Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Channeling Kos...

When it comes to immigration, a number of conservatives tend to act about as intolerant of competing viewpoints as the posters at Daily Kos do. The reaction to Ruben Navarette's latest column at Townhall is a classic case.

Several of the commenters are deliverately giving him 1 star - with the expressed intention of convincing Townhall that he should be dropped. Many of these name-callers are long on overheated rhetoric and name-calling, but very short on refuting his points. This has been the case on a number of conservative discussion boards that I've been on.

The worst parts are the insinuation by some of these hardliners that those who disagree with them on this issue are Quislings, "agents of Mexico", or traitors - or supporting the "dispossession of America" (without discussing how exactly, America would be dispossessed). Their proof of this "treachery" is merely the fact that people will support different solutions to the issue of illegal immigration.

In other words, if you think it's going way overboard to prosecute a sports agent who helped over two dozen people escape the Communist dictatorship in Cuba (including five who wanted to play professional baseball), you're no better than a traitor.

If Townhall does cave into this sort of mentality, it will lose my support and readership. There are conservatives who favor a comprehensive approach, like Chris Cannon, Linda Chavez, Jack Kemp, and Sam Brownback. Michelle Malkin and Tom Tancredo do not speak for all conservatives on this issue, and Townhall should stand athwart this effort to prevent a debate on this matter.

If not, then it's really no better than Kos.

1 comment:

Doc Holiday said...

Thanks for the post. I was wondering when the anti-immigration people were going to get around to coming up with something consistant when it comes to assisting people leave communist countries. I gather they are now to be considered 'illegal' and anyone helping them 'coyote'. This is quite telling, isn' it?

I think the anti-immigration forces have finally tipped their hand. It isn't just those 'nasty' people from Mexico they want to stop - it is anyone who doesn't speak English or look like them.

Excellent.

The Pink Flamingo