Back again with more wit and wisdom from Remulak at the MoxArgon blog, this time on a subject near and dear to my heart, idiots. There seem to be many more of these animals on the leftist, socialist side of the political spectrum. I think Remulak hits an important point here...idiots don't live that long because they lack the imagination and foresight to see threats coming down the road from a distance. Worse yet, they blindly following emoooootions and feeeeelings without considering the consequences that will inevitably, naturally flow from so doing, and then they act surprised when the disasters they explicitly invited come home to roost.
"Greetings puny Earthlings.
As you've probably noticed the media has begun downplaying the threat presented by the Dix 6 of New Jersey. Various MSM brain trusts like MSNBC's Keith Olbermann are writing them off completely as some sort of harmless idiots who are being blown out of proportion by the Bush- Hitler- Zionist- Halliburton conspiracy. But don't take my word for, take it straight from the horse's arse mouth:
Now I'd to say something to Mr. Olbermann and his ilk. A lesson if you will:
IDIOTS ARE VERY DANGEROUS
It's true, just look at Snotglob trying to drive a hovercar and you'll know, but since you're Earthlings and by definition dumber than a sack Bolarean Weevil droppings I'll explain.
IDIOTS ARE VERY DANGEROUS BECAUSE....
...IDIOTS HAVE A POOR SENSE OF SELF PRESERVATION.
You see, the average idiot has a very weak notion of that thing that sets sentient beings apart from the dumb, and often tasty, animals. That is a knowledge of their own mortality. Idiots spend most of their time unable to acknowledge that their course of action will result in their death. So they do stupid things, and...
...IDIOTS CAN'T GRASP THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS.
The common idiot lacks the imagination or empathy to fully grasp the suffering that their actions will create, losing them in chants of 'That'll be so cool.' And when smarter people try to warn them of the dangers, more often than not the idiot won't believe them, or in the case of the malicious idiot in relation to the feelings of others, not care. This means...
... IDIOTS ARE EASILY MANIPULATED.
Idiots live within the moment, and think only of the instant gratification of their ego or appetites. This means that they can be led along the garden paths by smarter people who know how to appeal that ego/appetite combination. This turns out to be easier than you think, whether it's through direct manipulation or the indirect influence of a negative ideology. Why is it so easy? That's because...
... IDIOTS DON'T KNOW THEY ARE IDIOTS.
Idiots believe that they are right, and that everyone else is trying to oppress them or 'harsh their mellow' with their demands for good behaviour. This leads the idiot to hatch seemingly mad plans that can't succeed, but could still lead to suffering, and that doesn't include idiots who are acting with the malicious intent to cause suffering. For malicious idiots the suffering of others is the end product, and they're dumb enough to think that they are smart enough to get away with it. So anything they do will result in harm to somebody, unless they are stopped.
I hope that's cleared it up for you folks."
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Mayor Bloomberg Actually Gets One Right? Excuse Me While I Faint From Shock
Heather MacDonald at City Journal rightly blows the whistle on the federal government here for its persecution and prosecution of the New York Fire Department for its refusal to "stupid down" the test sufficiently so that enough minorities can pass to fill their quotas. I don't care what color they are...if my house catches on fire, I want the best and the brightest coming to put it out and/or rescue my family and loved ones. If it's all white guys, great...if it's all blck women, fabulous...the point is that it should be based on merit and only merit when it comes to EVERYTHING, but especially professions where lives are at stake (medicine, firefighting, etc.). Shame on the career zealot attorneys in the Bush DOJ (these critters have existed in every administration since the EEOC and its quota-enforcing sibling agencies were created) chasing phantom racism...surely these otherwise bright folks have something better to do? No, wait, scratch that, then they might have to get a real job, and that isn't any more likely to happen than the race-baiting industry getting shut down tomorrow and Al Sharpton getting a real job.
"The Department of Justice has just filed a discrimination suit against the New York City Fire Department, alleging that the written exam for department eligibility is biased against blacks and Hispanics, because their pass rate is lower than for whites. Several questions come to mind, namely:
—Isn’t this farce getting a bit old? In the 1970s, when knowledge about the cognitive skills gap between whites and Asians, on the one hand, and blacks and Hispanics, on the other, was less widespread, it may have seemed plausible that disparities in passing rates resulted from biased tests or biased test-administering institutions. Today, however, after society has spent decades and millions of dollars trying unsuccessfully to close the test score gap on the SATs, LSATs, MCATs, NAEP, and every other objective standardized test, the claim that any given test is racist simply because blacks and Hispanics don’t score as well on it as whites and Asians is absurd. The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) has twisted itself in knots for over 20 years trying to hire more blacks and Hispanics without wholly compromising standards.
—Will the Justice Department please keep its hands off of our Fire Department? The DOJ suit alleges that asking prospective firemen to show a minimal competence in basic reasoning and reading skills is an unnecessary and racist job qualification. The New York Times printed two typical questions from the New York exam; they are ridiculously simple. In one, exam takers are asked to regurgitate information just provided in the question about the procedures for subway evacuations; in another, test takers are to choose a likely suspect in an arson from descriptions of three previous arsons and their likely perpetrators. The Justice Department argues that such elementary thinking skills are superfluous in a firefighter.
Perhaps every attorney who brought this suit, from the DOJ to the Center for Constitutional Rights, can sign up for a plan whereby the firemen protecting his home and business can’t process basic written information. The rest of us can have a fire-fighting force that stands a chance of being able to perform the job adequately. The idea that all you need in fire-fighting today is a pair of strong arms is fanciful (and of course even that requirement has been lifted to get women into firehouses). The memory of September 11 should remind the Justice Department that firemen need knowledge of hazardous materials and of complex evacuation procedures; not only are the technologies for fighting fires becoming more sophisticated, but emergency medical responses depend on the capacity to learn from written material.
—Why does the racial composition of a fire department matter? Without question, if there were the slightest shred of evidence that the FDNY was deliberately discriminating against qualified minority applicants, such a violation of civil rights should be roundly denounced, and eradicated. There is no such evidence, however, which is why the DOJ suit relies simply on test-score passing rates—rates consistent with minority performance on every other cognitive test in living memory. Given that the lack of proportional representation on fire-fighting crews is not the result of discrimination, why does it matter if the men saving your life in a fire are white, black, or purple?
Of course, the concern over racial composition is not confined to public services. University administrators face a similar dilemma: persistent underqualification of blacks and Hispanics for college, and an absence of evidence of bias in entrance requirements. In response, they have generated a new rationale for admissions double standards: that whites and Asians can’t be properly educated without a critical mass of blacks and Hispanics in their schools. This rationale, used by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to uphold racial preferences in state universities, has been shown to be wholly specious, even in a university context. In the context of putting out life-threatening fires, it is beyond ludicrous. There is no plausible argument why a fire-fighting crew needs racial diversity to perform well. Playing around with feel-good diversity nonsense is deeply irresponsible when lives may be at stake.
—How much longer are public and private institutions going to be held hostage to black and Hispanic academic failure? The Center for Constitutional Rights and other racial advocacy groups point to urban fire departments that have a higher percentage of minorities to prove that the FDNY is discriminating. But these departments have simply caved in to similar law suits and discarded their qualifications criteria to a degree that New York has not. Organizations around the country are under relentless pressure to change merit standards because of black and Hispanic underachievement, and most have capitulated to some degree. Almost none have been willing to make the case that disproportionate racial representation stems from the lack of qualified candidates, not from hidden sources of bias.
Many a police or fire department, under litigation pressure, has simply dropped its entrance requirements across the board, insuring a lower skill level for the entire department, rather than a sub-group within it. At some point, public safety will suffer.
If the problem of differential skill rates is to be solved, it will require changing the culture of underrepresented minorities, so that they value education and develop the discipline to learn the building blocks of basic academic success. (Again, asking a fireman to repeat simple written facts that he has just read is hardly asking for much.) If the career attorneys at DOJ or at the Center for Constitutional Rights really wanted to make a difference in minority passing rates on civil service exams, they would spend their time tutoring and mentoring minority males, not suing critical public entities like police and fire departments.
—What is the Bush Administration thinking? The FDNY suit is clearly the product of career attorneys within the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the DOJ, whose life mission consists in going after phantom racism. But any such suit must surely be cleared with higher-ranked political appointees; indeed, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that he defended the department to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, according to the New York Daily News. Republican susceptibility to race-mongering is well-documented, but after 9/11, one might have thought that emergency responders would get a pass on racial pandering from an administration that claims preeminence in homeland security.
—Aren’t blacks getting embarrassed by this sort of excuse-making? The demand for double standards is becoming ever more pathetic. A better route to racial and ethnic pride would be accomplishment, not promoting the notion that one is ineradicably unable to compete and thus in need of special treatment. No black athlete demands that a race track be shortened or a basketball hoop lowered to accommodate him. When will would-be black and Hispanic journeymen and professionals decide to beat whites and Asians at their own game?
Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to fight this suit, and he is right to do so. If law firms or universities want to compromise themselves rather than speak honestly about the racial skills gap, society may be able to live with the loss of efficiency. But fire-fighting contains no such room for fudging qualifications. Mayor Bloomberg should take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, to preserve the city’s right to hire its first responders in a color-blind and meritocratic fashion."
"The Department of Justice has just filed a discrimination suit against the New York City Fire Department, alleging that the written exam for department eligibility is biased against blacks and Hispanics, because their pass rate is lower than for whites. Several questions come to mind, namely:
—Isn’t this farce getting a bit old? In the 1970s, when knowledge about the cognitive skills gap between whites and Asians, on the one hand, and blacks and Hispanics, on the other, was less widespread, it may have seemed plausible that disparities in passing rates resulted from biased tests or biased test-administering institutions. Today, however, after society has spent decades and millions of dollars trying unsuccessfully to close the test score gap on the SATs, LSATs, MCATs, NAEP, and every other objective standardized test, the claim that any given test is racist simply because blacks and Hispanics don’t score as well on it as whites and Asians is absurd. The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) has twisted itself in knots for over 20 years trying to hire more blacks and Hispanics without wholly compromising standards.
—Will the Justice Department please keep its hands off of our Fire Department? The DOJ suit alleges that asking prospective firemen to show a minimal competence in basic reasoning and reading skills is an unnecessary and racist job qualification. The New York Times printed two typical questions from the New York exam; they are ridiculously simple. In one, exam takers are asked to regurgitate information just provided in the question about the procedures for subway evacuations; in another, test takers are to choose a likely suspect in an arson from descriptions of three previous arsons and their likely perpetrators. The Justice Department argues that such elementary thinking skills are superfluous in a firefighter.
Perhaps every attorney who brought this suit, from the DOJ to the Center for Constitutional Rights, can sign up for a plan whereby the firemen protecting his home and business can’t process basic written information. The rest of us can have a fire-fighting force that stands a chance of being able to perform the job adequately. The idea that all you need in fire-fighting today is a pair of strong arms is fanciful (and of course even that requirement has been lifted to get women into firehouses). The memory of September 11 should remind the Justice Department that firemen need knowledge of hazardous materials and of complex evacuation procedures; not only are the technologies for fighting fires becoming more sophisticated, but emergency medical responses depend on the capacity to learn from written material.
—Why does the racial composition of a fire department matter? Without question, if there were the slightest shred of evidence that the FDNY was deliberately discriminating against qualified minority applicants, such a violation of civil rights should be roundly denounced, and eradicated. There is no such evidence, however, which is why the DOJ suit relies simply on test-score passing rates—rates consistent with minority performance on every other cognitive test in living memory. Given that the lack of proportional representation on fire-fighting crews is not the result of discrimination, why does it matter if the men saving your life in a fire are white, black, or purple?
Of course, the concern over racial composition is not confined to public services. University administrators face a similar dilemma: persistent underqualification of blacks and Hispanics for college, and an absence of evidence of bias in entrance requirements. In response, they have generated a new rationale for admissions double standards: that whites and Asians can’t be properly educated without a critical mass of blacks and Hispanics in their schools. This rationale, used by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to uphold racial preferences in state universities, has been shown to be wholly specious, even in a university context. In the context of putting out life-threatening fires, it is beyond ludicrous. There is no plausible argument why a fire-fighting crew needs racial diversity to perform well. Playing around with feel-good diversity nonsense is deeply irresponsible when lives may be at stake.
—How much longer are public and private institutions going to be held hostage to black and Hispanic academic failure? The Center for Constitutional Rights and other racial advocacy groups point to urban fire departments that have a higher percentage of minorities to prove that the FDNY is discriminating. But these departments have simply caved in to similar law suits and discarded their qualifications criteria to a degree that New York has not. Organizations around the country are under relentless pressure to change merit standards because of black and Hispanic underachievement, and most have capitulated to some degree. Almost none have been willing to make the case that disproportionate racial representation stems from the lack of qualified candidates, not from hidden sources of bias.
Many a police or fire department, under litigation pressure, has simply dropped its entrance requirements across the board, insuring a lower skill level for the entire department, rather than a sub-group within it. At some point, public safety will suffer.
If the problem of differential skill rates is to be solved, it will require changing the culture of underrepresented minorities, so that they value education and develop the discipline to learn the building blocks of basic academic success. (Again, asking a fireman to repeat simple written facts that he has just read is hardly asking for much.) If the career attorneys at DOJ or at the Center for Constitutional Rights really wanted to make a difference in minority passing rates on civil service exams, they would spend their time tutoring and mentoring minority males, not suing critical public entities like police and fire departments.
—What is the Bush Administration thinking? The FDNY suit is clearly the product of career attorneys within the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the DOJ, whose life mission consists in going after phantom racism. But any such suit must surely be cleared with higher-ranked political appointees; indeed, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that he defended the department to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, according to the New York Daily News. Republican susceptibility to race-mongering is well-documented, but after 9/11, one might have thought that emergency responders would get a pass on racial pandering from an administration that claims preeminence in homeland security.
—Aren’t blacks getting embarrassed by this sort of excuse-making? The demand for double standards is becoming ever more pathetic. A better route to racial and ethnic pride would be accomplishment, not promoting the notion that one is ineradicably unable to compete and thus in need of special treatment. No black athlete demands that a race track be shortened or a basketball hoop lowered to accommodate him. When will would-be black and Hispanic journeymen and professionals decide to beat whites and Asians at their own game?
Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to fight this suit, and he is right to do so. If law firms or universities want to compromise themselves rather than speak honestly about the racial skills gap, society may be able to live with the loss of efficiency. But fire-fighting contains no such room for fudging qualifications. Mayor Bloomberg should take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, to preserve the city’s right to hire its first responders in a color-blind and meritocratic fashion."
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Raping the Children No American Citizens Will Rape
So Michael Chertoff, George Bush, Ted Kennedy, John (Traitor) McCain, and the rest of the members of the illegal immigrant amnesty parade want to give citizenship to a bunch of criminals because they're just "doing jobs no Americans will do"? Does that including raping and sodomizing 9 year old little girls, you bunch of terminally clue-fuc*ed slapnuts?!!
But yes, please by all means, let's just let any Third World criminal in here with no background check, no health exam, no nothing, and then when we do catch them breaking the law, let's not report them to federal immigration authorities and just let them walk, like they did in this case. I don't have words strong enough to express my disgust at our ruling "elites" trying to shove this sham-nesty down our throats, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings if the bounty hunter searching for this child-raping piece of garbage "accidentally" empties several clips into this monster's molester carcass. After all, if he lives, he'll get a lawyer paid for by me, a slap on the wrist, and citizenship afterwards, at which point I will be funding his welfare until he dies. No effin' thank you.
But yes, please by all means, let's just let any Third World criminal in here with no background check, no health exam, no nothing, and then when we do catch them breaking the law, let's not report them to federal immigration authorities and just let them walk, like they did in this case. I don't have words strong enough to express my disgust at our ruling "elites" trying to shove this sham-nesty down our throats, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings if the bounty hunter searching for this child-raping piece of garbage "accidentally" empties several clips into this monster's molester carcass. After all, if he lives, he'll get a lawyer paid for by me, a slap on the wrist, and citizenship afterwards, at which point I will be funding his welfare until he dies. No effin' thank you.
Monday, May 28, 2007
A Nation of Laws
Being a lawyer, I'm as big a believer in us being a nation of laws as anyone. That said, there are many laws which are stupid, ill-fated, mean spirited, power grabbing exercises of government interference and strongarming. So the question becomes: which is which? How do we decided, and where do we draw the line? I think about this quite often, and fortunately, as it turns out, so too does Mrs. DuToit. I'm looking forward with interest to her thoughts in this regard as she takes on specific issues of laws re: the "war on drugs", illegal immigration, and so on. Even so, this introductory piece is good to whet the ol' intellectual appetite, so read the whole thing.
"This has been a really difficult subject to think about. Writing about it will be even more difficult, as there are nuisances that I can only hope to address with the occasional caveat. I’ve made dozens of false starts over the last couple of months, as this is a subject that has been haunting me (and has, frankly, made it incredibly difficult for me to focus on writing anything else). Rather than trying to tackle it all in one post or essay, I’m going to do it in a series… and with that said, I shall attempt to tackle the subject, with this introduction.
We, The People have a nation to manage and maintain, for ourselves and our posterity. We make our laws through our representatives, voted for by us. Our representatives are supposed to do what we want them to do, within the limits of the U.S. Constitution and the various state constitutions—constitutions that we can also change, but with (intentionally) more difficulty.
And this is the point where some of this gets difficult to discuss. I think we would all agree that we have too many laws, or there are some laws that are just silly. Some states, for example, have laws that prohibit dumping trash on the highways, but have exceptions for things like chicken feathers. These strange nuisances and exceptions in the law always seem to make our laws appear to be out of date or not in step with the current population. We accept then, that we have some laws which are hunky-dory to ignore… and that is where the danger is.
We could use a radical reform of our current laws, simplifying or eliminating many, where possible, but that is a post and subject for another day. That isn’t what I want to address here—the millions of millions of laws that many of us do not support, or seem to be in place simply for the purpose of being able to catch someone doing something.
One law that exists in most (if not all) states has restrictions on the use of public spaces. Such laws generally fall under the categories of public nuisance or loitering. You can’t sit on a bus bench for hours and hours, for example (unless you really are waiting for bus). Similarly, you can’t stand on a street corner for no reason other than to stand there. The idea of these laws made (and make) sense when they were written, and has to do with the broader umbrella of the social compact: The streets are not yours… they are ours, and using them too much or without purpose makes you a mooch on what is ours.
So you can’t cruise the streets at night, driving up and down the street for the sole purpose of doing so. You must have a destination and a direction. If not, go home, where you can cruise up and down your living room wearing a path in your own floor, without restriction. Since you are the one who will have to replace the floor when it wears out, We, The people, do not care. We do care when it is the streets that we pay for.
We’ve tended to ignore many of these laws or the police have found themselves in the situation of enforcing them by exception, such as when a bum sleeps under a park bench or a group of kids are hanging out in front of a 7/11, giving all appearances of being up to no good.
But the fact of the matter is that these laws apply to all of us equally, but we tend to mind our own business when those not appearing to be causing trouble, abuse, or violating other laws we have decided we can support.
We also tend to want the police to deal with these matters, rather than taking any actions to enforce our laws ourselves.
Let me try to put that another way to illustrate how strange it is, and how far we have come as a nation from our founding principles:
You have a “don’t run in the house” rule. Obviously, if the house was on fire you would temporarily suspend that law, but you do not allow your children to run in the house. They can run outside, but for reasons of safety and civility, you demand that your children walk in the house.
Do you call a cop if your children run in your house?
Of course not. You do not call a cop for that because you see your house as your bastion—where you are responsible for enforcing civility and rules that keep your family safe.
And that is where we have things screwed up. The public square is our house. We, The People are just as responsible for policing the public square as we are our living rooms. The fact that we also have police, to whom we have delegated some of our responsibilities (for convenience and economies of scale), does not mean we have surrendered the responsibility.
You cannot surrender your responsibilities. They are yours; regardless of to whom you have delegated the task. It is still our job to keep the streets safe, our laws enforced, and our nation decent, regardless of what our delegates do or do not do.
This concept applies to just about everything. You may have delegated the task of educating your children to the public school, but as a parent, you are still responsible for the outcome. If your child is not receiving a proper education, it is your fault, not the school’s. If Johnny can’t read it is because Johnny’s parents haven’t taught him to read—it is not the fault of his teacher. We might need to fire her, or restructure our schools because of it, but that is an attempt to fix a problem, not dismiss our responsibilities. Similarly, I chose to home school our children, but I still pay very close attention to what the public schools are doing, and raise a stink where I think it is needed, because these are still my schools, even if I do not use them.
There are many, many reasons why we have dismissed our obligations in these areas. Some include a misunderstanding of the concepts of “minding our own business” and some fall under the (also misunderstood) umbrella of not wanting to be our brother’s keeper. The latter having to do with an individual’s soul and his relationship with G-d, not what is Caesar’s. What is Caesars is our responsibility, and not only are we our brother’s keeper with respect to enforcement of our nation’s laws, we have a duty and an obligation to do so.
As with all things like this, the changes of attitude did not happen overnight. They came about gradually, many with good intentions, and having to do with the perception that we were being too restrictive as a society.
We’re often treated to the example of the 1950s and how the period had a kind of Draconian social pressure, which caused people to jump out of high buildings. But also with examples like these, they are taken out of context, and without the spirit in which the changes were made. The purpose has been lost.
If people want to ruin their lives, let them, was the context in which we loosened some of the restrictions on society. But there was a flip side to that loosening: that you, and you alone, would have to deal with the consequences.
It wasn’t as if we didn’t know what the consequences would be. We knew that a loosening of sexual taboos, for example, would result in a great deal of misery and things like unwanted pregnancies, higher rates of infant mortality, domestic violence, and child abuse. We knew that, as certain as we knew that the sun would rise in East.
But we decided to allow it to happen, with the understanding that allowing people that kind of liberty would have dire consequences to them. But it was to them that we placed the consequences.
Shortly thereafter, people forgot the agreement—the agreement that we would allow others to ruin their lives, if they also had to deal with it on their own. We weren’t going to bail them out of their messes, or accept any responsibility for things we knew to be foolish and stupid.
There can be no safety net for that sort of thing. If you want the right to screw up, then you must also accept what goes along with that: the responsibility for the outcome. There are no rights where there is not the commensurate responsibility (risk).
Rights come with responsibilities and risk. Failure to recognize the responsibility does not mean that it doesn’t exist (it just demonstrates that the person is stupid).
If a woman has a child out of wedlock (out of society’s purview) then she (and she alone), is responsible for that child. She may have a temporary set back, and there may be private charities who lend her a helping hand, but her decision to bring a child into the world was hers...and all that goes with that decision is hers as well. If that child is starving, it is on her that we place the blame and the accountability. Looking around at an abundant society and asking why we allow that child to starve is wrong-headed. Society did not decide to bring that child into the world. She did. If we want to reverse the thinking, if we want society to be responsible for her children, then society also has the power of the choice itself—which is what society decided to loosen.
You can’t have one without the other. With choice comes the responsibility for the outcome of that choice. If you do not want the responsibility then you must also surrender the choice. With freedom comes responsibility. That is what that phrase means. It doesn’t mean that society has more responsibility. It means that the person who chooses to exercise that greater freedom has greater responsibilities.
I could sum up the above with a trite phrase most of us know: You made your bed. Now lie in it.
Simple as pie, but a concept that seems to be lost by many. (Just as some folks think it is difficult to make a pie—which is the simplest of all things to make!)
If we begin to examine each of these issues, we will find that many (if not most) fall into that loosey-goosey umbrella of morality, which makes all of us a little nervous to discuss or come up with a standard method of application that doesn’t intrude on one’s religious freedom or freedom of conscience.
But lever let it be said that I walked away from a fight, or stayed away from something simply because it was difficult.
Over the next few weeks (or months), I want to begin tackling some of these subjects: prostitution, pornography, marriage, illegal drug use, etc., and look at how these laws and decisions should be handled. Along the way I fully expect to make some people very angry, or challenge their perceptions of the concept of liberty vs. license. I also fully expect to have my assumptions challenged (and corrected, if a good argument is presented), but I’ll warn you: I have been watching these discussions for a long, long time, and unless you bring something truly new and unique to the party, I will not be convinced. I am certain that the usual suspects will dismiss my arguments as “statist” or the usual name calling that occurs when someone attempts to address these subjects. I do not care and will consider (as I always do) that someone casting aspersions or name calling is doing so because they have no argument to contradict my theory.
It will take me a while to do all of this, of course, and there are many other things I may write about during the process (as well as the usual distractions of life and other commitments), but I will do it, regardless of how long it takes.
The first one I will attempt to tackle is the “War on Drugs,” but it will take me a week or more to get it done."
"This has been a really difficult subject to think about. Writing about it will be even more difficult, as there are nuisances that I can only hope to address with the occasional caveat. I’ve made dozens of false starts over the last couple of months, as this is a subject that has been haunting me (and has, frankly, made it incredibly difficult for me to focus on writing anything else). Rather than trying to tackle it all in one post or essay, I’m going to do it in a series… and with that said, I shall attempt to tackle the subject, with this introduction.
We, The People have a nation to manage and maintain, for ourselves and our posterity. We make our laws through our representatives, voted for by us. Our representatives are supposed to do what we want them to do, within the limits of the U.S. Constitution and the various state constitutions—constitutions that we can also change, but with (intentionally) more difficulty.
And this is the point where some of this gets difficult to discuss. I think we would all agree that we have too many laws, or there are some laws that are just silly. Some states, for example, have laws that prohibit dumping trash on the highways, but have exceptions for things like chicken feathers. These strange nuisances and exceptions in the law always seem to make our laws appear to be out of date or not in step with the current population. We accept then, that we have some laws which are hunky-dory to ignore… and that is where the danger is.
We could use a radical reform of our current laws, simplifying or eliminating many, where possible, but that is a post and subject for another day. That isn’t what I want to address here—the millions of millions of laws that many of us do not support, or seem to be in place simply for the purpose of being able to catch someone doing something.
One law that exists in most (if not all) states has restrictions on the use of public spaces. Such laws generally fall under the categories of public nuisance or loitering. You can’t sit on a bus bench for hours and hours, for example (unless you really are waiting for bus). Similarly, you can’t stand on a street corner for no reason other than to stand there. The idea of these laws made (and make) sense when they were written, and has to do with the broader umbrella of the social compact: The streets are not yours… they are ours, and using them too much or without purpose makes you a mooch on what is ours.
So you can’t cruise the streets at night, driving up and down the street for the sole purpose of doing so. You must have a destination and a direction. If not, go home, where you can cruise up and down your living room wearing a path in your own floor, without restriction. Since you are the one who will have to replace the floor when it wears out, We, The people, do not care. We do care when it is the streets that we pay for.
We’ve tended to ignore many of these laws or the police have found themselves in the situation of enforcing them by exception, such as when a bum sleeps under a park bench or a group of kids are hanging out in front of a 7/11, giving all appearances of being up to no good.
But the fact of the matter is that these laws apply to all of us equally, but we tend to mind our own business when those not appearing to be causing trouble, abuse, or violating other laws we have decided we can support.
We also tend to want the police to deal with these matters, rather than taking any actions to enforce our laws ourselves.
Let me try to put that another way to illustrate how strange it is, and how far we have come as a nation from our founding principles:
You have a “don’t run in the house” rule. Obviously, if the house was on fire you would temporarily suspend that law, but you do not allow your children to run in the house. They can run outside, but for reasons of safety and civility, you demand that your children walk in the house.
Do you call a cop if your children run in your house?
Of course not. You do not call a cop for that because you see your house as your bastion—where you are responsible for enforcing civility and rules that keep your family safe.
And that is where we have things screwed up. The public square is our house. We, The People are just as responsible for policing the public square as we are our living rooms. The fact that we also have police, to whom we have delegated some of our responsibilities (for convenience and economies of scale), does not mean we have surrendered the responsibility.
You cannot surrender your responsibilities. They are yours; regardless of to whom you have delegated the task. It is still our job to keep the streets safe, our laws enforced, and our nation decent, regardless of what our delegates do or do not do.
This concept applies to just about everything. You may have delegated the task of educating your children to the public school, but as a parent, you are still responsible for the outcome. If your child is not receiving a proper education, it is your fault, not the school’s. If Johnny can’t read it is because Johnny’s parents haven’t taught him to read—it is not the fault of his teacher. We might need to fire her, or restructure our schools because of it, but that is an attempt to fix a problem, not dismiss our responsibilities. Similarly, I chose to home school our children, but I still pay very close attention to what the public schools are doing, and raise a stink where I think it is needed, because these are still my schools, even if I do not use them.
There are many, many reasons why we have dismissed our obligations in these areas. Some include a misunderstanding of the concepts of “minding our own business” and some fall under the (also misunderstood) umbrella of not wanting to be our brother’s keeper. The latter having to do with an individual’s soul and his relationship with G-d, not what is Caesar’s. What is Caesars is our responsibility, and not only are we our brother’s keeper with respect to enforcement of our nation’s laws, we have a duty and an obligation to do so.
As with all things like this, the changes of attitude did not happen overnight. They came about gradually, many with good intentions, and having to do with the perception that we were being too restrictive as a society.
We’re often treated to the example of the 1950s and how the period had a kind of Draconian social pressure, which caused people to jump out of high buildings. But also with examples like these, they are taken out of context, and without the spirit in which the changes were made. The purpose has been lost.
If people want to ruin their lives, let them, was the context in which we loosened some of the restrictions on society. But there was a flip side to that loosening: that you, and you alone, would have to deal with the consequences.
It wasn’t as if we didn’t know what the consequences would be. We knew that a loosening of sexual taboos, for example, would result in a great deal of misery and things like unwanted pregnancies, higher rates of infant mortality, domestic violence, and child abuse. We knew that, as certain as we knew that the sun would rise in East.
But we decided to allow it to happen, with the understanding that allowing people that kind of liberty would have dire consequences to them. But it was to them that we placed the consequences.
Shortly thereafter, people forgot the agreement—the agreement that we would allow others to ruin their lives, if they also had to deal with it on their own. We weren’t going to bail them out of their messes, or accept any responsibility for things we knew to be foolish and stupid.
There can be no safety net for that sort of thing. If you want the right to screw up, then you must also accept what goes along with that: the responsibility for the outcome. There are no rights where there is not the commensurate responsibility (risk).
Rights come with responsibilities and risk. Failure to recognize the responsibility does not mean that it doesn’t exist (it just demonstrates that the person is stupid).
If a woman has a child out of wedlock (out of society’s purview) then she (and she alone), is responsible for that child. She may have a temporary set back, and there may be private charities who lend her a helping hand, but her decision to bring a child into the world was hers...and all that goes with that decision is hers as well. If that child is starving, it is on her that we place the blame and the accountability. Looking around at an abundant society and asking why we allow that child to starve is wrong-headed. Society did not decide to bring that child into the world. She did. If we want to reverse the thinking, if we want society to be responsible for her children, then society also has the power of the choice itself—which is what society decided to loosen.
You can’t have one without the other. With choice comes the responsibility for the outcome of that choice. If you do not want the responsibility then you must also surrender the choice. With freedom comes responsibility. That is what that phrase means. It doesn’t mean that society has more responsibility. It means that the person who chooses to exercise that greater freedom has greater responsibilities.
I could sum up the above with a trite phrase most of us know: You made your bed. Now lie in it.
Simple as pie, but a concept that seems to be lost by many. (Just as some folks think it is difficult to make a pie—which is the simplest of all things to make!)
If we begin to examine each of these issues, we will find that many (if not most) fall into that loosey-goosey umbrella of morality, which makes all of us a little nervous to discuss or come up with a standard method of application that doesn’t intrude on one’s religious freedom or freedom of conscience.
But lever let it be said that I walked away from a fight, or stayed away from something simply because it was difficult.
Over the next few weeks (or months), I want to begin tackling some of these subjects: prostitution, pornography, marriage, illegal drug use, etc., and look at how these laws and decisions should be handled. Along the way I fully expect to make some people very angry, or challenge their perceptions of the concept of liberty vs. license. I also fully expect to have my assumptions challenged (and corrected, if a good argument is presented), but I’ll warn you: I have been watching these discussions for a long, long time, and unless you bring something truly new and unique to the party, I will not be convinced. I am certain that the usual suspects will dismiss my arguments as “statist” or the usual name calling that occurs when someone attempts to address these subjects. I do not care and will consider (as I always do) that someone casting aspersions or name calling is doing so because they have no argument to contradict my theory.
It will take me a while to do all of this, of course, and there are many other things I may write about during the process (as well as the usual distractions of life and other commitments), but I will do it, regardless of how long it takes.
The first one I will attempt to tackle is the “War on Drugs,” but it will take me a week or more to get it done."
Sunday, May 27, 2007
A Really Great First Date
I really don't "date" all that much, and I certainly don't spend my life actively searching or moping because I happen to be single at a given moment in time. That said, I would like to meet someone special and eventually get married, have children, the whole ball of wax. So when one of my really close friends whose counsel I trust and who's never steered me wrong before said she had someone for me to meet that she thought would be a great match for me, I agreed. She took cell phone pictures of both of us and showed our pictures to one another, and since we passed the looks test for each other, we exchanged phone numbers. Not knowing what to expect, I called this woman for the first time Thursday night, and we spent almost 2 hours on the phone. We followed that up with an hour plus conversation Friday night and our first date Saturday afternoon. She and I went and had dinner, and then we went and walked around the mall. We spent several hours together, talking and enjoying each other's company, and we actually lost track of time and closed down the mall! This woman I met last night has so much going for her, I am beyond excited at the prospect of seeing her again, and I believe the feeling is mutual. I'm not reading too much into anything, but I had a wonderful time with her. It was definitely the best date I've been on in, well, years, and I can't wait to see where it goes. :)
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Getting to the Root of Islamophobia
Remulak at the Mox Argon blog absolutely nails it in this fine piece of writing. The same type of folks who inhabit the swamps of the race-baiting left (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, call your offices) also inhabit the ranks of the debate stifling Islamofascists. Look at CAIR or any other of a hundred front groups linked to Islamic terrorism, and the first words out of their filthy sewers when anyone dares to criticize them, or worse yet, to speak the truth about their allegainaces, sympathies, and actions are "Bigots!", and other words similarly based in victimhood in their best attempt to call the WAAAAHHHHHH-mbulance. Just like Remulak, my response is simple: screw 'em. I'm not shutting up, and if they think they can make me, they can bring their smelly hides and whatever army of goats they can muster to try and shut me up. To quote the WWE champ John Cena, "If you want some, COME GET SOME!"
"Greetings puny Earthlings.
Last time I talked about why the left is wrong, and today I'd like to take a moment to discuss a word that gets bandied about quite a bit.
No, I'm not talking about 'low-carb,' 'hogzilla,' or 'Sanjaya.'
I'm talking about Islamophobia.
It's not a scientifically accepted phobia like claustrophobia or an amusingly obscure one like triskadekaphobia that I can mention just to show off how much smarter I am than you, but it is a term that gets used quite a lot.
It's supposed to mean an irrational fear of Muslims based on ethnic or religious prejudice, but it serves another purpose entirely.
ITS PURPOSE IS TO STIFLE DEBATE ABOUT THE ROLE OF ISLAM IN TERRORISM
You see, the worst thing you can do to someone in polite liberal society is to call them a bigot. It immediately conjures up images of inbred redneck yokels staring slack-jawed at burning crosses from beneath home-made white hoods while they wait for the Johnny Walker to kick in and give them the courage to jump and lynch some poor innocent guy who happened to be the wrong skin-tone at the wrong place and the wrong time.
Nobody wants to be seen that way.
So they usually shut up, and pass on criticizing people, usually individuals, for their boorish, mean spirited, and sometimes criminal behaviour.
Hell, Al Sharpton's made a career out it, and it's made him rich and powerful.
So the easiest and cheapest way to stop a debate on a topic that you cannot win is to accuse your opposition of being prejudiced.
It's even better if you can come up with a nice, technical sounding buzz-word the media can use, like, let's say.... Islamophobia.
Right now, the major issue of the world is the role of Islam in international terrorism. Now while not all Muslims are terrorists, only a small percentage are, the overwhelming majority of the world's terrorists are Muslim.
I'll bet you dinars to donuts that right now somebody, somewhere is preparing to type the word: Islamophobic racist in my comments section in the vain hope that it will make me shut my proverbial noise hole.
It won't.
It will prove to me that the person typing is wrong and that they most likely support terrorism.
That's a pretty broad assumption, you may declare, what about the majority of Muslims who do not support terrorism?
Those Muslims, or the true moderates, actually want a debate on the issue. They want everything out in the open because evil can only grow in the dark. Sadly, they are often shouted down by the louder and more aggressive Islamist factions that dwell in the mosques and communities like metastasizing cancers looking to kill the entire body.
Look at the groups who use the term Islamophobia and you'll be hard pressed to find any that don't have any connection to groups like Hamas or Al Qaida.
They don't want you to know that, so they play the politically correct victim card to avoid any hard questions.
That's why they demand special treatment in western countries that serves only to isolate and radicalize their communities, while Islamic nations regularly and viciously oppress all other faiths, and call all who dispute it Islamophobes. They know what they are doing is wrong, and destructive to their communities, but they don't care, not when there is power to grab.
However, there's another side to Islamophobia, and that's the fact that:
THERE ARE GOOD REASONS TO BE AN ISLAMOPHOBE
Take a look at the world. It is wracked with wars, civil wars, genocides, and insurgencies.
The majority of these conflicts involve what some call "the bloody borders of Islam." Basically a clash between radicalized Muslim factions and everyone else who doesn't want to be reduced to dhimmi serfdom status or slaughtered.
Everywhere in the world Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Animists, Buddhists, and even other Muslims are being killed in large numbers by radical Islamist groups hopped up on Salafist and Wahhabi theology and oil cash from Middle Eastern dictatorships.
Salafi Islamist theology is almost like a Bizarro-World version of the western world's Greco-Judeo-Christian moral foundation. It is a theology where morality is inverted, where murder replaces discussion, where revenge replaces forgiveness, and power over others replaces love.
And if you claim that I'm full of Syborean nose-nuggets then take a look around and see where rapists are honored while their victims are murdered, where slavery is still practiced and where it's been abolished, and remember who did the abolishing. Look at who lets young girls burn to death rather than allow them to violate a religious taboo of questionable origin and who is horrified by this.
And let's look at the numbers.
The great majority of the world's Muslims just want to live in peace, do their jobs and raise their families. But not all are content.
In the USA, where Muslims live better than anywhere on Earth, way better than in Muslim dominated countries, around a quarter of Muslims between the ages of 18 to 30 believe that suicide bombings can be morally justified.
So let's say that the majority want peace.
But a quarter can cause a hell of a lot of death and destruction if their idea of expressing their faith is blowing up a school full of children.
So let's say that only 10% of the world's Muslims think the sun shines out of Osama Bin Ladin's back orifice and are willing to kill and die for a shot at 72 virgins, that's over one hundred million people worldwide.
Folks have good reason to be afraid.
And yet, the western world has not been swept by hordes of bloodthirsty Americans lynching Muslims on light poles, banning their faith, and burning down their mosques. Aside from isolated cases of misguided and idiotic violence and petty vandalism, Muslims in America have yet to suffer any real backlash for the sins of their brethren thanks to the Western Judeo-Christian ethical foundation.
And there's something else you should know.
RADICAL ISLAMISTS SCARE OTHER MUSLIMS
That's right.
The majority of Muslims are scared to death of the radical Islamist minority who dominate too many of the world's mosques.
Everyday Muslims who wish to live in the 21st century and in peace with their fellow human beings are being threatened, assaulted, and often murdered as 'apostates' or 'false Muslims.'
When a nut-case like Fred Phelps and his 'Christian church' go around ranting and raving, they are mocked and derided by other Christians who know they are radical wankers and treat them accordingly. They do this because they are comfortable that any attempt to intimidate or violently oppress others will get the full weight of the law falling on them like a ton of hardened turds.
However true moderate Muslims don't have that luxury. The radical Islamist factions, while a numerical minority, have the backing of too many governments in Islamist countries, and western governments are too scared to protect the moderates and confront the radicals for fear of being branded Islamophobic.
This leaves the poor true moderates out gunned all over the world. All it takes is the word of a single Imam, or self-declared 'True-Muslim' to get everyone in your family killed. Thus the majority are too scared to truly speak out, and those who do are ostracized, threatened, or even murdered.
So remember these simple points:
*Anyone who uses the term Islamophobia is a supporter of terrorism who wants to use political correctness to stifle debate on a serious issue.
*There are good reasons to be afraid, but we in the west are really ruled by reason & compassion, not fear, despite what the lefties and terror-supporters say.
*Truly moderate Muslims are in the most danger from Islamist radicalism, and they need our support. Support that can't be stopped by the shameful posturing of race baiting radicals trying to use politically correct white guilt to further the cause of oppression."
"Greetings puny Earthlings.
Last time I talked about why the left is wrong, and today I'd like to take a moment to discuss a word that gets bandied about quite a bit.
No, I'm not talking about 'low-carb,' 'hogzilla,' or 'Sanjaya.'
I'm talking about Islamophobia.
It's not a scientifically accepted phobia like claustrophobia or an amusingly obscure one like triskadekaphobia that I can mention just to show off how much smarter I am than you, but it is a term that gets used quite a lot.
It's supposed to mean an irrational fear of Muslims based on ethnic or religious prejudice, but it serves another purpose entirely.
ITS PURPOSE IS TO STIFLE DEBATE ABOUT THE ROLE OF ISLAM IN TERRORISM
You see, the worst thing you can do to someone in polite liberal society is to call them a bigot. It immediately conjures up images of inbred redneck yokels staring slack-jawed at burning crosses from beneath home-made white hoods while they wait for the Johnny Walker to kick in and give them the courage to jump and lynch some poor innocent guy who happened to be the wrong skin-tone at the wrong place and the wrong time.
Nobody wants to be seen that way.
So they usually shut up, and pass on criticizing people, usually individuals, for their boorish, mean spirited, and sometimes criminal behaviour.
Hell, Al Sharpton's made a career out it, and it's made him rich and powerful.
So the easiest and cheapest way to stop a debate on a topic that you cannot win is to accuse your opposition of being prejudiced.
It's even better if you can come up with a nice, technical sounding buzz-word the media can use, like, let's say.... Islamophobia.
Right now, the major issue of the world is the role of Islam in international terrorism. Now while not all Muslims are terrorists, only a small percentage are, the overwhelming majority of the world's terrorists are Muslim.
I'll bet you dinars to donuts that right now somebody, somewhere is preparing to type the word: Islamophobic racist in my comments section in the vain hope that it will make me shut my proverbial noise hole.
It won't.
It will prove to me that the person typing is wrong and that they most likely support terrorism.
That's a pretty broad assumption, you may declare, what about the majority of Muslims who do not support terrorism?
Those Muslims, or the true moderates, actually want a debate on the issue. They want everything out in the open because evil can only grow in the dark. Sadly, they are often shouted down by the louder and more aggressive Islamist factions that dwell in the mosques and communities like metastasizing cancers looking to kill the entire body.
Look at the groups who use the term Islamophobia and you'll be hard pressed to find any that don't have any connection to groups like Hamas or Al Qaida.
They don't want you to know that, so they play the politically correct victim card to avoid any hard questions.
That's why they demand special treatment in western countries that serves only to isolate and radicalize their communities, while Islamic nations regularly and viciously oppress all other faiths, and call all who dispute it Islamophobes. They know what they are doing is wrong, and destructive to their communities, but they don't care, not when there is power to grab.
However, there's another side to Islamophobia, and that's the fact that:
THERE ARE GOOD REASONS TO BE AN ISLAMOPHOBE
Take a look at the world. It is wracked with wars, civil wars, genocides, and insurgencies.
The majority of these conflicts involve what some call "the bloody borders of Islam." Basically a clash between radicalized Muslim factions and everyone else who doesn't want to be reduced to dhimmi serfdom status or slaughtered.
Everywhere in the world Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Animists, Buddhists, and even other Muslims are being killed in large numbers by radical Islamist groups hopped up on Salafist and Wahhabi theology and oil cash from Middle Eastern dictatorships.
Salafi Islamist theology is almost like a Bizarro-World version of the western world's Greco-Judeo-Christian moral foundation. It is a theology where morality is inverted, where murder replaces discussion, where revenge replaces forgiveness, and power over others replaces love.
And if you claim that I'm full of Syborean nose-nuggets then take a look around and see where rapists are honored while their victims are murdered, where slavery is still practiced and where it's been abolished, and remember who did the abolishing. Look at who lets young girls burn to death rather than allow them to violate a religious taboo of questionable origin and who is horrified by this.
And let's look at the numbers.
The great majority of the world's Muslims just want to live in peace, do their jobs and raise their families. But not all are content.
In the USA, where Muslims live better than anywhere on Earth, way better than in Muslim dominated countries, around a quarter of Muslims between the ages of 18 to 30 believe that suicide bombings can be morally justified.
So let's say that the majority want peace.
But a quarter can cause a hell of a lot of death and destruction if their idea of expressing their faith is blowing up a school full of children.
So let's say that only 10% of the world's Muslims think the sun shines out of Osama Bin Ladin's back orifice and are willing to kill and die for a shot at 72 virgins, that's over one hundred million people worldwide.
Folks have good reason to be afraid.
And yet, the western world has not been swept by hordes of bloodthirsty Americans lynching Muslims on light poles, banning their faith, and burning down their mosques. Aside from isolated cases of misguided and idiotic violence and petty vandalism, Muslims in America have yet to suffer any real backlash for the sins of their brethren thanks to the Western Judeo-Christian ethical foundation.
And there's something else you should know.
RADICAL ISLAMISTS SCARE OTHER MUSLIMS
That's right.
The majority of Muslims are scared to death of the radical Islamist minority who dominate too many of the world's mosques.
Everyday Muslims who wish to live in the 21st century and in peace with their fellow human beings are being threatened, assaulted, and often murdered as 'apostates' or 'false Muslims.'
When a nut-case like Fred Phelps and his 'Christian church' go around ranting and raving, they are mocked and derided by other Christians who know they are radical wankers and treat them accordingly. They do this because they are comfortable that any attempt to intimidate or violently oppress others will get the full weight of the law falling on them like a ton of hardened turds.
However true moderate Muslims don't have that luxury. The radical Islamist factions, while a numerical minority, have the backing of too many governments in Islamist countries, and western governments are too scared to protect the moderates and confront the radicals for fear of being branded Islamophobic.
This leaves the poor true moderates out gunned all over the world. All it takes is the word of a single Imam, or self-declared 'True-Muslim' to get everyone in your family killed. Thus the majority are too scared to truly speak out, and those who do are ostracized, threatened, or even murdered.
So remember these simple points:
*Anyone who uses the term Islamophobia is a supporter of terrorism who wants to use political correctness to stifle debate on a serious issue.
*There are good reasons to be afraid, but we in the west are really ruled by reason & compassion, not fear, despite what the lefties and terror-supporters say.
*Truly moderate Muslims are in the most danger from Islamist radicalism, and they need our support. Support that can't be stopped by the shameful posturing of race baiting radicals trying to use politically correct white guilt to further the cause of oppression."
Friday, May 25, 2007
Kris Kobach Tells the Truth About the Illegal Immigration "Compromise"
Attorney Kris Kobach has long been one of my heroes in the legal field for quite some time. He's been at the forefront of trying to change the U.S. government's self-destructive policies regarding illegal immigration from the inside. He has worked with FAIR (Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform), and he was the lead attorney in suing the state of Kansas over its practice of granting illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates at Kansas schools. So when he puts his keen legal eye to work and examines ther "compromise" currently being rammed through the Senate, he finds that it's even worse than we thought. People don't believe this, but not only does this immigration bill have the potential to destroy America as we know it, but it also is likely to radically alter the ethnic and cultural makeup of this country (not in a good way), it will render the GOP a permanent minority to a Democrat supermajority within a generation, and it might even ignite the first flames that lead to a second civil war. I pray every day that people put enough heat on enough representatives to kill this monstrosity before it reaches Presidente Jorge Bush's desk, because he will sign whatever piece of shite immigration bill that lands on his desk. Let's keep the heat on, and pray that we can find enough members of the House to vote against this bill and at least 41 committed Senators to filibuster it.
"The most controversial component of the Senate's Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 is Title VI, euphemistically entitled "Nonimmigrants in the United States Previously in Unlawful Status." It would create a new "Z" visa exclusively for illegal aliens. This title would change the status of those who are here illegally to legal, essentially granting amnesty to those "previously in unlawful status." This seriously flawed proposal would undermine the rule of law by granting massive benefits to those who have willfully violated U.S. laws, while denying those benefits to those who have played by the rules and sometimes even to U.S. citizens.
Flawed Provisions
The following are ten of the worst provisions—by no means an exhaustive list—of Title VI of the bill:
A Massive Amnesty: Title VI of the bill grants amnesty to virtually all of the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the country today. This amnesty would dwarf the amnesty that the United States granted—with disastrous consequences—in 1986 to 2.7 million illegal aliens. It is also a larger amnesty than that proposed in last year's ill-fated Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act. Indeed, the Senate's bill imposes no cap on the total number of individuals who could receive Z-visa status.
To initially qualify for a Z visa, an illegal alien need only have a job (or be the parent, spouse, or child of someone with a job) and provide two documents suggesting that he or she was in the country before January 1, 2007, and has remained in the country since then. A bank statement, pay stub, or similarly forgeable record will do. Also acceptable under the legislation is a sworn affidavit from a non-relative (see Section 601(i)(2)).
The price of a Z visa is $3,000 for individuals—only slightly more than the going rate to hire a coyote to smuggle a person across the border. A family of five could purchase visas for the bargain price of $5,000—some $20,000 short of the net cost that household is likely to impose on local, state, and federal government each year, according to Heritage Foundation calculations.
Expect a mass influx unlike anything this country has ever seen once the 12-month period for accepting Z visa applications begins. These provisions are an open invitation for those intent on U.S. residence to sneak in and present two fraudulent pieces of paper indicating that they were here before the beginning of the year.
That is precisely what happened in the 1986 amnesty, during which Immigration and Naturalization Services discovered 398,000 cases of fraud. Expect the number of fraudulent applications to be at least four times larger this time, given the much larger applicant pool.
The Permanent "Temporary" Visa: Supporters of the bill call the Z visa a "temporary" visa. However, they neglect to mention that it can be renewed every four years until the visa holder dies, according to Section 601(k)(2) of the legislation. This would be the country's first permanent temporary visa. On top of that, it is a "super-visa," allowing the holder to work, attend college, or travel abroad and reenter. These permissible uses are found in Section 602(m).
A law-abiding alien with a normal nonimmigrant visa would surely desire this privileged status. Unfortunately for him, only illegal aliens can qualify, according Section 601(c)(1).
And contrary to popular misconception, illegal aliens need not return to their home countries to apply for the Z visa. That's only necessary if and when an alien decides to adjust from Z visa status to lawful permanent resident ("green card") status under Section 602(a)(1). And even then, it's not really the country of origin; any consulate outside the United States can take applications at its discretion or the direction of the Secretary of State.
Hobbled Background Checks: The bill would make it extremely difficult for the federal government to prevent criminals and terrorists from obtaining legal status. Under Section 601(h)(1), the bill would allow the government only one business day to conduct a background check to determine whether an applicant is a criminal or terrorist. Unless the government can find a reason not to grant it by the end of the next business day after the alien applies, the alien receives a probationary Z visa (good from the time of approval until six months after the date Z visas begin to be approved, however long that may be) that lets him roam throughout the country and seek employment legally.
The problem is that there is no single, readily searchable database of all of the dangerous people in the world. While the federal government does have computer databases of known criminals and terrorists, these databases are far from comprehensive. Much of this kind of information exists in paper records that cannot be searched within 24 hours. Other information is maintained by foreign governments.
The need for effective background checks is real. During the 1986 amnesty, the United States granted legal status to Mahmoud "The Red" Abouhalima, who fraudulently sought and obtained the amnesty intended for seasonal agricultural workers (even though he was actually employed as a cab driver in New York City). But his real work was in the field of terrorism. He went on to become a ringleader in the 1993 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center. Using his new legal status after the amnesty, he was able to travel abroad for terrorist training.
Amnesty for "Absconders": Title VI's amnesty extends even to fugitives who have been ordered deported by an immigration judge but chose to ignore their removal orders. More than 636,000 absconders are now present in the country, having defied the law twice: once when they broke U.S. immigration laws and again when they ignored the orders of the immigration courts.
The Senate's bill allows the government to grant Z visas to absconders. Though the bill appears to deny the visa to absconders in Section 601(d)(1)(B), Section 601(d)(1)(I) allows U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials to give an absconder the Z visa anyway if the absconder can demonstrate that departure from the United States "would result in extreme hardship to the alien or the alien's spouse, parent or child."
This is a massive loophole because so many things can be construed to constitute "extreme hardship." This might include removing a child from an American school and placing him in a school in an impoverished country, or deporting a person with any chronic illness. Attorneys representing aliens would also argue that if any member of an absconder's family is a U.S. citizen, then the other members must remain in the United States, because the separation of family members would constitute extreme hardship.
This would also be a reward to those who have defied U.S. immigration courts. Those who have successfully fled justice could receive the most generous visa ever created, but those who complied with the law and have waited years to enter legally would have to wait longer still. (Indeed, the massive bureaucratic load caused by processing Z visas would undoubtedly mean longer waits for those who have played by the rules.) Further, those who have obeyed the law and complied with deportation orders would not be eligible for Z visas.
The effect of this provision may already be felt today. Why would an illegal alien obey a deportation order while this bill is even pending in Congress? If the alien ignores the deportation order, he may be able to qualify for the amnesty; but if he obeys the order, he has no possibility of gaining the amnesty.
Reverse Justice: The bill would effectively shut down the immigration court system. Under Section 601(h)(6), if an alien in the removal process is "prima facie eligible" for the Z visa, an immigration judge must close any proceedings against the alien and offer the alien an opportunity to apply for amnesty.
Enforcement of Amnesty, Not Laws: The bill would transform Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from a law enforcement agency into an amnesty distribution center. Under Sections 601(h)(1, 5) if an ICE agent apprehends aliens who appear to be eligible for the Z visa (in other words, just about any illegal alien), the agent cannot detain them. Instead, ICE must provide them a reasonable opportunity to apply for the Z visa. Instead of initiating removal proceedings, ICE will be initiating amnesty applications. This is the equivalent of turning the Drug Enforcement Agency into a needle-distribution network.
Amnesty for Gang Members: Under Section 601(g)(2) of the bill, gang members would be eligible to receive amnesty. This comes at a time when violent international gangs, such as Mara Salvatrucha 13 (or "MS-13"), have brought mayhem to U.S. cities. More than 30,000 illegal-alien gang members operate in 33 states, trafficking in drugs, arms, and people. Deporting illegal-alien gang members has been a top ICE priority. The Senate bill would end that. To qualify for amnesty, all a gang member would need to do is note his gang membership and sign a "renunciation of gang affiliation."
Tuition Subsidies for Illegal Aliens: The Senate bill incorporates the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act). The DREAM Act effectively repeals a 1996 federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1623) that prohibits any state from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens. Ten states are currently defying this federal law. Section 616 would allow these and all other states to offer in-state tuition rates to any illegal alien who obtains the Z visa and attends college.
The injustice of this provision is obvious. Illegal aliens would receive a taxpayer subsidy worth tens of thousands of dollars and would be treated better than U.S. citizens from out of state, who must pay three to four times as much to attend college. In an era of limited educational resources and rising tuitions, U.S. citizens, not aliens openly violating federal law, should be first in line to receive education subsidies.
Further, legal aliens who possess an appropriate F, J, or M student visa would not receive this valuable benefit. Nor would they be eligible for the federal student loans that illegal aliens could obtain by this provision.
Taxpayer-Funded Lawyers for Illegal Aliens: The Senate's bill would force taxpayers to foot the bill for many illegal aliens' lawyers. Under current law, illegal aliens are not eligible for federally funded legal services. Section 622(m) of the bill would allow millions of illegal aliens who work in agriculture to receive free legal services. Every illegal alien working in the agricultural sector would have access to an immigration attorney to argue his case through the immigration courts and federal courts of appeals—all at taxpayer expense. This provision alone could cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
Amnesty Before Enforcement Triggers. Proponents of the Senate approach have consistently claimed that it would allow delayed amnesty only after certain law enforcement goals are met. The text of the bill, however, tells a different story. Section 1(a) allows probationary Z visas to be issued immediately after enactment, and Section 601(f)(2) prohibits the federal government from waiting more than 180 days after enactment to begin issuing probationary Z visas.
These probationary Z visas could be valid for years, depending on when the government begins issuing non-probationary Z visas, according to Section 601(h)(4). Moreover, the "probationary" designation means little. These visas are nearly as good as non-probationary Z visas, giving the alien immediate lawful status, protection from deportation, authorization to work, and the ability to exit and reenter the country (with advance permission). These privileges are listed in Section 601(h)(1).
Conclusion
What becomes unmistakably clear from the details of the Senate's bill is that it is not a "compromise" in any meaningful sense. Indeed, the sweeping amnesty provisions of Title VI cripple law enforcement and undermine the rule of law."
"The most controversial component of the Senate's Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 is Title VI, euphemistically entitled "Nonimmigrants in the United States Previously in Unlawful Status." It would create a new "Z" visa exclusively for illegal aliens. This title would change the status of those who are here illegally to legal, essentially granting amnesty to those "previously in unlawful status." This seriously flawed proposal would undermine the rule of law by granting massive benefits to those who have willfully violated U.S. laws, while denying those benefits to those who have played by the rules and sometimes even to U.S. citizens.
Flawed Provisions
The following are ten of the worst provisions—by no means an exhaustive list—of Title VI of the bill:
A Massive Amnesty: Title VI of the bill grants amnesty to virtually all of the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the country today. This amnesty would dwarf the amnesty that the United States granted—with disastrous consequences—in 1986 to 2.7 million illegal aliens. It is also a larger amnesty than that proposed in last year's ill-fated Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act. Indeed, the Senate's bill imposes no cap on the total number of individuals who could receive Z-visa status.
To initially qualify for a Z visa, an illegal alien need only have a job (or be the parent, spouse, or child of someone with a job) and provide two documents suggesting that he or she was in the country before January 1, 2007, and has remained in the country since then. A bank statement, pay stub, or similarly forgeable record will do. Also acceptable under the legislation is a sworn affidavit from a non-relative (see Section 601(i)(2)).
The price of a Z visa is $3,000 for individuals—only slightly more than the going rate to hire a coyote to smuggle a person across the border. A family of five could purchase visas for the bargain price of $5,000—some $20,000 short of the net cost that household is likely to impose on local, state, and federal government each year, according to Heritage Foundation calculations.
Expect a mass influx unlike anything this country has ever seen once the 12-month period for accepting Z visa applications begins. These provisions are an open invitation for those intent on U.S. residence to sneak in and present two fraudulent pieces of paper indicating that they were here before the beginning of the year.
That is precisely what happened in the 1986 amnesty, during which Immigration and Naturalization Services discovered 398,000 cases of fraud. Expect the number of fraudulent applications to be at least four times larger this time, given the much larger applicant pool.
The Permanent "Temporary" Visa: Supporters of the bill call the Z visa a "temporary" visa. However, they neglect to mention that it can be renewed every four years until the visa holder dies, according to Section 601(k)(2) of the legislation. This would be the country's first permanent temporary visa. On top of that, it is a "super-visa," allowing the holder to work, attend college, or travel abroad and reenter. These permissible uses are found in Section 602(m).
A law-abiding alien with a normal nonimmigrant visa would surely desire this privileged status. Unfortunately for him, only illegal aliens can qualify, according Section 601(c)(1).
And contrary to popular misconception, illegal aliens need not return to their home countries to apply for the Z visa. That's only necessary if and when an alien decides to adjust from Z visa status to lawful permanent resident ("green card") status under Section 602(a)(1). And even then, it's not really the country of origin; any consulate outside the United States can take applications at its discretion or the direction of the Secretary of State.
Hobbled Background Checks: The bill would make it extremely difficult for the federal government to prevent criminals and terrorists from obtaining legal status. Under Section 601(h)(1), the bill would allow the government only one business day to conduct a background check to determine whether an applicant is a criminal or terrorist. Unless the government can find a reason not to grant it by the end of the next business day after the alien applies, the alien receives a probationary Z visa (good from the time of approval until six months after the date Z visas begin to be approved, however long that may be) that lets him roam throughout the country and seek employment legally.
The problem is that there is no single, readily searchable database of all of the dangerous people in the world. While the federal government does have computer databases of known criminals and terrorists, these databases are far from comprehensive. Much of this kind of information exists in paper records that cannot be searched within 24 hours. Other information is maintained by foreign governments.
The need for effective background checks is real. During the 1986 amnesty, the United States granted legal status to Mahmoud "The Red" Abouhalima, who fraudulently sought and obtained the amnesty intended for seasonal agricultural workers (even though he was actually employed as a cab driver in New York City). But his real work was in the field of terrorism. He went on to become a ringleader in the 1993 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center. Using his new legal status after the amnesty, he was able to travel abroad for terrorist training.
Amnesty for "Absconders": Title VI's amnesty extends even to fugitives who have been ordered deported by an immigration judge but chose to ignore their removal orders. More than 636,000 absconders are now present in the country, having defied the law twice: once when they broke U.S. immigration laws and again when they ignored the orders of the immigration courts.
The Senate's bill allows the government to grant Z visas to absconders. Though the bill appears to deny the visa to absconders in Section 601(d)(1)(B), Section 601(d)(1)(I) allows U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials to give an absconder the Z visa anyway if the absconder can demonstrate that departure from the United States "would result in extreme hardship to the alien or the alien's spouse, parent or child."
This is a massive loophole because so many things can be construed to constitute "extreme hardship." This might include removing a child from an American school and placing him in a school in an impoverished country, or deporting a person with any chronic illness. Attorneys representing aliens would also argue that if any member of an absconder's family is a U.S. citizen, then the other members must remain in the United States, because the separation of family members would constitute extreme hardship.
This would also be a reward to those who have defied U.S. immigration courts. Those who have successfully fled justice could receive the most generous visa ever created, but those who complied with the law and have waited years to enter legally would have to wait longer still. (Indeed, the massive bureaucratic load caused by processing Z visas would undoubtedly mean longer waits for those who have played by the rules.) Further, those who have obeyed the law and complied with deportation orders would not be eligible for Z visas.
The effect of this provision may already be felt today. Why would an illegal alien obey a deportation order while this bill is even pending in Congress? If the alien ignores the deportation order, he may be able to qualify for the amnesty; but if he obeys the order, he has no possibility of gaining the amnesty.
Reverse Justice: The bill would effectively shut down the immigration court system. Under Section 601(h)(6), if an alien in the removal process is "prima facie eligible" for the Z visa, an immigration judge must close any proceedings against the alien and offer the alien an opportunity to apply for amnesty.
Enforcement of Amnesty, Not Laws: The bill would transform Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from a law enforcement agency into an amnesty distribution center. Under Sections 601(h)(1, 5) if an ICE agent apprehends aliens who appear to be eligible for the Z visa (in other words, just about any illegal alien), the agent cannot detain them. Instead, ICE must provide them a reasonable opportunity to apply for the Z visa. Instead of initiating removal proceedings, ICE will be initiating amnesty applications. This is the equivalent of turning the Drug Enforcement Agency into a needle-distribution network.
Amnesty for Gang Members: Under Section 601(g)(2) of the bill, gang members would be eligible to receive amnesty. This comes at a time when violent international gangs, such as Mara Salvatrucha 13 (or "MS-13"), have brought mayhem to U.S. cities. More than 30,000 illegal-alien gang members operate in 33 states, trafficking in drugs, arms, and people. Deporting illegal-alien gang members has been a top ICE priority. The Senate bill would end that. To qualify for amnesty, all a gang member would need to do is note his gang membership and sign a "renunciation of gang affiliation."
Tuition Subsidies for Illegal Aliens: The Senate bill incorporates the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act). The DREAM Act effectively repeals a 1996 federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1623) that prohibits any state from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens. Ten states are currently defying this federal law. Section 616 would allow these and all other states to offer in-state tuition rates to any illegal alien who obtains the Z visa and attends college.
The injustice of this provision is obvious. Illegal aliens would receive a taxpayer subsidy worth tens of thousands of dollars and would be treated better than U.S. citizens from out of state, who must pay three to four times as much to attend college. In an era of limited educational resources and rising tuitions, U.S. citizens, not aliens openly violating federal law, should be first in line to receive education subsidies.
Further, legal aliens who possess an appropriate F, J, or M student visa would not receive this valuable benefit. Nor would they be eligible for the federal student loans that illegal aliens could obtain by this provision.
Taxpayer-Funded Lawyers for Illegal Aliens: The Senate's bill would force taxpayers to foot the bill for many illegal aliens' lawyers. Under current law, illegal aliens are not eligible for federally funded legal services. Section 622(m) of the bill would allow millions of illegal aliens who work in agriculture to receive free legal services. Every illegal alien working in the agricultural sector would have access to an immigration attorney to argue his case through the immigration courts and federal courts of appeals—all at taxpayer expense. This provision alone could cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
Amnesty Before Enforcement Triggers. Proponents of the Senate approach have consistently claimed that it would allow delayed amnesty only after certain law enforcement goals are met. The text of the bill, however, tells a different story. Section 1(a) allows probationary Z visas to be issued immediately after enactment, and Section 601(f)(2) prohibits the federal government from waiting more than 180 days after enactment to begin issuing probationary Z visas.
These probationary Z visas could be valid for years, depending on when the government begins issuing non-probationary Z visas, according to Section 601(h)(4). Moreover, the "probationary" designation means little. These visas are nearly as good as non-probationary Z visas, giving the alien immediate lawful status, protection from deportation, authorization to work, and the ability to exit and reenter the country (with advance permission). These privileges are listed in Section 601(h)(1).
Conclusion
What becomes unmistakably clear from the details of the Senate's bill is that it is not a "compromise" in any meaningful sense. Indeed, the sweeping amnesty provisions of Title VI cripple law enforcement and undermine the rule of law."
Thursday, May 24, 2007
The Funniest Cheating-Related E-Mail Smackdown Ever
OK, so I got this one from my friend Angie's blog. The first e-mail is from the cheating ho'-bag who is trying to apologize to the guy she cheated on, and his response, which follows, is absolutely priceless. I really couldn't have said it better myself. Read, laugh, and enjoy!
Brad,
It would be difficult for me to be any more miserable right now, I
feel like the worst person ever. First, let me start by saying that
I am truly, truly sorry, and I hate myself for hurting you. Of all the
people in the whole entire world, you were honestly the last person
that I would ever want to wrong in any way. There is no excuse at all
for anything that happened, so I won't even try other than to say all
of us had WAY too much to drink, and I did a stupid thing. I can
handle you being pissed at me, I absolutely deserve it, I can even
handle the ugly words that were exchanged between us, what I can't
handle is thinking that you see me as a different person. It is weird,
I feel like I just went through a horrible break up or something. The
world looked funny yesterday, I couldn't crack a smile if you paid me,
there are songs I can't listen to, and I just feel beyond crushed. I
don't know if you meant everything you said to me, and I am hoping
that you didn't. I know that I was wrong on many levels, but I am also
hoping that this is something that we can deal with. I know it
sounds totally crazy and stupid, but you have come to play such a
significant role in my life, I can't imagine my days without you. It
is totally strange and weird to say that, and you could say that my
behavior didn't reflect that, and you would be correct. I hate feeling
like you hate me, and I hate feeling like all of your friends think I
am a terrible person, because I am not. I know there is nothing I can
say or do to take back what happened, but I just want you to know that
fighting with you was just about the worst thing I could have ever
imagined. It was right up there with one of the ugliest nights of my
life, and I would give anything in the world to rewind and fix it.
I am not sure if you will respond to this, part of me thinks that you
won't. If not today, then maybe some other time. Also, thanks for
getting my stuff together, although I think my sunglasses are still at
your house, if you could keep your eyes peeled for them that would
be great. I can't even focus or work today, I can't eat, I seriously
feel like it was an ugly break up, and I am hoping against hopes that
it was not that and you are not done with me. Please don't cut me off.
I really don't think I can handle that.
I am so sorry.
Elizabeth
HIS REPLY:
----Original Message-----
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: Ugh....enjoy.
Dear Elizabeth,
Thank you for your concern. I'll be sure to file it away under "L"
for "Long-winded diatribes from drunken whores I couldn't care less
about".
You did a stupid thing huh? No...doing long division and forgetting
to carry the one is "a stupid thing"; Mixing in a red sock with a load
of whites is "a stupid thing"; Blowing some guy in a bathroom for 45
minutes while I sit at the bar wondering if you're taking so long
because you ate too much bran that morning isn't as much a "Stupid
thing" as it is grounds for permanent removal from my social calendar.
To be honest, I'm not sure if it was more amusing that you went and
degraded yourself in a public toilet not once but twice in a 2 hour
span, or that you seemed to think that by saying "Well, I didn't
f*ck him" somehow gave you a clean slate.
So forgive me if I couldn't care less if the world "looked funny" to
you yesterday. Since your world revolves around blow dryers, golden
retrievers, Prada Bags and Jelly Beans, I'm sure it must have been
most unsettling to actually have to consider someone else's feelings
for 24 hours straight. The good news for you is that my friends don't
think you're a terrible person, they just think you're the average run
of the mill, cum-guzzling blonde, who commands about as much respect
as your average child porn collector. I could be wrong but, it's pretty hard to respect some Bridge & Tunnel chick who comes out to spend the night at my place, even though she's seeing someone else in New Jersey, and winds up tongue-bathing the taint of anyone who decides 30 minutes of droning commentary on Colin Farrell's new haircut is worth putting up with for a hand job in the men's room. The good thing about being a guy is that when I eventually bump into the young lad who finger-blasted you on top of a towel dispenser last Saturday, we'll have a shot and laugh our heads off about the time it happened.
By the way, for the amount of time you claim to spend in spin class,
you really must be doing something wrong to sport the thunder thighs
you do. Watching you parade around my bedroom in a thong was a little like watching sea lions mate. Thought you might like to know.
PS. I BCC'd about 100 people on this email.
Talk to you never,
Brad
Brad,
It would be difficult for me to be any more miserable right now, I
feel like the worst person ever. First, let me start by saying that
I am truly, truly sorry, and I hate myself for hurting you. Of all the
people in the whole entire world, you were honestly the last person
that I would ever want to wrong in any way. There is no excuse at all
for anything that happened, so I won't even try other than to say all
of us had WAY too much to drink, and I did a stupid thing. I can
handle you being pissed at me, I absolutely deserve it, I can even
handle the ugly words that were exchanged between us, what I can't
handle is thinking that you see me as a different person. It is weird,
I feel like I just went through a horrible break up or something. The
world looked funny yesterday, I couldn't crack a smile if you paid me,
there are songs I can't listen to, and I just feel beyond crushed. I
don't know if you meant everything you said to me, and I am hoping
that you didn't. I know that I was wrong on many levels, but I am also
hoping that this is something that we can deal with. I know it
sounds totally crazy and stupid, but you have come to play such a
significant role in my life, I can't imagine my days without you. It
is totally strange and weird to say that, and you could say that my
behavior didn't reflect that, and you would be correct. I hate feeling
like you hate me, and I hate feeling like all of your friends think I
am a terrible person, because I am not. I know there is nothing I can
say or do to take back what happened, but I just want you to know that
fighting with you was just about the worst thing I could have ever
imagined. It was right up there with one of the ugliest nights of my
life, and I would give anything in the world to rewind and fix it.
I am not sure if you will respond to this, part of me thinks that you
won't. If not today, then maybe some other time. Also, thanks for
getting my stuff together, although I think my sunglasses are still at
your house, if you could keep your eyes peeled for them that would
be great. I can't even focus or work today, I can't eat, I seriously
feel like it was an ugly break up, and I am hoping against hopes that
it was not that and you are not done with me. Please don't cut me off.
I really don't think I can handle that.
I am so sorry.
Elizabeth
HIS REPLY:
----Original Message-----
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: Ugh....enjoy.
Dear Elizabeth,
Thank you for your concern. I'll be sure to file it away under "L"
for "Long-winded diatribes from drunken whores I couldn't care less
about".
You did a stupid thing huh? No...doing long division and forgetting
to carry the one is "a stupid thing"; Mixing in a red sock with a load
of whites is "a stupid thing"; Blowing some guy in a bathroom for 45
minutes while I sit at the bar wondering if you're taking so long
because you ate too much bran that morning isn't as much a "Stupid
thing" as it is grounds for permanent removal from my social calendar.
To be honest, I'm not sure if it was more amusing that you went and
degraded yourself in a public toilet not once but twice in a 2 hour
span, or that you seemed to think that by saying "Well, I didn't
f*ck him" somehow gave you a clean slate.
So forgive me if I couldn't care less if the world "looked funny" to
you yesterday. Since your world revolves around blow dryers, golden
retrievers, Prada Bags and Jelly Beans, I'm sure it must have been
most unsettling to actually have to consider someone else's feelings
for 24 hours straight. The good news for you is that my friends don't
think you're a terrible person, they just think you're the average run
of the mill, cum-guzzling blonde, who commands about as much respect
as your average child porn collector. I could be wrong but, it's pretty hard to respect some Bridge & Tunnel chick who comes out to spend the night at my place, even though she's seeing someone else in New Jersey, and winds up tongue-bathing the taint of anyone who decides 30 minutes of droning commentary on Colin Farrell's new haircut is worth putting up with for a hand job in the men's room. The good thing about being a guy is that when I eventually bump into the young lad who finger-blasted you on top of a towel dispenser last Saturday, we'll have a shot and laugh our heads off about the time it happened.
By the way, for the amount of time you claim to spend in spin class,
you really must be doing something wrong to sport the thunder thighs
you do. Watching you parade around my bedroom in a thong was a little like watching sea lions mate. Thought you might like to know.
PS. I BCC'd about 100 people on this email.
Talk to you never,
Brad
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
How Not to Sound Like a Tool on a Personals Dating Website, For Men
This Rachel Lucas post right here is hilarious and speaks for itself. Thankfully, I was only guilty of one or two of those faux pas (what is the plural of faux pas anyway...faux pases?!) during my online dating days of old. I met some wonderful women, but I was careful, I had some standards, and I seemed to bring at least a few good things to the table because I never had any truly awful horror stories. I can't wait to hear what she says about the women-folk in the very near future.
"Almost all of the single people I know use online dating services; the taboo seems to have completely lifted in the last few years. Because, would it really be better to meet men in bars? Eww. Anyway, so a few months ago, I put a profile on Yahoo! personals just to see what would happen. Then I spent some time searching through all the other profiles, and basically...oh my GOD.
Of the roughly 400 "contacts" I got in the first month, I immediately deleted 95% of them with a cringe on my face because their profiles were just so apocalyptically BAD, but that made me feel kinda mean (really - only a little), and I thought to myself, Self, maybe you can HELP these poor bastards. So, this is for any single guys who are trying to meet women who are both sane and intelligent...
How To NOT Sound Like a Total Dillwad on the Personals:
1. When composing a headline for your profile, never use the phrase "Work Hard, Play Hard!". There are no exceptions to this rule, unless you find a clever way of being sarcastic about it. Such as "Work Hard, Play Hard!...in my pants." Otherwise, you sound like a tool.
2. Do not claim that you love to do "anything outdoors." Unless you really mean it, in which case I have a ditch that needs to be dug.
3. Do not post photos of yourself with attractive women. Women who are evaluating your dateability are NOT TURNED ON by seeing you with your arm around a Hooter's waitress with a dopey grin on your face. It's just the way we are. Get with the program.
4. Don't be a nutburger stalker. When you send a message to a woman, wait 72 hours. If at that point she has not responded, FORGET ABOUT HER. Don't send another message telling her how you rilly rilly are a great guy and she's missing out. Don't send her a second message two hours after the first, telling her she's proven herself to be a typical selfish woman. Do not assume that a lack of response before a few days have passed means she isn't interested in you, but DO assume it beyond that point and walk away with your dignity intact.
5. Don't tell us what your friends think of you. "My friends consider me to be honest, loyal, and fun to be around." What? NO WAY. You must be totally awesome if your FRIENDS think you're a decent person.
6. Do not say, "I love to have a good time." Nuh-UH!! Marry me please, because I just can't meet ANYONE who loves to have a good time. What an unusual quality for a human being.
7. Do not title your headline, "Carpe Diem." Dude. That is the most hackneyed thing you could possibly say. We're OVER it. Great movie, nice concept, but Jesus H. Christ. Just do not say it.
8. Do not title your headline, "Nice Guy...With An Edge." The primary reason for that is, five billion other guys use the same headline. The secondary reason is because it is meaningless and also sounds really fuckin' silly.
9. Ease up on the use of "fairly". There's something about that word that just pisses me off. "I'm fairly successful, I'm fairly new in town, I'm fairly adventurous, blah blah fairly blah" -- seriously, guys. Stop it. Do you TALK like that?
10. Don't say that you used to be a playboy but are now ready to settle down. First of all, if you have to say you were a playboy, you probably weren't. Second, it's kinda repulsive. I hear a man say he used to "play the field" and all I can think about is how many STDs and bastard children he has.
11. Much like #6, do yourself a huge favor and don't say that you "enjoy life." Because, again, NO SHIT. We are all going to go ahead and assume you do, in fact, enjoy life, even if you don't point out such. You may as well tell us that you are glad you can breathe and you don't want to die.
12. This the most important thing of all: LEARN HOW TO SPELL. Especially - I cannot stress this enough - if in your profile, you claim to prefer "smart" women. Because the thing about smart women is, they are wholly repulsed by guys who write like third graders. Here are some actual examples straight off the Yahoo! pages:
"I'm funny and humerous."
"Cool, calm, and collective."
"I tend to be layed back."
"I know your out there!"
"Pin pal needed!"
"Looking for a women who will luv me."
"I perfer smart ladeis." (Good luck with that, genius.)
13. If you have children, trust me, we KNOW you love them. It's kind of assumed, you know. You do not need to say, "I have two boys who are the center of my world. I'd do anything for them. I love them more than life itself. My boys are the sweetest little guys in the world! I have built my life around them." I mean seriously. For the love of GOD.
14. Never, ever, EVER whine in your profile about past relationships and how they scarred you. Nothing says "sexy" like baggage, baby!
15. Don't waste your time initiating contacts with women whose clearly-listed preferences do not in any way resemble YOU. You'll just get deleted. For example, the "my ideal match" list on my profile clearly said I preferred guys who were age 30-40ish, of fit or athletic build, college educated, no kids, not religious, and so on. Yet I got dozens of messages from men in their 60's, 22-year-olds with no job, men built like Michael Moore, men with four kids whom they had full-time custody of, men who said "godliness" was the sexiest quality in a woman -- you get the picture. I'm sure they were all lovely individuals, but the preferences are stated for a reason. I don't want to date men my dad's age, and I don't CARE how much money they've got. I don't want to date men who weigh three times as much as me. I don't want to date men who make half as much money as I do - they're just not trying hard enough. I don't want to date men who get turned on by Jeebus worship, it would only end in mutually assured destruction. And really, if I explicitly state a preference for NO KIDS, get a clue. That probably means I don't really LIKE children, so why would you want me to be around yours?
16. Don't make the fatal mistake of assuming ALL women are crazy bitches who want your money. I know, I know - some of them are. But if your opening line is, "You're cute, but the first thing I want to know is if you're crazy like most chicks and are you looking for a sugardaddy because I'm not into that drama," you go in the Douchebag File of Presumptuous Fucking Douchebags.
17. Do not say that you wish to find a mate with a sense of humor. Come on. Think it through. I'm repeating myself here, but...NO SHIT? You don't want someone with NO sense of humor? Huh. What a rare creature you are.
18. Do not, under any circumstances, wear a cowboy hat in your profile photos. Maybe it's just me, but I do live in Texas and I have asked around, and sorry to break it to you guys but most women really, really, REALLY aren't into the cowboy look unless you very closely resemble Tim McGraw in face and body. Few men can pull it off and not look like total dorks. I'm just trying to help you help yourself here.
19. Severely curtail your use of exclamation points. For example: "I don't want to sound arrogant! But I'm a great guy! Are you a great girl? I love the outdoors! Talk to me! I'm looking to meet nice ladies for friendship and maybe more!" Good lord. Take a deep breath. By the way, I'd like to see MORE use of the semicolon; it can be pretty sexy. One more thing - a profile written ALL CAPS is so very, very wrong. Don't do it.
20. Don't list 500 different activities that you "love to do in your spare time." I've seen profiles that seriously said, "On the weekends, I love to ski, surf, boat, fish, camp, rockclimb, play tennis, play basketball, play golf, hike, work out, watch movies, go to museums, have drinks, grill steaks, and cuddle a special lady." Well. My goodness. Sounds absolutely appalling to me. I guess those are the guys who like to Play Hard?
Bam! I feel so very helpful right now. By the way - I don't have a profile on Yahoo! anymore, and I recently started seeing someone I really like a LOT, so I'm off the market. Probably just broke a trillion hearts.
P.S. In case it seems like I'm being too tough on the guys, just wait; I'm making a guide for women, too, and it's not gonna be pretty. It is my well-researched assessment that the "ladies" are even worse than men as far as sounding like dunderskulls on the personals. By the way - "ladies" - is that what we're calling women now? It makes me throw up in my mouth a little."
"Almost all of the single people I know use online dating services; the taboo seems to have completely lifted in the last few years. Because, would it really be better to meet men in bars? Eww. Anyway, so a few months ago, I put a profile on Yahoo! personals just to see what would happen. Then I spent some time searching through all the other profiles, and basically...oh my GOD.
Of the roughly 400 "contacts" I got in the first month, I immediately deleted 95% of them with a cringe on my face because their profiles were just so apocalyptically BAD, but that made me feel kinda mean (really - only a little), and I thought to myself, Self, maybe you can HELP these poor bastards. So, this is for any single guys who are trying to meet women who are both sane and intelligent...
How To NOT Sound Like a Total Dillwad on the Personals:
1. When composing a headline for your profile, never use the phrase "Work Hard, Play Hard!". There are no exceptions to this rule, unless you find a clever way of being sarcastic about it. Such as "Work Hard, Play Hard!...in my pants." Otherwise, you sound like a tool.
2. Do not claim that you love to do "anything outdoors." Unless you really mean it, in which case I have a ditch that needs to be dug.
3. Do not post photos of yourself with attractive women. Women who are evaluating your dateability are NOT TURNED ON by seeing you with your arm around a Hooter's waitress with a dopey grin on your face. It's just the way we are. Get with the program.
4. Don't be a nutburger stalker. When you send a message to a woman, wait 72 hours. If at that point she has not responded, FORGET ABOUT HER. Don't send another message telling her how you rilly rilly are a great guy and she's missing out. Don't send her a second message two hours after the first, telling her she's proven herself to be a typical selfish woman. Do not assume that a lack of response before a few days have passed means she isn't interested in you, but DO assume it beyond that point and walk away with your dignity intact.
5. Don't tell us what your friends think of you. "My friends consider me to be honest, loyal, and fun to be around." What? NO WAY. You must be totally awesome if your FRIENDS think you're a decent person.
6. Do not say, "I love to have a good time." Nuh-UH!! Marry me please, because I just can't meet ANYONE who loves to have a good time. What an unusual quality for a human being.
7. Do not title your headline, "Carpe Diem." Dude. That is the most hackneyed thing you could possibly say. We're OVER it. Great movie, nice concept, but Jesus H. Christ. Just do not say it.
8. Do not title your headline, "Nice Guy...With An Edge." The primary reason for that is, five billion other guys use the same headline. The secondary reason is because it is meaningless and also sounds really fuckin' silly.
9. Ease up on the use of "fairly". There's something about that word that just pisses me off. "I'm fairly successful, I'm fairly new in town, I'm fairly adventurous, blah blah fairly blah" -- seriously, guys. Stop it. Do you TALK like that?
10. Don't say that you used to be a playboy but are now ready to settle down. First of all, if you have to say you were a playboy, you probably weren't. Second, it's kinda repulsive. I hear a man say he used to "play the field" and all I can think about is how many STDs and bastard children he has.
11. Much like #6, do yourself a huge favor and don't say that you "enjoy life." Because, again, NO SHIT. We are all going to go ahead and assume you do, in fact, enjoy life, even if you don't point out such. You may as well tell us that you are glad you can breathe and you don't want to die.
12. This the most important thing of all: LEARN HOW TO SPELL. Especially - I cannot stress this enough - if in your profile, you claim to prefer "smart" women. Because the thing about smart women is, they are wholly repulsed by guys who write like third graders. Here are some actual examples straight off the Yahoo! pages:
"I'm funny and humerous."
"Cool, calm, and collective."
"I tend to be layed back."
"I know your out there!"
"Pin pal needed!"
"Looking for a women who will luv me."
"I perfer smart ladeis." (Good luck with that, genius.)
13. If you have children, trust me, we KNOW you love them. It's kind of assumed, you know. You do not need to say, "I have two boys who are the center of my world. I'd do anything for them. I love them more than life itself. My boys are the sweetest little guys in the world! I have built my life around them." I mean seriously. For the love of GOD.
14. Never, ever, EVER whine in your profile about past relationships and how they scarred you. Nothing says "sexy" like baggage, baby!
15. Don't waste your time initiating contacts with women whose clearly-listed preferences do not in any way resemble YOU. You'll just get deleted. For example, the "my ideal match" list on my profile clearly said I preferred guys who were age 30-40ish, of fit or athletic build, college educated, no kids, not religious, and so on. Yet I got dozens of messages from men in their 60's, 22-year-olds with no job, men built like Michael Moore, men with four kids whom they had full-time custody of, men who said "godliness" was the sexiest quality in a woman -- you get the picture. I'm sure they were all lovely individuals, but the preferences are stated for a reason. I don't want to date men my dad's age, and I don't CARE how much money they've got. I don't want to date men who weigh three times as much as me. I don't want to date men who make half as much money as I do - they're just not trying hard enough. I don't want to date men who get turned on by Jeebus worship, it would only end in mutually assured destruction. And really, if I explicitly state a preference for NO KIDS, get a clue. That probably means I don't really LIKE children, so why would you want me to be around yours?
16. Don't make the fatal mistake of assuming ALL women are crazy bitches who want your money. I know, I know - some of them are. But if your opening line is, "You're cute, but the first thing I want to know is if you're crazy like most chicks and are you looking for a sugardaddy because I'm not into that drama," you go in the Douchebag File of Presumptuous Fucking Douchebags.
17. Do not say that you wish to find a mate with a sense of humor. Come on. Think it through. I'm repeating myself here, but...NO SHIT? You don't want someone with NO sense of humor? Huh. What a rare creature you are.
18. Do not, under any circumstances, wear a cowboy hat in your profile photos. Maybe it's just me, but I do live in Texas and I have asked around, and sorry to break it to you guys but most women really, really, REALLY aren't into the cowboy look unless you very closely resemble Tim McGraw in face and body. Few men can pull it off and not look like total dorks. I'm just trying to help you help yourself here.
19. Severely curtail your use of exclamation points. For example: "I don't want to sound arrogant! But I'm a great guy! Are you a great girl? I love the outdoors! Talk to me! I'm looking to meet nice ladies for friendship and maybe more!" Good lord. Take a deep breath. By the way, I'd like to see MORE use of the semicolon; it can be pretty sexy. One more thing - a profile written ALL CAPS is so very, very wrong. Don't do it.
20. Don't list 500 different activities that you "love to do in your spare time." I've seen profiles that seriously said, "On the weekends, I love to ski, surf, boat, fish, camp, rockclimb, play tennis, play basketball, play golf, hike, work out, watch movies, go to museums, have drinks, grill steaks, and cuddle a special lady." Well. My goodness. Sounds absolutely appalling to me. I guess those are the guys who like to Play Hard?
Bam! I feel so very helpful right now. By the way - I don't have a profile on Yahoo! anymore, and I recently started seeing someone I really like a LOT, so I'm off the market. Probably just broke a trillion hearts.
P.S. In case it seems like I'm being too tough on the guys, just wait; I'm making a guide for women, too, and it's not gonna be pretty. It is my well-researched assessment that the "ladies" are even worse than men as far as sounding like dunderskulls on the personals. By the way - "ladies" - is that what we're calling women now? It makes me throw up in my mouth a little."
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Mrs. DuToit Calls Out Soft America
While I am of the Bill Whittle belief that Americans are, at their core, warriors who would fight to the death for everything we've worked so hard to build over the generations, I think that in the case of anything short of that, we are soft on the outside, with no more patience than your average toddler on a cross-country car trip. Mrs. DuToit waxes eloquent on that very point, our collective lack of stamina as a nation of late, here. It's good reading, I just wish she weren't so right sometimes.
"I, probably like many Americans, have been struggling with the illegal immigration issue. It isn’t because I don’t understand the various arguments, or even that I don’t agree with many of them, but it is because (I think) the issue is extremely complicated. It is one of those situations where there is no perfect answer, nothing even remotely close to solving the problem, and that leaves me feeling a bit impotent on the issue.
Here are a few random tidbits that float around in my head, competing for dominance:
1. Most people from South America who come here to work don’t want to stay here. That alone (barring any other issue) makes South American immigration unique. Without getting into the nuisances of it or trying to come up with a definition of what is good or better about our two cultures, South Americans (and most specifically Mexicans) like their homeland and culture. They see no reason to adopt ours. As I said, for many, coming here is just a way to make some money to send home, or to enable them to get enough money to have a life back home, which they’ll go to, when they have the money they need.
2. I have trouble with the carrot issue. There are incentives to come here illegally. It has always worked in the past, and coming here with the intention of battling the immigration nightmare after arrival (rather than waiting for your lottery number to come up) has always been more effective. And, I believe, we like that chutzpah. Despite the whining and griping we may express, at the heart of it I think we do like it. We do like that someone says, “screw it, I’m going to America.” Most of our ancestors did and we feel a kinship with a person who would take that kind of risk.
3. I won’t go so far as to say that our illegal immigration concerns are because we’re bigoted against Latinos (although some may have those thoughts), I think the bigger issue is one of assimilation, or the refusal to do so. I think the thing that bugs us the most about Latino immigration is that it is possible for them to come here and never learn English. There is a lot of Spanish-speaking infrastructure (businesses, media, etc.). They never become what we want immigrants to be: having fond memories of the family and home country they left behind, but 100% committed to fitting it and never looking back. That means speaking English and it also means adopting aspects of our culture that we loosely consider American: Hard working, disgusted and ashamed at the prospect of charity or government hand outs, respectful of laws, entrepreneurial, hoping our children do better than us, and speaking the truth.
While South Americans haven’t cornered the market on not doing those things (certainly other cultures don’t share our disgust at accepting hand-outs), the mix seems to be uniquely South American. Family is more important to career in Mexico, for example. That has been one of the problems of the businesses that have attempted to operate in Mexico. If there is something happening with family, they’ll just not show up for work. Showing up your parents educationally and financially is another cultural taboo. I don’t think that one way of life is better, but it is different, and we want to reconcile it the way current Americans handle it, regardless if it is better or worse.
The other big difference with Mexico specifically (and other places in South America) is the acceptance of graft or dishonesty. There is an “us vs them” culture in South America, where the ruling class has always bossed the peasants around. To deal with that, the peasants just ignored them as much as possible, paying lip service to their imposed rules and laws, rather than trying to change them, and worked and existed in spite of them. That cultural difference, of taking ownership of your society, is a huge chasm in how we approach government and our neighbors. We own our country and are mindful of government or a ruling class who tries to tell everyone what to do. The concept of We, The People is not shared by the rest of the continent.
And last, but (certainly) not least…
4. We are a nation of laws. I know that some might take issue with that, or we might agree we have become a nation of too many laws, but the fact of that matter is, regardless of how much we have gone too far in one direction or another, most of us still feel (or still hope) that We, The People are the captains of this ship. Others might argue that we’ve lost control or that our nation is nearing the point of sinking (or reset) but most of us don’t feel that way. The thing about the illegal immigration thing that troubles us so much is that we are giving every appearance of being in one voice on the matter (or there is consensus so large that it is as close to “one voice” as we’ve been about something in a long time). The fact that our representatives are not hearing that voice is making many of us angry. If we can’t get them to do what we say when we’re this much in agreement on an issue, what hope is there when we need leadership to guide us when we are fractured in our wants and desires? That’s where the anger comes from. It isn’t just the illegal immigration issue. It is the “why aren’t they doing as we ask” issue. It is all about our confidence in our system, and our representatives.
On the issue of immigration, of the illegal variety, I think many of us feel that we have reached a crisis point—that some thing needs to be done to alter the direction.
I share that belief, but I’m not so sure it is 100% correct. What some thing or series of things?
Some problems cannot be solved. We can make them better. We can try to do the best job we can, but some problems are not solvable. The solutions to the problems are more horrific than the problem we’re trying to solve. That doesn’t mean we throw our hands up, but maybe we sit on them for a while.
So many of us look at the idea of a fence and see that it would probably improve the situation, but we don’t see it as the panacea that others might think it would be.
Many of us look at the idea of amnesty or a path to citizenship with a jaundiced eye, either as rewarding people for breaking the law (bad), or foolish given the cultural differences and the lack of desire among many who are here illegally to become citizens (stupid), as I mentioned above.
We keep hearing about the millions and millions of illegals who are here now, who have been here for many years, and may (or may not) be taking advantage of our open society and our hospitality.
It also seems as if the wake up call that was 9/11 appears to have been forgotten by many, and there is concern that some people (especially our representatives) may have been awake for a while, but they’ve either decided to take a nap or have bedded down for a long slumber.
The above just touches on the issues and the conflicts. There are hundreds of nuisances and different branches to explore and study the matter with hopes of coming up with a series of strategies to attempt to make the problem better.
But I have a theory as to why our representatives may not be doing as we ask (besides allowing for a small number who have pocketbook or selfishly ulterior motives, which is always a possibility for the few):
They don’t believe we have the stamina to see it through.
That is certainly what I think. I think lots of folks talk tough on a lot of issues. There were lots of folks wanting a reckoning after 9/11, but if it is correct that the majority of the people now want us out of Iraq, after only an incredibly short time to make a miracle in the Middle East, what would our resolve be when the mainstream media starts showing us pictures of crying babes and sobbing women who are being separated by the immigration cops? If we can’t keep our morale and resolve up when there are people cutting off the heads of our citizens, who put people into meat grinders, what hope is there for people who “just want to make a better life for themselves” being dragged off and thrown back across the border?
I think we’d buckle. Buckling is bad. It shows the rest of the world our underbelly in ways we wouldn’t show if we didn’t attempt it in the first place.
I think that is why our representatives have been stalling—or waiting—or trying to come up with all sorts of not-so-brutal methods of addressing the larger problem.
If We, as Americans, can really think this one through, if we can keep the pressure on for months and months and not be distracted and forget about this issue, then maybe we can get our representatives to act in a way of our choosing. But if we are going to become the fickle and easily tired when it gets difficult, if people haven’t thought through their reaction to seeing babies separated from their mothers, of children being thrown back into a world of hopelessness, rampant disease, and poverty, then people aren’t serious about the issue. They don’t (or won’t) have the stomach for it.
Unless you can deal with those images, unless you have thought it through and have decided that you want 10 to 20 million people to be rounded up and sent back to wherever they came from, no exceptions, no capitulation, then we’re not serious as a people, and we have to address this issue another way.
Sometimes, when given a series of bad choices, none of which are guaranteed to succeed or make the situation remarkably better, or if we’re not willing to commit to it fully and see it through to the finish, then the wisest choice is to do nothing, even if nothing seems like a terrible choice, too.
It isn’t a pleasant thought. It certainly isn’t the only option, but it may be the best one… at least for now.
It may take another terrorist attack on our soil for people to get it. It may take situations where the National Guard is called into service to handle the lawlessness and anarchy created by a community of undocumented workers making an area hell on earth. It may take further collapse of infrastructure, of more towns going bankrupt from the weight of the requirements, or prison over crowding to the extent of a breakdown. Maybe none of it will come to pass. Or maybe it will happen tomorrow.
Time will tell."
"I, probably like many Americans, have been struggling with the illegal immigration issue. It isn’t because I don’t understand the various arguments, or even that I don’t agree with many of them, but it is because (I think) the issue is extremely complicated. It is one of those situations where there is no perfect answer, nothing even remotely close to solving the problem, and that leaves me feeling a bit impotent on the issue.
Here are a few random tidbits that float around in my head, competing for dominance:
1. Most people from South America who come here to work don’t want to stay here. That alone (barring any other issue) makes South American immigration unique. Without getting into the nuisances of it or trying to come up with a definition of what is good or better about our two cultures, South Americans (and most specifically Mexicans) like their homeland and culture. They see no reason to adopt ours. As I said, for many, coming here is just a way to make some money to send home, or to enable them to get enough money to have a life back home, which they’ll go to, when they have the money they need.
2. I have trouble with the carrot issue. There are incentives to come here illegally. It has always worked in the past, and coming here with the intention of battling the immigration nightmare after arrival (rather than waiting for your lottery number to come up) has always been more effective. And, I believe, we like that chutzpah. Despite the whining and griping we may express, at the heart of it I think we do like it. We do like that someone says, “screw it, I’m going to America.” Most of our ancestors did and we feel a kinship with a person who would take that kind of risk.
3. I won’t go so far as to say that our illegal immigration concerns are because we’re bigoted against Latinos (although some may have those thoughts), I think the bigger issue is one of assimilation, or the refusal to do so. I think the thing that bugs us the most about Latino immigration is that it is possible for them to come here and never learn English. There is a lot of Spanish-speaking infrastructure (businesses, media, etc.). They never become what we want immigrants to be: having fond memories of the family and home country they left behind, but 100% committed to fitting it and never looking back. That means speaking English and it also means adopting aspects of our culture that we loosely consider American: Hard working, disgusted and ashamed at the prospect of charity or government hand outs, respectful of laws, entrepreneurial, hoping our children do better than us, and speaking the truth.
While South Americans haven’t cornered the market on not doing those things (certainly other cultures don’t share our disgust at accepting hand-outs), the mix seems to be uniquely South American. Family is more important to career in Mexico, for example. That has been one of the problems of the businesses that have attempted to operate in Mexico. If there is something happening with family, they’ll just not show up for work. Showing up your parents educationally and financially is another cultural taboo. I don’t think that one way of life is better, but it is different, and we want to reconcile it the way current Americans handle it, regardless if it is better or worse.
The other big difference with Mexico specifically (and other places in South America) is the acceptance of graft or dishonesty. There is an “us vs them” culture in South America, where the ruling class has always bossed the peasants around. To deal with that, the peasants just ignored them as much as possible, paying lip service to their imposed rules and laws, rather than trying to change them, and worked and existed in spite of them. That cultural difference, of taking ownership of your society, is a huge chasm in how we approach government and our neighbors. We own our country and are mindful of government or a ruling class who tries to tell everyone what to do. The concept of We, The People is not shared by the rest of the continent.
And last, but (certainly) not least…
4. We are a nation of laws. I know that some might take issue with that, or we might agree we have become a nation of too many laws, but the fact of that matter is, regardless of how much we have gone too far in one direction or another, most of us still feel (or still hope) that We, The People are the captains of this ship. Others might argue that we’ve lost control or that our nation is nearing the point of sinking (or reset) but most of us don’t feel that way. The thing about the illegal immigration thing that troubles us so much is that we are giving every appearance of being in one voice on the matter (or there is consensus so large that it is as close to “one voice” as we’ve been about something in a long time). The fact that our representatives are not hearing that voice is making many of us angry. If we can’t get them to do what we say when we’re this much in agreement on an issue, what hope is there when we need leadership to guide us when we are fractured in our wants and desires? That’s where the anger comes from. It isn’t just the illegal immigration issue. It is the “why aren’t they doing as we ask” issue. It is all about our confidence in our system, and our representatives.
On the issue of immigration, of the illegal variety, I think many of us feel that we have reached a crisis point—that some thing needs to be done to alter the direction.
I share that belief, but I’m not so sure it is 100% correct. What some thing or series of things?
Some problems cannot be solved. We can make them better. We can try to do the best job we can, but some problems are not solvable. The solutions to the problems are more horrific than the problem we’re trying to solve. That doesn’t mean we throw our hands up, but maybe we sit on them for a while.
So many of us look at the idea of a fence and see that it would probably improve the situation, but we don’t see it as the panacea that others might think it would be.
Many of us look at the idea of amnesty or a path to citizenship with a jaundiced eye, either as rewarding people for breaking the law (bad), or foolish given the cultural differences and the lack of desire among many who are here illegally to become citizens (stupid), as I mentioned above.
We keep hearing about the millions and millions of illegals who are here now, who have been here for many years, and may (or may not) be taking advantage of our open society and our hospitality.
It also seems as if the wake up call that was 9/11 appears to have been forgotten by many, and there is concern that some people (especially our representatives) may have been awake for a while, but they’ve either decided to take a nap or have bedded down for a long slumber.
The above just touches on the issues and the conflicts. There are hundreds of nuisances and different branches to explore and study the matter with hopes of coming up with a series of strategies to attempt to make the problem better.
But I have a theory as to why our representatives may not be doing as we ask (besides allowing for a small number who have pocketbook or selfishly ulterior motives, which is always a possibility for the few):
They don’t believe we have the stamina to see it through.
That is certainly what I think. I think lots of folks talk tough on a lot of issues. There were lots of folks wanting a reckoning after 9/11, but if it is correct that the majority of the people now want us out of Iraq, after only an incredibly short time to make a miracle in the Middle East, what would our resolve be when the mainstream media starts showing us pictures of crying babes and sobbing women who are being separated by the immigration cops? If we can’t keep our morale and resolve up when there are people cutting off the heads of our citizens, who put people into meat grinders, what hope is there for people who “just want to make a better life for themselves” being dragged off and thrown back across the border?
I think we’d buckle. Buckling is bad. It shows the rest of the world our underbelly in ways we wouldn’t show if we didn’t attempt it in the first place.
I think that is why our representatives have been stalling—or waiting—or trying to come up with all sorts of not-so-brutal methods of addressing the larger problem.
If We, as Americans, can really think this one through, if we can keep the pressure on for months and months and not be distracted and forget about this issue, then maybe we can get our representatives to act in a way of our choosing. But if we are going to become the fickle and easily tired when it gets difficult, if people haven’t thought through their reaction to seeing babies separated from their mothers, of children being thrown back into a world of hopelessness, rampant disease, and poverty, then people aren’t serious about the issue. They don’t (or won’t) have the stomach for it.
Unless you can deal with those images, unless you have thought it through and have decided that you want 10 to 20 million people to be rounded up and sent back to wherever they came from, no exceptions, no capitulation, then we’re not serious as a people, and we have to address this issue another way.
Sometimes, when given a series of bad choices, none of which are guaranteed to succeed or make the situation remarkably better, or if we’re not willing to commit to it fully and see it through to the finish, then the wisest choice is to do nothing, even if nothing seems like a terrible choice, too.
It isn’t a pleasant thought. It certainly isn’t the only option, but it may be the best one… at least for now.
It may take another terrorist attack on our soil for people to get it. It may take situations where the National Guard is called into service to handle the lawlessness and anarchy created by a community of undocumented workers making an area hell on earth. It may take further collapse of infrastructure, of more towns going bankrupt from the weight of the requirements, or prison over crowding to the extent of a breakdown. Maybe none of it will come to pass. Or maybe it will happen tomorrow.
Time will tell."
Monday, May 21, 2007
We Will Rock the Amnesty Conspiracy Away
So, the ruling elites have decided to shove mass illegal immigrant amnesty down our throats? Like every trained socialist before them, they expect no reaction from normally well-behaved, law-abiding citizens as they chip away our freedoms and sovereignty a piece at a time. Perhaps they forget that the blood coursing through the veins of each and every good man and woman in this country comes from the stock of the rowdy patriots who put King George in his place and routed the mighty British army, at the time, the most powerful military force on earth. Perhaps they need a reminder, like this one. Today's required reading...read the whole thing.
[FOREWORD: These speculations may make some uncomfortable. Some may deem them irresponsible. That's understandable--we're good and peaceable people, and the thought of actually resisting encroaching tyranny is beyond the experience of most of us. We want to be able to resolve things with words, with reason.
There will also no doubt be those who say this crosses the boundaries of free speech and enters into the realm of inciting crime--they may even deem such words "domestic terrorism." My intent of posting this essay is to illustrate what has been done historically by people we now revere as champions of Liberty--and to illustrate what could happen again if those who just keep pushing with the intent of destroying Freedom don't back off.
Against that background, these speculations could be considered a modest response. Having children, it is my desperate wish--and the reason I have devoted much of my life to fighting the tyranny of gun control--that reason will prevail. It's why I try to rally people to get involved--so that we become so strong, that the potential for confrontation and conflict diminishes into improbability.
Because of this, I don't endorse Mike's conclusion--and that is possibly because he is a more direct and courageous man than me. Nonetheless, I've never insisted on people agreeing with me, and think it's critically important that people understand such sentiments as expressed herein exist. The cynic in me says my way--getting enough people involved and radicalized to render our enemies impotent--is probably a fool's errand. The idealist in me says I can't stop trying.
So perhaps my timidity is helping to keep the frog in the pot. Or perhaps, enough time is being bought so that when the frog finally jumps, he won't be alone.
Read Mike's latest, and make up your own mind.--DC]
Rock 'Em: The Last Chance to Stop the Amnesty Conspiracy
By Mike Vanderboegh
Rebellion is my theme all day;
I only wish ‘twould come
(As who knows but perhaps it may?)
A little nearer home.
Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t’other side the Atlantic,
I always held them in the right,
But most so when most frantic.
When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.
-- The Modern Patriot, William Cowper, 1779.
"And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had...and his sling was in his hand; and he drew near to the Philistines."-- 1 Samuel 17:40.
"Hey, I'm a voter. Aren't you supposed to kiss my butt?"
"The Amnesty Conspiracy's bipartisan toadies in the United States Senate wish to ring the death knell for the Founder's Republic. As soon as the 20 million illegals who are now here are, presto, change-o, dubbed "American citizens" and their relatives in the millions upon millions are brought north in "compassionate" reuniting grace, you can hang up any thought of a return to the limited government and constitutional rule of law of the Founders.
Are you concerned about gun confiscation? Its a fact of life in Mexico. Big government intrusion on private free enterprise? Can you say PEMEX? Worried about campaign finance and political corruption? The Mexicans have a word for the endemic bribery that characterizes their government: "mordida"-- the bite, and they expect to be bitten by every official at every level. No matter what issue concerns you, the undeniable tidal wave of a deliberately imported third world culture is about to swamp it.
Let's face it, the only reason we've been electorally competitive this long is that the liberals have been murdering the children within their wombs for the past 35 years. Well, they're going to be importing those wombs now to finish the job.
These folks, God bless 'em, are used to nationalized industries, gun control, soldiers walking the streets dispensing their own rough "justice" with machineguns, identity-grievance politics and, above all, the undefeatable evil synergy of crooked politicians and drug lords controlling events. They are used to being ruled by a godless oligarchy of the privileged rich who know what's "best" for them. You know, they're Democrats.
You may ask anyone familiar with Mexican history since 1912 what the rule of law means south of the border. Or, for a modern example closer to home, take a look at some of the seamier La Raza-dominated suburbs of LA. These millions of newly minted citizens will toil upon the Democrat latifundistas' political plantations as indentured servants for the next fifty years and gradually, in the end, the American Republic will be as dead as its Greek and Roman predecessors. If, that is, it doesn't catastrophically collapse in the next decade or so in a welter of racial warfare and Balkan "ethnic cleansing" that will make the former Yugoslavia look like a kindergarten at play. The devil will walk abroad in the land and our children's children's children will curse our folly.
What then shall we do? Both political parties are equally complicit, ignoring the law and their own sworn oaths to the Constitution, not to mention the polls and the plain will of the majority of the American people who wish them to secure the border, enforce immigration laws and jail the employers of illegals. Like Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, we can only plaintively wonder: "Hey, I'm a voter. Aren't you supposed to kiss my butt?"
You can laugh, but make it a bitter laughter. The Amnesty Conspirators are willing to flout the received political wisdom of the way things are supposed to work because they believe they can change the entire equation of political power in this country without consequence to themselves. They believe that we, the voters, will get mad but that we won't get even. They believe that by the time we figure out what happened, it will be too late.
The last whispered hope of the anti-amnesty politicos is that the House will stop the Senate bill. Now, given all that's happened in the past fifteen years, that is a slender reed indeed to pin your children's future on. I have a better idea. It's an old idea, but I believe that its time has come round again.
"If breaking windows be the sport..."
The breaking windows that the English poet Cowper was celebrating were the windows of American Tories, broken by the Sons of Liberty in the run-up to the American Revolution. In Eighteenth Century America, windows were expensive and difficult to replace. It was said you could tell an American colonist's wealth by the size and number of the windows in his house. As most of the high-ranking Tories loyal to the King were rich, their windows became natural targets when the Sons of Liberty wanted to send a message. If the head of the local militia was a Tory, he would be persuaded to resign his commission by breaking his windows. If a Boston merchant refused to join the boycott of British goods, he would have to hire a glazier in the morning. Tax collectors and other crown functionaries shuttered their houses, only have the shutters torn from their hinges by a mob and then have their windows broken. Sounds harsh? The rise of American independence was accompanied by the tune of breaking glass, and we wouldn't be free today without it.
Of course how free we are, and are going to be, is the question, isn't it? Eight years ago I wrote a speculative piece of fiction called "The Window War" about what might happen if gunowners, outraged by one too many laws restricting their natural, God-given and traditional rights, took the Sons of Liberty's methods to heart and hand.
(You can find it at: http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=1604)
The story circulated to modest approval in the email circles of my fellow gunnies and then dropped into the electronic wastebasket of history. Dropped, that is, until the election crisis of 2000. On the 11th of November of that disputatious year, a fellow named Jeff Head reposted The Window War on the Free Republic website with the notation: "Not advocating anything here. . .just wondering if Mike had thought about a work of fiction called "'Window War II' as it applies to fraudulent elections?" Free Republic was at that time (before its editorial sanitizing in later years by the myrmidons of the Republican National Committee) the premier forum by which conservative activists communicated. Other "Freeper" posters agreed, saying things like "have rocks will travel". The discussion percolated for a few days and then died, until....
"We would not tolerate an illegal government."
Friday November 24 3:11 PM ET
Amid protest, Fla. Counties Plow on With Recount
By Marianne Armshaw and Michael Conner
West Palm Beach, Fla. (Reuters)
Dozens of supporters of Republican George W. Bush protested on Friday against what they called Democrat efforts to "steal" the U.S. Presidential election for Al Gore as Friday's Palm Beach and Broward counties plowed on with reviewing disputed ballots. . .
Unknown persons threw a brick through a window at the Democratic Party's Broward County headquarters late on Thursday or early on Friday when the office was closed, police said. Scrawled on the brick was the message: : "We would not tolerate an illegal government." Plantation, Florida, police were investigating the incident, in which no one was injured.
Within 34 minutes this story was posted on Free Republic with the screaming banner: "The Window War has Begun!" Whether because of the intimidation of the brick or not, the Broward County Dems folded their recount efforts shortly thereafter, and one by one, the rest of the Florida Democratic Party county election officials involved in recounts followed suit over the next several days. Eventually, the Supreme Court settled the issue.
"We have been too law-abiding."
You know, I'd like to think that the fellow who threw that brick had read my piece, but I have no idea. Even if he did, did the brick intimidate the Broward County Dems? Who knows? But I do know this: liberals as a class are cowards. The political/business/racial-identity cabal that makes up the Amnesty Conspiracy are cowards as well. Heck, I know of no American liberals who have been willing to personally suffer, let alone die, for any of their misbegotten beliefs since the early 1960s. They get government to do the heavy lifting for them. They genuflect at its altar and cannot comprehend anyone else who doesn't. And one other thing: they never, ever think that their public actions and pronouncements will have private consequences. And why should they? As I observed in the afterward to "The Window War":
"For sixty years, the liberals have used our respect for the law against us. Each time they moved the line of law to further their agenda, breaking off a bit of the Constitution, we, as law-abiding citizens have backed up grumbling but complying. And why should they stop pushing us back from our God-given liberties? We've never pushed back to stop them. We have been too law-abiding."
"I aim to misbehave."
We are at a crossroads in our history. No one can deny it. If this amnesty passes into law, everything after it will be changed in ways that are surely as preventable as they are foreseeable. The Mandarin class of our "betters" has decided they no longer need to listen to us. How then shall we get their attention? What will it take to change the disastrous future they seek to write for us?
Maybe a Sons of Liberty brick through the window of every Democrat and Republican county headquarters with "Jail illegal employers!" written on one side and "No amnesty!" on the other will work. As a tactic, it does have the advantage of having been successfully employed in the past. Just ask Sam Adams. It is past time to demonstrate to the arrogant political class who believe themselves to be our rulers and not our servants that the Sons of Liberty still live. It is time to get their attention. It is time, in the words the fictional Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the Firefly class space freighter Serenity, to "misbehave." Remember, "behaving" has gotten us to this point. What have we got to lose? More importantly, what will we lose if we don't?
For those of you who would hesitate at vandalism in liberty's cause, perhaps you could deliver the brick to your particular politician's office with the message and the implication. They listened last year when thousands shipped bricks to them to build the wall. Maybe they'll listen if you tell them that this time it's through the door by mail, next time it's through the window by hand. Heck, just print out this essay and wrap the brick in it. They'll get the message.
There are those who say that I should be arrested for simply making the suggestion that deliberate political vandalism in the defense of liberty is no vice. I quote to them, "If this be treason, then make the most of it!" To my American brothers and sisters of all races, religions and creeds, who believe as I do -- to those who believe not in the false collectivist promises of those who would rule us, but in the individual liberty and prosperity of the shining city on a hill that was and is the promise of the Founder's Republic -- I say to you: "ROCK 'EM." Let the Window War begin. It won't take long to get the attention of the cowardly and treasonable Amnesty Conspirators. And when we do, somewhere Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty of old will be smiling."
[FOREWORD: These speculations may make some uncomfortable. Some may deem them irresponsible. That's understandable--we're good and peaceable people, and the thought of actually resisting encroaching tyranny is beyond the experience of most of us. We want to be able to resolve things with words, with reason.
There will also no doubt be those who say this crosses the boundaries of free speech and enters into the realm of inciting crime--they may even deem such words "domestic terrorism." My intent of posting this essay is to illustrate what has been done historically by people we now revere as champions of Liberty--and to illustrate what could happen again if those who just keep pushing with the intent of destroying Freedom don't back off.
Against that background, these speculations could be considered a modest response. Having children, it is my desperate wish--and the reason I have devoted much of my life to fighting the tyranny of gun control--that reason will prevail. It's why I try to rally people to get involved--so that we become so strong, that the potential for confrontation and conflict diminishes into improbability.
Because of this, I don't endorse Mike's conclusion--and that is possibly because he is a more direct and courageous man than me. Nonetheless, I've never insisted on people agreeing with me, and think it's critically important that people understand such sentiments as expressed herein exist. The cynic in me says my way--getting enough people involved and radicalized to render our enemies impotent--is probably a fool's errand. The idealist in me says I can't stop trying.
So perhaps my timidity is helping to keep the frog in the pot. Or perhaps, enough time is being bought so that when the frog finally jumps, he won't be alone.
Read Mike's latest, and make up your own mind.--DC]
Rock 'Em: The Last Chance to Stop the Amnesty Conspiracy
By Mike Vanderboegh
Rebellion is my theme all day;
I only wish ‘twould come
(As who knows but perhaps it may?)
A little nearer home.
Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t’other side the Atlantic,
I always held them in the right,
But most so when most frantic.
When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.
-- The Modern Patriot, William Cowper, 1779.
"And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had...and his sling was in his hand; and he drew near to the Philistines."-- 1 Samuel 17:40.
"Hey, I'm a voter. Aren't you supposed to kiss my butt?"
"The Amnesty Conspiracy's bipartisan toadies in the United States Senate wish to ring the death knell for the Founder's Republic. As soon as the 20 million illegals who are now here are, presto, change-o, dubbed "American citizens" and their relatives in the millions upon millions are brought north in "compassionate" reuniting grace, you can hang up any thought of a return to the limited government and constitutional rule of law of the Founders.
Are you concerned about gun confiscation? Its a fact of life in Mexico. Big government intrusion on private free enterprise? Can you say PEMEX? Worried about campaign finance and political corruption? The Mexicans have a word for the endemic bribery that characterizes their government: "mordida"-- the bite, and they expect to be bitten by every official at every level. No matter what issue concerns you, the undeniable tidal wave of a deliberately imported third world culture is about to swamp it.
Let's face it, the only reason we've been electorally competitive this long is that the liberals have been murdering the children within their wombs for the past 35 years. Well, they're going to be importing those wombs now to finish the job.
These folks, God bless 'em, are used to nationalized industries, gun control, soldiers walking the streets dispensing their own rough "justice" with machineguns, identity-grievance politics and, above all, the undefeatable evil synergy of crooked politicians and drug lords controlling events. They are used to being ruled by a godless oligarchy of the privileged rich who know what's "best" for them. You know, they're Democrats.
You may ask anyone familiar with Mexican history since 1912 what the rule of law means south of the border. Or, for a modern example closer to home, take a look at some of the seamier La Raza-dominated suburbs of LA. These millions of newly minted citizens will toil upon the Democrat latifundistas' political plantations as indentured servants for the next fifty years and gradually, in the end, the American Republic will be as dead as its Greek and Roman predecessors. If, that is, it doesn't catastrophically collapse in the next decade or so in a welter of racial warfare and Balkan "ethnic cleansing" that will make the former Yugoslavia look like a kindergarten at play. The devil will walk abroad in the land and our children's children's children will curse our folly.
What then shall we do? Both political parties are equally complicit, ignoring the law and their own sworn oaths to the Constitution, not to mention the polls and the plain will of the majority of the American people who wish them to secure the border, enforce immigration laws and jail the employers of illegals. Like Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, we can only plaintively wonder: "Hey, I'm a voter. Aren't you supposed to kiss my butt?"
You can laugh, but make it a bitter laughter. The Amnesty Conspirators are willing to flout the received political wisdom of the way things are supposed to work because they believe they can change the entire equation of political power in this country without consequence to themselves. They believe that we, the voters, will get mad but that we won't get even. They believe that by the time we figure out what happened, it will be too late.
The last whispered hope of the anti-amnesty politicos is that the House will stop the Senate bill. Now, given all that's happened in the past fifteen years, that is a slender reed indeed to pin your children's future on. I have a better idea. It's an old idea, but I believe that its time has come round again.
"If breaking windows be the sport..."
The breaking windows that the English poet Cowper was celebrating were the windows of American Tories, broken by the Sons of Liberty in the run-up to the American Revolution. In Eighteenth Century America, windows were expensive and difficult to replace. It was said you could tell an American colonist's wealth by the size and number of the windows in his house. As most of the high-ranking Tories loyal to the King were rich, their windows became natural targets when the Sons of Liberty wanted to send a message. If the head of the local militia was a Tory, he would be persuaded to resign his commission by breaking his windows. If a Boston merchant refused to join the boycott of British goods, he would have to hire a glazier in the morning. Tax collectors and other crown functionaries shuttered their houses, only have the shutters torn from their hinges by a mob and then have their windows broken. Sounds harsh? The rise of American independence was accompanied by the tune of breaking glass, and we wouldn't be free today without it.
Of course how free we are, and are going to be, is the question, isn't it? Eight years ago I wrote a speculative piece of fiction called "The Window War" about what might happen if gunowners, outraged by one too many laws restricting their natural, God-given and traditional rights, took the Sons of Liberty's methods to heart and hand.
(You can find it at: http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=1604)
The story circulated to modest approval in the email circles of my fellow gunnies and then dropped into the electronic wastebasket of history. Dropped, that is, until the election crisis of 2000. On the 11th of November of that disputatious year, a fellow named Jeff Head reposted The Window War on the Free Republic website with the notation: "Not advocating anything here. . .just wondering if Mike had thought about a work of fiction called "'Window War II' as it applies to fraudulent elections?" Free Republic was at that time (before its editorial sanitizing in later years by the myrmidons of the Republican National Committee) the premier forum by which conservative activists communicated. Other "Freeper" posters agreed, saying things like "have rocks will travel". The discussion percolated for a few days and then died, until....
"We would not tolerate an illegal government."
Friday November 24 3:11 PM ET
Amid protest, Fla. Counties Plow on With Recount
By Marianne Armshaw and Michael Conner
West Palm Beach, Fla. (Reuters)
Dozens of supporters of Republican George W. Bush protested on Friday against what they called Democrat efforts to "steal" the U.S. Presidential election for Al Gore as Friday's Palm Beach and Broward counties plowed on with reviewing disputed ballots. . .
Unknown persons threw a brick through a window at the Democratic Party's Broward County headquarters late on Thursday or early on Friday when the office was closed, police said. Scrawled on the brick was the message: : "We would not tolerate an illegal government." Plantation, Florida, police were investigating the incident, in which no one was injured.
Within 34 minutes this story was posted on Free Republic with the screaming banner: "The Window War has Begun!" Whether because of the intimidation of the brick or not, the Broward County Dems folded their recount efforts shortly thereafter, and one by one, the rest of the Florida Democratic Party county election officials involved in recounts followed suit over the next several days. Eventually, the Supreme Court settled the issue.
"We have been too law-abiding."
You know, I'd like to think that the fellow who threw that brick had read my piece, but I have no idea. Even if he did, did the brick intimidate the Broward County Dems? Who knows? But I do know this: liberals as a class are cowards. The political/business/racial-identity cabal that makes up the Amnesty Conspiracy are cowards as well. Heck, I know of no American liberals who have been willing to personally suffer, let alone die, for any of their misbegotten beliefs since the early 1960s. They get government to do the heavy lifting for them. They genuflect at its altar and cannot comprehend anyone else who doesn't. And one other thing: they never, ever think that their public actions and pronouncements will have private consequences. And why should they? As I observed in the afterward to "The Window War":
"For sixty years, the liberals have used our respect for the law against us. Each time they moved the line of law to further their agenda, breaking off a bit of the Constitution, we, as law-abiding citizens have backed up grumbling but complying. And why should they stop pushing us back from our God-given liberties? We've never pushed back to stop them. We have been too law-abiding."
"I aim to misbehave."
We are at a crossroads in our history. No one can deny it. If this amnesty passes into law, everything after it will be changed in ways that are surely as preventable as they are foreseeable. The Mandarin class of our "betters" has decided they no longer need to listen to us. How then shall we get their attention? What will it take to change the disastrous future they seek to write for us?
Maybe a Sons of Liberty brick through the window of every Democrat and Republican county headquarters with "Jail illegal employers!" written on one side and "No amnesty!" on the other will work. As a tactic, it does have the advantage of having been successfully employed in the past. Just ask Sam Adams. It is past time to demonstrate to the arrogant political class who believe themselves to be our rulers and not our servants that the Sons of Liberty still live. It is time to get their attention. It is time, in the words the fictional Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the Firefly class space freighter Serenity, to "misbehave." Remember, "behaving" has gotten us to this point. What have we got to lose? More importantly, what will we lose if we don't?
For those of you who would hesitate at vandalism in liberty's cause, perhaps you could deliver the brick to your particular politician's office with the message and the implication. They listened last year when thousands shipped bricks to them to build the wall. Maybe they'll listen if you tell them that this time it's through the door by mail, next time it's through the window by hand. Heck, just print out this essay and wrap the brick in it. They'll get the message.
There are those who say that I should be arrested for simply making the suggestion that deliberate political vandalism in the defense of liberty is no vice. I quote to them, "If this be treason, then make the most of it!" To my American brothers and sisters of all races, religions and creeds, who believe as I do -- to those who believe not in the false collectivist promises of those who would rule us, but in the individual liberty and prosperity of the shining city on a hill that was and is the promise of the Founder's Republic -- I say to you: "ROCK 'EM." Let the Window War begin. It won't take long to get the attention of the cowardly and treasonable Amnesty Conspirators. And when we do, somewhere Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty of old will be smiling."
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Fred Thompson Lays the Smack Down to The Amnesty Idjits
At least one conservative seems to know a pig when he sees it and and amnesty when he smells it. Fred Thompson has my vote if he's running, and he better do it soon, lest the big money backers back one of the Rudy McRomney, MSM-approved triumvirate. Watch Fred tell it like it is here.
By Fred Thompson
"Most Americans know that we have an illegal immigration problem in this country, with perhaps as many as 20 million people residing here unlawfully. And I think most Americans have a pretty good idea about how to at least start solving the problem – secure our nation’s borders.
But there’s an old saying in Washington that, in dealing with any tough issue, half the politicians hope that citizens don’t understand it while the other half fear that people actually do. This kind of thinking was apparent with the “comprehensive” immigration reform bill that the U.S. Senate and the White House negotiated yesterday.
I’d tell you what was in the legislation, but 24 hours after the politicians agreed the bill looked good, the Senate lawyers were still writing what may turn out to be a one thousand page document. In fact, a final version of the bill most likely will not be made available to the public until after the legislation is passed. That may come five days from now. That’s like trying to digest an eight-course meal on a 15-minute lunch break.
We’ve tried the “comprehensive” route before to solve the illegal immigration problem with a bit more care and deliberation, and the results haven’t been good. Back in May 1985, Congress promised us that it would come up with a comprehensive plan to solve the problem of illegal immigration and our porous borders. Eighteen months later, in November 1986, that comprehensive plan was signed into law.
Twenty-two years and millions of illegal immigrants later, that comprehensive plan hasn’t done what most Americans wanted it to do — secure America’s borders. Now Washington says the new “comprehensive” plan will solve the problem that the last comprehensive plan didn’t.
The fact is our border and immigration systems are still badly broken. We were reminded of this when Newsweek reported that the family of three of the men, arrested last week for allegedly plotting to kill American military personnel at Fort Dix, New Jersey, entered the U.S. illegally more than 20 years ago; filed for asylum back in 1989, but fell off the government’s radar screen when federal bureaucrats essentially lost track of the paperwork. Wonder how many times that’s been replicated?
Is it any wonder that a lot of folks today feel like they’re being sold a phony bill of goods on border security? A “comprehensive” plan doesn’t mean much if the government can’t accomplish one of its most basic responsibilities for its citizens — securing its borders. A nation without secure borders will not long be a sovereign nation.
No matter how much lipstick Washington tries to slap onto this legislative pig, it’s not going to win any beauty contests. In fact, given Congress’s track record, the bill will probably get a lot uglier — at least from the public’s point of view. And agreeing to policies before actually seeing what the policies are is a heck of a way to do business.
We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders — or at least made great headway. That would give proponents of the bill a chance to explain why putting illegals in a more favorable position than those who play by the rules is not really amnesty."
By Fred Thompson
"Most Americans know that we have an illegal immigration problem in this country, with perhaps as many as 20 million people residing here unlawfully. And I think most Americans have a pretty good idea about how to at least start solving the problem – secure our nation’s borders.
But there’s an old saying in Washington that, in dealing with any tough issue, half the politicians hope that citizens don’t understand it while the other half fear that people actually do. This kind of thinking was apparent with the “comprehensive” immigration reform bill that the U.S. Senate and the White House negotiated yesterday.
I’d tell you what was in the legislation, but 24 hours after the politicians agreed the bill looked good, the Senate lawyers were still writing what may turn out to be a one thousand page document. In fact, a final version of the bill most likely will not be made available to the public until after the legislation is passed. That may come five days from now. That’s like trying to digest an eight-course meal on a 15-minute lunch break.
We’ve tried the “comprehensive” route before to solve the illegal immigration problem with a bit more care and deliberation, and the results haven’t been good. Back in May 1985, Congress promised us that it would come up with a comprehensive plan to solve the problem of illegal immigration and our porous borders. Eighteen months later, in November 1986, that comprehensive plan was signed into law.
Twenty-two years and millions of illegal immigrants later, that comprehensive plan hasn’t done what most Americans wanted it to do — secure America’s borders. Now Washington says the new “comprehensive” plan will solve the problem that the last comprehensive plan didn’t.
The fact is our border and immigration systems are still badly broken. We were reminded of this when Newsweek reported that the family of three of the men, arrested last week for allegedly plotting to kill American military personnel at Fort Dix, New Jersey, entered the U.S. illegally more than 20 years ago; filed for asylum back in 1989, but fell off the government’s radar screen when federal bureaucrats essentially lost track of the paperwork. Wonder how many times that’s been replicated?
Is it any wonder that a lot of folks today feel like they’re being sold a phony bill of goods on border security? A “comprehensive” plan doesn’t mean much if the government can’t accomplish one of its most basic responsibilities for its citizens — securing its borders. A nation without secure borders will not long be a sovereign nation.
No matter how much lipstick Washington tries to slap onto this legislative pig, it’s not going to win any beauty contests. In fact, given Congress’s track record, the bill will probably get a lot uglier — at least from the public’s point of view. And agreeing to policies before actually seeing what the policies are is a heck of a way to do business.
We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders — or at least made great headway. That would give proponents of the bill a chance to explain why putting illegals in a more favorable position than those who play by the rules is not really amnesty."
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Acceptable Losses
Brian at Pereiraville ponders the concept of "acceptable losses" here. A word of the wise to the enemies of america...don't test our resolve. You wouldn't like us when we're angry...for every patriot and warrior wearing a uniform, there are a hundred of us on the homefront if the excrement hits the fan...just don't go there.
Friday, May 18, 2007
She's Baaaack!
Rachel Lucas, bloger-ette extraordinaire, is finally back on the blog scene again, and that's exciting news...well, except for gun fearing wusses and incompetent online personals daters that is. Check out her first substantive post back right here, and leave her some love. Welcome back sister, we missed ya!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian
These are names that everyone should know, but they don't because they are white. This Knoxville, TN couple went out on a date and never came home. According to a 46 count indictment, they were carjacked, kidnapped, beaten, tortured, raped, and mutilated before being killed. The reason you have heard not a peep from the MSM or their race-baiting butt buddies is because the victims are white, while the 5 assailants are black. They are set for trial this year, and I am hopeful that Attorney General Randy Nichols will seek the death penalty on one or more of these raping, murdering thugs. There is no punishment too severe for what was done to those young kids, and may God have mercy on their souls, because no one else will or should. For more expert analysis, check out LaShawn Barber and Flopping Aces, with more stories here, here, here, here, and here, and a chime in from country music legend Charlie Daniels here. And to see just how sick in the head some people can be when racially motivated identity politics are at stake, check this out, if you have a strong stomach.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The Funniest, Truest Presidential Speech You Will Never Hear
This sounds like a speech I might give if I were President, which of course, explains very well why I will never be. You just know GWB has to feel this way sometimes, and it's a shame he never says so...it might actually be therapeutic. Anyhow, courtesy of Kim DuToit, read the whole thing.
“Normally, I start these things out by saying ‘My Fellow Americans.’ Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don’t know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you’re really not fellow Americans any longer.
“I’ll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: there’s been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.
“The reason I’m quitting is simple. I’m fed up with you people. I’m fed up because you have no understanding of what’s really going on in the world. Or of what’s going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.
“Let’s start local. You’ve been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that’s despite record numbers of homeowners including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners. And while we’re mentioning minorities, I’ll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high.
“Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton Administration. I’ve mentioned all those things before, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in.
“Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there’s increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.
“We face real threats in the world. Don’t give me this ‘blood for oil’ thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would’ve already seized Iraq’s oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don’t give me this ‘Bush Lied People Died’ crap either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could’ve easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be ‘discovered.’
“Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named ‘Clinton’ established that policy. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?
“You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.
“That’s not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don’t care if they survive. In fact, they w ant to die. That’d be fine, as long as they weren’t also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you. And the b*stards are all over the globe.
“You should be grateful that they haven’t gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you’re not. That’s because you’ve got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.
“When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I’m disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of ‘Survivor’. Instead, you’ve grown impatient. You’re incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops. Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy.
“Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat’s political campaign, well, dammit, you might just as well Fedex a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.
“In this day and age, it’s easy enough to find the truth. It’s all over the Internet. It just isn’t on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you’d be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.
“I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you’re too stupid to leave a city that’s below sea level and has a hurricane approaching. I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I’ve come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.
“So I quit. I’m going back to Crawford. I’ve got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I’m done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again.
“Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.
“Oh, and by the way, Cheney’s quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there’re just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.
“So that’s it. God bless what’s left of America. Some of you know what I mean.”
“Normally, I start these things out by saying ‘My Fellow Americans.’ Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don’t know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you’re really not fellow Americans any longer.
“I’ll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: there’s been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.
“The reason I’m quitting is simple. I’m fed up with you people. I’m fed up because you have no understanding of what’s really going on in the world. Or of what’s going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.
“Let’s start local. You’ve been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that’s despite record numbers of homeowners including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners. And while we’re mentioning minorities, I’ll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high.
“Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton Administration. I’ve mentioned all those things before, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in.
“Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there’s increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.
“We face real threats in the world. Don’t give me this ‘blood for oil’ thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would’ve already seized Iraq’s oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don’t give me this ‘Bush Lied People Died’ crap either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could’ve easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be ‘discovered.’
“Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named ‘Clinton’ established that policy. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?
“You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.
“That’s not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don’t care if they survive. In fact, they w ant to die. That’d be fine, as long as they weren’t also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you. And the b*stards are all over the globe.
“You should be grateful that they haven’t gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you’re not. That’s because you’ve got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.
“When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I’m disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of ‘Survivor’. Instead, you’ve grown impatient. You’re incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops. Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy.
“Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat’s political campaign, well, dammit, you might just as well Fedex a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.
“In this day and age, it’s easy enough to find the truth. It’s all over the Internet. It just isn’t on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you’d be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.
“I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you’re too stupid to leave a city that’s below sea level and has a hurricane approaching. I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I’ve come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.
“So I quit. I’m going back to Crawford. I’ve got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I’m done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again.
“Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.
“Oh, and by the way, Cheney’s quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there’re just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.
“So that’s it. God bless what’s left of America. Some of you know what I mean.”
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