Monday, May 15, 2006

Saxon Math for Malkin?

So, over at Michelle Malkin's I see this:
**scroll for updates...100 million new immigrants over the next 20 years???...Sen. Sessions' analysis of Senate sellout: up to 217.1 million new legal immigrants will be cleared to immigrate into the United States over the next 20 years, a number equal to 66 percent of the total current population of the United States.***
Excuse me. The current population of Mexico is about 106 million, that of Canada about 32 million. Where are those 217 million folks going to come from? Does Malkin think Mexico is going to let 10 million foreigners a year pass through from South America? This stuff is b*llsh*t, Malkin needs to get a brain.

Update:

Here's a rant I can get behind.
You want fatigue? Try being a military dependent. Most of the people I know are going on their third tour and some are sweating out a fourth, and when they are home the guys I know are putting in sixteen to eighteen hours-sorry Michelle Malkin they don't even now about "The Invasion" they've got other stuff on their plate. But that isn't the tiring part.

It's internet bloggers such as Michelle Malkin and the rest of the bloggers in her pyramid of power structure deciding that the poop in her shorts-which changes color weekly must be addressed immediately!!!
....
Ya and all Wretchard has for us is a whisper-how brave. Meanwhile the intellectual beard for all this Victor Davis Hanson can't remember what he's been lecturing Liberals about for years now-PRIORITIES. Not when it comes to his cause bete noire-Mexifornia-suddenly he is silent on what the worst case scenario is-and it ain't flippin' Mexicans coming over here to work with the criminal intent of trying to make a better future for themselves
....

And it continues. Umm umm, You go girl.

Update II

John Hinderaker opines:
President Bush is being destroyed by vicious people who hate him. So far, he hasn't seemed to notice. Apparently, he doesn't think he needs any allies. He certainly didn't win any with tonight's speech.
Does this man have any sense of irony? OK, John, take your toys and go home, what else would a good ally do?

Geez, Bush isn't a great guy for rallying the troops, but one would think that all these conservatives could manage a bit more individual responsibility. The best criticism that I have seen so far is Hugh Hewitt remarking that Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Julie Myers hadn't gotten the message. I didn't hear the interview, but if what Hugh says is true it illustrates one of Bush's defects: inability to get his people in line from top to bottom and firing those who can't manage the job. The guy is not ruthless enough in plying the lash and getting folks on message.

Terrye says in the comments:
I listened to Bush's speech and he said that the fence will be a combination of barriers and technology. Hugh has maintained that nothing short of 2,000 miles of physical fence will do and I am not sure that he understands how long that would take. It could be that the person he talked to just did not understand what he was getting at.
OK, I should probably keep my mouth shut about things I haven't heard/seen. It could be that Myers' main fault was not knowing what Hugh was looking for.

Update III

Know what I really want to say to all whiners and moaner? I want to say Listen up, kids, don't make me come back there.

17 comments:

chuck said...

Knuck,

I find myself wondering if someone didn't misplace a decimal point or two or three. I keep a small jar of mismatched decimal places myself just for these small numerical emergencies.

Unknown said...

I just heard on Fox that the number might be 20 million.

Honest to God, these people are impossible.

I have as of yet failed to find one single hardliner on all of this who will explain to me how they intend to round up 11 million people and if they do who will do the work they are currently doing?

Instead I just get rude, obnoxious, belligerent hysterical responses about wetabcks stealing California.

Who is going to work the fields? Even Reid said he favored some kind of work program because builders in Vegas say there is a labor shortage. I guess we could send in the chain gangs.

chuck said...

Terrye,

I wander over to Powerline and those generally sensible folks are also going off the deep end. I have a sneaking suspicion that all this raging emotion is just a distraction from confronting the problem of Iran and, yes, even Europe. Sort of like when I have stuff that needs doing and vacuuming the rugs suddenly becomes a raging necessity.

Unknown said...

chuck:

Yes I agree. I know I sent an email to Scott over at powerline and I told them I was getting fed up with the whining and the bitching and the moaning and the complete refusal to even discuss this in a rational way. For Chrisake, if this was so damn urgent that nothing short of a fence, right now, this minute had to be put up or we are all doomed just why weren't we hearing all this a decade ago?

Big babies.

Unknown said...

I just watched the speech. Bush did not cave on the guest worker program. I think that he thinks he has to do this all at once.

But the Demcorats and the conservative Republicans are far apart. Will there be a bill? In other words will the House go along with the Senate and come up with a bill that both sides can tolerate. Or will they be so busy asking for the impossible that they end up with nothing?

truepeers said...

Surely Malkin does not assume the immigrants will only come from Mexico and Canada, but worldwide. I have no idea how crazy the numbers are, or how crazy she is, since i don't read her, but I believe the figures she is bandying about come from this study which I am not presently inclined to read and judge as to its math aptitude. But others might...

BTW is Neoneo taking a cheap shot at Wretchard? Wretchard's Saturday "whisper" post seems to capture well enough the crazy mood of the moment.

Unknown said...

truepeers:

I have no idea what Malkin is thinking. I have come to the conclusion that the only thing she cares about is selling books.

The numbers mean nothing.

chuck said...

TruePeers,

It wasn't neo, it was one of her commenters. As I said, it was a rant and I would not agree with all of it, but I think the basic point is clear: the war and the soldiers fighting it are getting lost in all this bru-ha-ha. Everybody is out for their own bit of fame and pushing their pet issue as if it was the very most important thing and all the while what really matters is lost in the dust. Individualism run wild is what it is.

Unknown said...

chuck:

Well John can run for president then I guess. I am sure that mass deportation would be a big hit on the campaign trail.

He wanted Bush to come out and sound like the Minute Men in the hopes that he could appease the increasingly rabid right. Bush, silly man, he thinks he is the president of the United States trying to create a consensus policy that actually has a chance of success when John seems to think he is just a politician in need of allies.

And no, I doubt John he sees the irony.

Unknown said...

chuck:

I just read what hewitt said.

I listened to Bush's speech and he said that the fence will be a combination of barriers and technology. Hugh has maintained that nothing short of 2,000 miles of physical fence will do and I am not sure that he understands how long that would take. It could be that the person he talked to just did not understand what he was getting at.

People need to let the Congress work on this and realize that there is no way a fence is going to pop up out of the freaking desert over night. Bush made that plain.

Do the laws of physics mean nothing to these people?

Unknown said...

brad:

Well since I live only to please you I am heartbroken with your message.

I do have to say however, that you are a good example of the bizarre kind of rants one is seeing on the internet of late.

The desire to hurt, the need to be superior, the feeling that you have the right to judge, when in fact for all I know you are a 14 year old with one hand on the key board and the other in your pants.

Jack said...

"You want fatigue? Try being a military dependent. Most of the people I know are going on their third tour and some are sweating out a fourth, and when they are home the guys I know are putting in sixteen to eighteen hours-sorry Michelle Malkin they don't even now about "The Invasion" they've got other stuff on their plate. But that isn't the tiring part.

It's internet bloggers such as Michelle Malkin and the rest of the bloggers in her pyramid of power structure deciding that the poop in her shorts-which changes color weekly must be addressed immediately!!!
....
Ya and all Wretchard has for us is a whisper-how brave. Meanwhile the intellectual beard for all this Victor Davis Hanson can't remember what he's been lecturing Liberals about for years now-PRIORITIES. Not when it comes to his cause bete noire-Mexifornia-suddenly he is silent on what the worst case scenario is-and it ain't flippin' Mexicans coming over here to work with the criminal intent of trying to make a better future for themselves."


I don't care for her assertion of moral authority as a military dependent any more than I did about Cindy Sheehan's.

Perhaps I've missed something. I don't remember Michelle Malkin's fans (I don't read her, for the record) marching in the streets? Have I missed any bigtime Minutemen rallies? Surely, it must be them driving the issue, as opposed to the millions of criminals marching in American streets? Have American politicians been railing against Mexican policy? Or is it the other way around? This long neglected debate wasn't prompted by Malkin and VDH.

Furthermore, I suspect they haven't lost sight of 'priorities,' they simply don't have yours. I, for example, am as big a hawk as anyone else, but I firmly believe that the combination of illegal immigration and multiculturalism/the welfare state is a major threat facing America in the long term.

Futhermore, that it's been ignored for 20 years is not a reason to ignore it another 10 years. People would like to sell me two lines. First, that we can't seriously deal with 12 million people from a position of strenth, and second, that somehow it'll be possible when millions more take advantage of our continued indecisiveness on the issue.

I generally despise the Democratic Party for what it would turn American into, by mistake or design. But if there's one thing in the past few years that I always saw eye to eye with them on, it was their realization that domestic policy, is more important than foreign policy. To draw an analogy, on the battlefield, so long as you've got open supply lines and somewhere to retreat and regroup, you're never on the edge of defeat. Give up the rear-areas, and it is a different story.

I'd prefer the world go to hell in a handbasket, then the United States. So do the Democrats, and that's part of the reason they couldn't care less about sabotaging the War on Terror for their political agenda, an agenda which imo, would destroy America. It is an agenda that I think would destroy what makes America special, but from their perspective I see why they place their priorites as they do.

Does this mean I'm going to vote Democrat? No. I'll vote nearly straight Republican, and save my frustrations for the primaries. But neither am I going to shut up and kick such an important issue down the road again, that's what got us into this mess in the first place.

Jack said...

Ah, and just to add some whipped cream to that lemon...fantastic blog.

I've always enjoyed Terry's, Thompson's, and Truepeers' posts on other blogs. A collection of them is truly a goldmine.

Jack said...

Note to self, don't insult a guy while complimenting him.

That's obviously Thomson.

Unknown said...

cutler:

I can not speak for the lady but I got the impression that she was responding to the people who were ready to abandon the cause in Iraq by abandoning Bush because they are not getting everything they want on immigration right now.

If you have had your husband in the war for a long time and it seems that the people who supported sending him into that place are ready to abandon him because of a sudden surge of hysteria over immigration and mass deportation etc. then yes, you might feel betrayed...not by the president but by the pundits who seem more interested in making a name for themselves than for sticking to their guns. Just a guess on my part.

The fact is Bush is the first president in a long time who has made immigration an issue. I wonder if he is sorry about that now?

truepeers said...

Cutler,

Good to see you here. You have me thinking of the relative importance of domestic and foreign policy but I come to the conclusion that the division between the two is a bit arbitrary. Domestic policy must always be focussed not just on keeping one's own from too often fighting each other, but on bonding the group so as to be able to compete with (potential) rivals abroad. Likewise, if foreign policy is not working to unite the people at home, in face of their rivals, it's a big problem on all levels, whether the forces of division have any decent justifications for their opposition, or not.

Jack said...

"Good to see you here. You have me thinking of the relative importance of domestic and foreign policy but I come to the conclusion that the division between the two is a bit arbitrary. Domestic policy must always be focussed not just on keeping one's own from too often fighting each other, but on bonding the group so as to be able to compete with (potential) rivals abroad. Likewise, if foreign policy is not working to unite the people at home, in face of their rivals, it's a big problem on all levels, whether the forces of division have any decent justifications for their opposition, or not."

Yes, I should have said it as a rule of thumb rather than an absolute statement. I.e. for the Baltic States in 1939/1940, or Poland in the 18th century, foreign policy very well could lead to domestic change.

However, I think that perhaps moreso than with any other state in world history, the United States is most capable of dividing the two. Our power may ebb and flow, but considering the geopolitical realities, we will always for the forseeable future reserve the right to decide which great powers are involved in the Western Hemisphere, and who enters our country (at least in theory). No other country has ever had such a powerful position relative its neighbors and backyard.

That is why for me, it is completely ridiculous to forfeit such a position by giving up control of our internal demographics. And it is exactly your emphasis on bonding the group that makes such an out of control and unguided policy so insane, because it has the potential to create a major problem where none exists.

"I can not speak for the lady but I got the impression that she was responding to the people who were ready to abandon the cause in Iraq by abandoning Bush because they are not getting everything they want on immigration right now.

If you have had your husband in the war for a long time and it seems that the people who supported sending him into that place are ready to abandon him because of a sudden surge of hysteria over immigration and mass deportation etc. then yes, you might feel betrayed...not by the president but by the pundits who seem more interested in making a name for themselves than for sticking to their guns. Just a guess on my part.

The fact is Bush is the first president in a long time who has made immigration an issue. I wonder if he is sorry about that now?"


You assume an unseriousness on the part of the opposition, that this is merely a way to create a name.

In reality, Michelle Malkin was always a strong opponent of illegal immigration, as was the Republican Party in general. VDH wrote a book on Mexifornia well before this brouhaha. As you've noted, it is President Bush that is shifting the paradigm by trying to pull the Republican Party in his direction.

I do not personally doubt President Bush's genuine convictions on the issue. He's always been clear about it, and I suspect it has to do with his experiences in Texas, and his own wife's and sister-in-law's heritage. At the same time, I do not draw the same conclusions, and I am not a slave to him on every issue, merely because his opposition happens to be insane. Especially an issue so serious as this one. And my bottom line is that no bill is better than a bad one. And this is a bad one.