PrintJuly 4, 2010
Ruby Slipper Immigrants
President Obama's immigration speech was another stirring example of post-adolescent speech-writing elevated to acceptability by a fawning press, a skilled delivery and a melodious voice. It was classic Obama, self-referential and full of idealistic language, but as for concrete solutions and consensus building, not so much.
"I was a candidate for President that day, and some may recall I argued that our country had reached a tipping point; that after years in which we had deferred our most pressing problems, and too often yielded to the politics of the moment, we now faced a choice: We could squarely confront our challenges with honesty and determination, or we could consign ourselves and our children to a future less prosperous and less secure".
Ironically, Obama's leadership, or lack of leadership, has already consigned "ourselves and our children to a future less prosperous and less secure." If the domestic economic numbers and the saber rattling of various resurgent despots are any indication, we are in for a rough ride. Talk is cheap. Action is what costs. The Gulf oil spill is a glaring example of Obama's sense of urgency and his idea of action; after months of inaction, we have more talk, more strong language, more shakedowns of business. Now we see his vision of illegal immigration. It is a spiritual thing, a "faith" thing.
"...being an American is not a matter of blood or birth. It's a matter of faith. It's a matter of fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear."
Unfortunately, "fidelity to the shared values" of obeying the laws and respecting the sovereignty of the United States are not the ones held dear by our millions of illegal immigrants. As usual, our President speaks out of both sides of his mouth, a mish mash of pander and projection with some historical reinvention thrown in.
Much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz clicked the heels of her Ruby Slippers to return home to Kansas, President Obama is of the opinion that an illegal immigrant can become an American citizen simply with faith. Instead of repeating, "There's no place like home," all they need say is "I am an American" three times and the Democrats in congress will play Glinda, the Good Immigration Witch and grant their wish. All immigrants are Democrats inside, yearning to be an iconic voting bloc. It's all in the Ruby Immigration Slippers.
By this time, no one believes Obama's promises or the Democrat spin. They have given us a long list of deceits: no increase in taxes, no deterioration of health care with their plan, no rise in unemployment, the stimulus saved us, we are kicking ass and taking names on the oil spill and now, they tell us, they will fix our immigration problems, guarantee our security and be fair to everyone. Eventually, the lies get under the skin of even the most inattentive voter.
If the polls are to be believed, the freshly cynical electorate is not responding well. "Sure you will", they say, "right after you destroy free enterprise, tax us into poverty, steal our freedoms and crush American exceptionalism." Despite the obvious upwelling of voter anger, the old Democrat political tactics of deceit are ingrained into Obama's Chicago soul.
"Today, we have more boots on the ground near the Southwest border than at any time in our history. Let me repeat that: We have more boots on the ground on the Southwest border than at any time in our history. We doubled the personnel assigned to Border Enforcement Security Task Forces. We tripled the number of intelligence analysts along the border."
Yet, the Washington Times recently reported that the Border Patrol is cutting the hours of overtime agents can work, quietly limiting the effectiveness of all those "boots on the ground." As for intelligence analysts, how much analysis does it take to conclude a fence effectively limits foot and vehicle traffic? The overtime reductions may be a bureaucratic oversight, which you can be sure is what they will claim if anyone notices. Those kinds of annoying bureaucratic snafu's are alarmingly common with the Obama crowd, aren't they?
More armed officers with sufficient infrastructure and ready backup deters smugglers and traffickers. Yet DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is also beefing up officers at Canadian border crossings, which does nothing to help the looming catastrophe in the south. It does take resources away from the greater problem. After all, since illegal immigration is about "faith," that means it is also about "feelings."
"One of the things that we need to be sensitive to is the very real feelings among southern Border States and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border," Janet Napolitano told a Canada-U.S. border conference in Washington, D.C. last year.
"We shouldn't go light on one and heavy on the other," she said of the Canadian and Mexican borders.
Canadians are not swarming across. Mexicans are. Billions of dollars and thousands of tons of drugs do not pour out of Toronto.
When foreign criminal gangs intimidate and kill American citizens, threaten law enforcement and control large swaths of our territory, it is not merely a problem of the hard-working poor looking for a better life, it is a hostile invasion. It is happening now and we are losing.
Obama and his administration are pretending to be hitting the problem head on. While posturing that they are doing something decisive about it, they are quietly undercutting the effort. It is a sleight of hand indicative of Obama's and the Democrats' foundational assumption: the American people are stupid. Are we?
They are counting on it in November.
