May 25, 2007

Linda Chavez: opposition to amnesy is just about racism, xenophobia

Linda Chavez - recently mentioned here playing the race card in the case of the Fort Dix Six - just got back from the 99 Cents store with a bag full of cards and threw all of them - together with whatever small amount of credibility she had remaining - on the table:

Some people just don't like Mexicans -- or anyone else from south of the border. They think Latinos are freeloaders and welfare cheats who are too lazy to learn English. They think Latinos have too many babies, and that Latino kids will dumb down our schools. They think Latinos are dirty, diseased, indolent and more prone to criminal behavior. They think Latinos are just too different from us ever to become real Americans.

No amount of hard, empirical evidence to the contrary, and no amount of reasoned argument or appeals to decency and fairness, will convince this small group of Americans -- fewer than 10 percent of the general population, at most -- otherwise. Unfortunately, among this group is a fair number of Republican members of Congress, almost all influential conservative talk radio hosts, some cable news anchors -- most prominently, Lou Dobbs -- and a handful of public policy "experts" at organizations such as the Center for Immigration Studies, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA, in addition to fringe groups like the Minuteman Project.

Stripped bare, this is what the current debate on immigration reform is all about...

There really isn't that much of a difference between her argument and those to be found at DailyKos, BrainFireHeadDogLakeBrain, Amanda Marcotte's site, or other left-wing smear sites. And, if she feels this way about the large majority of Republicans who oppose illegal immigration, then perhaps she (together with Bush, Michael Gerson, and the rest) should find another party more to their liking.

Posted to Immigration2007a at May 25, 2007 07:59 PM