Send lawyers, guns, and money… The immigration taboo. RETWEET
Dear DC Downsizers,
If you have principles, a brain, and a heart then I ask you to please pay close attention because…
Downsize DC has been injured for standing up for principles. Now…
Maybe you don’t agree with one or two of those principles. To that, let me say, both Perry and I are married. Our wives don’t always agree with us either. And chances are, you have disagreements with your closest friends. So what? Knowing that your friend or partner is consistently honest is a virtue, even when they’re wrong.
And we’re rarely wrong, otherwise you wouldn’t have joined us in the first place!
We’ve outlined our principles in detail in the past. But we’ll over-summarize them here…
- We believe all human rights are inalienable and pre-constitutional — that is, they don’t come from Governments, they come with our humanity.
- We believe in free association — that is, anyone can visit and stay as long as someone will offer them a room or bed, a meal, or a job. Any such arrangements between peaceful parties are nobody’s business.
- We maintain that the Constitution restricts the federal government to a limited set of enumerated powers. That is, the only powers the feds have are those specifically mentioned. All other powers belong to the various states and the people. And the federal government has no enumerated power over immigration — only citizenship (naturalization) is specified in the Constitution.
None of these stands are new for us. However…
On February 1, we sent a message opposing the Trump immigration ban against the citizens of seven nations. Since then, we’ve actually received messages telling us things like… ![[Don't criticize my guy]](/blog-content/dont-criticize-my-guy.jpg)
You never criticized President Obama when “he did unconstitutional things.” Really! Someone actually wrote that when 5 minutes at our blog would’ve turned up hundreds of such items!
We’ve also been called Democrats, and we’ve been told that we “are endangering our country… with partisan hate, fear mongering and outright lies!” Amazing.
Late last year, we indicated we’d do what we’d done for both Presidents Bush and Obama. We’d support what the President got right and oppose what he got wrong. Of course, it’s the tendency for those in power to get far more wrong than they get right.
In January, we sent out a message in support of “Repeal & Replace” Obamacare. We’ve written about our excitement that perhaps the new Trump administration would do some good things. And, we have more plans coming on the Obamacare front — probably before this week is over.
So, this wasn’t about Trump. This was about a policy. Therefore…
Let’s discuss this immigration ban. And let me start by dealing with an assertion repeatedly made to us. People kept telling me “it’s not a ban.” Well…
It WAS a “ban.”
It was a 90-day ban. And Trump spokespeople talked as if the intent was to shape it into something more “permanent.”
This wasn’t mere semantics. Tell this Christian family it wasn’t a ban: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/01/31/after-trump-executive-order-syrian-christians-sent-back-to-genocide-zone-n2279296
Besides the ones I’ve already mentioned, we got lots of messages. Obviously, some folks were nice. Others disagreed. But many were angry, and that doesn’t mean they merely disagreed. Debate is always welcome, and I managed to carry on correspondence with more than a dozen letter writers. No, when I say these messages were angry, I mean they were heated — full of invective. We were told that we, at Downsize DC…
- Should go live with the terrorists
- Want tax money to be used to fund killers coming here
- Used anti-American rhetoric
- We’re perverted liberals who could share a bathroom stall together (okay, I admit it, I laughed a bit at that one)
The volume of messages was about eight times what we usually get. And that wasn’t all…
Since sending that message, we’ve had five times the usual amount of un-subscribers. That included at least two former monthly pledgers and a VIP donor. Two more people canceled their pledges.
We don’t think our position warranted that. We’re Downsize DC. It should be no surprise that…
We think there’s zero reason to suddenly trust and place great faith in the promises of politicians and their bureaucrats. Are these not the same people who brought us a war on poverty that didn’t reduce poverty? A drug war that creates criminal gangs?
So how is the situation of “vetting” going to be any different? How is such an incompetent, self-serving, politically-designed, state apparatus suddenly going to get so good at something that they’ll actually increase our safety?
It’s also hard to understand why this policy is suddenly necessary. 9/11 was more than 15 years ago. This policy is based on not a single, domestic incident. That is, no domestic terrorism since 9/11 has been instigated in the United States by a refugee, either under the present refugee program or by any immigrant, legal or illegal, from the nations listed in the executive order. On the other hand, the 9/11 hijackers were from different nations who are not listed in the executive order — notably, Saudi Arabia.
This travel ban seemed hurtful and unnecessary, especially when you consider that it was our country that set this region on fire. I couldn’t imagine having to leave my home country behind. Could you? Still, it was our politicians who made it so dangerous that people need to flee their homes and leave everything behind.
You can see the long yet partial list of articles where Downsize DC predicted the troubles that would come with U.S. intervention in Syria. And you can quickly read the claims and concerns we published before the unnecessary war in Iraq. The point is…
We keep being right. Even our wives agree with us — at least on matters of foreign policy.
Now, it strikes me as odd, even sad, that polls show that most Americans are for immigration, and opposed to this specific “travel ban.” But the most intense, passionate, and even hot with rage people are on the other side. We need your support.
We need a positive, encouraging word. And any support you can send our way to compensate for what we lose every time we stand on principle to confront this issue. We need for the good people who believe in inalienable, pre-constitutional rights to be just as passionate as the “people prohibition” advocates are.
Maybe you can help us by finding a friend, who’d be interested in our work, who’d replace one of our lost subscribers. Share this subscription link: https://archive.downsizedc.org/newsletter/
Maybe you can be a new VIP donor, giving $500 or more, to replace the VIP donor we just lost.
Maybe you can make a monthly pledge or a one-time contribution in support of Downsize DC.
Whatever you can do, Thank you!
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.