Fighting The Tide Of The "Living Wage"

An article in U.S. News & World Report reported, with the rather Lefty-flattering title of “Vote Democratic, Earn More” that Democrats appear to be rallying around the minimum wage issue as perhaps their best seller for the 2006 election. After failing with taxes, national security, Social Security, “corruption” and a campaign centered not around solutions to real problems, but around attacks against the current administration, Democrats have gone back to the well, drank deep and found minimum wage.

After not having been raised in over a decade, the minimum wage issue is felt by many in the Leftist Democrat caucus to be an issue that will finally again resonate with enough Americans to swing their vote. It usually takes this long between raising it as it takes a while for people to forget the damage that was caused the last time the minimum wage was raised. A true Marxist invention, federal and state minimum wage laws violate one of the basic tenets of the employer-employee relationship, namely “What will you work for?” By establishing a bottom end, jobs are artificially restricted and costs are artificially raised on jobs that most people consider temporary or entry-level, not careers.

To think it only affects those at that end of the economic spectrum is a bit naïve as well. Businesses forced to restructure their bottom line as they must pay their least-skilled or needed workers more will seek to put those costs elsewhere. Whether it’s higher prices to we the consumers or just fewer skilled jobs near the top, well, that’s the price we pay for social engineering.

The notion of a minimum wage is very thoughtful, but there is no evidence that it provides any economic benefit to anyone but the people who are getting the extra money. Everyone else touched by it is hurt economically. So, with that in mind, which is worth more?

Then there's the matter of just how many people will see a wage increase. Probably one of the most authoritative economists on this and many such subjects, Walter Williams, wrote a column this week on this very subject. He puts into perspective the massive voting block we're discussing here.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports: "According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2004, some 73.9 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.8 percent of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 520,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15." (http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2004.htm#2)

There’s also the matter of job worth. Is getting the fries up equivalent to a secretary’s job or an office clerk or a phone support specialist? Should we pay an unskilled worker, a high school student, or an immigrant looking for his first job in the workforce the same as people who might have more education or experience, but who are entering the lower end of a skilled field? If so, what message are we sending? That being uneducated and not willing to put effort into getting a better job are the new American values? That it is no longer “American” in nature to want to excel to earn better wages?

And what is a fair “minimum” wage? This is another argument that we’ve had since the idea was first put into law. If you establish a minimum wage, what is the motivation? Is it to let someone make enough to own their own home? Own their own car? Keep a room at the local flophouse? Where do you draw the line? I’ll tell you where. You draw it just high enough that it does people who are getting it no real good, while at the same time leaving you room to whine for an even higher wage to keep the issue fresh and politically viable. This is, as with so many issues on the Left, just bad comedy. That Democrats assume people actually should believe that raising the minimum wage will somehow relieve poverty and usher in some golden age of wealth for the lower class by forcing employers to pay artificially high wages for work that isn’t worth it, is almost as sad as outfits like U.S. News & World Report shilling that issue for them and trying to add credibility to it.

Voting for Democrats won’t get you any more money, unless you’re one of those privileged few who will get an appointment to some patronage position in Washington. It will get you higher taxes, reduced economic productivity, and an entrenched class of workers who now have a lot less incentive to advance from these low-end jobs. Minimum wage is not the Democrat’s only agenda. It’s the tip of a Big Government Iceberg both parties seem intent on steering us towards. The big difference seems to be that the Democrats want to increase speed as well.

Smoke ‘Em At Your Peril

After the recent smoking ban for restaurants passed in Indianapolis, several local municipalities have sought to do likewise. This was not terribly surprising, although it has made businesses outside Indianapolis’ jurisdiction no less thrilled. However, proponents of the ban, flush with victory, see it as only a stepping stone to a total ban on smoking in the entire metro area, proving that bad law is often followed by worse law.

These are the people who applauded the line “The United States is a non-smoking nation” in the otherwise forgetful movie “Escape from L.A.”. Say what you will about John Carpenter, he can read modern society like a book. Extending the ban on smoking to bars and to the doughnut counties and possibly to the entire public arena is bad enough. That it furthers the trampling on the rights of a business to conduct itself as it sees fit while forcing regulation of individuals’ behaviors and habits by proxy is only the start.

We live in a litigious society. There is no doubt or question to that fact. Attempts at reform have failed miserably or have largely been ignored, thanks primarily to the efforts of lawyers. These same lawyers, still celebrating their victory over Big Tobacco, and licking their wounds from their series of defeats related to the gun industry, know that there is big business yet to be had in other areas like Big Food.

There have already been discussions that perhaps smoking should not be the only “habit” or affectation publicly banned. Some of these charming lawyers have stated that obese people, for example, shouldn’t be allowed in certain restaurants or public places as such displays are offensive. These are well-publicized complaints and instead of being met with scorn and ridicule, they are receiving serious attention from the antique media. No drinking, no red meat, no fried foods, no fun. By labeling such behaviors unhealthy, and with the support of a powerful lobby of doctors, the litigators have laid the groundwork for an offensive designed to shape society in their own image.

By attacking the companies that indulge these behaviors, they begin the social engineering process. Once the companies have been effectively demonized, then those who have not abandoned the companies or their habits are equally attacked as “part of the problem”. Society is taught to treat such individuals with less respect and so on and so forth. If that plan sounds familiar, it is basically the one that’s been used to demonize smoking. Expect to see the same pattern followed with fast and “unhealthy” food. In fact, you may have already seen some of it.

The final stage of social engineering is aimed at the real die-hards, the ones who won’t give in to the previous waves of propaganda. Government is used to control these behaviors, addictions, and hobbies by regulating or even banning certain substances. Historically, we have Prohibition and the “Drug War” to see this trend from start to finish. Nowadays, we have the War on Tobacco and the emerging War on Fast & Unhealthy Food.

The question I pose to those reading is, assuming you don’t agree with this social engineering experiment, what will you do to help stop it? The frontlines are where all real battles are fought, and now the front line is in the city and county council chambers of America. Start there and when the bans come through, when the local ordinances against smoking over overeating or whatever behavior or belief the government has deemed offensive comes up for debate, be one of the first there to kick it back into the hole it crawled out of.

These bans, these limits are nothing more than an exercise in control. It is not a moral issue or an issue of an inalienable right, but it is an issue of power. When power is established, it is difficult to relinquish and even harder to stop from trying to increase its base. Those that wish to build that power and shape society in their own image instead of letting religion or the people themselves shape it count on the fact that what they propose will seem harmless enough that no one will mass against it. As Edmund Burke said, ”When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle” Limits on smoking and fast food are but a small step towards more draconian controls on other aspects of our lives. Let’s nip them in the bud before such ideas can germinate any farther.

Playing the Credibility Card

Anytime a politician starts telling you how much he's like you in some old-fashioned Americana kind of way, you might want to check his agenda, because usually he tells you that right before he tries his damndest to yank away whatever liberty on which he's just waxed nostalgic.

Enter our favorite New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Only in a place like New York could such a man be considered a Republican, because he sure as hell isn't a conservative. Bloomberg has been leading a tireless campaign of late to find a way to extend New York's virtual gun ban to the rest of the United States and next week he's sought to meet with the mayors of several major U.S. cities to try and "join forces" against our liberties and lobby Congress against the bulk of the American citizenry.

Such a move might put him at an awful credibility disadvantage. I mean, here he is, more liberal than "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani, who's also for gun control, and he's got to establish his bona fides with middle America. Hard to do that when you're seen as an elitist snob by even some of your own citizens in New York, right? What to do? Play the Credibility Card of course!

See, Bloomberg's just like us in the Midwest. He was a boyscout who once fired a .22 rifle! Here him speak his homespun "pass the biscuits" wisdom on the issue of gun rights and why we have nothing to fear.

"You want to go hunting and have a gun - you know, I'm not opposed to that," he said.

The 64-year-old mayor, who grew up in Medford, Mass., and occasionally refers to fond memories of Boy Scout camp, said he participated in riflery there and owned a .22 caliber rifle for target practice on a shooting range.

"I see nothing wrong with people having guns, but that doesn't mean you can have a gun every place, and concealed weapons - or even weapons out in the open in big cities on city streets - does not make a lot of sense to me," he said.

Sends a chill up your spine, doesn't it? It's like he's a good ole farm boy who un'erstan's what us'in kountree bumpkin's in 'Murka thinks 'bout gunz. Give me a break. If anything, he comes off as more of an elitist snob, only add condescending to boot. He grew up in Massachusetts in a different time and now that very state he speaks of would probably not enjoy being identified as a gun haven for renegade Jesus-freak Boy Scouts. Granted, I'm just trying to put the proper spin on it for Mayor Bloomberg's constituency.

This man knows just short of nothing about what it takes to live in the rest of the country outside of New York. He's living in his little bubble, the tiny microcosm of Manhattan, assured that if only the rest of us could just be made to see how much smarter and wiser he is than us, we would surely submit to his revolutionary anti-rights policies.

And you know, if New Yorkers are happy with the likes of Bloomberg, hey they made their bed. But don't try and infect the rest of the U.S. with your diseased philosophy of no legal guns=peace in our time. I've seen the murder rates from cities that have gone that route including New York and I've seen the curtailment of freedoms in those cities as police try to retain some semblance of order, and I don't want it. Neither do the sane folk who live outside the Boroughs.

Enjoy the tiny island of fascist utopia you think you've created with the likes of Captain Bly Bloomberg at the helm. Just don't try an spread your idiotic ideas into our little corner of the woods, and please don't act like you understand us. I think it was better when you didn't know we existed.

No One Rewrites History Like A Kennedy

It takes someone with the Donkey credentials of Teddy Kennedy to so blatantly rewrite history and someone as “objective” as Tim Russert to ignore his assertions to make for a truly signature episode of “Meet the Press”. Newsbusters fortunately has a good synopsis of Kennedy’s assertions.

As you know, one of my greatest pet peeves is when history is distorted to suit an individual agenda, especially a Leftist one like Kennedy’s.

Here were the juiciest little tidbits of his tirade with Tim.

“You know, Tim, as of this week, American forces will have been in Iraq as long as America was in the Korean peninsula in the Korean war.”

One would hope that alcohol and whatever other drugs he might imbibe hasn’t rotted Teddy’s brains so much that he’s unaware of the fact that the war was ended not with a treaty, but with a ceasefire (much like the Gulf War). Korea is still an active conflict, hence why we still have troops policing the South Korea side of the DMZ. Hence why there even is a DMZ. The Korean War is well over fifty years old and counting and has never been resolved.

But I’m sure Teddy would point out that this isn’t what he was referring to, merely that he was referring to the period of active hostilities during the Korean War. This also is a poor comparison, actually no comparison, because the current Iraq War is not at “war footing” and has devolved into a low-level guerilla insurgency by former Baathists, foreign fanatics and disaffected Sunnis (probably the smallest of the enemy forces) for some time. This devolution falters by the day, whereas Korea has been in a stalemate since 1952. But why let facts get in the way of a pathetic comparison? By making the correlation with the Korean War, not necessarily a “win” in the annals of history, Kennedy gets the twofer of implanting in some minds that the situation will last as long and as needlessly as Korea and is as hopeless for a speedy resolution, while at the same time casting aspersions that U.S. policy is as open-ended and directionless as it was after the Korean Conflict dropped off into its current state.

No, it’s easier to make things up out of whole cloth than try and genuinely debate the issue, perhaps because Kennedy has no real or legitimate argument he can make other than “We can’t let Republicans look good or we’ll never get our socialist party back into power”. That, at least, would be an honest argument.

In response to Tim Russert’s question: “If we got out and there was a civil war, chaos and you saw al Qaeda moving in in record numbers and Zarqawi exerting great control over the country, would you go back in?”

Kennedy responded: “Well, first of all, I heard the same kinds of suggestions at the time of the end of the Vietnam War: ‘the great blood bath. We're going to have over 100,000 people that were going to be murdered and killed at that time.’ And for those of us that were strongly opposed to the war heard those same kinds of arguments at the time.”

Kennedy acts as if he and his Leftist colleagues were proven right by what happened after South Vietnam fell. In fact, he is more culpable for the deaths of all the “reeducated” South Vietnamese, Cambodians and other southeast Asians who died during the communist bloodbaths than any living U.S. politician. He was there in Congress at the time and voted to sacrifice them all in the name of politics, just as he’s currently trying to do with the Iraqis.

But again, facts and the consequences of his actions in the face of history mean nothing to this man, if you can call him that. This pathetic drunkard only cares about the power he believes so rightly is his and that of his party’s. He lost all contact with his constituency and reality when the Khmer Rouge and others like them began the wholesale slaughter of over a million of their fellow Cambodians to prove they truly were “communists in a hurry” and he did nothing. In fact, he and others like him praised themselves and patted themselves on the back for getting the U.S. out of a war that his brother largely started. Worse, he abandoned innocent human beings, just as he’s trying to now, to a gruesome and needless death just to score points in the game of American politics.

Words fail to describe how sleazy or just plain filthy one must be to believe and to have acted on such things as Kennedy has done. In Kennedy's case, he is a liar and murderer with blood on his hands and no amount of shaking his fist at Bush or the rest of us will stay the fact that blood rains from his fingertips like a sprinkler system painting his accusations as the hypocritical hatred they really are. Normally, I like to give people on the opposite side of the debate the benefit of the doubt and operate from the assumption that we are all Americans and want what's best for us. With Kennedy, I have found that to make such an assumption is a waste of time, and the weight of history bears that out.

If you have reason to doubt, or if you have reason to question the motivations and facts of what has happened and what must be done in U.S. foreign policy in recent years, do so without relying upon the likes of Kennedy and his ilk, and the willing accomplices like Russert who freely let them spew their bile for all to see. Their complicity with what could only be described as pure evil in the world has eliminated their legitimacy and washed away their humanity. Agree or disagree with foreign policy based on the legitimate needs of the United States, but when you do, do it without the burden of such peoples’ “opinions” and dark history to way down your thoughts. It will not help you answer the questions of history anymore than reading Hitler’s speeches will give you a true history of the Jews, Gypsies or Catholics. It’s just pure propaganda.

But, Isn't That Some Sort of Crime?

So I'm reading that a CIA officer, Mary McCarthy, was recently fired by said agency for apparently leaking a story to the Washington Post alleging that the CIA was running a series of "secret prisons" in Eastern Europe. To add insult to injury, she appears to be an appointee of the disgraced, shameless former National Security Advisor under Clinton, Sandy Berger.

I thought for sure that leaking any classified information from the CIA was a criminal and punishable offense, but perhaps I missed something in that regard. So far, I've only seen this one story on it, so I guess one might assume there was a certain bias to the issue of leaking information and what should be covered. A Clinton-appointed CIA agent potentially leaking info on classified CIA projects gets a few mentions in the press (mostly defending her as a "whistleblower", unlike Gary Aldrich who was a "disturbed troublemaker" and whose revelations weren't criminal offenses, but I digress) and a White House operative leaks the name of an agent who's been off the undercover roles for years thanks to Aldrich Ames and we have I think at last count more stories written about her than were written about the bombing of Pearl Harbor (as well as an attractive picture in People magazine of the lovely couple). Yeah, NO BIAS THERE. What have we got Hans Blix looking for media bias these days? (And did anyone see the Hans Blix scene in 'Team America" - Hans Brix! Oh no! And that was overlooked by the Academy)

So, first off, I hope they learn to keep things in perspective and actually get the story out that someone was fired for leaking classified information. I would've thought severe prosecution was in order, but I'm a bit old-fashioned when it comes to disseminating any potentially classified info (true or disinfo). Not exactly a big incentive for other previous-appointed Clinton staffers to not do similar.

I mean, if someone like Sandy Berger only gets a measly $50,000 fine for destroying critical documents from the National Archives and a 3-year ban on looking at similar documents in the future, really, where is the incentive by relics of that administration not to screw with the current administration, as they have since the day Bush got in office? And how can anyone defend this man? After stealing the documents from the National Archives (was the Constitution unavailable for him to lift that day?) he took them back to his office and cut them up with SCISSORS. Does anyone see that possibly as an obstruction of justice issue or is that just me?

Probably one of my most serious and frustrated complaints over this whole affair, from McCarthy back through her boss Sandy, is that the government doesn't take such people seriously, so how are we to take the government seriously? This is protection? This is a judicious use of our tax dollars? This is open government? No, this is a farce and that they let such people walk with a bare slap on the wrist and a promise of a 12 month book tour and campaign position in the next Democratic presidential run is comparable to the federal judiciary whipping it out and taking the proverbial leak on the public. In other words, it's par for the course.

Unhinged Bernstein

Keith Olbermann, resident senior leftist propagandist on MSNBC, had the distinct honor of interviewing one of the legends in the journalism community, Carl Bernstein. Bernstein doesn’t come off sounding quite as “objective” as he used to during the Watergate years, which is saying something. Newsbusters covered the interview in detail.

What I thought worth writing about was Bernstein’s ability to crystallize every phobia, urban legend, and talking point of the political Left into one distilled rant of attempted credibility. You see, if one takes all these disparate topics and molds them together with the assumption that they are fact and proven beyond doubt, one can draw all sorts of interesting, if ludicrous conclusions. Many of these topics I’ve not blogged on because I felt they were adequately covered elsewhere or not as relevant to what I prefer to write about. When a true master of propaganda like Bernstein comes along with one of these rants, though, it’s hard to resist commenting on it. Let’s examine some of the thoughts expressed in that interview.

In a recent article by Bernstein, he has stated there is a need for hearings to "determine the next step that is taken to deal with Iraq, to deal with Iran, to deal with George W. Bush."

Bernstein already operates from a position that any conflict begun by this presidency is suspect, operating in the unique vacuum environment of the Left with no regard for history or the motivations of other nations. His basic premise is that Bush is already a criminal and must be dealt with by Congress, and why is he so obviously a criminal? Well, just look at the illegal war in Iraq!

Again, if you assume that your premise is already and irrevocably true, then building on that premise becomes much easier, no matter how weird a territory you cross into. The assumption that Iraq is just some cowboy shoot’em up Bush wanted to go on since before he became President (or Karl Rove or whatever secret cabal the Left has dug up on any given week) operates in such a vacuum. It ignores the ’91 Gulf War, unless it uses it to justify why Bush wants revenge for his “daddy” and acts as if the war was resolved then. There is no need to mention that the war was only suspended with a cease fire contingent upon the fascist Hussein complying with several U.N. demands designed to ensure that he couldn’t wage such an easy war of aggression on a neighbor again, culminating possibly in his removal from power as the ultimate smackdown. You’d also have to discount the low-level war that we and our Coalition partners had been waging with Saddam since that war. Planes that flew in the No-Fly zone were constantly fired upon, an obvious Act of War and Saddam continued to act in defiance of the treaty he himself signed.

All such facts are dust in the wind, because they are inconvenient to the “Cowboy Bush” hypothesis of the Left so casually thrown around by Bernstein. He also looks at Iran as a problem caused by Bush, when it was more realistically caused by Carter. Carter failed to nip the Islamist theocracy in the bud when there was an easier chance of doing so and allowed the Persian nation to gain power and prestige in the eyes of other Muslims, something they have craved since the decline of Persian power in the rise of Arabic princes during early Islam.

Iran is a burgeoning nuclear power as well as an avowed enemy of the United States and Israel. They want no peace or normalized relations. The government of Iran wants the destruction of said nations and it wants it as soon as possible. That is why we hear their president promise “50,000 suicide bombers” to destroy the United States if we act against Iran in any fashion. That’s saber rattling by any definition and provocative fighting words at the very least. Iran wants a fight and if the United States backs down they win at least greater prestige and influence. But, why consider such trivial things as history or Iranian motivation when it’s easier to just say it’s Bush’s fault and that it’s something else the Left can use to impeach him?

On the NSA program: "totally illegal, it would seem, usurpation of power by the President under the guise of national security, the kind of thing Nixon, there was an article of impeachment against Nixon for wiretapping."

I’ve remained perplexed at this non-issue, partly because it’s managed to keep legs in the papers for as long as it has and partly because I can’t see how it’s not seen through as the horribly partisan and pathetic issue that it is. Again, though, Bernstein operates from the assumption that it must be illegal and therefore he can build his further assumption that the hearing should focus on this as its prime impeachment point.

He tries to establish further credibility for his hypothesis by bringing the Nixon factor in, which any good Leftist knows is the sign of true criminal behavior. Nixon is the Left’s arch-criminal, an admittedly moderate, almost liberal Republican (he initiated affirmative action for the Feds and began the process of normal relations with Communist China) who is often viewed by those of the Marxian persuasion as the ultimate evil conservative. Imagine if they’d picked a real conservative to hate with such a reverence. Nixon is almost a Faustian Satan figure for them, and so why Bernstein so easily can inject his ghostly memory into the debate to assist his point (also because Nixon is how he made his bones).

When looking at the signal gathering activity of the NSA, though, the program that is being called the smoking gun, it is a counter-espionage operation begun by intelligence agencies which have never operated within the domestic law framework to ferret out enemy spies. If the FBI were involved, I could see the point, but when even several previous FISA judges (an Act I still have trouble accepting as fully Constitutional in a separation of powers role) state that they can find no illegality in the President’s authorization of counter-espionage activity of listening in on suspected Al-Qaeda sympathizers or agents, the argument of any illegality is shattered beyond repair.

The NSA has, to my knowledge, never acquired warrants to tap anyone. They just sort of do it, much as the CIA does for foreign operatives and much as the OSS did before them. Presidents from our earliest history have led and authorized such programs as is part of their executive power and have not had to tread on the 4th Amendment to do it. This sort of work falls outside the 4th Amendment by any arguable historical measure and thus as I previously stated comes out as an overblown non-issue. This discard’s Bernstein’s primary evidence when calling for his beloved Congressional hearings.

Then there is Olbermann himself asking “All parts of an equation that has another eminent voice raising the question of whether the Bush presidency is, in fact, worse than Watergate."

See the preceding paragraphs. First, Bernstein is an eminent voice only in terms of the enshrined status he’s culled from the Left. No one else really considers a journalist who arguably has not done much to standout since getting lucky riding Woodward’s coattails with Watergate as “eminent”. Watergate itself, albeit an event that has become the standard for measuring political corruption and synonymous with any and all government scandals, was pretty light in the grand scheme of government scandals. It was a simple attempt to gain campaign information on a Party that, although the Republicans didn’t know it at the time, was in horribly disarray and preparing to go down in flames in the ’72 elections. If anything, the engineers of the burglary, Dean the broken record included, were more bunglers of policy than sinister criminals. If they’d had a better feel for the population or the political climate, such criminal activity would not have even been considered.

And if I could sidebar for a moment, John Dean is a pitiful excuse for a man. History has shown that it was on his order that Liddy’s picked crew went in that second time that got them caught. It appears through some minor examination of Liddy’s statements and what we know of Dean’s wife, a former “alleged” callgirl who serviced high-power Washington clients that the burglary was more about ensuring her name wasn’t in any compromising phone directories in the Watergate offices than about collecting political intelligence. That Dean rolled over to say his own hide and used his snitch status to remain in some way relevant by being a basher of every Republican since Nixon for whatever political show will give him five minutes makes much of what he said at the time and everything he’s said since suspect and in my opinion useless as anything else than the leftist propaganda it is.

With that aside, though, Watergate, the Holy Grail, the Gold Standard of all scandals in the modern political era is being thrown about so casually in the above quote by Olbermann as his little way of trying to imply that we should take for granted that the alleged scandal we now face in the President’s doings is more dire than anything we’ve faced in recent history. More dire indeed than Clinton’s office of political amateurs requesting and holding hundreds of secret FBI files on the backgrounds and sensitive details of the lives of their political enemies. More dire than the alleged suicide of a man close to the President and First Lady in a case that is still not clearly understood. More dire than a President who bombed an aspirin factory and Iraq not so clearly out of following those same resolutions as protecting himself in his own domestic scandal ridden Presidency. That should give you a feel for where those who so easily throw around these accusations, but who remained quiet on all these issues from ’92 to 2000, stand and just how credible they are.

I hope also it has provided a little insight into how easily it is to craft a charge out of whole cloth by ignoring all things except the ideas that Republicans and America as a whole are the sole evil in the world and must be stopped at all costs. If you understand that, you pretty much understand the whole of the Left.

Last Words On Immigration?

Probably not. As long as the government sees fit to act like a traffic cop on valium when it comes to dealing with illegal immigrants, I'm afraid I will have to continue to pester them on my little corner of the blogosphere.

It would appear the "compromise" bill on illegal immigration, which is having lots of trouble at this moment, was worse than anyone could have immagined. Take a look at this text from Senator John Cornyn's web site:

THE PROBLEM:

The Compromise bill includes language that would prevent the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from detaining or deporting any alien who files an application with the government. The “safe harbor” provisions would apply even if the alien was ineligible for the amnesty because of prior criminal violations. Moreover, DHS would be required to issue the alien a secure travel and work authorization document while the application was pending.

This language is broader than the text of the 1986 amnesty, which required the alien to establish a prima facie case for eligibility, did not limit DHS’s ability to detain the alien, and did not require DHS to issue a travel document. This loophole, though, is easy to fix.

...

The compromise bill even protects illegal aliens before DHS has implemented the program by restricting DHS’s ability to deport any alien “who is apprehended before the beginning of the application period.”
In simple terms, immigration enforcement would stop upon enactment of the bill. Every single alien who is apprehended—and there were more than a million apprehended along the southern border last year alone—could easily establish prima facie eligibility for the amnesty and DHS would be prohibited from deporting the alien.

This could be particularly problematic because of the “rush to the border” that would inevitably occur between date of enactment and close of the application period.

The Hagel/Martinez bill states that any alienwho files an application for amnesty:

“shall not be detained, determined inadmissible or deportable, or removed pending final adjudication of the alien’s application. . . unless the alien commits an act which renders the alien ineligible.”

“shall be granted employment authorization pending final adjudication…”

“shall be granted permission to travel…”

(hat tip to RightWingNews)

Cornyn had a fairly simple amendment to add to this that would have clarified the language a lot and removed the "safe harbor" handcuffs from DHS so they could still deal effectively with criminals who cross the border. Senator Reid, the darling obstructionist from Nevada, managed to block the addition of Cornyn's amendment. So, we now have a "compromise" bill that would hogtie and render useless any form of immigration control. Why not just open the borders and let whoever wants to come in come in? Why not just declare all laws moot?

If you can't control your borders, you can't consider yourself a sovereign nation, as Reagan once reminded us. If you want to thumb your nose at the very consideration of sovereignty, then the foundation of our government (and its power structure) becomes suspect. Congress sends a dangerous message, as always, by championing lawbreakers at the expense of the rest of us. Do you honestly expect that Mexico would be as lax with illegals crossing its borders? If you've seen their immigration laws, you'd know that also was a moot question. Draconian doesn't begin to describe Mexico's immigration law.

What the illegals who marched so recently in all major cities are saying, and what governments like Mexico are saying is that they do not care what our laws are. They do not recognize our right to exist or to be a sovereign nation. Our land, apparently, is actually there's according to their own statements and thus they feel no need to honor or abide by our law or anything else we might demand of them. Make no mistake, what they do constitutes an invasion of our nation. In this way, we are not far different from Israel, at risk of destruction by an enemy that does not regard its claim to the land as legitimate or its people as anything more than European colonists.

Well, we haven't been colonists for a long time and have been in our country much longer than the Spanish-descended citizens of Mexico and other Central American nations that make up a signifcant portion of the illegal wave. We have a right to this land too and should consider very strongly how far we are willing to go to protect our place on it.

I advocate no harm to anyone. This is not a call to armed resistance. This is a call to not only ensure our sovereignty, but to assist those who would deny it in finding their way back to their own countries before making their way legally back into this one. This is a call to send those Senators and Congressmen and women who feel our ownly hope is capitulation into the retirement they so obviously require starting with the 2006 election. Only with these conditions and a strengthening of our border will this crisis begin to abate. There will of course be much more that must be dealt with, but securing the border and removing the swamp rats from Captiol Hill who wish to see it remain porous is a helluva good start.

We are at war, not just with Islamofascists, descendants of the fascists of central Europe in the 30's and 40's, and also of the radical sects of Islam, but also with nations that seek to right perceived wrongs against us and settle long-buried scores regarding perceived injustices, merely to assuage their own political problems by blaming them squarely on the United States. Until Washington realizes that, we're as good as setting out the buffet for the vultures.

Enough Of This

We certainly debate and argue and bicker and seethe at points made by the opposite end of the political spectrum. For political junkies, no fight lacks passion, regardless of your affiliation. And even though we may not like each other's ideals, the majority of us appear to at least not want to make it personal. I mean really personal.

That's why when I see ridiculous nonsense like the kind of vitriolic pure venemous hatred aimed at people like Michelle Malkin, I have to wonder where the hell these people come from. This particular incident stems from her not letting go of the radical Leftists at UC Santa Cruz who forced military recruiters off campus recently. For some reason, she seems to draw an awful lot of racist, sexist foul language from what I can only assume are the worst our country and the Left's cause has to offer. By the way I hear the KKK is looking to Michelle's hatemail for a new mailing list membership drive.

You don't like her politics...fine. You don't like that a minority woman has different views than the crazed Left, well that's your tough luck. You think she's too extreme? Make your case to her in a civilized manner or just ignore her. But if you have to resort to calling her sexual curse words and racist slang, then you fit the bill of worst of the worst and all we can hope is that you yourselves do those of us on all sides of the political spectrum a huge favor and rot in Hell.

John Hawkins over at RightWingNews has some additional commentary. This, of course, isn't the first time she's had to put up with hate mail like this.

Did You Render Unto Caeser?

With the weekend, our beloved tax holiday is stretched a little further than normal. Check Mike Kole's site and his discussion of the Fair Tax for a good start. For a followup, examine these quotes. I know that any good Leftist will only cheer if Marx is properly and reverently quoted, and jeer if "the revered fossils", as I've heard the Founding Fathers called, are quoted, but this is my little corner of the blogosphere. So...no Marx allowed.

"To take from one because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violatee arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." - Thomas Jefferson

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny will commence. If "Thou shall not covet' and 'Thou shall not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free." - John Adams

"It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess...If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the Treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds." - Alexander Hamilton on why consumption taxes (like the Fair Tax) were superior to taxes on things like income.

All courtesy of The Federalist...

The reason it is important to quote and quote and quote again the men who founded this country is that they give us the best ideas regarding the noblest of intentions that went into the framing of the Constitution and the direction they felt (correctly) was best for our government. That the forces who wish to see us most follow the socialist path of Old Europe or the communist path of much of Asia spend all their time belittling and minimizing the significance of the Founding Fathers should give you an idea of the true value of their words.

These were not perfect men, nor the smartest most educated men to ever live. But these men took the words and ideas of the greatest thinkers of their day and molded a nation with them. They took the best of the experiment of The Republic and gave us a heritage that, although battered and torn, still stands to this day.

One of the most egregious assaults on that legacy has been the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution authorizing the creation of the dreaded Income Tax. The Amendment was nothing more than a graft scheme. It was ratified, dubiously, on the promise of kicking back the money to the states without the states having to appear the bad guys in collecting it. It is a time-honored system of corruption still practiced to this day and worthy of the heritage of crime from which it was birthed.

Another April has come and gone and again we have collectively lost a fortune to the Federal government to be wasted on all manner of worthless endeavors. Whether you're a liberal or conservative, there are areas of government you see wasting money that should rightfully be used elsewhere. Although some of you may be thinking of some pet cause or other, be it education or welfare or what have you, the best place it can be used is in the families from which it was ripped.

This government survived and thrived without an Income Tax system. The country was a booming juggernaut. Even saddled with the Tax, we have become the world Superpower. Imagine how far we could've gone without the Tax or its hidden children (in regulation and corporate welfare). Its legacy is one of the proverbial albatross around the neck of our society. We can only do good by getting rid of it.

There are viable alternatives. Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) recently proposed a funding system that would eliminate the Income Tax, shut down the IRS and fund the U.S. government at 1990 levels, before welfare reform and at the height of the Cold War spending, when our armed forces were at their peak. The bill never got to the floor. If you can answer why and it doesn't send you voting out your current Congressman or Senator because of it, every single one that saw that that bill didn't get a fair vote, then you might as well move to Canada, Cuba, Europe or China, because they could use a few more good socialists.

We need Americans. We need Americans like Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton. Unfortunately, if they were in power today, they'd be stuck in Ron Paul's shunned caucus. How far have we fallen? Think on that as you write that tax check this year. In fact, think on it every year until you get so nauseated at the thought that you have no choice but to act. Maybe then, someday, we can return this country to those ideals and the dreams of those patriots. Until then, make sure you signed and properly dated your check.

Good Friday Break

I'll be spending the day with family, so for the handful of readers out there, I will return on Monday. Until then, enjoy the magnifcent columns of Walter Williams , Larry Elder, and Mona Charen. They most assuredly are people I enjoy reading and who spout a great deal of common sense.

And since I'm endlessly plugging townhall.com, check out their excellent resource for all you history buffs, America 101. Have a safe and Happy Easter weekend.

Time To Weigh In on Bugs vs. Mohammed

Although the issue has sort of run its course, there have been some minor concerns here in the States recently with the inability of any major media outlet to show a cartoon version of Mohammed, I thought it was time to add my own little red cent.

First off, as has been pointed out by John Hawkins over at RightWingNews and Newsbusters, South Park already ran a cartoon Mohammed in 2001. It was their "Super Best Friends" episode. Hilarious. Although even I occasionally groan at some of Matt Stone and Trey Parker's antics, I will always give them credit for having an equally big brass pair between them.

So where does that leave us? As the Danes are still reeling from their general stand behind the artists who drew the Mohammed cartoons, we saw a wave of publications and TV shows in the U.S. refuse to air them for fear of offending Muslims. More probably, they just didn't want to be added to the target list of the radical islamists (because they'll want to kill one infidel more than another).

Organizations that scream "free speech violation" over someone passing gas loudly in a crowded theater have run and cowered in fear of potential retaliation for simply reporting the news. They don't even get this worked up over George W. Bush, usually, which should give you some indication of just how far uncorked the media is over these Mohammed cartoons.

They were a message, and many of them couldn't even remotely be seen as "offensive", certainly not as offensive as some of the cartoons aimed at Christianity or Judaism. Christians and Jews, as it's often pointed out, aren't quite as sensitive as the Islamofascists over a cartoon portrayal of their major religious figure. Nor should we be about someone drawing Mohammed. They can draw him doing whatever they want him to do for all I care. That's the beauty of free speech in America.

And Muslims have every right to be offended, just as others are offended when their own religious figures are mocked. They do not have the right, though, to dictate to the rest of us how we should act or what we should do. The United States is not a Muslim nation. Muslims living in the United States are free to practice their religion without fear of persecution, but they suffer the delusion of much of the Hard Left if they think they also have the right not to be offended.

That Comedy Central has knuckled under and kowed like every other major media outlet when faced with such a controversial issue just shows that although many of them may profess a belief in freedom of speech and expression and may even truly believe in it, they simply don't want to fight for it.

When push comes to shove, they'd rather lose their freedom than their lives, a not altogether selfish thought mind you, but one they and others who feel the same should consider very carefully. If you let radical Islamists deny you your freedom today, will you let the U.S. government do it tomorrow, or China or North Korea? Where do you then draw a realistic line, or do you just give up and bend over?

I'm afraid, if they and others really want their freedom, they'll have to make a stand and truly defend it. If it means there's a certain risk to it, well what did they get in the media business for if not reporting the news no matter the cost? The major outlets certainly have no trouble reporting classified intelligence on the open waves? What are a few Bugs Bunny style cartoons compared to that? If they have no problem airing "Piss Christ" or "Elephant Dung Virgin Mary" (why the fascination with elephant dung, by the way?), then they should have no problem with a few political cartoons. Or they could just come out and admit they have no objectivity and are the pinnacle of hypocrisy and we can move on. Some how, I don't think we'll get either response, but at least they could be a little more like Stone and Parker and act like they've got a pair.

Put Up Or Shut Up

It didn't take long for the recent round of the illegal immigration debate to shift to its next phase. This phase, which I heard most recently from WXNT 1430's Adbul, is defined by opponents or just devils' advocates (can't say which Abdul is half the time) of those who oppose illegal immigration being put to the task of exactly how to resolve the issue. If we don't want amnesty, what then? Do you deport 11 million people? How? Where's the manpower for that? Where's the money? How's about a real solution? And so on and so forth.

I pondered on that, as I like to think I can be fairly reasonable if put to such a test. I was able to come up with a series of workable compromises that I think would be fair, most centered around illegals we had to keep because we hadn't the manpower or will to deport them paying a hefty fine or back taxes (this includes businesses who hired them paying back payroll taxes). My other thought was, they can't vote, not until their full citizens, and they'd have to wait as long as the current LEGAL applicant is waiting right now. So, if it takes five years for the last legal applicant of 2006 to become a full citizen, that's the earliest any of the illegals could. That'd keep them off the voting rolls as a penalty to the Democrats, who really only support them with that in mind. It would force the Republicans to knuckle under on the businesses more too. Then another revelation hit me.

I wouldn't even accept any of the above, not a line not an exception, until the border was better secured. I sometimes think back to Crazy Joe. Remember the principle in the movie "Lean on Me" played by Morgan Freeman? It was based on a real principal trying to save a dying, formerly great public school from the decay of local society. The scenes where he chained the doors, saying to the press "I have got thieves and hoodlums and drug dealers trying to get in" or something to that effect, stay with me. And I think of it everytime I look at our porous southern border. In a time of war, we need to lock down the border. It's a basic necessity and no one in government seems to be willing to commit to it.

Certainly our Senators don't give a damn what happens there, as long as they get their photo op with the fawning press and can feel good that they did something wonderful for their D.C. constituents. Remember, Senators only have constituents in D.C., not in their former home states. That's from an earlier discussion.

Until such a time, it's useless talking about anything else. Illegals given amnesty will simply be replaced by even more illegals. We have the '86 amnesty as historical proof. Regardless of whether or not these fools in Congress want to learn from history, the lessons are there nonetheless. When the borders are secure, then we can discuss what to do with the millions of illegal Latinos, Chinese, Vietnamese, Irish, and Botswanans. Until then, the politicos in my eyes haven't earned a red cent of what we keep shoveling them out in salary.

For an interesting poll on what Americans are thinking about all the illegal immigrants and theirs supporters demonstrating recently, go here. Just thought I'd add it.

We're 65% Of The Way

Today's USA Today carried a front page piece on a movement sweeping through the states in which states are attempting to force education departments to spend at least 65% of the budget for those school systems in the classroom. Several states have implemented it or are putting the issue on the ballot for the next election. Here's a bit of background from the text of the article:

The campaign, officially called First Class Education, is a quiet effort from Republican political consultant Tim Mooney and his pal Patrick Byrne, founder of the discount shopping website Overstock.com. For the past year, they've barnstormed the country, seeking to persuade governors and state legislators to back the idea.

They came up with 65% by looking at the top-performing states on federal skills tests and saw that they spend, on average, a little over 64% of school operating budgets in the classroom; those at the bottom spend as little as 49%.

Doesn't sound like a bad idea, right?

Well, you'd think so, until the teacher's unions and various school groups got involved. The general arguments from that side of the schoolroom are equally varied and poor. They have first accused lawmakers of wanting to micromanage how they spend their school dollars. Well, that argument might hold some water if schools hadn't done such an amazingly wretched job in many parts of the country thus far. Obviously, their failure to manage the money effectively, even in the face of massive increases in education spending, shows that someone else needs to get involved.

Should it be the Feds? Oh most decidedly not, but the local and state governments absolutely should get involved. This is the nature of "public" schools. You can't seriously expect all of us to pay property tax and float bonds for all these schools and all these curricula and continue to let the likes of teacher's unions, education lobbyists, and school bureaucracies continue to decide how that money is spent. The past 40 years have shown this to be a failure of Herculean proportions. Your time is up guys. Sorry.

Another argument is that no account is given to the myriad other items a modern school needs to function. There's "counselors, librarians, nurses, bus drivers, and others". I always loved the "and others" part. Here's the sad reality of that. These groups are saying that in such instances, auxillary personnel can't be paid with over a third of the budget. Setting aside that in and of itself that shows a huge sickness in the system, they basically prove their own point.

Private schools have existed for centuries using only a small portion of the budget for such auxillary personnel and one could argue many of those people are completely unneeded. Counselors for example could easily go the way of the dodo. Schools miraculously got on for generations without them and funny enough have suffered since their regular introduction and inclusion. Add into the mix that they are often the front line in testing the latest new pet social theory on our kids, and I really think they and their line item in the budgets need to go.

Librarians are not a significant drain on the budget. I know, I've seen their salaries. Same with bus drivers. Nurses are usually one of the biggest expenses and even that could easily be absorbed by the remaining 35%.

Let's not kid ourselves. The majority of the money that should be going to teachers and classrooms in public schools is going to a bloated education bureaucracy and to "social programs" that have absolutely zero to do with teaching children the basic skills they need to get by in society. Actually educating children has taken a back seat to using them as little social laboratories and permanent civil jobs for administrators. Those sections of the budget have become massively overblown precisely because we have allowed school boards, teacher's unions and the like to control where the money is spent. I think it's time for a fresh hand at this.

If anything, 65% doesn't go near far enough, but...baby steps.

Love A Good Immigration Traffic Jam

Let me first take a moment to thank our wonderful city government under the helmsmanship of Democrat Mayor Bart Peterson for scheduling Indianapolis' version of the illegal immigrants protesting that they want to ignore the law right at Rush Hour. And no, it's not the campy Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker movie. It's my trip home, as well as many others', from working downtown. Honestly, what better time than Monday at 5:00 in the evening could there possibly be to have, at latest count, 15,000 people descend on downtown? And not just the section that the "march" was taking place on. We're also talking the myriad of streets (read every one in downtown) overrun with people trying to get to the "march". So thanks, Mayor. You and the city government are doing a helluva job.

Since I had 40 minutes in six blocks to listen to the various shows on the radio discussing the local and national rallies, I got to hear not only those who opposed illegal immigration, but also a choice few who were at the rallies in support of it. I think, perhaps, my favorite protestor was the one who began with the tired old mantra of "we are all immigrants". Well, frankly, I'm not nor are most Americans. Many of us are descended, three or more generations back from immigrants, but no, we ourselves are as native born as could be at this point. Then when asked if he supported people breaking the law to come here illegally getting breaks over those who work to get in legally, he stated something along the lines of "Well, some come through the front door and some come through the back door. It's no big deal". So, the general belief is, if they or he doesn't like the law, why follow it? So much for the "nation of laws" idea, eh? I guess it only counts if it's laws they don't like.

I've said it before and til I'm blue in the face that I fully support legal immigration. We let in ONE MILLION legal immigrants every year. That fact often gets buried in this debate. God bless every one of them. I understand this is a great country and why someone would want to live here. We ask so little in return for living here. We have the most lax immigration policy and easiest track to citizenship of any nation in the world, bar none. Despite all the Left's "ain't America suckin'" rhetoric, an awful lot of the world wants to live here.

Oh, and another favorite of mine. How could I forget this one. When a "man on the street" in the New York protest was asked if he supported people coming here illegally his response was, and I'm not taking too much liberty with the text, that the United States has so exploited the world economically, that most have no choice but to come here illegally and try to make a living compared to their U.S. desecrated wasteland of a home. I believe he had a little ANSWER pin and hammer and sickle on his lapel. The answer was textbook Marxist schlock, but I think gave an accurate accounting of what many who were there stood for.

Between the anti-American rhetoric at rallies of people demanding to be Americans (no irony there) and the absolute cornucopia of lawbreakers all in one place not being arrested by the police, I think we can with some certainty say they're eating snowcones in Hell today.

There's a fairly mixed story on the Indianapolis Star's web site about the event that sums it up well. I think perhaps the last line is the most interesting, though.

Mendez [a U.S. citizen] said many immigrants are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers.

Amazing, and the policies of the Left have allowed and continue to allow those people to be exploited, or if we give them amnesty like we did in '86, for their replacements to be exploited. The reason for this, simply, is that any attempt to strengthen border control is undermined by a variety of forces, from business to leftist groups to the government itself. It lends to creating a permanent underclass of slave labor who are exempt from all employment laws and who do not have to be paid anything near a decent wage, because the employer can just turn them into INS (a bit of a joke, but still a threat to some).

This is what the Left and our government supports, keeping these people separate, culturally isolated from the rest of America, and impoverished. But you won't see the traditional Leftist mantra of "living wage" or "fair employment for all" applied to them until they think it will translate to votes. Once there appears to be enough to matter to the electorate, those same people who ruthlessly exploited the illegals will clamber for them to be made legal through amnesty by any name they think they can con the American public into accepting. They also know they can do this without harm to their permanent underclass, because there's always more willing to come in.

This is what the illegals are marching for here in Indianapolis and across the country. They are sad, pathetic dupes in an election year political struggle. Whether you think they deserve to be citizens in advance of those who have been waiting legally or whether you think they should be put out on their ear or any happy medium between the two, you have to at least acknowledge the simple fact that this is just election politics. The party in power is weak, and so the party out of power tries to exploit really "hot button" issues like illegal immigration. They're even recruiting. Be sure to enjoy the picture of Mexico and Texas together.

And, of course, they aren't the only ones who are exploiting this debate. So if you were stuck in traffic today or if you just got the joy of watching the demonstrations on TV, I hope you can reflect a little on the how's and why's of these and remember it's not just about letting Juan and Consuela settle in Dayton. Like most modern issues, it is it's own little microcosm of political fun.

Deadbeat Serfs

Usually these days when we think of deadbeats, we think of lay bouts or those who don’t pay their child support on time. Of course, we’re not the city of Indianapolis, or the thousands of other cities and towns in the great state of Indiana. The County Auditor for Indianapolis/Marion County just sent out their regular property tax bills. The big story, in this time of ever increasing bills, governs the percentage that are expected not to pay. Currently that is around 2%.

So what’s the big story? Well, of course those 2% who don’t pay will either have to eventually pay with heavy fines or their land will end up in a tax sale. That’s fair isn’t it? I mean, if you’re not paying your fair share, shouldn’t you suffer a penalty? Shouldn’t you lose your land to the state if you don’t pay them for potential services rendered for the year? Doesn’t that sound as ridiculous as could be?

This is an old grudge of mine, and anyone who’s read more than a week’s worth of my little posts knows I HATE property tax. I’ve campaigned against it. I’ve written volumes about the injustice of it. And I pay it, regularly. Perhaps that contributes a bit to my hatred for it.

That we have to pay to keep city and county governments running is not the issue. Perhaps that is lost in all this, but I’m not objecting to any part of that. Although I think oftentimes cities and counties live well beyond their means (I mean, their examples are the State and Federal bureaucracies, what are they to do?), and should really learn to live a little more lean and mean, but there are better ways, much better ways to assess fees than property tax.

As I’ve noted before, in debating the current, Republican, County Auditor locally, she claimed that such notions of eliminating property tax were naïve because it is such a reliable and efficient source of funds. She made my argument for me. Of course, when you have a reliable means of getting capital, you’re going to be less likely to explore riskier alternatives, but her argument missed the mark entirely.

Property tax is bad as a revenue source precisely because it is so reliable. We don’t need reliability. We need liberty and property tax doesn’t give us that. If we are reliably and efficiently enslaved by a system that can so easily take away our most basic right of property, is that liberty? Is it worth it? Can any of you honestly sit there and tell me it is? If you can, then I’m sure you long for the days of Stalinist Russia as well, and I likely can’t reach you. But the rest of you should feel a sense of outrage, as I do in paying that god forsaken bill every six months.

A simple search through the internet can find several states exhibiting what they did to eliminate property tax. Google is an amazing thing. You’d think the cities and towns of Indiana would have an equally easy ability to do a little research or perhaps even use the old noodle and come up with some ideas in a good old fashioned brain storming session. But, when things are so reliable and steady, who needs alternatives?

They’re thinking of themselves when they answer that question and not of you or me, the average taxpayer. We’d more than happily pay for services through user fees. Some of the best programs out there are run that way. Having to pay this way, by either forking over the dough or losing the land and home you’ve put blood, sweat, and tears in goes beyond un-American. It’s inhuman. It’s not difficult to say, in fact it’s rather easy to say that if you’re for property tax in its current incarnation, you’re against liberty.

The right of a person to be secure in their property without threat of government intrusion or theft is a fundamental, God-given right and one more people should recognize, especially as home ownership rises. At times like these, more than ever, you must remind your elected representatives that this is the case. You must remind them that your liberty is not negotiable or expendable in the name of convenience and reliability. Remind them that such thoughts will often lead to the unreliability of their keeping their jobs. That’s your power in this debate.

Senate Follies

Who says Vaudeville’s dead? We’ve got the U.S. Senate, one of the greatest comedy acts in the world. Not only do we have the likes of Trent Lott, who was once, apparently erroneously thought of as a conservative claiming that porkbusters are a damn nuisance to him, but we’ve got the likes of John McCain, Teddy “I partied in Chappaquiddick and all I got was this stupid alibi” Kennedy, Arlen Specter and Harry “180” Reid all running around defending the latest amnesty plan they’ve developed for illegals without a thought in their institutionalized little heads given to what the American people might actually want.

I tell you, the laughs just keep on coming. Tammy Bruce has a rip-roarious piece on John McCain and his attempts to shore up the “illegals do jobs Americans won’t do” debate. Look at this .

[...]But he took more questions, including a pointed one on his immigration plan.

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain’s job offer.

“I’ll take it!” one man shouted.

McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. “You can’t do it, my friends."

Some in the crowd said they didn’t appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.

See how hilarious John is? He takes an example he and his aides obviously thought over and group-tested and straw-polled to find out if it was the best and throws it out to a union crowd basically calling them lazy bums and thinks they’ll eat it up. And for the record, if someone offered to pay me $50 an hour to pay lettuce, I’d be away from this keyboard so fast, all you’d feel was the breeze.

“You can’t do it my friends”? Well, not that I think those people consider themselves his friend, but I would like to think, given the various menial jobs that Americans have and always will do, that amazingly yes we would do it. As I’ve seen aptly pointed out, does he think that one day eleven million plus illegal immigrants just showed up in our country and all the people who did plumbing, carpentry, fast food, construction, gardening and a host of other “menial” jobs suddenly said “Well, we don’t need to be here anymore, we’ve got illegals. Let’s just go home, collect welfare and watch the soaps”?

One can only assume he does and also that he, like many of his fellow Senators, is completely out of touch with America. He isn’t a Senator from Arizona, he’s a senator from Washington D.C. and those are the interests he really represents. Bank on it.

What about this quote from a veteran senator?

"Our borders have overflowed with illegal immigrants placing tremendous burdens on our criminal justice system, schools and social programs. The Immigration and Naturalization Service needs the ability to step up enforcement. Our federal wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare, food stamps, medical care and other benefits often without paying any taxes. Safeguards like welfare and free medical care are in place to boost Americans in need of short-term assistance. These programs were not meant to entice freeloaders and scam artists from around the world. "Even worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by individuals who are here illegally."

It should astonish those who think the Democrats are sinless on this issue to know that that quote was from none other than Harry Reid in 1993. Of course, after trying to push a “get tough on illegals” bill twice, he claims he recanted his beliefs and now believes the complete opposite than he used to, based on a talk with his immigrant wife. So, Harry, did she come here legally? If she did, why should she care about people that do her and her family an injustice by flaunting the law and coming here ILLEGALLY? Does she think she and her parents should have waited behind them to get in? You’re a riot, Harry, a regular riot!

Now Senator Reid even wants to allow convicted felons here illegally the chance to become full citizens. Why not? If you’re going to recant part of a position, why not recant the whole thing? What is it with Democrats and wanting felons to vote? I thought Republicans had the “culture of corruption”? Maybe Democrats just want to make sure the American people know THEY corner the market on corruption (Abscam for example anyone?), not some late-arrival Republicans.

And Teddy Kennedy, well, where does one begin? He’s been shown to be a world-class hypocrite on just about every major issue from the environment to cleaning up political corruption to, well, ethics lectures (sorry, you leave a woman to die drowning in a car you crashed, you pretty much lose any claim to knowing anything about ethics). He’s a kegger and a beer bong away from being the oldest frat boy on the planet. All we need are a few fart jokes on the Senate floor, and Kennedy will complete his already clown-like image. If you weren’t such a scumbag, Teddy, you’d have swallowed your own tongue years ago and put us out of our misery.

So who says the Senate isn’t awash with comedy? One hardly needs Comedy Central when one has such quality A-list talent right up the swamp on Capitol Hill. C-Span really should charge a cover and two-drink minimum for this floor show.

He’s Damn Tired

The former Senate Republican Majority Leader, Trent Lott, had this to say recently about those of us who don’t like pork in our federal budgets.

"I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble ever since Katrina."

My response, of course, is that Trent needs to go home. Not just home to his house, but home away from the Senate. Retire sonny boy. When your statements are interchangeable with your opposition and we can’t tell the difference between you and Harry Reid, then you need to call it quits. Like John McCain, the poster boy for being out of touch with his constituency and Richard Lugar, you’ve overstayed your welcome in that esteemed body. You no longer understand truly what your constituents or the majority of your fellow citizens want and it shows. If you honestly think we want pork in general, if you honestly think that wasteful spending watchers are a “nuisance” rather than a valuable tool, then take a hike and don’t let the door hit you in the ass.

I’m damn tired of you and all your kind on both sides of the isle, who are so all-fired sure you know what’s best for us. You exist in your towers of inscrutable power and pretend you are for the common man, when I’m not sure you even know what the hell the common man is or does anymore.

We have serious problems out here in the real world and the last person we think should be trying to solve them…is you. That should tell you something. When you fail us on illegal immigration, continued tax reduction, budgetary control and limiting government, how do you expect us to care one lick what you’re tired of or more to the point why we should even turn an ear when you let us know how ‘damn tired’ you are of us.

If you think the answer to disasters like Katrina is to throw money at the problem, you’re lost to us. You’re lost to people who care about the government doing what it is intended to do. You only care about wiping your rear with our hard-earned and taken-at-gunpoint cash and then handing it off to whatever hand reaches further down your backside. If there’s an itch you need to scratch, Senator, I suggest you do it on your Mississippi sun porch and leave the business of running government to those not so burnt out or institutionalized as you and your kind. You represent no political party. You represent no constituency anymore.

You only represent Washington D.C., and we will not much longer be ruled by 535 tyrants who think they know how to run our lives better than we can. Bank on it.

Now, of course Senator Lott, I mean no disrespect to you personally. I’m sure you’re a fine man with good morals, like many of your colleagues. But you’re out of touch, you’re over the hill, and I’m just too damn tired to explain all the reasons why to you.

Hat tip to RightWingNews for the quote.

Let's Be Reasonable

Faux-conservative, David Brooks, has thrown his hat in the ring on the immigration debate. Newsbusters has a wondeful piece covering his recent comments in which he chastises conservatives for not "talking reasonably" on the issue. Take this excerpt from the Newbusters site.

"I was up at a press conference this week where a House Republican said, `You know, we've got to have some people to pick lettuce in this country, so we're not going to have immigrants. Let's make the prisoners do it.’ You want to hit the guy on the head with a baseball bat. We're going to take a largely minority population, forced labor, picking lettuce and cotton. Is this ringing any bells here?"

Here a supposed conservative uses an absolutely textbook leftist tactic, when all else fails, play the race card. It's easy to label someone a racist, because it requires only speculation or innuendo and instantly discredits anything they have to say.

So, Mr. Brooks is saying, that if one were to suggest alternatives in this case for the alleged labor shortage caused by ousting illegals, those alternatives would be suspect in anyway possible to view the comments in their worst possible racist light. In this case, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) made comments about prisoners being used in place of current illegal labor, which when you actually view it is de facto slave labor.

Whether her comments have merit or not is never explored. The economic feasibility, the logistics, even the ethical and constitutional considerations would have to be weighed heavily to even remotely consider such a stunt. Are these important to people like Brooks? Not really. What's important is that the inference you can make from the general prison population, that it is primarily black, shows that conservatives are only interested in restoring blacks to the plantation.

Plantation is another popular leftist word lately, I think because conservatives were starting to use it to describe the estate minorities are attached to by the chain of government welfare. That sounded like a little too solid of a conclusion, so something had to be done. Now we see it from Senator Clinton's comments all the way down to Mr. Brook's racist inferences. Well, one could also argue that Mr. Brooks by being so obsessed with racism may be harboring his own repressed feelings, but would one have anymore concrete or solid facts than Brooks? Not really.

I think perhaps what was a tad bit more annoying was the "hit you over the head" motif of "Hello, is this ringing any bells here?" Because none of us were aware some blacks used to be slaves until Brooks told us. Well, then again, modern U.S. history being what it is, perhaps he needs to put in that hammer basher of a tail line.

So, since we aren't being reasonable by suggesting viable potential alternatives to the immigration issue, let's be reasonable and at least try and act like adults. As hard as that is, I know, for some leftists, if you want this argument judged seriously and on the merits, then behave civilly instead of constantly trying to paint with your favorite racist brush. Perhaps I'm asking too much, but it'd be a nice welcome change. Then again, the problem might be that they have no solution, like most other issues, not a real one at least, not one that doesn't keep "their minorities" oppressed and dependent on them and money continuing to pour into their left-leaning causes. But that's a history lesson for another day.

Peace In Our Time

As with any era where wars are prevalent, and we do suffer the Chinese curse of living in interesting times, there are those who would mimic Neville Chamberlain and assume we can have "Peace In Our Time". For some reason, Bill Clinton seems to fit this mold better than most and he proves it with little articles like this one on his "willingness" to deal with Hamas, if only they'd stop being big bad men.

Showing that he truly is worlds above us in understanding and logic, Clinton offers these terms to dealing with Hamas.

"He (Arafat)had made private assurances, and he made public assurances, that he did not support terror any more and would try to restrain it. So if Hamas would say, suppose they say, 'OK, look, we can't change our theory, we can't change our document, we can't change our history, but we're in government now and the policy of the Palestinian government is no to terror and yes to negotiations. As long as we're in government, we'll honor that policy.' If they did that, I would support dealing with them," Clinton said.

First, Arafat made those assurances and then promptly did nothing to see them through. The Second Intifada that rang out after the failure of the Oslo accords was incredibly bloody and Arafat did nothing to try and stop it. In fact, all accounts are that he continued to encourage the violence after he snowed Clinton. Who's the naive one, Bill?

He's also looking at Hamas like they're Democrats, or perhaps a slightly less left-leaning party. See, they're just misunderstood. They'll suddenly mature now that they have political power and become responsible citizens, because their terrorist murders were just their way of "lashing out" at not having representation. All we did by watching Hamas take Gaza was give them a fat, juicy seaport to truck military supplies into through the Mediterranean. Hamas didn't want political power because they wanted to make the trains run on time. They wanted political power to better achieve their aims, the eventual destruction of the state of Israel. Ask them. It's not like they've ever denied that was their goal. There's seemingly this pathological desire on the Left to deny it for them, though.

Hamas is one of the many terrorist organizations that has grown out of the old fascist secular Arab hate of Israel and through the Iranian revolution merged that thought with fundamentalist Islam and modern socialism. The worst of all worlds come together in such philosophies, and through the misguided whim of the Palestinian Arabs, has attained the status of ruling body of Gaza.

And Clinton thinks we can deal with these people? These are, perhaps, people who he could do business with? I guarantee you. This man and all his ilk firmly believe that Hamas isn't so bad. They're certain that through Israeli and U.S. propoganda, we have unjustly maligned these cowardly killers of women and children. Sure they killed all those people, but it was done out of necessity, out of fighting repression and that makes it ok. Do you see more clearly the kind of people we have to deal with on the Left? On the side of the Democrats? Not that Republicans these days have seen a dollar they wouldn't spend or put any kind of new control on the border, but at least they've made it clear they won't truck with Hamas.

Outside the Big Two, I think I can safely say I'm not eager to see the thugs in anything other than body bags, but I've always been one for the more diplomatic solution, usually out of the barrel of a gun, the only diplomacy such criminals typically understand.