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We’ve had our battles with Spartanburg GOP Chairman Rick Beltram, who seems — to borrow from Tim McGraw — angry all the time. But we have always assumed Beltram was the exception in Sparkle City, not the rule. And boy were we wrong.
The residents of Spartanburg County Monday confirmed that they too can fume as well as, or slightly better than, their rogue leader.
The heat under the great melting pot has been turned up, and it’s about to boil over. That was the feeling Monday night in this city’s public works building, where more than 300 people crammed into a hot room to speak their minds about illegal immigration.
State Sen. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg, is the chairman of an illegal immigration reform study committee and hosted the event. Other meetings will follow in upcoming weeks in Pendleton and Charleston.
Monday was a night full of anger, of fear, of feeling discouraged and fed up and of the occasional conspiracy theory – but mostly anger. [JASON SPENCER - Herald-Journal]
But nothing beats this exchange:
“Think about the future. Where are your children?” asked Michael Garzon of Greenville.
“At home studying – in English,” someone yelled.
Garzon continued, undeterred. He started to say a couple of sentences in Spanish, which brought more ridicule.
“The majority of people in Mexico are Christians,” he said over the crowd. “It is the same God. How would your God feel about turning away your brothers and sisters for work, for health care, for education?”
Charles Johnson of Woodruff later added that “Some of the attitudes I’ve seen have made me ashamed.” [JASON SPENCER - Herald-Journal]
It appears that folks in the Upstate are being overtaken by cavemen, not Mexicans. “Me from Spartanburg. You not. You go away now or me get mad. Me get REAL mad and throw stuff! ARRRRGGGGHHHH!”
ANNOUNCER: Illegal immigration debate… so watered-down a caveman can complain about it.
Seriously, we’re all about finding solutions to the illegal immigration crisis. Glenn McConnell has offered solutions. Lindsey Graham has offered solutions. Mark Sanford has even offered solutions.
But meetings like these AREN’T about finding solutions, they’re about hate.
Now I am offended! Why do we need to drag the poor unfortunate Caveman through the primordial mud of Paleolithic politics?
Mr. Fogle,
I read your column in The State, and I must say that you are terribly misinformed. Illegal immigration is a major problem and because of our federal government’s lack of action, many citizens are justifiably angry. According to a recent study by Californians for Population stabilization – http://capwiz.com/caps/home/, there are between 20 and 38 million illegal aliens in the U.S. Any reasonable and patriotic American would view that as a problem. Visit the organizations below so that you can educated yourself about the extent of this paramount problem. Robert
NumbersUSA – http://www.numbersusa.com
U.S. Border Control – http://www.usbc.org/
Federation for American Immigration Reform – http://www.fairus.org
The ALIPAC Team http://www.alipac.us
The Costs of Illegal Aliens – http://immigrationcounters.com/
The Dark Side of Illegal Aliens – http://www.usillegalaliens.com/
Robert,
You epitomize the point of this post and the attitude of the “cavemen.” Had you read the entire thing before you complained (and not just the part that appeared in The State), you would have seen this:
See what I did there? I talked about how this is A MAJOR PROBLEM. I also pointed out that we have a few leaders who have attempted to tackle this MAJOR PROBLEM like grown ups and diplomats. But unfortunately we also have a large element of knee-jerk reactionaries who would rather hold nasty, hate-filled “meetings” that do little more than employ wasteful anger as the executioner of real solutions.
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