Tag Archives: voting

Immigration, Again

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Senator Jeff Sessions (R, AL) had some thoughts on this, which he passed on to the House Republicans as they left for their annual retreat.

As they consider the subject of immigration in their retreat, I expect the Republicans to focus on three things: border and interior security, legalization for some of the existing 11 million aliens, and ensuring that President Barack Obama enforces immigration law.  Within that, Republicans will consider ways to deal with the children of illegal aliens, visas for guest workers, and a legalization process that would require illegal aliens to pay fines and back taxes.

Contained in Sessions’ thoughts for the House Republicans were concerns about

…the negative impact of the House immigration proposal on US workers, taxpayers, and the rule of law.

[Sessions’] analysis said increasing the number of immigrants would hurt an already weak economy, lower wages, and increase unemployment.  He cited White House adviser Gene Sperling’s comment earlier this month that the economy has three people looking for every job opening.

…the House GOP leaders’ plan that’s taking shape would grant work permits almost immediately to those here illegally, giving them a chance to compete with unemployed Americans for any job.  He said it would lead to a surge in unskilled workers and would provide amnesty to a larger number of immigrants in the country illegally, giving them a chance to apply for citizenship through green cards.

I have some disagreement with the Republicans’ focus and with Sessions’ suggestions.

Absent from the focus is any action on easing immigration—making getting entry visas of any type easier and faster to get.  What the Republicans seem to be working on is an excellent start, and if that’s all that can get done this session, that much is worth getting done.  But they—and their Senate counterparts—must recognize that this is only a step on a long journey, and they must return next year (coincidentally, a new Congressional session) and take another step toward rationalizing our immigration system, and hopefully post 2016, finalizing that rationalization.

Unaddressed in both the House Republicans’ and Sessions’ positions is the role of immigrants in our elections.  The fear (carefully unspoken here) is that immigrants are monolithically Liberal in their attitudes and will be in their voting habits.  This is to misunderstand the willingness to take great risks, the initiative involved, the self-reliance inherent in the effort it takes for an alien to make the journey into the United States, whether that journey and entry are carried out legally or illegally (in most cases other than smuggling or terrorist entry, especially those entering illegally, perhaps).  Sessions, and Republicans and Conservatives generally, are overly pessimistic, and they lack confidence in the Conservative message as it regards immigration, immigrants, and our existing illegal aliens.

Sessions misunderstands the relationship between immigrants and jobs.  It’s immigrants who start, and succeed with, small businesses at a vast rate, and it’s small businesses that are the jobs creators in our economy.  Sessions’ jobs concerns are misplaced here.  The job applicant to job ratio claimed by Sperling would be greatly reduced by those immigrants and their new businesses.

Finally, the conflation of legalization or a path to citizenship with amnesty is simply a mendaciously offered red herring.  The plans on offer for legalizing existing illegal aliens all involve penalties of some sort, ranging from self-deportation (which could be satisfied by visiting the nearest consulate or embassy, these facilities being foreign soil) to paying a fine and back taxes (which carry their own penalties).  Amnesty simply isn’t present in any of the plans.

Why Do Progressives Oppose a Safe Ballot?

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Their latest opposition to protecting the sanctity of an American’s vote is in North Carolina, where the state’s government enacted a law that moves to protect a vote by ensuring the one casting it is the one who’s eligible to cast it, only casts it once, and is who he claims to be; and in front of the American Bar Association, in a speech by ex-Secretary of State and President wannabe Hillary Clinton.

The law contains these provisions, among others:

  • changes in how residents can vote that includes requiring them to show a photo ID at polling stations
  • eliminates a week of early voting, while maintaining 10 days of early voting
  • ends same-day registration
  • prohibits “out-of-precinct” voting
  • allows voters to cast a provisional ballot if they come to a polling station without proper ID
  • places additional campaign finance restrictions on lobbyists

Critics argue the true goal is to suppress voter turnout, especially among blacks, the young, the elderly and the poor.  Because blacks—especially blacks—are too…simple…to be able to plan ahead and get their—free—photo IDs well in advance of voting.  The elderly and poor are similarly incapable, claim Progressives; they, too, need to be led by the nose by their Betters.

More, the law suppresses other Progressive demographics—the non-resident voter; voters who don’t always vote, but when they do, they prefer to vote several times; illegal alien voters.

Clinton made similarly insulting allegations:

…she said some observers have defended the US Supreme Court ruling as a sign that discrimination has ended.  She disagreed and said it gave jurisdictions carte blanche to renew discrimination at the polls.

Because it’s impossible for people to change.  Because it’s still 1963, and the Party of Jim Crow still is rampant.  She’s projecting.

In the weeks since the ruling we have seen an unseemly rush by previously covered jurisdictions that will make it harder for our fellow Americans to vote.  Unless we act now, citizens will be disenfranchised and victimized by the law instead of served by it.

No, the only ones being disenfranchised are those ineligible to vote.  The only unseemly rush is the Progressives’ move to place disliked states back under the yoke.  In the mean time, states are moving to protect the sanctity of the vote.

Know Betters Who Know Better

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg had a few things to say, in the context of an AP interview about the Supremes’ VRA ruling last month, about voter ID and the sanctity of the individual vote.

Texas’ decision to implement its voter ID law hours after the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last month was powerful evidence of an ongoing need to keep states with a history of voting discrimination from making changes in the way they hold elections without getting advance approval from Washington.

Because acting on being newly freed from the shackles of government is somehow nefarious.

The notion that because the Voting Rights Act had been so tremendously effective we had to stop it didn’t make any sense to me[.]

Because we’re irretrievably beyond redemption, men cannot change away from the mistakes of a distant past, and it takes an enlightened Progressive to instruct and guide us.

It’s inconceivable to Know Betters that such seigniory might not actually be necessary.

Unions and Elections

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Who says unions don’t try to influence the outcomes of elections—at the ballot box itself, not via campaigning in a run-up to an election?

The image below, from a Wall Street Journal article about a Boeing engineers union contract election shows the degree to which a union will go to tell its members how to vote.                                                                                     

The Coming Elections and Electoral Struggle

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I’ve written a few times about how Republicans and Conservatives can attract voters to their party and cause, and how conservative principles will draw Americans of every stripe—that demographics do not threaten us, they aid us—if only we would talk to folks.  Those are principle arguments, though.

David Horowitz has a pamphlet out, “Go For the Heart: How Republicans Can Win,” that goes into far more detail.  Horowitz makes the principle arguments more cogently, and he has some things to say specifically about what to say.

Below are a couple of excerpts.

In the 2012 election, Democrats attacked Republicans as defenders of the wealthy who are not paying their “fair share.”  Republicans responded by deploring “class warfare rhetoric,” which does not answer the charge that Republicans are defending the wealthy and are uncaring.

“Caring” is not one among many issues in an election.  It is the central one. Since most policy issues are complicated, voters want to know above everything else just whom they can trust to sort out the complexities and represent them.  Before voters cast their ballots for policies or values they want a candidate or party that cares about them. …

… In the 2012 election, 70% of Asian Americans cast their ballots for Obama, even though Asians share Republican values, are family oriented, entrepreneurial, and traditional.  Asian Americans voted for Obama because they were persuaded that he cared for minorities—for them, and Romney didn’t.

The Republican response to the Democrats’ attack (that’s “class warfare rhetoric”) doesn’t work because it’s an abstraction.  “Class warfare rhetoric” has no human face; it’s about a political style.  Criticizing the wealthy for “not paying their fair share” is a direct attack on an easily identified target, which is why so many wealthy taxpayers—including entertainment figures who are normally Democrats—were outraged by the slander.  More importantly, the Democrats’ attack on the rich is an emotional appeal to those who are not rich.  It tells them that someone cares about them.

And

Elections are necessarily about “us” and “them.”  Democrats are as adept at framing “them,” as Republicans are not.  Democrats know how to incite envy and resentment, distrust and fear, and to direct these volatile emotions towards their Republican opponents.  Meanwhile, Republicans are busy complaining about the style of the Democrats’ argument.

I’m reminded of the mouse remonstrating with the owl.  The mouse thinks the owl’s ways are wrong; the owl thinks the mouse is lunch.

An answer:

The only way to confront the emotional campaign that Democrats wage in every election is through an equally emotional campaign that puts the aggressors on the defensive; that attacks them in the same moral language, identifying them as the bad guys, the oppressors of women, children, minorities and the middle class, that takes away from them the moral high ground which they now occupy.  You can’t confront an emotionally based moral argument with an intellectual analysis.

Horowitz goes on, then he summarizes.  Essentially, Republicans need to stop playing small ball, need to stop reacting (piecemeal as it is) to the…Democrats’…initiative: Republicans—and Conservatives, say I—need to seize the initiative, to go on the offensive:

  1. Put the aggressors on the defensive.
  2. Put their victims—women, minorities, the poor and working Americans—in front of every argument and every policy in the same way they [Democrats] do.
  3. Start the campaign now (because the Democrats already have).

For instance:

Throughout the Republican campaign, there was a lot of talk about “job creators.”  There were a lot of defenses of “job creators,” whom Democrats quickly redefined as rich people who don’t pay their fair share.  That’s the problem with playing a “prevent defense.”  Most Americans see job creators—employers—as rich people. … If you’re fighting for the underdogs, you have to go on the attack.

What about job destroyers?  What about Democrats who are killing the jobs of ordinary Americans—not just failing to create them…?
…
Why are Republicans so reluctant to name the victims of Democrat policies, particularly the victims among America’s minority communities and working classes?  Why don’t Republicans identify Democrats as a threat to those communities as Cuomo declared Republicans a threat to women?

Thus,

The bottom line is this: If Republicans want to persuade minorities they care about them, they have to stand up for them; they have to defend them; and they have to show them that Democrats are playing them for suckers, exploiting them, oppressing them, and profiting from their suffering.
…
The way for Republicans to show they care about minorities is to defend them against their oppressors and exploiters, which in every major inner city in America without exception are Democrats. Democrats run the welfare and public education systems; they have created the policies that ruin the lives of the recipients of their handouts. It’s time that Republicans started to hold Democrats to account; to put them on the defensive and take away the moral high ground, which they now occupy illegitimately. Government welfare is not just wasteful; it is destructive. The public school system in America’s inner cities is not merely ineffective; it is racist and criminal.

Horowitz’ pamphlet contains much more than just those items, though, and it’s well worth reading in its entirety.  One place it can be read is at Power Line.

There’s one more thing Conservatives–including Tea Partiers–should do, that Horowitz doesn’t mention.  We should put up candidates in Democratic primaries, forcing a primary contest if necessary, to make Democrat Senate and House incumbents actively defend their in-office records.  In public.