Border fence vote

The Senate has apparently approved the construction of 700 miles of fence along the U.S.- Mexico 'border'.
I say 'apparently' because the fact is, I don't trust the politicians. I hope they prove me wrong, but I think this is just a ploy; some of the Senators say explicitly that the fence is just the first step, and the next step is what they, in their Orwellian fashion, keep calling 'comprehensive reform'. They claim this 'comprehensive reform' is absolutely vital in order to 'fix a broken system.' And just how did the system get 'broken'? The influx of illegals, which has been going on for years, has not just been ignored by our politicians, but actively pushed and encouraged by the administration and by most of our sellout 'representatives.' They've colluded in 'breaking' the system, then they have the gall to say, 'Oh look, the system is broken! How did that happen? The only answer now is comprehensive reform.'
Of course anybody with a three-digit IQ knows that 'comprehensive reform'=amnesty. It means open the gates wide, and lay out the welcome mat for the stampede which will follow.

And meanwhile, back in our friendly neighboring country, known as Mexico or as our soon-to-be partner in the North American Travesty, the corrupt Mexican government is vowing to stop the construction of the fence.

Mexico is not going to bear, it is not going to permit, and it will not allow a stupid thing like this wall," Derbez said.

"What has to be done is to raise a storm of criticism, as is already happening, against this," he said, promising to turn the international community against the plan.

So Fox and Derbez, arrogant and brazen as ever, plan to try to defeat the will of the American people.

I wouldn't bet on our government taking our side; judging by recent history, Fox and Derbez have more to say about the policies of this country than we, the people, do.

I hope I am wrong; we'll see how this plays out.

Nativists and Know-Nothings

In an article titled Immigration Confusions by Steven Malanga at the City Journal, Malanga gives a lengthy answer to a pro-immigration piece from the New York Sun, The Case for Immigration, by Diana Furchtgott-Roth.
(Note: if the title of the New York Sun piece was not a giveaway, I would have guessed that the writer was a liberal, without reading a word of the article. The hyphenated name is a dead giveaway)

Predictably, Ms. Hyphenated-Liberal trots out the usual 'arguments' used by the open-borders advocates, and the big gun she hauls out at the end is the obligatory reference to the Know-Nothing Party. I challenge any of these liberal open-borders shills to tell us something about this Know-Nothing Party, since it is being used as the ultimate insult against immigration restrictionists. But I suspect that it's the open-borders shills who 'Know Nothing'.

However, Steven Malanga in his City Journal response does a thorough job of disposing of Ms. Furchtgott-Roth's arguments. It's a long read, but a substantial piece, worth reading in full, and Malanga questions the motives of the open-borders advocates on the 'right'.

On the left, advocacy for open borders is not about what's good for our economy but about immigration as an extension of the civil rights battles of the 1960s. But on the right it's hard to understand what's behind the increasingly strident advocacy other than ideology -- to be defended at all costs and by any rhetorical technique available, including branding its opponents as enablers of Know Nothingness or other disreputable movements.

I have one little quibble with Malanga, though: he accepts Ms. Hyphenated-Zealot's slur of the Know-Nothings, and objects to being classed with such 'disreputable' movements; and more, he accepts her classifications, referring, in his own words, to 'racism or nativism or some other despicable ''ism.''

If we let the leftists/liberals including the Republican liberals, (seen at their worst, here), define all the terms, we have lost from the outset. We have to try to take control of the terminology, and refuse to speak their debased language. As long as we accept their definitions and the words continue to mean whatever the liberals choose them to mean, (as with Humpty Dumpty) we will get nowhere.

As for me, I'm going to make every effort to redeem the word 'nativist'. I intend to wear the badge proudly; I plan to call myself a nativist first, and deprive our adversaries of the satisfaction of flinging that name at me as an insult. I claim it. What is the opposite of a nativist, anyway? No ready label comes to mind, but whatever the opposite of a nativist is, it's something highly unnatural.

Why on earth should preferring one's own countrymen or fellow-citizen above foreigners be a disgrace, or an aberration, or a thought-crime? To accede to this judgment is to be defeated. We have to reassert the honor and the 'naturalness' of putting our own countrymen and kin first. Just as we treat our families with greater concern than we do strangers (at least if we are normal, balanced people) we should put our countrymen first. Believe me, the Mexicans put their own people first, don't they? What's the Spanish word for 'nativist'? They probably have no word for it, because it is just considered the normal state of things. Every nationality gives preference to their own.
It's wrong to make us 'thought-criminals' if we prefer our own.
Preferring one's own does not mean 'racism' or 'xenophobia' or 'hate.' Let's not go along with such liberal distortions.

Border agents, continued...

As I posted the link to Sara Carter's article (below) on the Border Patrol agents, I expressed doubts whether the story would have legs. Predictably, it's been linked to in very few blogs, a couple of exceptions being the Stein Report and Lonewacko, but it has not gone anywhere.
But here is an op-ed from the same paper, the Inland Daily Bulletin, titled 'Border Patrol on alert for sneaky U.S. politicians.

Strangely, the MSM including the TV news channels, seem to think lots of things are much more important, things like celebrity stories, or partisan squabbling and bickering, and the petty battles our politicians engage in to keep us distracted, or to keep us fired up for the Party, or to divide us and turn us against each other. It seems to be working very well; many Americans see the enemy as primarily other Americans, while our country is disappearing under our noses.

Ultimately it's up to us; the media and our political classes have decided to go over our heads, ignoring the will of the people they supposedly serve, and to go whoring after ethnic votes, or a new constituency which will be willing slaves, or big money interests. All of the above matter more, seemingly, than 'we, the people.'

In taking this attitude, the media and the politicians are making themselves ever more irrelevant.

Border agents intimidated?

Sara A. Carter, who writes for the Inland Daily Bulletin in California, has been doing some good reporting on the border issue. She broke the story a while back about the feds passing information to Mexican officials on the movements of the Minutemen in the border areas.
Of course the story never received the coverage it deserved, although a few of us in the blogosphere picked up on it, and it got some attention on conservative forums. But of course the MSM ignores such stories; they don't fit the agenda.

Such will probably be the case with this story written by Sara Carter, 'Mums the word on border'.

Congressmen who visit the U.S.-Mexico border unannounced are being monitored by the Department of Homeland Security, and at least one U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent has been suspended for speaking to a congressman without first getting supervisory clearance, according to documents obtained by the Daily Bulletin.
Congressional representatives interviewed by the Daily Bulletin said they were unaware until recently that Border Patrol agents were required to file Significant Incident Reports -- normally used for shootings and other serious border incidents -- when congressional representatives made unannounced visits this summer along the U.S.-Mexico border.''

At least one agent has apparently been punished for speaking with an Iowa congressman, Steve King. Rep. King is quoted as saying that several agents during his past visits would not speak with him for fear of being punished.
King rightly describes Border Patrol/DHS's policies as a form of intimidation.

The clear intent of this policy is to discourage employees with firsthand knowledge about the porous state of our borders from sharing that information with members of Congress," said TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing about 11,000 Border Patrol agents. "In order for our democracy to function properly, citizens and lawmakers must have access to the unvarnished truth."

Withholding information from congressional leaders violates the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Bonner added.'

Bonner makes a very important point: the intent of the policy is to keep the people in the dark about the border crisis, by attempting to interfere with our duly elected representatives in their efforts to examine things firsthand.

All of this is profoundly un-democratic; our representatives are our eyes and ears on these matters, since the average American citizen cannot ascertain first-had what is happening. Trying to control the flow of information on vital matters like our border security is not the kind of thing we expect in a 'free, democratic society,'
And as Bonner says, these misguided policies are in violation of the Homeland Security Act.


One agent says

It feels like we just can't speak the truth," said an Arizona Border Patrol agent, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They want to know what we say and who we say it to. If we say something that doesn't fit with the agency line, then we're reprimanded."

A Congressional investigation of this is in order; we'll see what happens, or whether this story is just lost down the memory hole. Many of us are weary of faxing or writing our congressmen; I have only ultraliberal 'representatives' who are not the least bit responsive to my concerns. On the other hand, the massive efforts of many immigration-restriction groups over the last year seem to be having some effect; some of our elected officials are starting to at least pretend to take notice. But talk is cheap.

What is the government afraid of, with policies like this, or what are they hiding, and why?
It's obvious that our 'leadership' has no intention to secure our borders or to assert our sovereignty. We know that they want to flood this country with immigrants, both illegal and legal. It's obvious that the fact that the majority of citizens is not in agreement with the government's plans for us. What is there left to hide?

Maybe this is the kind of thing they want to keep us in the dark about.
Trashing the border
or more likely, this is the kind of thing they want to hush up, or whitewash:
Battle at the border
The above is an eye-opening piece about the violence in the border areas, spilling over into American territory, along with the domination of violent Mexican drug cartels.


Despite the very real crises caused by our insane wide-open borders, it seems that the plans call for amnesty and the de facto erasure of borders, whether under a 'North American Community' or not. Yet they try to maintain a thin pretense of wanting to shore up security and enforce our laws. Why do they bother? Our leaders say one thing, giving mere lip service to enforcing the laws and protecting our 'borders' but they establish policies which undermine our sovereignty and independence.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that our government truly thinks we, the people, are stupid, gullible, and easily distracted. Sad to say, there may be some truth to this.
I don't believe all Americans are stupid; I think that there has been a purposeful dumbing-down of America via our educational system and our media. And most of us are either too wrapped up in bread-and-circuses, and too worn out by the rat race, too preoccupied:
'getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,' as Wordsworth wrote long ago.

Our elites are counting on the passivity or distraction of their 'subjects'. But as long as a few people continue to shine a light on some of these clandestine moves by our government, there's hope.
Kudos to Sara A. Carter for her reporting on the border issues. It is extremely rare to find any kind of honest reporting on the border/immigration issue. It is painfully clear that the MSM works to an agenda, and that they have no interest in covering all sides of the story. One would think, in a sane world, that our newspapers and other media outlets would tell the story with some attention to the American point of view: how does it affect American citizens, how does it affect our everyday lives? What does the future hold, given present trends? Is all this immigration, whether legal or illegal, good for America and Americans? Does it serve the majority of us? Instead of an examination of all perspectives, including and especially that of the American people, we get manipulative sob stories of immigrant travails and of 'racism' and xenophobia. We get sermons, endless sermons from our self-appointed moral guardians in the media, and in various leftist 'do-gooder' groups, and ethnic militant groups. Any coverage of the downside of immigration and open borders consists of hit pieces on the Minutemen or denunciations of the handful of pro-enforcement leaders like Tom Tancredo. We get endless editorials, lecturing us on why, as a 'nation of immigrants' we must welcome everybody from everywhere, for all time.

But thank goodness there are still a few journalists like Sara A. Carter.

Let's hope a Congressional investigation is next.

Apologies and appeasement

Recently we have been watching this rather silly tempest-in-a-teapot over Sen.George Allen's supposed use of racial slurs (macaca? Who even knows what that word means?) including the use of the dreaded, ineffable word, referred to in hushed tones as 'the n-word', and of course his reported display of the Confederate battle flag.

I haven't followed Allen's career, and I have no strong feelings about him one way or another. But I can't say I am impressed by his handling of this trumped-up scandal. First of all, I think P.G. Wodehouse was correct when he said that

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

And we live in a sad age when we, all of us in the West, are constantly apologizing; we (and our leaders) apologize at the drop of a hat. All someone has to do is to claim offense, provided of course that the 'offended' party is a member of a protected victim group) and we are assuming the groveling position. And it never brings about reconciliation, or a pledge to 'let bygones be bygones', as used to be the case among gentlemen and ladies. Now the apology is taken not as a gracious acknowledgement of error and a desire to make amends, but as a sign of weakness, as a capitulation. It's taken as an admission of guilt and a commitment to make reparations for as long as the offended party demands. Apologizing these days, especially when it involves one's opponents or enemies, gives them eternal leverage over the 'offender'; it's tantamount to paying blackmail money to an extortionist. They are never content with just one payment; once it's clear that you capitulate and admit guilt, they have you, and they keep exacting more payments, and they keep reminding you of your guilt.

How many leaders do we have who have resisted demands for apologies? I can think of very, very few in our generation. One lone example might be Rep. Tom Tancredo; when he made some blunt remarks about the possibility of retaliating against Mecca in the event of an Islamic terror attack (such as with a WMD) on America, he was pilloried by the usual suspects; the professional grievance-mongers in Islamic groups, and by the pious pacifists on the left.
However he resisted the demands of his baying critics for an apology or retraction.


That steadfastness on his part makes him one in a million.
I can't say I am as impressed with the Pope, and his seeming truckling to Islam, and his professing of 'respect' for that religion of war. I know his admirers think that he has not apologized and that he is to be praised; I disagree. But that's for another post, another time.

And I can't say I am impressed with George Allen's efforts to placate his critics; I think it shows little integrity. I am distressed that he is letting his critics trash the symbols of the South, namely the Confederate battle flag.

The South has been the target of a relentless campaign by leftists and other ignorant people, who want to depict the Southron cause as being driven by 'hate', and who caricature Southron people as backward, inbred, and bigoted. The South, and its history and symbols, are under constant attack. The NAACP has been attacking the Confederate flag as a symbol of hate since the 1980s, (oddly, no one 'knew' it was a hate symbol for the preceding 120+ years) and they have succeeded in convincing most of the country, even many in the South, that the flag and the Confederate heritage are racist and shameful. There are many people alive today who have been fed this revisionist view of the flag and the history of that era, and who don't even realize that the flag was not always considered a 'hate symbol'.

There are frequent episodes of vandalism against Confederate grave sites and monuments, one of the latest being this incident in Leesburg, VA.

Other incidents involve ugly graffiti on monuments, gravestones smashed or broken, and the litany goes on.
Why are these things not considered 'hate crimes'? I ask rhetorically; we all know the propaganda, whether we believe it or not: the South is the bad guy, the oppressor, and never the victim.

Political Correctness has a death grip on our culture. It deforms our thinking, it stunts our discourse, it saturates our atmosphere with lies and hypocrisy. It is poisonous.

There are lots of otherwise patriotic Americans, even those who call themselves conservative, who gleefully join in this trashing of the Confederacy and its symbols. Many such people are Northerners who hold extreme bitterness toward the 'treasonous' South, as they call it. Many others are simply sycophantic types who strike a cheap 'moral' pose by slandering the South, and paying homage to Political Correctness. There are plenty of Republicans among that group, sad to say, people who imagine themselves to be 'conservative' Americans, some of the same people who slam 'liberals' all the time. They fail to see that they are just echoing those liberals they claim to oppose.
But there is nothing remotely conservative about joining in the left's war on our American history, heritage, and symbols. There is nothing conservative about rewriting history, and expunging whatever 'offends' the victim group du jour.

I don't expect to persuade any of the South-haters who think the South of my ancestors was the repository of all evil; such people are not convinced by information or facts. But it may be that there are some, as with some of the younger generation, who have never been taught an impartial history of this country. I invite anyone who has an open mind to investigate the history for yourselves, if possible, using sources from the pre-PC era, that is, before the late 60s.
Any sources since then are suspect, having been revised and Politically Corrected.
I especially invite people who are interested to read an unbiased account of the Reconstruction era in the South.
Here is one page which avoids the PC point of view

In another generation, unless we turn things around, I expect we will be rewriting history to favor Hispanics. If we 'remember the Alamo' at all, (where my 3rd great-granduncle died, helping defend it) the history books (en Espanol, of course) will remember the defenders as villainous gringos, rightly slain by the 'heroic' Santa Anna.

Or maybe, if Moslems are in the ascendancy by then, as they hope to be, then we will no longer be allowed any symbols of our heritage, religious or cultural or national.
And our home-grown malcontents and insurgents on the left would happily eliminate all our national symbols, including Old Glory, probably, and substitute some one-world symbol.

What our fate will be depends a great deal on the quality of the leadership we get; it was famously said by Joseph DeMaistre, in 1811, that 'every country has the government it deserves.' As hard as it is to admit that in our present sorry circumstances, I think there is a great deal of truth in that saying. And I think that we get the leaders we deserve, much as I hate to say it. At present all of us in the West have leaders who are flouting the will of their constituents, who represent not the people they claim to represent, but some shadowy elite which is behind the scenes: global/corporate interests for example. None of our current leaders in the West seem to have what it takes to stand up to the external and internal threats, seeming more concerned with being PC and moving toward some kind of unholy synthesis rather than standing up for our historical nations and heritage.

I have several direct ancestors and a number of kinfolks who fought for the Confederacy. I make no apologies for them; I'm not ashamed of them. And just as we with Confederate ancestors should not apologize or truckle to anyone, neither should anyone else in the West.

Apologies and appeasement on our part are not only unhelpful; they aid and abet the other side. Anybody who truckles to our enemies, internal or external, is part of the problem. It's only the supine liberal attitudes, the emphasis on 'dialogue' and 'building bridges' and 'getting along' that leaves us open to the attacks on our heritage and our way of life. It's those spineless politicians and self-seeking public figures who are opening the gates to our enemies, and enabling them.

Maybe it is time that we the people begin to assert ourselves, stand up for our heritage, and refuse to go along with this monolithic agenda; we don't have the luxury of waiting for a man on a white charger to lead us.

Guard the Borders Blogburst 9/25/06

This Blogburst is also available as a Podcast.

by Toni at Bear Creek Ledger

All of these stories were found in the last couple days posted to Lucianne.

'Border Baby' boom strains S. Texas - There's a picture with the story of an illegal alien who's given birth to her fourth child on American soil at American taxpayer expense who thinks it's owed to her!

Of course the real story is how 'anchor babies' are breaking the backs of South Texas hospitals.

Doctors and health officials say they are overwhelmed by both the new arrivals and those immigrant mothers who already are in the state. Even Houston's feeling the pinch. An estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of the 10,587 births at Ben Taub General Hospital and Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital last year were to undocumented immigrants, administrators say.

Also feeling the strain is Starr County, an already poor South Texas county that has the region's only taxpayer-supported hospital district.

Immigrants "want a U.S.-born baby" and know that emergency room staffers don't collect any money up front, said Dr. Mario Rodriguez, an obstetrician in Starr County.

"The word is out: Come to Starr County and get delivered for free. Why pay $1,000 in Mexico when you can get it for free?" Rodriguez said.

This story is more than disconcerting. Gives me a lot of confidence in ICE/DHS! The corruption is disheartening, read the list and weep.

Corruption Involving Immigration Workers:

In the past 12 months, dozens of U.S. immigration employees have been accused of corruption-related charges. Some cases, drawn from a review of court records and government announcements, and listed by agency:

U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION

- David Duque Jr., a Border Patrol agent since the mid-1990s, faces up to 15 years in prison at his November sentencing after pleading guilty to bribery and the unlawful transfer of documents. While being recorded by investigators, Duque sold some 70 identification documents to a source cooperating with law officers - including passports, birth certificates, green cards and Social Security cards. He also took a $5,000 bribe to allow cocaine through a highway checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas.

snip......

U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

- Santiago Efrain Valle, an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso, Texas, was charged in March with trying to extort $20,000 from an immigration detainee at the El Paso Service Processing Center. Federal agents arrested Valle after he allegedly accepted $20,000 from undercover officers. According to court documents, Valle agreed to accept the money in exchange for dismissing pending immigration charges against the detainee and also changing his risk classification. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison.

snip.....

U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES

- Robert Schofield, a USCIS district office supervisor in Fairfax, Va., was arrested in June, accused of illegally granting residency and issuing naturalization certificates to more than 100 unqualified immigrants. Qiming Ye, a Chinese citizen, also was charged for allegedly brokering deals between Schofield and Asian immigrants. One unqualified immigrant was granted residency status after meeting Schofield's wife in the Philippines, and then living with Schofield and baby-sitting his stepchild for a year, a court affidavit alleges. When stopped by Customs officials at an airport, the immigrant provided Schofield's name, cell phone and home telephone number from memory, the affidavit said. Passports seized from Ye's residence included green card stamps bearing Schofield's ID, and phone traces showed dozens of calls between Ye and Schofield's home number and his Department of Homeland Security cell phone, the court documents allege. "Numerous" allegations of bribery involving Schofield have been reported in the last decade, an investigator said in an affidavit. A trial date is pending.

I've only posted one of each area from the story. There's many more in the story and the dollars involved can be staggering.

Then we have more great news from ICE/DHS. Told of immigrant arrests, Feds often failing to act:

The lack of response by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has fostered confusion among municipal officials already resentful of being designated as surrogate federal agents in the national policy debate over illegal immigrants.

This comes at a time when a suspected illegal immigrant who was once in Denver police custody stands accused of dragging a woman to death behind his vehicle. There are conflicting reports as to whether Denver police notified immigration officials after he was arrested in April.

Law-enforcement agencies in Colorado placed 9,429 inquiries about suspected illegal immigrants to ICE in the 2005 accounting year. ICE requested detainment for 330 of those suspects, according to agency statistics.

This year, ICE has received 13,063 inquiries from Colorado authorities, placing holds on 284.

Well that really confirms the story from TBone's buddy!

Now this is a story which gives me a modicum of hope.

GA Lawmaker may apologize to Latino's

A Georgia Republican says he'll apologize to a national Latino advocacy group he accused of supporting racism and illegal immigration if the organization agrees to a list of conditions.

In a press release this week, Rep. Charlie Norwood called the National Council of La Raza a "radical," "anti-American" organization that "supports racist groups calling for the secession of the western United States as a Hispanic-only homeland."

In offering a conditional apology, Norwood asked NCLR to sever all ties with a leftist student group and its "racist doctrines," to repudiate all claims that any American territory belongs to Mexico, and to seek outside supervision to ensure that NCLR-sponsored programs do not discriminate.

La Raza uses all the typical name calling of the left when they are in the wrong and have nothing left to use in their defense except for race-baiting.

Cry me a river on this story. I know, that's harsh but I'm sick and tired of the woe is me illegal alien injured illegally crossing the border into the US; then the American taxpayer has to pick up the tab for their medical expenses.

Woman finds scaling fence is a costly painful gamble:

A U.S. Border Patrol agent crouches in front of her. He slowly wraps her severed ring finger in a shirt. He places it in a bag of ice.

"I knew I couldn't do it, I knew I couldn't do it," she says quietly in Spanish to the man sitting next to her, Victor Perez.

Rosario, 25, and Perez, 24, sit with their heads down on a frontage road next to a 10-foot corrugated steel fence that marks the border south of Campo, Calif., about 50 miles east of San Diego.

About one hour earlier, the two climbed over the landing-mat fence as part of a group of Mexican illegal entrants.

The men and women helped each person climb over. Rosario caught her hand on the razor-sharp anvil point on top of the fence.

When she fell to the ground on the U.S. side, pain shot up her arm. Her hand was bleeding. The top third of her ring finger lay on the ground.

Just what do these illegal aliens think the fence is there for? It's To. Keep. Them. Out!

My BS meter sprang wildly out of control when I read this piece of scare mongering:

ID Program Will Cost States $11 Billion, Report says:

The cost to consumers for helping to secure America became clearer yesterday as a coalition of state groups tallied the bill for implementing the Real ID Act and federal officials divulged the price that some of its workers must pay for new smart cards.

In a report released by the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, state motor vehicle officials estimated it would cost more than $11 billion over five years to implement the technology required by the Real ID Act.

Under the law, states must start to re-enroll about 250 million holders of U.S. driver's licenses after May 2008. The states must train workers to verify copies of original birth certificates, Social Security cards, marriage certificates and various identification documents.

There's any number of ID's which could be incorporated into this program including a Voter ID! But the Democrats don't want any of this to happen since it would mean losing potential voters from the likes of illegal aliens, dead people, people voting twice......

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), who introduced the Real ID Act, strongly disagreed with a similar cost estimate presented by the groups last year, saying it was bloated. The chairman cited a Congressional Budget Office report that estimated the cost of implementation at $100 million between 2005 and 2010.

The dollars saved on entitlement and social services and law enforcement to illegal aliens will more than cover the cost of this ID program.

Then we have the jailbreak from a detention center. This story was actually a bit confusing. There were 6 federal fugitives from this escape (which begs the question why these fugitives were only being held in a detention center) of which 5 of the six were held for repeated immigration violations (read: illegal aliens who have been deported multiple times). The sixth was a former McAllen cop gone bad, now a drug smuggler.

Outside help seen in Valley jailbreak:

The breakout's suspected leader is a former McAllen cop facing drug charges. Five Mexican nationals held on repeated immigration violations escaped with him.

snip....

He said investigators believe Francisco Javier Meza Rojas, 41, orchestrated the breakout.

"The only reason why we think he was the ringleader was because he had the money," Magallan said. "He could have arranged everything. He was (in the narcotics business) and a former cop."

A federal indictment from April alleges Meza, also known as "El Ocho" and "Chacho," led a drug trafficking organization that included his three brothers. U.S. District Judge Randy Crane on Thursday revoked the bond of one of them, Jesus Meza, a former Edinburg police officer.

The three now are being held in jails in McAllen, Raymondville and Karnes County, Magallan said.

The Mezas, along with other defendants, are scheduled to be tried in October on drug charges that include trafficking cocaine and marijuana from a rural area near Mission.

Yeah, that makes me feel real secure. Nice to know how prosperous the Mexican drug trade is in the US.

_____________________________________________

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 admin at guardtheborders dot com.

Where are the 'manly hearts'?

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair:
Blest isle! with matchless beauty crown'd,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
- James Thomson, Rule Britannia

According to this story from the Daily Mail, a new cemetery in Nottingham will have all graves aligned with Mecca, the first such cemetery in the UK.
All those buried there are to have their graves facing Mecca, regardless of their religion, by default. All those who fail to specify otherwise will be buried according to Islamic tradition. The guilty party in this decision was Steve Dowling, who holds the title of 'Services Director for Environment and Public Protection' in Nottingham.
To his credit, the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, the Rt. Rev. George Cassidy, criticized the decision, albeit mildly.
In the reader comments following the article, a commenter asks why this policy was adopted in a town with a Moslem population of less than 5%. Good question. Why has so much of the West capitulated to the Mahometans when they still in fact make up a fairly small minority in many places? Why are so many cowed by them, and so willing and eager to adopt the dhimmi posture pre-emptively, as it were?

For another example of such dhimmitude in the UK, here is Ian Blair, the London Metropolitan Police Commissioner,
making the mind-boggling statement that

There is nothing wrong with being an Islamic fundamentalist. . . . Bridges will be built.'

This brain-dead comment was just before the 7/7 attacks in London. And after those attacks? Ian Blair was johnny-on-the-spot, saying that the attacks were not likely to be Islamic terrorists because ' because Islam and terrorism do not go together.'

So even the 7/7 attacks had no educational value for Ian Blair. Now in this story
Police to brief Muslims before terror raids Blair is said to have approved of this crack-brained plan to consult with the 'Muslim community' before any planned raids or arrests of potential terrorists.

Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.

Members will be security vetted and will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown. They will not have to sign the Official Secrets Act. ''

Does this mean that they will have veto power over any planned arrests or raids? If they have the 'right' to know that members of their 'community' are under suspicion, anybody want to bet that they will warn the targets? I see no reason to believe that they will act as patriotic Englishmen and give up any known terrorists or plotters among them. The record of Moslems as a group (and yes, I am profiling and stereotyping; what of it? It works.) is that they stick together and defend each other. Now if only the rest of us had that cohesiveness and loyalty. Too bad the Moslems' loyalty is to a violent cult and culture.

This story has created a lot of comment and discussion on various blogs, such as LGF, and on the big conservative news forums; there are a few diehards who insist that this plan by the London Police is a clever ruse, a maneuver, a trap, or a 'cunning plan', to quote a famous phrase from a BBC comedy. If only this were just a BBC comedy; unfortunately, it's for real, and actual lives are at stake.

I will publicly admit it, and happily eat crow if I am wrong, and this 'cunning plan' proves to have been a brilliant stratagem which flushes out terrorists, and saves lives. Unfortunately there is little evidence that this is the case. To believe that, I would have to believe the farfetched idea that Ian Blair and all the other PC apparatchiks and dhimmis in the UK are just clever actors, practicing a Western, British variety of taqiyya and kitman (lying and obfuscating), which the Moslems are so practiced at.

This argument that there is really a clever plan at work in these seemingly insane policies sounds suspiciously like the contorted rationalizations of some Bush loyalists, who, whenever he has done inexplicable things, immediately say 'it's strategery', echoing Rush Limbaugh's words, or they say 'he's gaming the system', 'he's a great Texas poker-player' or 'his enemies are misunderestimating him, like he planned' and on and on. They say this every time he seems to be appeasing the 'palestinians' or some other such action.

But usually Occam's razor is the best guide; things are often just what they seem to be. So in the case of the London police looking to trap the terrorists by a ruse, I just don't think that is likely. Judging by the past words and actions of Ian Blair and the rest, I think they are simply true PC believers, or obedient followers.

Which begs the question: why has a nation which was once the dominant force in the world now so easily cowed and dominated by a small minority (3%?) of its population? We could ask the same question of our own country, with our efforts to placate and cater to our minority populations, at the expense of the interests of the great majority, and to the detriment of our country's strength and security.

I ponder these questions, because I want to know if there is a way to reverse the advanced insanity which is abroad in the West now. How did we get here, and how do we find our way back -- or are we too far gone, past the point of no return?

Where are those 'manly hearts to guard the fair'?

The demographic war

Here we have the Houston Chronicle, one of the most pro-illegal immigrant dailies in the country (along with the Denver Post and a slew of others), presenting a piece on the 'border baby boom' in South Texas.

The photo accompanying the article is of an illegal (or 'undocumented immigrant, in the Chronicle's PC-speak)

'who just gave birth to her fourth child on U.S. soil, said she and her husband aren't trying to abuse the health care system. ''I don't see why they should deny a medical service if we're here struggling for this country," she said.'

Struggling for this country? Struggling for this country?
Struggling with Americans for possession of this country, most like; not 'struggling' in the service of this country, as she arrogantly implies. This brazen 'gimme' attitude is all too commonly expressed by many of these 'immigrants'; they say repeatedly that because they 'work hard', this gives them the right to be here, and the right to stay here, and needless to say, the 'right' to free medical care and all other benefits accorded to Americans -- and then some.

At least the article is fairly honest, for the Chronicle, anyway, in mentioning the problems caused by this influx of illegals, many of whom show up in our country and our hospitals specifically to give birth on the American taxpayers' dime, with the added bonus of having an American citizen child, an anchor baby.

And think of what this portends for the future: if 70-80% of the births in Houston hospitals are to illegals (and how many more to legal immigrants?) then in five years time, kindergartens and schools in Houston and South Texas will be overwhelmingly Mexican, and mostly Spanish-speaking.

I know that the pollyannas and bleeding-hearts among us are perfectly happy to give away their kids' and grandkids' birthright so that they can feel all warm and fuzzy and full of the milk of human kindness, and so that they can celebrate diversity to their hearts' content, but seriously, what kind of 'America' will we have when the Americans are marginalized and vastly outnumbered? Some of the obtuse and oblivious among us somehow blithely assume that America will always be America, regardless of who populates it. They cannot or will not see that it's the people who have made our country the place it is today; replace those people with an utterly alien people, (and it makes not a whit of difference whether they are 'hardworking' and 'Christian', as their silly defenders say,) and you will have an utterly alien country in a generation. Our progeny will be strangers in a strange land, and likely also second-class citizens.

Meanwhile, the Chronicle, true to its' pro-immigration slant, offers this article
Immigrants may give slumping U.S. housing market a boost
to put a good spin on the immigration flood.

We are supposed to cheer the 'boost' to the housing market provided by the flood of immigrants, and we are supposed to feel good that they can come and 'achieve the American dream', and generously help out the housing and real estate industry.

Never mind that many of the construction jobs tied to the boom are taken by illegals, and wages driven down.
And above all, pay no attention to the fact that the presence of 20 or 30 million illegals and numerous legal immigrants drives up the cost of housing.

And check out this brazen bit of spin by the Chronicle:

Once they do buy houses, many immigrants leverage them into rental properties or businesses."They know how to fix up basements and rent them out," said Joseph Natale, president of First United Mortgage Co. in Cranford, N.J. "They're not afraid of sharing with other tenants." '

Yeah -- they certainly aren't afraid of 'sharing with other tenants' - think of all those 'clown houses', with dozens or scores of people crammed together in a single-family dwelling. Think of the problems caused by that, think of the health hazards, the fire hazards, the noise.
But of course the Chronicle won't touch any of the problems associated with the overcrowding by illegals and legal immigrants.

I would love to ask some of these media shills, who are nothing more than paid liars, how they live with themselves? If they have an ounce of 'journalistic ethics' they ought to be embarrassed at the lies and the half-truths and the spin and the fabrications, especially on matters concerning immigration. Yet I am sure that in their liberal delusions, they think they are being compassionate and empathetic and morally superior people.
You'd think they could spare a little empathy and compassion for the many people being harmed by the illegal influx: people pushed out of jobs , people whose wages are driven down, people whose neighborhoods are rendered unliveable, people whose local hospitals have closed because of the strain of serving numbers of non-paying illegals, people who have had loved ones killed by illegal drunk drivers or other criminal illegals, people who contract some exotic disease carried by immigrants: drug-resistant TB, Hansen's Disease, Chagas Disease, and on and on.

The 'border baby boom' story is about one aspect of the border war: the other front is the shooting war on the 'border', which is an ongoing series of clashes: this aspect of our war with Mexico is underreported and downplayed by the MSM; I suppose they haven't yet found a way to 'spin' it and turn our Mexican adversaries into heroic victims there, so they just ignore it.
But the other and perhaps more important front is the demographic and cultural one. And the treasonous media work furiously to tell us that the war is not a war, just a peaceful 'migration' of hardworking, Christian folks who 'seek the American dream'. For a long time, the majority of us were content to believe that, and to shut our eyes to the fact that our country is being given away, stolen from under our feet. Our children's future is at stake. And many people ae now waking up to that fact.

We must be free...

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held -- In every thing we are sprung
Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold.'' - William Wordsworth

English historian Arnold Toynbee described democracy as a "peculiar institution of the medieval kingdom of England and its political offspring."

Toynbee thus acknowledged the interesting fact that the descendants of the English have a peculiar talent for democracy and freedom. Why this is so is a question worth asking, especially in a world where freedom seems to be receding rather than expanding. At this moment, America and the UK are involved in a costly war to bring 'democracy', that elusive and rare thing, to a benighted Iraq. However Andrew Roberts, in this piece from the London Telegraph, rather than examining what is special about the English-speaking peoples, seems to be writing to rally support for the 'war on terror' and for his hero, Blair.

Roberts rightly points out the long history of the Anglosphere in cooperation against our common enemies: first, against Prussian militarism, fascism (in the form of the Axis powers), Soviet Communism, and now the Islamic threat, which Roberts labels 'totalitarian Islamic terrorism.' (What a plethora of terms have been invented for the Islamic threat. Creative.)

Roberts is also correct when he points out that 'victory is nowhere yet in sight' in our last struggle; in that opinion, he is breaking with the pro-war party line which has insisted, for three-plus years now, that victory is all but ours; that the Islamic 'insurgents' are on the ropes. What was it that was being said back in 2003? The 'insurgents' were just 'dead-enders', yes, that was the term; they were making a last-gasp effort, and the upsurge in deaths was only a 'sign of desperation' because they were in their death-throes. Pay no attention, was the line we heard, to all those suicide bombers and all the bloodshed; it was merely proof that the 'insurgents' were desperate, and they were desperate because we were winning.
Q.E.D.
Funny, I don't hear these claims much these days, although we still hear from the faithful that 'we are winning', and that any talk of civil war in Iraq is rank defeatism.
Be that as it may, Roberts makes some good points about Anglo-American cooperation, citing the works of Winston Churchill in his epic ''A History of the English-Speaking Peoples''.
However, when Roberts tries to convince us that Blair's leadership has been 'Churchillean' he loses me.

Roberts and others like him, mostly those in the neocon camp (although Roberts seems, as usual, to find that term objectionable) are unable or unwilling to see how the 'war on terror' or the 'war on totalitarian Islamic terrorism' or whatever is NOT being fought seriously as long as we allow the enemy to roam freely in our countries, in the UK, in America, in Australia. There is an enormous blind spot on the part of many which denies that there is any disconnect; they cannot or will not see that it makes not an iota of sense to claim to be fighting to win against 'terror' when we allow mass immigration and access to our countries to unknown numbers of terrorists and jihadists. Whether they are jihadists of the 'slow' variety, waging war by political and demographic means, or by violent jihad -- we are allowing their infiltration into our country, in the name of 'tolerance', 'diversity', multiculturalism, globalism.

How do Roberts and his fellow neocons rationalize the following words of Churchill:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).

I wonder if Roberts honestly believes that his hero, Churchill, would have opened up the UK to mass Moslem immigration? Would Roosevelt have welcomed in millions of Germans during WWII?

There is still a distressingly large number of people in the West who, despite being 'conservative', have a huge capacity for denial. These people, like Roberts and so many others, despite their martial rhetoric, are 'surrender monkeys' when it comes to immigration and 'multiculturalism.' In their dream world, all the Mohammedan immigrants who have entered our countries and set up shop are nice law-abiding folk who just want 'freedom' and 'democracy' and a better life. The fact that so many of our countrymen still inhabit this dream world, even after 9/11 and 7/7 shows a staggering disconnect from reality.

The fact is, there is no winning the war against terror, or whatever it's called, without closing our borders, without sorting out friend from potential foe before they enter our country. There is no winning if we are too squeamish and too timid to separate ourselves from Islam, and to send enemies home.

Anyone who still clings to these utopian notions of a multicultural love-in in the West is a liberal, regardless of party labels.

And anyone who utters the inane line about how 'we have to fight them in Iraq so we won't have to fight them over here' had better stop and think. Hello? We are fighting them 'over here' in spite of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are 'fighting them over here' as long as we have onerous security measures at the airport and 'heightened terror alerts' in our countries.

We will be fighting them over here as long as we allow mass immigration from Moslem countries. And there is more than one kind of war; not all war involved guns and bombs. There is the kind of war which uses the weapons of immigration, higher birth rate, and political pressure; does anyone doubt that this current contretemps with the Moslem world over the Pope's comments is part of the war? They certainly understand that, and they are fighting to win. We are not; we are still clinging to silly notions of winning hearts and minds and 'assimilating' the Mohammedans in our midst. They, in turn, are intent on assimilating us to Islam, and our leaders and 'thinkers' are too blind or obstinate to see that.

Roberts and his ilk think that we can fight the 'Islamic totalitarian terrorists' on the other side of the world and welcome them next door at the same time.

Our forefathers weren't PC-addled like today's generation; they saw clearly and acted without hesitation and timidity. They were not saddled with all the self-questioning and all the internal dissent which weakens the West today.

It might be useful for some of the historians to trace the history of the West and to force themselves to inquire why the West is in this predicament now? How did strong, decisive, dominant nations become hesistant, dithering, uncertain, double-minded people? How is it that we have opened the gates to our enemies, and still tell ourselves that we are fighting to win?


If we in the Anglosphere could only recover the spirit of our forefathers and free ourselves from the fetters of Political Correctness, we might still prevail. It remains to be seen whether we will rediscover the will to do that.

We in the English-speaking world have always carried the standard for freedom and liberty, and if we fail now, who will there be to uphold the standard?

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
William Wordsworth, 'London 1802'

Hugo and Mahmoud in the Big Apple

Along with everyone else, I've been following the antics of Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, as they 'do' New York.
Here's a rather glowing if disjointed account of Chavez's rambling diatribe at Cooper Union College in New York

Meanwhile, Columbia University wisely withdrew their invitation to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to come and speak there on Friday, according to the New York Sun.
Of course there is the predictable outrage from the usual suspects on the left, who think the cancellation was a denial of free speech to Ahmadinejad.

While watching the news coverage of these men and their grotesque antics at the UN and elsewhere, I am dumbstruck, trying to understand how and why we as a country now passively allow our sworn enemies, people who have called repeatedly for our death and destruction, to enter our country and spit in our faces.
I think back to a few decades ago, when Chavez' and Ahmadinejad's brand of raving lunacy would not have been tolerated in a respectable public forum, not even in the sinister UN
Now, we have these psychopaths roaming our country and making rabble-rousing speeches, while our 'leaders' stand mildly by. What is the message being sent by our side in this spectacle?
Chavez's childish insults, calling Bush 'the devil' evoked an equally juvenile response from his fellow travelers at the UN: applause and laughter.

I don't know which angers me more: these rabid demagogues from the Third World, or their craven claque of Third World rabble at the United Nations.

There have always, unfortunately, been tinpot dictators and anti-Christ wannabees in this world, especially in the more benighted regions, but the fact is the United Nations is the real disgrace. It is nothing more nor less than a club for a lot of failed nations who have found a forum and a megaphone for their perpetual grievances against the successful nations.
It's just a means for attempting to blackmail the First World into paying reparations to the confederacy of losers from the Third World. Just a machine for wealth transfer.

When I was a kid, I remember having to study about the United Nations in grade school. We were taught of its origins, and of its supposedly noble purposes and goals. We had to learn and sing a little song,

We're the United Nations of the world,
For peace and freedom we stand.
Freedom from want and fear,
Freedom to think and pray,
Each man in his own way...

And I suppose, as a 10-year-old, I believed all that. But as I grew up it became obvious that not all of those in the UN are idealists devoted to 'peace and freedom'; that many there represented despotism and tyranny and corruption -- and now, terrorism. Yet much of the world still holds to the childlike view that the United Nations somehow is our last, best hope for 'peace and freedom', despite the many, many failures of that body. The belief that the UN somehow prevents war and bloodshed is belied by the record; did they stop bloodshed in the Balkans? In the Middle East? Or did they do anything to stop the mass slaughter in Rwanda in the 1990s?

And besides the UN's utter failure to bring 'peace', (which realists have always known was a chimerical quest anyway), there's the rampant corruption of the UN.

Even worse is the UN peacekeepers' involvement in sexual abuse and exploitation, reported even by the leftwing Guardian newspaper:


Why does the United Nations retain even a shred of credibility, given its abysmal record?

Does even the humanitarian aid make a real dent in Third World poverty and disease?
To hear the constant badgering for more money from various charitable causes, it would seem to be making little difference.

The fact is that the United States still contributes the largest share of contributions to the UN, in addition to hosting them and their 'diplomats' in our country. Our annual contributions are in the region of $3 billion, apparently.


Yet the overall tone of the UN is virulently anti-American. We are supposed to turn the other cheek and take the abuse while we foot most of the bill. Why should taxpayers' money fund our enemies' interests and finance the anti-American cause? There is a growing sentiment among Americans that we should not stay in the UN, nor should the UN stay in America.

But somehow, as with the borders issue, our elected officials act independently of the will of their constituents, with most of the pols toeing the established line, paying homage to the UN, while supposedly attempting to use it to further American interests -- and how well is that working out, guys?

And beyond the vexing question of the UN, there is the larger issue of just what has happened to America, that we pretend that the Chavezes and Ahmadinejads and the other demented tyrants are our peers and equals, commanding our respect? The leftists among us, of course, openly side with the enemies of America, and vice-versa. I notice that Chavez is a Chomsky groupie; any surprise there? Birds of a feather. But the 'conservatives' continue to entertain some liberal ideas of their own, such as the quixotic interventionist idea that we can slay our enemies with kindness and democracy. And the idea that we are supposed to be the saviors of the entire dysfunctional Third World; that if only we teach them about the novel idea of 'freedom', like a mother teaching the child at her knee, that they will suddenly become enlightened, reasonable, and civilized.
The fuzzy, wishful-thinking liberalism which produced the United Nations is the problem, and it is not just confined to the Democrats and leftists among us.
If the Ahmedinejads and Chavezes of the world aren't enough to awaken us from our utopian dream world, nothing will be.

Spanish is out, English is in?

According to this piece, from the Salem (OR) Statesman Journal, Spanish is on the way out, and the tens of millions of Hispanic immigrants will be speaking good American English -- in just a generation or two. Or three.

Reporterette Thelma Guerrero, in this simple-minded article, suggests that any concerns about the ascendancy of Spanish in this era of mass immigration are misplaced.

She cites these little anecdotes as her 'proof' of her assertion:

McKay High School sophomore Monique Guajardo, two generations removed from her family's arrival from Mexico, has a difficult time speaking Spanish.

Fifteen-year-old Whitney Peña, on the other hand, can't speak a word of Spanish. Her ancestors immigrated three generations ago.

According to a recent study, their difficulty with their native language is part of a national trend. Spanish dies out within three generations, and English becomes the dominant language.' [Emphasis mine]

First of all, Thelma, these girls' 'native language' is ENGLISH, given that they were born in English-speaking America. Spanish may be their ancestral tongue but English is their native language.

And hey, Thelma: let me explain something for you. I will write slowly because I know you can't read fast.
What was true of immigrants three generations ago, or even two generations ago, is not necessarily true now.

And the studies cited, done by UCal Irvine and Princeton, do not necessarily prove that today's immigrants will behave exactly as past generations did. The academics who were responsible for the study or studies should know better, and I suspect they do, but the agenda takes precedence over truth or science. Political correctness trumps all, and these academics tend to blind themselves to facts if those facts don't fit their belief system.

And notice the comments by the Hispanic professor on the findings of the study:

Some educators lament the loss of Spanish-speaking abilities.

"It affects (a) person's appreciation, if not understanding, of their culture," Nathaniel Cordova, an associate professor of Latin American studies and American ethnic studies at Willamette University.

It also can result "in embarrassment for those who don't understand the language or who are not able to understand what others are saying," Cordova said.

For their 10-year study, the researchers focused on language adaptation among Hispanic immigrants and their descendants in California and south Florida.'

Nevertheless, the studies prove nothing about what will happen with the language issue in this country. It merely tells us what happened in the past. And as we know here on this blog, 'the past is another country; they do things differently there.'

And what that different country, known as America, did in past generations (in the pre-PC era) was to

• 1) control numbers of immigrants, so that they would not overwhelm the country
• 2) allow immigrants in selectively, with a preference for the assimilable, compatible immigrants, and
• 3) insist that the lucky ones who entered LEARN ENGLISH, andstudy American history and civics.

Now, Miss Guerrero, who wrote this propaganda piece, omits some vital facts, such as when the great-grandparents or grandparents of these girls immigrated, and where they settled. But if they arrived three generations or even two generations ago, presumably that was half a century ago, more or less. Almost certainly it was pre-1965.

And if their great-grandparents or grandparents immigrated to Oregon, where these girls live now, then it's a dead certainty that they immigrated to a predominantly white, 'Anglo,' English-speaking area. Two or more generations ago, much of Oregon was still a very homogeneous state. While there may have been areas where there were Hispanic migrant workers, the Northwest in general had no significant Latino enclaves (or Hispanic 'communities', to use the cloying PC term du jour) and there were certainly no bilingual school programs, no bilingual documents, no Spanish-language media, no 'tiendas' , no celebrating of diversity mandated by the government. In short, they had every incentive to learn English, and a disincentive not to. Their lives were harder if they refused to speak English. The same is demonstrably not true today, when there are large and growing networks of Hispanics, illegal and legal, in places like Oregon, enclaves which did not exist a generation ago. There is Univision and there is Telemundo and Spanish-language radio and Mass in Spanish, bilingual 'outreach' and interpreters provided by the government, clinics for Hispanics. Oh, and one rather important point: now there is something called La Raza, and MEChA, and the 'Aztlan' movement, with its fairytales about the 'Aztecs' who were the rightful owners of America before the evil gringos stole it. No such malevolent ideas were abroad in America back when these girls' great-grandparents came here.

In light of the fact that the America these girls' great-grandparents immigrated to does not exist anymore, and that it has been replaced by a balkanized multicultural America, which positively encourages separate Spanish-speaking enclaves, it is a whole new ballgame.
What was true 40 or 50 years ago is not necessarily true now. Especially when you throw into the mix a new revanchist view of history.
How hard is it to see such glaring differences? I suppose when one is a reality-denying liberal, or a Hispanic whose ties to the ancestral country color one's worldview 100%, it might be very hard indeed. Ideology blinds people.

To return to the article, Miss Guerrero continues,

Based on analysis of language loss over the generations, English has never been seriously threatened as the dominant language in America, nor is it under threat today," the report said.

The conclusion refutes the threat to U.S. culture alleged by author Samuel Huntington, who says that Hispanic immigrants endanger the core of U.S. culture because they "speak a common language, divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures and two languages."

So, take that, Samuel Huntington! Incidentally, I like how they dismiss Huntington as merely an 'author', not mentioning that he is a political scientist and Harvard professor.

One heartening thing to note is that several of the reader comments following the article are decidedly irate, I think people are beginning to catch onto the fact that the media and the politicians are lying to us, spinning and prevaricating. And many of us are fed up with it, having had our fill of political correctness and shameless catering to everybody but American citizens.
The elites are pushing this thing too far, and people are losing patience.

These words of Huntington's seem apropos here:

What ultimately counts for people is not political ideology or economic interest. Faith and family, blood and belief, are what people identify with and what they will fight and die for.

Many of us in this country have all but forgotten 'faith and family, blood and belief', being taught that we are above such things; we are to be 'inclusive' and tolerant, and share our country with anybody and everybody who wants a piece of the American pie. But the challenge from millions of interlopers, who are staking a claim to our country, has started to awaken a renewed consciousness of our identity. We will be at a considerable disadvantage as long as we Americans play the 'tolerance' game, not asserting our own interests, while every other group is going all-out to push for their interests.The aggressive assertion by many immigrants of their own ethnicity is starting to call forth a similar consciousness among Americans.
It's high time.

Ilana Mercer on Patriotism

Ilana Mercer, in an interview with David Yeagley at FreeMarket News, gives her thoughts on the meaning of patriotism:

I've lived in Israel, South-Africa, Canada, and even Europe for a short while, yet I've never felt patriotism in any of those countries. Granted, nowhere else have I felt as desperate about the dismal state of political discourse as I do in America. But that's because I care about America.

So what is patriotism? Here's what it's not: it's not an allegiance to the government of the day, or to its invariably wicked, un-American policies. It’s an affinity for your community; it's an understanding of the great principles upon which this country was founded -- which have been excised by successive governments, Republican and Democratic alike. And it's a commitment to restoring the republic of private-property rights, individual freedoms, and radical decentralization.''

And further, on the concept of nationhood, Mercer says

We libertarians are often guilty of simplistic and vulgar individualism, in the words of Murray Rothbard. This includes an inability to distinguish the nation from the state. The former encompasses ''the land, the culture, the terrain, the people''; the latter ''the coercive apparatus of bureaucrats and politicians.'' '

While I don't often agree with libertarians on these issues, I can find little fault with anything Ilana Mercer has to say in this interview.
And as usual, David Yeagley offers his own unique perspective.

You say Muslim, I say Moslem

You say 'Muslim' and I say 'Moslem.'
Which is the 'right' term? The Politically Correct lexicon would seem to dictate the former, that is, 'Muslim.' However I choose to stick to the form which has been standard in the West for centuries, as far as I know, and say 'Moslem.'


It's amazing how often people are puzzled by the word, having heard only 'Muslim' (usually pronounced 'moozlem') all their lives.

To my recollection, the only reason 'Moslem' was dropped was under pressure, probably from the 'Black Muslim' movement back in the 60s, because it seems that at this time, with the new prominence of that group, and with the increasing public visibility of Cassius Clay aka Muhammad Ali, suddenly 'Muslim' was the required term.
This link
Why Do People Say Muslim Now Instead of Moslem?

offers an explanation of the change, and says that

Journalists switched to Muslim from Moslem in recent years under pressure from Islamic groups''

An early example of politically correct speech dictates, just as I thought.

And whatever happened to the old-fashioned term 'Mohammedan'?
My venerable 'Fowler's Modern English Usage', published in 1965, p. 348, laments that the terms 'Mahomet' and 'Mahometan' were giving way to the terms 'Mohammed' and 'Mohammedan,' but not because of political correctness; it had not gained dominance yet in 1965, but the change was dictated by the academics, who thought the terms 'Mohammed' and 'Mohammedan' were more authentic.

The worst of letting the learned gentry bully us out of our traditional Mahometan and Mahomet (who ever heard of Mohammed and the mountain?) is this: no sooner have we tried to be good and learnt to say, or at least write, Mohammed than they are fired with zeal to get us a step or two further on the path of truth, which at present seems likely to end in Muhammad with a dot under the h...''
[...]Muhammad should be left to the pedants, Mohammed to historians and the like, while ordinary mortals should go on saying, and writing in newspapers and novels and poems and such general reader's metter, what their fathers said before them.''

So with that rule as my guide, I will continue to say 'Moslem.' And why not bring back the use of 'Mahometan'? I understand that the Moslems object to the term 'Mohammedan' because it implies they are devotees of Mohammed rather than their god; however, their rioting over 'blasphemous' cartoons of Mohammed (or Mahomet) certainly indicated that they consider him a deity. One can't blaspheme a mere mortal, can one?



And by the way, did you know that 'every person is born a Muslim'? So says this site.

So they consider converting to Islam not as converting but reverting to our 'original' created status as Moslems. (Right.)

So they say Muslim and I say Moslem.
But I will never say 'Islam is a religion of peace.' That is a phrase that our fathers before us certainly never said; they would have been dumbfounded had anyone said that in their day. But such is the Orwellian tenor of our times; people can claim that 'Islam is a religion of peace' or 'Islam means peace' with a completely straight face, (although that phrase is now being increasingly met with derision and mocking laughter; rightfully so.)


I stick to the traditional form. I trust our fathers and grandfathers' judgment more than the confused, PC-ized madness that passes for knowledge in our times.; nevertheless, this is still America, and we do still have the First Amendment, and maybe just out of sheer cussedness I resist all PC strictures on my freedom of expression.

As far as I am concerned, complaints of 'offensiveness' are most often simply an exercise of power, to show who is dominant, and to bring one's enemies to heel.

I don't play along with those games.Let others do so if they feel they have to; my forefathers fought and died so that we might have freedom of expression. My ancestors did not bow to kings and nobles, as free Americans, and I surely won't kowtow to interlopers in my country, or to leftists who abhor all that America stands for.

I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect, proud, and unafraid; to think and act for myself; enjoy the benefits of my creations and to face the world boldly and say, 'This I have done, and this is what it means to be an American."

- Dean Alfange, 1952

Guard the Borders Blogburst 9/18/06

This week's Blogburst is also available as a Podcast.

by Darnell at Independent Conservative

If this information is true, it is the most detailed revelation of a planned attack that I have ever seen.

Next Attack Imminent: Muslims ordered to leave the United States

Urgent news from Abu Dawood, the newly appointed commander of the al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan:

Final preparations have been made for the American Hiroshima, a major attack on the U. S.

Muslims living in the United States should leave the country without further warning.

The attack will be commandeered by Adnan el Shukrijumah (''Jaffer Tayyer'' or ''Jafer the Pilot''), a naturalized American citizen, who was raised in Brooklyn and educated in southern Florida.

The al Qaeda operatives who will launch this attack are awaiting final orders. They remain in place in cities throughout the country. Many are masquerading as Christians and have adopted Christian names.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban will also launch a major strike (known as the ''Badar offensive'') against the coalition forces in Afghanistan during the holy month of Ramadan.

The American people will be treated to a final audio message from Osama bin Laden which will be aired within the next two weeks.
…
Q: What do you mean by another attack in America?

A: Yes a bigger attack than September 11th 2001. Brother Adnan [el Shukrijumah] will lead that attack, Inshallah.

Q:Who is Adnan?

A: He is our old friend. The last time, I met him in early 2004, in Khost. He came to Khost from the North Waziristan. He met his leaders and friends in Khost. He is very well known in Al Qaeda. He is an American and a friend of Muhammad Atta, who led 9/11 attacks five years ago. We call him ''Jaffer al Tayyar'' [''Jafer the Pilot'']; he is very brave and intelligent. Bush is aware that brother Adnan has smuggled deadly materials inside America from the Mexican border. Bush is silent about him, because he doesn't want to panic his people.
…

Read it all, read it all, read it all…

Back in 2004 there was news of Al Qaeda trying to bring a nuke over the US Southern border. Lately I've been reading numerous reports, that a dirty nuke was carried over the US Southern border and an attack is close.

Bush has done little to close the southern US border and if the aforementioned takes place on his watch, it would only be right to impeach him for failing to do what was necessary to protect the American people. We knew for a long time that Islamic nuts would try and attack the WTC again after 1993, and now we’ve heard many times they want to set off a nuke. Bush can’t say he didn't know if it happens, because even we are reading about it ourselves. If such an attack is carried out, after such brazen and open announcements, the talk of ''we knew we'd be hit again'' is not going to be enough to shield Bush and Chertoff from efforts to remove them, for not defending our porous southern border.

And this raises another issue. Often there is talk of US forces playing it ''soft'' during Ramadan, so Muslims are not offended. I say if the enemy takes a break for a month, all the more opportunity to kill them. The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred between Thanksgiving and Christmas 1941, because the enemy (then Japan) knew we would be vulnerable then. We had to end that mess with Japan by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We showed the enemy we would not play nice then. It's time to show this enemy we don't take chances when it comes to our security and that we won't capitulate to their customs, because they desire to kill us.

_____________________________________________

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 admin at guardtheborders dot com.

Slouching toward Bethlehem

'The best lack all conviction,
While the worst are full of passionate intensity.'

These words, from W.B. Yeats's poem 'The Second Coming', come to mind more and more frequently these days.
Note the 'passionate intensity' in the faces above: the face of Islam.

What's that you say? Islam is a 'religion of peace', and those rabid expressions above are typical only of 'a minority within a minority'?
Sorry, but those fairytales are getting harder and harder to swallow; I can't suspend disbelief to that extent. The fact that anyone is still selling those tall tales of the 'religion of peace' is incredible, but even more so is the fact that there is still a willing market for those whopping lies. The fact that some people are still repeating such blatant lies is a testament to the gullibility or the willful blindness of many people.

'The best lack all conviction...' We in the West are all too often dithering, halting between two opinions, trying to give our enemy the benefit of the doubt, trying to put ourselves in their shoes and consider their 'feelings' -- we lack conviction, many of us. We lack confidence in ourselves, in the goodness and worthiness and -- (dare I say it?) the superiority of our culture, our civilization. After all, aren't all cultures equal, just as all men are equal? And as we vacillate and waver and question ourselves, our enemies, bothered by no such doubts, go from strength to strength, testing and challenging us at every turn.

The latest occasion for their rioting and chest-beating is the remarks of the Pope. Not for one moment do I believe that his words truly offended them, just as I disbelieve their sensitivity to the silly Mohammed cartoons which provoked orgies of violence, or their feigned outrage over the fictitious desecration of the Koran by infidels. It's all just a pretext, an excuse to run amok, and above all, an occasion to make a show of power: they feign outrage and hurt feelings, and they demand apologies, demand that amends be made, demand that they be placated. And so far, each time, we in the West have caved, have given in, have apologized and supinely offer new olive branches. More 'dialogue' and 'outreach' and special governmental concessions; our media and politicians go into full pander mode, with speeches and editorials preaching 'tolerance' and understanding, and warning against the dread disease of 'Islamophobia.'
G.K. Chesterton once said,

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.'

Without convictions...while our enemies are 'full of passionate intensity.'

So each time they gain ground; their threatening behavior and words work their intended effect. We retreat, and they advance.

Everywhere we look, it seems that Islam is advancing and we are giving ground.

Goodness without conviction, and without 'passionate intensity' is feeble and useless.
Passionate intensity without goodness is a dire danger; just look at those contorted, enraged faces above.

This reminds me of what Blaise Pascal said long ago: Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

Thinking of Oriana Fallaci, as we witness these latest confrontations with Islam, I feel her loss most keenly. The very qualities she embodied so well are the precise qualities our country, our civilization is sorely needing at this moment in history. She drew criticism and even hate because she articulated and embodied righteous anger and force and conviction; she embodied truth and courage, all in a world which has come to fear and shun those very things.
Our society has come to avoid truth in favor of 'sensitivity', conviction in favor of 'tolerance', justice in favor of a false 'peace.' Fallaci violated all those modern 'values', and was pilloried for it.

We need others like her to stand in the gap; we can only hope and pray that many of us will find those qualities she exemplified so well; we desperately need them. Now.

My book is also a j'accuse. To accuse us of cowardice, hypocrisy, demagogy, laziness, moral misery, and of all that comes with that. The stupidity of the unbearable fad of political correctness, for instance. The paucity of our schools, our universities, our young people, people who often don't even know the story of their country, the names Jefferson, Franklin, Robespierre, Napoleon, Garibaldi. And no understanding that freedom cannot exist without discipline, self-discipline.I accuse ourselves also of another crime: the loss of passion. Haven't you understood what drives our enemies? What permits them to fight this war against us? The passion! They have passion! They have so much passion that they can die for it!'
[...]
...We have lost passion.
Well, I have not. I boil with passion. I, too, am ready to die for passion. But around me, I see no passion. Even those who hate me and attack me and insult me do this without passion. They are mollusks, not men and women. And a civilization, a culture, cannot survive without passion, cannot be saved without passion. If the West does not wake up, if we do not refind passion, we are lost.''

Oriana Fallaci: RIP

Oriana Fallaci
born June 29, 1929 in Florence, Italy
died September 15, 2006 Florence, Italy
Prize-winning journalist, author, and passionate defender of the West; a self-described Cassandra of the Islamic threat which looms over her beloved Europe now.

Always passionate and outspoken, she powerfully articulated the rage which has been so suppressed throughout the West; in spite of the constraints of Political Correctness, or perhaps also because of it, she became more harsh and more insistent in her later years.
Her voice was a much-needed one in an emasculated and passive Europe, and throughout the West. Of course her bluntness provoked controversy in a world which prizes 'sensitivity' and hypocritical niceness over truth, but her eloquence and passion spoke for many people whose voices are silenced in today's PC-strangled atmosphere.

Here is the London Times on her death.

As a mere teenager in Italy, during WWII, she joined an armed resistance group, 'Giustizia e Liberta'.
In 1950 she became a journalist, writing for the Italian paper Il mattino dell'Italia.
She was a war correspondent during the Vietnam War years.

During her career as a journalist and political interviewer, she interviewed public figures such as Henry Kissinger, the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, Willy Brandt, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Moammar Gaddafi, Yassir Arafat, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Haile Selassie, as well as celebrities and media figures like Sammy Davis Jr., Walter Cronkite and Sean Connery.

In recent years, her attention was focused on the Islamic threat to Europe and to the West, which became something of an obsesssion with her. The 9/11 attacks particularly distressed her, and motivated her book 'The Rage and the Pride.'

She said, of Islam:

The clash between us and them is not a military one. It's a cultural one, a religious one, and the worst is still to come."

And how right she has been proven to be. In this article by Tunku Varadjan, he says

The impending Fall of the West, as she sees it, now torments Ms. Fallaci. And as much as that Fall, what torments her is the blithe way in which the West is marching toward its precipice of choice. "Look at the school system of the West today. Students do not know history! They don't, for Christ's sake. They don't know who Churchill was! In Italy, they don't even know who Cavour was!" -- a reference to Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the conservative father, with the radical Garibaldi, of Modern Italy. Ms. Fallaci, rarely reverent, pauses here to reflect on the man, and on the question of where all the conservatives have gone in Europe. "In the beginning, I was dismayed, and I asked, how is it possible that we do not have Cavour . . . just one Cavour, uno? He was a revolutionary, and yes, he was not of the left. Italy needs a Cavour -- Europe needs a Cavour."

She was so right; Europe needs a Cavour, and America needs the equivalent. But the world needs a Fallaci. If only there were more like her, to sound the alarms, to speak with furious urgency, to warn, to entreat, to exhort. Sadly there seems to be no one waiting in the wings to take her place. Perhaps she is too much a product of the old order of things, of the days when nation and culture and people and heritage meant something; when pride in one's origins and country were not disdained or denounced as 'hate.'

And Fallaci also represented a type which is becoming extinct today: a 'leftist' with principles; a leftist with a brain, who could employ impassioned reason in a cause. Today's leftists are often nothing more than spoiled, rebellious adolescents trashing everything they associate with Daddy and authority. Few leftists seem capable of a reasoned, intelligent argument, or of listening to differing views. Few leftists can find any love for country, nation, or tradition in their shriveled hearts; they have nothing but disdain and loathing for their origins. Fallaci, however, loved her place of birth, Tuscany, and her country, Italy, and she loved the Western civilization of which Italy (and she herself) were a part. Where are today's leftists who hold such love and loyalty and passion? How can one love an abstraction, like an ideology, or 'world citizenship' or 'a nation of immigrants'? No; the human heart and mind love the concrete, the specific, the natural bonds: those of family, kin, homeland, and heritage. Today's hollow leftists are driven by loathing, not love. Despite Fallaci's image as a 'hater' of Islam or a 'vilifier' (on which charge she was arraigned in Italy) she was motivated by love of her country and people and heritage.

Again, I say we need more like her, because without other such people with her fire and ardor, her intelligence and eloquence, her fearlessness, we don't have a chance, we in the West.

There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape." --Oriana Fallaci

Those of us who care intensely about the same things which commanded such loyalty and dedication from Fallaci should understand the quote above. I suppose my modest effort in writing this blog is motivated by the sense of urgency she cites in that quote.

As I said in a blog post some months ago, I sometimes lose heart for the struggle momentarily, but the sense of urgency returns. Being silent is not an option; all of us who share Fallaci's passion have no choice but to try to follow her blazing example.


The dust jacket of The Rage and the Pride says:

With her brutal sincerity she hurls pitiless accusations, vehement invectives, and denounces the uncomfortable truths that all of us know but never dare to express. With her rigorous logic, lucidity of mind, she defends our culture and blames what she calls our blindness, our deafness, our masochism, the conformism and the arrogance of the Politically Correct. With the poetry of a prophet like a modern Cassandra she says it in the form of a letter addressed to all of us.''

To all of us.