"Dems want illegal immigrants to vote"

[Patiod]

The business owner sitting next to me on the packed plane Tuesday was so deeply offended that the safety announcement was repeated in Spanish that he started ranting about immigration to me.

I let him rant on and on and on until he said "...and the Democrats don't want to reform it because they're trying to get the vote for illegals."

I said "that sounds like a Fox 'News' straw man to me." He just about fell out of his seat. "I read of LOT of liberal websites, and listen to liberal radio, and believe me, no one is trying to get the vote for illegals. And trust me, your Republicans aren't going to do a damned thing about it, either, because they're afraid of pissing off Agribusiness."

Thank God it was a relatively short flight. Ugh.

[BOSSHOG]

1. Yes and a vote for bush is a vote for apple pie

I'm patiently waiting for the day when young republicans will solve the problem of immigration (I guess some thinks its a problem) by heading to the fields and picking our produce all day long in the heat of the summer. That should happen any day now. Right after they all get back from their latest tour in Iraq.

Off topic:

- Is this going to be another year when the Phillies miss the playoffs because of their April performance?

- I recently ordered "Long Gone" Connie Mack Stadium and the 64 Phillies. Very nicely done, but rather sad for me. I loved that old place. They spent way too much time on Richie Allen.

[Patiod]

2. Nah, they'll blow it in August as well....

My Dad and my brother were at the last game, and my boyfriend and his dad were there as well. Very sad for all of them.

[sutz12]

11. And the apples are grown in Chile. nt

[treestar]

3. Legal aliens can't vote

Only citizens can vote in the first place.

This kind of right winger projects into the future - they'll give them amnesty, that'll get them a green card, if, years after that, they naturalize and are citizens, then they can vote. Their kids born here can vote when they grow up. That's "giving illegals the vote" in the mind of rightwing nutjobs.

Undocumented aliens are also ineligible to collect welfare and social security (even if they pay into the system working under a false social security number) - but from talking to rightwing nutjobs, you'd think they sign up and collect the day they arrive.

[Patiod]

4. He also told me a bunch of other "Faux Fax"

- No country that speaks Spanish has ever been economically viable, including Portugal. (Me: "They don't speak Spanish in Portugal")

- No country that speaks more than one language has ever "succeeded" (didn't ask definition of "success" - didn't ask anything for fear of encouraging him)

- Second generation immigrants don't learn English (Me: "Yes they do" Idiot: "Have you ever been to New Bedford? No one there speaks English")

- The census bureau wants to count illegals (Me: "So what - that's what the census bureau does - it counts people" Idiot: "but the Dems will use it to re-district" Me: "are you saying the census bureau, after all those long horrible years of Bush and the Republican Congress power, is actually a covert Democratic Party tool? I deal with demography for a living and believe me, the census bureau is just there to count people. It's what they do, and what they have to do. If other people misuse the data, that is not the Census Bureau problem as long as the data is accurate" <-the only thing I said he didn't have an answer for

I told the idiot we don't have huge immigration problems in Philadelphia up until now, since our Hispanic population was mostly Puerto Rican, and he said "Puerto Ricans aren't immigrants!" Yeah, that was my point you right wing Faux-listening prick.

I tried to read my book, but he wanted to tell me about his Eastern European girlfriend who couldn't get a visa, and I kept biting my tongue to ask how much he had to pay the mail-order bride company for her.

[KansDem]

9. Ask them about Switzerland...

No country that speaks more than one language has ever "succeeded"

Switzerland has four languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh...

Switzerland has three official languages: German (63%) in the north, east and centre of the country; French (30.4%) to the west; Italian (6.5%) in the south. Romansh, a Romance language spoken locally by a small minority (< 0.5%) in the southeastern canton of Graubünden, is designated by the Federal Constitution as a national language along with German, French and Italian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland">Wikipedia

Their government (the Swiss Confederation) was founded in 1291, making it one of the longest surviving of its kind (formally a confederation but similar in structure to a federal republic--CIA Factbook).

Maybe it's just me, but I lived there for a few months in 1984-85 and the Swiss seemed pretty "successful" to me...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Canada, Belgium, Spain, the UK... there's many.

[Patiod]

16. He argued (rightly, I think) that Quebec wasn't working out so well

economically.

[VP505]

13. How about

Belgium, they seem pretty successful to me and they use three languages Flemish, French and German.

[Patiod]

21. good response as well

Belgium and Switzerland. I'm sure I would have thought of them eventually.

What kills me is how these wingnuts always state their nonsense as Absolute Fact.

[Patiod]

14. wish I could have come up with this on the fly

but I'll keep it around for next time I hear this stupid argument, which I'm sure he got off of Faux "New"

[bunkerbuster1]

5. That belongs in the "Stupidest Fucking RW Memes" trashcan

How the hell can an illegal alien vote? More to the point, WHY would an illegal alien vote? what would be the point of even trying?

Idiots. Complete, drooling, shouldn't-be-allowed-to-breed idiots.

[Patiod]

6. He started in on "voter fraud"

and I said "you mean voter dis-enfranchisement?" and he went off about Mayor Daly helping Kennedy steal the election and I said "kind of like how Chuck Hagel produced all the voting machines that got him elected against all polls and all odds?"

Thank God for Randi Rhodes and Thom Hartmann and DU, which have armed me with facts to throw back at these idiots.

It's amazing that when you throw FACTS back at mouthy bullies, facts that contradict the nonstop crap they are eating from Faux, that it often shuts them up, or gets them to at least change the subject.

[bunkerbuster1]

8. Don't you love how they have to reach back to Daly?

1960?

I hope you reminded him that JFK would've been elected even without IL's electoral votes. I always do.

[bunkerbuster1]

10. Oh, and BTW, even Nixon

in his memoirs, didn't really think he had a case against the "voter fraud" being alleged by the Goopers at the time.

[B Calm]

7. Cheap labor conservatives love their Latino guest workers..

All this talk about building a fence along the border is bull-shit, designed to give the illusion that the republicans are doing something about illegals. They create these wedge issues to get the uninformed voters to keep voting for them. The truth is, republicans are welcoming them into the US to drive our wages lower. The illegal problem has gotten much worse under republican rule. If republicans were serious about doing something about the illegal immigrant problem, they would start fining and jailing the cheap labor employers who hire them.

[Zavulon]

17. The 700-mile fence promised in 2004, BTW,

is a mere 698 miles from being completed :rofl:

[B Calm]

18. They actually constructed two miles of fence? WOW

[Zavulon]

20. In only three years, no less!

:rofl:

With a construction crew of two or three I could have done better than that.

[ComerPerro]

15. http://www.gop.com/espanol

now who is pandering?

[BlooInBloo]

19. Golly. A lying republican. Whatever will I do. Help me. I'm so distraught by this. Really.

[Patiod]

22. It's not unexpected, but it still get my BP up

I was irritated the entire flight. Thank God it was a reasonably short one!

[stimbox]

23. Thom Hartmann mentioned your post!

Congrats!

[Patiod]

24. Ack!!!! I had to turn off Thom's show and do an interview

I interview doctors for a living, and I had one scheduled for 2:00 EDT.

What did he say???!!!

I wrote to thank him for arming me in the "watercooler wars", because (I didn't say this in the email) in the past when I ran into Faux-watching bullies, I sputtered incoherently. This time, I had a few things in my pocket, like telling saying that fining employers would work better than a wall (A Thom Hartmann idea) and that "Dems want illegals to vote" was a Fox strawman (a phrase I also learned about listening to the show). Also, he and Randi also are quick to point out that voter FRAUD isn't the problem, that disenfranchisement is worse.

I also said in my email - completely off-subject - that he mistakenly said that a caller from Sunnyvale was from Sunnydale, and that sounded like something a Buffy fan would say. Did he say anything about that?

[Patiod]

25. I heard it on the White Rose download

I see he didn't mention the Buffy comment....

But pretty cool to hear him read my letter!!! Thanks for the heads-up!!!