It's Never Right to Do the Wrong Thing

Have you been watching the activities in Washington concerning the immigration reform bill? Here I was thinking conservative people don't make their voices heard and maybe don't know how to speak up anymore. But boy people sure spoke out about this proposed bill! For several weeks now Senators' phones and faxes have been on fire with an extraordinary number of calls coming in from people who don't like this immigration bill. (It seemed strange to me I heard so little about it--the bill and the reaction of the people--on the evening news. Until this morning, when the radio news said the phone system at the Senate crashed because of so many calls, I'd mostly only heard about it on conservative talk radio and TV.) I guess people really do know how to make their voices heard! Too bad we have to be pushed so far to do it.

This morning, the Senate took the vote on cloture and stopped debate on the immigration bill effectively killing it until another time. (Most speculate it won't come up again until after the 2008 presidential election, with a new President, and a new Congress).

cloture -- n. A parliamentary device to stop debate in a legislative body in order to secure a vote. -- v.t. To stop (debate) by cloture. (Funk & Wagnall's Standard Desk Dictionary, c. 1969, p.119)

I think this bill was full of bad ideas:
- It's never right to allow people to do wrong. Allowing people to come into our country illegally and then making them legal citizens? That's not right. Overlooking the fact they broke our laws? That's not right. Rewarding their refusal to respect our laws? That's not right.
- This bill had nothing in it to strengthen our borders, especially our southern border, to stop more people from breaking the law and entering the United States illegally. Where is the fence? I distinctly remember the President promising us a fence, what...like two years ago? Why isn't it being built and who's holding it up? The Democrats who oppose everything President Bush does? I've heard there's no funding for the fence. I've heard the President could use his presidential power to fund it. I've even heard there are engineering challenges. Please. Building a space shuttle is an engineering challenge. But a fence? Get real.
- What this bill really said became so clouded I don't know if anybody really knows what it said, but there was some talk about illegal immigrants who are in the U.S. paying fines as part of the process to become citizens. Let me see...if someone is already making a living without paying taxes and getting free health care through our emergency rooms, why would they pay a fine to become a citizen to gain the obligation to pay taxes and pay for their own health care? Staying illegal is a better deal.
- I could go on, but where would I stop?

What seems really, really ironic to me is that all the politically savvy people that I'm hearing talk about this say it is a failure for the President and all the blame will go to the Republicans, hurting them politically down the road, ensuring a Democratic victory in the next election...

Wait a minute. I think this bill was bad news for America. I think Democrats were trying every trick in the book (and writing some new tricks into the book) to push it through. (Including and especially my own Senator: Ken Salazar.) I think conservatives stood up and shouted until it was killed. I think it was a good thing to kill this bill. I'm grateful the Republicans finally killed it. I blame the Democrats for trying to push through a really, really bad idea. I'm more encouraged about the Republicans after this. Whoo-hoo! Way to go, Republicans! So why is this going to reflect badly on Republicans?

But then what do I know? I'm only a voter.

Making millions of illegal aliens citizens was the wrong thing to do. Enforcing our current laws regarding immigration, employment, and housing, allowing our law enforcement officials to investigate citizenship when legal and appropriate (when someone is arrested or stopped for a traffic violation and they can't produce a legal driver's license), not allowing people who are not citizens of the United States the rights of citizens, strengthening our ridiculously porous borders...these are just some of the right things to do. Our laws have served us well in this country and it is never right to ignore them and allow anyone to break them without enforcement. It's never right to do the wrong thing.

It's never wrong to do the right thing. It seems to me the Republicans stood up and did the right thing. No buts about it.

So What Is This Blog About?

Why am I blogging? What am I hoping to do here?

For a long time I have watched a lot going on around me. In our nation. In politics. In the entertainment industry. In religion.

I've watched the TV news and print media talk about what Americans think (about the war in Iraq, about immigration, about a lot of things) and I wonder who in the world they're asking because what they're saying Americans think doesn't represent me.

Then there's Hollywood. I invite them into my living room and what do they do? They insult me. Over and over again! I watch fictional characters on TV shows take shots at President Bush and Republicans and Christians, and I wonder who in the world is writing this stuff. Don't they know who their audience is? Or I go to the movies and pay good money to watch them insult my president, my country, my religion, ...me.

Then there's the comments I hear, and read, and observe on TV, in newspapers, on radio, on blogs, on my Starbucks cups...about religion. Oy. Mass confusion! (Forgive me for bringing up Rosie O'Donnell, but she's just one example. Remember Rosie said, "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America"?(1) ) I see so much confusion about what religion is, what it's about, what people believe, what people believe Christians believe...and perhaps most importantly: why we believe what we believe.

So I'm going to blog about politics--what I really think and why. I'm going to blog about Hollywood and what I've learned about what's going on there and what Hollywood thinks of us out here in TV Land and Movie Land. And I'm going to blog about religion--especially my Christian faith.

I hope to inform you. I hope to inspire you. I hope to make you think. But most of all, I hope to motivate you, because expressing my opinions is only a part--a small part, actually--of why I want to start this blog.

The other part is because I think it is time...past time, really...that regular, ordinary, conservative-minded people started speaking out.

Now, that's a stretch for some of us. We're not the type to go down to the state Capital and picket. It's not in us to go create a ruckus with a march. (Well, unless we're really pushed.) That sort of activity doesn't fit our personalities. That doesn't fit our schedules. It's not that we care less or making money is more important to us than those who picket or march. It's just that, well, as I was talking about this with my friend Bill over Memorial Day weekend, he finished my sentence for me and put it this way: "We have lives." Yeah. We have jobs and families and we go about our business minding our own business. But meanwhile it seems radical, liberal-minded people, are running over the top of us quieter conservatives and are running away with our country. So it's time, or past time, we started talking back. Speaking out. Speaking up.

Problem is, I think many of us have forgotten how. Or we never knew how. If we're not going to picket or march on Washington, D.C., then how can we make our voices heard?

Good question. And that's the main part of what this blog is about.

I'll admit it. I've been quiet, too. Oh, when I've seen politicians doing things I think are foolish (or worse, damaging to our nation), when something out of Hollywood ticks me off, when someone says something that so clearly reveals how ignorant many in our society have become about the Christian faith, I've spoken up. I've said something. To my husband. Or to my friends. In other words, to like-minded people. And that can be important. But I need to find ways to speak out to the people who really need to hear it. The people in power. The people who make decisions.

Now, I learned some of how to do that way back in school, but that's been a long time ago and a lot has changed since then. (Internet. E-mail. Drip coffee makers...) So...I'm going on an adventure. I'm going to learn again how to make my voice be heard. And I hope you'll come along for the adventure. Not just for the adventure, but also for the learning. Then I hope you'll speak out, too.

And that's what this blog is really about: equipping you and me to speak out in meaningful ways to make a positive, conservative difference in our nation. Now.

So I hope you will come along for the ride--wherever it takes us. I hope you will want to add your voice to mine and begin speaking up in order that, together, we might counter many voices that claim to represent us but don't.

I believe we can make a difference. And I believe we need to start speaking up and making a difference now. No buts about it.

(1) On The View, 9/12/06. My source for this quote (I googled for it): http://newsbusters.org/node/7577