Hello asked some good questions about a comment from Mackie. Let’s review.
What Mackie said:
John Stirrup wasn’t duped. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He left arlington to escape working class latino immigrants. Now this buffoon wants to forcibly turn PWC into his own personal demographic experiment. Undocumented are kicked out, and for those people of color who remain, a quasi-police state. It’s all the same to John. It’s not his kids who will be stopped on the street by the police and asked if their parents are illegal. He is a sincere in supporting the resolution no matter what the party says. Sincere enemies are always the most dangerous.
And similar to Adolf Eichman, he likewise implemented an efficient and effective policy to ship the undesirables out of the community.
This was my initial response:
I wouldn’t have gone as far with the comparison to Adolf Eichman, but otherwise Mackie’s statement is dead-on. Stirrup wasn’t duped into dealing with FAIR. The quote about his leaving Arlington because of the demographic shift is accurate. According to IRLI, we have been turned into a lab experiment. He was in favor of a plan that would have been very similar to a police state. His blond haired child won’t be asked if her parents are illegal. And he did implement a policy to rid the county of those he perceives to be undesirable. Where exactly do you think Mackie was incorrect in his analysis?
To which Hello asked some good questions which I have attempted to answer here.
1.) He left Arlington to escape working class Latino immigrants?
My answer:
In an interview, Stirrup said he moved to his home near Haymarket nine years ago in part to escape a wave of immigrants that he believed was fueling crime and driving down property values in his old Arlington neighborhood.
source: http://hamptonroads.com/node/423771
2.) He wants to forcibly turn PWC into his own personal demographic experiment?
My Answer:
Again, he worked with IRLI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBbjrk0QWqw
3.) Undocumented are kicked out, and for those people of color who remain, a quasi-police state?
My Answer: The quasi-police state was the original suggestion of the resolution that discussed restriction of a wide-range of services and included I.D.’ing everybody. Actually the quote from the County executive interview addressed this initial policy.
I believe it’s in this video that the County Executive talks about what the initial proposed resolution would have meant and it sounds to me like a quasi-police state.
source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRVWb_aiQ4
4.) It’s not his kids who will be stopped on the street by the police and asked if their parents are illegal. (looking for evidence of kids currently being stopped on the street by police and asked if their parents are illegal)?
My Answer: Hispanic kids are carrying around their birth certificates in their glove boxes. Do you think Stirrup’s blond haired child is doing the same?
Source: Washington Post
5.) He likewise implemented an efficient and effective policy to ship the undesirables out of the community. – this one if more of a question I suppose, are the undesirables illegal immigrants?
My Answer:
1.
“How are we supposed to survive here?” asked Gregorio Calderón, a legal U.S. resident from El Salvador who said he worries that police will harass him because of his ethnicity. “They’re going to pull me over just for being Hispanic.”
source: Washington Post
2. And, another article entitled- A Hispanic Population in Decline
Again, Marie, I am very aware of the difference between PWC and the City of Manassas, so please stop with that little jab. I am concerned with the issues in PWC for many of the same reasons you cited at 9:23. What happens in PWC has a very direct effect on the city, and I spend a good deal of time and money in PWC as well.
Avelerated?? Sounds cool will have to come up with a definition. S/B accelerated. 🙂
Yes Emma there is a lot of interdependence and regional funding between the Cities and the County. The largest liability is the jail. If fed requirements aren’t met we all pay.
Maybe that meals tax will finally pass. Potomac Mills is #1 tourist attraction in the state yet PWC citizens repeatedly voted down a meals tax!!
Beats raising my real estate tax
The City meals tax is one reason why I tend to gravitate toward County restaurants, since I live close to both options With the growth in the Liberia Ave. corridor on the City side, you might very well see the county slightly closer to passing that tax just because of the competition. Just a thought.
Hasn’t come up since early 90’s. Think the time might be right. Also I think there might be a way to create a special tax district.
Emma,
I agree with you about the meal tax. I don’t dine out in the City of Manassas for that very reason. When the City Grille opened where Pargo’s was for years, the menu is the same only with prices 5% higher than the menu at the City Tavern. My mom was with a group of seniors, and they questioned the management about the 5%. They were told that with the 5% increase on the menu in the county they were paying the price they were already used to. Now, that’s a piss poor attitude towards your paying customers. As a result NONE of the ladies will be returning, and they’ve told everyone they know.
Juturna,
The meal tax in a special tax district is heck of lot better than countywide. imho.
I knew Potomac Mills was the #1 tourist spot in the Commonwealth, but I didn’t realize it still was.
Might not be. I avoid the place.
Uggh, Potomac Mills gives me a headache. I avoid it, too.
Chris, I haven’t eaten there since it was Pargo’s, but how enlightening that the management would own up to that, given all of the other competition in that area. As if he were saying, “Yeah, you guys will pay anything to eat here.” All the more reason NOT to eat there.
As far as City restaurants, I will occasionally eat at Tony’s because of the great food, and especially because I see so many friends there. But does anyone else ever get the “soup Nazi” vibe when they do business there?
Ladies,
I have always avoided Potomac Mills like the plague. There’s just no bargain that great to go there.
Emma,
I do like Captain D’s, and will bite the bullet for them. It blows me away with all the dining out options we have in the county that we don’t have a Long John Silver or Capt. D’s.
Emma they must be calabrese…!
I am so sorry, Emma. I did not mean to imply that you were angry with me. Sometimes I feel there is anger that comes across in your posts. I totally agree it is ok to disagree. It seems to me that you are pretty supportive of the things CS, JS and GL espouse. They are the people who cause me concern and heartburn. I should not have implied that you were like them.
LOL, Juturna!!!
Marie, to be clear, I am foursquare against illegal immigration. I bellieve in immigration reform, but I feel we need to be VERY protective of national security and are entitled to our sovereignty. I agree that it is too difficult now to gain entry to the U.S. lawfully, but until the process changes I don’t agree that that is an excuse to flaunt laws that everyone else is expected to abide by in the meantime. And I do support a very strictly regulated guest-worker program, preferably funded by the businesses that profit the most from that type of labor, not the taxpayers. I’ve made those points time and again here. I have no issue with legal immigration, diversity, etc.
And Rick Bentley is correct that HSM and BVBL are not one and the same. Just because one is concerned about the ill effects of illegal immigration does not mean that one agrees with everything that is posted there. Just like here, it is a place to express opinions, it is not a creed.
Show me an alternative organization that does not support illegal immigration that you don’t object to–I’m open to many ideas, trust me.
Emma, the perception is that HSM and BVBL are inseparable. Greg should have been cognizant of that perception and resigned from one of them. Afterall, he’s the sole talking head for both – his blog and sole spokesperson for HSM.
Juturna said : “Does anyone besides me think that illegal immigration is a problem but just don’t like the way its been handled in PWC?”
I am angry but not as much at PWC as I am at the US Government’s inaction and the continual bickering that takes place to prevent any solutions. I guess the time of “statesman (woman as well)” is over and hopefully only temporarily. Too much of the time, it looks to me that our representatives refuse to give an inch in order to gain progress because they are so afraid that giving that inch will give some small victory to other side. (Maybe it is a lot like blogs?) 🙂
I think that PWC pursued policies that were the most that any local government could under current law. Whether they went too far is obviously arguable among different factions but unfortunately when you feel a need to do a small part that is someone else’s responsibility, it becomes more localized and closer to individuals.
I think the relatively weak actions (sorry I think the bottom line was that the steps were not as terrible as often portrayed) were targeted to a direct correlation with local resources. I also think that the situation was inflamed even further by people who believed that they could see the future with unbelievable accuracy. Many of these people make their livelihoods by having segments of our society relying on their services, whether it is a social group or an occupation.
Do I think the resolution was perfect? Not in the least. I did not like an abandonment of a social conscience that some items included. If the policy had just kept with the minimal approach that there are people here outside the law, they are not entitled to funds from PWC and we will restrict these programs that are not necessary for life, then it would have been more palatable. But I am also reminded that state and Federal law really limits possible local actions, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that an entire laundry list of the limited actions were included.
Many would argue that PWC should have waited for the US Government to act but frankly it sometimes takes local action to bring the matter to the attention of the lawmakers in DC.
I did not have a problem with the idea that if you break a law, then the police have a right to see if you have broken any other laws like immigration (or more commonly warrants) and deal with it appropriately. It is not unheard of that in relation to a common traffic stop like speeding or a broken light that the status of the vehicle (stolen or not) and the driver (past traffic citations/criminal record) are reviewed.
CitizenTom,
It’s odd that some people can’t move beyond that one part of Mackie’s statement, no matter how many times I say it was not justified and went too far.
Please address any of my answers to the questions and refute them if you can, but we are in agreement with the Adolf part.
When you have the president of one organization the same as the owner of a blog, you can say what you want, but if they touch on the same topics, then they are the same.
I refuse to even participate in that discussion. I have even spouted the same bs back in the day. Censored is right and perception is reality.
Emma, you must not know Marie personally. If you did, you would never accuse her of being a cry baby. I would be afraid to 😉 And Marie knows I say that with genuine affection and respect.
Potomac Mills is an abomination. I would rather pay a meals tax because the good news is, evreryone gets to pay that meals tax, not just county residents, like I do with my real estate tax which…btw, I expect to go up by at least 40 cents per 100 if we are to maintain county services and not become a third world county.
Emma,
Someday the true cost of the war on illegal immigration will be realized. I do not mean in dollars and cents. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever stops.
It is my belief that we are a nation of immigrants and one nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning its lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully. The evidence is all around that the WELCOMING spirit at the American core is slipping away.
The campaigns to raid homes and workplaces has spread indiscriminate terror among millions of people who pose no threat. After one of the largest raids in Postville, hundreds were swiftly force-fed through the legal system and sent to prison. Their civil-rights violated. Lawyers complained that workers had been steamrolled into giving up their rights, treated more as a presumptive criminal gang than as potentially exploited workers who deserved a fair hearing. Immigrants in detention suffer without lawyers and decent medical care even when they are mortally ill. Counties with spare jail cells are lining up for federal contracts as prosecutions fill the system to bursting. Police all over are checking papers, empowered by politicians who are itching to enlist in a federal campaign.
Legal paths are clogged or do not exist. Some backlogs are so long that they are measured in decades or generations. A bill to fix the system died a year ago and there is a strategy is to force millions into fear.
There are few national figures standing firm against restrictionism. Senator Edward Kennedy has done so, but his Senate colleagues who are running for president seem by comparison to be in hiding. John McCain supported sensible reform, but whenever he mentions it, his party starts braying. It is unknown at this point how Sarah Palin stands on the issue. Hillary Rodham Clinton has lost her voice on this issue more than once. Barack Obama might someday test his vision of a new politics against restrictionist hatred, but he has not yet done so. The American public’s moderation on immigration reform, confirmed in poll after poll, begs the candidates to confront the issue with courage and a plan. But they have been vague and have not risen to the challenge. I write letter after letter to them. I feel fortunate if any reply.
The restrictionist message is simple — illegal immigrants deserve no rights, mercy or hope. It refuses to recognize that illegality is NOT an identity. Unless the nation reduces its pressure to enforcement, illegal immigrants will remain forever THEM and never US, subject to whatever abusive regimes the powers of the moment may devise.
I have said many times before the Federal Gov’t needs to do more to beef up security at our borders and ports but in the interim there are over 12 million undocumented people here and we need to do something. The restrictionist approach is not and will not work. There needs to be a path for all the hard working, tax paying immigrants to become documented. You see for me it has always been about the God given rights of ALL HUMAN BEINGS and for me It is about being treated with dignity and respect.
Every time this country has singled out a group of newly arrived immigrants for unjust punishment, the shame has echoed through history. Think of the Chinese and Irish, the Italians and Jews, Catholics and Americans of Japanese ancestry. Our grand children will study the immigration panic of the 2000s, which harmed countless lives, and mocked the nation’s most deeply held values
Thank you, Moon-howler.
And they’ll wonder why good people stood idly by and allowed the abuses to happen…as well as why politicians lacked the nerve to find a fair solution to the problem.
The fairest solution is to go after the employers. They are fewer in number therefore easier to find. They are usually citizens and easier to prosecute. They should also go after the I’d mills.
Its more expedient than chasing men from 7-11 to 7-11.
I never agreed with workplace raids, Marie. They are designed simply to reassure that “something” is being done, and they do very little to punish the employer.
I think most people will agree that the “illegal” part of “illegal immigration” is where the problem lies. We made a huge mistake trying to take this on in PWC, and we are paying a huge economic price.
But, in the defense of Stirrup, Letiecq, and Stewart, it seemed like a never ending problem last year because the Anti-immigrant Lobby seemed all powerful. Now that they have been neutered (along with the Immigration Resolution), we all already know the outcome: whether it’s Obama or four more years of Bush/McCain, we will pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, with mandatory legalization for all who work here (whether that means full citizenship, work permits, with or without fines is not a big deal to me).
I agree with Emma that the workplace raids are basically Bush’s mean-spirited way to punish America for shooting down the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill. We are all sick to our stomachs, I’m sure, when we hear about all this self-inflicted damage on our society, our morals, and our economy. As tragic as it is, though, we know it will not last for much longer.
Once the election is over, no matter who wins, Congress will pass the bill, over Corey Stewart and the Anti-immigrant Lobby’s “dead body” if need be.
Hi Guys,
Wow! I just got back from my last weekend at the beach for this year. I haven’t read all the postings for this thread yet, but I’m glad we’re talking about John Stirrup. He really seems to be heart and soul behind the resolution.
Marie,
That was beautiful, thank you for such a thoughtful post. I almost inclined to make it a thread topic.
Marie, 7. September 2008, 14:38
“I never agreed with workplace raids, Marie. They are designed simply to reassure that “something” is being done, and they do very little to punish the employer.”They do punish the employer – they cast their misdeeds into punblic scrutiny, and if they rely on illegal labor they paralyze their business.
How is Landsdowne faring these days?
Good question Juturna. What was the upshot of that raid? Were they fined? Have they changed their hiring practices?
If we are to crack down on employers of illegal immigrants, how do we crack down if there aren’t raids at the place of employment? Just curious, don’t mistake my question for an opinion on this issue. Do you go in and ask for their books or do you deal with the employees directly?
Mackie, what beach and was it beautiful with the storms?
Hi Alanna, sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you but I was down in Richmond for the weekend. I have gone thru all of your evidence and the following is my response to each.
1.) He left Arlington to escape working class Latino immigrants…
My response to your evidence – you proved that he did leave for the reason stated but I don’t really see how this is bad in any way. Most of the illegal immigrants come here because of this exact reason. He was just doing what was best for the safety of his family, just like illegal immigrants who are defended for coming here. I don’t see how this could be held against him in any way.
2.) He wants to forcibly turn PWC into his own personal demographic experiment…
My response to your evidence – your evidence was just a 9500 Liberty video that shows he worked with FAIR to construct the resolution. To me this isn’t evidence that he “wants to forcibly turn PWC into his own personal demographic experiment” at all. You would have to come up with something else to prove that point, so far it’s just your and Mackie’s opinion without much to back it up.
3.) Undocumented are kicked out, and for those people of color who remain, a quasi-police state…
My response to your evidence – you failed to prove anything here in my opinion especially the existence of a “police state”.
4.) It’s not his kids who will be stopped on the street by the police and asked if their parents are illegal…
My response to your “evidence” – your “evidence” said it all, you have none, the only thing that you did was state that Hispanic kids keep their birth certificates in the glove box along with a WP article of a guy’s story. You failed to provide a single incident when a police officer stopped a kid on the street and asked him/her if their parents are illegal.
5.) He likewise implemented an efficient and effective policy to ship the undesirables out of the community…
My response to your evidence – first of all, the statement is incorrect and misleading, the resolution isn’t to ship the “undesirables” out of the community. It’s to ship those here illegally, who have committed a crime mind you, out of the community. How is this bad in any way?
Again, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions but your evidence does not hold up for just about every “dead on” statement of Mackie with the exception he left a community that was going down hill for the safety of his family. You simply can’t back any of it up (to me anyway) with what you have provided.
Why do liberals try to play the race card to bolster a losing argument? “Undocumented” does not equal “Skin Color”.
Race is not a card. It exists, is not invisible, and is more present in our own thoughts than many would like to believe. Race is not an explanation for everything, but we should also realize that doesn’t mean it never plays a part in anything. It is not a bad word, and merits discussion at times. If we never talk about it and ignore it, it won’t make our notice of it go away. I think the fact that people believe it is taboo sometimes makes racial tensions worse. When we let our guards down and have thoughtful discussions about it, positive things can happen and understandings can be reached.
Liberally yours,
Diversity Gal:)
Johnson said @ 8. September 2008, 16:51
But how do you determine a person’s status? No one has answered that question to my satisfaction.
How come the Japanese in America were put in interment camps and the Germans were not? No one has answered that question to my satisfaction either.