The above quote is from The Corner for a post showing Gov. Rick Perry speaking in Iowa today. "Indignant" is a good word describing the feeling of most TEA Partiers as he tries to be the third TEA Party candidate (with Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann easily beating him to the punch to that honorific), he certainly uses the right word with the right nuance. I do like the word.
As a matter of fact, it may be a good way, in the near future, of describing my frame of mind – I had forgotten about the Gardisal episode of his Administration until it came up in Saturday’s Q&A. Essentially, it was a forcing of the then brand new HPV vaccine on young girls – for a sexually transmitted disease. In effect, it told parents that Government didn’t trust them to protect their own children – and the implicit message to kids was "well, we know you’re gonna fool around – regardless of what your parents are teaching you". Even though he did apologize for it on Saturday, it still was an imposition of Government between parents and their children and a diminution of the parents’ liberty.
Well, from my post giving my opinion of the status of the race:
Shot at the Title (the Nomination):
- Rick Perry (until he shows that he is not)
The above doesn’t help his cause. And this won’t either: one of the things that I noticed during the Q&A was that Perry answered the illegal immigration question from the crowd the exact same way that Gov. Jon Huntsman did during the debate – strong on securing the border and then ending, full stop. I thought that rather curious and odd. I brought it up to a number of folks at the time and they thought it "different" too.
Now I know why.
I agree with Herman Cain with his engineer (hey, he does have a CS degree!) and businessman’s way of looking at a problem – look at a problem, break it down to its component parts, and then solve those parts in a unified solution if possible (and one by one if not). In this, there is:
- Secure the border
- Prevent illegal aliens from being employed
- Prevent illegal aliens from obtaining benefits that ordinarily only accrue to citizens
- The path to citizenship
Er, what about the other parts of the problem? What is his stance? Townhall has a good write up on it, with a Tom Tancredo lead off. Now, IMHO, I had better expectations of Tancredo in the last cycle but with our interview with him for Meet The New Press, it didn’t do all that well. In the end, he succeeded in only one thing – getting his issue, illegal immigration, into the mix. And now it comes back again (emphasis mine):
However, as Tom Tancredo pointed out in a recent Politico Op-Ed, Perry may have a strong border security stance, his illegal immigration policy stances are questionable.
When I ran for president in 2008, I tried to pressure the Republican candidates to take a hard line against illegal immigration. For this, Perry called me a racist.
Gee, for insisting on folks who wish to live here that they follow the law and do all the legal items, I’ve been called a racist. No, I’m not – rather, I am a believer in the Rule of Law. Yet, that is what the Left often does – so much for what the law is, it’s how they feel or that they are trying to make points.
When he first took office as governor in 2001, Perry went to Mexico and bragged about his law that granted “the children of undocumented workers” special in-state tuition at Texas colleges, the first state in the nation to do so.
“The message is simple,” Perry concluded, “educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.” Education is the future, and (echoing Cesar Chavez’s slogan) yes we can.]
Right. So if my two sons, both recent combat vets, want to go to a Texas State school after defending this country, an illegal alien has special privileges that they do not? So much for their DREAMs. Once again, we see that irresponsibility is waived and we see the socialization of the cost of illegal acts.
No, Gov. Perry, the message sent to illegal alien parents is that your breaking the law will result in a reward for your children – what parent wouldn’t take that bet and the risk that comes with it? After all, legal citizens are now going to pay for their misdeeds through their taxes. That is not equality before the law – a new definition of Texas Justice?
Just a few weeks ago, Perry defended his decision to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. He said “to punish these young Texans for their parents’ actions is not what America has always been about.”
No, it is not. I do not let Democrats redefine the language – I utterly refuse to let Republicans do it either. It is about the Rule of Law; this is a subversion of that.
Perry opposed Arizona’s tough anti-illegal immigration law SB 1070. “I have concerns,” he explained, “with portions of the law passed in Arizona and believe it would not be the right direction for Texas.”
He spoke out last year against using E-Verify to prevent illegal immigrants from getting jobs as state employees, who get their paychecks from the taxpayers. He insisted it “would not make a hill of beans’ difference.”
Well, I guess that answers this part of the problem: Prevent illegal aliens from being employed (and ostensibly, shutting a citizen out of a job).
Numbers USA, a group that supports immigration control, gives Perry a “D-“ for his positions supporting amnesty, open borders, and opposing border security.
And Kerry Picket of the Washington Times asks: Do Conservatives Want Perry’s DREAM Act too?
In the midst of a number of conservatives believing Governor Rick Perry, Texas Republican, is the GOP’s answer to taking on President Barack Obama, squishy aspects of Mr. Perry’s background are being overlooked. As a border state governor, Mr. Perry signed state immigration law in 2001 known as the Texas DREAM Act. Here is an excerpt from a speech Governor Perry gave during the border summit in August of 2001: (bolding is mine)
As a compassionate state, we know that for our children to succeed, they must not only be healthy, but educated. The future leaders of our two nations are learning their fractions and their ABC’s in classrooms all along this border. Immigrants from around the world are being taught in Texas classrooms, and our history is rich with examples of new citizens who have made great contributions. We must say to every Texas child learning in a Texas classroom, “we don’t care where you come from, but where you are going, and we are going to do everything we can to help you get there.” And that vision must include the children of undocumented workers. That’s why Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate. Those young minds are a part of a new generation of leaders, the doors of higher education must be open to them. The message is simple: educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.
Sound familiar? It should. For those political observers who may not pay too much attention to Texas politics but watch their representatives on Capitol Hill, they may remember that Democrats in the Senate have tried repeatedly and failed to pass the DREAM Act and even after the House passed the legislation in late 2010 during the lame duck session before the Republicans took the majority, Senate Democrats did not find the numbers to overcome a likely filibuster.
As Perry said, you can’t even begin to talk about what to do with illegal immigration until the border is secure, especially since drug cartels control many parts of America along the Southern border with Mexico. Perry has repeatedly asked for National Guard troops to be stationed along the border and has been denied the full amount requested multiple times by the feds. There is a distinct difference between Perry’s illegal immigration policy stance and his border security stance.
What happens after securing the border is as important as securing it. I thought it odd when he, when asked about illegal immigration, said:
The idea that we can have a conversation about any type of immigration reform without first securing that border is just nonsense."
And then proceeded to ONLY talk about securing the border during his answer in the Q&A. Period. A nice bit of rhetoric to kill off that conversation? I do not believe so – concentrating on ‘securing’, running the clock out, and moving on to the next question.
We need to have the conversation with the Governor. He ante’d up on Gardasil…and I really don’t want to refight the war we had with George Bush over this. Gov. Perry also said that he would not compromise on certain issues (like his faith)
.
Me too. This is one that I have not compromised on in the past – I’m not about to start now. I refuse to allow the diminution of the value of my vote – and certainly not the value of my citizenship. Come legally – I will welcome you with open arms. Come here illegally, you got a fight on your hands.
Not so great that you share a DREAM with the guy you’re trying to bounce from office….
Great, Romney with ObamneyCare and now Perry with a DREAM…..
