Our Democracy Will Never Be the Same
The defeat of the Comprehensive Immigration bill is the single most important advance for democracy in recent memory. While most commentators point to opposition to the amnesty provisions in the bill as the impetus for opposition, in reality, amnesty was a minor part of the problem with the bill.
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Two important developments occurred in the debate over the Immigration bill which will forever change the way Laws are made.

First, and most important, primarily because of the internet, people who had the interest were able to actually take the time and spend the energy required to read and understand the bill. They were then able to leverage their understanding via the Blogosphere to allow a multitude of engaged individuals to piggy back on their expertise.

Hugh Hewitt performed such yeoman work and when he pointed out that the fantasy of a comprehensive reform was not matched by the reality in the bill, I withdrew my provisional support for the bill. Nothing that followed caused me to change my mind a second time.

As the Immigration debate continued, with the powerful forces in favor of the bill using all their legislative legerdemain to escape scrutiny, they found themselves being watched and caught every step of the way.

The second key point was the not surprising revelation that not only had no Senator even read the bill but that most of them had no real idea what was in it. Once their ignorance was documented, the bill was finished. It is one thing to know intellectually that most bills are passed with little in the way of real debate or understanding by those poseurs who reside in Congress, but to actually be able to see, hear, and savor their ignorance, all the while they were protesting how much smarter and wiser they are than the hoi polloi, has been truly enlightening. The fact is that the American people, via their unelected representatives int he Blogosphere, understood the bill better than its proponents in the Senate.

Questions for debate:

1) Do you agree with Shrinkwrapped's assessment of the process of defeating the Shamnesty Bill?

2) Do you agree that this represents a sea change in our democratic processes, or are the "poseurs who reside in Congress" going to cook up new ways of doing "the people's business" out of sight of the people?

3) Would you consider this change to be a good thing?

2) Do you agree that this represents a sea change in our democratic processes, or are the "poseurs who reside in Congress" going to cook up new ways of doing "the people's business" out of sight of the people?



Absolutely not. Of course, the radio machine that prompted this change will congratulate themselves by calling this a momentous victory for the common man.... and to some extent the immigration debate in congress has been more swayed by angered citizens, activists and crazies than any other current debate on the floor .... For one thing immigration certainly has a better ratio of Number of Activists-to-Resulting Congressional Action than the Iraq war.

But this is just another post-Vietnam example of how the Right caters to its base while the Left attempts to fuzz up the picture and cater to the swinging middle of American politics.

A shameful moments for the democrats, another tic mark on the scoreboard for the conservative media.

3) Would you consider this change to be a good thing?[/b]


To tell you the truth, I think we have to be more realistic about immigration reform in general... and we need to be less ideal-driven than our partisan politics seem to be.

I'm glad to see ordinary Americans reading the bills, even when senators don't-- that's nothing new, and I don't know how many Americans actually read the bill online, but if there's a difference here it's a difference in numbers only.

But convincing Americans of why we need this bill is the job of pragmatic, open-minded senators, and at that, I think McCain failed. Would have hoped for better from the straight-talk express.

Questions for debate:

1) Do you agree with Shrinkwrapped's assessment of the process of defeating the Shamnesty Bill?


Yes. The bill was about to “sneaker” its way into law and was stopped by people who actually read it and pointed out the flaws.
2) Do you agree that this represents a sea change in our democratic processes, or are the "poseurs who reside in Congress" going to cook up new ways of doing "the people's business" out of sight of the people?

Yes this will change politics forever esp. on big issues like immigration.


3) Would you consider this change to be a good thing?

Yes since none of us have the time to read every bill we can, in many cases, take advantage of people who DO and make a judgment – and notify our “Reps” quickly.

We can see the hypocrisy and lies in the Dems stalling the MONEY for the fence. Which was approved in 2006 and have only a few miles funded and built. The Dem strategy was to hold funding on border security and sneak through the amnesty bill – and they got caught.