ODYSSEUS ON THE ROCKS

LAUTENBERG'S LUO'S

2013-05-20T13:00:00.003-04:00

More on the Immigration and Border Security Hearings: Senator Grassley noted a change in the proposed law granting the President the power to designate whole populations as eligible for asylum. Senator Dick Durbin D-Illinois, inadvertently aided our understanding of just how corrupt this process is by mentioning the infamous Lautenberg Amendment. Year after year Lautenberg has seen to it that Soviet Jews wishing to escape the USSR and make their way to the US had there own preferential quota. What Durbin failed to mention and Grassley failed to pick up on, was that this piece of ethnic favoritism and nest feathering still exists and still imports Jews who are no longer oppressed from a country that no longer exists!

This part of the Gang of Eight's legislation will make the following possible. President Obama determines that the entire Luo tribe, that is, HIS tribe in Kenya, is an oppressed group. The entire tribe then gets it's own preferential quota and is fast tracked through immigration to be settled in New Jersey. Granted, given NJ's current demographics, the change might go unnoticed. But what's in it for the rest of us?

IMMIGRATION ANTICS

2013-05-20T12:23:00.002-04:00

I'm monitoring the Immigration bill otherwise known as the cramming as many swarthy future Democrats as possible into our Republic bill hearings on CSPAN.

1. The first matter of note: Diane Finestein offered an amendment increasing the number of displaced Tibetans up to Five Thousand. Well, are all fond of the Tibetans. I only note that we who were born here have little in common with them and they are already living in India and Nepal. So this is an asylum bill admitting persons who have already achieved asylum somewhere else. The committee voted this up after gleefully agreeing that it would upset the Chinese. Apparently inviting persons to live among us solely for the purpose of teeing off another government is deemed a worthy purpose.

2. The committee voted down an amendment to revoke asylum status of people (Like the father of the Boston Bombers), who travel back and forth to the country they claimed to fear. The Dem's on the committee killed it because it upsets the "Iranian-American Community."

3. Senator Sessions R-Alabama accuses the D's on the committee with meeting with LaRasa, Immigration Lawyers and the cheap labor interests, also accuses Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, with being "On Strike," refusing to enforce existing law.

4. Senator Sessions points out that the law prohibiting the entry into our country of those who are likely to be a public charge is not being enforced, flooding our country with feckless, alien mouths to feed, who's only purpose is to supply the Democrat Party with hordes of new voters.

A MUST READ

2013-05-17T11:19:00.003-04:00

This article in The American Conservative is extremely important and illuminating, so I present it here in toto.

The recent dedication of George W. Bush’s presidential library in Texas briefly rekindled debate about the defining event of his presidency, the Iraq War. The visceral hatred of many for the war and the man having substantially diminished, a more sober assessment of both seemed to prevail in the coverage. In the same news cycle there appeared a seemingly unrelated event, the abduction of two Orthodox bishops in Syria. In fact, the conflict in Syria and the American invasion of Iraq are linked by a common thread: the failure of the U.S. to consider the effect of its foreign policy on vulnerable religious communities, especially Middle Eastern Christians.

In March 2003, on the eve of war in Iraq, Pope John Paul II dispatched Cardinal Pio Laghi, a senior Vatican diplomat, to Washington to make a final plea to Bush not to invade. Laghi, chosen for his close ties to the Bush family, outlined “clearly and forcefully” the Vatican’s fears of what would follow an invasion: protracted war, significant casualties, violence between ethnic and religious groups, regional destabilization, “and a new gulf between Christianity and Islam.” The warning was not heeded.

Two weeks after the Bush-Laghi meeting, on March 19, 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced. Shortly after combat operations concluded on May 1, the real conflict began. Amid the chaos and sectarian violence that followed, Iraq’s Christians suffered severe persecution. Neither the military nor the State Department took action to protect them. In October 2003, human rights expert Nina Shea noted that religious freedom and a pluralistic Iraq were not high priorities for the administration, concluding that its “diffidence on religious freedom suggests Washington’s relative indifference to this basic human right.” Shea added, “Washington’s refusal to insist on guarantees of religious freedom threatens to undermine its already difficult task of securing a fully democratic government in Iraq”—more prescience that would be likewise disregarded.

Iraq’s diaspora Christian community in America had also foreseen the danger, and quickly took action, helping thousands of refugees with humanitarian assistance. The Chaldean Federation’s Joseph Kassab, himself a refugee from Baathist Iraq decades before, advocated zealously for their protection. Kassab’s brother, Jabrail, a Chaldean archbishop, helped organize relief in Iraq during the sanctions from 1991-2003, doing “all that he could to help the Iraqi people—Christians and Muslims together.” His brother remained at his post until October 2006, when a Syrian Orthodox priest, Fr. Paulos Eskander, was abducted and beheaded, after which Pope Benedict ordered him to leave Iraq. Fr. Eskander’s murder was part of a campaign that targeted the most conspicuous of Christians—the clergy.

In February 2008, Archbishop Paulos Rahho’s vehicle was attacked after he finished praying the Stations of the Cross in Mosul. His driver and bodyguards were killed. Rahho, wounded but alive, was put into the trunk of the assassins’ car and taken from the scene. He managed to pull out his cell phone and call his church to tell them not to pay his ransom, saying he “believed that this money would not be paid for good works and would be used for killing and more evil actions.” His body was found in a shallow grave two weeks later.

During this campaign of systematic violence, the U.S. military provided no protection to the already vulnerable Christian community. In some instances, the clergy went to local American military units to beg to for protection. None was given. As Shea noted two weeks later, the administration and the State Department—whose record on Christian minorities and religious freedom leaves much to be desired—still refused to “acknowledge that the Christians and other defenseless minorities are persecuted for reasons of religion.”

A month after the murder of Archbishop Rahho, President Bush addressed the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. Joseph Kassab had been invited to pray the Hail Mary and Our Father in Aramaic following Bush’s remarks, an act of solidarity with the Christians of the Arab world. “I had two or three minutes with the president behind the curtains,” Kassab said in a recent interview. “He said he thought you had to fix the whole picture before coming to the other elements. It was disappointing. He knew it was a failure and his administration refused to acknowledge that.”

Rosie Malek-Yonan, an Assyrian Christian who testified before Congress, would call the Bush administration a “silent accomplice” to “incipient genocide.” Anglican Canon Andrew White of Baghdad’s Ecumenical Congregation captured the reality with blunt precision: “All of my leadership were taken and killed—all dead.”

Those Iraqi Christians who fled to America would fare little better in seeking asylum. Many Chaldeans and Assyrians were detained, until their cases were heard, in what an attorney familiar with Chaldean-asylum cases describes as “prisons,” adding that she “never worked on a case where a Chaldean was granted asylum, but I heard that it happened.” Throughout these deportation proceedings, the administration and the State Department steadfastly refused to recognize the conditions—which the U.S. had helped to bring about—as “persecution.” In consequence, most were deported.

Ironically, hundreds of thousands Iraqi Christians would find refuge in the quasi-autonomous republic of Kurdistan in the north. “They arrived,” Kassab would note, “with nothing on their backs and the Kurds came to the rescue.” Traveling to the region to assist with resettlement efforts, Kassab observed a Kurdish government willing despite inadequate resources to help the fleeing Christians. The Kurds went to the U.S. government, which they believed was partly responsible for the refugee crisis, to ask for help. “This fell on deaf ears,” Kassab recalls.

Today Iraqi Kurdistan is assimilating refugees from another neighboring country torn apart by sectarian violence: Syria. Among the refugees are more Iraqi Christians, who originally fled to the relative freedom and tolerance of Syria, only to find themselves again fleeing persecution, often hunted by Syria’s rebels. Many of these rebels are members or affiliates of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. The Obama administration, bewilderingly, has chosen to support Syria’s rebel groups without any apparent thought of the consequences. The extent of covert support remains unclear, though reports suggest it is significant. As in Iraq, the insurgent campaign in Syria targets priests, the most visible symbols of the Christian faith.

The protection and perseverance of minority religious communities—indeed, of religious freedom—continues to be a low priority for the Obama administration and the State Department. The U.S. fails to recognize that the Islamist-Wahabbist commitment to eradicating Christian minorities today will result in the extinction of diverse modes of Islam tomorrow, a fact that is not lost on moderate Muslims.

The objective of the Iraq War—to democratize the Middle East—may yet be realized. But democracy in the Middle East is proving less tolerant than the regimes it has succeeded. Unless swift action is taken, these democracies will evolve into bastions of intolerance and violence beyond our comprehension. These democracies will not march ineluctably toward liberty and pluralism, as some naïve optimists continue to forecast despite the evidence, but will end in the ordered barbarism of Saudi Arabia, where punishments include beheading and crucifixion, according to Amnesty International.

When he came to office, President Bush famously scribbled in a report on the Clinton administration’s inaction during the Rwandan genocide, “Not on my watch.” Clinton today admits that inaction in Rwanda is his greatest regret. One day, Bush may look back on the neglect of the Middle East’s Christians with similar regret. Cardinal Laghi would recall that Bush “seemed to truly believe in a war of good against evil,” that his work was providential. “You might start, and you don’t know how to end it,” the prelate warned. In this sense, the Iraq War continues, and with it the deliberate extinction of Middle Eastern Christians.

Andrew Doran served on the Executive Secretariat of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO at the U.S. Department of State, where he has since worked as a consultant. His views are his own.

STILL WAITING......

2013-05-07T13:10:00.000-04:00

The post below is an elaboration of a comment left at American Conservative left on the 5th of May. As of today, May 7th, it is still awaiting publication. At least that is what I get when checking the blog post. (The Central Park Five by Scott McConnell)

I can only explain this with two alternatives,

1. The intern who's job it is to pass judgement on comments is asleep or otherwise occupied.

2. The adult supervising the intern cannot make up his/her mind as to whether I sincerely want a PhD in racism advocacy or, I have some other, snarky point that may be taken the wrong way.

TAC announced a new comments policy a while back. Since then TAC seems to have adopted the Rod Dreher ethic of nice. TAC desperately wants to be the respected, responsible voice of the none neo-con right. In practice this means bringing up controversial topics while squelching opinions that threaten the middle of the road, wet readership they crave. This is the path to irrelevance and is also the reason why I and other actual conservatives have dropped our subscriptions and never contribute.

Perhaps I need to start a TAC Watch feature here, tracing the devolution of a once conservative journal into something else.

Reader comments on this will be appreciated and posted.

NOTE: AS OF 05/10/2013 MY COMMENT IS STILL UNPOSTED AND THE ARTICLE HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE FRONT PAGE.

ISMS

2013-05-06T12:18:00.000-04:00

Over at The American Conservative an interesting piece on Ken Burn's latest documentary sparked the usual imputations of racism. Given that the subject was the false conviction of the five Central Park "Wilders." of about 20 years ago, this was bound to happen. In a nutshell, Burns chronicles the fate of five young black thugs who were convicted of raping and savaging a white woman. They were convicted in large measure due to their reluctance to confess to other crimes they committed in the same area on the same night. In due course they were acquitted. Come TAC comenters consider any recognition of the general nastiness of the defendants racism incarnate.

This led me to re-examine an old thought about isms. Do we really examine how we order our understanding of such things? Is an ism an actual school of thought? Sometimes, when it has backers. Other times an ism is just a negative epithet. Hence my comment.

Odd is it not that one can get a PhD in Marxism or Feminism or Environmentalism and the like, but you just can’t find funding or a career path in Racism. A curious Ism this Racism. Now personally, I think if we are to keep referring to any consciousness of group differences as Racism, then we ought to endow a few chairs in academic Racism. Perhaps curricula in the contributions of racism to labor relations would be appropriate.

On the other hand we can speak of bigotry, the unreasoned vilification of others. Note “Unreasoned.”

DIVERSITY HAS CONSEQUENCES

2013-04-20T18:18:00.000-04:00

We suffer the results of uncontrolled immigration every day. This week more than most, the effects of letting foreigners into our republic to do as they please is obvious. Persons we welcome into our midst turn against us all the time.

I write of course of Barack Obama senior, that alcoholic, leftist Kenyan rapist who, by impregnating a hippy girl left us with his awful son, the President. The President wants us to know that his loyalty to his father and his father's way of life is rock solid. Thus he spoke...

"That American spirit includes staying true to the unity and diversity that makes us strong — like no other nation in the world. In this age of instant reporting and tweets and blogs, there’s a temptation to latch on to any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions. ... And that’s why we take care not to rush to judgment — not about the motivations of these individuals; certainly not about entire groups of people. "

So we are to understand that nothing must impede the activities of all the Chechins, Somalis, Gypsies, Albanians, etc. who want to share their divers qualities with us.

And he had the effrontery said this before the victims were buried.

NOTE: 5/2/13 As if to amplify the above, a Somali immigrant criminal was sentenced today to life imprisonment today. He had a prior violent felony conviction which should have subjected him to deportation. He celebrated his release from prison by killing four people in North Dakota. So the taxpayers of that state will be feeding him for the rest of his life.

PRAYING FOR AMERICAN GUILT

2013-04-17T16:37:00.000-04:00

Can there be anything less appealing than the posturing hoard of bogus experts stumbling over themselves over Mondays blast? Particularly nauseating are the "Hate Group" experts insinuating guilt for the umpteenth time to everyone to the right of themselves. The Southern Poverty Law Center ($PLC) has been joined by something called The Center for Hate and Extremism, a one man shop associated with California State University, San Beradino. The Center, which consists of one Brian Levin, former civil rights lawyer now Professor and formerly with the $PLC who claims expertise on all things hate. It has no staff that can be identified and appears to do no original research beyond compiling lists of all things hateful and Levin's copious testimonies, opinions etc. There are several other academics who purport to study hate groups, sites and personalities.

Given that these characters and organizations rely on the perception of a vast right-wing conspiracy for their funding and visibility, it's not surprising that they flock to every bombing like vultures to roadkill. The amazing thing is that with the exception of the Oklahoma bombing, they have been consistently wrong. Yet they are called back over and over to alert us to the menace of right-wing crazies at our throats. So we must ask, is their continued presence on our TV screens a reflection of the reality of terror in America, or a reflection of the prejudices of the journalists and corporate executives?

No one knows who killed and maimed those people in Boston. There is a chance that some disgruntled rightist did it. If so, it will be the first such since Oklahoma city. It's disgusting that $PLC's Mark Potok and professor Levin are at this moment hoping that a fellow American killed and maimed people in Boston. In the end that 's how they make their livings.

RAND PAUL SPEAKS TO THE BROTHERS

2013-04-15T17:31:00.002-04:00

The American Conservative had video colloquy between a young journalist from the National Review on Line and their own Jordan Bloom. They shared their deep thoughts on minority outreach and what it means for the GOP and "The Conservative Movement." I just couldn't help injecting the following.

The vacuousness of this dialog would drive me to despair if I had hope that the Conservative movement had a future. But it doesn’t, so why get perturbed?

Neither of these children understand politics beyond the level of ideas and ideals.

Rand Paul spoke to the Howard crowd as a ritual of the “I have the guts to sell my message anywhere,” sort. He understood it was pointless except as this sort of exercise.

Messaging /outreach to minorities is a mugs game. Blacks, Hispanics and Homosexuals vote on the basis of that old American quandary, What’s in it for me. Inner city Blacks don’t vote, they SELL their votes for a share of the pie, that is, all our wealth. So unless you intend to can offer them bribes from the communal pot, it’s a waste of time talking to them. Ditto Hispanics.

It’s also idiotic to agonize over bigotry while ignoring the atavistic self centeredness of these groups. They are at least as bigoted as our ancestors ever were. Minority groups do not share the ideal of disinterestedness and broad community spirit that is at the heart of the conservative world view.

If any sort of conservative faction is to survive in our country it can only do so by organizing those who can so no to the mugs game. We can only survive by organizing around actual group interests of the majority population and those who may chose to adhere to it.

COMING FOR GRAMPA'S SHOTGUN

2013-04-07T15:24:00.000-04:00

A local state representative by the name of Steve Santarsiero has promised to introduced legislation mandating background checks via a federally licensed firearm dealer for all firearms purchases in Pennsylvania. I can hear all the cows lowing their agreement this this seemingly recondite measure.

As in so many other steps in the drive to disarm the public, this bill will be a restraint in search of a problem. Why? Pennsylvania already prohibits personal transfer of handguns except through gun dealers using background checks. As everyone knows, handguns account for the vast majority of criminal gun use in PA and around the country.

Therefore, the sole effect of this proposed law will be to inconvenience long gun owners. Is this the assemblyman's herd loyalty to his parties hatred for traditional American culture? How else to explain his willingness to impose a cost on the age old ritual of handing down hunting rifles and shotguns from one generation to another. What is the overriding interest of the state in my desire to trade my goose gun for a varmint rifle? Is society less safe after I sell my grandfathers rifle to a collector? Of course not. But liberals will feel like they have done something. And if we let them, they will be doing that something to the rest of us.

The President recently said that American gun owners are under an illusion that he and his party want to disarm the public. As usual, he blames the NRA for spreading this illusion. But as we can see from the above proposed legislation, there is no illusion. The instinct of the left in America is to restrict second amendment rights where ever possible, with or without any no nexus with crime prevention.

Perhaps the Assemblyman would reply that so called assault rifles would also be covered. Fair point, but these weapons are used in such a tiny number of crimes that to inconvenience so many for such a pointless exercise just reinforces the impression that the drive is to restrict our rights. These military style rifles (carbines really) are so common among shooters now that there is simply no way of tracking them in any event.

This last point is also important. The drive to disarm the country by the left is carried on under such a cloud of ignorance that the meddlers don't even have a very good grasp of what they are doing. Senator Feinstein and others have displayed their ignorance of firearms technology so many times as to be confidence proof. Like the above mentioned proto-law, the iron law of unintended consequences gives way to that of titanium.

BEWARE THE PALE PEOPLE

2013-03-27T10:43:00.000-04:00

This is the text of my latest blog for the Bucks County Courier Times

It goes without saying that those so lacking in sensitivity as to deal in truth deserve what they get. So Robert Huber of the Philadelphia Magazine is under attack for daring to write a thought piece about White Philadelphian’s impressions of race relations. As we all know, writing on race from a white perspective is deeply offensive in polite society.

The article, Being White in Philadelphia is an anodyne exercise in opinion gathering supplemented by an impeccably liberal meditation on how race relations are not going well. There is no hint that the breakdown of amicability perceived by Huber’s White interviewees is the fault of Blacks at large. Huber’s White interviewees relate their interactions with their Black fellow citizens as mostly negative. So what. Are they all lying? Does Huber’s picture of social dysfunction ring broadly false? Do black and White Philadelphians actually live in loving racial comity? Of course not.

The furor over Huber’s article stems from the unwritten taboo against any expression of white group interest. All other population groupings in our society are expressed as communities. How often do we hear of the Black Community, the Hispanic Community, the Jewish Community and even the Gay Community? I can only remember hearing of the White Community as that mass of people who have let some other community down. Yet what are the manifestations of this “White Community”? Who are the local White Community leaders? Can my son join the White Student Union? Where can I pick up a copy of the White voter’s guide? Why can’t I find the local chapter of the National Association of Pale People?

We are living with the results of many social changes. One of these is the regime of racial politics brought about by the fight against racism. In order for this fight to succeed it had to identify an enemy, and the enemy was bigotry expressed in law against non-white citizens. In my view, this fight succeeded with the various civil rights laws enacted in the 1960’s

Unfortunately, two other things happened. The economic and social health of the Black population failed to universally improve and the civil rights movement succumbed to the general tendency of all American movements. It became a racket.

An explanation had to be found for the failure of the legal changes to usher in a new era of Black prosperity and achievement. No amount of Affirmative Action or government spending and programming leveled the achievement and prosperity gap. This posed a fundamental and intolerable affront to all of our liberal leadership class’s belief system. So all the bad stuff must be the fault of the one community that has no actual leadership, or self-consciousness. That group is the White citizenry, and particularly White men.

The problem with this game is that if you blame people long enough in a regime where social goods are divided along group interests, the group you blame may start playing the game too. It is this that infuriates and frightens those who attacked Huber and the editor of the Philadelphia Magazine. Huber’s harmless thought piece crosses the line by suggesting that Whites as Whites might have a collective opinion and interest to be expressed. This cannot be tolerated as it would change the entire calculus of group interest and privilege in the way we live now.

Behind this hysterical reaction is the immensely ugly and insulting assumption that if White interests were expressed, They would take the form of something like the KKK. This is I believe, is nothing more than a psychological projection of the hostility of the previously disadvantaged. A good example is Mayor Nutter’s reaction to the article. Previously , he seemed a reasonable and sincere public official who was, from what I can tell, liked by suburban Whites. But in response to the article he went into full aggrieved minority mode, even calling for legal suppression of the magazine. I can think of no greater evidence for the animus toward Whites than in this call to use an arm of the state to suppress an article that merely asks what white folks think.

OBAMA COMES TO THE RELIEF OF JEFFERSON DAVIS

2013-03-25T19:26:00.002-04:00

During his visit to Israel, President Obama is quoted as saying the following. “President Assad has lost his legitimacy by his use of force on his own citizens.”

By that reasoning Britain and France had every right to intervene on behalf of the Confederacy in our Civil War. Perhaps historically educated people should review the presidents utterances before he embarrasses us all again.

THE KLAN, IN SPAIN, IS HARDER TO EXPLAIN

2013-03-07T01:51:00.002-05:00

A friend of Steve Sailer blows the whistle on Spanish Klandom.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/

RAND PAUL'S FILIBUSTER. AVERT YOUR EYES!

2013-03-06T19:51:00.000-05:00

As I write, Rand Paul is conducting an old fashioned stand up filibuster. His purpose is to flush out the President, his party, and the neocon war mongers about the little matter of blowing American citizens to bits on American soil. The President and his Attorney General insist that they have that power but will only use it if they really really need to. The President feels that being a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, neither his motives or his judgement can be questioned. The idea that he can be bound by a nasty old constitution written by long dead white guys is an affront to his immense dignity. Besides which he is smarter than all the rest of us.

I can only pray that the American public will watch Paul on CSPAN. Personally, I doubt they have either the initiative or the attention span.

Paul has offered to desist if the Democrat majority would allow a resolution stating the sense of the Senate that the President does not in fact have the power to kill us if he feels like it. Senator Durbin of Illinois, ever a servile, bovine stooge for his President had to object. Calling on Obama to abjure from the full and unrestrained exercise of his power to kill us at will was a step too far. He noted that he would be willing to invite Rand to give testimony sometime. It must be a long time since Durbin encountered someone acting on principal. I could see the consternation and fear in his eyes. Such is the beauty of CSPAN.

We are in the seventh hour of this filibuster. Meanwhile over at MSNBC, Chris Matthews the faux blue collar blowhard, is interviewing that odious little bastard who runs the Souther Poverty Law Center. The topic? gay marriage. CNN is covering an assault at the Bolshoi Ballet.

This could be an extraordinary moment in our national life. Someone is actually diverging from the script.

THE REPUBLIC OF ASSHOLIA

2013-03-06T00:32:00.000-05:00

We are in desperate need of the assistance of the Republic of Assholia. But first, we must create it.

What am I writing about? A United Nations sanctioned, and universally accepted realm devoted exclusively to the housing of persons or groups of such loathsomeness that they baffle the means and imaginations of conventional states. The idea occurred to me years ago when I was dealing with domestic criminals. The public expense of dealing with the multiple deficiencies, dependencies and aggressions of these people was enormous. Yet they contributed nothing in return to the commonweal. I thought then that but for our Christian consciences, we might just as well outlaw these people, much as our ancestors did under Anglo-Saxon Law. Why should ambulances, fire trucks or police cars respond when such as these called 911? Why should our courts waste time and money adjudicating thefts among thieves? What do we care if such miscreants use each other for target practice? Of course this would be a wicked system. But it would have one large benefit. It would acquaint the criminal class with the theory and practice of citizenship and reciprocity in human affairs.

Something like this is possible on the international level. For instance, our government presently holds large numbers of illegal aliens whose home government won't accept them back. The same applies to some detainees in Guantanimo. What to do? Well, if there was a Republic of Assholia they could be shipped there. Then what? Who cares?

The Republic of Assholia would of course be a republic in name only, given that it would just be a dumping ground for the detritus of humanity. The "detritees" could form whatever sort of government that suited them, just so long as nothing they did every impinged on the outside world.

Assholia needs to exist in a part of the world where escape would be difficult, say Madagascar. The present inhabitants could be removed to mainland Africa from whence they mostly come. I originally thought a place like Niger or Mauritania would be suitable but they seem bent on creating a wholly Muslim version of my idea on their own. And as they demonstrate nightly on the evening news, their borders are too porous. We need a place to fence in assholes, not spread them about.

As my idea may seem harsh I wish to say that the Republic of Assholia, like the new understanding of Purgatory, need not be a place of torture. I'm perfectly content to see President Assad, the Castro Brothers, The Peoples Mujhadin, Mayor Bloomberg etc. bring their bimbos and Bentleys with them. The late Hugo Chavez would have been a fine addition to the Republics menagerie. The point would not be to punish but to place the worlds most egregious assholes beyond our ever hearing from them again.

As it is now Jr. Assad has no place to go. Neither at the end did Saddam Hussein. I am of an age when the function of the Republic of Assholia was filled by the South of France. It was the ideal place for third world miscreants to retire with their stolen money. Our fixation with international justice as defined by such as Hillary Clinton and fussbudgets at the Hague now make graceful and relatively bloodless exits for such international bad men almost impossible. Wouldn't it be more sensible for them to go off to somewhere lawless where they could only be a nuisance to each other? They could bring their followers with them. I imagine that the North Korean Communist nomenklatura would fit in just one eighth of Northwestern Assholia. As long as they refrain from building actual missiles, they could starve each other to their hearts content.

Perhaps we could start by proclaiming small experimental Assholias. We could for instance experiment with Detroit.

IN A NUTSHELL

2013-02-22T01:21:00.000-05:00

This a comment of mine in the thread started by Professor Gottfried about Is America too Socialist. The topic brought out the usual do-gooders and fantasists. To whom I wrote the following.

The reason that the American welfare state is as inefficient as it is, is due to our culture and not to structural issues. Simply put, we Americans turn everything into a racket if given the chance. Germans could make even communism work after a fashion. Canadians have a communitarian culture. We Americans are inventive opportunists to the core. Any scheme involving free public money will be exploited to the maximum extent possible for personal or group gain. That’s just who we are.

Our dilemma is that over time we have constructed such a sclerotic, rats-nest of interwoven rackets that only a full collapse of the system will impel real systematic change. But no new system of “social justice” here would survive the immediate assault of the lawyers, unions, political whores, lobbyists etc.

RICHARD III

2013-02-13T19:56:00.002-05:00

I've really been fascinated by the recovery of the remains of Richard III. It's really good that he has been rescued from under the tarmac. But just a thought. Should he really be interred at Leicester Cathedral? I'm not referring to the claims of York but to the prior claim of the Holy Roman Apostolic Catholic Church.

King Richard died as a communicant of that church before Luther was a twinkle in God's eye. Shouldn't he and any future medieval resurrected monarchs be reunited with the church they adhered to in life? To do otherwise is to assume that given the chance they would have been good Anglicans. Perhaps they would have but we can never know.

Perhaps, in the interests of inter-faith comity, Richard could be re-interred by a Catholic Bishop in the Anglican Cathedral. It's not as if I want to undue the reformation or deconstruct the Christian credentials of the Church of England. Her hierarchy has that job well under way. It's just that I think a decent consideration for Richard's faith be exercised.

At least as things are going, he will be spared the indignity of being found in Westminster Mosque.

DRONING ON AND ON

2013-02-13T15:06:00.000-05:00

This is my latest blog post for the Bucks County Times

DRONING ON

Thomas O. Meehan

02/12/13

Drones are in the air; the airwaves that is. Spurred on by the Brennan/CIA confirmation hearings, the President’s expanded use of drones to kill AlQueda operatives is under critique. This criticism comes from several directions on the political spectrum.

Libertarians and actual conservatives take issue with the extrajudicial nature of killing Americans without trial. Left-liberals are disappointed in their progressive president’s resort to Bush technology in prosecuting a war on terror they don’t really believe in. Neoconservatives love the idea of killing Muslims, especially at a distance, but can’t help noting that the president is aping Bush’s methods. Foreign policy realists note with alarm that striking one’s enemies dead in the manner previously restricted to the god Apollo is both unprecedented and likely to raise sobering questions for international relations and the law of war. Sooner or later this technology will be open to others, what then?

The President has some defenders. Eleanor Clift, who excoriated Bush for drone killings now defends the President as doing the tough but right thing under the circumstances. The President’s fan club at MSNBC don’t like the exercise of American force anywhere, but they still smile as they portray Obama as the man who got Bin Ladin. Congressional Democrats likewise find the use of drones just fine as long as Obama and not Bush is the triggerman.

My own concern is this. However understandable, killing people who bear US citizenship while not actually levying war on us is simply not constitutional. That is, it’s a crime. It’s not a crime of malice perhaps, but it is a crime never the less. If we are to do this, we must find a way to do it within our law. The President maintains that this can be done via a procedure within the executive branch. This falls into the category of things one might get away with over those things you shouldn’t actually do. Do we really want to kill citizens abroad via some an in-house, cobbled together procedure? The aforementioned left harpy, Eleanor Clift thinks so. When asked on the McLaughlin Group, she actually claimed that the President’s hand would always be stayed by his own military and policy subordinates! Yes Eleanor, just like Sejanus did at restraining the Emperor Tiberius.

We need an actual judicial process to pass on the status of overseas Americans who seem to be levying war on us, or who seem to have transferred their loyalty to another state or organization. My commonsensical suggestion is to employ actual judges in this ahem, judicial process. To me, that is due process.

We have killed exactly three Americans overseas. At least two seemed to have renounced their citizenship. Did we ever attempt to formalize their renunciations? Is there no procedure to legalize the obvious? Did an embassy official in Yemen ever ask the late Mr. al Awlaki to stop over for a cup of tea and a chat as to his citizenship? To perhaps sign a paper? If not, why not?

By the way, readers will be shocked to find that it is practically impossible to revoke the citizenship of a naturalized citizen. Why is this? We are constantly bombarded with the assertion that we are not a people, but a country of ideas. The President says that we are a nation of shared ideals and values. Very well, what is supposed to happen when a citizen who is a citizen solely due to being born here says the President’s ideals and values are spinach and hell with them? And he goes on to say, I’m a member of an organization dedicated to killing you and overthrowing you and your whole way of life. Multiculturalism gets very tricky at this point. Do we really want to deal with such a person under rules moderated by the ACLU? Why can’t we take that person at their word and by their actions? Because we have failed to set up a mechanism to do so.

But to get back to drone strikes and apostate Americans, we need both a genuine court to adjudicate when a person can be stripped of his citizenship and new laws to better define citizenship. Birthright citizenship as it now stands is not only an ahistorical doctrine but a danger to us all. Just being born in the US doesn’t make you one of us as I’m sure the late Mr. al Awlaki would agree. Furthermore, naturalized citizens should be here on sufferance. Criminal convictions should lead to revocation of citizenship and deportation.

As to drone strikes, I think this will be a somewhat self limiting phenomenon. We use drones in airspace that is for all intents and purposes “Injun” country, that is, usually with the tacit cooperation or at least acceptance of the failed state over which we fly. There are only so many such places in the world. There would be fewer but for the decolonization of the 20th century. Pakistan is the world’s second most dangerous failed state and like North Korea it has nuclear weapons. But it is a place of disorder and not in full control of It's own territory. Whether we resort to commandos, drones or intercession through prayer, it will remain a dangerous joke among the nations. We cannot change that.

I see no impulse on our part to use drones on the outskirts of Paris or Buenos Aries. Drone technology will beget counter drone technology among sophisticated nations. So it will always be the wild pest-holes of the world over which they will be used.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

2013-02-04T22:27:00.001-05:00

Hanoi Jane

White House Michele

OUR GALANT ALLIES SEARCHING FOR PARTNERS IN PEACE

2013-02-04T15:57:00.001-05:00

MEXICANS IN THE RECORD BOOKS

2013-01-31T14:22:00.002-05:00

I see that the Bucks County PA Recorder of Deeds is under attack in the media and in communication to the Board of Commissioners. The complaint is being brought by a New Jersey company called Foveonics, located in Toms River. As usual with complaints about government contracting, there is a hint of pay-to-play unrequited love, not to mention maladroit procedure. Someone needs to rethink meeting with unhappy contractors at County GOP headquarters. This may seem damning, but given that the HQ is literally across the street from the county administration building, it easy to see what happened.

But the central issue is that a company engaged in important government document work hires non-English speakers who appear to those working with them to be illegal aliens. The complaint alleges that the Recorder of Deeds asked, “...Why Foveonics had Mexicans running around putting books back incorrectly and scanning microfilm,” and whether “they were here legally.” Both the Recorder and a County Commissioner who was also present deny saying this.

My question is, why wouldn’t they have asked that? According to the Bucks County Courier Times, the premier press organ of the area, “Whichever company is hired, the contract calls for the creation of an index management system to include all recorded documents and indexes from the years 1684 to 1980, according to to the county. Approximately 1 million images from books and microfilm are to be scanned.” This, in the immortal words of our Vice President, “Is a big *#&@ing deal!” At least it’s a big deal to anyone wanting to buy a house or property in Bucks County. It’s also a big deal to Historians and other scholars who will want to refer to accurate records of our past. Try doing that with deed records rendered into a puzzle by workers whose last employment was cutting into agave plants with a machete.

We are at a position now where you might get into legal difficulty for hiring people who one strongly suspects are here illegally, but you can also end up in court for trying not to hire illegal aliens. If Bucks County officials had a concern about the legal status of contract workers, why not insist that the contractor take steps to demonstrate their legal status? Is it against the law to ask? Perhaps it is. US Senator Menendez claimed that he had no way of verifying the legal status of an illegal alien child molester on his staff. Of course, he never tried either.

This is an example of what some call Anarco-tyranny; a state in which the government actually turns a blind eye to dysfunction while punishing the upright. Try running a business, and the government is prepared to tax, regulate and prosecute you. But sneak into the country and take jobs from the natives, and the government grants you amnesty.

Finally, what about the old saw that Illegals just do work that Americans won’t do. With unemployment running at 7.9 percent in Pennsylvania, I’m sure there are plenty of local Americans who are more than capable of accurately and literately recording our heritage for the future.

***

In an other local news, Congressman Fitzpatrick has introduced a bill before the House to better record and share the identities of all our lunatics in order to prevent them from buying firearms. Given his concern, I wonder if this information might also be shared with Boards of Election around our great country. Then, might we try to get our laws changed back to bar the certifiably insane from voting into office other people of their ilk? Just a thought.

LET US TRY SOMETHING USEFUL

2013-01-24T23:25:00.000-05:00

Any exposure to the news today is an immersion in the gun control debate. As usual, the left pounces on rare, highly emotion laden tragedies to whittle away at the rights of ordinary citizens. We all know that the problem rests with the mentally ill individuals who perpetrate these rare but horrific crimes.

Democrats idiotically want to reduce access to firearms guaranteed by the constitution while Republicans suggest spending more on mental health facilities we can't afford.

One aspect of this problem is the issue of medication. It is boring just to write this, but we are all sick unto nausea of hearing that the deinstitutionalized mentally ill simply refuse to take their anti-psychotic medications. So perhaps instead of tampering with our constitution or spending money we don't have, we need pharmaceutical advances in the from of long acting anti-psychotic medications that only need to be taken once or twice per year. I know this may be difficult but if in the form of a patch or some subdural pump, this would be a real advance in keeping the nutters among us from shooting at us. It would be a lot more easy to keep track of a registry of people adjudged to be in need of such medication and enforce it on a once or twice per annum basis.

This approach Isn't sexy but it would actually help.

THE WAR PARTY HAS NO FUTURE

2013-01-19T22:23:00.001-05:00

This is the text of my latest blog article for the Busks County Currier Times

Chuck Hagel stands ready to be the first Secretary of Defense designate to be refused confirmation for lack of loyalty to another country. Hagel, though a Republican and a decorated combat veteran, is under attack from fellow Republicans for insufficient fealty to the state of Israel. Let that sink in. The party that wraps itself in our flag, finds the thought of a Secretary of Defense actually putting America’s interest first, unacceptable. “Out of the Mainstream” fumes Neocon Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard. Kristol actually said that Hagel failed the test of being a “Defense Intellectual.” This from a man who served not a day in the service of his country and who not only pressed for our fiasco in Iraq but continues to push for a war with Iran, all in the context of the safety of Israel. Similar sniping comes from Senator John McCain, the hotheaded old war enthusiast who was soundly rejected by his own party and the American people. McCain might be President today if more Republicans had been able force themselves to vote for him.

There is an old but true story from the Reagan years. Before being assigned to new posts overseas, ambassadors were summoned into the office of Secretary of State George Schultz. He would ask each to point to their country on the large globe by his desk. Many put their finger on their assigned country. “No,” Schultz would say pointing at the United States of America, “that is your country.” Where is that spirit now?

Opinions can differ as to how much of an ally Israel is or how much we gain from our association with the Zionist state. But to grant enthusiasts for any other country the power to block our choices for public service is near treason.

I was put in mind of this today when the President gave one of his rare news conferences. His defense of his own profligate spending was to challenge the Republicans to put forth spending cuts that included significant reductions in defense. In doing so he gained the upper hand. We all know the GOP has foresworn any such cuts. They are willing to lose this and all such fights in order to keep the neocons and the defense contractors happy.

Hitler is dead. The Cold War is won. Our enemies are nitwits in flip flops carrying small arms in places we can’t pronounce. How many aircraft carrier groups do we need in a world where we have more than the whole rest of the world combined? Our great rival China has precisely one carrier bought off a Russian scrap heap. We have tens of thousands of troops defending prosperous and powerful South Koreans from crazy starving North Koreans. We have more troops defending Germany from a Soviet Union that no longer exists. We are now sitting on some of the worlds largest assets of coal, oil and gas, yet we are bankrupting ourselves in defense of oil sheiks. We are on the precipice of going to war to prevent one Middle Eastern state from acquiring nuclear weapons on behalf of the very state that introduced nuclear weaponry to the region in the first place.

The President nominated Hegal in Defense and Kerry for State because he cares little for either defense or foreign policy. It is our country he wants to transform. Hegal is a realist. Hegal has awakened, smelled the coffee and is willing to get our military in line with the world we live in now. Republicans need to wake up as well. Boeing and General Dynamics are not the only players in town. The people at AIPAC are never going to support the GOP at the polls. Being the war party is the road to nowhere in the coming age of austerity and international balance.

The United States is a great power but we are not the only power. We are speedily moving into a multipolar world in which trade and control of resources are the new measures of power and prosperity. In order to succeed in that world we need a leaner military geared to defending our national interests. We can no longer bestride the world playing favorites at the behest of domestic pressure groups. Hagel should be confirmed.

FALLING ON DEAF EARS AT THE POST OFFICE

2013-01-12T23:57:00.000-05:00

I stopped by the Post Office today only to find that a package small enough to fit in my post box was being held behind the counter, which was closed 30 minutes ahead of the regular closing time. Trying to get the attention of a female letter carrier, I found that she was deaf, or pretended to be! I only got my parcel by barging into the restricted work area. So the trip wasn't a total waste of my time. There was a time when barging into the back of a Post Office could get you shot. But I reasoned that even if the postal workers were armed they had little chance of hitting me given their work ethic. And who entrusts anything of value to the Post Office anymore?

Is it any wonder that the Post Office is both bankrupt and a national joke? We are coming more and more inured to third world levels of service from a government that looms larger and larger in our lives. Thank God for UPS.

SIGNS AND WONDERS

2013-01-11T23:25:00.002-05:00

Call me cynical but my first reaction to this sign was...BEWARE OF PICKPOCKETS! But now I see it was referring to elderly pickpockets.

CHRISTMAS

2012-12-24T00:17:00.000-05:00

In ten minutes it will be Christmas Eve. This Christmas, like the first Christmas, is accompanied by a slaughter of innocents.

So let this be the time to put aside politics and all the affairs of men and wonder that a vision so splendid as that of the birth of Christ took place at all.

It is said that we are living in a post Christian era. We still live in a culture molded by, and infused by, Christian culture. We are surrounded by Christian artifacts. But consider what you would think if you never heard or saw any of it. Imagine worshiping many gods or no god at all. Imagine vengeful gods or animal gods. Imagine the thought that the gods we intuit care nothing for us, but exist on some cold and remote plain of perfection. Then imagine the thought that there is one God alone, who cares enough for you, his creation, that He chose to partake of your very nature. A God who pities your imperfection enough top share it. A God who loves you, His creation enough to ask you to come to Him of your own free will or not at all.

Even now, it makes the spirit reel.