Restless nativists, or, why does the Republican Party want to outlaw Christianity?
I'm tempted to introduce any post on immigration I make by repeating that the bottom line is that the Republicans will go to the wall to prevent any kind of effective enforcement action against employers that hire illegals. Because if you don't get that basic fact about the political debate, you can't really make sense of it. Y punto.
And that holds despite nominal inclusion of stronger employer penalties in the House nativist immigration bill. The Meet the Press transcript for today is up. It included a segment about immigration. Timmy introduced it this way:
Immigration. The House has passed the bill, the Senate is gridlocked. This is how the House bill—named after its primary sponsor, Congressman Sensenbrenner—from Wisconsin, is described, "The [Sensenbrenner] bill passed in the House in December. Focused exclusively on security and enforcement, it has sparked protests nationwide. The bill treats an illegal alien’s mere presence in the country - currently only a civil violation - as a felony punishable by a year and a day in jail and establishes mandatory minimum sentences for repeat offenders. Its sweeping language would make giving even humanitarian assistance to an illegal immigrant a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Fines for an employer who hires illegal immigrants ... would be increased to $5,000- $25,000. Criminal penalties for repeat offenders could include a minimum of a year in jail up from a maximum of six months. Among the border enhancements: a 700-mile double fence along part of the 2,000-mile frontier with Mexico."
First, the criminalizing of the Good Samaritan, i.e., making criminal penalties for humanitarian assistance to illegal immigrants. Timmy asked one of his guests, Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona from the Christian Republican White People's Party:
MR. RUSSERT: But realistically, is it possible to deport 11 million people out of America?
REP. HAYWORTH: Tim, we didn't get into this situation overnight, and we're not going to solve it overnight. The fact is, laws follow human nature. That's why I called for enforcement first, because when you for - enforce existing laws and close loopholes that both unscrupulous employers and illegals are, are utilizing right now, when you do that, human nature for everybody, regardless of national origin, kicks in. And when people say, "Well, wait a minute. The magnet of employment illegally has dried up. And, and the social services are not there. Maybe I’ll relocate back home." We have press accounts of Mexican citizens who work here illegally returning to their homeland for family celebrations and for holidays. The sad fact is, we have a porous border. This is first and foremost and always about national security in a time of war, and the longer we neglect our borders, north and south, and our ports of entry, the more our nation is in peril. (my emphasis)
Today's Republican Party is our first mass religious party in America, as Kevin Phillips has accurately observed. And this is the brand of Christianity they practice.
Timmy's question is not at all unreasonable, although he allowed Gauleiter Hayworth to duck it. If we make it a felony to be in the US illegally and actually enforce that law, we're talking about a deportation of about 11 million people. The current term for such an action is "ethnic cleansing". This is the Christianity of today's Republican Party.
Congressman Henry Bonilla of Texas, whose grandfather was Mexican but obviously fits in well today with the white folks de sangre limpia of his Republican Party, was also a guest.
MR. RUSSERT: But if an illegal immigrant is working on a farm or a ranch in Texas, and cuts his arm or hand off they should not be given medical assistance, and they would be fined, whoever treated them, for violating the law that you voted for.
REP. BONILLA: The plight of many illegal aliens - and by the way, of course, our hospitals are compassionate and will continue to serve people who need help—but the plight...
MR. RUSSERT: Would that be breaking the - would that be breaking law?
REP. BONILLA: It probably would be, but the hospitals are not going to be held accountable. But first and foremost, the plight of a lot of these illegal aliens, a lot of people want to—the demonstrators and critics—want to blame our country for their problems. You know, these dysfunctional, oppressive, in many cases, governments where these people flee, flee from are the, the ones that are responsible for the unfortunate situation these people are in, and they’re not doing a darned thing to help their own people. (my emphasis)
Say what? The House bill that Bonilla and the White People's Party support makes it a felony that could bring five years in prison - and he says when Timmy asks him if a doctor or nurse or ambulance driver providing life-saving medical care would be breaking the law, he says, "It probably would be, but the hospitals are not going to be held accountable." Huh?
This is Republican bigotry and mindless nativism in its unadorned form. California's nativist Proposition 187 of the 90s was bad enough in forbidding emergency clinics from providing regular medical care to undocumented workers, guaranteeing that flus and colds and more dangerous contagious diseases would go untreated and spread more quickly even among good all-American monolingual white folks. Virtually the whole damned thing got struck down by the California courts based on the state constitution, and the politicians of both parties agreed to just ignore what was left because it was unenforceable in practice.
Republican policy is increasingly raising the most basic ethical issues for medical personnel, like for doctors who participate in torture in the Bush Gulag. The House bill would criminalize actions that doctors and nurses would be required by medical ethics to provide.
Ethnic cleansing of 11 million people. Putting doctors and nurses and soup kitchen operators in jail for serving undocumenteds. This thing is a present-day version of the Fugitive Slave Act! This is a case where nonviolent civil disobedience would be absolutely justified if this thing passes.
God isn't smiling about our warmongers. And he sure ain't smiling about this.
It's ironic, in a sick sort of way. The Christian Right raves about how The Liberals (and let's-don't-say-out-loud-that-we-mean-Jews, nudge-nudge, wink-wink) are trying to destroy Christianity. And here's a bill from the Christian Republican Party that would literally outlaw the Good Samaritan of the Gospels, the most basic of Christian ethics.
This is another illustration of how just plain old secular good sense can better serve the goals of honest religion better than the fanaticism of the fundamentalists.
