In Wake of Amnesty, Elites Get Mad, Plot to Get Even

Despite what you will hear from the mainstream media and the leadership of both parties, yesterday was a triumph. Ted Kennedy, John McCain, Harry Reid, AND George Bush’s immigration amnesty bill went down in flames Thursday when a crucial vote to cut off debate was defeated 53-46. Thursday represents a defeat for the Republican and Democrat party bosses and the elites they have sold their souls to in favor of this fatally-flawed legislation (big business, big labor, and big La Raza come to mind). It is a victory for everyone else (you know, the “loud folks”), and before we go any further, kudos are in high order for Senators- Republican and Democrat- who did the right thing and voted against their leadership and against cloture. Don’t expect the elites in the wake of this knock down to stay down, however.

This bill represents more than any other in recent memory the visible divide between the people’s elected representatives and the people who do the electing. Just take a look at the recent Gallup poll of Congress, which shows the lowest approval rating in the history of the Gallup poll itself. The bill failed principally thanks to an open rebellion among the American people, mostly- but not exclusively- on the right whose message was reverberated on the alternative media. Groups like the Heritage Foundation conducted cost studies placing enforcement (which begs the question that this bill could have been enforced) in the trillions of dollars. Bloggers like Michelle Malkin shed more light on the bill than many Senators would have liked and exposed it for the “come-and-get-it” amnesty it was. Talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham not only offered their views on the bill but aired their listeners’ concerns on the matter. Most importantly, ordinary citizens placed so many phone calls to their Senators that the phone system was overloaded and had to be shut down.

Their response was visible enough at first and will become even more so after their, umm, Cuatro de Julio trips back home. Many in support of the bill were shocked to find that their constituents did not share their enthusiasm for a porous if not absent border and a free pass for 20 million people. How did these public servants, these elected representatives react? By name-calling. Senator Graham’s “loud folks” was just the tip of the iceberg. Senators dropped terms like “racist,” “bigot,” and the slightly-dated “know-nothing” to describe their concerned constituents. Senator Feinstein declared that she had never before received such hate-filled mail from voters who didn’t want to live in a balkanized, bilingual state. Just yesterday, Majority Leader Harry Reid reported receiving a negative letter from a constituent which he promptly turned over to Capitol Police. I guess petitioning the government for a redress of grievances is grounds for a criminal investigation these days.

And what good is petitioning without a means to petition? Frustrated elitists on both sides of the aisle have now set their sights on the vehicle they see as most responsible for shutting down their amnesty bill: political talk radio. The left has been hinting since before they took power at bringing back the unconstitutional “Fairness Doctrine” to silence the voice of conservative opposition on the airwaves. Now it seems they’re not only serious about it, but they’ve got Republican support! Just ask Senator Foghorn Hairspray (R-Mississippi) who declared “talk [ah say, talk] radio is running this country and we’ve got to do something about it, [see?]” The “Fairness Doctrine” is gathering steam (or is that hot air?) with Senators Feinstein, Kerry, Durbin, Hillary, and others expressing their support. It was even reported that Democrats told wavering Republican Senators yesterday that by the time they returned from their angry constituents, they would have already “taken care” of talk radio.

It is now becoming apparent that hell hath no fury like an elite scorned, and it’s not hard to see why they’re reacting in this way. Congress and the President hold approval ratings which rival those of the Adams administration, and back then they countered the will of the people with the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to criticize President Adams and the Federalist Party’s government. Several members of Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans were thrown in jail for doing just that. The American people wouldn’t stand for such tyranny then and the Federalists were thrown out in 1800. Now, faced with bipartisan elitism, the end result is much less clear. The American public is quite clearly mad as hell at both parties, and the elites will more than likely try to silence opposing viewpoints in the media and re-impose the “Fairness Doctrine” to maintain their power. However, the two-party system in place in America ensures a result similar to the 1981 NBA Playoffs: somebody’s got to win, even if nobody’s paying attention.