Wednesday, November 05, 2008

President Elect Obama

I can understand how Obama took the big cities and the leftist coastal states. I can understand why young voters came out for Obama, and why he received the majority of the Black vote. What I can not, for the life of me understand, is how he garnered the Hispanic/Latino vote?

McCain was the force behind immigration reform that would have granted amnesty and citizenship to illegals. McCain was the Pro-Life candidate. How does a constituency that are primarily Catholic vote for a candidate who not only supports abortion on demand at any time, but also supports killing infants who happen to survive botched abortions? In Dallas they were busing Hispanics directly from Catholic Churches to vote for Obama, this I do not understand.

I guess the answer to that really does not matter at the moment, but it might be a lesson for future Republican candidates.

Obama won. The Democrats gained in both the House and the Senate. This is the reality that we have to deal with. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth is not going to change this reality. Over at SayUncle's place there is A Word From The Token Liberal that sugarcoats this reality just a bit, but maybe he is right. Maybe things are not going to turn out as bad as many of us think they will. We do still have a few good representatives on Capitol Hill, and we still have our combined voice. When we oppose policy and legislation, we need to use that combined voice as best we can.

You can count me amongst the loyal opposition. Loyal to the ideals that have made this country the beacon of liberty throughout the world, loyal to the principles that keep the American Dream alive and within reach, and loyal to the constitutional principles of these United States. I will stand opposed to legislation and policies that do not support our free Republic.

A loyal and united opposition can influence the .gov

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

JR--I too was very disappointed at my race (Hispanic) for voting Obamo, but what really has me upset is all the young people White, Asian, Hispanic and Hinze 57that voted for Obama. The me generation has a lot of growing up to do and not choose there president because of his age but what he stand for. I hope these kids and adults grow up soon or like living under a socialist regime.

At least I can say my kids made me proud and voted for freedom.

Mulligan said...

i think the election results illustrate the me me now now people who want quick fixes to things like health care and don't understand how a free market economy works.

Judith A. Ford said...

How did Obama win the Hispanic vote? Are you kidding?

The Republicans have done nothing but threaten and demonize Hispanics for the past 8 years!! All of you ultraconservatives made it very clear to even our Hispanics who were born here: "We don't want you here!"

Thanks for giving me a really good chuckle today with your post. I can see now that we Dems are going to have a really easy time holding onto government power for a long, long time. Thanks.

John R said...

Hello Judith, I am glad I was able to make you chuckle.

Even though you did not look very deep into "A Keyboard and a .45", you just decided that I was part of a "We don't want you here" crowd.

I am not anti immigration, I am pro legal immigration. As a matter of fact, I would very much like to see legal immigration made easier for those who wish to follow the rules. And this it seems, is where you and I differ. I prefer folks to follow the rules, especially rules concerning following proper procedures for acceptance into the United States (a sovereign country don't ya know).

I grew up in the Imperial Valley of California and I started working in the fields at a young age. When La Migra showed up at the fields, maybe 5% of the other workers ran or were detained. Later in life I worked in a packing plant in Greely CO. This plant had a very high percentage of Illegals and there was no fear of ICE showing up at the door.

Illegal immigration is wrong, it hurts the Hispanic community and it hurts the legal work force in America.

Our current regulations on legal immigration and work visas are not the best, but they are what we have. Folks can and do properly use the system to gain access to American jobs and the American lifestyle.

Those who break our laws should not reap the benefits of the American lifestyle and should be treated as the criminals they are.

You will find no threatening or demonizing of Hispanics on this site.

James Frank Solís said...

Judith Ford is a typical, do-gooder white woman, so filled so filled with the sense of her own virtue as to be blind to the slightest bit of evidence contradicting her. How else to explain her overlooking 3 Dogs' disappointment with his (hispanic) people?

Did 3 Dogs' not know that he was being demonized by Republicans? How could he and I both have missed such an obvious display?

My family is also hispanic. Those of us who voted for Obama did so because he's a leftist, not because Republicans demonized us. They believe, for example, that Republicans have never done anything for the poor. They think that's a bad thing. Those of us who voted differently did so because we are not leftists. We don't think government should be in the charity business.

This idea that all hispanics must surely be hispanics before they are citizens of the U.S. offends me in the extreme. I find it utterly offensive that Democrats played upon ethnic loyalties in so crass a manner. I'm embarrassed that hispanics fell for it...again.

Judith A. Ford said...

Hey, don't shoot the messenger! All I'm telling you is what many, many Hispanics told me privately and personally over the last 6 months about the message that THEY FELT the Repubs were sending. Many (not all, obviously) felt that the "unspoken" message in the Republican tirade about illegals is that you all wanted all Hispanics gone. And even though you, personally, JR, may not feel that way, and that's not what you wanted to communicate, that's what they heard. And heck, as a good Dem, who am I to correct their understanding of what they thought they heard you say? ;-) So instead of calling me names ("do-gooder white woman"--hey, I guess that's a compliment, so, THANKS!), maybe you Repubs should think about rephrasing your message to Hispanics. Or maybe you should find the subgroup of Repubs who ARE telling Hispanics "we don't want you here" (yes they are out there--believe me) and pressure them into shutting up or growing up.

3Dogs--no one voted against McCain because of his age. They voted against "more Bush."

Does a free market economy, Mulligan, only work when aided by billion-dollar bailouts to hedge fund millionaires? It seems so. No thanks.

James--since you don't believe in Government charity, I guess you and your parents will be forfeiting Social Security and Medicare. As a matter of fact, all Repubs should forfeit the payments from those programs, on priniciple. And hey, good luck getting health insurance when you're 72 years old!

I'll save you all the agony of coming back again to argue with you. Let's face it...our views differ, and I'll never become a proponent of YOUR "free market" style of economy, mostly because I don't care for being trickled on (just ask my ex). And you are not likely to ever suddenly believe in the sanity of modest regulation. So let's just agree to try to compromise for the good of our country. And please--by running around chirping "socialism! socialism!" you just make yourself look...foolish.

PS...just because you think you know me so well...I'm a handgun owner (all revolvers) and a crack shot, thanks to a lifetime of training by dear old Dad.

Judith A. Ford said...

[sorry--last visit--promise!]

Don't take my word for what I wrote above:

"Houston is a multicultural melting pot, where caucasians are in the minority. The fight over immigration hurt the party in Harris county, given the preponderance of Hispanic immigrants residing in the city. This city is extremely welcoming to immigration and lacks the racial tensions so common in Chicago, Boston, New York etc. The immigration fight was seen as an attack on hard-working immigrant neighbors."

More: http://frum.nationalreview.com/

[article on What's the Matter with Texas? --Why the GOP Lost Houston]

James Frank Solís said...

With any message, Judith, there are two four factors involved: the sender, the receiver, the message itself, and the medium by which the message is sent. If hispanics got the feeling they were all being told they were not wanted here, then the possibility exists that the problem is not with the message, or the medium, or the sender; but with the receiver. In other words: they may very well have gotten that impression because of some failure in their decoding of the message. You seem not to have taken that into account. But you should have, even if only because of the number of hispanics who did not get that impression, something else you seem not to have taken into account. Furthermore there was a counter-message, which was precisely that Republicans (who have always all been white supremacists) do not want hispanics here. And again you have the same four factors: sender, receiver, message, medium.

The counter-message was louder, in my opinion; and it was not being sent by people who read the
comprehensive bill (and if they did read it, they lied about much of its content).

The counter-message, not the message, made race the issue. It also made immigration per se the issue. ("We are a nation of immigrants" -- painting Republicans as jingoists and
nativists). The issue was illegal immigration, not simply immigration from south of the border.

But because the vast majority of illegal immigrants are coming from south of the border that fact was used with great effect to debunk and distort the Republican message which was always simply this: Nations have the right to enforce their borders. Period. The fact that some hispancis thought they were being told they were not wanted is not automatically the fault of the Republicans. Message, sender, medium, receiver -- you've hardly done your analytical work here.

And yes, I will reject social security and medicare -- if I'm permitted to. Maybe I won't find
health insurance when I'm 72. But if the alternative is slavery, so be it.

How interesting that you want me to focus on Self in order to persuade me of the moral superiority of the Democrat
platform over any of its competitors. But even so, the principle you speak of doesn't exist: I am a net tax payer, not a net tax reciever. It wouldn't really be charity: I'd be getting some of my money back, at least in...principle. (I'd prefer to get it back with interest.) Recipients of the charity I'm talking about are not net tax payers; they are net tax receivers.

Finally, and with regard to your comment to Mulligan: We do not have a free market. We have a
protectionist/interventionist free market, a mercantilist economy. (I'm not certain Mulligan knows this either.) The bailouts are perfectly consistent with a protectionist/interventionist market. We have not had a free market since perhaps as far back as the Sherman Anti-trust Act--not even at the time the stock market crash of 1929. The fact is, if you are willing to admit that we have at least "modest" regulation, then, quite frankly, you are going to have to admit that we do not have a free market. A regulated market, whether desirable or not, is just not a free market. That is simply true by definition.

If you want to learn more about something you clearly do not understand, but also clearly reject, then I invite you to begin your own personal education in what free market economics truly is by visiting http://www.mises.org.You could start with this article by Murray
Rothbard, "What is the Free Market?" here: http://mises.org/journals/fm/jan06.pdf. You could listen to this set of lectures, forming an introduction to free market economics, here: http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=89.

Perhaps we do look foolish because of our chirping about socialism. But given that we're looking foolish to you and others of your ilk, I certainly won't lose any sleep. In a socialist economy, the government owns the means of production. No doubt, because the federal government does not own the means of production, you find it easy to ignore the chirping. But what you really aren't taking into proper account is the government's power to tax (and regulate) and distribute at its
will. Take just the income tax alone. There is no constitutional limit on the income tax rate.
The government can tax our incomes up to 100%. Perhaps you think it unlikely. So do I. But the power is there; and it is without limitation. If not de jure, then de facto, the government does own everything. The mere fact that it does not fully exercise its claims means nothing, absolutely nothing. We look foolish to you? You look worse to me: You wil sell your soul to have healthcare insurance when you're 72. And never mind the totalitarian system you leave to
your great-great-great grandchildren.

Once upon a time someone like Patrick Henry could say, "Give me liberty or give me death." You
and your ilk say, "Give me healthcare and anything else I need and take what you want from
whomever you need to."

John R said...

James, thank you for taking the time to add your comments. I do appreciate it.

I found it very funny that Judith used Houston as a positive example supporting illegal immigration. The article she referenced did not mention the large number of Middle and South American individuals who are being kidnapped for ransom on a regular basis in that city. The article also did not mention the shooting wars in the streets between the rival south of the border drug gangs or the police office who had been recently killed by the criminal illegal who had been previously arrested, but not deported. Yep, that Sanctuary City stuff seems to be really working out for Houston.

James Frank Solís said...

JR,

Speaking of sanctuary cities, I find it interesting that leftists seem to love the idea. But what you have here in these cities is the operation of "interposition" and "nullification", which, as we know, the South employed to protect themselves from the protectionist tariffs imposed by the North. And this, strangely, is done not to protect US citizens, but illegal immigrants. I wonder: should the federal government take drastic action against these cities, will they attempt secession? They'd make me laugh if they weren't so dangerous.