sidebar, because Poli has gone all frothy nutso about the immigration issue. Most of his co-bloggers have fled or been kicked out over this in the last few days.
I don’t have beef with anybody having strong opinions on this issue, but when somebody starts using against their fellow conservatives — or the President — the kind of invective usually seen on Kos, I think it’s going way too far. Moreover, does nobody remember that this issue wouldn’t be nearly as hot except that the Stupid Party fell into the Democrats’ trap? Polipundit’s demise is just an example, in microcosm, of how the Democrats’ trap is succeeding in splitting the right and handing the left a possible win in the midterm elections in a few months.
Aaargh! Can’t we all just get along? I’m with Jim of Smokeonthewater on this one: let’s keep the larger goal in view before we all turn into a circular firing squad. You can disagree with the President, but calling him a traitor is way over the line. See ya Poli. I ain’t readin’ ya no more.
As for Jim, great timing on your return to blogging! Let’s hope your valuable insights help to cool the blogosphere down a bit, so “Speaker Pelosi” doesn’t become a reality.
Thank you, sir!
Jim
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Sorry, David, I disagree.
We can’t go along. The immigration issue is a litmus test, or rather a test to see who is vertibrate and who is invertibrate.
Most political subdivisions in the West are just holding their own monetarily, due in large part to the influx of poverty-wage aliens going onto the welfare rolls. Your town and mine are both being ruined by the cost of the illegals.
You can’t snap your fingers and order them to be stricken from those rolls, either. To do that, you’d have round up and jail thousands of local government people.
The alternative is to give the illegals their marching orders. I expressed an idea a few weeks ago that I believe holds promise in getting the illegals to VOLUNTARILY RETURN TO MEXICO. It’s simple: just cut off the transfer of money across the border.
Since most of them are here to send the dollars back home, most will leave when they can’t get the bucks back to MX. Some will stay, but they will be only a fraction of the total, and we can deal with them.
Cutting off Presidente Fox’s biggest source of international income will have an effect on him, too.
If Fox were to refuse to take back the returning illegals, then it’s obvious that a state of hostilities exists, and we give him military notice to comply or we repeat the War of 1848.
We conservatives have to keep up the pressure on OUR President, and that’s something we can do right up to election day. We still vote to keep the GOP majorities, but we refuse to answer any polls to tell Rove’s men that. They won’t know, and will have to cave on the amnesty question in order to save what they have.
Along those lines, I plan to keep up the pressure in my blog, and if that means using strong language to criticize the POTUS for failing to do his elected job, then you will see that strong language in my blog.
We all know that Bush is on the wrong side on the immigration question, but silence on the subject only guarantees worse destruction of the culture, and the plain fact is that the GOP has cocked up it’s chance at leadership so badly that it’s congressional majority might be unsalvageable even without the immigration question.
Speak Out!
We need to keep sending those cards, letters, and calcium supplements to our reps in DC. Help’em grow a spine and let them know why they need it.
I don’t have a problem with strong language at all. That’s what blogs are for, isn’t it? But Polipundit, it seems to me, went over the line. It’s one thing to say that we need to pressure the folks in DC to wake up to the way their base wants them to vote. It’s quite another to say that they’re traitors, etc.
And even if the GOP’s teetering on the edge of losing its majority, it makes no sense to ensure disaster by kicking it over the edge ourselves.
David,
What about the comments made by some of McClure over at Polipundit? He called those of us who think that Bush’s plan is doomed from the start “morons”, “liars”, and essentially demanded we stop referring to ourselves as conservative.
He insulted hundreds of readers at polipundit, not to mention the man who pays the bill there. Yet all i hear is how the “right-wingers” are making the dialogue harsh and venomous. What is Alexander McClure spewing? Puppy dogs and rainbows?
Yup, you’re absolutely right, McClure’s no better. But that’s my point. When one guy starts in with the invective, somebody else is sure to respond in kind, and the whole thing goes downhill from there.
Look at Rivrdog for a counter-example. The man’s doing a service to all with his blog and his Paratus blog, helping us to BE READY. Well, one of the things he’s made clear that he’s preparing for is an armed Mexican-American illegal immigrant uprising. That’s pretty strong stuff right there. But he’s handling this topic with panache and treating it seriously. He makes his points with strong language, yes, but I haven’t yet seen him say that anyone who disagrees with him about the likelihood of an uprising — even to the slightest degree –is a traitor, deserves to be shot, etc. But that sort of stuff is cropping up everywhere.
The thing that’s driving me nuts is that up ’til now it’s seemed to me there was a significant difference in the tone of discourse on conservative blogs vs. the lefty blogs. All of a sudden, that’s going out the window.
You’re right, David, Rivrdog is a class act. But his latest post makes it clear that he does not see cooling the rhetoric down as a viable option.
Nor do I blame him. The Anchoress is calling people who favor enforcement first “hard-liners”. Tim over at 4 right wing wackos is calling Michelle Malkin a “foaming and irrational chucklehead” for pointing out that if an illegal alien from Guatemala, who raped, beat, and killed a housewife, and then used her cellphone to call her females relatives to harass and threaten them had not been caught, he would have been eligible for US Citizenship. I asked Tim why being opposed to the “earned citizenship” plan was bad when the average illegal has been arrested in the US more than 5 times, and got no response.
When some person calls me names for thinking Bush’s plan is at best going to be a larger repeat of the 1986 fiasco, and at worst a serious blow to the viability of the US as we know it, I simply stop visiting their site. Once that occurs, whatever they think about me is pointless.
But what about Polipundit and Rivrdog? They had blogs, which people who want to hurl invective at them can link. They cannot blend back into the Internet background without giving up their blogs. Are they supposed to stand there and let people hurl insults at them?
The first volleys I saw from the Polipundit/Rivrdog camp were aimed at Bush. They have every right to voice their discontent with him, they helped elect him after he made certain promises, which he has failed to deliver on. The return volley I saw from the “Bush’s plan is ok” camp were not refutations of the original arguments, or attempts to explain why Polipundit was wrong. They were insults. Claims that if you oppose “comprehensive immigration reform” you are a racist, or cold-hearted, or “not a true conservative”. And the insults were not limited to individuals, it was anyone and everyone who disagreed.
Who do you think is more conservative, David: George Bush, or Rivrdog?
Well, see, I don’t believe that it’s wise to drum somebody out of the conservative camp, or even call them “more” or “less” conservative, just over a single issue, even one as important as this. That way lies a party in splinters.
Of the two you mention, who’s sticking to his core principles? Rivrdog, of course. He’s articulated them well and his statements are consistent with what he’s said before, and I assume will continue to be so. But I’m also glad to see that he still intends to vote in November.
Lots of others, I fear, will not.
A lot of people are following Rivrdog’s suggestion I suspect. We may plan on voting in November, but we aren’t gonna let the GOP know unless we see some freakin’ progress.