Hotaru Is An American

He can't speak English, and doesn't know anything about our history, customs, or way of life. In fact, up until now in his life he has allowed others to care for his every need and want. He has lived his entire life thousands of miles distant from the United States.

But Michael has one thing that above all entitles him to American citizenship: the blood of a hero in his veins.

That's him, there on the right.


Because Michael H Ferschke III is the infant son of Sgt Michael H. Ferschke, Jr., a Marine killed in Iraq in 2008. He ought to grow to maturity among those who appreciate the sacrifice his father made for liberty.

And his mother Hotaru Ferschke is just the one to teach him.

[Originally posted at 20090114.0902, updated 20090116.1040
Thanks to FM in comments, I fixed the stupid name SNAFU.]


w/t Dan Collins

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Immigration

In her 2006 bid to unseat John Murtha, Diana Irey said,

I want a tall fence with a wide gate.

That line resonated for me, and still does.

Because I want to believe in America as the beacon of hope, the shining city on a hill.

But there are two parts to that phrase: the shining city and the hill on which it sits. The hill, from time immemorial, was the place to build a city if you wanted to defend it from attack. The hill made entering the city marginally more difficult to approach for peaceful commerce, but a great deal more difficult to invade.

The hill also makes the shining city more visible, and more attractive as real estate for other reasons. Who doesn't like a nice view? Who doesn't appreciate good munipal use of hydrodynamics?

I want to know that everyone who lives in the United States is a citizen. I want no underclass, barred by reason of citizenship from engaging in any but the duties of their assigned caste, herded about under the watchful eye of some Congressional committee.

America must call for immigrants to come. We must demand that they be allowed to come. If necessary, we must plead with them to come, to see what they can do here.

We must not adopt the zero-sum belief that limited resources imply limited population. Our population is our greatest resource.

And likewise, we must not allow them to be enticed by governmental handouts, which are indeed limited, despite the current tendency to spend money we don't have.

Instead, we must fight tooth and nail against the notion that people -- and corporations -- who are able to support themselves deserve support from the government to retain a specific lifestyle. Restore the image of America as a place where only diligence and discipline are rewarded, and sloth is discouraged.

We must build a tall fence, and watch it with an eagle's eye. We must deport anyone found here without legal reason. We must punish those who lure people here in denial of our laws.

And then we must with just as much vigor beg immigrants to come in through the wide gate, to pledge with us to defend our nation with their calloused hands, vibrant minds, and sacred honor.

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Coming Out of Short-Lived Depression

Me, that is, not the economy.

I still feel a twinge of denial that the elections really went as badly for the cause of freedom as they did, and that the Nanny State did so well. But there it is, and I must recognize it.

I take comfort only in the suspicions that my countrymen were deceived by a charlatan and a willing media, caught up in the symbolism of it all.

And now there is a great work ahead of me, ahead of us. There are many huge battles to fight.

We must convince the American public that the ideals of liberty, national sovereignty, and freedom of thought are worth more than life itself.

We must convince the American public that it's as wrong to vote oneself money from the Treasury as it is to steal from a neighbor.

We must convince the public that prosperity comes from capitalism, not from the Nanny.

We must convince the American public that we must be one people, with one language and primary loyalty only to each other, not to foreign lands.

We must dismantle the government-run education system. It is far too dangerous to liberty to have the government tempted to indoctrinate, which we have seen it do with increasing abandon.

All of these are hard, because of our own self-doubt and the easy smear to which each one of those points subjects us.

Is not life paramount, and isn't it convenient to risk the life of another?

Have you never accepted money from the Government -- even a tax credit? Don't you care about the poor children?

Do we really expect immigrants to know our language, when that has never been our way? In the past, immigrants abandoned their old land. Now they are a short journey away. It makes things difficult.

And the entrenchment of the public education system is so thorough, its stamp placed so firmly on the fabric of American society, that I don't hold much hope for its dissolution.

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Sarah Palin and Immigration

From Univision:

As governor, how do you deal with them? Do you think they all should be deported?

There is no way that in the US we would roundup every illegal immigrant -there are about 12 million of the illegal immigrants- not only economically is that just an impossibility but that’s not a humane way anyway to deal with the issue that we face with illegal immigration.

Do you then favor an amnesty for the 12 or 13 million undocumented immigrants?

No, I do not. I do not. Not total amnesty. You know, people have got to follow the rules. They’ve got to follow the bar, and we have got to make sure that there is equal opportunity and those who are here legally should be first in line for services being provided and those opportunities that this great country provides.

To clarify, so you support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants?

I do because I understand why people would want to be in America. To seek the safety and prosperity, the opportunities, the health that is here. It is so important that yes, people follow the rules so that people can be treated equally and fairly in this country.

The McAmnesty words are there, but notice the wiggle room. It's all in terms of people who are here legally versus those who aren't.

She actually doesn't answer the first question. "Should they all be deported?" becomes "We can't round them all up."

She says she doesn't favor amnesty, which is fine, except she qualifies it by not favoring total amnesty. The rest of her answer seems like a platitude, but notice that she says those here legally should be first in line for "services".

Why not say that the problem is caused by having a government that offers "services" in the first place? Government's first job is defending us from external enemies, and offering "services" to non-citizens appears to be in conflict with that goal.

But I wish she'd said: "I want to know that when I walk down the street or see a protest march that all of the people there are citizens like me, with the same, undivided loyalty to this country that my own immigrant ancestors had."

That's why I'm so disgusted with the Guest Worker Program idea. It creates an official underclass of people whose loyalty I have to question, with no effective way to tell immigrant citizen and guest worker apart. That will inevitably lead to prejudice and conflict.

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The American Dream

Since well before the credit market crisis first hit, we've heard a lot about the American Dream. In the context of illegal immigration, the American Dream was expressed as coming to America to build a life for a family. Much of the discussion now focuses around home ownership, as if owing a mortgage is the pot of gold at our rainbow's other end.

But that isn't it at all, and the misguided effort to prematurely supply people with homes and mortgages outside their means I think is a direct result of misinterpreting the Dream.

Now Joe the Plumber has been supposedly pursuing the American Dream by wanting to own his own small business, making money rather than earning it.

All of these things -- supporting a family, owning a home, building a business -- are just stops along the way, and are neither necessary nor sufficient components of the satisfied Dream.

The American Dream is that anyone can start with little or nothing and become as wealthy, powerful, or successful in whatever endeavor desired, limited only by ability and willingness to work.

An essential part of the Dream is that there are no limits on it. Even more, the Dream seems hard to define precisely because no one gets to say what it is that we strive to achieve; that's our call.

It's different here because we don't rely on the government, charities, the god of luck, or anything else outside ourselves to fulfill the Dream.

American Idol captures the Dream and encases it in shiny clamshell plastic packaging, almost impenetrable but apparently worth the effort for those for whom fame beckons so strongly.

Barack Obama appeals to the American Dream, and in so doing reveals Martin L. King's other Dream to be one and the same with the American Dream: Dr. King dreamed that the American Dream would apply equally to all, regardless of skin color; Obama shows that it does.

Sarah Palin does, too, and her story resonates almost as strongly with her supporters as Obama's does with his.

The fundamental American myth, and one in which I believe, is upward mobility. We're limited only by innate sloth, folly, and poor discipline.

We've always idolized those who achieve on their own merits success in life, especially from humble beginnings: Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, and many others all started with the odds against them and are remembered for their journey as well as for their destination.

Now the barons of Wall Street and those of Silicon Valley are alternately idolized and demonized, in a budding national schizophrenia. Do we still believe the Dream, or does it somehow stop at $250,000?

And will the politicians stop pretending that they have anything at all to do with helping us to achieve it?

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Obama is Embarrassed by Americans

There's a reason people in Europe a multilingual. They're Europeans. They don't have a common language, except English.

And they're having a very difficult time becoming a European nation because of it.

I understand the value of learning other languages. I've learned a smattering of Spanish, French, Japanese, Latin, and Ancient Greek, though the latter two not conversationally. But learning these languages forces one to see a different map on reality, and helps in learning one's own language better.

But I understand even more the importance of language to culture. When I can walk into any restaurant, shop, or business and know that I can communicate without trouble with the people there, it makes my life easier. It makes it easier for me to succeed, and easier to trust my neighbors.

I want the people who are my countrymen to share my culture, ideas, and beliefs. That is why having a common language is important. In America, for better or worse, we speak English. Those who immigrate here should learn the language so they can fit in, rather than insisting that everyone else adjust to them.

Everyone the world over wants to learn English. They don't want to learn French. French is a pretty language, sure, prettier than English. But still, people clamor to learn the language of freedom.

Go figure.

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The Next President

• Must be willing to finish the job in Iraq, and not by quitting
• Must not gain office promising bread (or bandages) from the public trough
• Must understand the importance the nation as an institution, guarding against the encroaching power of transnationalism and the United Nations
• Must understand the importance of the State as an institution, guarding against the encroaching power of nationalism and the Federal government
• Must understand that the Internet doesn't belong to anybody, even though parts of it do, and must not seek to control it
• Must be willing to confront the media, or at least present his side of things once in a while
• Must know that Global Warming is just the latest liberal doomsday fad
• Must support the right to keep and bear arms
• Must clean house in the bureaucracy, starting with anyone in an appointed position not of his party
• Must be willing to enforce our borders

That's not too much to ask, is it?

It is? I was afraid of that.

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I Know My Rights

Do you?

[This was originally posted at my tech blog, before I split off political and philosophical rants here and left the stuff I actually know anything about over there. I'm posting this here now because in thinking about the Global War on Terror and its impact on civil liberty, I wanted to get back to basics. I now see several flaws in my reasoning and perspective, and will address those in an upcoming post. ]

I've been thinking lately about human rights. You know, the kind for which men died at Normandy, at Lexington, and Golgotha.

That kind which stem not from the lifestyle to which you are accustomed, not from your power to secure them, nor from government largesse, but those which you have by virtue of your existence.

Warning: I have made no effort to keep the following suitable for the small-minded in general nor for Hate Crimes Commissioners in particular. Others may read freely on...

...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....

Those familiar words are the milk on which young American minds are weaned away from innocence and into the stark world of defiant individualism. They tell us that there are universal truths, and that these truths are laid manifestly before the eyes of anyone who looks upon the human condition.

Government, it is revealed, exists to keep men from violating each other's rights.

But what are these rights? The Declaration decries violations sufficient to motivate revolt, and the Constitution, as amended, gives some more examples that are explicitly protected. But the writers of those documents seemed to deny steadfastly the urge to make a complete list. I believe they were wise in that denial, which has compelled each generation thereafter to lay claim to those which were not enumerated and by so doing to revalidate those which were.

Rather than attempt an exhaustive list myself, I will attempt only those which are axiomatic. That is, which rights are the truly fundamental ones, without which the people are enslaved to tyrants?

It seems to me that the Declaration's "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are categories of rights, rather than particular rights themselves. These categories are merely for convenience. The rights reinforce each other, each standing in the stead of the others when the wall of their protection is breeched. All people everywhere, unless they yield them by due process or temporary emergency, have the right to:

Life ...

• to stay alive
• to eat and drink
• to breath air, and see the sky
• to parental supply of food, shelter, and love
  
• to practice their beliefs
• to choose their own medical treatment
  
• to mate and procreate
• to raise children
• to privacy

Liberty ...

• to travel
• to use weapons
• to participate in government
• to due process
• to equal treatment under the law
  
• to speak and write, and to disseminate the results

and the Pursuit of Happiness

• to choose and direct their education, vocation, and avocations
• to own and use property
• to take risks
  
• to assemble

People have the right to stay alive, from the moment of conception to the moment they cease to function. Minor children have a right to nurture from their parents, or in absence of parents, from the nearest adult. Parents have a corresponding right to direct their children's upbringing and instruction in the ways of the world.

Clean, breathable air is everyone's right. So is dirtying it with smoke and other pollutants, to a certain extent. I'm not smart enough to say how to balance those.

Assembly can be a powerful tool in the constant battle against overbearing government. Without Assembly, Speech loses much of its salinity and Belief may as well be lost. I still place Assembly under Pursuit of Happiness, because it is not just political, but social and recreational as well.

The right to privacy is the essence of a limited government, for if government can inspect us to any degree it desires then we are in its power to that same degree. We are only as free as we are private.

Similarly, the right to travel is as fundamental as the others. If we are not free to go, then we are not free. Without a right to travel, we can't Assemble, and we can't Pursue Happiness.

I'll conclude with one observation which I hope will serve to illustrate fully the point of the interdependence of the rights. The freedoms of Speech and Press are one side of a coin that has as its opposite face the right to own and use weapons. They are the Pen to its Sword; if government removes one, it will surely pay with the other.

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The Latest Protected Minority

In the case of Lazano, et al v Hazleton (pdf), a new protected minority has been declared. It isn't Mexican Americans, Hispanics, illegal immigrants, or people with a certain look to them. This protected class is much harder to spot, and certainly includes people who are far more dangerous than the average Central American here to find work.

While I have no wish to attack Judge Munley personally or to impugn his character, I think he's made a mistake. Whether the Clinton appointee did so out of dispassionate legal reasoning or from some philosophical conviction is unclear to me. The judge has ruled that while local law enforcement officials can enforce Federal laws, local laws can't make it more difficult for people to skirt them.

Analyzing a judge's attitude from a decision is difficult, because it's easy to read in bias where none exists. And I'm not a lawyer, so I may be naively, ineptly, and completely wrong in a dozen different ways. But in the first footnote of the decision, the judge says

1The parties vary in their use of the terms “illegal alien,” “unauthorized alien,” “illegal immigrant” and “undocumented alien.” We will use the terms interchangeably.

The judge soon afterward notes that the ordinance defined "illegal alien" as someone having an "unlawful presence" in the country as defined by 8 USC §1101. But that section defines "immigrant" as a certain kind of alien, rather than specifically saying which kind of alien is present lawfully and which is not.

So he summarize immigration law, concluding:

A third category of aliens present in the country are “undocumented aliens” who lack lawful immigration status. These aliens may have overstayed their time in the United States or entered the country illegally. (Id. at 113). The number of these individuals is approximately twelve million. (Id.). Hazleton’s use of the term “illegal alien” evidently is aimed at these individuals.

Perhaps this conflict in terminology is just an artifact of the judge doing the low-level work at one time and the footnotes at another, but he seems to show a definite preference for the term "undocumented".

And of what use is mentioning the "12 million" number?

He then assesses the standing of each plaintiff (some of whom were illegals, some not). He does so by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for standing, which he summarizes. However, for each of the defendants (though I skimmed some here) he assumes that it was the Hazleton ordinance that caused the injury to the plaintiffs, not the Federal law in which they or their prospective customers were in violation.

The judge appears to have adduced from the evidence at trial that the Hazleton ordinance "created a climate of fear" among legitimate businesses and legal aliens. He returns to that again and again in reasoning that the ordinance, not the Federal law, is to blame for the plaintiff's troubles. He does so in part because:

... The business-owner plaintiffs do not complain that the ordinances limit their ability to sell products to and hire illegal aliens. They complain that the City’s ordinances damage them by hindering the operation of their businesses and by requiring them to seek immigration information from employees in a way that violates federal law.

And there is the nugget of it: he agrees with the plaintiffs that the locality can't have an ordinance which discriminates based on compliance with Federal law.

So we have a new protected class: Federal lawbreakers.

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The Planet is Underpopulated

Is the problem with the world that we have too many people?

Many liberals would be surprised that there is even a question: population should be reduced to medieval levels to fix everything from African Hunger to Global Warming. But rather than battle that particular straw man, let me restate my counterthesis by positing rather weakly that many of our problems, to the liberal way of thinking, are caused by overpopulation.

Assuming arguendo that all (or most) of the world's problems are caused by having too many people, is the prospect of having too many people one we have to address? That is, how should we address the threat of overpopulation?

Hopefully all of the answers to that will involve attrition this time, not mass slaughter as they did in the 20th century. Now, that wasn't fair. Sorry. Just because every Communist who has ever gained power has been a world-class mass murderer doesn't mean that the next one will be. And that all communists are liberals doesn't imply that all liberals are communists of the mass-murdering persuasion.

But people are writing (and purchasing) books about how wonderful the planet would be without us. What if Man were to be wiped off the face of the Earth? I've thought about that. Seeing the weeds that grow in the cracks in the driveway, it seems obvious that in a few short years, they would overgrow it. The roof of the house would soon start to leak, the leaks would lead to rot, and soon trees would take root in the attic. No, wait, that's how it is now. I really should patch those holes soon.

There is an undercurrent in progressivism that holds Man to be a locust, destructively feeding on The Planet to the misfortune of all other living, and non-living, things. Obviously, if there weren't so many people the damage would not be so great. Mankind (and by unavoidable extension, individual people) are parasites, an unpleasant blight on an otherwise perfect world.

But even without considering the damage to the planet, overpopulation (and of the "wrong" type of people) has been the left's bogeyman since Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood to do something about it. The efforts continued, branching from the eugenics movement to encompass the horrors of World War II. And it continues unabated.

According to a 1994 study at the site dieoff.org (yes, really), "U.S. agricultural productivity is already unsustainable". That quote is, fortunately, not supported very well by the study. A key logical error interposed itself, wherein the study notes that population growth is primarily due to immigration, but concludes that individuals must exercise family planning or the entire population will be at the mercy of nature. Nowhere in that study did they actually look at U.S. agricultural productivity due to technological advances over time, except noting in the conclusion

Given the fact that the supply of natural resources is finite and that the ability of technology to replace many of these resources is limited, we are left with the necessity of controlling population numbers. Certainly, diminishing consumption levels by stringent conservation programs will help slow depletion. But individual responsibility on the part of men and women to control family size is vital to control population numbers and maintain a high standard of living, otherwise the harsh realities of nature will impose its control on the population.

Another flaw in the logic employs the fallacy of Division: just because the whole population will suffer if everyone doesn't exercise "individual responsibility", that doesn't imply that anyone in particular will suffer, whether or not they choose to exercise "individual responsibility".

But a more basic problem with the logic is the assumption that resources are finite. New resources, and new uses for old resources, and new ways to avoid using resources altogether are found with a regularity and pace which blows that assumption out of the water. It's a case of failing to understand that what appears to be a constant is actually a curve that changes in ways we don't understand.

In a piece from 2005, Jeff Lindsay wrote

How can the "obvious" logic of the population control lobby be wrong? Because the resources of the planet are not a fixed pie that dwindle with each birth. The resources are whatever we can make of this planet - or solar system - and it takes the work of human beings to transform raw materials and energy into useful resources. Humans are not a liability, but a resource that we need!

Population growth is only a problem if your basis vectors are skewed. I look at population growth as the goal, and the lack of place to put the people as a problem to overcome. I want the human race to dominate the universe. That goal is unattainable at our current population numbers.

I am for any plan or technology that allows continued, sustainable population growth, and I reject any plan to artificially limit that growth. Even if the population growth curve is exponential, it doesn't mean we can't sustain it.

If the people are hungry, figure a way they can feed themselves. If that means skyscraper farms (beware the popup), or floating farms over the 70% of the Earth that's covered in seawater, then that's what it means.

Unrestricted population growth should be our goal not only because we want growth itself, but because the restrictions are worse than the growth. Artificially restricting growth is saying "I've got life, but you can't have it.", which is akin to stomping waterlogged hands from the rails of the lifeboat.

Furthermore, it has been shown that the populations of prosperous, industrialized societies naturally level off, all by themselves. Or perhaps that's all Margaret Sanger's doing, by birth control and abortion.

Humans have the right to procreate. Whether they do it well enough to suit us is irrelevant, because it isn't our call. To fret and bother about where we will get the food to feed their children is equally silly, because that is certainly not our problem, it is theirs. Is that irresponsible? No, it's simply practical. Responsibility is taking possession of the effects of your actions. Someone else's actions are not part of that.

The lifeboat metaphor fails in several ways, not least in that there is a very good chance that one extra person in the boat could drown everyone, and that is wholly unlike the effects of increased population. One extra person could be the one who saves the rest of us.

But all in all, it seems better to work on how best to keep the boat afloat, rather than telling anyone they need to swim ashore.

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Bush Displacement Syndrome

Are you now or have you ever been a supporter of George W. Bush?

I'm no longer a supporter of the President, except in the general terms accepted by a citizen. But the all-too-common Bush Derangement Syndrome is infuriating to the logician in me. If things keep going in the direction they are, we'll have a Council on W-like Activities holding hearings, with agents out beating the bushes to find people who may have ... *gasp* ... supported our 43rd President.

Over at Classical Values, Eric wonders why especially his liberal friends poke fun and assume he is a spokesman for all things Bush, by virtue of having voted that way in 2004:

If asked about specific issues, I'm always happy to admit what I think. So, if someone's angry about anthropogenic global warming, the war in Iraq, the FMA, or Bush's alleged simianism, I'll be glad to discuss each issue individually. I don't follow anyone's party line, though, and calling me "George" just doesn't give me enough of a clue.

People tend to self-label, and to put everyone into a little box. All Republicans are conservative Christian NRA members who drive SUVs and live in suburbs named after trees. All Democrats are liberal atheist Planned Parenthood volunteers who drive Volkswagens and live downtown in converted warehouse lofts.

In politics, there is a tendency to fall for what I call the fallacy of several choices, which is really a False Dilemma. It is assumed that the candidate for whom we vote represents our ideal choice, despite the fact that the process is designed to limit the number of choices to as close to two as possible without being zero. We often choose the lesser of two evils rather than not voting or "wasting" our vote on a write-in or third party candidate.

The fallacy of several choices manifests in two ways that I can think of right now: the mandate and the "Don't blame me" bumper sticker. The elected candidate or party assumes a "mandate" on some issue, when there were many different issues at play in the election. And once the shine comes off the winner's term in office, the bumper stickering (and cocktail party ribbing) begins, as if the losing candidate would have been the best choice after all. In all likelihood, the losing candidate would have done worse, or events would have conspired to cause any candidate to perform as badly in office.

But there is no reasoning with many people when it comes to President Bush. They are convinced he's spying on them, suborning torture, went into Iraq for personal gain, responsible for 9/11, and out to make a theocracy. Most of them are just sure he "stole" both the 2000 and 2004 elections (one by SCOTUS, one by Diebold).

It all ties in, I think, with the liberal need for the world to be a house of cards balance on a knife edge, a place full of rigid social structures and wrongs that need righted. In their mind, the universe is stuck perpetually in 1963, waiting for brave artists to speak truth to power.

And no appeal to Occam, request for evidence, or application of idiot stick will shake them from their point of view that the evil conservative power structures are keeping them down, squelching dissent. The irony of being able to tell anyone with a web browser that they are being squelched never dawns.

Dr. Sanity thinks the Bush Derangement Syndrome is displacement, hating Bush so as not to commit political incorrectness against Islamofascism. But it started during the 2000 primaries, before 9/11. It did heat up most in the summer of 2003, when the threat from Iraq was for all practical purposes gone. People didn't need Bush to protect them any more, they figured. Maybe some of them were embarrassed at wanting a strong leader after 9/11.

What will happen when President Bush is finally actually displaced? Many of them believe he will stage a coup d'etat, holding power and ruling as the dictator they think he is.

But when that dream of theirs dies, they'll find something else to fantasize about, I guess. For the lefty loonies, it's either that, or realize that it's no longer 1963.

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What Have We Learned? Part II

...or

Not Happy, but not Betrayed

That was the title of today's entry at the Academy.

So the immigration bill has been pulled. For now. But its effects will continue for a long time, perhaps long enough to give the Democrats control of both the Congress and the White House. But we know things now that we should have known all along.

We have known for a long time that liberal groups have seen immigration reform as a way to gain voting rights for illegal aliens. Yes, yes, I know, they care. Self-interest informs altruism.

But brilliant as it is, that misses the forest for the trees. Also, it fails to note why it is that "comprehensive" immigration will come up again, probably in September. Michael Cherthoff told Bill O'Reilly on the Radio Factor that they would have at least 150 miles of fence built by then. Once the progress is in three figures, look for the comprehensive plan to resurface.

During the immigration blogstorm, we learned that the Kennedy-McCain-Bush triumvirate desperately want immigration patched up before the 2008 elections, for three different sets of reasons.

Senator Kennedy works hard to show that he's a good rich elitist, not a bad rich elitist. He wants to finish the destruction of the nation which he began with his 1964 Act, continuing through the 1986 Immigration Floodgate Opening Act, and to the present day in which he sees the opportunity to build a permanent Democrat majority with a coalition of rich hippies, the urban poor, and Hispanics.

Senator McCain sees compromise with Kennedy as a way to curry favor with the media. He wants to get things done, regardless of whether they are the right things or not. He'd like to be able to claim some kind of credit for fixing immigration. Above all, he wants the furor over immigration to be gone before the primaries start. McCain is a cratocrat who equates government action with success, and projects that to the rest of us.

And joining them in their folly, President Bush wants to fix immigration before he leaves office, even if it kills the coalition that elected him. Like McCain, he desperately wants to show that Republicans aren't the racists liberals believe they are. Rather than simply ignoring race, however, he actively pursues a policy based on it.

We know that the Republicans too want to court the illegal vote, and are willing to play the race card and question the sincerity of their opponents in order to get it. Afraid of the charge of racism themselves, they use it to attack those who should be their allies.

Maybe the politicians have learned that we want a secure border.

We learned that the Republican coalition of the idealists and the capitalists is very fragile, but the Democrats' kindergarten coalition will happily turn on itself if it looks like one special interest group is getting some shiny trinket the others aren't.

The big winner? Rudy. With his social liberal credentials, he won't need a coalition.

But at least this is one time that the phony charges of bigotry and racism didn't carry the day. Maybe we've finally gotten past automatically caving in when those charges are aimed at us.

(cross-posted from Redstate)

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What Have We Learned?

... or
Not Happy, but not Betrayed

So the immigration bill has been pulled. For now. But its effects will continue for a long time, perhaps long enough to give the Democrats control of both the Congress and the White House. But we know things now that we should have known all along.

We have known for a long time that liberal groups have seen immigration reform as a way to gain voting rights for illegal aliens. Yes, yes, I know, they care. Self-interest informs altruism.

But the Republicans decided that they too wanted to court the illegal vote. Republicans who played the race card and questioned the sincerity of their opponents on the immigration issue have some serious problems. I don't feel betrayed, just ... displeased. Insulted. But at least I know.

President Bush gave a speech.

As a matter of fact, you can tell when the border is better defended because the number of arrests go down. In other words, when people know there's a consequence to trying to sneak across, there's less likely to be people sneaking across. Arrests have gone down by 27 percent over the past year on the southern border. That's a sign of progress. It should say to the American people that we're doing what the people expect us to do.

Actually, Mr. President, a precipitous drop like that could mean the agents are being kept from enforcing the law. The arrest rate by itself says very little about the overall volume.

This reform is complex. There's a lot of emotions around this issue. Convictions run deep. Those determined to find fault with this bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like. If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it, you can use it to frighten people. Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all, so the people who wear the uniform in this crowd can do the job we expect them to do.

Questioning my patriotism?

Senator Lindsay Graham:
As Diggers Realm says,

Senator Graham even went as far as to say he was a part of La Raza by saying "We're going to tell the bigots to shut up".

In other words he is in bed with this racist illegal alien support group La Raza that has funded extremist Aztlan reconquista groups like MEChA. He's looking out for them, not you. He's looking out for them over American citizens and he needs to be brought to task for that.

Senator John McCain:

Amanda Carpenter at Townhall says,

Not one to shy from a fight, the former P.O.W. McCain suggested that they visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. There, “you’ll find a whole lot of Hispanic names,” he said.

He went on: “When you go to Iraq or Afghanistan today, you’re going to see a whole lot of people who are of Hispanic background. You’re even going to meet some of the few thousand that are still green card holders who are not even citizens of this country, who love this country so much that they’re willing to risk their lives in its service in order to accelerate their path to citizenship and enjoy the bountiful, blessed nation.”

I have never suspected that Senator McCain was a racist. Perhaps he didn't mean to suggest that we must treat everyone of a particular skin color or ethnic background in a certain way because of their skin or last name?

It doesn't matter what kind of names are on the Vietnam Memorial. That is a Red Herring. And it also doesn't matter that some who are not citizens are fighting overseas: they are not the targets of this immigration bill. If the Senate is concerned with that group of people, they should introduce a bill granting citizenship to anyone who serves honorably in our military, or they should simply not allow such service.

The whole comprehensive immigration bill effort was just disappointing beyond belief. Maybe, and I have to roll my eyes as I write this, the politicians have learned that we want a secure border. We think that's their whole job. Or at least, without a secure border, nothing else matters.

And it may have irreparably ruptured the Republican coalition, by splitting the idealists from the capitalists.

The big winner? Rudy. With his social liberal credentials, he won't need the coalition.

But at least this is one time that the phony charges of bigotry and racism didn't carry the day. Maybe we've finally gotten past automatically caving in when those charges are aimed at us.

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Shamnesty

For the record, for Senator McCain, for President Bush, and any other bill proponent who charge those opposed to the bill with being racists: my position has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the majority of illegal immigrants currently here. I'm not worried about preserving what passes for American "culture", whether that's used as a code for racial balance, or whatever it means. The world is changing, and the superficial aspects of our culture will change with it. But we must not allow an attack on the most important thing about America, the underlay for all of our rights and freedoms.

Both liberals and conservatives are hopping mad over the immigration bill currently before Congress. While conservatives consider the bill to be amnesty, rewarding illegal behavior, liberals are less concerned with that than with the response from illegal immigrants that the bill is unacceptable. Perhaps without realizing it, both liberals and conservatives are made unhappy by the bill's fundamental disregard for the rule of law.

For my many readers who may not recall, and especially those of you in the U.S. Senate, the Rule of Law is the simple idea that everyone should be covered equally by the rules. Some inequality is unavoidable, in that we each may be tempted by our particular nature and ability to violate different laws. While a law against camping in the city park would have only a negligible affect on most of us, the homeless would be made acutely aware of it. But the law, as written and applied, should not differentiate among us.

Violations of the principle of the rule of law include

• Government decisions targeting or favoring one individual or entity
• Government decisions not made according to written law or rules
  
• Court decisions not based upon the law
• Ex post facto penalties for behavior enacted after it occurs

Proponents of the immigration bill insist that it is not amnesty. Granting amnesty for something, they way, would mean a mass pardon for anyone who asked for it, as long as the guilty party promises not to do that thing any more.

So I guess it's true, in some tortured literal sense, that this bill is not amnesty: it not only doesn't simply supply a pardon, it also supplies benefits. Furthermore, the person receiving the pardon and benefits does not even have to stop committing the illegal act.

Proponents point to the fines imposed as proof that the bill is not amnesty. They insist that this is not what it appears to be, a simple way for people to expedite their immigration request by paying money. But if it is not amnesty, it's the imposition of a new penalty for a prior violation of the law, a clear example of ex post facto legislation. Whether that penalty is lighter or heavier than the previous one doesn't matter: changing the rules after the fact violates the rule of law.

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Bolting from Bush

I am a little late to come around.

Peggy Noonan says in the WSJ (w/t Wubbie's World, emphasis mine):

The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me. For others the beginning of distance might have been Katrina and the incompetence it
revealed, or the depth of the mishandling and misjudgments of Iraq.

The world is getting smaller, but it is not yet so tiny that national autonomy must be sacrificed on the altar of No Nation Left Behind. Tyranny is bad, but the alternative is worse: better for governments to oppress than for all nations to be oppressed into non-oppression. I could allow him his belief that tyranny abroad is our concern, because that's the kind of call he should be allowed to make. But a series of bad choices have caused me to reconsider my support for Mr. Bush, even as our troops are in the field:

FEMA

I never faulted the President for Katrina. I think it was primarily a local problem, and I deplore the gotcha game rooted in the vain expectation that the Federal government would make the problem go away. It is symptomatic of creeping liberalism, a belief that government, especially of the Federal kind, can and should be involved in every problem, and held accountable for the vagaries of life.

Government Growth

I became very cool in my support for the President when he undertook the massive No Child Left Behind boondoggle, forcing a Federal stamp of approval on local education. The prescription drug giveaway made me cringe, knowing what a huge drain it would be on the Treasury, and that in perpetuity. Rather than trying to get rid of the Department of Education and to get the Federal government out of the insurance business, this President has expanded both.

Iraq

Nor do I believe that war can ever be fought perfectly. While every death is regrettable and a cause of grief for those left behind, the fundamental mistake in Iraq was fighting not to lose, to keep the body count low. Especially once Saddam Hussein (remember him?) was defeated and humiliated, we fought the insurgents and terrorists with kid gloves, not wanting to offend. In our noble attempt to preserve civilian lives, the weakness we displayed gave courage to the opposition. We should have been ruthless: shoot from a mosque, lose the mosque. Run into a building, be buried in rubble.

The shameful firing of Don Rumsfeld should have been enough for me to bolt from Bush. I was still stinging from the loss of Congress for the Republicans, not so much because I liked the Republicans, but because of the spectre of the gang of Pelosi, Murtha, Durbin, and Reid running Congress. To have expressed such loyalty for Rumsfeld on Friday and fire him on Wednesday solely on the basis of an election loss was inexplicable. Either his work at Defense was good or not; to use an election as the measure of his effectiveness shreds any claim to be acting on principle.

Immigration

The President and his allies are using charges of bigotry and racism against those who want a reasonable, logical plan for our national security. We don't care what color skin the immigrants have. We don't want lawbreakers to succeed, because we know it will encourage others to break the law. We want our borders secured, so that we know who comes in. The actual level of immigration that we currently have may very well be optimal. But it makes no sense to institute programs for guest workers or to force people to wait many years to legally migrate to the US when millions are allowed to bypass the system, without even so much as being asked about which fruits and vegetables they're importing.

Global Warming

Now the President is pushing Al Gore's global warming agenda. The fool. In search of short-term approval on an issue he could ignore, he gives the liberals a gift.

Maybe Mr. Bush is actually involved in a selfless act of altruism, giving the Republican candidates a chance to distance themselves from him. But it looks more and more like his rudder doesn't go all the way to the water. He is not governing by principle, save the principle of getting good press.

None of these issues by themselves would have been enough to make me sour on a sitting President. But all of them together have made it plain that I can no longer support Mr. Bush.

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Compassionate Conservatism

The inimitable FrankJ has come up with an international jujitsu of truly historical scope. Rather than waste manpower, resources, time, and most importantly, political wind power on trying secure the border with Mexico, Frank has found a way to turn the flood of illegal immigration into a cleansing undertow, pulling gently back to their homeland those who are not fully serious in the desire to be Americans.

Like many conservatives, Frank understands the value of immigration to America's soul, as well as the value of obedience to the rule of law, our foremost value. But his compassion shines through:

On the other hand, most illegal immigrants just came here for a better life. They had the horrible misfortune of being born in the dirt-poor and corrupt Mexico and wanted to come to America -- like any rational person. If someone truly wants to become an American, I would like to give him or her the opportunity. When immigration works best is when people have to work hard to be Americans and thus appreciate American values even more than those of us who were given our place here simply through birth.

Those words are stirring because they evoke the image of America as the Promised Land for generations of huddled masses. We are a nation of volunteers, people who have opted in to a set of ideals. In exchange for a better, more prosperous life than can be had in their native lands, we accept the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and demand no less from our peers. Those who will not stand with us must fall before us.

Some were not volunteers, but rather are the descendants of draftees, those captured by traders in human flesh on another continent and brought here for the use of their labor, for jobs Americans would not do. It took a war bloody beyond grief to purge that evil from among us. By that blood, the former slaves can have little doubt about their country's seriousness in respecting them as fully American. It will probably take a similarly bloody effort to settle the question of illegal immigration.

If the Mexicans we have here will go and slaughter their former country men, raze the villages of their former countries, I would punch anyone in the face who would doubt their loyalty to America.

Frank, you had me at "raze". But your hyperbole is duly noted: as if you would ever "punch anyone in face".

I don't know that Frank's unlikely scenario is the solution to the problem at hand. There is sharp disagreement on the problem posed by illegal immigration, both what the problem is and its solutions are. The issue has the feel of something that can explode into violence, whether the solution is to toughen our immigration enforcement or to do away with the laws entirely. We will have to wait to find out if the violence will be as mild as Frank suggests, or as bloody as the war fought to free those who were earlier brought here to do the jobs Americans would not.

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TruCoat

One of my favorite movies is Fargo, the light-hearted tale of kidnapping gone sour in North Dakota.

There is a scene in which anti-hero Jerry, a crooked car salesman, makes final delivery on a brand new car:

                  CUSTOMER
  We sat here right in this room and
  went over this and over this!

    JERRY
  Yah, but that TruCoat -

    CUSTOMER
  I sat right here and said I didn't
  want no TruCoat!

    JERRY
  Yah, but I'm sayin', that TruCoat,
  you don't get it and you get
  oxidization problems.  It'll cost
  you a heck of lot more'n five
  hunnert -

    CUSTOMER
  You're sittin' here, you're talkin'
  in circles!  You're talkin' like
  we didn't go over this already!

    JERRY
  Yah, but this TruCoat -

    CUSTOMER
  We had us a deal here for nine-
  teen-five.  You sat there and
  darned if you didn't tell me
  you'd get this car, these options,
  WITHOUT THE SEALANT, for nine-
  teen-five!

    JERRY
  Okay, I'm not sayin' I didn't -

The immigration bill reminds me of that scene. I substitute amnesty, guest worker programs, waived taxes, and "comprehensive plan" for "TruCoat", and it all sounds about the same.

"But this isn't amnesty. We're charging a fee."

Lawbreakers should not get amnesty, and that's what the current bill implements. I don't care that we "can't round them all up", because "can't" means "don't know how yet".

Illegal aliens should not pay taxes, because they are not citizens. No representation, no taxes. On the other hand, they shouldn't be here at all. I reject completely and on multiple independent but individually sufficient grounds the proposition that we can collect taxes from someone but can't buy them a bus ticket even from the proceeds.

"But this comprehensive plan..."

The "comprehensive" plans are always full of benefits for people who deserve only a bus ticket. We should secure the border and stiffen workplace enforcement. Once we control how many people come across the border, then we can talk about what to do with the people who are here.

"But this guest worker program ..."

The guest worker program is the worst of it all. It creates a permanent underclass of divided families and unattached young men, and reduces America to a temporary employment agency.

Ideologically, I want people here who want to be Americans. A guest worker program implies that the people in it have their first national loyalty to a foreign power. No economic benefit can outweigh that.

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Why America Needs One Language

America, from her birth, has had as a common bond a single language. It's not the only language in the world. It wasn't even invented here. But in hard times and prosperity, safety and danger, through political struggles and wars, the single language has allowed Americans of all origins to take full part in public life. Without the ability to speak a common language, we are a mere collection of colocated tribes, soon to disintegrate and be cast into the dustbin of history.

If they share a language, the poorest child can converse with the wealthiest financier, should the need arise. Without a common tongue, the rich and powerful can easily ignore even a mob in the street, a mob much more likely to turn to violence when its well-spoken, cogent and passionately delivered points are, through lack of understanding, ignored as gibberish.

Several factors contribute to the necessity of a common language. I apologize for the lack of scholarship here; your refund is in the mail.

• Efficiency
  
  The amount of waste and energy required to accomodate multiple languages is staggering. Teachers, government workers, and really everyone would be asked to communicate in the language preferred bythe few, at the expense of the many. While the elitist would suggest that is good and proper, it is no more realistic than it is just, and it is even less just than it is efficient. Far better to have a single standard and let everyone conform than to have as many standards as are required, which is to say, no standard at all. Taken ad absurdum, we would strain efficiency if all official functions had to have the capacity to be conducted in Esperanto or Klingon for the two people with those as their native languages.
  
  
• Psychology
  
  Language is not just a tool for communication, it is a mapping of ideas into reality. Language introduces an historical bias in favor of its roots. While both Spanish and English are European, and thus impart a European viewpoint on their speakers, the differences are pronounced. Americans have an ingrained trust and loyalty toward the United Kingdom, stemming initially from our common language and smelted in two world wars. We say we share a common history with the British, but we really mean a common language.
  
  
• Safety
  
  When a call comes to a 911 dispatcher, safety demands clarity, and clarity is shattered by a language barrier. The same applies to any interaction with police, fire rescue and emergency medical technicians.
  
  Captain's Quarters has the horrific story of a group of illegal immigrant women forced into prostitution by the "coyotes" with whom they had contracted for passage across the border. It turns out that the coyotes were actually pimps who took their identification and forced them to be used in a way so inhuman that 'prostitution' doesn't quite cover it. The business apparently was conducted all in Spanish. I make no attempt to create a bogeyman here: I believe the business was conducted in Spanish to obscure its purposes.
  
  Not speaking English, the girls were unable to call for help or explain their circumstances.
  
  
• Trust
  
  People who speak the same language trust each other more. Traveling in a foreign country and meeting a person who speaks your language, a level of trust is established immediately. Conversely, speaking in a private language engenders distrust among those who are excluded.
  
  Without a shared language, we rely on translators. Translators must not only convey the nuances of thought between two languages, but they must avoid the temptation to insert their own bias. So we must trust the group speaking the foreign language, and also the translator.
  
  
• Economy
  
  Encouraging a person to speak a language that most others do not is not doing it a favor. Those who cannot fluently speak the dominant language are destined to a life in the underclass.
  
  
• Unity
  
  Employers and employees, lawyers and waitresses, cops and prostitutes are united together in communication. A nation is united by history, culture, and defense of shared territory -- all of which for all practical purposes require a shared language.

We must resist all attempts to characterize monolingualism as racism, nativism, or any kind of intolerance. It is necessary. Without it, sooner or later we all end up working for the coyotes, or unwittingly becoming them.

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Budget Buster

Friends, you know that I'm not usually one to bring up the Federal budget. It's a subject of only vague interest to me, and probably to you. But it has occurred to me that while we have been busy being vaguely disinterested, the other side, whose interest in such things is acute, has been formulating something of an 'end around', to use a football cliche. Football: now there's something to catch our interest!

And speaking of interest,

In Fiscal Year 2006, the U. S. Government spent $406 Billion of your money on interest payments* to the holders of the National Debt. Compare that to NASA at $15 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion.

While that site pushes a balanced budget amendment as a solution, the real solution is to change the conversation toward ways to shrink the Federal budget, and keep it shrunk. Those departments may be smaller than the debt, but while paying less on the debt causes greater expense in the future, paying less to DoEd and DoT can help us pay the debt down.

The people know that government is too big, and growing bigger all the time. We should be talking about ways to make the government smaller, not make it bigger. But an obscene growth in the Federal budget is what the immigration bill (which I shall not name) would accomplish.

As Mr. Redrum points out a The Minority Report, The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector has crunched it out for us:

According to Rector’s numbers, the US Government acquires an additional $500K in lifetime deficit (for the sake of this estimate, lifetime = 25 years of welfare expenditures) for every current illegal alien given a class Z visa. Assuming a conservative estimate of 10M illegals currently, and assuming the bill’s security features work so well that no new illegals ever get in, that’s a bill of $5T
[...]
To put this financial disaster in proper perspective, the US Government currently owes about $8.8T in current obligations. If we assume our budget will balance every year for the next 30 years, with the exception of this immigration bill’s new expenses, we will have a deficit on the order of $13.8T. All alone, this bill adds 36% to the US national debt.

Redrum's piece is a worthwhile read, being a nice takedown of a race-baiter, so head over to TMR to check it out.

When government grows, taxes grow and liberty recedes. But then, proponents of the bill probably find that encouraging.

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Why Is This Amnesty?

Democrats want to get the illegal immigrants legal, so they can eventually register them to vote. And the left wants social justice, which is of course the opposite of actual justice.

Republicans are:

• Afraid of being called racists, so much that they do it themselves
  
• Afraid of letting the Democrats get all the credit with the new voters
• Afraid of making business mad by ruining the labor market
• Afraid of their new Democratic Overlords

As a result, Republicans find themselves twisted into rhetorical pretzels trying to explain how letting someone off the hook for a crime is not amnesty, as long as they have to pay a penalty.

It's because if it were a penalty, you would make them stop doing the illegal thing they were doing. It's amnesty, with a new user fee -- a tax increase, by any other name. Unfortunately, no one would ever pay this new tax.

There will be no incentive to send $1000 to the government instead of sending it home. They will not pay it, because no one will make them. If anyone had any intention of enforcing this new law, they would already be enforcing the existing laws.

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