Monday, May 15, 2006

Who are these people?

The Anchoress had some timely remarks about Bush's immigration speech tonight and she posted the following:

Harold Hutchinson is ripe for a fight and so is Rob at Say Anything. They’re angry about this deplorable piece in World Net Daily and well they should be. It reads in part:

If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.

How do you like that? Is that what you want speaking for you? Sadly, I’ve read similar sentiments on conservative forums all day. That’s where this unhinged, over-emotional rage-train is headed, folks. If this is representative of the current conservative fever-swamp, then I guess I will have to say pardon me, I guess I’m not a conservative, after all, and take one step leftward.

The Republicans do not need to worry about what the Democrats are doing, they need to worry about these people. I am with the Anchoress here, this kind of talk is unacceptable.

UPDATE:

The Anchoress has some more advice in a new post and bloggers, expecially conservatives need to listen to this lady:

The thing is, and I’m being serious, here…that sort of ongoing harangue, completely devoid of respect, of a willingness to take half-a-loaf and call it a win…that’s the stuff that could in the end WEAKEN the influence of the blogs. Stomp your feet and find any solution but yours to be insufficient, and eventually you look like a crank, and people stop paying attention.

Imagine being President of the US, dealing with the world as it is, right now, and having to hear that every pissant little writer with a blog is demanding THIS sort of action or THAT sort of solution and threatening to…I don’t know, hold the breath or lead his or her “loyal readers” into open revolt. Imagine being president and having to hear from an advisor that one-issue people, with one-issue perspectives are demanding a perfect (and probably undoable) action on their one-issue, or they’ll toss you overboard, because the other thousand things you got right no longer matter. That they’ll commit electoral suicide rather than accept a compromise.

Imagine hearing that and then looking at your map of the world, your intelligence reports, your CIA imploding with rogue agents, your troops all-but-forgotten by most Americans, your roaring economy being yawned at, your most effective tools to keep the nation secure being leaked and rendered ineffective, your congressional majority utterly lacking in cojones, the media moving toward mendacity, etc, etc, etc.

Imagine thinking of all of that, and then having to worry about the roar coming from the blogosphere - not from a writer having a one-time temper-tantrum and venting (I’ve certainly been known to do that, as have most of us) but by bloggers who have determined that they are not mere commenters and information gatherers/relators, but in-the-game movers and shakers, more tuned-in to the realities of any problem than the President could ever be, more morally upright, more patriotic, more extensively knowledgable, more…well, more caring, dammit! And more loyal to America, too! Just ask their readers!

If I were president, I’d stop caring what everyone was saying, too, after a while, and just try to do the best I could by my own lights, and hope things work out the best for the whole nation. Not just for the foot-stompers.


Undoubtedly, I will be denounced by more conservatives and a few bloggers for daring to suggest it, but I am a blogger, so I know whereof I speak: the seductive tones of the echo chambers and the Amen Chorus can skewer perspective and (if one is not cautious) overinflate the ego. We are all susceptible to it; to deny that is to be fully in the ego’s grip.

Pay attention people. I know I just took several blogs off my bookmarks and I doubt if I am alone on this.

22 comments:

Guesst said...

WorldNutsDaily is linked by many of the pundits who hawk their wares on the site.

Five years ago it was a known haven for kooks and extremists.

Now it's "mainstream", linked by Drudge and mentioned by the likes of Rush Limbaugh (whose brother just happens to hawk HIS wares there!), the same people who most often cough up stupid comments like "I'm an independent conservative!" and rant on about using government intervention to control immorality.

WND: helping to expose one faux "conservative" at a time!

Jack said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jack said...

Tactless, but still correct.

Some people, unfortunately, push buttons at the expense of their argument. I can be guilty of it at times.

Guesst said...

The author cited earlier, Vox Day, explains on his blog:

<< Actually, I compared it to what the National Socialists did between December 1941 and June 1945. Perhaps you've never heard of concentration camps - really death camps - such as Dachau and Auschwitz. Before they killed the Jews, the National Socialists had to identify them and transport them. The point, as seems to have escaped you and many other morons, is that it is quite clearly possible to enact deportations on the scale required.

In other words, Vox Day would like to see the United States "deport" '12 million Mexicans' back to Mexico because we've been invaded.

He like many other kooks, has bought into the "invasion" theory that businesspeople like Malkin are pushing.

The GOP should be RUNNING from these insane people, and normal folks (Vox Day calls us morons)should be speaking out against this sort of emboldened bigotry.

Unknown said...

Tactless but correct?

OK I will bite. Let's say that Tancredo and his buds get their way and we start loading up men, women and children in cattle cars at gun point and dump them over the border.

Never mind that the first million will be back before the second million is rounded up.

Now let's just imagine the campaign ads. Black and white, with guards and everything. Next to that will be black and white images of people being unloaded at death camps...oh yeah. That will be just wonderful.

If these people do not shut the eff up no hispanic with an ounce of self respect will vote Republican for a generation. Think it can't happen? Think 1924 and the Jews and Catholics.

Unknown said...

alan:

That is just the berries.

Harold said...

I don't know who they are, but I don't think they should have any political power at all.

Unknown said...

harold:

I could not agree more. I am beginning to wonder if they even really care about immigration or if they just like throwing their weight around.

truepeers said...

I have to disagree with Cutler. I don't think the present US government has anywhere near the capabilities of the Nazis to round up people. Quite aside from questions of record keeping, you don't have the equivalent of the monomaniacal SS cult, nor enough morally inept Sargeant Schultzes ("I know nothing, no..thing"), or enough busy bodies willing to report on the house or business down the street.

And that is mostly a good thing whatever your dislike for illegals.

truepeers said...

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure what Sgt. Schultz has to do with my argument; that's a hangover from my what did the Germans know debates.

Unknown said...

fresh air:

I like that... Buddhist Republicans.

ex-democrat said...

hmm, Hirsi Ali vilified on one thread and Malkin vilified here. almost like a pattern.

nice bedfellows, guys

chuck said...

Hirsi Ali vilified on one thread and Malkin vilified here. almost like a pattern.

Ah, and who vilified Ali? I believe Truepeers took exception to her atheism, and truly she seems to suffer from some of the French delusions, but the only vilification I saw came from a self described educated Dutch lady who thought her a troublemaker.

As to Malkin, the unhinged pandemic is spreading wildly and seems highly contagious.

ex-democrat said...

chuck - so your response to malkin's arguments is also that she is a "bigot" who is peddling an "invasion" theory simply to make a buck? and you see no parallel between the vitriol directed at this minority woman expressing non-PC views and the one in Holland?

you know, i can understand those who believe that enforcing the immigration laws against those already here may be impractical. however, i do not understand the venom directed at those who disagree.

what was predictable, though, is that this venom has now attracted some genuine bigots to this blog.

chuck said...

so your response to malkin's arguments is also that she is a "bigot" who is peddling an "invasion" theory simply to make a buck?

If you can point to anyplace where I said either of those things, then we can discuss it. Otherwise, don't put words in my mouth.

No, I don't think Malkin is a bigot, nor driven by profit, I think she is obsessed, which is no prettier. A politician she ain't. Politicians have to get things done, hopefully without a civil war. The last thing we need is the rightwing complement of International ANSWER running around and playing their game. The rhetoric is overheated, the immediate dangers of the situation exaggerated. Illegals aren't flying planes into buildings or threatening to bring in nuclear weapons. Mexican panzers aren't going to roll across the border tomorrow. So it behooves us to play the cards one at a time and proceed step by step.

There are unintended consequences to also consider. Chavez is leading folks down the old primrose path in South America. What if his man defeats Fox this summer. Do you want to deal with a genuinely antagonistic Mexico, a Mexico that also supplies a significant fraction of our oil imports? I am not saying that we should surrender, I am saying that we have to play smart and prioritize. Not all problems are equally pressing and this one has been growing since Kennedy's immigration bill of 1965.

Eric said...

Yes, I'd like to see some of these people run for office where they'd have to convince people to vote for them.

Malkin is occasionally on target, but she's running this immigration thing into the ground.

Syl said...

I just don't get it. The immigration thing. I mean I thought we were worried about securing the borders against you-know-what. Not Mexicans.

Then it morphed into 'get all these damned illegals out. Now!'

WTF?

I'm so disgusted with the whole thing. Forget immigration reform. Open the damn borders and let everybody in. Maybe the NSA will get lucky before something nasty happens.

Unknown said...

exdemocrat:

I think Malkin is making a living off this and I think she is beginning to sound like a bigot. I mean she can't even leave MLB alone.

So sue me.

It might come as a shock to you but I don't even go to Malkin's blog anymore and I do not take her word for much of anything. But her reputation precedes her.

I used to like her, but that changed little by little...over time when I found myself offended by a lot of what she said. I suppose Dubai did it for me to some extent. She just started sounded a lot less intelligent and a lot more shrill.

Last time I looked this is still America and I have a right to my opinion.

chuck said...

Yet misreading such a suggestion into a simple statement that says nothing of the sort is...well, really annoying, and borders on hysteria of a different sort.

Gimme a break. Anyone who brings up the Nazis in a political discussion of immigration knows they are pushing the little red button. VD either choose to push that button or he is too retarded to touch a keyboard. Now he is playing the angles and splitting hairs with the champions, blaming his readers for misreading him in that wonderful way we all learned in kindergarten. I suspect he just ain't got the guts to apologize for poor judgement.

'Course, maybe he really is a moron. Take your pick.

Jack said...

"I have to disagree with Cutler. I don't think the present US government has anywhere near the capabilities of the Nazis to round up people. Quite aside from questions of record keeping, you don't have the equivalent of the monomaniacal SS cult, nor enough morally inept Sargeant Schultzes ("I know nothing, no..thing"), or enough busy bodies willing to report on the house or business down the street.

And that is mostly a good thing whatever your dislike for illegals."


I think the important point to note is not that at this specific point in time, the US is not built like Nazi Germany in every individual way. This is a given.

The important point is that people attempting to cross borders is not a new thing, nor is the US the first country to have to deal with neighboring populations that would rather live within it. Yet, at the same time, can anyone point to a country in a similar position that has so completely failed to control the composition of its own population? For over a century the United States did not have this problem, even times of exponentially greater individual privacy. American citizens are locked into a system unlike at any point in their history.

And yet, today, we have a problem? We can't even send our own military to the border without our neighbor acting as if he has a right over our own military movements? And 30% or so of this country will agree with him?

Our problems seem more a result of our policies than any unstoppable flow of history. Assuming from the start that we can't do what we've always done is folly, imo.

Jack said...

"OK I will bite. Let's say that Tancredo and his buds get their way and we start loading up men, women and children in cattle cars at gun point and dump them over the border.

Never mind that the first million will be back before the second million is rounded up.

Now let's just imagine the campaign ads. Black and white, with guards and everything. Next to that will be black and white images of people being unloaded at death camps...oh yeah. That will be just wonderful.

If these people do not shut the eff up no hispanic with an ounce of self respect will vote Republican for a generation. Think it can't happen? Think 1924 and the Jews and Catholics."


Death camps? You mean, rides home? Obviously, the first step is controlling our borders first. Something entirely within our capabilities, as it has always been.

The only people making this an issue of straight hispanic vs. illegal hispanic are people who are pro-illegal trying to tar the side that is anti-illegal.

If we kept this to a debate on the positions taken, Hispanics would be able to draw the distinctions themselves. If they can't, then that is their problem, and more political correctness and identity politics isn't the way to fix it.

Jack said...

"The only people making this an issue of straight hispanic, as opposed to illegal hispanic, are people who are pro-illegal trying to tar the side that is anti-illegal."