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January 02, 2004
 Gunfight
At The Immigration Reform Corral
By
Joe Guzzardi
Gather up the posse. Deputize every
able man, woman and child.
January 1 marked the first day of
the Great Immigration Reform Shootout of 2004. We aim to
round up and hogtie once and for all the traitors,
seditionists and
ethnic identity politicians and
lobbyists who are out to destroy the United States.
The Shootout of 2004 will be a
classic show-down between the guys wearing black hats—the
White House, the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the California State
Latino Caucus, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund,
La Raza, to name but a very few—against the guys in
white hats, people like you and me who want to save
America.
And (as a
Californian I might modestly observe)
immigrant-inundated California is once again leading
the good guys.
George W. Bush fired the first shot
on
Christmas Eve when, through the Washington Post,
he
proclaimed that in early January he would submit an
outline for “immigration reform” (translation:
open borders) for Congress’ consideration.
I view Bush’s brazen attack on
Americans who long for a
sensible immigration policy as good for reform—real
reform. Everything is now unmistakably out in the open.
In an economy with
9 million unemployed Americans and another
9 million underemployed, Bush has the effrontery to
enthusiastically endorse a
guest worker program.
And as his re-election bid unfolds,
Bush will be facing more bad news from the job front:
The arrogant assumption behind
Bush’s guest worker/amnesty proposal is that he’s free to
do what pleases him because all his
Democratic opponents are on the
same open-borders page.
In other words, the Bush is saying,
“I know you traditional Republicans don’t like
this, but so what? You’re too loyal ever to vote
Democratic.”
Bush’s analysis might be too cocky.
Voters have a third option: “Someone Who Isn’t
Either One of You.” (Interested readers should
go to
www.nota.org, “Voters For None of the Above,”
for a history of the ultimate protest vote.) Or there’s
a fourth option: stay home. As Steve Sailer has
demonstrated, it was only high turnout among whites,
and not conversions among minorities, that won the 2002
elections for the GOP.
And if enough people—especially in a
handful of critical states—opt for that third or fourth
option, then the election outcome is a crapshoot.
Bush is betting that voters aren’t
angry or savvy enough to vote the
Someone-Who-Isn’t-Either-One-of-You ticket. But I say
Bush underestimates the popular rage.
We’re smoking mad in California,
that’s for sure. And we’re fighting back where it matters
the most—with our voices and our votes.
Watch the progress of California’s
Save Our State initiative—a likely winner—and the $15
billion bond proposal on the March 2004 ballot—a likely
loser. Of special note is that $15 billion might be
roughly the total amount the state spends annually on
services to illegal aliens.
To be placed on the November 2004
ballot, the Save Our State initiative needs slightly more
than 500,000 signatures collected by late April—a snap in
the age of Internet downloading. And the required half a
million total is a drop in the bucket compared to the
number of outraged Californians—ten times that sum at a
minimum.
BUT the same prediction for success
cannot be made for the $15 billion bond that novice
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is banking on to
temporarily bail out California.
In December 2003, the State Senate
narrowly approved the bond issue that would include
some spending caps. But guess what isn’t capped?
Apparently, Californians would be forced to continue to
fund
education,
medical care and penal system costs for illegal
aliens while adding $15 billion to its debt structure.
And, absent any mention of the
impact of illegal immigration costs, we must assume that
we’ll be asked to underwrite those expenses indefinitely.
That’s no way to balance a budget.
Just ask Gray Davis.
And guess what else? To reduce even
further the likelihood of Schwarzenegger getting his bond
dream come true, Californians will also be
asked in March to approve a separate $14 billion
education bond issue.
Most enlightened California voters
know that new
school construction costs correlate directly to
unchecked increases in the illegal alien/children of
illegal alien
student population. With California still smarting
from a depressed economy and over-taxation, I think the
school bond has the proverbial snowball’s chance.
The
entire political class will be against SOS and in favor
of the bonds. That’s a formidable force—but one that
Californians have repeatedly proved they can defeat, with
initiative votes for Official English, and against tax
monies for illegals, bilingual education and affirmative
action.
That’s why California is the immigration enthusiasts’
weak point—because we can take issues directly to the
people through the initiative process.
A Yes vote on SOS and two No votes
on $29 billion in bonds that fail to address illegal
immigration would prove that seismic pressure continues
to build for reform and against the status quo..
And what Bush or any of his
democratic opponents should realize is that every time
one of them opens his mouth in favor of illegal
immigration in any form, he loses votes. For proof, look
no further than the disastrous performance of
Cruz Bustamante in the October 2003 Recall Election.
Reckless immigration policies have created High Noon in
America. As in the
movie of the same name, the American public is like
Hadleyville’s fearless Marshall Will Kane. With
gunslinger Frank Miller
vowing to take over the town with his henchmen, Kane
knows that it’s
now or never.
With America looking down the gun
barrel of reconquista, 2004 will be the year the
white hats began to prevail.
Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English at the Lodi
Adult School, has been writing a weekly newspaper column
since 1988. This column is exclusive to VDARE.COM. |
