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November 14, 2003
 Schwarzenegger
Takes The Oath – But Will He Take A Stand?
By
Joe Guzzardi
We Californians are frivolous and
shallow. Almost
everyon agrees.
Just look. We elected
Arnold Schwarzenegger, a living cartoon character, as
our governor. Now Schwarzenegger, hot off his triumphant
election, will be inaugurated on Monday, November 17th.
It may be that the only reason
Schwarzenegger is Sacramento-bound is that he beat the
other celebrities to the punch. There’s a long list of
Hollywood types who could have been elected just as
easily as Schwarzenegger.
What about Clint Eastwood? He has
hands-on political experience (Mayor of Carmel 1986-88).
California’s “new” residents would be impressed that
Eastwood has fathered seven children by an assortment of
women—some of whom he even
married. Eastwood even turned out to be quite the
political prognosticator, taking Schwarzenegger (and
Maria Shriver) very seriously. . .
Or
Joe Montana? Sure the one-time San Francisco 49er has
a few divorces behind him. But one thing we’re tolerant
of out here is marital strife.
Our main interest here at VDARE.COM:
whither Schwarzenegger on immigration?
Schwarzenegger said repeatedly
during his campaign that he believes people should
migrate to the U. S. legally. That might not sound
like much. But for those of us who have suffered through
five years of the
Zedillo-Davis-Fox
triangle, it’s very refreshing.
Immigration was conspicuously
missing from Schwarzenegger’s website during his
campaign. But it is now front and center, under
“Arnold’s Agenda to Bring California Back” in the section titled
“Solving the Immigration Impasse.”
In keeping with the festive
inaugural spirit, I’ll give Schwarzenegger a pass on
irritating and misleading comments like:
-
“There are
approximately 8 million undocumented immigrants in the
United States; 2.5 million reside in California. The
costs of providing social services to these individuals
and incarcerating illegal immigrants is staggering -
easily exceeding $3 billion a year.”
[$3 billion? My guess: $10
billion annually, if it’s one thin dime].
But I’ll stay focused on
the big picture. On the plus side:
- Schwarzenegger
says he’s determined to kill SB 60, the
extremely-unpopular bill that would give driver’s
licenses to illegal aliens. He might simply be building a
reservoir of good will by promising to repeal it. But it
is great news that he will not return phone calls from
California Senator Gil Cedillo, the bill’s author.
And that’s it. I have
exhausted all the good things I have to say about
Schwarzenegger’s “immigration impasse” solutions.
The rest is the same
tedious pap and regurgitated failed policies that are so
painfully familiar.
Thus Schwarzenegger—
-
Wants to
“legitimize undocumented immigrants who live their lives
in the shadows.”
Puh-l-e-e-z-e! If
Schwarzenegger really thinks anyone is
“in the shadows,” he should drive one of his tinted-windows Hummers
to Los Angeles’ Broadway to look around. On Broadway—for
the entire world to see—are
thousands of illegal aliens going about their
business without a care.
McCain’s bill—and
McCain himself, come to think of it—is a phony. All
Schwarzenegger needs to know is that the US cannot
administer any type of immigration or
non-immigrant visa program. That’s why the US has
12 million illegal aliens. If Schwarzenegger thinks
that McCain’s bill is a “solution,” he’s
demonstrating advanced political naiveté.
-
Promotes organizing a “coalition of
states most impacted by immigration to lobby Congress.”
Schwarzenegger apparently imagines
that if Texas, New York, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida,
Illinois and California, which represent 183 electoral
votes, speak with a unified voice, Bush will cough up
millions to reimburse the states for health and education
costs generated by illegal aliens.
Get a grip! With the exception of
Texas
Governor Rick Perry, Governors
Pataki,
Richardson,
Napolitano,
Bush(!) and
Blagojevich are open borders sell-outs. (Perry, to
his great credit, recently told Mexico President Vicente
Fox that he wants Texas’ water returned, will do as he
pleases regarding the
death penalty and is strongly disinclined to
authorize the “matricula
card” as valid state ID. Wow!)[Fox and Perry have not yet reached an agreement,
Marco Delgado, QuePasa.com, November 10, 2003]
Schwarzenegger has a real
opportunity to right California’s
sinking ship regarding immigration. During the
campaign, he said over and again that he would listen to
the people and that he is beholden to no one. I also
suspect that, like Jesse Ventura, he will be satisfied by
one term as governor i.e. is not paralyzed by re-election
fears.
Schwarzenegger could switch off
California’s magnetic attraction for illegal aliens:
enforce employer sanctions, vigorously oppose
amnesties and
guest worker programs, revoke
in-state college tuition rates, re-instate
Proposition 187 and
invoice Mexico for accrued medical and educational
expenses for illegal aliens.
He could even use his bully pulpit
to draw Washington’s attention to out-of-control
legal immigration.
Perhaps naively, I actually think
that Schwarzenegger’s own inclination would be to render
this service to his
adopted country.
But it’s far more likely that the
Schwarzenegger bandwagon will vanish under an
opportunistic pile of expensive, utterly conventional
Republican hacks.
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. |
