Why I Will Not Vote GOP This Fall

After President Bush's deceitful, stupid, and patronizing speech last night, I reached a decision I never thought I'd come to: I will not pull the lever for Republicans this fall.

I have been voting GOP my entire life. I voted for George H.W. Bush in 1992. I voted for Bob Dole in 1996. I voted for this president in 2000, and again in 2004. In between, I've voted a straight party line ticket in every congressional race.

In 2006, I will stay home and watch TV.

I have defended this president on any number of fronts over the past 6 years. Since 9/11/01, I've largely done so in the firm belief that George W. Bush understands that we are at war and takes his national security duties seriously, far more seriously than any Democrat does or will. I differed with the President on Harriet Miers, and presumed that personal loyalty swamped his judgment there.

Then the ports deal came up, and I began to wonder if there weren't a larger problem with the Bush Administration's approach to national security. I didn't like the way the President latched onto port deal supporters' deeply offensive argument that those of us who opposed the deal did so out of racism or religious bigotry.

Last night marked the final straw.

Last night, the President dealt up a heaping helping of horse manure while trying to convince us the turds were ice cream and the flies jimmies.

If you believe that sending 6,000 National Guardsmen to watch our 2,000 mile southern border will deter illegal immigration, you are a danger to yourself and others.

If you believe that building a "virtual" fence will deter illegal immigration, you need to put the Xbox controller down and spend some time in the real world.

If you believe that "tamper-proof" documentation will deter illegal immigration, you clearly haven't made a trip to your local DMV, where driver's licenses and voter registration cards are handed out like crack pipes at Whitney and Bobby's place.

If you believe that the very people who despise this country's laws and sovereign right to confer citizenship at its discretion will not resort to fraud to claim longer illegal residency and thus the advantages of the President's proposed graduated citizenship plan, you probably think "fraud" was that bearded shrink from Austria.

If you believe that allowing illegal aliens to pursue U.S. citizenship after a trivial fine is not amnesty, I suspect your children run absolutely amok.

If you believe that we will now abandon the policy of "catch-and-release", whereby detained illegal immigrants are released on their own recognizance to attend a deportation hearing at their leisure (none of whom apparently has any leisure time, doing all those jobs Americans won't do), you clearly have more faith than a six-year-old on Christmas Eve.

Last night's grotesque mockery of a policy speech made two things crystal clear:

1. George W. Bush does not take the security of our nation's border seriously;
2. George W. Bush does not take us seriously either.

I am an American before I am a conservative, and certainly before I'm a Republican. The recent demonstrations, growing gang violence, and increasingly bold narcoterrorist incursions along our border amply demonstrate that we are being invaded by those who do not seek to become us, but to replace us. We may mock the notion of a "reconquista" as complete fantasy, but already there are large swaths of our border cities wherein English-speaking Americans are not welcome. There are many people who take this very seriously---unfortunately, they happen to be those in favor of Azatlan reborn.

Our politicians have sold us out for the lure of the votes of those who violate our laws with impunity, who avail themselves of our social programs without recompense, who refuse to become Americans. Who can blame them? People like me continue to hold their noses and pull the levers for them, election after election. After all, what's the alternative?

My great-grandparents came to this country in 1910, through Ellis Island. They waited a long time to get here, and endured many hardships on the way across the Atlantic and up through the Caribbean. When they arrived, they endured many indignities, not the least of which was the misspelling of their surname, which remains misspelled to this day. My great-grandfather was a bricklayer. My grandfather was a bricklayer. My father was a bricklayer, as was my eldest brother. To say they built this country is no exaggeration. It was only with our present generation that college educations became attainable, that white-collar careers became possible.

I do not begrudge Mexicans' becoming Americans. But I will not pull the lever for any politician who will allow Mexican citizens to have all the rights and privileges of American citizenship for they and their descendants without earning it the way my family did.

There is no harder-working people you will find in this day and age than those from across our southern border. But working hard is not enough to become an American---you must be honest, and you must obey the law. Sneaking into this country, forging documents, and lying about your citizen status displays a profound disrespect for America, not to mention her people. We have no obligation to wink at their lawlessness, to embrace as countrymen those who so loathed our laws. Are we not a nation of laws, after all?

A nation unwilling to defend its sovereignty will not remain a nation for long.

I hope that politicians unwilling to defend the rights of their countrymen will likewise be politicians no longer.

I will return to the voting booth when there is a slate of candidates who advocate policy along the following lines:

1. Building fences along our southern and northern borders
2. Enforcing our immigration laws within our borders
3. Fines and jail terms for employers who hire illegal aliens
4. Strong trade and diplomatic consequences for governments who enable violation of American immigration laws
5. English as the sole official U.S. language

Until then, I'll be properly listed as an "unlikely voter."