Guard the Borders Blogburst 7/31/06

The North American Union, SPP, and NASCO: Erasing America's Borders
By Heidi at Euphoric Reality

Our government has undertaken some monumental legislation that fully impacts the American way of life, our freedom, and our sovereignty. The purpose of such legislation is to homogenize Canada, Mexico, and the United States into a North American Union - and we're all going to sleep through it.

Have you heard of a little-known program called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America? This tri-lateral partnership was signed by President Bush last year without Congressional oversight or public approval. Opponents of the SPP have called it NAFTA on steroids - and we all know how disastrous NAFTA has been for everyone except Mexico. It also appears to be modeled on the ineffective and highly unpopular European Union (unpopular with the people, that is).

I went to the website, www.spp.gov, to begin my research. There are, indeed, no boundaries between Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. when it comes to the cooperation of financial, trade, and foreign affair departments. Though some of the PR language on the website sounds fairly benign, the commissions are picking up momentum. And you know what happens when bureaucrats start grasping at influence and power! Except that now we don't have to just worry about our own greedy bureaucrats - but Canada's and Mexico's too.

This is not some weird and obscure conspiracy website, it is our government's plan to literally give away or sell our national sovereignty. What is most galling is that we will share responsibility for security across North America. It is very conceivable that we could see our troops deployed to secure the southern border of Mexico. Yes, you read that right - not OUR unsecured warzone of a southern border - but Mexico's border with Belize and Guatemala. That is the conclusion of an investigative report done by Lou Dobbs on CNN:


Robert B. Murray notes:

President George W. Bush, President Vicente Fox of Mexico, and former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin agreed in March 2005 to create this union by executive regulations and agreements rather than by treaty to bypass Congress. Twenty working groups were formed and are well on their way to establishing a super-government for North America that will not be bound by our Constitution. The web site for this new bureaucracy-located at www.spp.gov-provides a look at their plans and accomplishments thus far. The plan is to have this arrangement implemented by 2010.

Behind its innocuous title, the ''Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,'' the United States will surrender its Constitution. According to Jerome R. Corsi, an author and political commentator, our nation-state prerogatives would be superseded by the authority of a North American court and parliamentary body and our dollar would become the “Amero.”

Possibly the strongest leg of the SPP is NASCO - North America's SuperCorridor Coalition - otherwise known as the NAFTA Superhighway. Airily dismissed by some public officials as internet rumors and hype and completely unaffordable, NASCO has quietly been amassing funding and already begun preliminary construction in Texas.

...already underway is the plan for a NAFTA Superhighway: 1,200 feet wide, stretching from Lazaro Cardenas on the west coast of Mexico, entering the United States at Laredo, Texas, and continuing straight north to Winnipeg, Canada, with another route to Kansas City thence north easterly to Detroit and Montreal.

Containerized goods from Asia will be offloaded onto Mexican trucks, with Mexican drivers, and distributed throughout the economic system. Go to www.nascocorridor.com to view the plan and progress. There will be no internal boundaries to restrict the flow of people, goods or services.

In fact, the first customs stop on the Superhighway will be in the heart of America - Kansas City! Along the way, primary U.S. labor unions will be by-passed in favor of Mexican labor, including the Longshoremen's Union, the railroad United Transportation Union, and the Teamsters.

How will such a massive flow of goods and foreign traffic be monitored? According to author Jerome Corsi,

''Across the NAFTA Super-Highways will flow millions more Mexicans, now armed with North American border passes and biometric identification, as defined by the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America working groups organized within the Department of Commerce.''

Similar toll systems snaking their way from the southern and northern borders cutting through major American cities will force American citizens to submit to having RFID enabled identification cards which contain an ever-increasing array of information about their personal lives.

Illegal aliens with cloned RFID transponders will enjoy streamlined access to the US while Americans labor under the financial burden of tolls that go directly to foreign corporations and restrictions that take the right of free travel out of their hands. This and more is occurring without Congressional oversight, but is naturally funded with our state and federal tax dollars.

But our public officials are saying this could never happen, if only because it's completely unaffordable! Not so, since foreign investment will cover any gaps that taxing the American people leaves. Additionally, the Bush administration has embarked on a policy of selling off key US infrastructure to the highest bidder - in most cases foreign owned corporations.

[K]ey players, including the investment bankers and the worldwide capital investment funds, have a plan to address these fiscal shortcomings with their own resources. On April 30, 1992, President George H.W. Bush signed Executive Order No. 12803 on infrastructure privatization, a move that cleared the way for private capital to invest in U.S. infrastructure projects, including highways.

For instance, the Indiana Toll Road, Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, a Texas toll road from Austin to Sequin and The Chicago Skyway have all been sold or leased for 99 years to foreign companies who will all enjoy billions in profits from American citizens forced to pay the tolls. And now the New Jersey Turnpike and the Ohio Turnpike are also under the hammer with foreign interests at the forefront of the negotiations.

An earlier Corsi article cites government websites which carry full planning details of the Super Highway. Its construction has already begun in Texas with no congressional oversight whatsoever. The Trans-Texas Corridor is being overseen by The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the contract is owned by the Cintra corporation which in turn is owned by the King of Spain Juan Carlos. The project is being financed by the implementation of a toll that will be collected by means of GPS tracking devices installed in all vehicles and also envelops many connecting roads to the highway. (Toll road info summarized by Paul Watson)

Watson further adds this dire prediction, ''To even be allowed to use major roads and highways, US citizens will be subject to a criminal background check and the government will have the ability to pinpoint their particular RFID signal and remotely block it from central computer mainframes - effectively abolishing freedom of mobility in America.''

President Ronald Reagan once said, “A nation without borders is not a nation.” While we’ve been looking elsewhere, our own government has implemented a comprehensive plan to erase our borders with Canada and Mexico. The NAFTA Superhighway will allow vehicles, people and goods to travel from Mexico, into the American heartland, and up to Canada with little impediment, making America's borders obsolete. Coupled with Bush's blanket amnesty program, the new North American Union and the NAFTA Superhighway (NASCO) will fully expedite the wholesale dismantling of American sovereignty. It would seem that the while the rest of the world is already lining up to get their piece of the American pie, Americans will be the last to know. It is happening quietly and behind our backs, while our attention is fully engaged by the War on Terror, the upcoming elections, and our personal lives.

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This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It was started by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration facing our country, join our Blogburst! Just send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

'This just in: Millions of illegals not a crisis!'

Whew, I guess we can all rest easy now, and just stop worrying our heads about millions (tens of millions, actually) of illegals being a problem. Bill Steigerwald of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has just informed us that there is no crisis involving illegals. And how does he know that? Because no less an authority than Tony Snow has said so, in the latest Reason Magazine.

Now apparently Reason Magazine is the last word in human wisdom, although a perusal of said publication impresses me otherwise.
For an example, please see this rant by the Editor-in-Chief, on the subject of immigration. And notice the writer's obligatory reference to his 'immigrant grandfather', an ethnic non-English speaker, too; am I impressed!

But judging by Steigerwald's citing of this Snow job -- I mean, Snow article, he clearly thinks Reason is authoritative. Snow's article is apparently part of an immigration issue, or more accurately, a pro-open-borders issue, packed chock full of statistics showing that all those immigration alarmists and xenophobic meanies like Tom Tancredo are all wrong.

But are we? Steigerwald mentions that the stats at Reason are disputed by Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies. I prefer to put my faith in Camarota and CIS rather than those pipe-dreaming ideologues at Reason Magazine. I've found libertarians to be people who, like leftists, are attached to their abstractions and ideologies more than anchored in reality. If the facts don't fit their ideologies and pet theories, then 'so much the worse for the facts', as philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was supposed to have said. His reality-denying heirs are mostly in the leftist and libertarian camp these days.

I don't think much of Bill Steigerwald's sneering dismissal of our concerns about mass immigration:

You can rail about the fact that illegal immigrants broke the law to get into the USA or about the horror of having to hear those Spanish phone messages. You can lose sleep worrying that 32 Latino radicals somewhere in California aim to re-conquer the Southwest for Mexico or that illegals are costing taxpayers $10 billion a year -- in a $2.57 trillion federal budget.

And then his 'answer' to these concerns, which he treats so belittlingly, is that the economy is growing, crime at a 20-year low [by what measure, Bill?] and 'unemployment is almost nonexistent', so 'just don't call our immigration problem a national crisis.'
Steigerwald does not offer any solid back-up for his blanket assertions about this new golden age in America, and even if he did, his 'happy days are here again' refrain is no refutation to all the arguments raised by the immigration restrictionists. He does not even acknowledge the enormous social disruption caused by mass immigration, the loss of open space, the shortage of affordable housing, the conflicts (Mexican vs. black in California jails and schools), the crimes committed by the immigrants, (including terrorism) the environmental stresses, and the increased energy demands resulting in rolling blackouts in many areas, and on and on. How typical of the libertarians and the country club Republican types, to reduce everything to the economic nexus. As long as immigration profits certain special interests, it's a good thing, according to these people. There is no concern for the larger picture, or for American culture, and standard of living.

But these apologists for mass immigration can convince themselves that their smug position makes them more enlightened than the 'Tancredos, Dobbses and Buchanans' of the world, in Steigerwald's words.
Tony Snow, from his moral perch on high, calls us 'neo-Know-Nothings.' His words have a 'take that!' tone about them, as if they are supposed to sting, and to chasten and to cause their targets to slink off in shame.
Far from it, Tony. Words which you intend as insults or slaps won't discourage me. In fact, if these names are going to be hurled at us, I've decided to educate myself as to precisely what they mean. The word 'nativist' which they consider an insult is simply a descriptive term for anyone who puts the interests of Americans or one's own above those of other countries. So where is the 'sting' in that word?
And the word 'Know-Nothing' seems to carry the extra connotation of an ignoramus who 'knows nothing', but simply meant a member of the American Party. Members of the party were taught to reply 'I know nothing' when asked about the party.
Most of the provisions of the party platform were not extreme, and in any case, 'the past is another country'; it's all too often a flaw of our own time that we are judgmental about previous generations and their standards. They lived in very different times, and had a drastically different mindset, growing up in a very different culture than our own. Our modern dogmas were not in force back in the mid-19th century, back in the B.P.C. era, before Political Correctness came along and showed us the error of our ways.
In some later post, I may write more about the Know-Nothings.
In the meantime, Tony Snow, and William Kristol, (who calls himself a 'liberal on immigration,' BTW) will not win any points by calling immigration skeptics 'neo-Know-Nothings.' So bring it on, as the saying goes.
Better a 'neo-Know-Nothing' than a neo-Con who knows nothing.

Just another isolated incident...

First, for a great roundup on the story of the Moslem gunman in Seattle, see Planck's Constant blog. An amazing collection of links on the story.
But in the meantime, pay no attention to the pattern of attacks by Moslems, so reads the message between the lines in our media. Officials in the Seattle Police Department assure us, as does our dhimmi media, that the Pakistani man who shot six people yesterday, was just a lone individual.
In another odd twist to this story, we read that the suspect's father works at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state.

Of course we are now also hearing the predictable spin that he had 'mental problems', bipolar disorder to be specific, and was despondent about employment and personal problems. But pay no attention to the fact that he is a Moslem, and that he in fact announced that as he launched his murderous attack yesterday. No, Islam is a Religion of Peace, and one of the World's Great Religions, along with our own. Or so we are told.
Condi Rice assured us some while back that there is 'benevolence at the heart of Islam.'
Well Gee, Condi, maybe somebody should tell the Mahometans that; they seem to be laboring under the illusion that they should hate, and kill infidels. Maybe that's because their 'Holy' book tells them to do so.

And the facts are undeniable: there has been a series of attacks on Americans by Moslems; the often-repeated cliche that 'there has been no attack since 9/11' is incorrect. While it's true that we have managed to avoid any attacks on the scale of 9/11, we have not escaped all attacks by Moslem jihadists. Our media and our elected officials try to cover up these attacks by dismissing them as merely isolated, one-off incidents, perpetrated by 'deranged' or 'mentally ill' individuals, or 'not motivated by Islam', but they are asking too much of us in asking that we not connect the dots, and avoid noticing the undeniable pattern.
And the fact that we have not had, so far, a repeat of 9/11 is not a tribute to our 'homeland security' efforts, and even less is it a sign that our 'War on Terror' is winning; it is merely by the grace of God, or sheer luck, if you are an atheist, that we have not been hit again as on 9/11/01.
Of course liberalism demands that we avoid recognizing obvious patterns, because doing so amounts to 'profiling', and according to the tolerance tyrants, will inevitably lead to 'hate crimes' against innocent Moslems. As an illustration of the Politically Correct, 'evenhanded' approach, note how the Seattle police have put guards on mosques in the Seattle area, lest the bigoted locals take up torches and pitchforks and descend en masse on their local mosque, as we have seen happen so many times since 9/11. What? It hasn't ever happened since 9/11? Then why is CAIR always mewling about 'Islamophobia' and persecution?
The reaction to this case illustrates everything that is wrong with multicultural, PC America. We lean over backwards to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of those who would commit violence against us, and insist on pretending that there is no such thing as jihad, no such thing as differences between cultures and religions. Collectively, as a nation, we are all pledging to 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'. Every attack provokes a renewed call from the tolerance tyrants, berating us about 'intolerance', calling for more 'outreach' to the 'Islamic community'. Every act of violence results in more smarmy 'interfaith services', in which the pharisaical kumbaya Christians join hands with the local Moslems and pledge unity. And yet nothing changes; more of the same ensues.
It's all a huge sham, aimed at quelling our fears and inducing obedience; as a bonus, we can feel 'good about ourselves' proud of our 'inclusiveness.

But folks, there is something drastically wrong with being 'inclusive' when we are under attack, when there are many people out there who want us dead or converted to Islam, and when our country is coveted by many hostile people. 'Inclusion' is just what we don't need more of.
Yet most of the comments on this story never once broach the subject of our insane policy of 'inclusion' and openness. Far better, it appears, to simply add more 'security' within our country: our places of worship require armed guards. We acquiesce to more invasions of our privacy when we travel. We often forego taking the plane in favor of less hassle when we travel, sacrificing time and convenience to do so. Many people feel less secure in their homes than ever before -- and with reason. Yet we continue to let anyone and everyone walk across our southern 'border', and we allow a constant flow of visitors and 'refugees' and 'immigrants' from Moslem countries, even from known hostile countries.

Pretending, as we are doing, to wage 'war on terrorism' while we allow uncounted numbers of terrorists-in-training or potential jihadists into our country is tantamount to leaving the doors and windows of our homes open, and then trying to defend against the inevitable predators when they are inside, hiding, and stalking us within our homes.

And the fact is, we are sacrificing lives of our citizens for the sake of 'inclusion' and 'openness' and 'tolerance.'
All hail the great god 'Diversity'. We are offering up the lives of innocents to this hungry god.
What will it take to wake people up? Another major attack like 9/11? God forbid.
So often I have heard conservatives say that another major attack would galvanize this country, and we would all rally around, and close our borders, deporting aliens, especially from Islamic countries. I am skeptical to the extreme about the possibility of that scenario. I think that given our present Politically Correct liberal regime, (and I include both parties here), we would respond to another major attack with simply more of the same.
There would be token arrests and denunciations of 'extremists' but we would go on just as before; our unctuous leaders and our leftist media would warn us about 'backlashes' and 'hate crimes', and we would get lots of saccharine Ad Council spots on TV about 'diversity' and 'inclusion.' Remember the smarmy 'I am an American' ads from 2001, after the WTC attacks?
And we would hear the same liberal fairy tales, once again.
At some point, Americans have to reach a saturation point with cognitive dissonance; at some point, we have to stop letting ourselves be lulled to sleep with the platitudes and the outright Orwellian distortions.
As usual, earlier generations of America had the clear sight to recognize the truth about the Religion of 'Peace,' and its 'prophet', who

...proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent god; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared distinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE...Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant...While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon the earth, and good will towards men"

(from John Quincy Adams, quoted from Robert Spencer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, p.83)

On Conservatism

I'm not exactly a 'crunchy con', but I find Rod Dreher's blog interesting. On his 'Crunchy Con' blog, he mentions the current issue of The American Conservative, calling it a 'must read', covering as it does the future of the conservative movement.
The issue contains mini-essays on conservatism by a number of contributors, including Dreher.
They were asked to respond to these questions:

1. Are the designations "liberal" and "conservative" still useful? Why or why not?
2. Does a binary Left/Right political spectrum describe the full range of ideological options? Is it still applicable?

The excerpts cited by Dreher, from a number of writers, seem to illustrate one problem among conservatives today; there is a lack of agreement on basic principles, and a lack of a common orientation, except perhaps opposition to the worst excesses of the left, and the general leftward trends of our society.
Heather MacDonald, for example, complains that the non-religious conservatives are marginalized, and that the religious conservatives are guilty of triumphalism.

In contrast, Claes G. Ryn says that modern conservatism neglects the spiritual aspect. Ryn says that conservatism must get rid of its current obsession with politics, and focus instead on preserving 'the good, the true, and the beautiful.'

Among the best quotes, in my opinion, were those from Ross Douthat, who notes that conservatism too often does not stand for a set of principles as much as it simply says 'no' to liberalism.

...conservatives have ... well, a host of goals most of them in tension with one another. ... Lilberals, on the other hand, dream the same dream and envision the same destination, even if they disagree on exactly how to get there. It's the dream of Thomas Friedman as well as Karl Marx, as old as Babel and as young as the South Korean cloners. It whispered to us in Eden, and it whispers to us now: Ye shall be as gods. And no conservative dream, in the 400 years from Francis Bacon until now, has proven strong enough to stand in its way.'

John Lukacs (who considers himself a 'reactionary', but seen by others as a paleocon spokesman) also notes the dislike of liberals as being central to what is termed 'conservatism' today, thus devaluing the name 'conservative.'
He further says that '

a conservative who fails to protect and to conserve is nothing but a radical loudmouth of a bad sort.'

Amen to that.
[This previous post of mine dealt with 'conservatives who have stopped conserving.']

In this discussion of Lukacs' book, 'Democracy and Populism, Fear and Hatred', he reveals his idiosyncratic ideas on 'right-vs.-left', conservative and progressive, populism vs. nationalism. I don't necessarily agree with many of his categorizations; for example, he states that right=hate, left=fear. There is some truth to the latter, but reading many of the screeds by the leftist demagogues of the day (Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Molly Ivins, Robert Jensen, even the pathetic Ward Churchill) it's hard to avoid concluding that hate is the driving force behind much of today's left.
Lukacs, in his End of the Modern Age, complains that conservatives 'care not for the conservation of the country, and of the American land.'

As with so many other issues, the situation he describes may be another example where the usual Republican position is simply to oppose the Democrat/liberal position. If Democrats and other liberal leftists fuss about environmental issues, Republicans seem simply to react in knee-jerk opposition, and deny that there is a problem. For instance in the current borders crisis, neither side has spoken up about the enormous environmental damage done by illegal immigrants in border areas or the much larger problem of environmental degradation caused by the surging population, almost all of it immgrant-driven. The Democrats won't touch the issue because it would be (gasp!) racist, and the Republicans because they disdain 'tree-hugging' -- and besides, it would be, you know, racist. Their stance has locked them into denying that overpopulation is a problem, or that our environment does need protecting.
In short, left and right in America seem locked in a kind of death-dance; each side seems to feed off the excesses of the other, and more and more, to define themselves only in relation to each other.
And as long as both sides embrace certain liberal themes like egalitarianism, universalism, America as 'a nation of immigrants', a proposition nation with no fixed culture and heritage, the idea of 'choice' as a primary value, and the increased role of government -- there is no real choice to be had. The Hobson's choice between the two parties is leaving many citizens alienated, angry, and frustrated, and looking for an alternative which preserves what is good, true, and valuable in America. Neither party at present does so.
For this reason, I no longer feel defined by the label 'conservative', as it has been so hopelessly co-opted. The word is hopelessly associated with many people whose views and goals are foreign to my own, and at odds with traditional America.

What, in the final analysis, does 'conservative' mean to most people? To most people, it means Rush Limbaugh, President Bush, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, or Ann Coulter.
Most of these people have little in common with many Americans who call themselves 'conservative' - - so there is a need for a re-naming, or perhaps a re-claiming of conservatism by the real conservatives among us.

Still, discussion of conservatism is absolutely essential, and it's heartening that some people are opening up a discussion, however tentative.

Just the facts, please

Today my attention was caught by an interesting story out of Jamestown, Virginia, where a couple of events have been in the news. First, this minor story: Descendants of Algonquin tribes, whose ancestors supposedly greeted the Jamestown settlers, traveled to England where they are being feted by authorities; the Indians in turn are complaining about the lack of formal recognition of their tribes by the U.S. government.
Surely there could have been more to write about, in this meeting of two peoples. There ought to be some interesting angle to the experience of these American Indians in England, and the viewpoint of the English people on this visit from an Indian delegation. But no, the story devolved into the preferred template of the leftist news media: victims and guilty oppressors, the necessary ingredients for a good agitprop piece. Injustice, unfairness, racism. Same old, same old.

The Chicago Sun-Times ran this story, with the comical headline 'Pocahontas' ancestors journey to England.'
Someone apparently needs to look up the meanings of 'ancestor' and 'descendant.
The article is an AP piece, by Sarah Ball, who seemingly believes Pocahontas to be an 'ancestor' of the delegation of Indians visiting England. However, presumably the Indians who went to England could not be Pocahontas' descendants, given that she married colonist John Rolfe and went to England, where she died in 1617.
It looks like the state of the English language is as imperiled as our American history and culture, when journalists, who make their living with words, don't know the meaning of common terms like 'ancestor' and 'descendant'.
Such is America in 2006.

The next story involving Jamestown promised to be more interesting and exciting: a number of well-preserved artifacts were found in a well at the location of the first English settlement. Among the artifacts was a well-preserved snaphaunce pistol, apparently Scottish-made.
The pistol is among the oldest artifacts of European origin found in North America, and seems to have created a stir among the archeologists at the site.

And Richard Luscombe in the Scotsman writes about the find; the article is titled, 400-year-old pistol found on site of first American colonists.


Depressingly, and altogether predictably, the very first comment posted below the article at the Scotsman website on the article was one from an Aberdeen woman, 'Marina' who says, unctuously:

Isn't it rather sad, and prophetic, that the earliest artifact found from settlers to the New World is a pistol.

So there seems to be no escape from the politicizing of everything; this discovery should, in a saner world, be a chance to get a glimpse of our ancestors and how they lived; an opportunity to learn and to examine these rare finds from four centuries ago. But instead, the usual suspects have to turn it into another cultural skirmish: the holier-than-thou anti-gun prohibitionists are up on their moral high horses again.

However, to the credit of some of the subsequent commenters at the Scotsman website, they take this self-righteous gun-phobic zealot to task.

American commenters 'Peggy' and 'Steve' offer some very to-the-point responses to the gun-hating commenter. Peggy and Steve obviously live in the real world, in which firearms are sometimes a necessary tool for survival, not evil devices meant only to commit mayhem and murder.
The plain and simple fact is that without firearms and other such weapons, the Jamestown colony would not have survived. Sentimental, goody-two-shoes pacifists like some of the Scotsman commenters would not have lasted in the Jamestown colony or in any other colony. My colonist ancestors survived, against the odds, and firearms and other such defensive weapons no doubt were essential to their survival.

It is greatly depressing and maddening to me, as an American, and as a direct descendant of many Jamestown colonists, that so many of the liberal-minded commenters see this story as merely a pretext for preachifying about American militarism and 'aggression' and about the mythical 'genocide' of the American Indians. It's genuinely exasperating and an affront to people like me that our ancestors' lives are nothing more than fodder for political sermons and moralizing on the part of the po-faced leftist types.

All I have to say to those judgmental phonies is: leave my ancestors out of your morality plays; stop using and exploiting my kin in your Manichaean good-vs.-evil melodrama.
Stop trying to squeeze everything in history into your narrow modern-day preconceptions and dogmas. This present age is not the repository of all wisdom and enlightenment; we are not the epitome of human enlightenment, despite the self-satisfied beliefs of the present generation.
It's high time we regained some healthy respect for past ages, and for our ancestors who after all bequeathed life to us. We would not exist if not for them, and most of the freedoms, privileges, and comforts we enjoy and take for granted would not exist either, but for their strength, wisdom, toughness, and determination.
I just wish for a day when we could open a newspaper, or watch a newscast which presented us with 'just the facts, ma'am', minus all the editorializing and sermonizing and agitprop. Just give us facts and information and let us think for ourselves. There is a place for opinion and editorializing, but we need a media that presents us with facts and information, not cookie-cutter ideology.
I wonder what our forebears would think, if they could have foreseen that our right to free expression (and the right to bear arms, for that matter) would be so threatened? Would they have bothered to win our freedoms for us if they could have known how easily we would acquiesce to the weakening of our freedoms?
If only we could re-learn to exercise our right to think freely, and to express ideas freely, in defiance of PC strictures. The blogosphere is at present one of the last refuges of free speech and the free exchange of ideas, and thank goodness for it. But we need to work at reclaiming lost ground in this war of ideas and philosophies.

Incomprehensible reform

Today's Washington Times has a piece by Rep.Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Rep. Mike Pence, pushing Pence's amnesty -- oops, non-amnesty, temporary-worker program.

We believe it is imperative that Congress find a responsible solution and enact comprehensive reform.
[...]We are putting forth a proposal that we hope can be used as the basis for new discussions. Our plan is tough on border security, but it recognizes the need for a temporary-worker program...

OK, hold it right there. Whenever I see the words 'comprehensive reform' and phrases like 'recognizes the need for a temporary-worker program', I know all I need to know. It's just more of the same old, same old, even if they tinker with the terminology (like saying a 'temporary-worker program' instead of 'temporary guest-worker program'), I know they are pushing for more immigration and for some kind of amnesty, despite their protestations that it isn't amnesty. Methinks they protest too much, these illegal-enabling politicians.

As if to further confirm my wariness, they Hutchinson and Pence go on to say

The millions who come to our country seeking jobs to support their families are not a security threat to our nation, but the weaknesses in the nearly 7,000 miles of international border and 95,000 miles of shoreline have given terrorists, drug dealers and human traffickers an opening that is being exploited; this is a risk we cannot allow to continue. Part two of our plan is a temporary-worker program that is essential in order to fill jobs in our economy that are in high demand.''

So, Kay and Mike, you can guarantee that these 'hard-working people' are 'not a security risk'? How do you know that? Do you have a crystal ball, or precognitive powers? Will you personally guarantee all the 'job-seekers' you bring into my country?
And as for this idea that making all the illegals legal by a stroke of the pen will solve all the problems attending on their presence, please! You insult our intelligence by making these sweeping claims which you have no way to back up, by making assertions with no supporting evidence. For instance you take as a given that these people are 'essential' in order 'to fill jobs in our economy that are in high demand.'
Name some of those jobs that are in high demand, Kay and Mike. I suspect that many of these 'essential' jobs are jobs that are created by the presence of the immigrants themselves, like more social workers (bilingual, of course) to serve the many, many needs of these 'job-seekers', or more bilingual teachers, hospital interpreters, police officers, or maybe we 'need' more taco wagons and churro vendors.
So, Mike and Kay, I need to be shown that they are essential; I don't take your word as gospel. I need specifics and proof. You want to tamper with my country and its laws, show me why it's so vital.

I also have little faith in this new bureaucracy you propose to screen the 'job-seekers'. Can we trust that they truly would perform background checks? How does one do that for people with phony IDs and with no paper trail? Does Mexico keep accurate records on its citizens? If so, can they be trusted to deal honestly with us, given the level of corruption and incompetence that prevails? Or would we truly screen these people for communicable diseases? Are we willing to reject those who don't pass, or are we so cowed by the fear of charges of 'racism' from the usual quarters that we would allow questionable people in? And if we turn them away, can we be sure they don't simply come in the back door as they are doing now? Why should they suddenly develop a regard for our laws, and play by the rules, if they can just sneak in, in the time-honored way?

No, Kay and Mike, this is just smoke-and-mirrors, as usual.
I still want an answer from somebody in Congress as to why you people think that you can operate flagrantly against the will of the majority of your constituents. Why do you keep pushing this thing, this amnesty-which-isn't-amnesty, despite the clear message that we, the people, the American people, that is, don't want it?
Why are you defying us?
Sorry, but in the wake of that eye-opening piece by Fredo Arias-King which I linked to the other day, I can't help wondering if you two, and all the other illegal-enablers, aren't among those brazen frauds who called us, their constituents, 'rednecks', laughing at us, and apologizing for us to Vicente Fox's people.

Kay and Mike conclude their article thusly:

Congress owes it to the American people to solve this crisis. We are attempting to protect our national security while providing benefits to our country for generations to come. We urge our colleagues in Congress to come back to the table and produce a workable system. The future of our country depends on it.

Well, there are a few true words there: I give you credit for accidentally saying something true.
You in Congress DO owe it to us, the American people to solve the crisis. But you elected officials, along with your cheap-labor procurers and your globalist buddies, created this crisis, only to say, "look, the system is broken! Now we need to 'fix' it." when all you had to do was enforce our laws. We have good laws on our books that were and are purposely, deliberately ignored and flouted, apparently under orders. So all you need to do is see that our laws are enforced. Bringing in millions more and calling them 'legal' will not fix the problem.
But you are right when you say the future of our country depends on fixing the borders problem. Your solution, however, will ensure that traditional America, as we have known it, will be transformed. It will be changed into something unrecognizable to us, and unthinkable to our forefathers. The future of our country depends on securing our borders, controlling and limiting who enters, and preserving our American culture and our English language and our culture. Throwing the gates open to masses of hostile or at best indifferent third-worlders, who reject our culture, resent us, and refuse to learn our language can only mean the end of America.

You can have your 'comprehensive reform' and millions more strangers in our country, or we can have our country, and our future. We can't have both. You can serve the people who elected you, or you can serve your special interests.
But be mindful that our Founding Fathers said, we the people are the bosses here.

Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends, the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them."
"The will of the people...is the only legitimate foundation of any government..."
Thomas Jefferson.

Guard the Borders Blogburst 7/24/06

Rallying Against Illegal Immigration
by Nathan Bradfield at Church and State



Groups such as the 21st Century Paul Revere Ride and "You Don't SPEAK For Me" are taking a stand against illegal immigration and trying to push the issue back to the forefront so Americans can hold their elected officials accountable at the polls.



Via The Montgomery Advertiser:

Election day is more than three months away, but a group of border state residents wants to push the issue of illegal immigration to the forefront of campaign issues.

The six men, members of the 21st Century Paul Revere Ride, stopped Friday morning in Montgomery to speak to local residents at the state Capitol. The men are touring the country on motorcycles, stopping in each state capital.



"We are facing a human tsunami of population," said Frosty Wooldridge, a retired schoolteacher and leader of the 54-city motorcyle tour. "If we don't put a stop to illegal immigration and limit legal immigration, we're turning America into a Third-World country."



Speaking to a small crowd gathered at the base of the Capitol steps, Wooldridge said his message is neither racist nor classist, but is an answer to "a human dilemma."



Wooldridge said the message engraved on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty has no bearing on the 21st century. "'Give me your sick, your poor,' those are 19th- and 20th-century ideals," Wooldridge said. "We're in a different era, with different problems."



Along with advocating construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, members of the Ride are offering the issue of illegal immigration as a litmus test for congressional candidates.



"Find out who is for keeping illegal immigrants out of this country," Wooldridge said. "If they're for it, keep 'em in. If they're against it, kick 'em out."

The ride is more than half over, but Ride member Rick Chiesa said his message isn't reaching enough people. "We can only do so much," Chiesa said to the crowd. "Our message won't get to Washington without your help." Chiesa, along with the five other members of the Ride, advocates limiting immigration and ending illegal immigration altogether.



Randall Kirkland, who listened to Wooldridge from the shade of the Capitol, said he agreed with the message of the Ride. "I see it everyday where I'm from," said Kirkland, of Prattville. "My friends or family try to get work at a construction site and it's full, there's always people there working for less."

I attended the rally and enjoyed seeing Americans taking proactive action in their beliefs.



The group also has a blog and their FAQ section addresses their stance on the issues.



Do immigrants benefit the US economy by performing work no one else will?



The average immigrant according to the Center for Immigration Studies costs the US taxpayer $55,000.00 over a lifetime in social services over and above what that immigrant earned. Net drain annually for all immigrants is $70 billion to US taxpayers. Bear-Sterns Report shows $301 billion in uncollected IRS taxes from illegal aliens working under the table.



Immigrants don't take jobs from Americans; they create jobs don't they?



According to Professor Borjas at Harvard, they cost $200 billion annually in lost wages to American workers. They comprise the second largest underground economy in the world costing US taxpayers a loss of $301 billion in income taxes not collected according to Bear-Sterns Report.



Don't immigrants catch up quickly economically and culturally, blending into society within a generation?



Today's illegal aliens are not blending, not melting into society, not speaking English and not assimilating. Rather, they are separating into enclaves and creating apartheid within the USA. As former Colorado Governor Lamm said, "My sixth plan for America's downfall would include dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other—that is, when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together."



The ride will end August 12 with finale in Washington, DC.



Fortunately, both Alabama senators are opposed to the Senate Immigration Bill.



Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL):

"The American people were counting on us to secure our borders and restore the rule of law to our immigration system," Sessions said. "Unfortunately, the United States Senate today let the American people down by passing a deeply flawed bill that gives the illegal alien population every benefit this nation can bestow, and increases future legal immigration levels by three to five times the current level. Additionally, the immigration levels for the future ensure that 70 percent of the large influx will be admitted without having to meet any educational, skill or language requirements."

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL):

"I am extremely concerned about the details of President Bush's plan. I believe that it diminishes the notion of citizenship and undermines the foundation of law on which our country is built. I have long believed that our nation must have strong controls on the continual influx of immigrants. This proposal rewards those who have broken the laws to get to this country by allowing them to stay. In addition to being wrong in principle, the plan should also offend the legal immigrants who have stood in line and played by the rules to enter this country, as well as those still waiting to legally enter."

But we'll need more this fall at the polls.

The group "You Don't SPEAK For Me", of hispanic decent, is speaking out against other hispanics who have no place demanding rights and they refuse to support any amnesty plan.

Their website has links for the following:

• The U.S. Constitution


• The Democratic Process


• U.S. History


• English Language Training


• Pledge of Allegiance


• Care and Handling of the U.S. Flag

How refreshing!



Their five guiding principles are one that all American citizens and politicians should embrace.



All immigration should be legal

Illegal immigration hurts everyone, while carefully planned legal immigration helps. We believe in stopping illegal immigration and securing the national and economic future of our nation.



Illegal aliens from any country should never be rewarded with benefits or privileges

Becoming an American citizen is a unique and wonderful privilege. The legal route to becoming a citizen is not easy and requires patience and hard work. Those who break the law and come illegally should not be granted any benefits or privileges. No driver's license, no welfare benefits, no free health care, no in-state tuition - simply put . . . no state or federal benefits!



No amnesty - no way!

Amnesty is rewarding people who break the law. From past experience we have learned that granting amnesty only leads to increased illegal immigration. Those here illegally are taking advantage of our compassion. We say No Amnesty-No Way!



Secure our borders now and fully enforce immigration laws

The best way to stop the flow of illegal immigration coming across our borders is to build a high security fence along the length of our southern border where the majority of illegal traffic takes place. We must also vigorously enforce our existing immigration laws. Local and state law enforcement should be free to enforce immigration laws. Employers who hire illegal workers should be heavily fined and if a pattern of practice is established their owners/corporate officers should be fined and jailed for the offenses and the corporate charter revoked. Identification documents must be limited and strong security measures like biometrics applied to documents of foreign workers. American citizens driver's licenses are now secured by the Real ID Act, non-citizens should be required to present documents not susceptible to fraud and counterfeit, and include biometric security measures - especially for work purposes.



Learn and speak English

Learning the language of this country is the very least an immigrant can do. Learn and speak English. Learn the history of this country. Learn the Constitution and civics. Learn and practice the principles that make America the greatest country in the world.



Amen brothers!

----------------------------------

This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

Answering the race-baiters

The Rocky Mountain News published this 'Speakout' piece by Peter Brimelow of VDare.com, in response to an article titled, 'Funding Questioned' by Kevin Flynn, which appeared in the same paper recently. Flynn's article, (a hit piece, really) described Brimelow's website, VDare, as a 'white nationalist' site. All in the service, it seems, of discrediting a group called Defend Colorado Now. The group is an anti-illegal immigration group, and the Rocky Mountain News piece had attempted to slur them by associating them with a 'white nationalist' site. The article attempts to smear the group's largest donor, John Tanton, of the Social Contract Press, for his supposed ties to non-PC groups and individuals.

As Brimelow points out, the innuendo was based on allegations made by a notorious leftist group which justifies its existence by making accusations of bigotry and hate. Of course, their definition of 'bigotry and hate' include mainly efforts by patriotic Americans in defense of their country's sovereignty and laws. Never are there any accusations about obvious hate groups like La Raza, MEChA, or the Mexica Movement, or groups like the Nation of Islam.
Brimelow gamely tries, in this response, to differentiate between 'white nationalists' and 'white supremacists', but I am afraid his efforts are in vain. Does it help to try to differentiate, as Brimelow attempts to do, between, say, 'nationalist' and 'supremacist' groups? I think it's a distinction that matters little to the liberal types; in their worldview, both are equally illegitimate.To the accusers, there is no distinction. To such people, as with everybody on the Left (and also among Neocon me-too-ists) all groups which defend, however civilly and reasonably, the interests of majority America, are beyond the pale.
Many anti-illegal immigration groups, such as Defend Colorado Now, try to hold to a moral high ground and deflect charges of racism by emphatically stating that they oppose only illegal immigration. Many such groups try to ward off the witch-hunters on the left by vociferously (and somewhat defensively) asserting that they are in favor of all legal immigration. This, however, does not protect them from the race-baiters; such groups are still likely to be called 'racist', 'Nazi' and the like.
We see this in play with the current allegations, eagerly seized on by the pro-illegals, regarding the Minutemen. The Minuteman Project, (MMP) expressly states on its home page that 'MMP has no affiliation with, nor will we accept any assistance by, or interference from, separatists, racists, or supremacy groups.'
This kind of disclaimer is almost universal among the various anti-illegal immigration groups. It's understandable, because of the kind of smear campaign conducted against any immigration restriction group, or any conservative, pro-American group. Race-baiting is de rigueur whenever our agenda-driven media write about such groups. It seems that no disclaimer, no protestations of anti-racism, will be sufficient to deflect such attacks.
Many such groups actively recruit non-whites, and this also does little to discourage the race-baiters.
So while it's understandable that immigration-restrictionist groups try to disavow any connection to anything which remotely seems discriminatory, it seems not to be a very effective tactic. It seems to require the diversion of energy and time and perhaps money to try to defend against the inevitable attacks by the open-borders, PC zealots. How much better to simply ignore the shrill accusations and the sneaking innuendos; we have far too much defensiveness and too much apologizing on our side. It only makes us look weak, and keeps us off balance.

There was a time when holding 'nationalist' views was considered normal and not the least bit suspect or 'bigoted.' It's only in our present generation that the concept of 'nationalism' has been declared politically incorrect -- at least, for the majority. It is perfectly fine and healthy, according to the PC opinion-police, for minority groups to form nationalistic movements. What else is La Raza, but a nationalist movement, or a supremacy movement? As usual, there is one standard for the majority and another opposite rule for the 'oppressed minorities.'
The liberals and 'progressives' have succeeded in linking nationalism to 'extremism,' and conflating it with 'supremacy' movements. Yet supremacy movements like La Raza are not condemned by these censorious people.
As long as the majority in America is not allowed to act in legitimate self-interest, as are other groups, there is no justice. That double standards apply is an affront to the American way of life, to our Constitutional freedoms.
I only hope that patriotic Americans persist, in defiance of the character assassins and bullies on the left who are determined to bring us to heel. Our country is at stake.

Why?

In these times, it's hard not to wonder what, exactly, are our politicians thinking. I have asked, rhetorically, why they seem to be willfully deaf to the voice of the American people, and I have asked what their defiance of us means to the future of our Republic. My questions are addressed by this important essay at the Center for Immigration Studies website, titled 'Immigration and Usurpation: Elites, Power, and the People's Will.'
The answers suggested in the article are not surprising, but they are distressing and maddening.
Written by Fredo Arias-King, who was a foreign relations advisor to Vicente Fox in 1999-2000, this piece deals with the huge and baffling disconnect between the pro-immigration stance of our political elites and the American people. Arias-King met with dozens of senators and congressmen during the period in question, and he has many incisive observations about the politicians and their motives.
He also writes about the implications for our republican system of government. When the elected officials knowingly circumvent or flout the will of the majority, this has dire implications, which Arias-King examines.

Indeed, American politicians are overwhelmingly pro-immigration, for a variety of reasons, and they do not always admit this to their constituents. Of those 50 legislators, 45 were unambiguously pro-immigration, even asking us at times to ''send more.'' This was true of both Democrats and Republicans.
These empirical findings seemed to confirm what some analysts without that level of access termed as a political "perfect storm" of widespread political-elite support for immigration despite its general unpopularity with the average American. The paradox is that immigration is the only issue (perhaps besides trade policy) that represents a notorious discrepancy between elite and popular opinion in the United States. But this contradicts the established conventional wisdom of a representative democracy such as the United States. If mass immigration from Latin America has debatable benefits for the United States as a whole, if a majority of the American people is against it, and if immigrants cannot vote until they become naturalized (which can take years after their arrival), why would nine-tenths of the legislators we spoke with be so keen on increasing
immigration?'

Arias notes the usual and obvious reasons advanced for the dominance of the pro-immigration position, such as the prospect of many likely new votes for the Democrats, and the GOP's desire to please business and church groups, who have vested interests in increasing immigration. But Arias-King surmised that there was more to it than that.

But there were other, more nuanced reasons that we came upon, usually not discussed by the critics, and probably more difficult to detect without the type of access that we, as a Mexican delegation, had.


[...]Of a handful of motivations, one of the main ones (even if unconscious) of many of these legislators can be found in what the U.S. Founding Fathers called "usurpation." Madison, Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and others devised a system and embedded the Constitution with mechanisms to thwart the "natural" tendency of the political class to usurp power—to become a permanent elite lording over pauperized subjects, as was the norm in Europe at the time. However, the Founding Fathers seem to have based the logic of their entire model on the independent character of the American folk. After reviewing the different mechanisms and how they would work in theory, they wrote in the Federalist Papers that in the end, "If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America …" With all his emphasis on reason and civic virtue as the basis of a functioning and decentralized democratic polity, Jefferson speculated whether Latin American societies could be governed thus.

While Democratic legislators we spoke with welcomed the Latino vote, they seemed more interested in those immigrants and their offspring as a tool to increase the role of the government in society and the economy. Several of them tended to see Latin American immigrants and even Latino constituents as both more dependent on and accepting of active government programs and the political class guaranteeing those programs, a point they emphasized more than the voting per se. Moreover, they saw Latinos as more loyal and "dependable" in supporting a patron-client system and in building reliable patronage networks to circumvent the exigencies of political life as devised by the Founding Fathers and expected daily by the average American.'



'[...]they believed that these immigrants are more malleable than the existing American: That with enough care, convincing, and "teaching," they could be converted, be grateful, and become dependent on them. Republicans seemed to idealize the patron-client relation with Hispanics as much as their Democratic competitors did. Curiously, three out of the five lawmakers that declared their opposition to amnesty and increased immigration (all Republicans), were from border states.

Also curiously, the Republican enthusiasm for increased immigration also was not so much about voting in the end, even with "converted" Latinos. Instead, these legislators seemingly believed that they could weaken the restraining and frustrating straightjacket devised by the Founding Fathers and abetted by American norms. In that idealized "new" United States, political uncertainty, demanding constituents, difficult elections, and accountability in general would "go away" after tinkering with the People, who have given lawmakers their privileges but who, like a Sword of Damocles, can also "unfairly" take them away. Hispanics would acquiesce and assist in the "natural progress" of these legislators to remain in power and increase the scope of that power. In this sense, Republicans and Democrats were similar.

Wow.
This is the first time I have read corroborating evidence of what I have suspected to be true; certainly it has been said by some that the politicians were intent on electing themselves a new constituency. I don't claim that as an original insight, but I think it needs to be recognized, Of course the Democrats want a malleable and docile constituency, one which will be a loyal clientele for their handouts and social programs, and a group which will deliver votes faithfully in exchange for benefits and preferences. Maybe they see the Hispanics as a more easily influenced group than blacks or other native-born minorities. I honestly think that they want a less 'uppity' constituency, and they think that a third-world people will be more easily pleased and easily manipulated, or maybe they think, in their delusion, that one more sizeable minority group will act as a 'buffer' between black and white. Or, even more likely, they want to further neutralize 'whitey', those rednecks they spoke of to Arias-King. And I suspect many on the Republican side are guilty of the same motivations.

And yes, Arias-King says that these two-faced politicians used such terms as 'redneck' in speaking of those they pretend to represent and serve

I remember few instances when a legislator spoke well of his or her white constituents. One even called them "rednecks," and apologized to us on their behalf for their incorrect attitude on immigration. Most of them seemed to advocate changing the ethnic composition of the United States as an end in itself. Jefferson and Madison would have perhaps understood why this is so—enthusiasm for mass immigration seems to be correlated with examples of undermining the "just and constitutional laws" they devised.'
[Emphasis mine]

Please note the passage about 'changing the ethnic composition of the United States...'
This is what many of us have been saying, to mostly deaf ears, for some time now.
Apparently these duplicitous pols let their guard down with Arias-King; no doubt they felt they could show their true face to their Hispanic colleague.

More outrageous passages from this piece:

Some legislators had also mentioned to us (oftentimes laughing) how they had "defanged" or "gutted" anti-immigration bills and measures, by neglecting to fund this program or tabling that provision, or deleting the other measure, etc. "Yes, we passed that law, but it can’t work because we also…" was a usual comment to assuage the Mexican
delegations.

In light of what we learned from speaking to them privately, it is surprising that many legislators have gone public recently with their pro-immigration views, as opposed to simply adding their votes discreetly and imposing a fait accompli...'

So these quislings admit, laughingly, that they are fooling and duping us 'rednecks' and rubes. A recent example would be the passing of the border fence legislation, in May of this year, then in July, refusing to fund it:
Senate denies funds for new border fence

Likewise, the initiative announced by Presidente Bush to put Guardsmen on the border, then sending a mere few, who are allowed only a 'supporting' role. This is the kind of Janus-faced deceit practiced by our elected officials.

Arias-King's article is a lengthy one, but an important one. The issues discussed are ones which we Americans urgently need to attend to. It is bad enough, shocking enough, that our political elites are attempting to replace or displace the population of the country they supposedly serve. It is disgusting (but sadly, not surprising) that they apparently regard us, the American people with such contempt and scorn. It is appalling that they have no loyalty and no patriotic, fellow feeling for their constituents and their heritage, But it is unconscionable, and a crime, that they are actively and knowingly subverting the will of the people and the Constitutional system they are sworn to uphold.
Our elected officials, for the most part, are a treasonous, corrupt, co-opted breed. It's past time that we had a clean sweep. We need to vote out almost all the incumbents, and start fresh, with politicians who are honest men and women. We need a new political party, because it seems all too clear that the existing parties do not have our interests at heart, and have regard only for their own power and greed. Because of these 'men' and women, our country's future is on the line. Truly. I am not sure that many people really grasp that fact.
I know there are many diehard party loyalists on the GOP side who claim that the Republicans are our only hope, insisting that a few isolated patriots in the party (Tancredo, for example) prove that the party is still worthy to survive. Sorry, but a few exceptions do not disprove the rule. The majority in both parties are selling this country out. And the pathetic argument that the GOP is the 'lesser of the evils' is a feeble one. To quote a trite (but true) saying, 'the lesser of two evils is still evil.'

I truly hope that this piece by Arias-King will get the attention it deserves, but somehow I suspect it won't; the big-time bloggers will probably pass it by, in favor of the usual partisan dust-ups, and this will be buried and forgotten. But it needs to be seen and read and discussed. I urge everyone to read it.

Postscript: Here is a link to a wonderful essay by Fredo Arias-King, in which he expresses heartfelt admiration and support for the United States. If only some of 'our' elected officials had as much sincere appreciation for America as he obviously does.

'Nativists need not apply!'

The title of this post is a quote from a self-described conservative blogger, who, in a post on the border issue, invited comments and 'debate', incongruously adding the caveat: 'Nativists need not apply!'
Was he ironically alluding to that famous phrase of the 19th-century exclusionary sign, stating 'No Irish need apply'?
I would guess so, although I would point out that the story of the 'No Irish' signs is now considered apocryphal by some scholars. But regardless, the phrase has entered our store of 'common wisdom' though it may not be true; it's always used by those seeking to discredit 'nativism' and to advocate for free, unfettered immigration.

Nativism: the word has certainly been getting quite a workout of late. The New York Times, true to liberal practice, throws the word around rather freely, lately using it in an op-ed piece on March 3, 2006. But oddly the phrase is much favored by the pro-amnesty faction of the GOP lately, too. What do we make of an insult which is deployed by both the ultra-liberal NYT and a 'conservative' like Michael Medved? Of course Medved is not the only Republican to whip out the 'nativist' card, but he did so in yesterday's piece at Townhall.com.

This is sadly typical of the 'respectable conservative' viewpoint; attempting to paint the amnesty faction as the 'mainstream', majority opinion, and to distance oneself from those evil narrow-minded 'nativists' who are thus being disinvited from the 'debate.' I wonder what kind of debate can be had with only certain points of view allowed? Is this in the spirit of our Founding Fathers? Maybe those founders were themselves (shudder!) nativists according to the neocons' definition.
But what is the dictionary definition?

1. A sociopolitical policy, especially in the United States in the 19th century, favoring the interests of established inhabitants over those of immigrants
2. The reestablishment or perpetuation of native cultural traits, especially in opposition to acculturation.

Now I suppose I need some morally superior neocon open-borderite to explain, from his high moral perch, what is wrong with the above policy. When, specifically, did it become wrong to favor 'the interests of established inhabitants over those of immigrants'? What kind of person thinks such a policy is objectionable? If it is so, then we have to condemn just about any country which has existed since time began; it is a 'given', at least in a world which makes any sense, that a country exists for the benefit of its people. The people, according to our Founders, are the nation. The 1798 Naturalization Act provided certain conditions for those desiring to become citizens of the United States. The people of this country, via their representatives, had a right to decide who enters and who becomes an American, according to their own interests as a nation. It is a given that the country exists for the citizens, not for the whole world, or humanity at large. Citizens have primacy. So find fault with that. Tell me why it is not so, or why it should not be so.
Yet I guarantee you that many people today would find fault with that principle, and do. These people are by defnition liberals, because they evidently believe that each generation can rewrite the principles of their country to suit modern prejudices. Liberals take it as a given that each generation is more enlightened, wiser, more knowledgeable, and just better than those benighted old white guys who founded this country. They, our forebears, were ignorant, and didn't know what we know. And there are a good many people who subscribe to this arrogant view of history, who really believe that we today are superior to the writers of our Constitution, and even better than our parents and grandparents. These people conflate scientific and technical knowledge with wisdom and enlightenment. It is undeniable that we are technically more advanced than previous generations but the state of the world belies the notion that we are wiser or more advanced. Yet people arrogantly assume this. And not all those who do so are Democrats; there are plenty of liberals who vote Republican as well as those who blindly follow the Democrat Party or the Greens. Liberalism, as I will continue to say, suffuses all our thought these days, and unless we consciously reject it and swim against the current, we end up being swept along with the liberal tide.
There are plenty of Republicans, especially those of the Wall Street Journal/Country Club set, whose presuppositions are mostly liberal; they mingle with the hip liberal intelligentsia and they don't want to be associated with those hicks and rednecks who hold 'backward' nativist views. And there are Republicans whose principles are nothing more than blind loyalty to a party label or the person of the President, and who will follow pied pipers towards open borders and other such radical notions.

And there are Republicans who differ from Democrats only in supporting a strong military or lower taxes.

So we have an unholy alliance of ostensible 'conservatives' aligning with the likes of ultra-liberal Ted Kennedy in support of the Senate amnesty bill. Why these people have suddenly lost their antipathy for the most liberal of Democrats is a mystery, but many Republicans are suddenly choosing strange bedfellows on this border issue. As I've said, we are seeing a sifting of the GOP via this issue, and the results aren't promising. Precious few of the GOP are proving to be truly conservative or pro-American. It's getting harder to assume that the GOP are the 'pro-American' patriotic party, while so many of them are supporting mass immigration, a truly radical notion. I will say it again: there is nothing conservative about mass immigration and the transformation of our country. There is no conservative argument to be made for it.
None. Whatsoever.

So, Michael Medved and his fellow liberal Republicans, they of the 'respectable' wing of the GOP, are lining up with the leftists to take potshots at conservatives, and resorting to using the same ad hominems and trite NYT-style name-calling. Thanks for showing us where you stand, and where your loyalties lie.

Medved, I am afraid, is in the same camp as the other immigration sentimentalists, who are legion. If I had a dollar for every maudlin story I've heard lately about poor immigrant grandparents (who came to Ellis Island penniless, in steerage, not knowing a word of English, etc). I would be wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. Enough with the hackneyed tearjerker stories. When did we confer mass sainthood on immigrants? Why is having immigrant grandparents or great-grandparents suddenly a claim to moral authority on the border issue? If anything, it increases the likelihood of a blind spot on the subject. Bias comes in many forms, and these people, with their weepy soft spot for immigrants, have a bias, and cannot treat the subject rationally. Perhaps these people, not those bad, bad nativists, should abstain from the debate because they cannot detach from their feelings and personal prejudices on the subject. We don't make policy on the basis of anecdotes about family members, or at least in a civilized, rational country we shouldn't. If, in a democracy, we have people making decisions on the basis of personal bias and emotion, without regard for the common interest or the well-being of the country as a whole, our country will not be a principled country. It will be everybody against everybody else, based on selfish feelings and competing interests. But we live in a narcissistic age when the individual's 'feelings' reign supreme. So we have de facto open borders, and tens of millions of illegals because we have gone soft and maudlin about immigration. Those of us who counsel detached common sense and adherence to the rule of law, and to our traditions, are called 'mean-spirited' or 'hard-hearted' or -- wait for it -- 'nativist.'
So be it.

I'd rather be a 'nativist' than a Politically-Correct open borders shill, selling out my country for the sake of striking a morally superior pose. Or for the sake of cheap domestic help or exploitable labor. The word 'nativist' is only a slur in the minds of those who don't put the interests of American citizens first.
And if I am part of a 'fringe' movement, as all the liberals in both parties say, then hooray for the fringe. My ancestors (who were not immigrants, thank you, but settlers, colonists, trail-blazers, and oh yes, some American Indians) who fought for this country's independence, were a 'fringe' group, according to the establishment of that time. The majority of the 'respectable' folk wanted to stay part of the British colonial system, and gave their allegiance to the Crown. I promise you that these respectable, establishment loyalists called my patriot ancestors in Virginia and Massachusetts disparaging names. According to them, the patriots were a 'fringe' group. So much for mainstream opinion.
I also guarantee you that my Founding ancestors held views which were much more 'nativist' and 'xenophobic' than the pious cant spouted by the pro-amnesty, open borders 'conservatives' of today. I challenge Medved, who prides himself on being some kind of American History expert, to find any support in the founding documents, or in the personal writings of our Founders, for mass immigration or open borders. Can't be done. The maudlin, hack poem by Emma Lazarus,(Give me your tired, your poor...') contrary to public opinion, is not representative of our Founding principles.

So, I will hold fast to the principles of my forefathers in this country: for a sovereign America, which is based on an Anglocentric history, culture, and language, a sovereign America which has borders and protects them, a sovereign America which is not hopelessly entangled with the corrupt leaders of a country like Mexico. I will stand with those men, whom I know to be right and to be sound thinkers and true patriots. If doing so draws scorn and derision and abuse from the 'open borders' pharisees and cheap labor procurers, then that merely confirms I am on the right side.

I encourage my fellow nativists (and I know there are many; we are the majority, contrary to what the country club Republicans and the moonbat lefties say) to reclaim the word, not to be ashamed of it.
So I will wear the 'nativist fringe' badge with considerable pride.

Life During Wartime

At her Ultima Thule blog, Aussiegirl continues her series of essays on the present world crisis, which she describes as a new World War. As always, she ponders some very urgent questions and issues.
Reading her post, I was reminded of some remarks made by Oriana Fallaci. In her book the 'Force of Reason' she describes an interview with 'Palestinian' terrorist George Habash, back in 1972, in which he laid out the Islamic plan for a protracted war not only on Israel, but on Europe and America, and promised 'no peace for the West.'
Falacci then says, according to this LA Weekly article dated March 2006, that she later realized that he meant war in a much broader sense: not merely terrorism or military warfare, but 'the cultural war, the demographic war, the war waged through immigration, fertility, presumed pluriculturalism.'

This is the reality of the war we are now in; the tragedy for us in the West is that many of us cannot -- (or is it will not ?) see that the war is not merely the threatened conflagration in the Middle East but a much more encompassing war, by Islam against all of Western civilization: against Europe and all the European-derived, Christian countries, from Australia to Scandinavia, and of course most of all against us in America, known in the Islamic world as 'the Great Satan.' And the war involves, just as Falacci and anyone with eyes acknowledges, cultural and demographic war: war by immigration, fecundity, and in any other way in which they can exploit our weak-minded liberalism.
And in an even broader sense, the war is a war of the whole Third World against us of the West. Driven by envy and need, the Third World is staging a Camp of the Saints style invasion. Europe has its stream of African and Moslem illegals, we in America have a mostly Mexican and Central American influx.The 'newcomers' are not recognized as a threat by many in the West, because they come as refugees, supplicants, destitute and desperate people. They evoke pity rather than fear, but despite their appearance of weakness, they have the advantage over us: they know that there IS a struggle of the Third World against the effete, and ripe-for-the-picking First World. We are the weak ones, and our enemies know it. Yes, we have weapons and wealth, but we have lost the confidence in ourselves and in our right to primacy in the world. We have, for the most part, lost the courage of our convictions. We are weakened mostly by our yielding to perverse liberal ideas. We, in our simple-minded do-goodism, refuse to recognize any struggle unless there are weapons drawn or overt threats made.
All eyes are on Israel and Lebanon now, because that is the focal point of the war, the hotspot. But that is not the whole conflict, and this war has more than one front and more than one form. But the sides are aligned: the First World vs. the Third. We are under siege, all of us in the First World, in one form or another.The Islamic threat is heightened by the fact that we in the West are weakened by the demographic assault and the economic costs thereof; their jihad is more successful as our resources are diverted with our border problems and internal ethnic conflicts.
There is a religious aspect to ithe war, of course: the Islamic jihad, but that is only the most obvious aspect.

Many people in America are belatedly awakening to the threat of the Hispanic 'reconquista', but many others refuse to see that threat, and think that Middle Eastern terrorists (and supposedly only an 'extreme few') are the sole danger.
So we continue to invite the world indiscriminately to our countries, and we blithely pretend that everyone is the same; everybody wants the same thing. Our leaders tell us this: all human beings desire freedom and democracy, so if we just open our countries and our coffers to them, all will be well. Just eliminate want and poverty and ignorance and the world will be one big happy family. No more terror, no more tyranny and injustice and war. This worldview informs our efforts in the Middle East, and led us to enable the terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah by providing democratic means to empower them.
As long as we cling to this polyannish liberal view of the world, we are absolutely disarmed against our enemies. And when I use the word 'liberal.' I am in no sense confining that label to Democrats or to the Labour Party in the UK; liberalism is the basic orientation of the West in general. Just pay attention to the rhetoric coming from many in the Republican Party; it's unadulterated liberalism, perhaps disguised with patriotic-sounding rhetoric, but the idea of 'winning hearts and minds' in Iraq is just as liberal as it was when we attempted it in Viet Nam. And the idea of being bringers of 'democracy' to the benighted Islamic world is pure, 100-proof Wilsonian liberalism. The idea of open borders, be it camouflaged as 'amnesty' or 'earned legalization', or support for mass immigration, is beyond liberal; it's radical.
And our 'conservatives' can't be let off the hook, either; many of them support lax border control and immigration policies as a means of getting cheap labor and as a way of facilitating globalism, which they see as an economic necessity. Patriotic and national loyalties, and loyalty to our culture, mean nothing to those whose only desire is to 'fumble in a greasy till', and grub for the almighty dollar.
So we can't dismiss the problem as something endemic to the left only.
Our whole Western world must wake up from our delusions and return to first principles. It's imperative that we wake up to the realities of the world we live in. As the Talking Heads sang a quarter of a century or more ago, 'this ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around.'
We are playing for keeps, folks. This is no time for partisan finger-pointing and projecting, no time for denial, or for hedonistic escapism.
Conservatives are by definition the guardians of safety, stabililty, and continuity; they are supposed to be the protectors of security and order and tradition. Liberals seek innovation and reformation, revolutions of one sort or another, always attempting to reform or change. Without a counterforce of conservatives dedicated to staying the forces of constant change and disruption, a society will be subject to upheaval and chaos. But the fact is, much of what passes for conservatism does not live up to its name; our designated 'conservatives' have abandoned the job of conserving anything except their own power or advancement in our corrupt political system. In what sense are these people 'conservative'? Most of today's professed 'conservatives' think that as long as they are slightly to the right of the loony left, they are fighting the good conservative fight. One wonders if they believe in their own posturing and rhetoric or whether they are cynically trying to woo both sides; 'walking on the left side, while leaning to the right'. Or is it vice-versa?

Unless our 'conservatives' rediscover conservatism in the original sense, they offer us no hope. It is no good to rely on party labels alone; just having an 'R' after one's name is not enough.
And without a firm rejection of the failed liberal values, including selfish narcissism, which have brought us to the present situation, and which leave us vulnerable in this present darkness, our leaders will not be able to lead us. They are failing us at present, and it is time for them to recognize how far our country has strayed in these last few decades. We have got to shake off the madness and reverse course while there is still time. We need leaders who are not still dedicated to the failed liberalism and modern nihilism which is the albatross around the West's neck.
What will it take to do this? There are some voices of sanity in the blogosphere, but unfortunately many of the most influential bloggers are still part of the old, failed, system and ideology, much as they may strike the rebel pose. As is almost always the case, the truth is not popular; people prefer comfortable falsehoods to difficult truths. The sane voices, in government, in the MSM, and even in the blogosphere, are few and far between; the proverbial voices in the wilderness. There is a crying need for leadership, but men of mere charisma and force of personality cannot save us, unless they are acting in the cause of right and truth. Those things are scarce commodities now, after decades of liberal erosion of our principles.
I hope I am wrong, but it may be that we in America cannot wake up until we are at the edge of the precipice; Things may have to get considerably worse before they can change for the better. Perhaps only then will people be willing to admit the futility of the present course and change directions.
We Westerners are all in the same leaky boat, taking on water; we need to realize the peril we are in and 'act --act in the living present!' as Longfellow wrote.

Will scolds neoconservatives

I find this piece by George Will to be rather odd. He takes 'neoconservatives' to task for their dubious policies in the Middle East, and even goes so far as to call 'neoconservatism' a 'spectacularly misnamed radicalism.'
I won't argue with him on that definition, but somehow I don't recall Will disagreeing much with these neocon policies over the last several years.
I do know that in many 'respectable Republican' circles, to even use the term 'neocon' was to risk being called 'anti-Semitic'; some people declared it to be a 'code word' used only by anti-Semites. I found this claim to be somewhat Orwellian; the idea seemed to be to quash all discussion of 'neoconservatism' by declaring it to be beyond the pale, a matter of bigotry. So, the whole subject was off limits, in a sense; how can one criticize what cannot even be named? Some of us used neologisms like 'metrocon' to describe the neos, (after all, they are more often the urban, metrosexual type 'conservatives', as compared to red-state, rural conservatives who are probably much more numerous), but the alternative names didn't seem to gain currency.
So now, does Will's mention of that dreaded word make its usage respectable? After all, Will epitomizes 'respectable' Republicanism, does he not?
More importantly, I hope the article signals that we can now examine neoconservatism, and cease treating it as above criticism, or denying its very existence. 'Neoconservatism' has largely usurped the mantle of mainstream conservatism, which title is not merited.
I hope there will be some honest discussions of the very nature of conservatism; we are in dire need of an honest discussion, as a prerequisite to rediscovering some principles. Blind party loyalty just won't cut it in these dangerous times.

Guard the Borders Blogburst 7/17/06

A Clarification on my Position on Immigration

Written By Linda at Right as Usual

In talking to some readers, I realized that they were under the impression that I disliked immigrants.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

My maiden name sounded distinctly "ethnic" and unusual. As a result, most people assumed that I was one of the many displaced people that arrived in the Cleveland area after WWII, including the recently arrived.

I, not being the brightest bulb in the pack, just thought they were interested in fascinating me when they eagerly initiated conversations. I didn't realize at the time they were hoping to talk to a fellow "newbie".

This resulted in my acquiring friendships with people from:

* Estonia
* Germany
* Brazil
* Lebanon
* Syria
* India
* Taiwan
* Japan
* Hong Kong
* Pakistan
* Vietnam
* England
* Greece
* Jordan
* Romania
* Hungary
* Poland
* Spain
* Peru
* Korea
* Austria
* Liberia
* Yugoslavia
* Mexico

...just to name the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

With the exception of one person from Mexico, they all had something in common - they LEGALLY immigrated.

And that's the crux of my "problem" with immigration. I simply think it's unfair to keep allowing people to flow over the border without going through channels. Some want to think of themselves as compassionate people, who gladly accept the "poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free".

Yeah, right. By allowing those who ignore inconvenient laws to escape retribution, our country is denying law-abiding foreigners to claim their rightful spot in the queue. Folks, we can't accept everybody. The world holds over 6 billion people. At what point would you like us to stop taking everyone in?

When our economy breaks down under the strain of taking in under-educated, under-skilled workers? Many of them don't contribute to Social Security and taxes - they are paid under the table.

When our schools no longer have the ability to educate our children? It costs money to provide ESL services, folks.

When the illegals outnumber the natives? And vote against democracy? See last week's Blogburst articles for examples of THAT.

Any discussion of immigration has to begin with a recognition that we can't take in a flood of people without documentation, who started that journey by breaking the law, and who largely don't speak much English and have little education or skills. To do so jeopardizes the very structure of our society. We can bring in SOME, we can adjust to helping them assimilate, we just can't manage the process with this many at once.

Yeah, I know they just want to work. The question to ask is, would you give up YOUR job to help the immigrant? Would you take them into YOUR house? Would you work a second job to pay for educating their kids?

If not, then you haven't the right to expect the rest of the country to do what you won't do.

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This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.