Japan celebrates non-diversity

In case you missed it, I recommend Takuan Seiyo's fascinating "Astarte and Amaterasu — The Diverging Destinies of Europe and Japan" at Brussels Journal. (Part One here; Part Two here.)

Seiyo tries to answer the question of why these two civilizations have responded so differently to aspects of the modern world, especially mass migration and the pressure to dissolve the indigenous culture in a multi-national soup.

Inconveniences and differences notwithstanding, there is one overwhelming blessing that makes me glad to be in Japan. It's the daily experience of living in a country that, unlike Western Europe, and increasingly the United States, does not actively pursue it's own extinction.

I am a European. Ich kann nicht anders. Europe had left my parents long before they left it almost 50 years ago, so now I am a Euro-American and I take this distinction seriously. Still, I don't feel the religious impulse except in a church that's at least 300 years old; and it's only European music that penetrates to my soul, and only European languages in which I can express what I hold dearest, and only European artifacts that satisfy my love of beauty and craftsmanship. Well, not quite – Japanese artifacts do that too.

But Europe is my Beatrice: a pure vision of the past with little resemblance to what she is now. The real, contemporary Beatrice does presume to tread the path, like Dante Alighieri's muse, from Purgatory to Heaven, but the Compass of Reality shows that the path in fact leads in the opposite direction: back to Virgil's guided tour of Hell. This is a Beatrice with a bipolar personality disorder, self-inflicted cicatrices, labial and nasal rings and tattooed breasts, sporting combat boots and a black leather suit with a Palestinian terrorist's kaffiyeh wrapped around her studded dog collar, with a book of onanistic gibberish by an Althusser or Bataille or Foucault in one hand, and a Quranic whip for self-flagellation in the other.

Japan, he argues, has its own social ills, but they don't include inviting non-Japanese populations to come in and take over like the bikers did to the town in The Wild Ones. Nor are they going to dilute their national sovereignty because borders are so 19th century, so un-progressive.

I've read several blog postings and comments lately trying to diagnose why European nations, or at least their rulers and intelligentsia, are culturally suicidal. One popular explanation is the trauma that settled in following two horrendous world wars, or as some historians say, one with a 20-year intermission. The psychological damage is easy to understand, especially for Germany, France, and Britain, which lost huge numbers of people and suffered devastation from air raids and combat.

According to this theory, there was a tendency to blame nationalism for the disaster, and see the cure in erasing boundaries and growing a multi-national Great Brain to replace petty squabbling governments. And a lingering guilt for the atrocities committed during the war, particularly in Germany of course, but even in Britain for bombing non-military targets like Dresden or inflicting dreadful civilian casualties such as in Hamburg.

But it's too glib an explanation. The Soviet Union lost some 10 million soldiers killed, along with 14 to 17 million civilians, about 14 percent of the pre-war population (equivalent to a loss of 42 million in today's U.S.) — simply staggering, beyond conception for most of us. Yet the Soviet Union, needless to say, remained fiercely patriotic or nationalistic (take your pick) during the Cold War, and its constituent nations and the newly independent nations that devolved from it remain completely uninterested in being absorbed in an international, multi-cultural blob.

The same for Japan. While not as much of the homeland was trashed as in Europe, raids in 1945 on Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki attracted some notice. The Japanese armed forces were shredded, the country experienced an unquestionable defeat, and it was ruled by American occupation forces for several years after the war.

Yet, according to Seiyo and other sources, that has not made the Japanese ashamed to be Japanese, although they have every right to feel as guilty as Germans for their conduct in the '30s and '40s. For that matter, Russians have as much reason to loathe the memory of their leaders in the Stalinist era.

Every country, like every person, has events in its past that should cause remorse. But a continuous history is one of the ways that the mistakes of the past can contribute to avoiding them in the future. Respect for human rights and property, the rule of law, and many other benefits of a civilized society didn't spring up spontaneously. They are the fruit of bitter experience.

When you cut the mystic chords of memory you cut out the roots of a civilization. And you can't just replace them with a cultural mish-mash and a Universal Declaration of Rights or sententious propositions. When the local and particular is replaced by a centralized bureaucratic state, it doesn't change the facts of human nature or insure that oil and water will mix. Just because different cultures mingle within the former boundaries of nations can't make them live harmoniously together. Apparently the Japanese understand as much.

Seiyo writes:

Japan … has been preparing for a future with a smaller and older population. Instead of importing Asian nurses, Japan has developed robots that care for hospital patients, or it exports its old and infirm to the countries where the nurses are. Instead of importing window and wall washers, it has developed nano-polymers that repel dust and dirt. Instead of importing street sweepers, it has mobilized retired volunteers to maintain the cleanliness of their own neighborhoods. Instead of opening its doors to primitives who happen to be refugees, Japan donates huge sums of money to refugee organizations.

So that's how. But why do they feel no apparent need to apologize for what the bien-pensants of the Western world would call xenophobia? Whatever it is, I wish we could import some, and Europe needs a transfusion.

Shut up, they explained

"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."

The words came from a Supreme Court decision by one of this country's most renowned legal minds, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a 1927 ruling upholding the compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded. The opinion ended, famously: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

You may agree or not. But I wish that our public officials were permitted such plain speaking today. Many of the most important questions now have to be discussed in a kind of code.

Peggy Noonan gripes:

America is in line at the airport. America has its shoes off, is carrying a rubberized bin, is going through a magnetometer. America is worried there is fungus on the floor after a million stockinged feet have walked on it. But America knows not to ask. America is guilty until proved innocent, and no one wants to draw undue attention. …

Why do we do this when you know I am not a terrorist, and you know I know you know I am not a terrorist? Why this costly and harassing kabuki when we both know the facts, and would agree that all this harassment is the government's way of showing "fairness," of showing that it will equally humiliate anyone in order to show its high-mindedness and sense of justice?

Why does she write like this, when I know, and you know, and she knows, and she knows we know, what she means? She means: If someone is going to blow up the airplane you're flying in without asking your permission, the overwhelming odds are that it will be a Muslim. The TSA should turn every Muslim boarding a plane upside down and shake them, and leave the rest of us to get on with our day.

Again, you are free to agree or not. But we have entered a frightening era when a journalist doesn't dare say what she means because the "rights" mob will immediately demand that she be banned from the public prints.

Our national government has now decided that the word "jihad" is taboo:

Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as "jihadists" or "mujahedeen," according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like "Islamo-fascism" is out, too.

The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates. For example, while Americans may understand "jihad" to mean "holy war," it is in fact a broader Islamic concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public.

"New York, July 4, 2010 — Extremists who have hijacked the holy and peaceful religion of Islam set off a nuclear device that obliterated Manhattan at 3:25 p.m. yesterday. A spokesman for the extremists said in a press conference at the National Association for Intercultural Understanding, 'Our brothers have taken a further step in the struggle to do good. Such will be the fate of all infidels, Crusaders, and sons of pigs and monkeys.'

"President Obama had no immediate comment other than to say that 'I will be communicating with, not confronting, these extremists in a televised address tomorrow immediately following American Superstar. Please stay tuned following the show.'"

Consider now the case of Colorado state representative Douglas Bruce. He is apparently a very brave man, or perhaps one whose formative years predated the PC Age and who hasn't gotten the message. In a debate in the legislature about migrant workers, he said, "We don't need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in the state of Colorado."

The Denver Post describes what followed:

Audible gasps and cries of "no" filled the House chamber before Gunnison Democrat Rep. Kathleen Curry, in charge while the speaker handled other business, took the unusual step of banning Bruce from further comment on the bill.

"How dare you?" Curry asked him.

How indeed? It was daring in a way that our leftist Grand Inquisitors believe should be met with severe penalties.

Premeditated bigotry is what Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, called it. He said that, as a descendant of "illiterate slaves," he believes that Bruce's comment warrants ethics hearings that could result in reprimand, censure or expulsion from the legislature.

"This statement is so bigoted . . . clearly it violated the decorum of the House," Carroll said.

Rep. Carroll is a First Amendment illiterate who would like us all to be slaves of his ideological preferences. Oh, sorry, Terrance — I should be communicating with, not confronting, you. Wouldn't want to give you a veneer of credibility.

The European indigenous people's movement

Not a moment early, to my way of thinking.

The eloquent commentator on the Islamification of Europe, who quite wisely goes under a nom de blog and calls himself Fjordman, has a new posting at Brussels Journal titled "Creating a European Indigenous People's Movement."

Fjordman says:

An American friend of mine has proposed that native Europeans should create a European Indigenous People's Movement. I have hesitated with supporting this because it sounded a bit too extreme. However, in more and more European cities, the native population is being pushed out of their own neighborhoods by immigrant gangs. The natives receive little or no aid from their authorities, sometimes blatant hostility, when faced with immigrant violence. In an age where the global population increases with billions of people in a few decades, it is entirely plausible, indeed likely, that the West could soon become demographically overwhelmed. Not few of our intellectuals seem to derive pleasure from this thought.

As always when we are talking about immigration, it's important to be clear. Although some of us have heavy doubts about the ability of people from vastly different cultures to live together, we don't hate immigrants. I'm for strictly limited and selective immigration, not zero immigration, except perhaps during a time-out period, and I think Fjordman would concur. But what's happening now isn't immigration in the traditional sense — it's large-scale colonization. Or invasion, if you will.

Whether it's a conspiracy, self-interest, or short-sightedness on the part of the Western world's power elite, there can be no doubt that they are promoting ethnic replacement of their own countries' indigenous cultures big time. That would be bad enough, but they're determined not just to ignore the wishes of the populations being replaced, but to criminalize opposition.

In decadent societies of the past, the authorities didn't open the gates to hostile nations and ban opposition to this as intolerance and barbarophobia. What we are dealing with in the modern West is not merely decadence; it's one of the greatest betrayals in history. Our so-called leaders pass laws banning the opposition to our dispossession as "racism and hate speech." To native Europeans, when listening to our media and our leaders, it's as if we don't even exist, as if it were normal for them to put the interests of other nations over their own. Despite having "democratic" governments, many Western countries have authorities that are more hostile to their own people than dictators in some developing countries.

Multi-culturalism means, in practice, subsuming the culture of Western nations to alien cultures. It means apologizing for our own heritage and maintaining that every other culture fills some alleged deficit in ours. We're racists. We're colonialists. We consume too much. We're out of touch with Gaia. We need a substitute population that doesn't groan under our original sin.

I like cultural diversity and would hope this could be extended to include my culture, too. Or is Multiculturalism simply a hate ideology designed to unilaterally dismantle European culture and the peoples who created it? If people in Cameroon or Cambodia can keep their culture, why can't the peoples who produced Beethoven, Newton, Copernicus, Michelangelo and Louis Pasteur do the same? As Rabbi Aryeh Spero points out, European elites insist "on the primacy of indigenous cultures and religions when speaking of other faraway regions, yet find such insistence arrogant when it concerns the indigenous culture of its own lands."

The United Nations has recognized the rights of indigenous peoples. You can be sure they weren't thinking of the indigenous peoples of Europe, the United States, or Australia. Nevertheless, the provisions of Article 8 should apply equally to them:

Article 8

1. Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to
forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.
2. States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and redress
for:
(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their
integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;
(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their
lands, territories or resources;
(c) Any form of forced population transfer which has the aim or effect of
violating or undermining any of their rights;
(d) Any form of forced assimilation or integration;
(e) Any form of propaganda designed to promote or incite racial or ethnic
discrimination directed against them.

Fjordman proposes six goals and objectives for a European Indigenous People's Movement, beginning with:

The right to maintain our traditional majorities in our own lands, control our own sovereignty and our own self-determination. We do not wish harm or ill-feeling toward any other peoples on earth, but we assert the right to maintain our own majorities in our own lands without being accused of "racism." We reject current trends which preach that we have no right to oppose, control or lessen unlimited immigration from non-indigenous cultures.

That sounds reasonable enough, except to the European Union, which would take it as a declaration of war. Is it quixotic to go against the mighty EU? Perhaps. But there are still quite a lot of indigenous Europeans. Enough to see off a cadre of zombie functionaries in Brussels, should they ever decide to.

Cop-killing illegal alien's employer busted

Illegal enabler does the courthouse shuffle

Too bad this story won't get any play outside of Houston. You certainly won't read about it in immigration-pimp newspapers like The New York Times or USA Today. Even they'd have a hard time secreting tears for a Mexican cop killer and child molester and the Anglo creep who supported him for years.

The Houston Chronicle says:

The owner of a landscaping firm was arrested Wednesday and faces up to 10 years in federal prison, accused of harboring one of his workers, an illegal immigrant from Mexico charged with the capital murder of a Houston police officer.

Court documents show that Robert Lane Camp, 47, went to considerable lengths to help Juan Leonardo Quintero and keep him on the job at his Deer Park landscaping company before the September 2006 killing of officer Rodney Johnson.

In August 1998, Camp posted a $10,000 bond for Quintero after he was jailed on an indecency with a child charge and hired an attorney to defend him. After the worker was deported in May 1999, Camp sent him money in Mexico and later bought him a plane ticket from Phoenix to Houston after Quintero re-entered through Arizona illegally, according to an affidavit by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Camp then purchased a house in Houston and rented it to Quintero.

This is the lower depths even in the sleazy world of employers who hire cut-rate illegals. Something must have been going on other than the usual motive of greed for Camp to go such a distance in aid of Señor Sickbag. Were they homosexual lovers? Was Quintero blackmailing Camp? Whatever, Camp is morally partially responsible for the murder of a police officer and the illegal return to this country of a child abuser.

In theory this should put disturbing thoughts into the heads of the thousands of employers who enrich themselves by laying off Americans and replacing them with cheap illegal labor. But the circumstances are exceptional. For one thing, cop killers and accomplices are in a category of their own, and even politicians who normally give a nudge and a wink concerning illegals aren't about to stick their necks out for a Quintero. And while I have zero minus infinity sympathy for Camp, it doesn't help him that he's a pretty small-time businessman who probably hasn't been notably generous with campaign contributions.

How about some indictments and hard time for big business executives who preside over the hiring of illegals, starting with Swift & Co., six of whose plants were raided and shut down in December 2006 as more than a thousand illegals were arrested? Needless to say, the guys in the corner offices are still enjoying their views out the window — not that the meatpacking plants offer beautiful landscapes, but they're still better than looking through the bars of a jail cell.

It won't happen on the watch of our quisling President Jorge W. Bush-Gonzales, but even small steps forward are, well, steps.

The presidency as product placement

What a campaign this is turning out to be. All the presidential candidates are unelectable.

Iowa's result promises nothing good. I'll admit to a touch of Schadenfreude at seeing Hillary eating Obama's dust, but Obama still seems to me essentially an "image" candidate. He will win or lose depending on how many people like or dislike him. My problem is that I can't find anything there that compels me to do either. He is the ultimate candidate as product — which, to one degree or other, describes almost the lot of them.

He's also a Democrat, which always raises suspicion.

Meanwhile, the Republican mob is an equally sorry bunch. Particularly Parson Huckabee, whose position on the no. 1 issue, immigration, is standard liberal amnesty-by-another name:

If you can get an American Express card in two weeks, it shouldn't take seven years to get a work permit to come to this country in order to work on a farm. "So if our government is incapable of making that process in that length of time, then we should do it in a way to outsource it. And here's why: When people come to this country, they shouldn't fear. They shouldn't live in hiding. They ought to have their heads up, because the one thing about being an American is, we believe every person ought to have his or her head up and proud, and nobody should have to be in hiding because they're illegal when our government ought to make it so that people can reasonably come here in a legal fashion.

In other words, Parson Huckabee is happy to welcome all the border jumpers (not to mention the inordinate number of legal immigrants). And so they can hold their heads up and not slink around in the shadows while they congregate by the hundreds in the parking lots, they shouldn't be denied legal residency, as long as they go through a little bit of play acting. Let them spend a day in Juarez while an ultra-efficient government, or perhaps an outsourcing company, goes through the motions of checking to see if they're on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List before issuing their Express American cards.

Huckabee is particularly distasteful to me because he has the air of a religious crank, much in the George W. Bush mold, his every thought and feeling taken down in shorthand as he sits on God's knee and served up as sanctified politics.

No sale here for this product, either.

That leaves perhaps two candidates I could vote for without gagging: Romney and Paul. We shall see.

"News" they can use

A commenter called james c, over at Vanishing American, writes: "Since getting access to US media via the internet, i noticed there is a journalism style which i can only describe as 'sob-story hand-wringing'. It must be taught in journalism schools. No one could write like that naturally. VA, do you know what i mean?"

I'm sure VA knows what he means, as do I. It's become like one of those form letters you get from corporations when you write to them about a problem -- the words are already there in a computer macro, with just a few words filled in to "personalize" it. The "sob-story hand-wringing" immigration story seems to have been written by some Central Politburo of Political Correctness and distributed to the media to adapt as they see fit. Only, some of us see it as unfit as the product of a supposedly free press.

It's easy to find examples, but the Phoenix-area East Valley Tribune seems to be vying with The New York Times for the Olympic Gold Medal in one-sided, slanted reporting. If this is in fact what they teach in journalism school nowadays, you could hardly offer the class a better model than this.

Bad. Bad. Bad. That’s how Mesa business owner Ramon Quintana describes the crisis facing Hispanic-oriented companies as people in the Latino community lose their jobs and flee the area for friendlier frontiers. The problem comes from a mix of fear of recent immigration arrests and the pending crackdown on employers who hire illegal residents. Hispanic-oriented businesses are paying the price.

Crisis. Flee the area for friendlier frontiers. Fear. Crackdown. ¡Ay caramba!¡Fascismo! The United States is beginning to rediscover that it has borders, and they do not include all Mexico.

At the height of the Christmas shopping season, some businesses reported less than half the revenue they had last Christmas. Those who remain are struggling to pay the rent, both on their homes and businesses. “Everybody is complaining,” Quintana said. And the situation is only going to get worse, he said.

Worse for whom, amigo? For you and your clientele, contemptuous of American law, indulging in the kind of border jumping that would get you jailed if you tried it in Mexico? But maybe a lot better for those of us who are citizens of this country, who will no longer watch ever larger portions of our cities become Tijuana because of criminals like you.

The windows at U-Care Thrift Store are still plastered with “Happy Holidays” and “Peace on Earth Good Will to All,” a merry message compared with the story on the other side of the glass. Neighbors say the owner fled about a month ago, leaving rows of clothing racks and a store full of merchandise behind. ... U-Care Thrift Store is the third shop on the corner of Main Street and Stapley Drive to close. Quik Cash payday loans and a former party store are already empty.

Those probably won’t be the last to close on that corner, Quintana said. Other vendors tell him they worry about making the rent.

Señor Quintana? You and "other vendors" thought you'd game the system here, come to El Norte for the freebies that American taxpayers are required by their political overlords to grant you.

But that's changing. You sponged off our country for years. Well, the game's about up, amigo. You lose, and you deserve to lose.

Oh, and you, East Valley Tribune: Bad. Bad. Bad.

John McCain, tough on immigration

Two-horned chameleon, Chamaeleo (Trioceros) montium

From the Arizona Republic:

Sen. John McCain has hardened his position on immigration reform, hoping the new stand will make his presidential campaign more appealing to conservative Republican voters.

The comprehensive approach he championed for years, one that emphasized a guest-worker program and legalization for those here illegally, has taken a back seat to a plan that puts a priority on tightening border security and beefing up enforcement.

Darn that DREAM

I am so sodding tired of writing about immigration I almost can't bring myself to do another post on the subject. The citizens have spoken. Amnesty should be a dead letter. So long, amigos, and take your junky little taco stands with you when you go home.

But the League of American Quislings just won't give up. If our anti-terrorist campaigns were pursued with the fanaticism that these big business puppets in Congress bring to Hispanicizing the United States, Al Qaeda would be on a street corner with a sign that says WILL BLOW MYSELF UP FOR FOOD.

Less than three months after the amnesty bill was defeated, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois wants to revive one of its worst provisions: an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would constitute a massive financial windfall for millions of illegal aliens. The bill would essentially guarantee illegals a college education at much lower in-state rates.

… says the Washington Times. Read the sordid details of the sordid DREAM Act ("American Dream," get it? Bet they focus-grouped that one) here and here.

You know what to do by now. Get on to your senators and congressman and tell them no way, and that their vote for this travesty is their surest bet for finding themselves on the Boulevard of Broken DREAMs where ex-senators and -representatives sell themselves as lobbyists to whoever will pay their price. (Of course, anyone who would vote for this sellout has plenty of practice at political streetwalking.)

We now turn to yet another sad manifestation of The Invasion.

In Phoenix, a policeman who had fought off cancer twice and put on the uniform again was shot in the face and killed by … right. An illegal immigrant who had already been deported.

Erik Jovani Martinez had been brought to the United States from Mexico as an infant. He had been convicted of auto theft and had outstanding warrants for aggravated assault and "false imprisonment," whatever that is. He had three children. His age was a ripe 22.

After shooting Officer Nick Erfle, he hijacked a car with the driver as hostage. Forcing the driver to take him on a sightseeing tour of Phoenix, he was then stopped and surrounded by police, whereupon he put a gun to the hostage's head. A police tactical team deported Martinez to a place from which he will not be returning.

In a fatuous column in the Arizona Republic, whose motto is "Too much immigration from Mexico isn't enough," Laurie Roberts does the why-oh-why routine and comes up with every reason except the real one.

Virginia Roper was near tears Tuesday morning as she talked about the officer, killed just a stone's throw from Amy's Beauty Salon where she works. "I don't know, I really don't know what to think," she said, as she combed a customer's hair. "Is it a sign of the times? So much violence, and young people are so angry. I don't know what to make of it."

That's because you can't make sense out of senselessness. … You ask why and a cop just shrugs, as if the answer should be obvious. "It's police work," he said. "He's a police officer." You nod as if you understand. But of course, you don't.

Well, Laurie, will you let me help you out a little bit? See if you can take this on board. Mexican. Illegal immigrant. Open borders. Arizona Republic pandering to Mexicans. Anglos cowed by political correctness.

Does that suggest any answers to you, Laurie?

This was my country and it might be yet,
But something came between us and the sun.

— Edumund Blunden

States' rights redivivus?

"Redivivus" is a Latin word meaning revived or reborn, generally used to show the writer's deep learning. I had to look it up to make sure I was spelling it right (I wasn't).

When I was a kid, with only a superficial interest in politics, I gathered that "states' rights" were something you wouldn't bring in the house, a slogan of southern rednecks who hadn't been reconciled to outlawing slavery. Nothing I read had a kind word to say for the concept.

Maybe states' rights were a Bad Thing back then, or being promoted for wrong purposes. Lately, however, I've come to see the concept in a very different light, as I've been forced to recognize the incredible wisdom of the Constitution's plain statement that all powers not specifically enumerated as belonging to the federal government belonged to the states and the people.

It's been especially obvious since the federal government, including the president, a large percentage of the Congress, and the judiciary have decided on our behalf that a mass migration of unlettered, impoverished, and non-English-speaking Third Worlders is just what the United States needs.

Having observed at close hand some of the less savory results of the invasion, and it being abundantly evident that much more of the same was in store unless countermeasures were taken, states and localities have begun to do the job that Americans in the federal government won't do. The Kansas City Star reports:

Citing an “unnatural influx” of illegal immigrants, [Missouri] Gov. Matt Blunt on Monday ordered state troopers to start checking the immigration status of every person they arrest. …

The federal government has failed to act to curtail illegal immigration, and it’s time for Missouri to do something, he said.

(Tip of the hat: Mike Tuggle at Rebellion.)

Machiavelli, I believe, said that diseases in government are like diseases in the body: hard to discover while they are still curable, and after they become evident, hard to cure. The disease that has taken hold of our federal government is by now entirely visible. I am coming more and more to think that only local governments, still relatively subject to the will of the people, offer much chance of a cure.

States' rights redivivus? Bring 'em on.

Looking for a safe harbor beyond the Aztlantic Ocean

The blogger Tanstaafl (an abbreviation, I think, of Robert Heinlein's aphorism "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch") is fed up with the Mexification of southern California and its ignorant Anglo enablers. He holds out no hope that the trend can be reversed, and he's looking for a sanctuary to move his family and himself to. But even Tanstaafl reckons it will be hard to find, with the country's rulers doing everything possible to erase the nation's borders, history, culture, and traditional ethnicity.

If you are already feeling depressed today, you might want to save reading his posting for another time.

Visas for refugees from Britain

The Daily Express, which modestly describes itself as the world's greatest newspaper, reports that 4,000 souls are trying to kiss off the scepter'd isle every week.

Liam Clifford, a former immigration control officer, set up globalvisas.com as a one-man band 12 years ago. He now employs 60 people and is in the process of opening new offices in both South Africa and Australia. Mr Clifford said: “It’s absolutely phenomenal. People are trying to get away to wherever they can, and most are successful.

“Ironically, one of the main reasons for leaving is the overstretch of services due to increasing immigration into the UK. People are looking for the better standard of living offered by other countries, as even the most idyllic villages in Britain are under pressure from rising populations."

In keeping with our current national theme, "Invade the World, Invite the World," we should set up a special visa category for Brits who are fleeing, in the article's words, "immigration … and the burden it is placing on their communities and local authorities. The dearth of good schools, spiralling house prices, rising crime and tax increases are also driving people away."

After all, we in these United States have no problems with immigration, crime, or state-run schools, and our house prices are mostly spiraling downward. A good chunk of those 4,000 Brits a month would be an answered prayer for real estate agents.

And we can hardly turn away our transatlantic cousins when our boundless compassion and welcoming skills extend even to Iraqis "identified as terrorists or supporters of terrorist groups." (Tip of the hat: Lawrence Auster.)

A large-scale visa program for British refugees would probably net this country some of the U.K.'s brighter, more far-seeing, skilled, and PC-averse inhabitants. Then let's offer the younger and more physically fit among them training and armaments to take back their former country.

Immigration protest: The good, the bad, and the ugly

I predict we're going to see a lot more of this until the United States decides whether it's going to have borders or not. As it stands, the immigration boosters and the immigration restrictionists can both reasonably claim they're in the right, based on current policies.

To begin by giving credit where it's due, the Newark Star-Ledger story appears to be reasonably even-handed. (I say "appears" because I wasn't at the event, so I don't know what may have been left out.) It's refreshing to read a piece that doesn't automatically put the pro-immigration speakers in the lead paragraph and give them far more space than the other side, who are relegated to a token quote or two way down the line, followed by a "rebuttal" from the immigrationists.

Otherwise, the report of this demonstration makes for pretty dismal reading. Insofar as they are quoted, both factions sound bad, and the whole business feels ugly. Especially when viewed as a preview of more, and worse, to come.

Although I'm for stopping and reversing the immigration debacle, the case doesn't lend itself to sound nuggets and bumper-sticker slogans. The good guys in Morristown seemed to be trying to act like oafs, and succeeded.

When he took the stage, the mayor, who is seeking to deputize local police officers as federal immigration agents, condemned his opponents for stalling his efforts.

"How dare they, how dare they question my right as mayor of this community to move this program forward?" he asked.

Huh? Mayor, you must have sounded like Mussolini up there on his balcony with his arms crossed and chin out. What do you mean, "how dare they" question your right? You're a politician, man. People are going to question everything down to whether your tie clashes with your shirt.

[Mayor] Cresitello retaliated with a warning. "To the Communists across the street, and the Marxists, we know your motives, and we will not continue to let you go forward with your intent to take over our country," he said.

Oh, deliver me. Let's not mix the immigration problem up with Red-baiting. Even the malignant politicians, business interests, and media propagandists who promote open borders aren't Commies. Criticize them for greed, exploitation, indifference to the general good, overpopulation promotion, and plenty else … but they don't have eyes to create a dictatorship of the proletariat. If anything, they're out to destroy what little remains of a solvent American working class, replacing it with a sub-working class of welfare-supported galley slaves.

On the immigrationist side, the arguments, if you can dignify them with that term, were as scurrilous and dopey as usual — "Mayor KKK," etc.

"That side is hatred, and hatred is what causes the problems here," Miculiani yelled, pointing at the crowd outside town hall. "It's these kind of people, they're no better than the terrorists on 9/11!"

It's scary that people as demented as this inhabit the same country I do. And of course you have the inevitable priestly twit, calling on God to send the Church in the United States more peasant faithful to fulfill the quotas for fund raising, weeping statues and Mary sightings.

Father Hernan Arias, pastor of the church, asked God to help the country's immigrant workers. "In your eyes and ears we are all legal, because we are your sons and daughters," Arias said.

Begging your pardon, Father, but I expect the nuns taught you Latin when you were in school, maybe even the term non sequitur. You would no doubt agree that God has endowed everyone with an immortal soul — making them his "sons and daughters," so to speak — including murderers, torturers, rapists, pederast priests: all sons and daughters of God, however twisted. Does that mean they, or their actions, are all "legal"? I'm afraid, old boy, you are seriously confusing God's universal love with human society's need to set rules so it can function reasonably well for everyone, not just for your victim class of the month.

We're likely to see such ugly scenes as this demonstration multiply, and probably grow violent. Because the longer we have national borders in name only, the more "migrants" are going to flow in with an attitude of entitlement and a big family.

New Haven secedes from the Union

New Haven, Connecticut, home to various institutions of culture and learning — most notably, Yale University — is now issuing ID cards to illegal aliens so they can open bank accounts, use city services, and flash the card at any policeman who is rude enough to ask for identification.

In other words, New Haven is openly and proudly supporting violations of the nation's sovereignty.

Now let's try a thought experiment. Imagine that a city in — oh, let's say Arizona — decided to enforce the immigration laws that are on the books. No midnight raids or round-ups, mind you: just check the legality of every person who is booked for a crime, or stopped for a traffic violation, or otherwise comes under reasonable suspicion. And everyone who turns out to be a border jumper is charged under the law; is sentenced under due process of law; and is turned over to ICE for repatriation.

It doesn't take an overactive imagination to know what to expect should this occur. The usual suspects — mainstream media, La Raza (The Racists), the ACLU, etc., etc. — would scream blue murder. Taking action against illegal activity — outrageous! And of course the barrel scrapings of the legal profession, that is to say immigration lawyers, would immediately file suit, arguing that the city has no jurisdiction, since immigration policy (they say) is a federal matter.

But wait a minute. If illegal immigration is strictly under federal jurisdiction, then New Haven has no authority to take any position about it, including offering mini-amnesties to illegals. Where are your alleged principles now, ACLU? Are you going to sue New Haven?

Let's be clear about this. Cities that pander to illegal immigrants, refusing to accept that they can oppose laws but not violate them, strike at the heart of civil society. They are in effect seceding from the Union.

The national government fought a civil war, an unprecedented disaster for both sides, the last time that came up. True, the actions of a single city are on a relatively minor scale compared with the Confederate States of America; but as the news article linked to above notes, lots of other cities are watching New Haven, and should the "Elm City" (as it likes to bill itself) get away with its campaign of subversion many other liberal enclaves will surely follow.

Make no mistake. The anger of large numbers of citizens who see their country turned into a new haven for indigent Third Worlders, imported by big business and the Democratic Party as a servile peasant class, is growing with every new outrage. I do not want the situation to degenerate into civil disorder, but that's what it may well come to unless one side or the other in the immigration battle, nonviolent for now, emerges triumphant.

I'm taking the side of the Union.

Garbage out, garbage in

Mexico is an ocean-to-ocean garbage pile.

Soft drink bottles, snack wrappers, used diapers and cigarette butts clog city streets, rural highways and scenic beaches. Mountains of garbage stand sentry-like in empty lots and at the edges of bucolic rural villages. Discarded plastic bags hang in trees and dangle from cactus like bitter industrial fruit.

Not every Mexican litters, of course. And perhaps no one does so all the time. But enough of them do, enough of the time, that this nation of 105 million people is choking on its refuse.

Yet, there has been no concerted long-term anti-litter campaign. Only a smattering of Mexican towns and cities have municipal garbage dumps.

This is part of the culture that our Mexico-worshiping Supreme Leader doesn't want to acknowledge. There are so many more: gang warfare, bribery and intimidation as a way of life, machismo, drug trafficking, drunken driving ... yes, so many more.

The epidemic of trash is part of what Supreme Leader, along with his sidekicks Kennedy and McShame, wants to import. He doesn't have to wait for his Amnesty Disease to lay waste to the country he laughably swore to protect and defend. His border-jumping familia is already turning southern Arizona into a midden. See here and here.

Twenty-two bags of garbage gathered from a site used by illegals and tossed by protesters in front of immigration pimp Rep. Jim Kolbe's office.

But the larger point isn't the simplistic one that open borders will add immeasurably to littering the environment (although they will). Rather, the trash piñatas are symbolic of a dysfunctional society that you have to be as demented as Supreme Leader to want to insert here. Tossing trash into public areas occurs when a population lacks self-respect or any sense of belonging to a culture larger than their own tribe. It's not only a Mexican phenomenon, of course -- you see it here and there in the United States too, but where it exists, you can be sure you're in an alienated area (often a hard-core urban neighborhood) through which hostility courses.

Who can be surprised that many Mexicans vandalize their own land? They are alienated. There is an undercurrent of hostility. How could it be otherwise? Some are descended from Aztecs whose idea of a good time was to cut the heart out of living prisoners of war. I'm sure there were more peaceful tribes as well, but they didn't have much luck after the Spanish dropped in to save their souls and loot their territory. Since then they've been ruled by a succession of dictators and bent politicos, or lived in anarchic backward districts. The army periodically puts down attempted rebellions. Cops make their living through shakedowns. What is there to nurture self-respect? How could they be expected to have any loyalty to society?

Of course, an open borders apologist will say that's exactly why they head to El Norte, where they imagine they can be free from everything about their country that stinks. But -- call me cynical if you want, although I think it's common sense -- migrating is not going to change their values. Los Angeles is an example of a safe house for gangs and welfare sows. Mexicans and other Third World immigrants bring their countries with them. "Yes, but that's only the first generation," the open borders pleader says. "They'll assimilate, like other immigrants before them."

Maybe, but the odds grow longer with every passing year. Mexicans have been in Los Angeles for several generations now, although in nowhere near the present concentration, and there is no evidence that they have assimilated except in the most superficial sense.

Yes, I feel sorry for those who are born and bred in environments that few of us would choose. But if large numbers of them are ever to improve their lot, it has to be a home-grown change. Running away to a richer neighboring country isn't the answer. And we aren't morally obliged to limp with the lame.

Feeding the beast

A while back I was griping about how tedious — albeit necessary — it was to keep banging on about the villainy of the Bush-McCain-Kennedy Axis of Weevils and their treasonous "comprehensive immigration reform" bill. Part of the tedium (Teddy-um?) of reading and writing about it, though, is in the concentration on the myriad details. Let's give you and me a break and step back to put this sorry business into the frame of political philosophy.

Everyone of every persuasion agrees, in principle, that a functional society must be supported by a structure of law. That law makes it possible for people to go about their lives knowing (a) what they must do and (b) what they must not do. (In any society that can reasonably be called "free," both categories should be carefully considered and limited, leaving a large degree of conduct in the hands of the individual, neither coerced nor prohibited.) Without such legal boundaries, every act becomes a roll of the dice, and a person lives in fear that those who are stronger or in authority can punish him at will. That's why the U.S. Constitution includes a clause prohibiting ex post facto laws (making something illegal retroactively).

The proposed Bush-McCain-Kennedy abomination is another form of ex post facto lawmaking. The only difference is that instead of making something illegal after the fact, it would make legal something that wasn't at the time it was done. That is to say it would undercut the whole basis of law.

Law is effective in proportion to how convincing it is that it will be carried out. Some legal scholars are worried by the fact that the overwhelming majority of criminal indictments are nowadays settled not by jury trial but by plea bargains, because defendants (in many instances) lack the resources to go to trial with competent counsel and prosecutors lack the time and budget to try anything except the most exceptional or notorious cases. The concern is that law becomes no longer a matter of determining innocence or guilt, but of cutting a deal.

Experts in criminal psychology often decry the long period between the commission of a crime and the punishment. It is not only, in Gladstone's words, that "justice delayed is justice denied," but that in the minds of the perpetrator, his relatives and associates, the crime and the punishment are no longer emotionally associated. The law is not seen as being enforced; the eventual sentence — carried out maybe years later — seems arbitrary or vengeful. Shocking crimes often cause people to call for tougher sentences, but critics of the idea insist that it isn't the degree of the punishment that makes it work as a deterrent, but its swiftness and inability to be evaded.

Of course, the more serious the crime and its penalty, the more deliberate the legal process needs to be. Justice and humanity dictate that if someone is indicted for a crime in which conviction could result in capital punishment or lifetime imprisonment, for instance, the system should bend over backward to give the defendant every reasonable means to exculpate himself, even tolerating delays that observers may find frustrating.

(The American judicial system has not always followed its proclaimed ideals. Little more than a year followed the conviction of Bruno Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, until he was electrocuted. That interval was hardly time for the emotionalism to recede and for a serious appeal. In the years since, skeptics have argued that he was in fact innocent. I haven't studied the case enough to have an opinion; anyway, the trial itself was at best dubious and at worst a deliberate stitch-up.)

But illegal immigration is hardly in the same category. No one is going to be executed for it; realistically, no one will languish in prison for a first offence of illegal entry. The overwhelming majority of illegals, should the government ever adopt the bizarre concept of enforcing its own laws defending our borders, will simply be returned to the country whence they originated and of which they are citizens. Not exactly a medieval punishment.

But this is exactly the kind of law that should be prosecuted and carried out in a way that allows no long-drawn-out delays. One hearing with all the normal safeguards, including the right to legal counsel; if it goes against you, you're on the next bus or plane to Sonora or Cairo, and if you show your face again in these states you'll be spending time in a special resort with bars on the windows, where the service, the ambience, and the cuisine are all well below par.

If such a policy were adopted, it would be remarkable how quickly the "insoluble" problem of illegal immigration would go away.

The alternative — which, despite all the huffing and puffing and misdirection and hair splitting by its advocates, is amnesty for illegals — will be a further dilution of justice under law. When criminal behavior by millions is justified and rewarded, not only immigrants and would-be immigrants, but everyone becomes (quite rightly) more cynical. The law is further perceived not as part of the kit that makes liberty possible, but as a system to be gamed. That attitude is common enough already. Let's not feed the beast with a disastrous amnesty.

Don't tread on us

On my observing to him that a certain gentleman had remained silent the whole evening, in the midst of a very brilliant and learned society, “Sir, (said he,) the conversation overflowed, and drowned him.”

James Boswell, Life of Johnson

About the so-called comprehensive immigration bill, I was starting to feel like that poor gentleman who found himself in the eloquent company of Samuel Johnson and his circle. Practically every blogger who mattered to me took up the subject, often with more knowledge and sharper logic than I could bring to the table. What could I add?

Writers hate to repeat themselves. How many different ways can you point out that venal politicians, from the president on up, were determined to give the benefits of American citizenship to millions of people who had done nothing to earn it – who had, in fact, entered the country and remained in it illegally and criminally, and who would bring with them an unstoppable chain of relatives and followers? Who would degrade the quality of American life through further overpopulation and demands on social services; most of whom had no desire to assimilate with our culture or contribute anything to it; whose only motivation was to milk the system for whatever they could?

Then, for a few magic hours, the clouds parted. The bill to transition the U.S. into the Third World was stopped in the Senate on a prcedural issue, but there was a sense that — other than the usual incorrigibles — legislators were beginning to wonder whether voting for such a bill would be a wise career move. Even the New York Times had to acknowledge that this pseudo-compromise over immigration didn't fool most of the people most of the time, and that the much invoked but rarely heard from "grassroots" voters had finally made themselves known.

The Bush-Kennedy-McCain Axis of Weevils had lost. We'd won. How sweet it was.

That's not the end of the story, of course. Mexico's ambassador to the United States, George W. Bush, was offended that mere citizens had taken it upon themselves to stand in the way of his Master Plan for "solving" the problems caused by virtually unrestricted immigration (problems for which he was more responsible than anyone). What a nerve.

"Amigos, we've got to do something about these little people who think family values stop at the Rio Grande. Get Linda Chavez on the phone and tell her to do another column about how opponents of My edict, er, bill are bigoted racists. Tell what's-his-name, that Reid character, to put a cork in all the other business and get back to pushing My Legacy. Set up a prayer meeting at the Capitol between Me and all the Republicans you can round up. We'll promise 'em they'll get knighthoods or medals or girls or boys or whatever, just make sure they've got the picture. It'll be in the bag by lunchtime tomorrow."

I don't know, any more than anyone else, how far our obsessive-compulsive leader of the free world will go in aid of his Master Plan. It would not surprise me if he is at this moment meeting with constitutional lawyers, probing the possibility of some sort of executive order (we're at war, remember) he could sign that would bypass the inconvenience of legislation and erase the borders with a stroke of the pen. Maybe that's what he actually had in mind with "see you at the signing." Or maybe he was thinking of miraculous signs in the sky that would show him the way to victory — in hoc signo vinces.

He's not going to quit till we do.

Still, I think the political equation has changed. Millions of previously quiescent voters found that they could make themselves heeded on something that mattered enough. The whole immigration issue is now under the spotlight and is going to stay that way; no more chances to sneak amnesty through at night in proceedings illuminated only by a poacher's moon. Bush's self-inspired determination to ignore the voice of the people is now plain to see.

Americans have gotten a taste, perhaps for the first time in their lives, of what it means to overcome the corporate interests and their running dogs in Congress, the Democrat immigrant-vote harvesters, and the social work bureaucracy itching to magnify its client base with a grand influx of new case fodder.

It's not the neocon all-purpose elixir, democracy, which doesn't poll well in Iraq and which has been notably missing from the immigration controversy. Call it the revival of a concept so unfashionable that the very word is hardly ever used in political discourse any more: liberty. Meaning, among other things, people taking back the responsibility for their own condition. At the time Samuel Johnson was dazzling his listeners in London, some Americans designed a flag. It said, Don't Tread on Me.

Needed: a troop surge in Tucson

I lived in Tucson, Arizona, for three years. No compelling reason. It was by choice, even though I knew the employment opportunities there weren't great (and that turned out to be too right). I liked the landscape, the Spanish and Pueblo style architecture, and the general laid-back friendliness of the people.

Today, thanks to our criminally irresponsible president and politicians who collude with him, Tucson is about to become a war zone, according to one local observer.

Northern Mexico is in a state of war. Who is fighting? That’s hard to say. Officially, it is the drug- and people-traffickers against each other and the government. But in Mexico, you can’t tell the players even with a program. You cannot assume the police or the Army are loyal to their commands. Many are working on their own. …

It is not too much to say there is a war going on right across the border. It’s not a hot war with firefights all the time. It is not a cold war, either, with posturing and press releases. Let’s call it a warm war. Violence breaks out from time to time for reasons unknown to us, but completely unpredictable.

And here’s the part you don’t want to hear. Violence has spread across the border and has resulted in several deaths of Americans residents and visitors. Most such crimes are reported as isolated incidents. But the violence in northern Mexico is not stopping at the border. It’s headed this way and a lot of Tucsonans know it.

Are these the words of some militiaman crank? I wish. But in fact they were published in — are you ready for this? — Inside Tucson Business. That's right; a business newspaper. Not the sort of forum where you find wild-eyed fanatics spewing paranoia.

The writer, Lionel Waxman, wants his readers to face reality.

You can’t learn about it in most media, but the whispers around town are people saying they are thinking of getting out. It looks like war and it’s coming here. No government has acted to protect Americans living in Southern Arizona. Our federal government is in full collapse as far as the southern border is concerned. All we get from them is talk. The only action we see is toward integrating Mexico into the U.S. and Canada.

What will it mean when the border is actually abandoned and anybody is free to enter without inspection? It will mean that Southern Arizona, specifically Tucson, could become like Cananea [where five policemen and two residents were assassinated] and other parts of northern Mexico. Violence will overtake local police. State and federal authorities will look the other way. …

The federal government should put troops on the border to defend the United States and its citizens. The troops should be given orders to use as much force as necessary to accomplish that task. No soldiers should be detailed to do paperwork and forbidden to fire on violators. This is another war and if we don’t act like it, we will lose this one too.

This war isn’t on the other side of the world. This is for our homes, our homes, our homes.

If you don't happen to live near the Mexican border, you have no reason to be complacent.

Once George W. Bush and his devil-spawned collaborators get their precious immigration "reform" bill passed, there will be no border, and Mexico — in all its corruption, violence, and poverty — will overflow. A huge area of Los Angeles has already been lost to Mexican gang warfare. You might still keep the war from where you live, but only if you spike the plans of Bush, Kennedy, and the rest of the amnesty pushers. There isn't much time left.

Your move.

American Muslims' middle class, mainstream suicide bombers

American Muslims are more prosperous than Western Europe's Muslims and less likely to support Islamic extremism than Muslims in most other nations, according to a landmark survey released yesterday. Most American Muslims are satisfied with their communities and believe they can get ahead if they're willing to work hard, according to the survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. ...

"We find the Muslim Americans we interviewed largely assimilated. They're happy with their lives," said Andrew Kohut, president of the nonprofit research center. "They're moderate on many of the issues that sharply divide Muslims and Westerners around the world."

-- New Jersey Star Ledger, May 23

The first nationwide survey of Muslim Americans revealed that more than a quarter of those younger than 30 say suicide bombings to defend Islam are justified, a fact that drowned out the poll's kinder, gentler findings suggesting that the community is mainstream and middle class.

"But the survey also found that only 40 percent of the overall American Muslim population would even admit that Arabs were behind 9/11. They're in denial, refusing to take moral responsibility, and the radicals will feed on this," Dr. Jasser said. ...

The survey, which estimates the U.S. Muslim population to be 2.3 million, emphasized the more positive findings, billing the group as "middle class and mostly mainstream," socially assimilated and happy.

-- Washington Times, May 23

Which paper do you read? Actually, if you follow both of these stories to the end, they contain pretty much the same information. It's the emphasis that is obviously different. The New Jersey paper is published in a state with a large Muslim population, so the story highlights how "moderate" they are, according to what they tell poll-takers. The Washington Times is a conservative paper.

And we are constantly told by the mainstream media that they are superior to the blogosphere because they are "professional" and can be trusted, while bloggers are just nutters with opinions.
Well, I'll tell you a little secret: the "professionals" of the mainstream media all have rings through their noses, and follow their employers' party line if they want to keep grazing in the fields instead of being given tickets to the meat-packing plant.

Another howler from the Washington Times piece:

"I'm not surprised that the press picked up on the bad news, because that's what sells. I'd like to see another ethnic group get asked the same question," said Laila Al-Qatami of the District-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Sure, Laila, whatever you say. No doubt a survey of American Jews, and people of African, Chinese, or Polish descent would show that 26 percent of them believe suicide bombing to defend their group is legitimate.

Once, within the lifetimes of many living Americans, revelations like those in the survey would have been enough to start an uproar and lead to a prohibition of further Muslim immigration. But that was another time, and another America, before self-preservation lost out to political correctness.

Send not to know for whom the bill tolls

It tolls for the death of a 230-year-old America that, for all its crises and faults, was the most successful example of self-government since ancient Athens (and which has lasted much longer).

Maybe a pun on John Donne's well-known line is too frivolous for the gravity of the situation; sorry, I couldn't help it. But the immigration bill that the Senate will begin considering today is indefensible on any rational and ethical grounds, and the case against it has been made in far more detail and more eloquently than I can do by Lawrence Auster, Randall Parker, Vanishing American, and countless other bloggers and writers. It goes beyond ordinary politics and any rationale that people of good will can disagree about.

This is the kind of measure that authoritarian governments are prone to, a pure power play cynically designed to boost the control of self-serving, malevolent interests through vote buying, in open defiance of the wishes of the majority of citizens. It mocks the rule of law and ignores the common good. It is also fueled in part by the ideology of transnational progressivism, which wants to replace nationhood as a set of specific traditions, culture, language, and patriotism with a what is being called a "proposition nation," one whose only characteristic is an all-purpose concept of diversity.

The bill to be debated this week is backed by a bipartisan clique whose members, nevertheless, believe that it will strengthen their own party's grip on government by rewarding somewhere between 12 million (the official, and dubious, figure) and 30 million (by other estimates) criminals and their families and descendants -- mediated only by a few mild inconveniences to the migrants that will likely be ignored in practice, as the "enforcement" provisions of the 1986 law that opened the floodgates were quickly forgotten. Beneficiaries if the bill passes will be big business, which has decided it cannot do without a huge population of modern-day serfs; a social work Establishment licking its chops at the prospect of a major inflation of its client base and thus of its budget and powers; ethnic zealots who would reclaim the United States for their own groups; and radical leftists who want to see America diluted to the point of an ungovernable, Balkanized society as payback for its past sins, real and imagined.

Even if the bill is passed in the Senate and something along the same lines gets through the House, and is signed into law by our egregiously thought-challenged president, I predict that it will no more end the struggle than the Missouri Compromise avoided the Civil War. Indeed, it can only increase the fissure in society between a non-responsive government and a large percentage of the population, already seething over years of having its values ignored by an insular Congress, president, academia, and mass media and an imperial judiciary which has taken on an authority subject to no checks and balances. It will produce a country divided against itself, in Lincoln's famous words, and the consequences will represent the greatest threat to civil society since his time.

The bill, America, tolls for thee.

If it's amnesty, it's not a "compromise"

Enemies of the people: They're laughing at your expense.

The so-called compromise worked out between el Presidente Bush and his cronies in the allegedly opposition party is anything but a compromise. To call it that, as so many of our Old Media hack reporters have done, is the latest stroke of dishonesty in the campaign to flood the country with low-wage, low-IQ, uneducated workers from the Third World.

As summarized by NumbersUSA, the provisions of the bill will include:

• An immediate amnesty for nearly all 12-20 million illegal aliens who will get legal status for residence and jobs (with the assurance of getting green cards no later than 13 years);
• Mandatory workplace verification and some extra enforcement to try to slow the flow of the next 12 million illegal aliens enticed by the amnesty;
• Tripling of the rate of chain migration of extended family from around 250,000 a year to around 750,000 a year for about a decade; and
• New flows of 400,000 temporary foreign workers each year, bringing their families and having anchor babies who will be given U.S. citizenship.
  

This is amnesty, pure and simple. Illegals will be rewarded with citizenship, or the right to remain in the country, for breaking the law, a departure from traditional legal and ethical codes that is breathtaking in its audacity. But that's the plan of el Presidente, his Democrat pals who are privately congratulating themselves at their fantastic good luck in working with a nominally Republican president on behalf of a measure that will ensure permanent control of the government by Democrats, and his Republican allies who bark and fetch for their corporate masters.

Presumably the second item is the excuse for labeling the bill a compromise. Does anyone seriously expect an administration that has never made an effort to "try to slow the flow" of illegal aliens is going to start once it has legalized The Invasion? El Presidente is so contemptuous of the anger and flat-out opposition he has generated by putting the United States up for sale to big business that he isn't even bothering to wait until amnesty has passed and he's signed it. He's already chipping away at provisions that might inconvenience any migrants. The Boston Globe today carries this note:

The Bush administration insisted on a little-noticed change in the bipartisan Senate immigration bill that would enable 12 million undocumented residents to avoid paying back taxes or associated fines to the Internal Revenue Service, officials said. An independent analyst estimated the decision could cost the IRS tens of billions of dollars.

A provision requiring payment of back taxes had been in the initial version of a bill proposed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat. But the administration called for the provision to be removed due to concern that it would be too difficult to figure out which illegal immigrants owed back taxes.

How much do you want to bet that the various other pseudo-border-enforcement details will be determined to be impractical by politicians who'll be happy to see them scuppered?

This amnesty should be defeated. El Presidente Generalissimo Bush and his ruling junta should be impeached for treason.