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Bad News for Team Perry
Who wouldn’t want to see this guy sitting across from the Iranians?
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has perhaps the best résumé in the presidential field. His state created 1.5 million jobs in the past eight years, he balanced his state’s budget every year, and he lowered taxes 75 times. He’s a veteran, tough on the border, and so pro-second amendment he shoots coyotes on his morning jog. Despite his bad experience with debating on back pain meds in 2012, his compelling history should make him a shoo-in for the top tier of the 2016 race.
But in a 17-person field where media oxygen is dominated by a reality-show blowhard and big donations are hoovered up by a presidential scion, it’s tough for even an alpha candidate like Perry to make headway. Poor polling forced him to last week’s kiddie-table debate which had only a third of the viewers as the main event later that night. Despite Perry’s strong performance, Carly Fiorina turned in an even better performance which attracted most of the post-broadcast attention.
After his campaign raised just over $1 million in the second quarter, times are getting tight around Perry HQ:
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign team in South Carolina is no longer being paid by his presidential campaign, National Journal has learned.
“Pay is only one reason people do this,” Katon Dawson, Perry’s South Carolina state director said in an interview. “We’ll be able to live off the land for a while.”
It is not clear if or when paychecks will start backing up for Perry’s team in South Carolina. Dawson said that Perry staffers in the state “have been paid up to two weeks ago.”
Dawson said core members of Team Perry, including himself, will continue to work, even if unpaid. He said Walter Whetsell and Le Frye, two top Perry operatives in the state, are among those still working.
“We’ll do it whether there’s pay or no pay,” Dawson said. In addition to the pay freeze, at least one Perry staffer was let go last week. Dawson said that move was unrelated to any “financial discomfort.”
On the plus side, Perry’s super PAC has raised about $17 million; certainly not Jeb! numbers, but impressive given the sprawling GOP field. Unless they can use that money to boost Perry’s profile fast, the swaggering Texan might be running out of time.
Published in General
What Leigh said.
Skin color is irrelevant. I won’t vote for a candidate who thinks otherwise.
Ethnic makeup is important BECAUSE of culture. Genetics has nothing to do with it. Europeans have huge differences, but also huge commonalities in their culture due to their shared heritage of Greek and Roman learning, law, and culture. These cultures produced the Enlightenment… undeniably a European phenomenon… and the Enlightenment made America. America IS the sum of Enlightenment thinking. So Europeans are the best fit for immigration for that reason alone. It’s not their skin color that makes them a bitter fit. It’s a commonality of Western culture. Central and South America… the legacies of Simon Bolivar’s Caudlillo culture… rejected those European Enlightenment principles. Mexico, despite speaking a European language, identifies not with Spain, but with the Aztecs. They consider their Spanish heritage something of a shame. Even the biggest western influence of all… the Church… was remade in a Marxist image in South America. African and Asian cultures are also usually hostile to Enlightenment influences. This is the problem with the ethnic balance, and why Ted Kennedy deliberately lied about changes in the ethnic balance from his immigration bill: he knew that the biggest block against further socialism was cultural, and so to change the culture, we needed to change the people. Contd…
Ethnicity is fair game, unless you subscribe to the Blank Slate understanding of human nature.
Example: I ascribe some of my hard-headedness to my Norwegian heritage. Yet I am not culturally Norwegian. It seems uncontroversial to observe that some traits which descend through genetics are involved with behavior.
This is why the Left is so dead-set against Teddy Roosevelt’s mantra of assimilation to the Anglo-centric American culture. The point is to destroy Anglo-centric culture. You destroy America that way. Take away church and English Common Law and European cultural influences, and America isn’t America anymore. There’s no way of getting around that central truth.
So to get down to brass tacks, should we let ONLY whites into the United States? No, that isn’t necessary. But not only does assimilation matter, but numbers matter, especially when it concerns importation of people that come from cultures alien and hostile to our own. Mass numbers of African Animists that think welfare is a great idea for their half-dozen wives (not to mention carrying a “colonialist” chip on their shoulders) are not good candidates for immigration to the United States.
Your WASP ancestors had valid reasons for their fears. Italians… a European people and the heirs to Rome itself… would never have assimilated had we not forced them to with a moratorium on further immigration (that lasted nearly 50 years) and an “assimilate or go home” policy. Again, numbers. Contd…
Every other arrangement of people seems to have an unassailable right to defend in toto the integrity of their culture, their ethnicity and (depending upon whom you ask) their race from the depredations of liberty.
Demographically, America is going to change no matter what. The question is, does it have to become a third-world hellhole at the same time? This is why assimilation is necessary.
So, if color, strictly speaking, shouldn’t be an immigration criteria, what should be? One thing and one thing only: are you willing to assimilate into the America culture, to be an American in the full sense, not just a mark on a passport? I don’t give a damn if someone is as black as coal or as pale as ice. I care if you want to celebrate George Washington, pray in your new church, and earn an honest buck while you wave the flag. I do NOT want people that think the very founding of this country was a crime. I do NOT want people that think the church is an anachronism. I do NOT want people that think the Bible, Plato, and Shakespeare are “culturally biased”, and that they should be replaced with the wisdom of some Tibetan shaman in schools. The easiest group of people that fit this criteria come from Europe. That’s not a guarantee of good immigrants… Europe has had some pretty stinky ideas too. Marx was a European after all. And if a Nigerian or Thai or Venezuelan thinks the Founding Fathers were the bees knees and want their kids to learn the Protestant work ethic while worshipping in a Catholic church, and embrace the rule of law… bring ’em. But if you don’t realize that America is exceptional and superior because of it’s culture and influences... then you don’t belong here. Color itself doesn’t matter.
Actually, Douglas, you’ve pretty much described my WASP relatives…especially the Tibetan shaman part.
And now that I think of it, a lot of my European relatives would be excluded on these grounds as well…
Leigh
Re: Scott Walker. I’m very aware that the Wisconsin Governor met with Jeff Sessions and said what he said. But he also has said other things about immigration in the past, things that have not been as pro-American worker. I’ll see how things develop as he needs more money to campaign through the primaries and causes.
Plus, you’re right: I would prefer his pro-American statement not be framed around workers. Be against continued massive legal immigration because you are pro-American. That is the country he wants to lead, isn’t it?
A westernized Nigerian Anglican would make a better immigrant than an English Marxist who thinks Stalin didn’t’ go far enough. But how many of such people are there?
Europe… and the coasts of America… definitely have a recent self-loathing brought on by the ascendancy of the counter-culture in the 60’s and 70’s… which saw Europe as the sum of evil in the world. They’re self-hatin’ honkies. It was the Swedes, after all, that thought importing thousands of Muslims was a peachy idea to make up for their past sins. But even with that in mind… who is going to fit into American culture better? An average Englishman, or an average Saudi? The odds are still better with Europeans. Not guaranteed. Just better. There are still arguably more westerners in the West than in Asia, Africa, or South America.
Still, remember the westernized African Anglican? They ARE increasing. It has not escaped my notice that, if Europe doesn’t turn from it’s own ethnic and cultural suicide… they’re not only doubting their own culture and importing others, they’re not breeding either….then it’s quite possible that the hope of preserving the Church of England may not be in England at all, but on the so-called Dark Continent.
No need to reword it – just ask you to see it in context.
Kate pointed out that she believed in the vision of the Founding Fathers and thought America would be America even with a brown-skinned population, free of pasty whites. I pointed out that the Americas are full of such nations, none of which can compare to America, so be careful what you wish for.
As to what creates the difference, I’ll follow this thread’s stylebook:
What Douglas said.
James of England
The Constitution is a piece of paper. It, and the vision of the Founding Fathers that Kate mentioned, no more guards our liberty than those other constitutions in other white European countries that you mentioned, countries like the Soviet Union, guaranteed the liberty of their citizens.
“You have a republic, if YOU can keep it.” (Emphasis added by Freesmith)
It’s the people – their customs, mores and beliefs – that determine whether a nation is made up of citizens or subjects. Unfortunately, the world is full of the latter.
Leigh
The method of transfer is called assimilation. For the third time I will repeat my question: How do you propose to assimilate into our history and traditions an endless influx of Third World migrants?
In fact, isn’t the disrepute that now surrounds the word assimilation in some quarters proof that we have allowed too many non-Americans into the US?
Isn’t the political change in Ronald Reagan’s California that followed the demographic change enough of a stop-sign for any of you? Or do you just love Democrats and chaos?
How much is enough for you folks? Or will you respond like liberals to the question of how high tax rates should be and refuse to answer with a percentage?
I know everybody here wants to preen about their color-blindness, but please address the issue.
If you want to talk about color-blindness, talk to those who crow about the the coming demographic change, like Ruy Teixeira, or those who promote “Black Lives Matter.”
They hate you.
Jon, I already knew you didn’t vote for Obama.
Freesmith, I am not advocating open borders. I am not advocating an endless influx of immigrants from any country. You’re asking me to defend a position I don’t hold.
Our ability to absorb them depends on the status of our educational system (which is not serving us well in this regard), our welfare state, and the economy at the given moment. I honestly have no idea precisely what level of legal immigration we should adopt.
If this campaign develops seriously, and we stop wasting time on a man who imagines a middle-school rant is a presidential platform, I will think more seriously about it. But I can tell you one thing that will absolutely push me away from your argument: any hint of any connection of that position with race.
I grant you this — some cultures fit more naturally with our own than others. But only to a point. I know immigrants from some of those others. They’re utterly American. Their children are more so. We want that kind of person here. Yes, they still value their birth language and their cuisine and a few traditions — and might even enjoy sharing it with me — but they also value this country, and appreciate it in a way natural-born citizens do not. They most certainly do not hate me.
(They might even vote Republican!)
What Leigh said.
Leigh rocks
A conspiracy is a coordinated effort–it’s planned to play out a specific way. As little as I trust government, I don’t think the feds plotted to bankrupt the country. Whatever the merits and demerits of passing Social Security and Medicare, and the intentions of those who created/voted for the programs, millions of American voters expect to receive benefits from these programs which they’ve paid into. They’re mistaken to think this is sustainable, but they’re not stupid or bad. Politicians have have little chance of being elected (and re-elected) if they promise major cuts. None of this implies secret societies or false flags. It doesn’t even imply “fooling the rubes”. I made it clear corruption isn’t a sufficient explanation. Avarice plays a role, but my feeling is based on a sober view of human nature.
If you don’t mind me nudging these goalposts. The Ryan plan and other Republican proposals cut spending and reform the welfare state, which is more than can be said for anything the Democrats have or will do, but is it really enough? With an 18 trillion dollar debt and spending that’s been steadily rising for decades, it’s hard to imagine recovering by baby steps.
Consider how many of the GOP hopeful are unwilling to cut military spending. In foreign policy I can be a bleeding heart neocon, but I’m amazed the party of fiscal responsibility deems defense, one of the largest chunks of the budget as off limits.
I hope you’re right and I’m wrong. There’s a Burkean argument to be made for gradually correcting course. Don’t want to find out if a collapse would end up like Williamson expects or like Hobbes did.
The Constitutionally-sound defense budget is only comparitively large when the “mandatory” spending is not included. And that mess is not at all Constitutional, and of course, the real problem.
Since the sequester &c hit defense for 50% of the total cuts, then any objective assessment would find that defense has certainly given up more than its share.
But I don’t expect to hear that any time soon.
So there we have it – Leigh, echoed by Kate, has no idea what the proper level of immigration should be into his own country. He writes that after living through 45 years of the current Ted Kennedy immigration system. He has plenty of ideas about race, but no idea about numbers. Yet the numbers, the level, the amount, of the people we choose to welcome is the issue.
Unfortunately, our political enemies are not so blind. They pay attention to numbers. They want more immigrants, lots more. How much resistance can we trust the Leighs and the Kates to offer to Democrats when they insist on pretending they don’t know or don’t care how many is enough.
This obtuseness is baffling. Every other nation controls immigration, most quite strictly. But if the economy is good – today – Leigh figures we can handle plenty of newcomers just fine.
Like California did. And where, Leigh, they don’t vote Republican.
Now THIS is advocacy of social engineering. (Much of what is called social engineering isn’t.)
Actually I’m a “she,” if you must speak in third person. Do you really think I will find that response persuasive?
Again, you’re projecting a view I don’t hold. I did not say that if the economy is good, immigration should be unrestricted. And do not ignore that I also mentioned the welfare state and our educational system as important factors.
Yes, I’m quite aware of California’s demographics and voting patterns. My view is that our welfare state and educational system have quite a bit to do with that. Should those considerations inform our immigration policy? Sure. But that’s a factor on our end and has little to nothing to do with where these people are coming from.
Europeans aren’t exactly voting conservative as we know it these days either.
Social Security and Medicare do dwarf defense, and are unconstitutional. Constitutional as it is, the defense budget still remains huge. I don’t know the extent of the cuts you mention, but weren’t they pretty modest? 50% isn’t that impressive when it’s part of a small number.
My original point stands since many on the right, including candidates, oppose the cuts that have been made to defense. It seems like a $600 billion annual budget provides a lot of opportunity for trimming. Why would we expect the wastefulness of government bureaucracy to not apply to the DoD?
I’m not trying to peddle the idea that we can balance the budget if we only cut down on the military, but if we’re to reign in the leviathan, we have to be critical of all government spending. That also includes cutting things like foreign aid and farm subsidies which are relatively paltry, but still wasteful.
If government bureaucracies are inherently wasteful, and they are, what makes you think you could cut the waste out of the DoD budget while retaining necessary spending?
Have you looked at the Plan? These are the charts for the current House budget. You’ll find no baby steps. It also shows that you can have a responsible foreign policy while engaging in radical cuts at home.
This is something we all have to adapt to. To the extent that a government function is necessary, it is going to have waste. It is one of the downsides of doing something through government as opposed to the private sector.
Just as claims that cutting waste, fraud and abuse can put social security and medicare on sound footing never pan out, so too will claims about other departments such as defense.
Waste is a good argument for limiting government action to only those functions which it must handle, of which defense is the most important example.
There is plenty to cut in defense. The Pentagon is as much a pork palace as any other other part of the government. The military is big government with uniforms. When the cost of your aircraft carriers goes from 6 billion to 15 billion in a single decade, then you’re going to have less money. Same for $200 million dollar fighters. The Marines already canceled their amphibious armor project. Too expensive. We’re going to have 2/3’rds fewer maritime patrol aircraft. Costs rose too much on the P-8 (replacement for the P-3) to buy enough. We’ll try to fill the gaps with drones. And look at the commissary/bx system. Why do we have them for stateside bases? No Krogers near base? What about the sheer number of highly paid civilian employees of the DoD? Don’t kid yourself. There’s a lot that can be cut from the defense budget.
Cat III @84:
By your own logic, why are you gunning for defense? Your preference to cut defense is by your own admission not about “trimming evenly”.
There is lots of room to cut waste in Defense. There’s lots of room everywhere. Defense is a legit use of commandeered dollars. Plenty of other stuff isn’t.
Not complicated.