An Army of Cartmans

Ace is as pissed as I’ve ever seen him about the illegal immigration amnesty bill and he’s encouraging every Republican who thinks this deal stinks on toast to change their party affiliation to anything but the Republican party and mail a copy of that form to their nearest Republican member of Congress.

I think that’s a heck of an idea. The Republicans may not notice much, but they’ll notice when their voter rolls start dropping, even if it’s by a few thousand. Glenn Reynolds likes to talk about an “Army of Davids” – ordinary citizens who, by dint of taking similar actions in similar ways, can do some pretty big things.

To get a good taste of why Ace is so hopping mad, here’s an excerpt:

Many of us were willing to accept amnesty in exchange for border security. They’ve decided they don’t need to make deals with their lowly no-account constituents, and have given us amnesty in exchange for nothing. (Well — in exchange for more amnesty, coming, inevitably, in 15 years or so, just as it unavoidably followed the Reagan amnesty.)
…
Screw you guys, I’m going home.

Again, have fun with your new very-small-tent party.

To be honest, I never really liked you all that much anyway, and I feel kind of liberated by this break up.

You know that “It’s not you, it’s me” thing I’m supposed to say?

Sorry. It was you. It was always you.

Were I a registered Republican, I’d proudly join this “Army of Cartmans”. I will say this. I won’t vote for any Presidential candidate who doesn’t unequivocally and harshly condemn this bill. I don’t care if that means that John “Pretty Pony” Edwards gets four years of free White House haircuts.

I, like Ace, am laying down markers for 2008. Putting a stop to the flood of illegal immigrants is one of them.

And while I’m thinking of it, let me get something else out that’s stuck in my craw. This bill is not an immigration reform bill. it doesn’t reform immigration. The immigration process is just fine. It’s underfunded and not enforced even a little, but fixing that doesn’t require reform. Reform does not mean finding a way to not punish people who are breaking the law and stealing from us. It’s not reform if you write a law and says that criminals can profit from their crimes.

If we wrote a law that let every bank robber currently on the lam to come into the police station, pay a fine, pinky-promise to walk the straight and narrow, and walk out with a suitcase full of cash, that wouldn’t be “bank robbery reform”. It would be “letting bank robbers get away with their crime”.

What’s happening now is simply not punishing criminals. It’s not reform.

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Category: The Good Old US of A