The Presuppositions of Mort and Fred

BY Herschel Smith
3 years, 9 months ago

Just watching the Beltway Boys and I went AARRGGGGGHHHH!!! when I heard Mort make the point that by standing firm on immigration the GOP is handing the Hispanic vote to the Democrats for the foreseeable future … and Fred agreed and gushed over the Bush plan.

Time after time polls have shown that the current Hispanic citizens are either split or leaning towards strong immigration control. So what is Mort talking about? Here is the hidden presupposition. In the end, the Hispanics will get across the border and be accepted as citizens (and hence get to vote), i.e., the amnesty provision(s) of the Senate bill will prevail over the House version of immigration reform.

Now. This is what logicians call reasoning in a circle (begging the question, or petitio principii). Mort has posed the argument thusly: in the end amnesty will prevail, so the GOP should go for amnesty and therefore get the Hispanic vote. It begs the question. No one has demonstrated that amnesty will prevail yet. If it doesn’t, then there are not newly sworn-in U.S. citizens to go to the Democrats (and further, the GOP might just have shot itself in the foot with currently registered Hispanics).

Mort! Think a little more clearly. Fred! You are on the verge of being a Rebublican first and conservative second (or third, or fourth). Please re-think your positions … you and William Kristol at the Weekly Standard. Good grief. It is hard enough to battle the liberals without having these internecine wars within our own camp.

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.


You are currently reading "The Presuppositions of Mort and Fred", entry #25 on The Captain's Journal.

This article is filed under the category(s) Immigration and was published June 10th, 2006 by Herschel Smith.

If you're interested in what else the The Captain's Journal has to say, you might try thumbing through the archives and visiting the main index, or; perhaps you would like to learn more about TCJ.

26th MEU (10)
Abu Muqawama (12)
ACOG (1)
Afghan National Army (22)
Afghan National Police (9)
Afghanistan (463)
Afghanistan SOFA (3)
Agriculture in COIN (3)
Air Force (27)
Air Power (7)
al Qaeda (73)
America (1)
Animals in War (3)
Ansar al Sunna (15)
Anthropology (3)
Arlington Cemetery (2)
Army (25)
Australian Army (3)
Azerbaijan (2)
Backpacking (1)
Badr Organization (8)
Baitullah Mehsud (21)
Basra (17)
Battle of Bari Alai (1)
Battle of Wanat (10)
Battle Space Weight (2)
Blogroll (2)
Blogs (1)
Body Armor (14)
Books (1)
Britain (18)
British Army (29)
Caucasus (2)
CENTCOM (5)
Center For a New American Security (4)
Charity (3)
China (6)
Christmas (1)
CIA (6)
Civilian National Security Force (3)
Col. Gian Gentile (6)
Combat Outposts (3)
Combat Video (1)
Concerned Citizens (6)
Constabulary Actions (3)
COP Keating (4)
Corruption in COIN (1)
Council on Foreign Relations (1)
Counterinsurgency (164)
DADT (2)
Defense Contractors (1)
Department of Defense (92)
Distributed Operations (3)
Dogs (2)
EFV (1)
Egypt (1)
Expeditionary Warfare (4)
F-22 (2)
F-35 (1)
Fallujah (16)
Far East (3)
Fathers and Sons (1)
Favorite (1)
Fazlullah (3)
Featured (112)
Financing the Taliban (2)
Force Projection (27)
Force Protection (2)
Force Transformation (1)
general (14)
General McChrystal (22)
General McKiernan (5)
General Suleimani (3)
Georgia (16)
GITMO (2)
Google (1)
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (1)
Haditha Roundup (10)
Haiti (1)
HAMAS (5)
Hate Mail (7)
Hekmatyar (1)
Heroism (2)
Hezbollah (6)
Homecoming (1)
Humor (6)
ICOS (1)
IEDs (4)
Immigration (17)
India (7)
Infantry (3)
Information Warfare (2)
Infrastructure (2)
Intelligence (15)
Intelligence Bulletin (6)
Iran (131)
Iraq (344)
Iraq SOFA (18)
Islamic Facism (24)
Islamists (14)
Israel (10)
Jaish al Mahdi (21)
Japan (1)
Jihadists (63)
John Nagl (4)
Joint Intelligence Centers (1)
Kabul (1)
Kajaki Dam (1)
Kamdesh (6)
Kandahar (4)
Karachi (7)
Kashmir (2)
Khyber (11)
Knife Blogging (1)
Korea (3)
Korengal Valley (1)
Kunar Province (6)
Language in COIN (3)
Language in Statecraft (1)
Language Interpreters (2)
Lawfare (6)
Leadership (3)
Lebanon (5)
Let Them Fight (2)
Lines of Effort (1)
Littoral Combat (7)
Logistics (34)
Lt. Col. Allen West (1)
Marine Corps (177)
Marines in Bakwa (1)
Marines in Helmand (48)
Marjah (4)
Media (10)
Memorial Day (2)
Micromanaging the Military (4)
Military Blogging (20)
Military Equipment (22)
Mosul (4)
Mountains (4)
MRAPs (1)
Mullah Baradar (1)
Mullah Fazlullah (1)
Mullah Omar (2)
Musa Qala (3)
Music (13)
NATO (14)
Navy (14)
Navy Corpsman (1)
NCOs (2)
NGOs (1)
Nicholas Schmidle (2)
Now Zad (18)
NSA James L. Jones (5)
Nuclear (29)
Nuristan (4)
Obama Administration (36)
Offshore Balancing (1)
Operation Alljah (7)
Operation Khanjar (14)
Ossetia (7)
Pakistan (140)
Palestine (3)
Patriotism (3)
Patrolling (1)
Personal (7)
Petraeus (6)
Philip Smucker (2)
Pictures (1)
Piracy (11)
Police in COIN (2)
Policy (6)
Politics (66)
Poppy (2)
Prisons in Counterinsurgency (1)
Qatar (1)
Quadrennial Defense Review (1)
Quds Force (12)
Quetta Shura (1)
RAND (2)
Recommended Reading (5)
Refueling Tanker (1)
Religion (36)
Religion and Insurgency (14)
Reuters (1)
Roads (4)
Rules of Engagement (49)
Rumsfeld (1)
Russia (21)
Sabbatical (1)
Saqlawiyah (1)
Satellite Patrols (2)
Saudi Arabia (2)
Scenes from Iraq (1)
Secretary Gates (6)
Shura Ittehad-ul-Mujahiden (1)
SIIC (2)
Small Wars (72)
Snipers (9)
Sniveling Lackeys (1)
Soft Power (4)
Somalia (7)
Sons of Afghanistan (1)
Sons of Iraq (2)
Special Forces (12)
Squad Rushes (1)
State Department (8)
Statistics (1)
Sunni Insurgency (10)
Syria (25)
Taliban (138)
Tarmiyah (1)
TBI (1)
Technology (16)
Tehrik-i-Taliban (74)
Terrain in Combat (1)
Terrorism (76)
Thanksgiving (2)
The Anbar Narrative (22)
The Art of War (5)
The Fallen (1)
The Long War (16)
The Surge (2)
The Wounded (10)
Thomas Barnett (1)
Transnational Insurgencies (5)
Tribes (4)
TSA Ineptitude (1)
U.S. Sovereignty (4)
UAVs (1)
UBL (1)
Ukraine (2)
Uncategorized (14)
Unrestricted Warfare (4)
USS Iwo Jima (2)
USS San Antonio (1)
Uzbekistan (1)
V-22 Osprey (4)
Veterans (2)
War & Warfare (199)
War & Warfare (37)
War Movies (1)
War Reporting (14)
Wardak Province (1)
Warriors (4)
Waziristan (1)
Weapons and Tactics (46)
West Point (1)
Winter Operations (1)
Women in Combat (8)
WTF? (1)
Yemen (1)


Prev | List | Random | Next · Join Powered by RingSurf!

Featured in Alltop

about · archives · contact · register

Copyright © 2006-2010 Captain's Journal. All rights reserved.