Polite Kid

Here's a rather interesting situation: author Orson Scott Card is the cause of some liberal handwringing among librarians. It seems he is being given an award by the American Library Association, but this can't be, because the 'library community' (liberals love that word community, don't they?) is in a tizzy over his homophobia. What to do?
This is a difficult issue, as librarians (supposedly) believe that information, in all of its forms, should be available to everyone, regardless of how repugnant we may personally or politically find it to be.
Especially in academic libraries, it behooves us to select things with which we disagree on occasion. The question then becomes, what message does giving Card this award send? I've drawn a couple of conclusions from this whole thing.
1) It is vitally important, when deciding to give someone a really big award, to know as much about that person as possible. Remember, in this case, the award was given to the person, not the work. Librarians involved in this particular award didn't do their homework, which has caused some serious problems for them, as well as a major public relations hit for ALA.
On the other hand, we cannot know that the committee would have decided any differently with the information in hand. 2) Awards for children's and young adult literature are particularly thorny, because there is always a struggle between those who wish to protect children from "bad things" in the world, and those who acknowledge that "bad things" exist, and wish to help their children navigate them through reading and discussion. These two groups, often, also disagree rather violently about which things are defined as "bad."
3) Card's internal, personal feelings about homosexuality are not necessarily the issue; his public statements condoning hatred of homosexuals are. As Karen Schneider pointed out, if Card's statements about homosexuals had replaced the word "homosexual" with any number of racial epithets, there is no way that Card would EVER have been considered for the award. Period. While I try very hard to separate the person from the work when I can, and often do read fiction by folks who are politically different from me, in this particular case, I admit I am less than enthusiastic about the prospect of picking up one of Card's books to read. On the other hand, I firmly believe that his materials belong in our SFWA Collection, if only so that some scholar might, 20 years from now, write a lovely dissertation about this whole event, and how it relates to his work.''
Another liberal librarian blog tsk-tsks over Card's 'homophobia':
Jolly and righteous teen author, Orson Scott Card, is the topic of much discussion as honor bestowed by the ALA�s YALSA has brought to general attention Card�s views against tolerance for homosexuals.
Card is quoted as follows:
We Latter-day Saints know that we are eternal beings who must gain control of our bodies and direct our lives toward the good of others in order to be worthy of an adult role in the hereafter.�Orson Scott Card''
Here is Card writing about tolerance:
Tolerance is not the fundamental virtue, to which all others must give way. The fundamental virtue is to love the Lord with all our heart, might, mind, and strength; and then to love our neighbor as ourself. Despite all the rhetoric of the hypocrites of homosexuality about how if we were true Christians, we would accept them fully without expecting them to change their behavior, we know that the Lord looks upon sin without the least degree of tolerance, and that he expects us to strive for perfection.�Orson Scott Card
I am sure this is especially confusing for the poor dears in the 'library community' because Card otherwise hews to all the politically correct shibboleths when it comes to race and immigration. Oddly, or perhaps not so, considering Card's Mormon beliefs, he has nothing but tolerance for tens of millions of illegal 'immigrants', while withholding 'tolerance' toward homosexuals. The rather surly piece Card wrote in defense of illegal immigration was titled 'Ethnic Cleansing or ''Amnesty'', if that hints at his beliefs.
I hate to link to the source of this insulting piece by Card, but here it is.
Read it, if your blood pressure can stand it.
I suppose, as always, race trumps everything. If white Canadians were hopping our Northern border in droves, I suspect Card would be in favor of deporting them en masse, but because illegals are overwhelmingly non-white, they are automatically to be given special consideration.
Here is an excerpt of Card's hit piece on old-stock Americans Needless to say the 'liberal' seems to represent the sanctimonious Card:
"So lawbreakers don't deserve to live here. Have you ever had a speeding ticket?"
"I'm an American. And I pay my traffic fines."
"But you broke the law."
"I was born here."
"But your ancestors weren't," says the liberal. "Your ancestors, somewhere along the line, were born somewhere else."
"But they came here legally."
"No sir, they did not," says the liberal. "I knew we'd get to this point, so I had your genealogy researched. Here's a list of your German ancestors who broke the law of their German-speaking state by emigrating."
"Those weren't American laws, so they weren't criminals here."
"And here are your Puritan New England ancestors, who came here as criminals because of their defiance of the laws concerning religion in England."
"They wanted freedom of religion."
"But they broke the law. And look � here are your Scotch-Irish and German ancestors who settled in Pennsylvania and North Carolina without getting legal title to their lands. They were all law-breaking squatters, and they kept getting caught farming on other people's land and had to move on."
This, quite honestly, infuriates me. Religious dissent is quite different than breaking and entering, and living a life of chronic lawbreaking as most illegals do. Every day, their whole way of life involves lying, defrauding, and otherwise deceiving, exploiting, and plain old stealing. To compare our ancestors with these unprincipled people, who often commit quite egregious crimes in addition to illegal entry and fraud, is insulting to our forefathers.
Card purports to be a religious man and Mormons protest that they believe in the Bible. Where is his honoring of his fathers and mothers? Card, as a Mormon, must know his own family ancestry; Mormons are quite obsessive about genealogy. Does he consider his ancestors as lawbreakers, on a par with the drug-smugglers and sneaks who enter via our Southern border? Apparently so. Apparently he has no honor for his ancestors, or he foolishly (and quite unbibilically) believes that all 'sin' is equal in the eyes of God; he thinks that people who commit crimes such as smuggling and drug dealing are on a par with people who do not worship as their government insists that they should. He is a moral illiterate if he believes such things.
But let's go back to his nasty little rant against patriotic Americans:
It was wide-open country then, and the laws were different �"
"And look � here are your ancestors who crossed over the Appalachian Mountains like Daniel Boone, into areas that the federal government absolutely declared off-limits to white settlers. Then when the Indians attacked them for illegally trespassing, they demanded that the US Army come and kill Indians so your ancestors could keep their illegally occupied land."
"I know the Indians were badly treated, but �"
"In fact, through most of the territory of the US, the first settlers were illegal immigrants, weren't they? US treaties supersede all other laws except the Constitution. So what about it? Do you favor the expulsion of all these white illegal immigrants to restore the land to the legal titleholders by US treaty?"
I am sick beyond description of this lie that the first settlers were 'illegal immigrants'. How can a supposedly educated, intelligent man promote such rank nonsense? To say that the first settlers or colonists were 'illegal' is idiotic; in order to be illegal, they had to be in violation of some legal code or in defiance of some ruling authority -- which did not exist.
I just want, frankly, to slap people upside the head when they say such imbecilic things; the very fact that they say these things indicates that they are not capable of reason and common sense. You may as well reason with a mule. The only response to idiocy like this is a slap upside the head.
Whose permission did the colonists or settlers need to obtain before immigrating? There were a lot of squabbling tribes and clans scattered across the continent; there was no centralized ruling authority, no king (despite what you read in history books about various Indian chiefs who styled themselves 'Kings'). There were no codified laws. What 'laws' did the settlers break? Who had the authority or the power to forbid them to come here? Whose permission should they have sought, and how, considering that there was no means of communication by which to ask? Could they have written a formal request? To whom? To Indian tribes who had no written language and who, in any case, spoke no English? So all this talk of illegal immigration in that context is just ignorant and obtuse, probably willfully so.
And if Card wants to talk about 'illegal' settlers, my settler ancestors who came to Texas were INVITED by first, the Spanish and then the Mexican officials to settle. They had an invitation. They had paperwork and official documents. There was nothing remotely illegal about their presence in Texas.
And by the way, Mr. Card, whose permission did the Mexicans' ancestors obtain to settle in what is now Mexico?
Whose permission did the so-called 'Native Americans' who came from Asia obtain before they took up residence in North America? If you want to play this game, we are all 'illegal' if you go back some generations. Nobody is really indigenous to their present countries. Not even the hallowed Native Americans. When there was no organized government, whoever was strongest took possession.
But in Card's tendentious diatribe on amnesty, this is supposed to be his blockbuster zinger at the end, with which he thinks he can mortally wound the xenophobe racists:
No, sir, you are the traitor. You're the one who declared that America was no longer a nation built around an idea, which accepted all who embraced that idea. Now it's just like any other nation on Earth. It stands for nothing except for holding on to what we've got and making sure there's no room for the people most desperate to come and join us."
Here we go: the old 'nation built around an idea' nonsense. No, America was not a nation built around an idea. It was a nation built around a group of English colonists, who possessed certain ideas as part of their culture and part of their heritage. Somehow, though, the foolish notion became widespread that we could bring people from many peoples and cultures together and pretend that the 'idea' was all that mattered, and that anybody could be 'American' by giving lip service to that 'idea'. But as it turns out, that hasn't worked at all well; the people who cling desperately to the 'America as an idea' are people, generally, not of the original stock, and because they feel no kinship to the founders of this country, they insist that the Idea is everything. The 'idea' is become an idol for them; the proposition is an empty substitute for kinship to the founding people of this country. Blood is thicker than ideas.
But the 'idea' around which this nation was supposedly built is never clearly defined by these liberals; is the hallowed 'idea' supposed to be freedom? Democracy? Equality?
If we bring together people from drastically different cultures and heritages, we will have many conflicting definitions and interpretations of what 'freedom, democracy, equality' mean to them. To the Latino illegals, 'freedom' means the freedom to sneak into our country and demand special treatment and privileges, paid for by American taxpayers. Freedom seems to mean, to them, their right to disregard the laws of the land, and to trespass on others' property as they trample the border areas. Freedom means the right to speak Spanish and demand that we provide interpreters at our expense and learn their language.
Moslems, in their turn, have their own definitions of 'freedom', as Andrew Bostom points out.
So it's foolish and vain to try to make this country a country based on an idea. What idea? Whose idea? Whose definition? Whose interpretation? We have the Babel situation all over again, when we try to unite the whole world and erase borders. If Card reads and believes the Bible, he knows that God confounded the language of the human race after the hubris of Babel. We now no longer speak the same languages, in more ways than one. Interpreters and translators all do an imperfect job of bridging the linguistic gulf between us. The language barrier only reflects the differences in thought and perceptions among various peoples.
And when we talk about linguistic barriers and thought barriers, Card's diatribe only reminds us of the fact that even among ourselves, we have been divided hopelessly, and our language confounded. When Card talks about 'tolerance' and sin and virtue, it's obvious that those of the liberal persuasion, especially those liberals who are obsessed with re-creating the Tower of Babel in the West, speak a different language that only sounds like English.
I can certainly understand their meaning, although I find their ideas dishonest, spiteful towards their own people, and sanctimonious. However I am convinced that liberals do not understand our side. They have completely rejected the old meanings of words and the traditional understandings underpinning those words. They no longer speak the language of their forefathers, of all the past generations. This is made abundantly clear by the way in which they condemn the morality and the ways of thinking of the past. They have made themselves orphans and strangers in the West because they have disowned the past and their forefathers.
Only by having done so can Card and all others who think as he does believe that wanting to preserve our nation is bad and sinful. Only by cutting themselves off from tradition can they convince themselves that they are the moral betters not only of their traditional contemporaries and countrymen, but the moral superiors of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, who assuredly believed in 'America for Americans', and who believed -- imagine! -- that borders were essential to a nation, and that wholesale violation of laws was not acceptable.
Still Card is in an odd position; on the one hand, the liberal PC police are about to haul him in for failing to hold the correct beliefs on hallowed homosexuality, but on the other hand, how can they condemn him for being a 'right-wing bigot' when he is clearly on their side as regards that other hallowed victim group, illegal 'immigrants'?
I suppose this must cause considerable cognitive dissonance on the part of the orthodox leftists, who studiously follow the party line on who is owed deference. To be a liberal in good standing, one has to truckle to homosexuals but also to people 'of color.' Card is not being consistent.
On the other hand, I think there are quite a few politically correct Christians who think much as Card does: homosexuality bad, but illegal border-jumping good.
But if the leftward trend continues, these little dilemmas will be solved, as the liberalizing churches decide that homosexuality is just another lifestyle choice, just as illegal invaders are making a lifestyle choice in seeking a better life by lawbreaking.
But I can't help feeling a little smug schadenfreude about Card running afoul of the pharisaical PC brigade. He is really a friend, if they but knew it, but for now, he's a transgressor. PC bites.
Forum comments here.

Labels: American History, Freedom Of Expression, Illegal Immigration, Liberalism, Open Borders, Political Correctness

A while back when the subject of 'Favorite People on the Right' came up, among my choices, I mentioned Lou Dobbs, mostly because of the work he does on bringing immigration issues to the attention of many Americans. He also does great work reporting on the sovereignty issues, like the plans for a North American Union.
However occasionally he says things which indicate he still has a very liberal consciousness in certain ways. For example on this evening's show, he went into a rant about the latest Center for Immigration Studies report; he thinks the report conflates legal and illegal immigration, and he was very adamant that it's illegal immigration that is the problem. Of course that point of view, in my opinion, is one that is harmful to the cause of America, promoting the rather legalistic and simplistic view that the only problem with the millions of illegals here is that they don't have the correct paperwork. That viewpoint denies the importance of culture, demographics, and a number of other important considerations. But I'll just quote Lou's rant, and let you judge for yourselves. Dobbs introduces Bill Tucker, who reports on the CIS study:
DOBBS: Well, the presidential candidates in both political parties have now discovered that illegal immigration is a critical and important issue for Americans and anyone who doubts that illegal immigration is a tremendous and rapidly escalating crisis need only look at the most recent study of Census Bureau numbers. That study shows this nation is experiencing the highest level of immigration legal and illegal in three generations. And as Bill Tucker now reports more than half of the 10 million people arriving in the United States over the past seven years have arrived here illegally.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TUCKER (voice-over): No other nation is as welcoming to immigrants as the United States. Thirty-eight million people living in the country are immigrants. That's one out of every eight Americans. Not since the days of Ellis Island have immigrants represented so much of our population, but not all immigrants are here legally.
One-third of them are here unlawfully and since 2000, more than half of those entering the United States have been illegal aliens. The Center for Immigration Studies analyzed data collected by the Census Bureau in March of this year. The analysis is revealing and raises some tough questions. STEVEN CAMAROTA, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: When we looked at rates of poverty, health insurance coverage and welfare use, it reminds us that when people say all that matters is a willing worker and a willing employer. That's not all that matters. There are many other things.
TUCKER: Such as the impact on poverty rates, social services, health care and schools.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the things that has been going on in a lot of schools is a lot of overcrowding. And what we found was that in the last 20 years immigration accounts for all of the increase in school enrollment in the United States.
TUCKER: Twenty percent of illegal immigrants lack any health care insurance and all immigrants account for 71 percent of the uninsured since 1989. While immigrant households are more likely to have someone in the house with a job, the poverty rate is sharply higher in immigrant households than it is in native born households and one-third of immigrant households use it at least one welfare program. The primary reason for these problems comes down to a poor education. Since 2000, 35.5 percent of immigrants never finished high school. They are fit for only low wage, low skill jobs.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCKER: And that represents a huge shift in historic trends. Thirty years ago immigrants coming to this country were more likely to have a college degree than native born Americans. Lou, today that is clearly not the case.
DOBBS: Now who did this study?
TUCKER: The Center for Immigration Study looked at data provided by the Census Bureau, March...
DOBBS: Well I have to say that what I resent here on the part of the Census Bureau and the center is this conflation again of immigrants and illegal immigrants. Frankly, as we bring in people lawfully into this country, as a matter of public policy, I don't think any of us should care one way or the other about their education level, any of that, or the number of programs, social programs that are being employed.
The issue here is illegal immigration. This government, this federal government, and each of its agencies refuses to deal with the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants and we should never be a part of that conflation and that purposeful obfuscation on the part of those who are pro-amnesty, pro-open borders and pro-massive illegal immigration at any cost to the United States.
Those are dramatic numbers. But again, I just -- I'm deeply concerned that this Census Bureau, this federal government is not making a distinction between legal and lawful immigrants. Of course, more than two million people entering the country lawfully every year. Thank you very much. Bill Tucker.''
[Emphasis mine]
Now, what immediately raised my hackles is that Dobbs says that we shouldn't be concerned about the low educational levels of immigrants or about their usage of social programs, as long as they are legal immigrants. However he offers no argument to justify his views on that issue.
He says that it is the proponents of amnesty who are purposely lumping together legal and illegal immigration. In a sense, I suppose that is correct; the open borders proponents generally try to tar any restrictionist with the 'anti-immigrant' brush, implying that restrictionists in general are bigots who hate immigrants ''just because''; just because they are different, or just because most immigrants nowadays, as the study confirms, are from third-world countries.
But most restrictionists play into the hands of these people by protesting loudly 'I'm not opposed to immigrants or immigration; I'm only opposed to illegal immigration!' This of course suits the open borders crowd just fine; they've made the restrictionist become defensive, and act like a cornered animal, and most importantly, they've managed to extract from the restrictionist the statement that he or she supports 'any immigration just as long as it's LEGAL.'
So there you go; the open borders crowd has gotten a blank check from you; you've said that as long as immigrants are here legally, with the correct documents, you are happy to welcome them, and you can raise no objection to their being here, because they are LEGAL, and you've just said that legality is the only issue with immigration.
So I immediately doubt the seriousness of any restrictionist who says the 'as long as it's legal' line. Now, I haven't heard Lou Dobbs say this so plainly in the past, but maybe I haven't been paying enough attention.
I have often wondered why CNN, which is the most politically correct, leftist, open-borders, one-world, news channel, would employ Lou Dobbs, if he really were such a staunch opponent of one of their cherished leftist/globalist causes.
If his rant today accurately represents his beliefs on immigration, that legality is all that is at issue, then he is simply another variety of liberal, and not the hard-line immigration restrictionist as embodied in his image.
His point that the quality of the immigrants we take in, as indicated in their educational level and their welfare usage, is not a valid concern, is also troubling.
Suppose our sneaky elites somehow manage to increase legal immigration levels substantially, as would have been the case with the failed amnesty bill. Suppose we start taking in 5 or 10 million legal immigrants each year. Will all our troubles evaporate? Obviously not. The quality of the immigrants we receive is all-important. If the immigrants come here legally, and are granted citizenship quickly as seems to be the trend as everybody frets over the poor immigrants being forced to 'wait too long' for citizenship, then they are here to stay, as are their progeny, forever. Once upon a time, when we actually had standards for our immigrants, that was not such a problem, but now, we allow people from countries where good record-keeping is not part of their culture, and we thus have no knowledge of their history: are they law-abiding? Do they have communicable or hereditary diseases? The quality of the immigrants that we now accept is not comparable to that of past generations of immigrants. Quality does matter, as much as quantity. To say that a legal document is all that's needed to fit into our society, and that anybody with the right paperwork is good enough to join our American family is naive at best, and deluded at worst.
Culture matters. Genetics matters. Educational level and skills matter. Compatibility with our country matters. Attitude matters.
In all of the above areas, the immigrants we receive at present, the legal ones as much as the illegals, don't measure up.
The people who are touting Lou Dobbs as a possible independent candidate for the Presidency are naive; his tough-talking persona does not mean that he is anything more than another media personality, whose restrictionist persona may be deceiving.

Labels: American Identity, Illegal Immigration, Legal Immigration, Mass Immigration, Open Borders

Why would any of us want to cheer on the invasion and demographic transformation of another American community, especially one which has until very recently been homogeneous and liveable?
Schadenfreude, of course. It's one of my pet peeves regarding our side; the tendency to cheer on the demographic destruction of our own. It's cutting off our nose to spite our face. We're all hurt when some part of America or the West in general is in danger of being lost or transformed for the worse. Our homeland shrinks each time this happens.
The community in question is Nantucket, Massachusetts. Now, despite my maternal New England roots, I've never visited New England, not even when I lived in the New York City area. I always intended to do so, but never got around to it. I've been in touch with some distant cousins on that side, but found them standoffish, at least in comparison to my kin in the South. Still, I wish them the best and I don't want to see them swamped by invaders, and I don't want the communities founded and built by our common ancestors to be lost and inherited by people who despise us and all we stand for.
One of the reasons given by some of the people who are gloating over the 'diversification' of Nantucket is that it is inhabited by rich White liberals, supposedly mostly blueblood WASP types, who deserve the worst things that can happen to them and their hometown.
However, this page which provides data on Nantucket, seems to show that people of English descent make up a scant 19.5 percent of the town's population.
Ancestries: English (19.5%), Irish (17.5%), French (7.0%), Italian (6.9%), German (6.8%), Scottish (6.0%).
Those figures don't account for everyone, so one wonders who the rest are, apart from the obvious minorities. Are they people who are so mixed as not to know their ancestry, or who call themselves just Americans? And as always I am certain that the statistics reflect far fewer immigrants than are actually present.
The Irish, French, and Italian-descended groups combined constitute a larger percentage than the English.
From all I know of New England (and granted, I haven't been there), very few areas remain, except perhaps the remote rural areas, which are populated mostly by original-stock WASP descendants. Whenever I read news stories datelined Massachusetts, I notice that Anglo-Saxon names are outnumbered by Italian, Irish, French, and even Portuguese surnames. I notice that the urban areas, according to what I read, are heavily minority, and there appear to be many Caribbean Islanders in New England, and many Brazilians.
So where are all these blue-blood WASPs supposed to be? Many of them, like one of my great-grandfathers, long since went West, pioneering back in the 19th century. Most of the descendants of these New England pioneers tend to be in the Midwest, which is now the last bastion of many predominantly White communities. I know from my family records that many of our related families went West to the Great Lakes states, and farther West to the Oregon territory. Some of their descendants are now solid heartland Americans, and not the effete New England liberals of many people's imagination.
I suppose there are some who have held on in the old stronghold, but it seems to me that WASPs are not the dominant group in Massachusetts these days. Time to find a new bogeyman.
And even liberal Whites can come to their senses and come 'into the light', as it were. Demographic transformation, however, is forever, more often than not. We should not be wishing that on any of our people, regardless of their politics. Every community that is 'taken over' is one more piece of our beautiful country that may be irretrievably lost, and it may be one less place of refuge for us or our children if and when our own communities become hostile and unliveable.

Labels: Demographics, Diversity, Ethnic Division, Illegal Immigration, Multiculturalism

The CNN debate transcript, at least the first part of it, is here.
Just a few quotes, mostly on questions to do with immigration and sovereignty:
Ernie Nardi: This is Ernie Nardi from Dyker Heights in Brooklyn, New York, with a question for the ex-Mayor Giuliani.
Under your administration, as well as others, New York City was operated as a sanctuary city, aiding and abetting illegal aliens.
I would like to know, if you become president of the United States, will you continue to aid and abet the flight of illegal aliens into this country?
Cooper: Mayor Giuliani?
Giuliani: Ernie, that was a very good question. And the reality is that New York City was not a sanctuary city. (OFF-MIKE) single illegal immigrant that New York City could find that either committed a crime or was suspected of a crime. That was in the executive order originally done by Ed Koch, continued by David Dinkins and then done by me.
The reason for the confusion is, there were three areas in which New York City made an exception. New York City allowed the children of illegal immigrants to go to school. If we didn't allow the children of illegal immigrants to go to school, we would have had 70,000 children on the streets at a time in which New York City was going through a massive crime wave, averaging 2,000 murders a year, 10,000 felonies a week.
The other two exceptions related to care -- emergency care in the hospital and being able to report crimes. If we didn't allow illegals to report crimes, a lot of criminals would have gone free because they're the ones who had the information.
But, most important point is, we reported thousands and thousands and thousands of names of illegal immigrants who committed crimes to the immigration service. They did not deport them. And what we did, the policies that we had, were necessary because the federal policies weren't working.
The federal policies weren't working, stopping people coming into the United States. If I were president of the United States, I could do something about that by deploying a fence, by deploying a virtual fence, by having a BorderStat system like my COMSTAT system that brought down crime in New York, and just stopping people from coming in, and then having a tamper-proof ID card.
Cooper: Time.
Governor Romney, was New York a sanctuary city?
Romney: Absolutely. It called itself a sanctuary city. And as a matter of fact, when the welfare reform act that President Clinton brought forward said that they were going to end the sanctuary policy of New York City, the mayor actually brought a suit to maintain its sanctuary city status.
And the idea that they reported any illegal alien that committed a crime -- how about the fact that the people who are here illegally have violated the law? They didn't report everybody they found that was here illegally.
And this happens to be a difference between Mayor Giuliani and myself and probably others on this stage as well, which is we're going to have to recognize in this country that we welcome people here legally.
But the mayor said -- and I quote almost verbatim -- which is if you happen to be in this country in an undocumented status -- and that means you're here illegally -- then we welcome you here. We want you here. We'll protect you here.
That's the wrong attitude. Instead, we should say if you're here illegally, you should not be here. We're not going to give you benefits, other than those required by the law, like health care and education, and that's the course we're going to have to pursue.
Cooper: Mayor Giuliani?
Giuliani: It's unfortunate, but Mitt generally criticizes people in a situation in which he's had far the -- worst record.
For example, in his case, there were six sanctuary cities. He did nothing about them.
There was even a sanctuary mansion. At his own home, illegal immigrants were being employed, not being turned into anybody or by anyone. And then when he deputized the police, he did it two weeks before he was going to leave office, and they never even seemed to catch the illegal immigrants that were working at his mansion. So I would say he had sanctuary mansion, not just sanctuary city.
Cooper: All right. I have to allow Governor Romney to respond...
Romney: Mayor, you know better than that.
(Laughter)
Giuliani: No ...
Romney: OK, then listen. All right? Then listen. First of all ...
Giuliani: You did have illegal immigrants working at your mansion, didn't you?
Romney: No, I did not, so let's just talk about that. Are you suggesting, Mr. Mayor -- because I think it is really kind of offensive actually to suggest, to say look, you know what, if you are a homeowner and you hire a company to come provide a service at your home -- paint the home, put on the roof. If you hear someone that is working out there, not that you have employed, but that the company has.
If you hear someone with a funny accent, you, as a homeowner, are supposed to go out there and say, "I want to see your papers."
Is that what you're suggesting?
Giuliani: What I'm suggesting is, if you ...
(Crosstalk)
Giuliani: If you're going to take this holier than thou attitude, that your whole approach to immigration...
Romney: I'm sorry, immigration is not holier than thou, Mayor. It's the law.
Giuliani: If you're going to take this holier than thou attitude that you are perfect on immigration...
Romney: I'm not perfect.
Giuliani: ... it just happens you have a special immigration problem that nobody else up here has. You were employing illegal immigrants. That is a pretty serious thing. They were under your nose.
(Applause)
And ...
Romney: I ask the mayor again. Are you suggesting, Mayor, that if you have a company that you hired who provide a service, that you now are responsible for going out and checking the employees of that company, particularly those that might look different or don't have an accent like yours, and ask for their papers -- I don't think that's American, number one.
Number two ...
Cooper: We got to move on.
Romney: Let me tell you what I did as governor. I said no to driver's licenses for illegals.
I said, number two, we're going to make sure that those that come here don't get a tuition break in our schools, which I disagree with other folks on that one.
(Applause)
Number three, I applied to have our state police enforce the immigration laws in May, seven months before I was out of office.
It took the federal government a long time to get the approvals and we enforced the law. And Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, and the policies of the mayor of pursuing a sanctuary nation or pursuing a sanctuary city...
Cooper: We've got a number ...
Romney: ... are, frankly, wrong.
Cooper: We've got a number of questions from our viewers on this topic, so we have a lot more to talk about on this. You will have another chance to respond.
(Applause)
Giuliani: And it's really hard -- it's really hard to have employer sanctions...
(Audience booing)
Cooper: All right. Let's play this next video from the same topic.
(Begin video clip)
Michael Weitz: Good evening. There are thousands of people in Canada and Mexico waiting to come to America legally. They want to become American citizens. They want to be part of the American dream. Yet, there are those in the Senate that want to grant amnesty for those that come here illegally.
Will you pledge tonight, if elected president, to veto any immigration bill that involves amnesty for those that have come here illegally?
Thank you.
Cooper: Senator Thompson?
(Applause)
Thompson: Yes, I pledge that. A nation that cannot and will not defend its own borders will not forever remain a sovereign nation. And it's unfair...
(Applause)
We have -- we have thousands of people standing in line at embassies around the world to become United States American citizens, to come here to get a green card, to come here and to assimilate and be a part of our culture. They are part of what has made our country great. Some of our better citizens. We all know them and love them.
Now, it's our country together -- their's and ours, now together. It's our home. And we now get to decide who comes into our home.
And to place somebody above them or in front of them in line is the wrong thing to do.
We've got to strengthen the border. We've got to enforce the border. We've got to punish employers -- employers who will not obey the law. And we've got to eliminate sanctuary cities and say to sanctuary cities, if you continue this, we're going to cut off federal funding for you, you're not going to do it with federal money.
(Applause)
Now, there are parts of what both of these gentlemen have just said that I would like to associate myself with.
First of all, of course, Governor Romney supported the Bush immigration plan until a short time ago. Now he's taken another position, surprisingly.
(Laughter)
As far as Mayor Giuliani is concerned, I am a little surprised the mayor says, you know, everybody's responsible for everybody that they hire, but we'll have to address that a little bit further later. I think we've all had people probably that we have hired that in retrospect probably is a bad decision.
(Laughter)
He did have a sanctuary city. In 1996, I helped pass a bill outlawing sanctuary cities. The mayor went to court to overturn it. So, if it wasn't a sanctuary city, I'd call that a frivolous lawsuit.
(Applause)''
One question to Tom Tancredo was from a man who said he 'needed' guest workers for his business, and he wanted to know what Tancredo would do to help him.
...Well, I'll tell you, I'm not going to aid any more immigration into this country, because in fact, immigration...
(Applause)
... massive immigration into the country, massive immigration, both legal and illegal, does a couple of things.
One of it is, makes it difficult for us to assimilate. The other thing is that it does take jobs.
I reject the idea -- I reject the idea, categorically, that there are jobs that, quote, "No American will take." I reject it.
(Applause)
Now, what they will do...
(Applause)
... what you can say -- what you absolutely can say to these people is that there are no -- there are some jobs Americans won't take for what I can get any illegal immigrant to do that job for. Yes, that's true.
But am I going to feel sorry if a business has to increase its wages in order for somebody in this country to make a good living? No, I don't feel sorry about that and I won't apologize for it for a moment. And there are plenty of Americans who will do those jobs.
(Applause)
[...]
Cooper: We've got another question from a YouTube watcher. Let's watch, please.
YouTube question: Good evening, candidates. This is (inaudible) from Arlington, Texas, and this question is for Ron Paul.
I've met a lot of your supporters online, but I've noticed that a good number of them seem to buy into this conspiracy theory regarding the Council of Foreign Relations, and some plan to make a North American union by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico.
These supporters of yours seem to think that you also believe in this theory. So my question to you is: Do you really believe in all this, or are people just putting words in your mouth?
Cooper: Congressman Paul, 90 seconds.
Paul: Well, it all depends on what you mean by "all of this." the CFR exists, the Trilateral Commission exists. And it's a, quote, "conspiracy of ideas." This is an ideological battle. Some people believe in globalism. Others of us believe in national sovereignty.
And there is a move on toward a North American union, just like early on there was a move on for a European Union, and it eventually ended up.
And there is a move on toward a North American Union, just like early on there was a move on for a European Union, and eventually ended up. So we had NAFTA and moving toward a NAFTA highway. These are real things. It's not somebody made these up. It's not a conspiracy. They don't talk about it, and they might not admit about it, but there's been money spent on it. There was legislation passed in the Texas legislature unanimously to put a halt on it. They're planning on millions of acres taken by eminent domain for an international highway from Mexico to Canada, which is going to make the immigration problem that much worse.
So it's not so much a secretive conspiracy, it's a contest between ideologies, whether we believe in our institutions here, our national sovereignty, our Constitution, or are we going to further move into the direction of international government, more U.N.
You know, this country goes to war under U.N. resolutions. I don't like big government in Washington, so I don't like this trend toward international government. We have a WTO that wants to control our drug industry, our nutritional products. So, I'm against all that.
But it's not so much as a sinister conspiracy. It's just knowledge is out there. If we look for it, you'll realize that our national sovereignty is under threat.
Cooper: Congressman Paul, thank you.
(Applause)''
Reading through the transcript it does appear that Romney and Huckabee had a sharp exchange over the immigration issue, specifically over tuition breaks for illegals. When reminded of his favoring children of illegals in that respect, Huckabee resorted to claiming the moral high ground by saying we are a 'better country' than to punish children for their parents' acts. And then Huckabee went into his Abraham Lincoln-esque story about coming up from poverty.
In all, the debate doesn't seem to have revealed anything I didn't already know, and it confirmed my already-existing perceptions of the candidates. I think this series of debates (which are not real debates, anyway) have done little but produce a certain campaign fatigue in many of us; I'm hearing people say they are sick of the election and the candidates.
Any thoughts?

Labels: American Sovereignty, Amnesty, Elections, Gop Ron Paul, Illegal Immigration, Presidential Candidates, Presidential Debates

There has been longstanding speculation among many people, who don't understand George W. Bush's fondness for Mexico and illegal immigration, on just why he holds his rather obsessive views.
So recently, over at VDare, I read with interest the Patrick Cleburne piece on George W. Bush's memories of growing up in Midland, Texas, and how his experiences gave him an understanding of and appreciation for Hispanics.
At the time, I viewed the President's account of life in Midland with considerable skepticism; it simply didn't jibe with my experience of West Texas. Now, I have never lived in Midland, but I have lived in West Texas, and the President and I are near the same age, so we both grew up in the same era.
So it was interesting to read this letter from a reader, posted at VDare, which challenged the President's account of life in Midland during the 50s and 60s:
A Native Of Midland Wonders About Dubya's Midland Memories
From: A Native Of Midland�And America
I was born in Midland, and lived there 3 different times�leaving for the last time at the age of 12 in 1966. My parents later went back for a 4th time.
My father was a petroleum engineer who was sent back to Midland during booms.
I simply don�t remember ever running into Hispanic people in Midland during the times I lived there. I do remember the Mexican migrants coming through to pick cotton when I lived in Winters, Texas (a few years before going back to Midland for the last time in 1963). I think that they were part of the Bracero program. They were pretty pitiful and the Anglo families did what they could to make sure that when the migrant kids came to school�they had enough to eat. (This was a little before that free lunch program came about)
[...]
Quite frankly, I don�t see how Bush, Jr. got much exposure to Hispanics in Midland. I don�t think there were enough of them to account for any significant interactions. Ditto for Houston. Oil took my daddy there during my High School days. I don�t remember knowing any in the overwhelmingly white suburbs of Houston.
My daddy was out on oil wells for 30 days at a time. From what I remember, the roughnecks were all white boys�the Scots-Irish version (which is why I doubt that part in the story which talks about Hispanics being in the Bush oil fields back then.)
[...]
I think that you are on to something about the Mexican oligarchs being the primary influence of Bush�s affinity for Hispanics�because it sure wasn�t that he went to elementary school with them. They weren�t in the white elementary schools in Midland�and I seriously doubt they were in that fancy school he went to in Houston.''
The anonymous reader's account tends to coincide with my own recollections of West Texas at that time.
I lived in a town in West Texas for a relatively brief period. Like the letter-writer, my father's work took us to West Texas. There were some Mexican kids in the schools I attended there, but they were, as this letter writer says, from migrant families who came and went. There were parallel societies, as I've said elsewhere on this blog: the Hispanic kids I went to school with tended to prefer the company of their own nationality. They were clannish. There was not really open hostility, but not much interaction on a social basis.
My own childhood experiences with Hispanics did not result in an infatuation with them and their culture, as the President's apparently did, but neither did my experience cause me to hate Hispanics. They were part of life in Texas, but they interacted rather minimally with the rest of us. My present feelings of ire are based on the fact that we are now being inundated and taken advantage of. And it is not easy to maintain friendly feelings or even neutral feelings towards people who display contempt for me and mine, and for this country, as many Hispanics now apparently feel emboldened to do.
It's always puzzling to note the different accounts of the same time and place as given by different people. I suppose no two individuals will have identical experiences, but sometimes you wonder how people can give such different accounts. Can it be that the President has rosy recollections of Hispanic people because of his family's live-in housekeeper/nanny? I suppose having a live-in domestic servant would give one greater familiarity with Hispanics than the experiences of people without live-in domestics. Most people in the Texas I grew up in did not have domestic servants, especially live-in ones.
I once read a quote from George W. Bush (which I can't find a link to) in which he said he was not a Southerner, but a Southwesterner. That is interesting; I don't know many people from Texas who would disavow their Southern identity. Some people claim that Texas is part of the 'Southwest' and I suppose it could be -- if you consider the Mississippi the dividing line between east and west. I don't. And historically and culturally, Texas is part of the South. Texas was part of the Confederate States of America, and the culture of Texas, the dialect, the folkways, the food, the Bible Belt influence -- are all Southern. Texas is part of Dixie. Most of us with roots in the state have Confederate ancestors, and a tradition of honoring the symbols of the Confederacy. Texas is Southern. Or at least it was until the demographics started to shift during recent decades. If George W. Bush has his way, Texas will again be an outpost of Mexico.
I've said before that the Bush family are not truly Texan. I think I shocked one of my readers when I called the family carpetbaggers, and I'm far from the first person to use that term. The Bushes have no historic ties to Texas or the South, and seemingly no allegiance thereto. The Bush family was not in Texas during the historic wars with Mexico; they have no family history of fallen kin at the Alamo or Goliad as some of us do. It's easy for New England transplants with no roots in Texas to have romanticized pictures of Mexican culture.
So Bush considers himself a 'Southwesterner' instead of a Southerner. What is the Southwest? Does it comprise California, Arizona, New Mexico? Utah? Nevada? All those states have a very different culture and outlook and history than Texas. The Southwestern states, to my mind, have much more historic Hispanic influence than Texas.
There is a revisionist tendency these days to imply that Texas has always been a half-Hispanic state, in terms of population and culture and cuisine. There is a popular and Politically Correct tendency to speak as if the Hispanic population of Texas is very intertwined with the 'Anglo'. People speak of 'Tex-Mex' music and cuisine, but these are fairly recent developments. There is also a popular misconception that Texas was once a full-fledged part of Mexico, with a flourishing Mexican population when the American settlers arrived there to colonize. This is false; the Mexican population of Texas was very small when the Americans arrived; the state was mostly populated by Indian tribes who had proved resistant to Mexican subjugation, and the American colonists were the only ones who succeeded in establishing lasting settlements there. So there was not a large Mexican population when my ancestors settled there. Even in my childhood, there was a much smaller Hispanic population in Texas than there is today, by far. Yet I suspect that many people, even in Texas, are beginning to accept the revisionist version of Texas history, and they believe that Mexicans have always been a big part of the population in Texas, if not the majority.
Maybe George W. Bush has glowing memories of Hispanic people based on his family's servants, and maybe he has convinced himself that he had many Hispanic classmates. Or maybe he is just telling nice PC fairytales in order to further his Hispanicizing agenda.
It was heartening, however, to read in Cleburne's article the reactions of actual residents of today's Midland, who in general don't agree with the President's love-in with Mexico, and his fondness for illegal immigrants.

Labels: Illegal Immigration, Mexico, Revisionist History, Texas History

Dennis Dale at Untethered has a thought-provoking essay titled The Ever-Expanding Expansionist Compact, II, Empire Abroad, Empire at Home.
In it he very effectively ties together the issue of military adventurism of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' and the illegal invasion. Here is just a sample:
This imperial expansion of the American Commons directs inward as well; twelve million or (likely many) more illegal squatters, invited by a willfully negligent government acting in defiance of popular will, now lay claim to certain rights, through the fait accompli of their residency, abetted by the lobbying of their native countries and their alliance with political power groups such as La Raza, through implicit compacts of questionable legality with "haven" cities, industries and even with the Catholic Church, that sees its own salvation through fortifying its ranks with the souls, and liberation theology, cast off from Latin America.
A fatal flaw in democracy is exposed: both political parties, each covetous and fearful of the emerging demographic plurality, can only seek to curry its favor through legislation. In this way legislation is extorted from congress through the mass, illegal migration of a group drawn primarily from one nation--a distinct foreign faction. Calling it an "invasion" is more accurate than even some who use the term know.
This elite-abetted invasion rests on the same notion of individual rights above national sovereignty that brings the disaster of the Iraq war--and just as in that case the moral argument is disingenuous cover for crasser goals. Just as the Iraqi became a quasi-citizen of an expanded American state, so too does the illegal immigrant. Expansion abroad is entirely consistent with expansion inward: our own border is ultimately as meaningless as any other. And just as the same liberal values ostensibly to be brought to the world through military conquest are in fact destroyed by it, they are similarly sacrificed to the inward expansion of the elite's imperium. Democracy will not survive the racial factionalization accelerated and aggravated by the current cycle of passive border enforcement relieved by periodic amnesties.''
It should be read in its entirety. Great piece.

Labels: Bloggers, Democracy, Illegal Immigration, Iraq War

This article, by Frank Zoretich, appeared in the Albuquerque Tribune nearly seven years ago, in 2000.
It's a lengthy piece, reporting on the ideas of Charles Truxillo, a 'Professor of Chicano Studies' who said that the
Southwest shall secede from U.S.
Charles Truxillo, a professor of Chicano studies at the University of New Mexico, suggests "República del Norte" would be a good name for a new, sovereign Hispanic nation he foresees straddling the current border between the United States and Mexico.
The Republic of the North -- he predicts its creation as "an inevitability" -- would include all of the present U.S. states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, plus southern Colorado."
Stretching from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, it would also include the northern tier of current Mexican states: Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.
Its capital would probably be Los Angeles. Truxillo, 47, has said the new country should be brought into being "by any means necessary."
But in a recent interview at a coffee shop near the UNM campus, Truxillo said it was "unlikely" civil war would attend its birth.
Instead, he said, the creation of the Republic of the North will be accomplished by political process, by the "electoral pressure" of the future majority Hispanic population throughout the region rather than by violence.
"Not within the next 20 years but within 80 years," he said. "I may not live to see the Hispanic homeland, but by the end of the century my students' kids will live in it, sovereign and free."
Truxillo said it's his task to help develop a "cadre of intellectuals" to begin thinking about the practicalities of how the Republic of the North can become a reality.''
A cadre of intellectuals? Please; I have seen your Chicano 'intellectuals' and they have not a shred of logic or wisdom or knowledge in a whole crowd of them. They are irrational, childish, and lacking in respect for truth and facts.
In the past, of course, wars have erupted when states seceded from either parent nation -- including the U.S. Civil War to keep the South in the Union and, in Truxillo's quick description, "the Alamo and all that" when Texas declared itself independent of Mexico.
Truxillo said the U.S. Civil War settled the question of secession militarily but not in a legal sense. States do have the right to secede, he maintained, if -- as was untrue in the 1860s -- the rest of the country is willing to let them go.''
Let me interject here: Truxillo may be an affirmative action professor of some bogus discipline called 'Chicano studies' but he is ignorant here as regards state's rights. But let's go on:
How realistic is it? That's one of the key issues," Truxillo said. "It's not unfeasible as a premise -- and a realistic possibility when you consider global geopolitical trends. It could happen with the support of the U.S. government."
Yes, and obviously our rogue U.S. government is providing its full support to you and your co-ethnics.
He listed a number of international developments that he said would have seemed "far-fetched in the 1950s," including the breakup of the Soviet Union, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the apparently imminent creation of an independent West Bank Palestinian state agreed to by Israel, and ballot-box separatist movements aimed at achieving a Quebec independent of Canada.
The "tide of history" is moving the U.S.-Mexico border region toward political autonomy, Truxillo said.''
Well, I can't gainsay him there; it looks as though, tragically for us, he was right.
Truxillo goes on to relate how he 'learned' the 'truth' about the Southwest being stolen from his Hispanic ancestors by evil Anglos. He learned this from a radical 'Chicano' who, in 1967, participated in a takeover of a courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, N.M. He claims that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which Mexico surrendered claim to the Southwest, was not legitimate, and that the United States had not honored the terms of that treaty.
None of the rights of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were fulfilled," he told Tijerina. "None of the obligations were upheld. You told us this was our country, our patria, and that we should fight for our rights, that all colonized and exploited peoples should rise up in struggle for independence.
"We will one day be a majority and reclaim our birthright by any means necessary -- and we shouldn't shy away."
[emphasis mine]
Who told Truxillo that he and his people (and why aren't Americans your people, Charles? You're American-born, probably of American-born parents) should 'fight for their rights'? Or that 'all colonized and exploited peoples should rise up in struggle for independence'? Which of our founders said that? To take that Marxist nonsense as being part of American tradition is to pervert American tradition, which is what I said was happening: the enemies of the West, including unfortunately our homegrown enemies, pervert the meaning of our Constitution and our founding philosophies, just as they steal and corrupt the teachings of Christianity.
But notice his ominous words about Mexicans reclaiming 'their birthright' by any means necessary.
Even now, despite all the visible evidence that this takeover effort is well underway, there are the usual suspects, who try to dismiss the reconquista as a 'myth' and a conspiracy theory. And then there are the pestilential bleeding-heart types who say 'I know lots of very nice Hispanic people; it's only a few who are the extremists.' Heaven save us from the nice, stupid people in our country.
Truxillo says that some American-born Hispanics will resist the reconquista idea, but he predicted they would have a kind of identity crisis as the momentum for Hispanic independence grows. This is something I have predicted, too: Americanized Hispanics may seem to be on our side but many, especially the young, will find they are ambivalent and conflicted, and may become re-Hispanicized and ethnically militant, as young Moslems in Europe have done. Blood is thicker than 'national ideals.' Ethnicity trumps the 'proposition nation'. Truxillo's words:
There will be the negative reaction, the tortured response of someone who thinks, 'Give me a break. I just want to go to Wal-Mart.' But the idea will seep into their consciousness, and cause an internal crisis, a pain of conscience, an internal dialogue as they ask themselves: 'Who am I in this system?'"
Along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border "there is a growing fusion, a reviving of connections," Truxillo said. "Southwest Chicanos and Norteño Mexicanos are becoming one people again."
Read the rest of the article. The Anglo-American professors who are consulted by the reporter have their heads stuck in the sand, although to be fair, this was in 2000, before the illegal invasion was as far advanced as it is now. I wonder if these professors were interviewed today, would they have changed their tune?
A La Raza activist, Pena, is interviewed, and he says that Mexicans were, at that time, not organized enough to mount a successful independence movement. He notes, tellingly, that a 'Chicano' separatist movement couldn't have succeeded because they lacked the firepower. Now, of course, they have several tens of millions of footsoldiers within our borders, some of them heavily armed gang members. And even more importantly, they are accomplishing their objective without having to use the firepower; they are doing it the easy way, by demographics and manipulation of the native Anglo population -- and with the willing collaboration of the government.
If Truxillo and his reconquista buddies retake this country, it won't have been accomplished honorably or legitimately; it will have been done by sneaky, underhanded means, by stealth, deception, and manipulation. Again, our basic chivalric values are being used against us by sneaks and opportunists.
This link quotes Truxillo, in another source, saying
'A new age of nationalism is sweeping the planet. Norteños are like Palestinians, Quebecois and Sri Lanka Tamils.''
However, I don't believe that, once having achieved a solid majority and control of the institutions in the Southwest that this new 'Aztlan' would actually secede or declare autonomy. No way. They will simply remain attached to the U.S. Why be independent and become another loser country like Mexico if you can cling to Uncle Sam and his moneybags? And further, they are smart enough to realize that they can control the entire country if they simply keep doing what they are doing now. They would be extremely foolish to stop with the Southwest. I am sure these grasping reconquistadores won't settle for less than the whole country. They've already decided that as 'indigenous' people, this whole continent is rightfully theirs.
By any means necessary, as he said.
Obviously Truxillo and his fellow reconquistadores have counted us out already. He is counting on our nationalism not asserting itself in opposition to his. Maybe this 'new age of nationalism' he is talking about may hold some surprises for him and his invader friends.

Labels: Const, Demographics, Illegal Immigration, Mexico, Nationalism, Revisionist History

Here's an interesting piece on Mitt Romney and his shifting positions on immigration:
Some excerpts below.
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney had a tough message on immigration at a March 22 luncheon in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
``I don't think there should be a special pathway to citizenship for those that are here illegally,'' he said. ``It makes no sense at all to have a border which is basically concrete against skill and education but wide open to people to just walk on in who have neither.''
That position sets the former Massachusetts governor apart from a major rival, Arizona Senator John McCain, as well as President George W. Bush, both of whom back a guest-worker plan that gives undocumented workers the opportunity to become U.S. citizens. It also sets him apart from some of his own former positions.
Over a year ago, Romney said it would be impractical to deport 11 million undocumented workers and suggested giving some the path to citizenship he criticizes today. ``The 11 million or so that are here are not going to be rounded up and box-carted out of America,'' Romney said in a March 29, 2006, interview with Bloomberg News.
Romney's decision to shift his stand demonstrates how a big issue sometimes boils up from the voters, forcing candidates to adjust their messages. ``For Republicans it's immigration; for Democrats it's trade,'' Illinois Democratic Representative Rahm Emanuel said yesterday at the American Society of Newspaper Editors meeting in Washington. ``Both issues reflect the unease Americans feel about the effects of globalization.''
[...]
According to a Jan. 5-12 Harris Interactive poll, 73 percent of Republicans see large-scale immigration as an extremely likely or very likely threat; only 43 percent of Democrats feel that way.
[...]
Greg Mankiw, former chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and another top Romney adviser, was responsible for the 2005 economic report of the president that made the case for open borders.
``On net, immigration is a positive for the U.S. economy,'' Mankiw said Feb. 17, 2005, on the Public Broadcasting System's Nightly Business Report. During a news briefing earlier that day, he said he remembered his Ukrainian immigrant grandmother sending remittances back home.
``The tradition of workers coming to the U.S. and helping support their often much poorer families abroad is a phenomenon that's existed for many, many decades,'' he said. ``We are a country that absorbs immigrants quite well.'
Romney spokesman Kevin Madden plays down the idea of a philosophical divide over immigration within the campaign. ``Advisers and campaign staffers are just exactly that,'' he said. ``We're dedicated to promoting the ideas and policies of Governor Romney, not our own agendas.''
[Emphasis mine]
However, despite the aide's disclaimer of promoting their own agendas, the comments by Greg Mankiw, with the obligatory sentiments about his 'immigrant grandmother', seems to indicate that personal feelings do influence policy. How liberal is that?
This piece points up some inconsistencies in the opinion polls: while, as the article says, a sizeable majority of GOP voters (73%) see immigration as a threat, still most of these voters seem quite content to accept and support candidates who, like Romney, range from pro-immigration to equivocal pro-enforcement statements.
So why the disconnect? Why do so many people (and not just poll respondents, but real-life people) seem up in arms about our illegal invasion, yet they are happy to settle for the same old, same old, when it comes to picking possible candidates?
The woman, quoted in this part of the article, seems to feel much as I do:
Romney, 60, confronts grassroots anger over the flood of illegal immigrants almost daily. In Council Bluffs, that meant hearing from people like Carol Cates, 53, a local police officer.
``It's going to bankrupt our nation if we don't make some changes soon,'' said Cates, who came to size Romney up at the luncheon. ``That's almost a deal-breaker for me. If they're soft on immigration, I won't even consider them.''
Thank you, Carol Cates; you are a discerning woman, and a woman of integrity. Still I think she is an exception; people who are talking tough on the border issue one moment may be praising Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich in the next breath. What is that about? Is it denial? Is it cynicism and resignation? I hear comments about how 'Tancredo (or Paul, or Hunter) is not electable; he could never get nominated, much less elected, so we have to be realistic.' That resigned attitude is very common. Yet is there not something of the self-fulfilling prophecy about it? If we never try to raise up a candidate who represents the popular will and traditional principles like, oh, maybe enforcing our borders, and protecting our Republic and our historic culture, we will definitely never have such a candidate. But to this attitude of resignation, I have to ask, what does it say about our Republic if we tell ourselves that the popular will, the will of the majority, has no chance in our system? If we say that, we have all but announced to the world that our system, our Republic, is defunct, deader than a doornail, and that we live in some kind of despotic state now. Have we decided that to be the case? If we believe it, then our belief makes it so.
Look, Mitt Romney may be a good, clean-living, decent man, but I agree with Carol Cates, the policewoman. His wishy-washiness on immigration is a deal-breaker.
I have heard all the responses to this; usually they run along the lines of ''well, we can't have everything we want, and I don't vote just on one issue; smaller government is important, and the War on Terror, and pro-life issues, and stopping gay marriage, and protecting our Second Amendment rights...'' and on and on. Fine; those issues are important to me, too, but I am dumbfounded that people don't see the primacy of the immigration/border issue.
If we fail to take control of our borders and our exploding population of immigrants, legal and illegal, and the transforming of our country, all the rest is moot. Smaller government is impossible when we are being overrun by invaders who are overwhelmingly net users of expensive social programs; there is no way, with open borders and mass immigration that we can ever reduce the size of government and reduce spending. Social programs in particular can only grow and grow, with immigrants being infinitely more costly than our home-grown poor folks. And as far as the terror threat, closing our borders and curtailing all immigration would only reduce our vulnerability to terror attacks. Remember, open borders and amnesty would increase not just Mexican and Latino populations and influence, but also the Moslem 'community' and the implicit dangers thereof. As far as the rest of the conservative agenda, the presence of millions more immigrants will only ensure that the country will move hopelessly leftward, and the conservative influence in our government would dwindle away to nothing; we will be swamped by left-leaning demographics. There will be little hope of preserving our Constitutional rights and our traditional American values in a country which will be made up of a disparate collection of people from diverse countries, the vast majority of whom do not share any, not one, of those traditional American values we claim to cherish.
Our country will be more crime-prone, less safe and secure, and our government will be even more Politically Correct or culturally Marxist than it already is, should we fail to get control of our borders and our promiscuous immigration policy.
Immigration is THE issue; the rest is all secondary, folks. If we fail to take back control of what was once our country, and to elect people who truly represent us, then we will be forever marginalized, and our country handed over to strangers and their collaborators in 'our' government.
Conservatives are supposedly people who are profoundly realistic, but I am seeing a distressing amount of denial and wishful thinking when it comes to picking our next President.
So despite the talk and the complaining about immigration, too many of us are willing to settle for a candidate who represents more of the same, who will at best, do nothing to reverse the dire situation we are in, or who will, at worst, be in favor of an amnesty and the destruction of America as we have known it. We have Rudy 'Sanctuary' Giuliani, with his melting-pot, immigrant sympathies, and we have Romney, who changes with the wind, depending on his audience, and we have John 'Amnesty' McCain; these are our frontrunners. And moving up fast, we have Fred Thompson, who has a lackluster record on immigration, a 'C' grade on his Senate record in the past, and some carefully phrased tough talk on borders. The prospects are not promising.
What will it take to remove the blinders from voters' eyes? I fear we will have just more of the same failed policies, thanks to the timidity and lukewarmness of the American electorate, and the fate of our country will be sealed.

Labels: Conservatism, Illegal Immigration, Open Borders, Political Parties

"The punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of bad men." - Plato
That quote from Plato comes to mind as I read this piece about the 'immigration issue.'
This op-ed piece from the Washington Times takes a very pessimistic tone in regard to the pending amnesty bill.
Immigration disaster looming
Judging by what took place in the first hours of the Senate immigration debate last week, critics are deluding themselves if they expect lawmakers to improve the bill when debate resumes after the Memorial Day recess. Most of the organized political pressure on the immigration issue is coming from open-borders advocates intent on enabling more illegals to obtain amnesty and bring their relatives to the United States, and from Washington elites on the left and the right who think anyone who doesn't share their permissive philosophy is backward and xenophobic. Unless the American people rise up en masse and tell their senators in no uncertain terms that they cannot accept amnesty, the Senate bill will easily pass and no one should be surprised if it passes with amendments making it even more harmful to taxpayers and detrimental to hometown safety and homeland security.
[...]Right now, the open-borders side is on the offensive, while border-security proponents face an uphill battle in the Senate.''
The op-ed writers are simply being realistic; there are highly organized, activist, well-funded groups pushing aggressively for the amnesty to be passed, and our side, the side of the American people, seems to consist mostly of individuals and a few immigration restrictionist lobbying groups. We are not evenly matched. The fact is, it is a David-and-Goliath situation, and we the people, though the majority, are little David, and the Senators and their open-borders partners are Goliath.
However, the fact is, despite the money and the activist pressure groups pushing mightily for amnesty, there are far more Americans who oppose it, and who want our borders closed and our laws enforced. We are the majority, despite the opinions of people like Linda Chavez, who in her recent Townhall piece, asserted that we 'nativists' are a tiny minority. No; we are the majority, and our American system is theoretically based on majority rule, and the will of the majority should always prevail, as Jefferson said. The amnesty forces, the open borders zealots, are the minority, despite the loudness of their voices and the depth of their pockets and their stranglehold on the media. They are the 'tiny minority' as of now. For their will to prevail over the will of the majority of the citizens of America is an injustice, and a usurpation of our rightful power. We have to remember that: we, the people, are the repositories of power in this country, and our elected officials govern with the consent of the governed. If they are acting as rogue officials, representing foreign interests and corporate interests, not the American people, they are violating the principles on which America was founded. The prospect of our country being transformed by millions of strangers is troubling enough, but the deeper issue is that our government, in taking the side of these aliens, has displaced the American people from their rightful position of power. This is deeply wrong; our Founding Fathers warned of this kind of thing.
Here is someone who understands this, and who may be on the right track in proposing a Constitutional Convention. He makes his case here:
Why 'we the people' need to assert our sovereignty, or risk losing it
by Frank Miele
In the France of Louis XIV, the king could say without a shred of irony, "L�etat, c�est moi! The state, it is I."
In the years following the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, Americans could proudly say, "The state, it is we the people."
But in this day and age, who exactly is invested with sovereignty in the United States of America? Is it "we the people"? And if so, why do we feel so disenfranchised, so alienated, so used?
[...]Or perhaps sovereignty today belongs to the Congress of the United States? Could our elected representatives have seized power from us, right under our noses, and left us none the wiser?
[...]...last week I proposed that the people of the United States, through their state legislatures, ought to take back the reins of power and ask for � no, demand! � a convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution � in particular, an amendment that requires border enforcement and denies citizenship to anyone in this country illegally, including those who were born here because their parents were here illegally.
If you think it is going to happen any other way, you are mistaken. And if you think the Constitution should not be handled by "we the people" because it is too fragile and too delicate, then you missed the point of having a Constitution. We are a self-governing people. It is not "we the dead people" who have the power in this country; it is "we the living."
[...]we should not be afraid to seize the power granted to us by our forbears and by God in order to revivify the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed" and "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."
[...]Thus, taking my cue from Jefferson, I am calling for a constitutional convention to quickly and once and for all establish the duty and necessity of the commander in chief acting to secure the borders of the country against foreign intrusions of any kind and establishing the authority of the Congress to regulate legal immigration but never to provide blanket amnesty of any kind for illegal residents of this country.
Such drastic action is necessary because it now becomes apparent that the people of the United States can no longer depend on the Congress of the United States to do our business. A constitutional convention may well be the only way to deprive the Senate of its plan to legitimize as many as 20 million illegal immigrants and change the face of America for all time.''
Please read the whole piece; Frank Miele is a rarity in the media these days: a real patriot who understands what is at stake.
I think we should do all we can, including keeping up the pressure on the politicians, but I believe Miele is right; Americans have become too disengaged, and too willing to be passive and assume that our politicians 'represent' us and our interests, when it's clear that most of them do not, at this point.
It may be that we need something as dramatic as a Constitutional convention; we Americans have to reconnect with our rightful role as the repositories of power in this country. We have to remind our forgetful politicians that they govern only by our consent, and that if we withdraw that consent, then they have lost their legitimacy to govern us.
Most of our Senators, judging by the crucial votes on the amnesty bill, have already broken their contract with us, their constituents, and have shown that they do not respect the will of the people. Something is needed to get their attention, and to remind them of their solemn responsibilities to us.
As Miele says at the conclusion of his piece,
Let�s take back our Constitution, and take back our country.'
"When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."- Thomas Jefferson
"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
- Samuel Adams
Friends, those 'vain and aspiring men' sit in the halls of power now. Are there enough of us "experienced patriots to prevent the country's ruin?"

Labels: Amnesty, Illegal Immigration, Open Borders, Senate

Arizona Senate panel passes birthright citizen law
Here is the Arizona Star's report on the bill.
AZ bill would ban illegal immigrants from driving, college
SB 1611, set for hearing this afternoon, also would put companies that do not use a federal database to check the status of new workers out of business. And it would require cities to evict anyone in public housing who cannot prove legal presence in this country.
Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, described the legislation as not doing much at all.
"This is cleanup," he said. "All it does is do what the voters have passed in terms of no taxpayer dollars for illegals."[Emphasis mine]
Contrast the situation in Arizona with that of, oh, let's say Wisconsin, at least as of a few years ago.
Wisconsin's efforts to give sanctuary to illegal immigrants by granting them official state documents have evidently been successful. According to the DMV personnel we interviewed, there has been a veritable flood of illegal immigrants besieging DMV offices to get IDs and licenses over the past four years. Illegal immigrants arrive at DMV stations almost daily. On some days they represent the bulk of a service center's customers, especially in the southeastern and mid-eastern parts of the state. Because of the extra time that DMV officials must spend aiding foreign license applicants, costs rise.
Estimates of the number of illegals who have Wisconsin IDs and driver's licenses are somewhere in the area of 350,000 to 400,000. According to one DMV source, the number cannot be affirmed with specificity because for years there "was an 'informal' agreement between the Madison DMV and the local Social Security office. If the DMV found someone there illegally, the person would be referred to the local Social Security office, which would somehow issue the person a number.... Thus many illegals appear to have valid Social Security numbers in our system and cannot be distinguished from genuine citizens." Apparently, the informal agreement was dropped sometime after 9/11.
The increased costs at the DMV centers are undoubtedly a drop in the bucket compared to the costs that the illegals impose on the state and county welfare systems. All of the DMV agents whom we interviewed affirmed that it is a common occurrence for illegal immigrants to use Wisconsin QUEST cards (which are used to get foodshare benefits) and Wisconsin Forward cards (which are used to access Medicaid and Badgercare healthcare programs) as proof of their identity when applying for licenses and IDs, indicating that the first priority for many illegals upon entering the state is to obtain welfare benefits at taxpayer expense.''
However, since then,
The Wisconsin legislature approved a new budget and it forbids illegal aliens from obtaining driver's licenses. The budget does, however, allow children of illegal aliens who attend Wisconsin high schools to qualify for in-state tuition.''
And here:
Some illegal immigrant high school graduates will be able to attend Wisconsin state universities by paying in-state tuition, under a provision in the two-year budget Gov. Jim Doyle signed into law Monday.
Wisconsin now becomes the 11th state to enact such a law.
To qualify, students would have to reside in the state for three years, graduate from a Wisconsin high school or earn an equivalency degree here.
The students would have to apply through the normal channels.
It's estimated from 400 to 650 illegal immigrants annually graduate from state high schools, but they must pay out-of-state tuition if they enroll in the state university system or technical colleges.
[...]
State Rep. Pedro Colón (D-Milwaukee) first introduced the in-state college tuition measure in 1999, when he was new to the Assembly.''
According to this site Wisconsin has an estimated 41,000 illegal immigrants, a figure which sounds ridiculously low to me.
Apparently Wisconsin still offers medical care to pregnant women regardless of their illegal status.And it also provides medical care for 'anchor babies' or citizen children of illegals, according to the info in that pdf file at the link.
If we look at the states in the most financial trouble, it is evident that the states with the largest numbers of immigrants are the ones in dire straits, for the most part.
"The recession is causing state and local tax revenues to fall steeply at the same time that high unemployment and rising poverty are increasing the need for state services such as Medicaid and other programs that serve the poor and near-poor," McNichol said. "The change in the number of food stamp recipients is the single best early warning measure of what is happening to poverty in a state."
And the need for 'state services such as Medicaid' which 'serve the poor and near-poor' is directly tied to the number of immigrants and refugees, I would say. Some would insist that the poor economy is the only factor, but how does it make sense to add millions more immigrants and 'refugees' each year to an economy which already has such a high unemployment rate? And the numbers keep on mounting, with illegals entering this country every hour of every day. And that's not counting the millions of legal immigrants.
Even the immigrants who work usually draw some sort of state or federal benefits, such as Medicaid, Food Stamps, school lunches, WIC, and subsidized housing, as well as SSI, which is very much used by older immigrants (legal in most cases) who are brought here by their children or grandchildren.
There is just no honest way to disconnect the immigration issue from the economic crisis all across this country.
Meanwhile, people look for scapegoats among their own people, while passing over the immigration aspect of the story. Americans these days, especially White Americans, are too quick to condemn their own fellow Whites who are on unemployment, or older people who are on Social Security, while scarcely mentioning the role played by immigrants in this disaster. After all, one's own folk are safe targets for condemnation, as always, while the immigrants, though a source of some grumbling are usually excused and their role ignored, especially by the 'respectable Republicans' whose main concern is not to be called a name.
Kudos to Arizona for their efforts to do something to staunch the flow of 'taxpayer dollars to illegals.' And Wisconsin will have to recant its political correctness, or else the majority population will again have to foot the bill for the powers-that-be and their generosity to the replacement populations.

Labels: Illegal Immigration, Legislation, Mass Immigration, State Financial Crises

First, a hopeful sign or two: what a pleasant surprise to read about a judge who favors enforcing our laws -- equally, with no preference given to protected groups. What a radical notion in this age of liberal madness:
A state Superior Court judge called for a grassroots effort to change federal laws which he said currently allow legal immigrants and U.S. citizens to be prosecuted for unlawful activity, but prohibits prosecution of illegal aliens.
It's happening in communities like Gettysburg and Shenandoah and Tamaqua, Judge Correale "Corry" F. Stevens told members of the Adams County Republican Committee Thursday evening at the county ag center, and it could happen in Black Horse Tavern and Aspers and Zora. For example, he said state police stopped a van for speeding on an interstate and detained the four illegals they found inside.
They called ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and they were told, "Let them go," Stevens said. The policemen had no choice.
He offered several additional examples showing that in situations that would result in arrest for legal immigrants and U.S. citizens, illegal aliens would be set free.
[...]"The federal policy is non-enforcement," he said.
[...]He said voters should ask their federal senators and representatives to amend the federal law to give:

police the power to arrest;

county district attorneys the power to prosecute; and

county judges the powers to deport;

all without needing the permission of the federal government.

"They're committing crimes and the federal government is not doing anything," Stevens said.'
So maybe common sense is not dead in our judicial branch, at least not in Judge Stevens' jurisdiction.
This is what is needed: to take action at the local level, since the feds seem determined to let anarchy reign where immigration and borders are concerned.
And here is a particularly ugly story of a crime by two of those hard-working, undocumented folks just looking for a better life in what was once a pleasant, safe town. The two perpetrators should have been dealt with by the judicial system long ago, but at least this judge, Judge Falcone, shows a no-nonsense attitude toward the demanding defendant.
Morristown rape suspect wants 5th lawyer
The trial of a man charged with dragging a woman off a Morristown sidewalk and raping her was put on hold Wednesday after he demanded a new attorney, his fifth in 21 months.
Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Falcone, sitting in Morristown, agreed to relieve the latest lawyer for suspect Joel A. Romero, 27, because Romero refuses to speak to counsel Douglas Del Tufo and claims he does not have "his best interests at heart."
Since he was caught in the act of assaulting a 20-year-old woman on July 10, 2005, Romero has gone through three public defenders and one private lawyer, Del Tufo.
[...]The Morris County Prosecutor�s Office has extended a 30-year plea deal. Falcone said he had been willing to consider a 24-year sentence but upped the offer back to 30 years Wednesday after Romero started making demands, through a Spanish-to-English court interpreter.
"I want one who speaks Spanish," said Romero, who is in the United States illegally from Honduras.
"Too bad!" blurted out deputy Public Defender Dolores Mann, who was watching the hearing in court.
"And I want to win the lottery!" the judge snapped at Romero. "You don�t run the system. Let me say this again: You don�t run the system."
I like Judge Falcone's gutsy attitude; too often I've read accounts of weakling liberal judges who coddle such defendants because of their 'special' status.
Now we will just have to see if somebody accuses the above-mentioned judges of 'racism' or 'xenophobia' for taking a non-coddling stance towards illegals.
Unfortunately this kind of decision by a judge is, depressingly, more typical.
And apparently our federal courts are being swamped by immigration felony cases. This is no surprise to any of us who have been following this situation. It's just one more cost of our 'cheap labor.'
And speaking of our judicial system and illegal aliens, the issue of 'sanctuary cities' has been in the news, with San Francisco possibly joining a growing list of cities which in effect have nullified our immigration laws, declaring that they will flout the existing statutes and protect the lawbreakers. Note that New York City is one of those scofflaw cities, which harbors illegal aliens. And with Rudy Giuliani being touted as the likely Republican presidential nominee in 2008, please keep in mind that he was a determined advocate of the sanctuary policy in NYC, to the extent of defying the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Heather MacDonald in the City Journal wrote this extensive piece in 2004, detailing Giuliani's defiant position:
Immigration politics have similarly harmed New York. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city�s sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to "terrorize people." Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history.
New York conveniently forgot the 1996 federal ban on sanctuary laws until a gang of five Mexicans�four of them illegal�abducted and brutally raped a 42-year-old mother of two near some railroad tracks in Queens. The NYPD had already arrested three of the illegal aliens numerous times for such crimes as assault, attempted robbery, criminal trespass, illegal gun possession, and drug offenses. The department had never notified the INS.
Citizen outrage forced Mayor Michael Bloomberg to revisit the city�s sanctuary decree yet again. In May 2003, Bloomberg tweaked the policy minimally to allow city staffers to inquire into immigration status only if it is relevant to the awarding of a government benefit. Though Bloomberg�s new rule said nothing about reporting immigration violations to federal officials, advocates immediately claimed that it did allow such reporting, and the ethnic lobbies went ballistic. ''
So if Giuliani has supposedly gotten religion on this issue, we should remember his sanctuary policies, and his past pro-illegal statements:
As other anti-immigration movements spread across the country in 1990s, Mr. Giuliani consistently pushed back. "The anti-immigration issue that�s now sweeping the country in my view is no different than the movements that swept the country in the past," he said in 1996. "You look back at the Chinese Exclusionary Act, or the Know-Nothing movement � these were movements that encouraged Americans to fear foreigners, to fear something that is different, and to stop immigration."
Giuliani misrepresents the Know-Nothing movement, or the American Party, as do most people who refer to it as a favorite whipping boy, a symbol of 'hateful' nativism and xenophobia.
And Giuliani invokes the 'proposition nation', the idea that being an American is only a matter of uttering some magic incantation about freedom or liberty, and adhering to an 'idea':
But as he talks about immigration on the campaign trail, Mr. Giuliani suggests that his core beliefs have not changed much since his days as mayor, often quoting a speech Abraham Lincoln gave in the 1850s.
"He made a beautiful speech in which he said the best American is not the American who has been here the longest or the one who just arrived," Mr. Giuliani said recently. "It is the one who understands the principles of America the best because we are a country held together by ideas."
This is just one more example of the 'my grandfather was an immigrant' syndrome; Giuliani, like so very many of the open borders, America-as-an-idea liberals, takes his position based on sentimentalism or defensiveness about his recent immigrant roots.
Will 'conservatives' fall for Giuliani's tough-guy persona? On the immigration issue, he is not on the side of the American people. Yet it seems that so many 'conservatives' are falling in line behind Giuliani. If he is nominated and elected, we will see mass immigration continuing if not accelerating.

Labels: Illegal Immigration, Justice System, Open Borders, Presidential Candidates

...that we won't hear about on Fox News or the other major media:
Three more border agents assaulted
One Border Patrol agent was nearly struck with a vehicle and two more nearly drowned within the past 10 days.
Yuma sector spokesman Chris Van Wagenen said these types of incidents are something the Border Patrol expects. He said those who profit from illegal activity are not going to give up control of the border without a fight.
"They're hoping to win through intimidation and violence.''
[...] The number of illegal aliens crossing the border has gone down, thanks to increased enforcement and the presence of the National Guard. But as the Border Patrol has predicted for some time, the amount of violence has gone up.
The record number of Border Patrol agent assaults for one fiscal year is 119. In 2006-07, there have already been 90 after only about four months, according to Van Wagenen.
"It's a 60 percent increase on last year," he said.'
Meanwhile, our major media makes sure we know all the latest celebrity news and gossip. 'Pay no attention to the ongoing border war' seems to be the attitude.

Labels: Borders, Illegal Immigration, Media

Almost Forbidden Thoughts
Clyde N. Wilson, Chronicles
"Without censorship in the West, fashionable trends of thought are fastidiously separated from those that are not fashionable, and the latter, without ever being forbidden, have little chance of finding their way. "
�Solzhenitsyn, Harvard Address
We all know that there are truths that are almost never stated publicly in the U.S.�truths that media, politicians, and "intelligentsia" pretend do not exist. Astute observers, Tocqueville and Solzhenitsyn among others, have noted that in "American democracy" public discourse tends to group-think and is neglectful or hostile to ideas lacking group-think respectability.
Some of these truths are things that absolutely everybody knows but may not be mentioned without penalty. Others have been so long buried under complacent or expedient denial that much effort is required to discern them.
Here are a few of my almost forbidden thoughts. Doubtless you will have some of your own.''
The first of Wilson's 'almost forbidden thoughts is this one:
Heredity has as much or more control over our individual fates as environment; i.e., intelligent children tend to come from intelligent parents.''
I agree with that thought, and it is amazing how unacceptable that thought is to most people, regardless of their political leanings. Many conservatives, or should I say 'conservatives' visibly chafe at the introduction of that idea into a conversation.
Why, I wonder? Because, possibly, egalitarianism is such a pervasive idea, accepted by many who consider themselves conservative as well as liberals. And to hint that intelligence may have a large hereditary or genetic component makes many people uncomfortable. I notice that a couple of the comments following Wilson's piece call this idea into question, because they see, implicit in Wilson's simple statement, an apologia for eugenics. I think that may be a twisting of what he has said, and a conclusion that is not warranted. He does not say that unintelligent people ought not to reproduce or that intelligent ones should have more children. He does not say that society should create incentives for intelligent people to have children or disincentives for the unintelligent. He simply says that heredity may be a large factor in intelligence.
I think it's an important idea because if it were ever to be accepted as true, it would largely discredit many of our educational policies, for instance, programs such as 'No Child Left Behind', the Bush-Kennedy effort at closing the so-called 'achievement gap.' Only the belief in the blank slate theory of child development and intelligence justifies efforts like this rather unsuccessful policy. And as long as people avoid facing the reality that children are not blank slates with equal potential from the git-go, we will be throwing good money after bad, trying to close the 'achievement gap.'
There is evidence of hereditary differences in IQ.
But because this is an idea that conflicts with our egalitarian ideology, the facts have to be buried, explained away, or discredited. So on and on we go, in a vain attempt to 'level the playing field.' As long as we deny facts and statistical evidence, we are doomed to repeat the same failed policies again and again. And what does the myth of the blank slate and equal potential do to race relations? It perpetuates anger and frustration and endless accusations of 'racism.' After all, if there are no heredity-based group differences in intelligence, then the 'achievement gap' must be the result of discrimination and 'racism', or malice on the part of the majority. And the racism implication also provides a built-in excuse for the achievement gap.
One of Wilson's other 'forbidden thoughts' had to do with the racial aspect of crime, to which a commenter takes exception, although not convincingly. However as another commenter notes in that thread, the exception taken by one commenter simply corroborates Wilson's description of the ideas as 'forbidden', since forbidden ideas will elicit exactly that kind of gainsaying response.
I agree to some extent with the truth of most of Wilson's 'forbidden thoughts', although I can't speak to the question of how corrupt the state of Massachusetts is.
I agree with him that Lincoln is not the saintly figure that popular history makes him out to be, but given my Southron roots, it's unlikely I would see Lincoln as a hero.
If I might add any forbidden thoughts of my own, I would repeat some of the 'forbidden thoughts' I have expressed so often here: like this thought: immigration, regardless of whether legal or illegal, has not been an unmixed blessing for America. In many cases it has not been a blessing at all, but a curse.
America is not a nation of immigrants.
The Statue of Liberty is not an advertisement for Open Borders.
Emma Lazarus's amateurish poetry on the Statue is not gospel, and it has no force of authority.
'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... the wretched refuse of your teeming shore...' was not part of our Founding documents or ideals; it was no more than the overwrought ramblings of one woman.
And here's a forbidden thought: 'wretched refuse' means... what? In modern colloquial English? Do the open borders cultists really want to call immigrants that?
Another forbidden thought: Ellis Island is not a holy shrine, and those who passed through it are not some kind of saints to whom the rest of us must make obeisance.
Legal immigration is not good in and of itself; it is good only in limited numbers, and as long as the immigrants themselves are people who can adapt and fit into our existing country, and contribute thereto.
Continual population growth is not a desirable thing for our country.
Our country will not become depopulated without constant immigration.
Concern for the environment is or should be a conservative principle.
Concern for overpopulation is NOT a leftist idea that should be scoffed at by 'conservatives.'
Our economy does NOT rely on immigrants, legal or illegal.
Immigrants did NOT build America.
Slaves, likewise, did not build America.
'Hard work' is not the only qualification for would-be immigrants. The world is full of 'hard-working people.' They are not all entitled to come here because they are 'hard-working.'
Mexicans are not starving.
Illegals are not 'forced' to come here.
Latinos or Hispanics are not necessarily 'hard workers', regardless of the positive stereotypes.
(How do I know this? Take a look at Latin America, or at your local colonia or barrio. I rest my case.)
Latinos or Hispanics are not necessarily 'devout Christians' with good 'family values.' That hype probably was hatched by the RNC, or La Raza, or both, working in collusion.
Stereotypes are stereotypes, and flattering stereotypes like the above are just as overgeneralized as negative stereotypes sometimes are.
Making up flattering falsehoods about races or ethnicities is dishonest, regardless of the 'good intentions' supposedly behind the flattery. A lie is a lie is a lie. Telling a lie often enough will not make it so, no matter how benevolent the intention is.
Many of the politically correct, multicultural and diverse commercials and movies and TV shows are lies, based on some kind of fantasy world bearing no resemblance to the actual world.
Stereotypes, although overgeneralized in some cases, generally reflect reality, to some extent. Stereotypes are often substantially true.
And here's one: if secession was wrong and if it constituted 'treason' then how do we justify the Revolution against British authority? If it was right to forcibly drag the South back into the Union, would the British not have the right to drag the American colonies back under the rule of the British Crown?
I could go on, but that's my list of forbidden thoughts.
Any contributions from my readers?

Labels: Freedom Of Expression, Freedom Of Thought, Illegal Immigration, Political Correctness