09/03/2008
As I remarked on Monday concerning the latest Wall Street Journal offering, the striking thing about the current crop of rah-rah immigration editorials is their stunning unoriginality — and especially their systematic assumption that they have no need to meet counter arguments.Republicans lag among Latinos The Dallas Morning News [September 3 2008] continues this fine tradition of unreflectiveness. Proceeding on the apparent assumption that only Hispanic votes are real the editorial bewails:
…the latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows only 23 percent of Latinos backing Republican nominee John McCain. Mr. McCain can hardly afford that huge drop-off. He especially can’t afford an exodus of Latino Protestants, a key part of Mr. Bush’s base. In 2004, 37 percent of Latino Protestants considered themselves Republicans. But a June survey by Calvin College’s Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics reveals that number has fallen to 16 percent heading into this election.(What proportion of Latinos is Protestant? Is it even 20%? We are talking of a shift of 21% of 20% of less than 10% of the electorate! Is this a serious observation?)
The Dallas Morning News conclusion:
Mr. McCain needs to make clear he’s not backing down from fairly and thoroughly overhauling our immigration laws. He may risk alienating the Lou Dobbs crowd, but he also can’t keep hemorrhaging Latino supportTo give it credit, unlike the WSJ, this editorial does not perpetrate the Bush Hispanic vote/ above 40% lie:
Mr. Bush received nearly 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in his re-election campaign against John Kerry (VDARE.com emphasis)To the even greater credit of the Texan paper, it allows quick posting of comments at the foot of the article, not late and hidden away like the WSJ. Crushing refutations appeared immediately
Having our borders SECURE is more important than pandering to Latino votes. There are more than enough true blue Americans who will vote for him and get him elected without compromising our country’s security…
The real question for McCain is can he afford to lose the Anglo vote? It’s much larger than the Hispanic vote…. I don’t think any Republican will be that successful with Hispanics. Democrats have been exploiting the poor and ignorant for over a hundred years and are masters at it….
I have news for the DMN, the "Lou Dobbs" crowd is the vast majority of all Americans…The WSJ itself has finally got round to allowing comments to be posted on its own immigration editorial, several days later and buried a number of pages back in the separate ”Forum” section. (Could it be the WSJ is not interested in the opinions of its readers?) A dozen replies were allowed, ten hostile, one confused and one supportive.
The supportive one is significant: an individual showered with US benefits for many years still puts ethnicity above national loyalty and demands deference to Hispanics:
What a mean spirited and paltry vision of America a 1,000 mile wall brings to mind….My parents came to the US seeking medical treatment for my sister and fell in love with America. I am a first generation American who served in the U.S. Navy thirty years, my brother served in the U.S. Marines, and my son attends the U.S. Naval Academy…The Republican party needs to ask itself this…will all the sons and daughters of those immigrants currently living in the U.S. align with a political party that with such xenophobic fervor demonized their parents and families?-antylyzyk
The rest put America first:
I am unhappy with the contention that Republicans (or any political party) should abandon the illegal alien problems as it might alienate Hispanic …We have laws to allow orderly immigration and we have chosen not to enforce those laws. We are now faced with increased crime, increased numbers of aliens who do not speak English, whose children are attending our schools and being given ESL classes ( expensive budget items) and who continue their allegiance to their home countries. The money spent on ER treatments, schools, social services, etc should be spent on American citizens. Why are we not concerned with the cultural, ethnic change which is transforming our country? Has a vote on this issue ever been put to the American people? Or do politicians cater to this Hispanic vote at the expense of what is best for our country and its citizens? Do politicians really think that our long term best interests are served by making America Hispanic? Are our politicians thinking about what is best for American citizens and our children? I think not… and am very concerned about this trend …
Before we wax poetically about this being a nation built by immigrants let us keep in mind most of the previous waves of immigrants generally oriented themselves in many ways into the existing culture … I see little evidence of that in the current wave of Latina immigrants. I recently stopped at a McDonald’s in what was clearly a non-Latino neighborhood. I had to repeat the order 5 times. The young Latino lady could not understand me and I could not understand her. The other workers, all Latinos and appearing to be teenagers all spoke among themselves in non-English…. In my opinion many, perhaps most, Latinos seem content to illegally cross the border, settle into the United States within their own culture using their own language, procreate "native" Americans of sufficient quantity to become a dominant political force of their own so to orient this country to a more Latino culture …No doubt President McCain and the Democratic Congress will attempt another Amnesty push. On the basis of these editorials and responses, they will need to tell their MSM friends to sharpen up their arguments — and they had better leave their phones off the hook.
Tell Dallas Morning News editorial page editor Keven Ann Willey she needs to improve the quality of their immigration editorials. (The Wall Street Journal is beyond redemption.)
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.