Camps for opportunistic politicians?
Congressional hopeful Jason Chaffetz succeeded in unseating long-time Third District Congressman Chris Cannon by running far enough to the right to satisfy even Utah County, where Cannon's Bush-leaning ideas on immigration reform were seen as too liberal.Chaffetz's iron-fisted immigration talk is pure political boloney, of course. The former NuSkin salesman has no ideology besides getting Jason Chaffetz elected. And what is easier to do in Utah County than beat up on outsiders?
Unfortunately, the stench of Chaffetz's ultra-right gasbaggery is spreading nationwide. Japanese-American Congressman Mike Honda in California got a whiff. Honda remembers the last time U.S. authorities rounded up "illegals" and shoved them into internment camps.
Jason Chaffetz's comments are more than just offensive and embarrassing to all Americans; they demonstrate a blatant disregard of the need to be vigilant in remembering the lessons learned from a disgraceful chapter in U.S. history.Chaffetz has the chutzpah to demand an apology from Honda for misrepresenting his tent camp plan. The Salt Lake Tribune's Robert Gerhke blogs on Chaffetz spinning his razor-wire enclosed tent camps into something different than the classic internment camps like Utah's Topaz. But Honda won't back down:
The only apology that should be made is by Mr. Chaffetz to the American public for injecting extremism into a sensitive and serious debate on immigration.
9 Comments:
glen:
the Japanese internment camps of WWII were not populated necessarily by "illegals" - many of those imprisoned were US citizens, nearly all were law-abiding, and they were imprisoned because of their ancestry.
Since Cannon didn't write back for two years, and kept voting for things he didn't support, I voted for Jason Chaffetz, because he did listen and he did have good ideas.
His number 1 solution for solving illegal immigration is to fix LEGAL immigration. What a great idea.
No, he is not saying put millions of people in tents. Get real. You can't believe everything Bennion or Honda say.
jenn m-s
wikipedia said over 60% of those in the WWII camps were US citizens. I have never been happy that the US did that. I have felt that was a mistake.
Jason never said to put people in camps because of ancestry, not that I have heard or read. He has said he wants a pathway to deportation. The first step is to fix it so it doesn't take years to come to the US legally.
Since mid-summer, I've been keeping track of the number of days that the Tribune has not mentioned in its print edition Bob Barr's nomination by the Libertarian Party as its presidential candidate.
Because the Tribune's non-coverage of the Barr campaign to date is part of the dynamic of the 2008 election, I've been maintaining an online vigil by bearing witness to this in the comments section of a (oftentimes) politically-related story.
Here's an example of the text I've used when commenting: "Tribune's Bob Barr Blackout Watch: The Libertarian Party nominated Bob Barr as its presidential candidate X days ago, but the Salt Lake Tribune has yet to inform its print edition readers of his candidacy."
After a few weeks of doing this, The TribTalk administrator will suspend my account permanently, and cite "spam" as the reason.
As of this writing, Barr is on the ballot in 42 states, and is likely to achieve ballot access in 46-48 states ... more than any other presidential candidate outside of the major political parties. This distinguishes him from almost all but a handful of other presidential candidates.
Since their nominations and placement on Utah's ballot, the Salt Lake Tribune has afforded coverage to presidential candidates Ralph Nader (Independent), Chuck Baldwin (Constitution), Cynthia McKinney (Green), and of course John McCain and Barack Obama. But not Bob Barr.
The response by the Tribune's reporters, editors, and Reader Advocate to this disparity in coverage? Crickets.
Dean Singleton, the CEO of the Tribune's parent company, MediaNews, was a significant donor to George W. Bush. You can do the math from there, and answer for yourself why a Bush supporter would work to censor any mention of Bob Barr -- who might to do John McCain in 2008 what Nader did to Al Gore in 2000.
The Tribune has a right to censor content, for any reason or no reason at all. But let my experience serve as an example of how the User Participation Rules are being applied.
Glen, if you take the time to read the facts so you can actually report on the facts, you will soon see that according to Jason's website and every public statement he has ever made, he has never advocated any incarceration based on race as Rep Honda suggests, but instead, his position is and always has been to put those illegals who are guilty of committing crimes in inexpensive outdoor tent prisons modeled after the ones Sheriff Joe Arpaio set up in Arizona. Nationality isn't the issue as it was during WW II where citizens and non-citizens alike were imprisoned based solely on their Japanese heritage. The issue is that criminals of all races and heritage be put in prisons whether it be tent or other--since other is not readily available, tents are a viable option. Now narrow that down a little bit to refer to criminals who are also illegal aliens and it gives individuals such as Rep Honda and yourself apparent latitude to misconstrue the facts for political purposes. Keep writing, just try to keep your blog postings more factual in the future.
Jason ought to count his lucky stars that the Tribune is not running Honda's response to Jason's ridiculous demand for an apology.
Once again, you Jason bloggers are showing the world why Chaffetz is not fit to be dog catcher, let alone in Washington.
He's not man enough to own up to what he said and is letting you misguided freaks lie for him.
He called for tent cities with barbed wire for immigrants, now be a man Jason and stand behind your foolish comments.
After a little research, insofar as the Tribune's blogs are concerned, I stand corrected.
http://blogs.sltrib.com/vault/2008/07/irony-bob-barr-blackout-watch.htm
And I've passed along Mr. Carlisle's query on FOIA to the Barr campaign.
The actual plan is a "Pathway to Deportation" which includes a host of steps that will dramatically reduce the population of people here illegally long before we start filling up our prisons.
* Jason has always said that fixing LEGAL immigration must happen first. No one will self deport if they think the process for returning will take no less than a decade.
* He proposes to remove the rewards and incentives (access to entitlements) that lure people here.
* Jason's proposal will give employers the tools they need to comply with the law. He supports strictly enforcing the law against employers who violate it.
* Those here illegally who step forward will be given a guest worker permit that allows them to work here legally for a fixed period of time while they prepare to return to their country of origin. He calls this a Pathway to Deportation.
The plan bends over backwards to make it easier for people to comply with the law, but does not reward people for breaking the law. There's a principle at work here. It is wrong to offer the ultimate reward - citizenship - to people who broke the law while withholding it from those who were willing to follow the rules. This plan makes it possible to be compassionate toward the less fortunate, but also to uphold our principles and require everyone to follow the law.
If you are going to bash an idea, bash the one his is proposing..
Not a twist from some liberal working with Clinton to spend a 1/3 of a $ Bllion on illegal immigrants.
I could just reiterate what everyone else is saying and that is, if you actually look into what Jason is proposing it's nothing like an internment camp. Illegal immigrants need to be sent home. That's not going to happen overnight. And, the first step in the plan is to fix legal immigration. It's apparent that Jason actually does understand the illegal immigration problem.
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