Tim Dunkin
The amnesty race card
By Tim Dunkin
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the fact that the Democrats can't really be as crazy as they seem. There has to be a method to their madness, an ulterior motive that drives an agenda that otherwise appears senseless to the outside observer. This would seem to be true with the Left's latest lunacy. Once again, Obama and Co. are planning on forcing through something that only makes sense when viewed through the lens of the well-known perfidy of this Administration. This something is amnesty for the "12 million" (really 20 million)-plus illegal aliens currently in the United States.
The profligate array of health care "reform" monstrosities that are currently winding their way through both houses of our national legislature under the general name "Obamacare" have taken a lot of hits lately. Despite the President's best efforts at spinning the arguments and giving himself nationally televised platforms from which to peddle his snake oil without being challenged (I guess Joe Wilson didn't get the memo), the voting public's response has been decidedly lackluster. The best that the President's non-stop infomercial for Obamacare can obtain is the occasional and temporary bump of a couple of percentage points in support, before settling back to the baseline of broad unpopularity. Let's face it — this dog won't hunt.
One of the most consistent strikes against these Obamacare proposals has been the fact that they would allow illegal immigrants to draw on the increasingly scarce resources of the proposed national health system. Nearly all of these plans contain some form of provision politely reassuring us that "nobody will be denied care" for emergency room visits and other medical care on the basis of immigration status, and many of them forbid anyone to ask about it anywise. As anybody with even a passing acquaintance with the issue knows, illegal immigration is grossly unpopular with Middle America, with the rank-and-file of American citizens who see our job market being glutted with cheap labor, our wages being devalued, and our culture being systematically balkanized. Nevertheless, our political class — Republican and Democrat alike — seems sold out to open borders and unrestricted immigration.
One of the major problems we face from illegal immigration is the fact that illegal immigrants tend to use emergency rooms as clinics, since most hospitals are required by law to treat everyone who comes to the emergency room anywise, regardless of immigration status, ability to pay, possession of insurance, etc. Many hospitals in border states such as Texas, Arizona, and California have gone out of business because of this. The strain, the cost, it's all just too much for them to put up with, even with government reimbursements.
In the middle of all this falls Obamacare. Facing criticism for these bills' provisions that would force taxpayers to cover ALL medical care for illegal immigrants, just like it would those who were born here or who immigrated here legally, Obama has formulated his solution to the criticism: legalize all the illegal aliens, so that technically we won't be covering any illegal immigrants at all! Never mind the fact that this doesn't do anything about the actual substance of the concerns — which is that you will have millions of people who shouldn't be here burdening what will already be a deeply burdened system. Now they will just be millions of people who formerly shouldn't have been here but now are foolishly being allowed to be here, all the while still burdening the health care system. Obama's amnesty plan would simply take the problems face by border hospitals, and extend it to hospitals everywhere.
Brilliant solution. And I mean that sarcastically.
So how does Obama propose to get this pushed through, when he's already having enough problems forcing Obamacare-without-Obamnesty off onto us? It's simple — the addition of amnesty into the mix will allow Obama to play that card he always seems to have up his sleeve, that now-ubiquitous race card. The Democrats have already been playing it, after all. Opposition to Obamacare? Racist. Disagree with the President on cap-and-tax? Racist. Don't want tax increases? Racist. With amnesty attached to the President's health care "reform" proposals, expect to see this card played in spades.
I can see it now — the Democrats running ads featuring cute little Hispanic children, dimpled cheeks and wide, staring eyes (aren't they precious?), with a voiceover asking the American people whether they want to help the big, bad, evil racist Republicans deny poor little children like this the opportunity to live a life free from tuberculosis or whooping cough or some other hideous malady. Mainstream media outlets will repeat the charge nonstop, condemning the President's critics as knuckle-dragging Know-Nothings who now oppose the "reform" plans out of animus towards Latinos. As with everything else in life, those on the Left are automatically guaranteed to see opposition to this latest presidential gambit as "racism" because, well, everything's racism after all. The only way for you to prove that you're not a racist, of course, is to get on board with the President and his Party's efforts to destroy the world's best health care system.
Why is this the case? Because, as we all know, those on the Left are singularly inept when it comes to being able to marshal facts and logic and reason in support of their arguments and policy positions. It's much easier — and likely much more emotionally satisfying to boot — for those on the Left to simply fall back on rank emotionalism. Few things invoke emotion more than the thought that somebody might hate or want to harm somebody else — or maybe hate and want to harm ME! — all because of an uncontrollable factor such as what the color of their skin is or where their ancestors are from. Race is the perfect vehicle for those who want to obfuscate discussion and get around uncomfortable facts that destroy their arguments. Which is, of course, why those on the Left and in the Democrat Party talk about race so much. In a sense, it's the last refuge of the intellectually improficient scoundrel.
You can bet your bottom dollar that once amnesty gets firmly ensconced as a provision of the general Obamacare package, you will see this race card played, just as it was with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Opposition to the bill(s) will be cast as "racism." The "racism" argument will be used to shepherd the bill through Congress against the public's wishes, while suppressing what little vocal Republican opposition there has been to Obamacare to date. Though pushing for amnesty may seem like madness, it has a method to it. As a result, this may end up being make-or-break time for conservatives. The Left can only scream "racism" so many times before the charge simply has no force any more. I, for one, eagerly await the day when calling someone a "racist" has about as much meaning or effect as calling someone a "free silverite." Will this health care monstrosity, with the amnesty monstrosity attached, be what finally drives Middle America to simply decided that we don't care whether we're called racists anymore, we're going to do what's right, regardless?
© Tim Dunkin
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the fact that the Democrats can't really be as crazy as they seem. There has to be a method to their madness, an ulterior motive that drives an agenda that otherwise appears senseless to the outside observer. This would seem to be true with the Left's latest lunacy. Once again, Obama and Co. are planning on forcing through something that only makes sense when viewed through the lens of the well-known perfidy of this Administration. This something is amnesty for the "12 million" (really 20 million)-plus illegal aliens currently in the United States.
The profligate array of health care "reform" monstrosities that are currently winding their way through both houses of our national legislature under the general name "Obamacare" have taken a lot of hits lately. Despite the President's best efforts at spinning the arguments and giving himself nationally televised platforms from which to peddle his snake oil without being challenged (I guess Joe Wilson didn't get the memo), the voting public's response has been decidedly lackluster. The best that the President's non-stop infomercial for Obamacare can obtain is the occasional and temporary bump of a couple of percentage points in support, before settling back to the baseline of broad unpopularity. Let's face it — this dog won't hunt.
One of the most consistent strikes against these Obamacare proposals has been the fact that they would allow illegal immigrants to draw on the increasingly scarce resources of the proposed national health system. Nearly all of these plans contain some form of provision politely reassuring us that "nobody will be denied care" for emergency room visits and other medical care on the basis of immigration status, and many of them forbid anyone to ask about it anywise. As anybody with even a passing acquaintance with the issue knows, illegal immigration is grossly unpopular with Middle America, with the rank-and-file of American citizens who see our job market being glutted with cheap labor, our wages being devalued, and our culture being systematically balkanized. Nevertheless, our political class — Republican and Democrat alike — seems sold out to open borders and unrestricted immigration.
One of the major problems we face from illegal immigration is the fact that illegal immigrants tend to use emergency rooms as clinics, since most hospitals are required by law to treat everyone who comes to the emergency room anywise, regardless of immigration status, ability to pay, possession of insurance, etc. Many hospitals in border states such as Texas, Arizona, and California have gone out of business because of this. The strain, the cost, it's all just too much for them to put up with, even with government reimbursements.
In the middle of all this falls Obamacare. Facing criticism for these bills' provisions that would force taxpayers to cover ALL medical care for illegal immigrants, just like it would those who were born here or who immigrated here legally, Obama has formulated his solution to the criticism: legalize all the illegal aliens, so that technically we won't be covering any illegal immigrants at all! Never mind the fact that this doesn't do anything about the actual substance of the concerns — which is that you will have millions of people who shouldn't be here burdening what will already be a deeply burdened system. Now they will just be millions of people who formerly shouldn't have been here but now are foolishly being allowed to be here, all the while still burdening the health care system. Obama's amnesty plan would simply take the problems face by border hospitals, and extend it to hospitals everywhere.
Brilliant solution. And I mean that sarcastically.
So how does Obama propose to get this pushed through, when he's already having enough problems forcing Obamacare-without-Obamnesty off onto us? It's simple — the addition of amnesty into the mix will allow Obama to play that card he always seems to have up his sleeve, that now-ubiquitous race card. The Democrats have already been playing it, after all. Opposition to Obamacare? Racist. Disagree with the President on cap-and-tax? Racist. Don't want tax increases? Racist. With amnesty attached to the President's health care "reform" proposals, expect to see this card played in spades.
I can see it now — the Democrats running ads featuring cute little Hispanic children, dimpled cheeks and wide, staring eyes (aren't they precious?), with a voiceover asking the American people whether they want to help the big, bad, evil racist Republicans deny poor little children like this the opportunity to live a life free from tuberculosis or whooping cough or some other hideous malady. Mainstream media outlets will repeat the charge nonstop, condemning the President's critics as knuckle-dragging Know-Nothings who now oppose the "reform" plans out of animus towards Latinos. As with everything else in life, those on the Left are automatically guaranteed to see opposition to this latest presidential gambit as "racism" because, well, everything's racism after all. The only way for you to prove that you're not a racist, of course, is to get on board with the President and his Party's efforts to destroy the world's best health care system.
Why is this the case? Because, as we all know, those on the Left are singularly inept when it comes to being able to marshal facts and logic and reason in support of their arguments and policy positions. It's much easier — and likely much more emotionally satisfying to boot — for those on the Left to simply fall back on rank emotionalism. Few things invoke emotion more than the thought that somebody might hate or want to harm somebody else — or maybe hate and want to harm ME! — all because of an uncontrollable factor such as what the color of their skin is or where their ancestors are from. Race is the perfect vehicle for those who want to obfuscate discussion and get around uncomfortable facts that destroy their arguments. Which is, of course, why those on the Left and in the Democrat Party talk about race so much. In a sense, it's the last refuge of the intellectually improficient scoundrel.
You can bet your bottom dollar that once amnesty gets firmly ensconced as a provision of the general Obamacare package, you will see this race card played, just as it was with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Opposition to the bill(s) will be cast as "racism." The "racism" argument will be used to shepherd the bill through Congress against the public's wishes, while suppressing what little vocal Republican opposition there has been to Obamacare to date. Though pushing for amnesty may seem like madness, it has a method to it. As a result, this may end up being make-or-break time for conservatives. The Left can only scream "racism" so many times before the charge simply has no force any more. I, for one, eagerly await the day when calling someone a "racist" has about as much meaning or effect as calling someone a "free silverite." Will this health care monstrosity, with the amnesty monstrosity attached, be what finally drives Middle America to simply decided that we don't care whether we're called racists anymore, we're going to do what's right, regardless?
© Tim Dunkin
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