Conservatives, of course believe in federalism, and in the good local government necessary to make it work. As we have always said, the Washington, D.C., Leviathan serves terribly as municipal administrator, which is why we strive to limit federal adventurism as much as possible.

The NEA may have a bi-partisan membership, but their political activity is strictly partisan

Nuanced Equity Association

The National Education Association, one of the largest unions in the nation with over 2.7 million dues paying members, has always been an active organization in the realm of federal politics and the political application of policy. This in and of itself is nothing that should raise anyone’s ire, or even eyebrows. 

The crafting of the education legislation that will directly impact their members is certainly something in which they should have a voice. After all, “special interest” should not be the dirty word(s) it has been made out to be. The teachers’ union is interested in one specialized area of the legislative process; it makes perfect sense and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

What is wrong is the highly and often bitterly partisan manner in which the NEA goes about affecting policy and the process. They have been a unilaterally Democrat entity for nearly thirty years. The Department of Education (DoE) was created in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter as a token of his appreciation for the work the NEA did on behalf of his elective efforts. 

The Administration may not want to call it amnesty, but it still smells terrible

William Shakespeare, as usual, exhibited a firm grasp of human nature with his deconstruction of the semantic word play in which we engage to avoid the unpleasantness that accompanies the utilization of unpleasant terms. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet waxes poetic about her newfound love Romeo, and ruefully ponders his last name and the attending negative associations encumbering it.

The Capulets, Juliet's family, simply refused to play nicely with her beloved's Montagues, rendering her affair with the lad to that of the classic star-crossed variety, and as she ponders a thorny flower and admires it's aromatic effervescence, she comes to the realization of one of the universal truths, that, like Romeo Montague, "a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet".

As good is good, no matter the terminology used to describe it, so too is bad bad. And despite President Bush's attempts to assign terms other than "amnesty" to his new immigration policy proposal, it is indeed amnesty, and it is still less than aromatically pleasant.

The sequel to Ronald Reagan's amnesty Alice in Wonderland

Amnesia - Amnesty

Editor's Note: With immigration dominating the, well, news of the day, we thought we would revisit our past literary excursions thereon.

Beginning with this, penned on August 17th, 2001:

Paul Gigot’s August 16th thought piece in favor of President George W. Bush’s proposal for immigration reform commits two errors in logical analysis; one of commission and one of omission.

He does give a cogent, if not totally accurate, analysis of the political ramifications of the Bush proposal. In the 2000 election, Bush received 38% of the Hispanic vote. Do you really see this granting of amnesty causing the 15% increase necessary to create a GOP majority?

What makes it a less likely proposition is that this improvement must take place amongst the larger pool of voters that this change will obviously create.