Here in the San Diego area there is a special election today for the 50th Congressional District (which I don’t live in) where the two major candidates are Democrat Francine Busby and Republican Brian Bilbray.
At a recent meeting with a largely Hispanic audience, Mrs. Busby said something that could lose–or win–her the election.
When a man said in Spanish that
"I’d like to help, but I don’t have papers."
Mrs. Busby waited for the translation and then said:
“Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely, you can
all help. You don’t need papers for voting, you don’t need to be a
registered voter to help.”
On its face, that was an appeal for illegal aliens to vote for her in the election.
Mrs. Busby was disappointed when it turned out that someone was recording what she said, and the result ended up on the Internet, on local talk shows, and in the local paper.
She is now saying that she misspoke. She didn’t mean to encourage illegal aliens to vote for her.
Okay, so what did she mean?
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, her opponent seems to have got it pretty well summed up:
Bilbray said at worst, Busby was encouraging someone to vote illegally. At best, she was encouraging someone who is illegally in the country to work on her campaign.
Barring further clarification from Mrs. Busby, that’s the way it looks to me.
Jimmy, are you questioning her patriotism?
Your quote, not mine:
“2478 To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor’s thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:”
Read in context, “You don’t need papers for voting” does seem to mean “You don’t need voter papers in order to help on the campaign,” not “You don’t need papers in order to vote.” The repeated references to “helping” both before and after the ambiguous statement in question seem to support this interpretation.
WRY, to avoid rash judgment, I will assume that by saying “Your quote, not mine” you don’t mean to distance yourself from the necessity of practicing the principle in question. 😉
FWIW, the flagrant lack of common courtesy and respect, not to say Christian charity, in the race-card discussion thread is rather demoralizing.
I heard the recording of this quote on Rush Limbaugh’s show yesterday. When I first heard it, I interpreted it as meaning “you don’t need papers for voting in order to help with my campaign” — not as “you don’t need papers in order to vote.” However, I seem to be about the only person who came away with that interpretation upon first hearing the quote.
Well the most favorable way you can interpret what she said is that she encouraged illegals to work on her campaign… Which Jimmy did point out.
Now as far as I’m concerned unless you are mentally challenged or do not speak English very well this quote is clear: “You don’t need papers for voting”. That sounds like an ecouragement to allow non citizens to vote.
Jimmy isn’t questioning her patriotism, what she is saying is that it’s ok to break the law if that means she can glean more votes. There’s no much leeway in how to interpret what she said… sorry.
Wry, I don’t think anybody in their right mind would think Jimmy didn’t follow his own quote… Reread his post; he gave Mrs. Busby as much benefit of the doubt as possible.
sky,
I was sorta being tongue in cheek, but sorta not. But really, there’s a serious issue here which isn’t addressed often on the internet and makes me question our (my) activities on it: how often do we blast someone publicly, when the gospel clearly teaches that a private adminition is the way to go until the “last resort.”
And I am as guilty or more guilty than most, probably, although I think all of us comboxers have strong opinions.
For instance, did I take my objections to Jimmy’s immigration stances to him in a private email before saying “shame, shame” publicly? No, I did not. So here’s the kettle calling the pot black and sorry for it now.
Incidentally, I have almost *never* seen anyone in a combox argument say, “Gee, that’s a good point you’re making. I see now that I was completely wrong.” Human pride being what it is, we never back down, do we?
So: To anyone and everyone I may have offended, I beg pardon. We can all have strong viewpoints, but unless we do it in Christian charity, what will the non-Christians coming here think?
Okay, then:
someone answer my question from yesterday, please.
How is it morally licit to encourage people to break the law by entering this country illegally?
Is it morally licit to condone crimes committed out of envy?
Would we be so lenient in other cases, ie. people who are already citizens? If I rob a bank to finance my business (get a better life, iow) and later get caught, wouldn’t you expect me to pay some sort of penalty?
I think the bishops quoted yesterday are trying to have it all ways. Perhaps to avoid making some tough choices.
Paul H: Obviously, you are not the only one.
Sky: Do you think Paul H and I are challenged mentally or linguistically? 😉
WRY: Thank you. Good post.
No I don’t think you both are… well at least I hope not ;o)
I want to apologize for insulting anybody and I don’t really mean to imply that anybody is stupid.
I guess I’m just fed up with all those excuses I hear about immigration.
For what it’s worth I’m an immigrant and I also have lived most of my life in South America and Mexico and I love the people there. But for the life of me I don’t understand why it’s ok to totally ignore the fact that so many people immigrate illegaly (and yes I agree that the legal immigration path is burdensome to say the least and needs to be more fair). Most of the people that have immigrated here have worked very hard to do so and some were very poor. It bothers me that so many benefits are given to some of those people when there are legal people that won’t even get them. I’m not talking of charity here, I know it’s our duty to help them and make sure they have food, clothing etc… As a matter of fact last Christmas I went and helped my parents give presents to local immigrant families that couldn’t afford any for their kids. I’m all for helping them with health issues etc… But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter whether people came here illegally or not. We need to make sure that everybody gets a fair deal and can immigrate here if they want to, that way their rights will be protected, which isn’t the case of illegal immigrants, while contributing to the state in taxes etc… All in all I’m just tired of those politicians (right or left) that claim to want to help immigrants by calling for a total ammnesty and allowing illegal immigrants when all they really care about is keeping the status quo and allowing companies to abuse and use those people.
SDG wrote:
Paul H: Obviously, you are not the only one.
Yeah, you posted your comment while I was composing mine, so I didn’t see your comment until after I posted.
And sky, I share all of your concerns regarding illegal immigration. I was just giving my interpretation of the quote, the way I heard it. I would love to jump on the bandwagon and criticize this lady for encouraging illegals to vote (seriously, I really would), except for the inconvenient fact that I don’t think that’s what she actually said.
Jimmy,
I think this is just a case of misunderstanding.
Sometimes journalist get the quotes wrong,
but assuming the real utterance was:
“Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely, you can all help. You don’t need papers for voting, you don’t need to be a registered voter to help”
This could be parsed as follows:
“You don’t need X or Y to help.”
Where X is “papers for voting” (i.e. proof of citizenship and/or registration),
and Y is “to be a registered voter”.
Y is basically a restatement of X.
The point, which is true and legal,
was probably that anyone can help with her campaign.
You don’t need to be a citizen, or a registered voter, to work in a political campaign. In fact, that is often a good way to introduce non-citizen immigrants to the American political process and further motivate them to become citizens. Then they can be “in the game” instead of just “cheerleaders.”
You can support your local baseball or football team without being able to play the game, or be a member of the team.
Read Rick Amato’s column in today’s Washington Times. He points out that she is supposedly speaking to a group of under-age-18 soccer players so they aren’t eligible to vote regardless of immigration status. Why is a candidate in a hotly contested contest so close to the election spending time with a group of non-voting youth? The behind the scenes emails cast the speech in an interesting light.
This would not be the first time that the Democrat party encouragted subjects of a foreign power to interfere in American elections. Didn’t they mail out a couple million phony voter cards to people with hispanic names the last federal election or the one before that?
We really need the purple finger thing here in this country, with so many college students in Madison crowing about voting four and five times for Kerry, and St. Louis illegally holding the polls open so people in West County could vote twice.
Puzzled, are you questioning the Patriotism of parties that encourage foreign elements to interfere in American elections?
Is that what you’re doing?
???
Sometimes a Freudian slip is just a Freudian slip…
I heard that Freud wore those things.
but asking an Illegal to help bring out the vote is not an attractive thing for a candidate to say.
since everyone is seeking forgiveness, I apologize to anyone I might have offended unjustly.
And I apologize for insulting Freud.
Bill,
I don’t think you need to. Say the most outrageous thing you can think of about Freud, and it’s most likely true.
Okay. I heard that, as a child, Freud played with mental blocks.
(That should get me another 6 months in Purgatory).
NO! Never! Impossible! (I’m right up there with ya, Bill). 😉
That would explain his bad hairdo.
This would not be the first time that the Democrat party encouragted subjects of a foreign power to interfere in American elections.
You mean the way the United States Government interfered in the Ukrainian and Georgian presidential elections?
If we don’t want foreigners trying to influence our elections, we should stay out of foreigners’ elections.
Apparently Mrs. Busby lost her primary because of this incident. At least that’s what I think Jon Stewart said tonight. Better check the facts on that one folks but I’m done for tonight.