You'd think a guy connected to a federal bribery investigation would keep a lower profile. Not Virginia's Virgil Goode! Via Waldo, check out this unbelievable letter by Rep. Goode (R-VA).Thank you for your recent communication. When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens donGÇÖt wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.Seriously, my jaw has dropped to the floor. Since I'm speechless, I'll let Waldo sum it up: "Wow. I always knew that Rep. Goode appealed to xenophobic, and I knew that his closest allies in the House were staunch racists. But this? Just. Wow."
Whether or not he is the best candidate for this office is a subject for discussion.
We'll see in 2008 when someone else runs against Virgil.
Maybe you all do care since you are bashing him now, better late then never. Heck I am all for a special election in the 5th. Get him and take him down. His record or should I say none record says he has to go.
Weed ran an excellenet campaign with the money he had. It takes money to hire the best staff. It takes money to get out the vote. The money Al did raise came in too late to change the out come. Admit it, VA was a forgotten state till Macaca, then the money poured in for Jim and some trickled down to the lower candidates. But if not for Macaca we would still be Red with a Blue Governor, so don't go saying the statements that a candidate ran a poor race. They all did great with the funds they had.
Hope they all come back in 2 years. Maybe by then we will be organized enough to help them get elected.
Come on Back all I still have a bunch of your signs for the next race. If you really want to help start sending money now and please do not bash anyone who ever steps forward.
This will be an ugly fight if that is the way Virgil wants to take it. Is he off his rocker?
That said, we do have an immigration crises in our country. We should not base our decisions on how to resolve it using fear. We should base solutions on measurable economic factors.
Critical questions to ask include:
How much immigration can we sustain?
Answer: Alot. The past has proven this. However, we cannot sustain the current levels of illegal immigration. Also, legal immigration is currently concentrated in several occupations; this places higher pressures on American workers in these occupations. Immigration should be balanced across the occupations and not concentrated in a few.
How should we determine how many immigrants to allow, and under what conditions?
Answer: There is no simple answer to this question. I can tell you what not to do. Do not allow corporations to drive decisions regarding immigration. Because American labor is the most impacted, allow American labor groups to help draft fair legislation.
Immigration should not be about subsidizing corporations with cheap and exploitable labor, but about creating a stronger nation. I would suggest using economic indicators, such as job creation and unemployment, to determine the numbers. Use independent sources for these numbers such as the BLS.
Question: An even more provocative question is WHOM we should allow to immigrate to our nation. ??
Answer: I would not base this on religion, as Virgil Goode seems to do. I would look at factors such as education, experience, financial stability, political stability, and so forth.
Our immigration program should not have the goal of helping the impoverished. There are simply too many people in poverty around the world for us to help. Yes it sounds selfish and nationalistic - but quite frankly our immigration laws should consider only one thing: the well being of the United States and her citizens.
Can there be some cases of "charitable" immigration? Yes, in the case of people escaping attrocities or seeking political asylum. As an example, anyone escaping mass murder (as the Jews were in WWII) should be welcome. For political asylum, the individual circumstances should be evaluated - there is no recipe for that as it is a judgement call.
The vast majority of our immigrants should come here with one goal in mind: become hard working Americans and build a better America for their families.
Question: The final question is what do we do about illegal immigrants currently here and how do we prevent this from occuring again?
Answer: You could write a book on this topic. No matter what side you take, you will irritate a large group of people. From a pragmatic point of view, we simply cannot deport 12 million people. We don't have the resources. We have no choice but to provide them with some means of becoming legal - but we should also make sure they own up for breaking the law. How we do that is very much in debate. Looking forward our priority should be preventing this from occuring again. The best way I can think of doing this is workplace enforcement.
I have watched too many Lou Dobbs episodes where ICE goes into the business and brings out hoards of illegals who will face deportation. The people noticably absent are corporate executives. These are the people fueling the fire, and the people we need to target.
We can't possibly put 12 million illegals in jails or on busses to Mexico. I think we can quite easily make room for these criminal minded business owners and their managers. If you make it dangerous and unprofitable to hire illegal labor, the practice will stop. Let's put more heat on the businesses to obey the law.
Wow, I was really blown away reading those remarks - I'm shocked a Congressman would put something like this in writing. Unfortunately, I think he probably wins points with his constituents in his district, as they have certainly proven over the years via their voting habits not to be the most enlightened, open minded crowd in the state. I don't think you can beat Virgil at the polls - the only way to rid the state of this cancer is for the Dems to take over the General Assembly by 2009 and gerrymander his district after the 2010 census - and in that part of the state, even that would be difficult, based on the demographics of southside Virginia. What's a dolphin to do?
When the upper half of the 5th turns out voters in the 60 percent range and most of the southside is in the 47 percent range, that means the 5th is not organized to get out the vote.
Dean running the national party on no states left behind means VA needs to run the state, no Counties left behind.
Get rid of Virgil now. Campaign for him to step down?
Does that mean if he gets his butt kicked out of Congress as he rightfully deserves he'll hang the Koran up in his study at home? Maybe he secretly wishes to convert to Islam and is just waiting until he isn't so busy with politics. I think it would be right friendly of us to help solve his problem.