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National NewsConservative News
Borne Upon an Ill Wind
By Hugh McInnish
Posted on: February 12, 2002
Five thousand lives is a terrible cost to pay. I wish it could have been done with a splash of cold water in the face, but the 9/11 atrocities may have changed some things.
The shock waves from those explosions may have dislodged the scales from the eyes of those who have been unable to see the monumental problems of immigration. This past weekend I was an actor in a surprinsing little scenario that illustrates this point.
My anecdote begins six months ago. I am a member of the Alabama GOP State
Committee, and at our meeting last July I was also on the Resolutions Committee.
Among the resolutions that I proposed was one which criticized our present immigration
policy and demanded a return to the balance prior to 1965.
The committee convened. We passed several resolutions commending the good work of
individual Republicans and condemning the bad things that the Democrats were doing.
Then I read my proposed resolution and moved its adoption. An eerie silence descended
on the large room we were occupying. I surveyed the faces lining both sides of the table.
They were as stony as those on Rushmore, and my resolution died for lack of a second.
Now move forward to last Saturday when the State Committee was meeting again. I had
heard nothing from our State Chairman concerning my being appointed to the
Resolutions Committee again, and I was not surprised. The two of us had vigorously
debated my immigration proposal and one or two others almost as controversial, and I
assumed that I was persona non grata on the Committee. My first surprise was to learn
that I was wrong: At the eleventh hour I saw an e-mail implying that I was a on the
committee.
Time did not allow me to strengthen the old rejected resolution by incorporating into it
the compelling facts of September, but I determined to present it again anyway. This
time, however, I got a friend to agree to second my motion for approval. "It won't pass,"
I told her, "but I want to put it on the table anyway." And I did.
I made the motion and my confederate reflexively seconded it. Not wishing to overly
exert myself in a lost cause I kept my remarks brief, then sat back and waited for the
inevitable silence. Lo! Where was it?
A state legislator from Montgomery, one who had vigorously opposed my resolution the
first time, asked me, "Have you read Buchanan's Book"?-- meaning his recently-
published Death of the West. "No," I said, "but I have it on my bedside table and it's
next." "Read it," he said, "it's scary."
This time there was no room for silence, it was crowded out by the concerned chatter of
committee members. The committee voted unanimously to approve my resolution and it
was later adopted in plenary session by a voice vote!
A resolution passed by a GOP committee in Alabama is unlikely to start a revolution.
But could it be a hint of something broader to come? It is an ill wind indeed that blows
no good.
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