MIAMI, Florida — The illegal alien—Gaby Pacheco—who tried but failed to hug 10-time New York Times bestselling author Ann Coulter wants to limit Americans’ right to engage in free speech — especially Coulter’s!
Pacheco confronted Coulter with the awkward question during the audience question-and-answer session when Coulter appeared for an interview with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos.
“Gaby Pacheco, next question,” Ramos said, after a previous illegal alien asked Coulter a question.
“So my first question is: Can I give you a hug?”
“I wouldn’t today—I’m recovering from the worst flu I’ve ever had,” Coulter replied.
“It’s okay—I’ll take your germs,” Pacheco persisted, apparently misunderstanding the meaning of the phrase “Question-and-Answer session.” She said: “This undocumented immigrant who has lived in this nation for almost 22 years wants to as a sign of my humanity and yours recognize you and say ‘Can I give you a hug?’”
“No. Let’s get on with the question,” Coulter replied again.
“Ok. Thank you. And Joe Arpaio gave me a hug, by the way,” Pacheco followed up.
That part of Pacheco’s exchange went viral in the mainstream media, with outlets ranging from the liberal Talking Points Memo to Mediaite to Politico to Salon and even Ramos’ own Fusion network putting up articles questioning Coulter’s humanity for not hugging the illegal alien in front of her.
There’s a few things each article is missing, however.
First off, despite Pacheco being identified on screen via lower-third graphic as “GABY PACHECO, IMMIGRATION ACTIVIST,” Pacheco’s true identity and role in the amnesty activism community certainly wasn’t provided to the Fusion audience.
Pacheco, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, is the program director of the amnesty activism group TheDream.us, founded the Florida immigrant youth network, and led a national Trail of Dreams four-month campaign walk from Miami to the nation’s capital.
Her testimony before Congress—what she says was the first by an illegal alien woman—was in favor of the Senate “Gang of Eight” bill from last Congress that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) pushed through the U.S. Senate alongside Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the future likely Senate Democratic leader.
The Obama White House called for passage of the DREAM Act, citing Gaby Pacheco as one of the immigrants this country so desperately needs. Pacheco has associate’s degrees in Music Education, Early Childhood Education, and a bachelor’s degree in K–12 Special Education.
President Obama’s White House has used Pacheco as its model illegal alien to advocate for amnesty—and specifically to allow illegal aliens to serve in America’s military, something that has gotten many Republicans snookered into supporting using the military as an amnesty vehicle into serious political trouble.
Curiously, none of the media outlets—including Fusion—that highlighted the “can I give you a hug?” question actually reported the crackpot question Pacheco finally came up with during – again — the Question-and-Answer session.
Only the handful of people who watch the small-market cable network’s post-10 p.m. broadcast caught the eventual question.
“There’s freedom of speech and there’s also hate speech,” Pacheco told Coulter. “I wholeheartedly believe in our First Amendment right. But many of the things you say on TV, on the radio, in your books, not only do they incite fear—but they also incite hate. So I wanted to ask you if you feel you’re abusing your First Amendment rights and do you think legitimately what you are saying is right?”
“Well, two points,” Coulter said. “One is: you don’t understand the Constitution if you say there’s free speech and then on the other hand there’s hate speech –”
Pacheco cut her off: “No I know that under the law and the Constitution there are both—“
At which point, Coulter cut her off saying, “Hey! Still answering the question, and then you’ll step away and we’ll take the next one –“
But the illegal alien kept trying to talk over the answer.
“You don’t have the right—“ Pacheco said, before Coulter cut her off again, saying, “And I thank you all for coming here today. She’s about to finish up her speech…”
“No. There’s speech,” Coulter explained. “There’s not speech and hate speech. And judging by the last question, apparently you people can’t tell the difference in what I’ve actually said and some crazy parody site. Because — I don’t know what you think is ‘hate speech.’ I don’t engage in hate speech. I engage in speech. And yes, it’s part of the long, Anglo-Saxon tradition of thinking that with free speech, and the contest of ideas, the truth will emerge. It goes back to John Stuart Mill.”
[Illegal alien talking over Coulter again…]
“This is part of the cultural attributes of America that will change by dumping third worlders on the country. You don’t have a tradition of John Stuart Mill.”
This particular development is fairly significant. Even more important than Coulter not wanting to hug an illegal alien—is the fact that the poster-girl illegal alien of the institutional left and the Democratic Party proved she doesn’t understand American culture, nor does she want to.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as the Supreme Court has upheld many times, doesn’t differentiate between “free speech” or “hate speech”—as Coulter said, there’s just “speech.” It’s American as can be to believe that Americans can say whatever they want, regardless of whether that speech offends someone else. It’s part of the culture developed over hundreds of years, since the British and Dutch settled the colonies and created America.
That’s another key point Coulter is making, destructing the left’s argument that the U.S. is a “nation of immigrants”—it’s not. It’s a nation of settlers from a very, very small region of the world.
But more importantly, Pacheco essentially destroyed—on Ramos’ television program of all places—any shred of a claim she’s been making that she wants to truly become an American. She explicitly rejected one of America’s most cherished traditions, on live television, in word and deed, demanding to shut down speech she disagrees with.
After Pacheco basically proved the thesis of Coulter’s forthcoming book Adios America—it’s hard to see any Democratic official standing by her. But maybe they will, since they seem to want to shut down speech, too.
Asked about the “hug” question by Breitbart News, Coulter noted that she won’t admit people like Pacheco to the United States.
“When I’m in charge of immigration (after our 10 year moratorium), I will not admit overweight girls,” Coulter said in the email.
She’s got a point: Shouldn’t the United States be picking the most desirable immigrants to bring into the United States, truly the best and brightest?
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