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Sunday, July 08, 2007

David Broder, Democracy, Punditry, Illegal Immigration and "Modern Communications."

There is something about the mindset of people who give advice that when their advice is rejected they pout. That is the nature of newspaper reporters, editors and columnists. The Virginian Pilot is aswim with these specimens. So it must have been like manna from heaven that the “dean” of Washington punditry, David Broder, should weigh in on the immigration bill and its recent demise.

He penned his opposition to the public will with a column entitled “Washington becomes too responsive.” (no link) The thrust of the column was peevishness that Congress listened to the American people and let the bill die.

Ignoring the “sage” advice of their betters in editorial offices, the American people sent a howl of outrage at this monstrosity and despite efforts at artificial resuscitation, and despite an almost miraculous rising from the dead, this Frankenstein monster was defeated - for this time.

But Broder was for it, as was a majority of the Washington establishment which explains the bill’s Perils of Pauline resilience despite virtually unanimous public opposition.

To paraphrase the Supreme Court justice who – with a wave of his hand decreed the deaths of millions of babies - there is a penumbra of an emanation of truth in what Broder has to say. We do not live in a Democracy but in a representative Republic. With good reason. A pure democracy can consist of two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. In a Republic our representatives are entitled and empowered make decisions for the good of the nation even if that good may be counter to the temporary wishes of a majority of their constituents.

But Broder and his brothers and sisters in the pundocracy have not adequately addressed the concerns that a vast majority of the people had about the substance of the bill. Even more importantly, they have not even attempted to address the fact that the vast majority of the American people have lost faith in the will of government at all levels – local, state and federal – to address the issue that is the Siamese twin of the immigration bill: the enforcement of border security.

The people are concerned that our officials are not remotely interested in stopping or even slowing the rush of illegal immigrants across our borders. Had they even a mild faith that border enforcement would be coupled to legalization of those illegals already here, the bill may have suffered a kinder reception.

The bottom line for the Broders and the editorial writers at the Virginian Pilot and all the others who write for a living is that if you lie to us often enough, your word and your advice will be ignored by all except the incurably incredulous. And thanks to (as Broder puts it) “modern communications” there is less and less reason to be spoon fed crap by him and his cohorts.

David Broder is 78 years old and for most of his career he has been able to tell us black was white and no one was any the wiser. “Modern communications.” What a wonderful thing.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I still have not had defined for me just exactly what problems this bill was supposed to solve - or even what the problems are that we _need_ to solve.
The only one that is specific is the number of illegals that continues to flood across the border. What problems does _that_ cause? Senators keep talking about "bringing illegals out of the shadows"...what does that mean? My husband says: "we need to know who is in the country". Do we really? Then why not have a national ID card. Language? I happen to think that English should be the _official_ language of the US, and that was put into the bill - but apparently, as soon as it was, there was added a legalization of a policy by Clinton to the effect that if there was a need for translation for somebody, it should be provided - which negated the "official language" section.
You can't solve problems without knowing just what the problems are that you're trying to solve...I haven't seen a reasonable list yet.

Moneyrunner said...

Suek,

"Immigration reform" was an attempt to legalize those illegals who are already here and to find a way to bring more in - legally. Those who supported it did it for a variety of reasons: political and economic.

The "problem" is that illegals currently can't become citizens and vote Democrat. That's one problem. The second problem is that employers can't legally hire illegal aliens without risking fines. That's the second problem. The bill was designed to eliminate these problems.

Everything else is just eyewash.

Anonymous said...

I don't disagree with you on those basics...but I think it's more than that...

I realize that many consider the North American Union to be a conspiracy theory, but I think it's a real threat. Here's a link - more useful because of the other links it provides.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/nau_globalists_to_formally_propose_us_canada_mexico_merger.htm or
http://tinyurl.com/2smcoz
if the long url gets mangled.
The site itself seems to be run by a conspiracy nut, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. I think we need to have our awareness raised. This is the only reason I've seen to explain why Bush was so in favor of this.
Idealists have this wonderful idea of a single world government...I think it is not possible. Just as we have separate states with separate laws instead of one single massive federal government (though we're moving closer to that every year), I think no one is going to be happy with a single world government. The EU gives us a preview of the massiveness of this sort of organization, and the lack of responsiveness to the individual. It's just another step toward world communism, imo.

Anonymous said...

Sorry those links are not live links...I haven't figured out how to do them as live links if the program doesn't do it itself, but usually tinyurl seems to imbed itself as a live link - not this time, it seems. Something I did, no doubt. Computer literacy is not my strong point...!