This is looking more and more like the Bush administration’s domestic version of Iraq: a big risky gamble, based on wishful thinking and nonexistent administrative competence, that will end in disaster. What disaster? 1) Lower wages for struggling unskilled–and semi-skilled–American workers (including, especially, underclass men) even when the labor market should be tight; 2) Income inequality moving further in the direction of Latin America–maybe even to such an extent that social equality between the rich and their servers becomes difficult to maintain; and 3) A large semi-assimilated population along our southern border with complex, understandably binational allegiances–our own Quebec. … Actually, I can see why some Republicans might not be so bothered by (1) and (2). But what about Democrats? …
This immigration compromise is essentially an amnesty deal for 12 million illegal immigrants. Such a “compromise” is not going to be acceptable to many, if not most Republicans unless it includes something more than the promise of enforcement down the road. The deal is essentially the 1986 immigration policy redux, and it will have the same effects.
Make no mistake about it, the first Republican candidate who comes out on the side of enforcement before amnesty will rocket up in the polls. We already know where McCain stands, and Romney has proposed an immigration policy substantially similar to what’s going through the Senate. Will Giuliani keep his law-and-order image by asking for an enforcement-first approach? Will Fred Thompson use this issue as the springboard for his entrance into the race?
Neither party is getting it on this issue. There is a massive groundswell of people from both the right and the left who don’t want to see Americas borders opened. We have the rule of law in this country, and to give amnesty to millions of people who have decided to break the law is a violation of the principles of fairness and equality. Every day, people risk their lives to come to this country and are rejected — meanwhile, illegals pay no attention to the law, and they will end up getting amnesty while political prisoners and asylum seekers end up waiting for years for the same opportunity. We are a nation of laws, and when we legitimize breaking the law we erode our own legal foundation.
President Bush’s approval ratings are almost entirely due to his strong support with Republicans. If he signs a bill like this into law, he’ll join Ehud Olmert in the single-digit range soon enough.
When we finally got to Wayzata we made our way to the baseball complex, built in ’76 by the crewcut fascists of the local American Legion to dull the pain of the Vietnam horror. The parking lot was crammed with every manner of minivan – Caravans, Voyagers, Windstars, Siennas, the bloated metal three-row-seating carcasses of a filthy cul-de-sac world driven half insane by rot, hate, and juice box schedules.
However, over at The Corner, it’s looking like Rudy seems to have done quite well. Rudy’s biggest problem is still with abortion, but I’m not yet entirely sure it’s fatal to him. At this point, it seems like that issue has been discussed to death, and Rudy’s forthrightness on the position does seem to be helping the matter. Rudy’s numbers have gone down as of late, but that seems to be as much attributable to the Fred Thompson factor than Rudy’s abortion position. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Giuliani apparently bitch-slapped Ron Paul into next week. Then again, that’s not a particularly difficult task.
As always, Glenn Reynolds has his usual roundup of links. It looks like the general zeitgeist is that Rudy won, but McCain didn’t do badly either. Romney didn’t do as well as the last week.
It’s just too early in the race to get too worked about about these debates. It’s all inside baseball at this point, and people aren’t going to start paying attention for a while yet. Any debate that features a crank like Ron Paul or Mike Gravel isn’t a debate in which you’re going to get much depth. When the field winnows down to the top few candidates, we’ll get more action, but it doesn’t look like there are going to be any surprises as to who’s going to be in the top of this lineup.
General Petraeus, who is in the unfortunate position of playing Cassandra to a disbelieving Congress, has been trying to set the record straight for weeks now, to little avail. Armchair generals like Sen. Hagel seem to be little interested in the facts and more interested in political spin. Al-Qaeda has very publicly declared that Iraq is their central battleground, and they’ve been working tirelessly to reach the current state of affairs. Their playbook is straight out of General Giap’s Vietnam-era insurgency tactics — the way to win against the United States is through the weakness of Washington — and they’re doing exactly that. The political disunity here is al-Qaeda’s most potent weapon against us in Iraq.
Senator Hagel, like most of our woefully inadequate political class, can’t seem to get their facts straight about Iraq. The sad fact is that they’re playing directly into the hands of our enemy, and we may lose this war not on the battlefield, but because our political class decided to put their own power over the good of the country.
It appears that President Sarkozy has decided to embrace the left wing of French politics despite his overwhelming mandate for change. At best, this would make French foreign policy schizophrenic — Sarkozy’s Atlanticist views are in direct conflict with Mr. Védrines view of containing American “hyperpower.” At worst, it signals that President Sarkozy has no intent of changing the course of French foreign policy, which has viewed itself as a major player on the world stage despite being impotent in nearly every regard. The French people rejected the vision of the EU superstate and rejected the left-wing ideologies of the Socialists — Sarkozy may not want to embrace America as Prime Minister Blair had, but he certainly has the authority to say that French foreign policy can be more muscular in defending democratic principles and human rights from Iraq to Afghanistan to Darfur. In order for France to be relevant, they have to be willing to take risks and be willing to project power. Unfortunately, Sarkozy seems to have fallen into the myth that using diplomatic “soft power” while taking the use of hard power off the table is anything but a sign of political impotence.
If Sarkozy really wanted to make France relevant again on the world stage, he’d start by making France’s foreign policy relevant. Declaring that the use of force is off the table in regards to Iran, pulling out of Afghanistan, and hiring on yet another énarque elitist as Foreign Minister is hardly a break from the atrocious foreign policy of the Chirac government. If that’s the direction that Sarkozy will take France, then France will still be a bit player on the world stage. It’s unfortunate that someone like Sarkozy, who based his campaign on a rejection of the status quo in France, is so quick to embrace it in terms of France’s foreign diplomacy. To follow the failures of the Chirac government in this regard is a major blow to hopes for better Franco-American relations and a more muscular French diplomacy abroad. Then again, given that French diplomacy has been more on the side of the enemies of civilization rather than it its defense, perhaps the irrelevance of French foreign policy should be viewed as a good thing.
UPDATE: May 17, 2007: It appears as though Védrine will not be Foreign Minister, instead the job will go to the human-rights defender Bernard Kouchner. Kouchner is a Socialist, but a Socialist who is willing to stand strongly behind basic principles of human rights. Michael Ledeen describes Kouchner as “a Socialist mugged by reality” — which seems apt.
Sarkozy seems to have gone exactly in the opposite direction of where it had looked like he would when I wrote this piece. Bad for me, as it invalidates my entire argument. For France, and the rest of the world, it is a positive sign of a stronger French diplomacy standing for human rights across the globe.
Unlike political rhetoric, balance sheets don’t lie. The economy is performing exceptionally well, unemployment is at levels that are both low and sustainable, inflation isn’t a worry, and even with the collapse of the housing bubble and high oil prices, the markets are still going strong. Granted, there could be any number of things that could interfere with that growth from oil scares to Democratic meddling in the economy, but the fundamentals of the US economy remain strong.
Much of that is due to the fact that we have a tax climate that makes that growth possible. There is a direct correlation between the 2003 tax cuts and the current cycle of growth. We wouldn’t be seeing such strong revenue figures had the 2003 tax cuts not fostered business investment and reduced the powerful disincentives for growth in the old tax regime.
The Democratic Party would kill the goose that laid the golden egg by returning this country back to a state in which tax policy discourages rather than encourages economic growth. Tax collections require people to actually make money, which doesn’t happen when every attempt to do so ends up creating more and more tax liability. To undo the 2003 tax cuts would likewise undo the economic growth we’ve seen in the last few years — and would unsure that the deficit doesn’t fade away as it appears set to do.
The fact that the media seems strangely reticent to report on the state of the US economy — except when they can find something bad to say is telling. The supply-side tax cuts in 2003 are doing exactly what they were designed to do — boost the US economy and keep it strong and productive for years to come. The numbers show quite clearly that it’s working — and if it ain’t broke, it makes little sense to try to break it — unless you have a party whose political concerns matter more than understanding the truth.
Blogging will be light for a bit, while I recover from my 1L year and engage in the joys of law review write-on. There’s nothing more enjoyable than spending one’s summer afternoons curled up with a good book — unless that good book is the Chicago Manual of Style.
On the good side, I’m planning on doing the traditional summer redesign of the site. I’m hoping to scale back and simplify things a bit - this design has its advantages, but since I’m moving more towards long-form essays than dashed off links, it makes sense to have a structure that fits that form better. That, and it gives me an excuse to play around with Photoshop and a text editor again. If there are any particularly nice looking sites, or good-looking WordPress templates you’ve notice, leave a comment here or drop me a line and I’ll take a look at them.
And since it’s Friday, it’s time for YouTube and an open thread. For those of you who are Star Trek fans and also fans of all things Turkish, this will cure both. From the mincing Captain Kirk to the cheesy effects that happen to be cheesier than the original, this has to be seen to believed. Sure, I have no idea what the hell anyone is saying, but I’m not sure that it matters: