The Federalist Corner

Black Parnoia

2009-04-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

Black Paranoia

The Historical Origins of the AIDS Genocide Theory

Joshua G. Mausolf

4/17/2009

Abstract:

This report analyses in detail the historical origins behind the AIDS genocide theory, explaining how its existence stems from America’s systemic offenses against African Americans, particularly those relating to government abuses, medical malpractice, and the combination of the two. Examining both points chronologically, the report divides topically into (1) the distinct abuses of government from slavery to civil rights and (2) the abuses of the medical institution from the plantation to modernity. Although the AIDS genocide theory cannot be proven by definition, this report establishes that its basis rests not in unfounded paranoia but in a substantial history of exploitations.

Black Paranoia: The Historical Origins of the AIDS Genocide Theory

As an article of human psychology, conspiracy theories pervade the psyche, acting as existential mechanisms or outlets, which, though based on historical fact, remain but unsubstantiated theories articulating one or more frustrations epitomic of a particular demographic (Knight, “African Americans”). At first glance, the AIDS genocide theory suffers because its allegations seem but ebony ire, contrivances of black anger aggrandizing AIDS’ incurable nature and virulent prevalence in their population, which according to a 2008 CDC report, “disproportionately” affects blacks compared to “members of other races and ethnicities” (“Fact Sheet”). But as the stereotypically myopic fog of race relations lifts, it becomes apparent that this conspiracy deserves a closer examination—that it is not the incestuous progeny of racial paranoia but an idea necessitating the credence of an academic review in order to explore its historical origins. A cultural manifestation of African American oppression, the AIDS genocide theory evolved from the disturbed bedrock of our nation’s past, namely, the expansive array of injurious abuses levied against African Americans by both the government and the medical institutions, which collectively coalesced to form the mistrust integral to the AIDS genocide theory.

Most prolific yet most archaic among these historical horrors, chattel slavery embodied the very quiddity of government oppression against African Americans, in effect exemplifying the blatant dehumanization ascribed to them and providing the environ for a torrent of persecution which only exacerbated the denigration and expendability thrust upon them by slavery. For example, the idea of genocide attributes roots to the slave trade, where the expeditious harvesting, transportation, and acceptance of Africans caused the death of over 1.5 million slaves (Manning 257), a fact that the slave triangle, in which the U.S. government acted, acquiesced as simply the cost of doing business. Moreover, the Declaration of Independence—which invoked the principles of life and liberty for all—echoed hollowly, bearing the seeds of mistrust in this new American hypocrisy—for here the whites were free to breed, beat, and work the black bodies to death under a banner of government complicity (Knight, “African Americans”).

Truly, such despotic usurpations of black liberty would impel herculean leaps to efface or at least mitigate the blight of slavery. Yet, the government continued to smite African Americans with overt malfeasance, effectively extenuating the precedent of government malevolence and thereby substantiating the roots of distrust that would later bolster the AIDS genocide theory. Lionizing this mistrust, the judicial and legislative systems “thoroughly codified and sanctioned [racism]” (Jackson 29). Cases such as Dred Scott v. Sandford, which ruled that blacks possessed no ordained human rights, condoned carte blanche brutality against African Americans. Issued by the Supreme Court, such rulings contributed to antebellum violence and medical experimentation on African Americans. Similarly, even after emancipation, the bonds of repression remained, forged anew by government regulation and white oppression such as Jim Crow laws, black codes, lynching, and the KKK. Exemplifying these issues in a highly publicized forum, the trial of Emmett Till provided a tangible example evincing the inequities of American justice—and for black America, ossifying their apprehension of government and propelling the Civil Rights Movement to the national stage (Aretha 80-2). Regarding the Civil Rights Movement, the government imposed further battery during the iconic Birmingham protests of 1963, beating black activists, razing them with fire hoses, and terrorizing them with police attack dogs (Chang). Government disinformation and surveillance campaigns against ranking black activists and groups such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Panthers coupled with the assassinations of black leaders such as King and Malcolm X only envenomed African Americans, escalating their alienation (Knight, “African Americans”). Similarly, occurrences of federal corruption and racially compelled police brutality such as the Rodney King beating and the L.A. riots, in conjunction with associated conspiracies, contributed to the nihilistic fear of government inherent in the AIDS genocide theory.

Yet, while these incorrigible and often violent government monstrosities clearly establish the precedent for mistrust and paranoia toward the government, they cannot alone constitute, with the exception of chattel slavery, the basis of racial annihilation intrinsic to the AIDS genocide theory. The foundation for this allegation extends beyond the government’s participation in the slave trade, targeting instead its ubiquitous tolerance and recurring involvement in the systemic medical malpractice levied against African Americans. Quite simply, these offenses date back to the colonial era, where slaves “eschewed Western medicine because they suspected their owners of a greater interest in them as capital than [human beings]” (Washington 48). Such “iatrophobia,” as described in Medical Apartheid, stems from the prescribed “medicine” of whipping or otherwise torturing slaves to exhume malingerers and determine the validity of their illnesses (Washington 30-1). Corroborating the copious maltreatment on the plantation, “scientific racism,” such as that later witnessed in South African Apartheid and Nazi Germany, transcended to colonial academia in the form of ethnocentric research, which, in turn, “provided a biological and ethical rationale for enslavement” (Washington 32-3).

Considering this rationalization and given our nation’s penchant for discrimination, medicine’s desecration of African Americans beyond the crypt—while disconcerting—should not come as a surprise. In fact, the pandemic of racial negligence and malefaction in antebellum America resulted from a slave’s “powerless and legally invisible” status (Washington 30). Of this postmortem exploitation, Todd Savitt explains, in a 1982 article that appeared in The Journal of Southern History, the method in which medical researchers and practitioners employed Negro corpses, detailing how their “black bodies often found their way to dissecting tables, operating amphitheaters, classroom or bedside demonstrations, and experimental facilities” (331). Because of the widespread illegality of “human anatomical dissection…during the antebellum period,” the most ignominious detail of the whole debacle relates to the medical establishment’s uncouth procurement of these corpses (Savitt 337). For instance, “physicians and students had to resort to grave robbing, hurried dissections…., and deception to obtain cadavers for autopsy and anatomical investigation,” and because of African Americans’ “helpless legal and inconsequential social position,” such outré and macabre practices passed without question, making deceased Negroes prime fodder for “medical-school dissections” (Savitt 337). Southern medical schools even vaunted their cities’ capacity to provide prodigious “supplies of clinical and anatomical material” from their black populations (Savitt 341). Justifying these dissections’ prevalence and exclusivity among blacks, Harriet Martineau, after an 1834 visit to Baltimore, explained that these dissections occurred because “coloured people cannot resist” (qtd. in Savitt 337). While the postmortem experimentation on African Americans cannot establish genocide, it provides a historical correlation between the government and medical institution’s prejudice against blacks, illustrating the lenity of the government toward racist medical practice, a policy adroitly transferred to live African specimens.

Exhibiting this racist malpractice, the effrontery manifested by the medical institution against animate African Americans exemplifies the most compelling evidence in the AIDS genocide theory. Consider the accepted view that blacks felt pain differently than whites, a belief best professed by Dr. James Johnson, editor of the London Medical and Chirurgical Review, who averred, “These people will bear anything with nearly if not quite as much impunity as dogs and rabbits” (qtd. in Washington 58). Pursuant to this belief and enabled by legal code, doctors performed countless perilous and sadistic medical experiments on slaves without anesthesia, a practice which by modern standards would challenge even the most demented torture film and certainly would never pass as a semblance of medicine. Consider the case of James Marion Sims who conducted numerable dangerous, unanesthetized surgeries exclusively on slaves as described in Washington’s Medical Apartheid. In one instance, Sims erroneously tried to cure neonatal tetanus by prying apart the skull of an ill black infant, describing the process thus, “I would occasionally puncture the scalp…with the point of a crooked awl, and prize out the edges of the parietal bones” (qtd. in 62-3). Similarly, Sims abscised sections of bone from conscious, young black slaves, killing many in the process (63). In another investigation, Sims, assisted by other doctors, held down slave girls and wrenched their vaginas wide, choosing to “scarify” their vaginal tissue to a melody of “bone-chilling shrieks” (65). Although some of Sims ventures advanced the field of gynecology, his intractably unethical approach to empirical surgery, in which he coerced cooperation and withheld anesthetics, remains akin to the operations of a sociopath. Such incidences proved anything but isolated but unlike Sim’s escapades did not always confer a medical benefit. Consider the notorious work of Dr. Thomas Hamilton whose experiments conjure images of cannibalistic necromancy rather than American medicine. In the early nineteenth century, Dr. Hamilton conducted an investigation where he repeatedly compelled a slave to rest naked in a fire-heated pit of embers that was enclosed by wet blankets to envelop the sweltering heat (Savitt 344). From this torture, Hamilton devised the machinations of a contrived cure for heat stroke, a farce from which he accumulated considerable wealth (Washington 53-4). Experiments such as these established the foundation for later enormities, which instead of widespread yet individualized experiments facilitated by regulatory tolerance, would later manifest themselves as exponentially facinorous government studies effected through institutional trials.

Augmenting the AIDS genocide theory, the deleterious institutional studies targeting African Americans present the most vivid government-medical link because they exacerbate the abusive precedents set forth by centuries of history, substantiate the collusion between the two entities, occurred most recently, and incorporate other conspiracy theories, the sum of which coalesces as a substantive burden upon the black psyche. For example, consider the over two thousand particularly disquieting radiation experiments conducted on African Americans by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) between 1944 and 1994. In these “experimental projects utilizing radiation,” blacks stood a significantly “higher risk than whites” of falling prey “to these harmful nontherapeutic” trials (Washington 218). Operating as a clandestine organization, the AEC deliberately exposed soldiers to nuclear fallout and surreptitiously injected hapless victims with plutonium and other radioactive substances in order “to calibrate the physical damage associated with various dosages of radioactive matter” (Washington 219). Although these horrors befell other races, African American representation in these experiments proved disproportional to the American demographic (Washington 218-9).

Expanding this ruinous experimentation upon African Americans, medical exploitations in prison transpired in an environment where African Americans constitute “40 to 61 percent of all the incarcerated” (Washington 247). Often residing in social or financial isolation, black inmates live without the liberties ascribed to modern citizens, effectively reverting them to a deplorable, “almost…legally invisible [state]” invoking all the pathos of “slaves in [the] antebellum experiments” (Washington 256). For example, throughout our nation’s penitentiaries, scientists subjected “hundreds of black…inmates” to “flash burns” in a concerted effort to determine “how thermal radiation affected darker skins” (Washington 253). Comparatively, such flagrant monstrosities fell within the realm of the tame, proving more pusillanimous than brazen albeit racist nonetheless. Yet, more-pestilent plagues of mad science frequented America’s prisons. In one 1952 research inquiry funded by the government’s National Institutes of Health, Chester M. Southam systematically “injected at least 396 inmates [of a disproportionally black population]…with live human cancer cells” (Washington 253). As opprobrious as such tribulations seem, black inmates endured far more protracted afflictions. Consider the case of the Holmesburg Prison, where African American inmates suffered over a twenty-year span between the 1950s and 1970s (Washington 248). During this period, Dr. Albert M. Kligman conducted meticulously vicious trials at the behest of “thirty-three major pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies, such as Johnson & Johnson, Merck…, and DuPont” (Washington 249). Described as the “worst” and “most dangerous experiments” by Allen Hornblum in Acres of Skin (qtd. in Washington 248), this research consisted of evaluating hundreds of experimental Phase I drugs “upon thousands of captive bodies” (Washington 249). Following these procedures, black inmates experienced irreparable damage, including “baldness” and “permanent” integumentary disfiguration, particularly on their backs which were “flayed, discolored, and scarred” (Washington 249). Kligman’s studies only escalated, however, becoming so daemonic that he “inoculated” his victims “with herpes, vaccinia…, syphilis, gonorrhea, malaria, and amoebic dysentery,” even exposing them to “Staphylococcus and Monilia” as well as radioisotopes and carcinogens such as dioxin (Washington 249-50). Yet, Kligman soon embarked on his “most harrowing” inquiry to date, playing mind games as part of the CIA’s highly classified MK-ULTRA program, in which Dr. Kligman performed “mind-control experiments” with “psychoactive substances,” inducing “temporary paralysis,” catatonia, and irreversible violent states among his predominantly black subjects (Washington 250-1).

Although Dr. Kligman exercised a minimal role in the collective role MK-ULTRA, the program maintains a significant, albeit often overlooked, correlation to the AIDS genocide theory. In 1955, a flourishing “black-only” housing project known as Carver Village suffered the effects of government ethnic cleansing under a delitescent ancillary of MK-ULTRA known as MK-NAOMI (Washington 359-60). Formulated in 1952 as a partnership between the CIA and the Army’s Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, Maryland, MK-NAOMI pursued the development of “biological weapons with first-strike capability” with the intent of covertly implementing that weapon system in future conflicts (Washington 360). To deploy this weapon, the CIA-army taskforce pullulated “more than four million [infected] mosquitoes per day,” disseminating them in Carver Village over a several year span in the 1950s which in turn engendered “a rash of mysterious illnesses” symptomatic of “dengue and yellow fever” and in accordance with its lethal effects (Washington 360-1). For this, the government can furnish no excuse to exculpate its audacity. By inordinately testing the lethality of germ warfare on African Americans, the government’s MK-NAOMI remains but another in the myriad of governmentally sponsored programs of persecution, and its existence only bolsters the basis for the AIDS genocide theory. Moreover, the location of this biological weapon system’s development just happens to coincide with a separate allegation “that HIV was created at the U.S. Army’s Biological Warfare Laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland” (Knight, “AIDS”).

Yet, beyond internecine government-sponsored acts of biological warfare, the most poignant atrocities inciting fear of government-medical genocide emanate from its numerous programs affecting propagation. Hypothetically, if African Americans can no longer reproduce or if the act yields cachectic progeny as in the case of AIDS, then African Americans will perish secondary to natural processes, and if such a disease or other medically engineered entity produced this action, then its induction would constitute genocide. This principal proves the innate rationale behind the AIDS genocide theory, and for this reason, any medical transgressions regarding reproduction or venereal disease seem particularly nefarious. Not surprisingly, the government and medical establishment has a history of depravity in this field. Specifically, consider the history of racial eugenics in which Africans Americans have suffered asymmetrical persecution by the medical community, principally in the field of “compulsory sterilization,” where they remain “staggeringly overrepresented” (Washington 202-3). By 1935, twenty-seven states had implemented laws coercing the sterilization of welfare recipients, the “feebleminded,” and those with perceived “genetic defects,” effectively afflicting hundreds of thousands of people by federal mandate (Washington 202-4). In fact, a 1973 investigation by Atlanta’s Southern Poverty Law Center revealed that half of the women undergoing the federally requisite sterilization were black (Washington 203-4). Moreover, doctors regularly transcended the realm of legality, extending their racially prejudiced agenda by deceiving patients, forging consent forms, and falsifying medical records under an aegis of perfidy, such that, there exists an indeterminate “number of African American women who were sterilized without their knowledge” (Washington 204).

Still, of all the examples of government and medical abuse, the Tuskegee syphilis study prevails as the most incendiary, chiefly, because of its government funding, protracted nature, and underlying assumption of black promiscuity as it relates to sexually related diseases such as AIDS. In effect, the Tuskegee syphilis study catalyzed the years of exploitations by the government and medical institutions, exacerbating an underlying electric surge of “suspicion and distrust” (Jones 39). During this infamous experiment, which transpired over the forty-year period between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) observed the natural progression of syphilis in 400 black males and 200 black controls, noxiously withholding medical care for syphilis despite the availability of proven treatments (Brandt 15). Expressing the epitomic mentality of the study, PHS doctor Thomas W. Murrell comments on the logic behind the PHS’s dereliction:

So the scourge sweeps among them. Those that are treated are only half cured, and the efforts to assimilate a complex civilization drives their diseased minds until the results are criminal records. Perhaps here, in conjunction with tuberculosis, will be the end of the negro problem. Disease will accomplish what man cannot do. (qtd. in Washington 160)

Clearly, the PHS’s motives possessed a more iniquitous guise. Rather than treat these African Americans for “bad blood” as the PHS had asseverated, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment inimically evolved into a "death as an endpoint study” (qtd. in Baader 225), in which they forever relegated at least twenty-eight blacks to Styx—endowed with Charon’s fare—not only mercilessly documenting their demise but perniciously inflicting untold misease upon hundreds more (Brandt 15). The fact that the government sponsored the Tuskegee experiment only agitated the already tumultuous waters of race relations and substantiated the AIDs genocide theory, leading many African Americans such as Professor James Small to bitterly deduce that “our whole relationship to [whites] has been that of [their] practicing genocidal conspiratorial behavior on us,” from “the whole slave encounter right up to the Tuskegee study” (qtd. in Jones 38-9).

Incorporating these egregious collusions between the government and medical establishment, the AIDS genocide theory emerged from the disturbed bedrock of our nation’s past, principally the rash of malefic enormities levied against African Americans by the government and medical institutions, which though buried in the halls of history will forever remain engrained in the African American psyche lest they fade, an ephemeral flash in time. Verily, the AIDS genocide theory suffers most at first glance under the myopia of Caucasian thought, not its insensibility, but rather its inclination to forget its unflattering past and instead hastily characterize this theory as the contrived aggrandizement of black frustration. In reality, racism stems not from our differences but from our blindness in seeing our similarities. Regardless of the AIDS genocide theory’s actuality, understand that its existence is not the incestuous progeny of racial paranoia but an idea emanating from a substantiated history of systemic abuses. Lest history’s pendulum repeat, we must confront, never flee from, our skeletal past, which, though riddled with pain, portends also the glimmer of hope.

Works Cited

Aretha, David. The Murder of Emmett Till. Greensboro: Morgan Reynolds, 2008.

Baader, Gerhard, et al. “Pathways to Human Experimentation, 1933-1945: Germany, Japan, and the United States.” Osiris 20 (2005): 205-231. JSTOR. NVCC Lib., Annandale, VA. 27 Mar. 2009 .

Brandt, Allan M. “Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.” Tuskegee’s Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Ed. Susan M. Reverby. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. 15-33.

Chang, Michael, et al. "Desegregation and Integration." Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century. Ed. Paul Finkelman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Oxford African American Studies Center. 2009. Oxford UP. NVCC Lib., Annandale, VA. 15 Apr. 2009 .

“Fact Sheet: HIV/AIDS among African Americans.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 3 Aug. 2008. 8 Apr. 2009 .

Jackson, John L., Jr. Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness: The New Reality of Race in America. New York: Basic Civitas, 2008.

Jones, James H. “The Tuskegee Legacy AIDS and the Black Community.” The Hastings Center Report 22.6 (1992): 38-40. JSTOR. NVCC Lib., Annandale, VA. 27 Mar. 2009 .

Knight, Peter, et al, eds. “African Americans.” Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003.

---. “AIDS.” Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003.

Manning, Patrick. “The Slave Trade: The Formal Demography of a Global System.” Social Science History 14.2 (1990): 255-279. JSTOR. NVCC Lib., Annandale, VA. 16 Apr. 2009 .

Savitt, Todd L. “The Use of Blacks for Medical Experimentation and Demonstration in the Old South.” The Journal of Southern History 48.3 (1982): 331-348. JSTOR. NVCC Lib., Annandale, VA. 27 Mar. 2009 .

Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Doubleday, 2006.

2008-03-05T13:23:00.000-08:00

Illegal Inundation: The Imminent Threat at Our Southern Border

2008-02-25T18:29:00.000-08:00

Illegal immigration polarizes Americans, dividing them into passionate and inflamed yet antipodal camps. While both sides uphold discrepant views on this controversial subject, one point remains irrefutable: mass illegal immigration occurs on a daily basis, unabashedly unhindered. To date, estimates indicate that between twelve and twenty million illegal aliens have invaded our country (Buchanan 5). Granted, many of these illegal immigrants merely seek prosperity and a better life; and although helping these downtrodden souls proves a gallant aspiration, continuing with such impulsive generosity only undermines our nation. Regrettably, immigration advocates myopically miss the ramifications of illegal immigration, choosing instead to slander opponents of illegal immigration as detached bigots. Despite any misguided opposition, illegal immigration poses an incontrovertible and imminent threat to America’s economy, society, and national security – a threat of such pressing magnitude that we can no longer afford to imperil our country with spineless, partisan politics; lest we fall divided, united we must stand, composing true immigration reform addressing the specific threats of illegal immigration.

Considering the threats of illegal immigration, the economic impact remains the most contested. Many propose the idea that illegal aliens form an inseparable component buoying the American economy. Even President Bush totes the idea that illegal immigrants perform the “jobs Americans won’t do” (qtd in Buchanan 32). Unfortunately, such propaganda only disillusions the American republic. Contrary to popular belief, illegal immigrants compose less than a quarter of the American labor force (Buchanan 33). According to Jeffrey Passel, author of Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics, illegal aliens constitute the following percentages of the labor industry: drywall, tile, landscaping, roofing, and other construction – 22 percent; housekeeping, other private hire, and maintenance – 18 percent; animal slaughter, food processing, and food preparation – 15 percent; and other production or assembly jobs – 8 percent (Buchanan 32-33). Considering the laborious nature of these occupations and given the fact that native-born Americans perform over 79 percent of these “undoable” jobs, the fallacy of the “Indispensable Alien” can no longer stand as the unadulterated truth (Buchanan 32). Americans not only perform and excel at these tasks, they also compose the majority in those labor fields. Further, without the influx of over twelve million undocumented workers, Americans would undoubtedly fill the jobs left by illegal aliens, and at the same time, American wages would increase. According to Harvard economist George Borjas, “cheap immigrant labor” depresses the wages of American laborers by 7.4 percent, thereby augmenting poverty (Buchanan 33).

Though dispelling a common misconception of illegal immigration proves valuable, to not thoroughly examine the true economic threat of this topic would serve a great disservice. The economic exigencies of illegal immigration transgress many facets of economics. Most superficially, illegal aliens lack official legal status and, as a result, evade local and federal taxes. While illegal immigrants pay some indirect taxes, such as sales tax, the revenue generated therein proves insufficient considering the extravagant costs imposed by illegal immigrants. To this point, estimates indicate that the cost of illegal immigration grows exponentially, with the cost to U.S. taxpayers in 2006 tallying in excess of 70 billion dollars (Tancredo 155-156). While the brunt of the burden falls upon state and municipal administration, the costs still affect the federal government. For example, at the federal level, illegal domiciles levied a net fiscal deficit in excess of 10 billion dollars in 2002 alone (Camarota 5). A disproportionate part of this cost stems from illegal immigrants’ exploitation of federal aid through American-born “anchor babies” (Camarota 5). Anchor babies, the term given to the offspring of illegal immigrants, garner their citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result, an anchor baby receives entitlement to extensive federal aid, in addition to the solidification or “anchoring” of his family’s legal status (Tancredo 167).

Moving toward the echelon of state government, the economic ramifications of illegal immigration grow all the more apparent. Effectively, the economic impacts of illegal immigration at the state level affect three primary subdivisions: the justice system, the education system, and the healthcare system. Illegal immigration exhausts an already strained justice system by bolstering the amount of criminal activity in areas where illegal aliens congregate. In Los Angeles, for instance, illegal immigrants accounted for 95 percent of the city’s outstanding homicide warrants in 2004 (Tancredo 157), and while illegal aliens account for only 12 percent of the nation’s populace, they fashion 30 percent of the nation’s federal prison population (Buchanan 27). Consequently, the justice system spends exorbitant sums of money to pursue, arrest, incarcerate, and then deport or detain these criminal aliens.

Regarding the effect of illegal immigration on public education, the immediate cost stems from educating the children of illegal aliens, whose parents fail to pay the taxes required to fund those schools. Educating these children not only strains the resources of an already mediocre public education system but also jeopardizes the future of America through the debasement of public education (Tancredo 156). Today’s America produces too few scientists, mathematicians, and engineers in comparison to other rival nations, and the illegal immigration crisis only exacerbates this problem. If America continues to ignore this educational dilemma, rival nations will surely outpace the United States in technological advancements, potentially imperiling our national security.

Of course, illegal immigration’s most flagrant threat to America’s economy falls upon the healthcare system. Specifically, exploitation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) subverts our economic prowess, effectively providing free healthcare to illegal immigrants without question of their legal status. EMTALA mandates that all healthcare facilities provide premium healthcare to those suffering an “emergency,” which ambiguously constitutes nearly any ailment or condition; from heartburn to heart-attack – cough to cancer – essentially, EMTALA covers the full spectrum of medical conditions (Tancredo 164). Perhaps the most wanton exploitation of America’s generosity comes from Mexico. The Mexican government knowingly informs their citizens of EMTALA and encourages them to invade our country to receive free medical care, in effect bankrupting our healthcare system and thereby perpetuating the healthcare crisis (Tancredo 164). For instance, by early 2005, eighty-four of California’s hospitals succumbed in the wake of illegal immigration, filing for bankruptcy from excessive abuse of EMTALA (Tancredo 164). In states with high populations of illegal aliens, this abuse proffers American citizens no benefit; instead, healthcare grows more limited and becomes inferior in quality (Tancredo 164).

Although the cumulative effect of illegal immigration at the local and state level proves most devastating, the problems concentrated in these localities extend to the rest of America, impeding our economy as a whole. Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post commented in 2006, “What we have now…is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico” (qtd in Buchanan 33). Despite any minor contributions of illegal immigrants, clearly, illegal immigration yields no net economic boon for America as claimed by the opposition. Instead, illegal immigration damages our economy, chiefly through the exploitation of federal and state welfare, and as the famous economist Milton Friedman stated, “It’s just obvious that you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state” (qtd in Buchanan 35).
While illegal immigration’s impact on our economy remains the most contested threat, the threat that illegal immigration poses to American society proves the most apparent. Proponents of illegal immigration incorrectly associate a racist or xenophobic connotation with the idea that “illegal immigration damages society,” yet nothing could serve farther from the truth. The sociological threats of illegal immigration stem not from bigotry or fear but from specific detrimental effects on American society, chiefly, the erosion of American nationalism, the destruction of border communities, the spread of disease, the proliferation of drugs, and the escalation of crime.

The erosion of American nationalism persists in many ways but coincides most clearly with the insurgency of Spanish in America. Now, the point here remains not to besmirch the beautiful language of Spain but merely to illustrate the magnitude of illegal immigration in relation to the growing presence of the Spanish language. While some may take offense to this illustration, it poses a simple manifestation of fact: the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants come from Mexico, Central America, or South America, and all the countries therein host some dialect of Spanish as their native tongue; ergo, the proliferation of Spanish directly correlates to the influx of illegal immigration. The explosive growth of Spanish and our marketing to it rouses an important point: illegal immigrants infect American society. Rather than assimilating into American culture and learning English like immigrants before them, illegal immigrants of today maintain their own language, culture, ideology, and nationality, striving to improve their lives while rejecting the culture of America, effectively negating the “melting pot” which made America great (Tancredo 33). Construe not these lines as pure xenophobia; rather listen to the great words of our late President Theodore Roosevelt who cautioned against the dangers of bilingualism and multiculturalism: “The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities” (qtd in Buchanan 13). Suffice to say, proponents of illegal immigration embrace internationalism, erring on the side of the un-American as opposed to patriotism – supporting immigrants who garner the benefits of America while rejecting the nation and society responsible for its creation, a rather hypocritical stance indeed.

Examining the erosion of American nationalism can prove difficult to appreciate until its full ramifications resound. Yet, considering more tangible topics, the destruction of border communities elucidates a pitfall of illegal immigration. According to U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo, “In border communities, the masses of incoming illegals lay waste to the landscape” (160). Illegal immigrants not only pollute pristine desert habitat, they also desecrate residents’ land with their incessant littering. For example, in Cochise Country, Arizona, between September 2003 and December 2003, workers collected over 6000 pounds of trash discarded by illegal immigrants (Cochise County 12:56). According to Gale Achenbrenner of the Coronado National Forest near Tucson, Arizona, cooking fires employed by illegal aliens have ignited wildfires responsible for devastating fragile desert ecosystems. (Tancredo 174-175). Such reckless defilement of desert habitat illustrates an unfortunate consequence of illegal immigration, yet the environmental left largely ignores this serious problem.

While the destruction of border communities proves regrettable, it pales in comparison to the spread of disease by illegal immigrants. The wake of illegal immigration in America imparts new infections and reintroduces once obsolete diseases, including multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), leprosy, malaria, polio, dengue fever, plague, and Chagas disease (Tancredo 165). The reintroduction of eradicated diseases imposes a medical and sociological retrogression, erasing the valiant efforts of previous generations to end these debilitating maladies. Additionally, of the new diseases introduced, some such as MDR-TB carry a 60 percent fatality rate (Tancredo 165). Moreover, the advent of these diseases perpetuates the healthcare crisis levying further strain on an already taxed system.

Yet, considering the many sociological threats of illegal immigration, none link so closely as the proliferation of drugs and the escalation of violence. Clearly, the proliferation of drugs not only undermines morality in America but also bolsters violence in both border regions and inner-city communities. While illegal immigration plays a critical role in the drug trade, to paint all drug dealers as illegal aliens would prove wholly fallacious. Consequently, illegal immigration’s affect on the drug trade resides at the border, the very womb of American drug proliferation. For instance, between 2000 and 2005, law enforcement agencies confiscated the following drugs in Cochise County, Arizona: 14.31 pounds of heroin, 188 pounds of methamphetamine, 2104 pounds of cocaine, and 348,428 pounds of marijuana (Cochise Country 10:13). Between October 1, 2005 and April 10, 2006, U.S. Border Patrol agents confiscated an additional 378,997 pounds of marijuana in Arizona’s Tucson Sector (Cochise County 10:05). Similarly, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized over 20.4 million dollars of illegal alien contraband between fiscal-year 2004 and for the first six months of fiscal-year 2005 (U.S. Gov. 15).

Nevertheless, of all the sociological threats posed by illegal immigration, the escalation of crime penetrates most deeply. While the opposition loves to evoke pathos for the decrepit alien and most illegal immigrants live in peaceful poverty, many more enter America with the specific purpose of wreaking havoc through criminal activity. Consider Los Angeles. In 2004, illegals aliens accounted for 95 percent of the city’s outstanding homicide warrants and over 66 percent of the city’s fugitive felony warrants (Buchanan 24). In greater California, illegal immigrants constitute 12,000 of the 20,000-membered 18th Street Gang, a notoriously brutal gang deeply embedded with the Mexican Mafia and drug cartels (Buchanan 24). In the nation’s capital, the illegal immigrant John Lee Malvo, along with his accomplice John Allen Muhammad, terrorized the citizens of D.C. in 2002, killing ten people over a three week period (Buchanan 26). Rampant along both coasts, Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, serves as possibly the most prolific yet barbaric gangs in America (Buchanan 22). Dominated by illegal immigrants, members of MS-13 remain infamous for their savage machete executions and mutilations. For example, in Boston, six MS-13 members gang-raped two deaf girls, one of whom sat literally paralyzed in a wheelchair (Buchanan 22). In the Northern Virginia and DC metropolis, over 9500 members of MS-13 reside, and in Fairfax County, Virginia alone, MS-13 accounts for 90 percent of all gang activity (Buchanan 19). Despite any claims otherwise, illegal immigration poses an irrefutable and evolving threat to American society.

Although illegal immigration imposes significant threats to America, thus far, the threat to the economy and the threat to society have effected no cataclysmic implications. Unfortunately, as 9/11 revealed, misconceptions of security and prosperity quickly unravel in the wake of a national security crisis. As plumes of ash echoed hollowly in space, as fires raged and mothers mourned, and as Americans valiantly met their fate amid a Pennsylvania field, America learned the dire consequences of a lapse in national security, and therein rests the greatest crux presented by illegal immigration. Chiefly, America’s government has failed its constitutional obligations per Article IV, Section Four of the U.S. Constitution, which ordains, “The United States shall…protect each of them [every State] against Invasion… [and] against domestic violence.” Utter and unacceptable, the government’s failure to halt illegal immigration disparages America’s national security on two fronts, both foreign and domestic, in effect, welcoming a terrorist attack which would eclipse by any means those witnessed on 9/11.

To many, the illegal immigration debacle presents merely a domestic crisis, but the government’s ineptitude to solve this problem also delivers foreign repercussions in the War on Terror. Considering that the military carries the brunt of the War of Terror, any reduction in military capacity will undermine America’s efforts in the fight against terrorism. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arizona Senator John Kyl stated, “There is today a significant degradation of our military capability…because of illegal immigration” (qtd in U.S. 109th Congress 4). According to Senator Kyl, illegal immigrants’ overt occupation of military training grounds has preempted 1100 hours of Marine and Air Force training and aborted over 400 missions for fear of bombing or otherwise harming illegal aliens. These training grounds prove vital to the preparation of troops because of their acute similarity to the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq (U.S. 109th Congress 4).

Truly, the damages imposed by illegal immigration on our military prove regrettable, but of all the threats levied by illegal immigration, the blatant threat to our domestic national security maintains the greatest potential for devastation. To illustrate the vulnerability of our borders and elucidate the ease with which terrorists can and do infiltrate our country, consider some of the many incursions along our southern border. For example, between 1996 and 2005, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documented 231 “incursions” of the U.S. and Mexico border by armed Mexican military, paramilitary, and other police units (Tancredo 146). Consider the following incursion: On January 23, 2006, sheriff’s deputies of Hudspeth County, Texas confronted a unit consisting of three SUVs and a military Humvee illegally crossing the Rio Grande. Suppressed by gunfire from the Humvee’s fifty-caliber cannon and the SUVs’ twelve uniformed men, the sheriff’s deputies had no choice but to watch in horror as the military unit traveled back into Mexico (Tancredo 147-148). Similarly, drug cartels breach our borders, establishing weapon caches near border communities. For instance, in February 2006, ICE confiscated several weapons caches near Laredo, Texas, whose contents included the following: two bombs, nine pipe bombs, supplies for over thirty additional bombs, extensive components for mass grenade construction, six disarticulated automatic weapons, twenty-two automatic assault rifles, other rifles and pistols, over 4000 rounds of ammunition, ninety-one firearm magazines, four silencers, bulletproof vests, sniper scopes, and surveillance equipment in addition to cocaine, methamphetamine, 400 pounds of marijuana, and 5000 dollars in cash (Tancredo 150). Just recently in late 2007, law enforcement officials exhumed a terrorist plot against Fort Huachuca, an intelligence base in Arizona, and in their efforts, confiscated two Milan anti-tank missiles, Soviet surface-to-air missiles, and grenade launchers, among other weapons (Carter 1-2). Unfortunately, if the Mexican military, drug cartels, and Islamic terrorists can breach our borders, smuggling hundreds of thousands of pounds of drugs and extensive weapon caches, then more-sophisticated terrorist units such as al-Qaeda can also subvert and infiltrate our border “security” bringing with them not only heavy weaponry as shown but also dirty bombs in addition to biological and chemical weapons.

Yet, this revelation grows even more frightening when examined beside the increasing numbers of illegal immigrants coming from Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia (Buchanan 15). In fact, between 2003 and 2005, the number of “Other Than Mexican” (OTM) illegal immigrants skyrocketed, soaring from less than 50,000 to over 155,000 in just three years (Buchanan 16). More shocking, the Department of Homeland Security practices a catch and release policy of these dangerous illegal immigrants. In 2004, the Secretary for Border and Transportation Security, Asa Hutchinson, testified before a judiciary subcommittee, stating, “DHS has no specific policy regarding OTMs apprehended at the Southern border… It is not practical to detain all…OTMs…and, thus, most are released” (qtd in U.S. 109th Congress 16). In a study examining 94 active terrorists in America, Janice Kephart of the Center for Immigrations Studies wrote, “Of the 94 foreign-born terrorists in the United States [including six of the 9/11 hijackers]…about two-thirds (59) committed immigration fraud prior to or in conjunction with terrorist activity” (5). Clearly, as seen in these examples and the Fort Huachuca plot, our porous Southern border presents an imminent threat to America’s national security, offering terrorists a perfect opportunity to cripple America.

In the wake of 9/11, such vulnerability remains unacceptable. Ultimately, America must rise and demand comprehensive border reform, lest the specific threats of illegal immigration dismantle our great country. This nettlesome problem requires a multifaceted solution, which subdivides into two basic categories: first, create a physical impediment and deportation program to halt illegal immigration and second, stop subsidizing illegal immigration. The first solution remains the most obvious, but opponents argue that no matter what fence the government builds, illegal immigrants will breach it. Granted, no security can prove impenetrable; however, if the government builds the fence, guards our borders, and removes the incentive for illegal immigrants to come to America, illegal immigration will all but cease to exist. For this plan to work, however, the government must build the fence along the entire Southern and Northern borders, constructing it with fortified materials and sensors that will detect all subversion of the wall. Moreover, the wall should impose a physical threat to those who climb or tunnel under it, and in addition, the government should bolster Border Patrol, providing them with the funds and manpower necessary to protect America. Further, the government should immediately deport all new illegal immigrants who enter our country and deport all criminal aliens currently incarcerated in America.

On the second solution, America must stop subsidizing illegal immigration. First, amend the constitution to remove the incentive of birthright citizenship to illegal aliens. In essence, reserve birthright citizenship only to those residing in America legally. Second, cut all government funding to sanctuary cities which fail to prosecute illegal immigrants. Third, fine every corporation and individual who employs an illegal immigrant to the maximum extent of the law per offense. This measure will effectively generate funding for both the new border fence as well as the bolstered Border Patrol. Fourth, adopt English as the official language of the United States; by no means ban any language, only require that all public schools teach and test solely in English. Fifth, proffer no rights or licenses to illegal immigrants. Sixth, require proof of legal status before providing any social welfare such as education or medical care, and in the case of EMTALA, explicitly define “emergency.” Further, only provide enough emergency care to stabilize an illegal immigrant, and afterwards deport him. Upon the adoption of these measures, illegal immigrants will have no incentive to come to America, and those who reside here illegally will have no incentive to stay. As a result, many illegal immigrants will leave of their own volition, saving government the impractical challenge of mass deportation.

Illegal immigration proves a divisive issue, requiring an aggressive yet unified solution free of partisan politics – a solution which targets the incontrovertible and imminent threats imposed by illegal immigration, chiefly, the threat to our economy, the threat to our society, and the threat to our national security. In the years ensuing 9/11, such miserable failure to address and resolve illegal immigration remains utterly unacceptable, and America should rise enraged over the ineptitude of our government to uphold the rule of law. How much longer will Americans submit to the incessant bureaucracy of Washington; how much longer will we imperil America for the sake of political correctness? If Americans fail to realize and accept the harsh truths of the illegal immigration, America will ultimately suffocate in its own ignorance. Irrefutably, mass illegal immigration occurs on a daily basis, implementing poverty, effacing our society, and leaving the door open for terrorists. While the pro-immigration movement remains well-intentioned, such reckless abandonment of reason will surely destroy America. Sacrificing our nation at the behest of another would prove the greatest misfortune of our time – a misfortune which Americans must never permit.

Works Cited

Buchanan, Patrick J. State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. New York: Thomas Dunne Books-St. Martin’s, 2006.

Camarota, Steven A. The High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget. Center for Immigration Studies. Washington: Aug. 2004. 24 Nov. 2007. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscal.pdf.

Carter, Sarah A. “Terrorists Target Army Base — In Arizona.” Washington Times. 26 Nov. 2007. 27 Nov. 2007. http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071126/NATION/111260034/1001.

Cochise County, USA: Cries from the Border. Dir. Mercedes Maharis. DVD. Hollywood Studio Rentals, 2006.

Kephart, Janice. Immigration and Terrorism: Moving Beyond the 9/11 Staff Report on Terrorism and Travel. Center for Immigration Studies. Washington: Sep. 2005. 24 Nov. 2007. http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/kephart.pdf.

Tancredo, Tom. In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America’s Border and Security. Nashville: WND Books-Cumberland House Publishing, 2006.

United States. Government Accountability Office. Combating Alien Smuggling: Opportunities Exist to Improve the Federal Response. May 2005. 23 Nov. 2007. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05305.pdf.

United States. One Hundred Ninth Congress. Joint Hearing before the Committee of the Judiciary United States Senate. The Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Strengthening our National Security. May 2005. 24 Nov. 2007. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_senate_hearings&docid=f:22411.pdf.

Copyright © 2008 by Joshua Mausolf

Constitution in Crisis

2008-02-25T18:00:00.000-08:00

America has been influenced in many ways, definitively altered and crafted by select ideas, works, and events. Some works, such as the Declaration of Independence, have catalyzed war; while others, such as The Wealth of Nations, have hewn our economic policy. Still, of all the works that have molded our great nation, none proves as pivotal, as centric, as the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution unequivocally affects America, establishing the cornerstone upon which diplomacy functions. Without this critical text, America would let slip the Founders’ vision, dissolving our liberties and denigrating the America our forefathers fought for so valiantly. Unfortunately, politicians perpetuate this denigration, unabashedly levying unconstitutional legislation such as social welfare, federal criminal law, and regulating agencies. Only through analyzing the passages of the Constitution does such enlightenment emanate, endowing the reader with clarity and pathos for how corrupted our once proud nation has sunk. A return to Tocqueville’s Democracy in America remains plausible only if Americans wake from ignorance and demand change, resurrecting the Constitution to the supremacy of the Founders’ original intent.

Occurring over centuries of legislation, the seismic shift from our Constitution has persisted so gradually that the tremors hardly resonate. Yet Americans will awaken one day, inundated by a tsunami of tyranny, only to find themselves trapped with no hope of escape. Reckless abandonment of the Constitution provides the quickest avenue to oppression, yet politicians continually imperil liberty through unconstitutional legislation, chiefly earmarks, social welfare, violations of the Second Amendment, federal criminal law, regulating agencies, and executive orders.

Earmarks and social welfare programs violate the Constitution by appropriating funds to purposes forbidden therein. Article I, § 8 of the Constitution explicitly defines the extent and purpose to which Congress can appropriate funds. In these provisions, no manifestation of earmarks or social welfare appears, and according to the Tenth Amendment, “The powers not delegated [to Congress]…are reserved to the States respectively.” In addition, earmarks, by design, remain anonymous and unpublished in direct contradiction to Article I, § 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution which states that Congress shall not appropriate money outside the law and that all appropriations of public funds should be thoroughly published.

Violations of the Second Amendment represent clear denial of the Constitution. Today’s laws prohibit specific firearms; subjugate firearm specifications, accessories, and ammunition; and regulate firearm acquisition, access, and possession. The Second Amendment states, “…the right…to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed,” and since these laws overtly infringe, they are uncontrovertibly unconstitutional.

Federal criminal law epitomizes blatant defamation of the Constitution. Under the Constitution, only four crimes remain punishable as a federal offence: piracies and felonies committed abroad, offences against the Law of Nations, counterfeiting, and treason. Of over 3000 federal offences, only four are Constitutional; and according to Marbury vs. Madison, the rest, as abominable to the Constitution, remain null and void. Ergo, under the Tenth Amendment, the power to punish all criminal offences, save the four delegated to Congress, rests with the states respectively.

Federal agencies erase constitutional bounds through their shameless execution of unconstitutional federal provisions. Article I, § 8, Clause 15 of the Constitution specifies that the militia, not enforcement agencies, should “…execute the Laws of the Union.” Additionally, many of these enforcement agencies originated from unconstitutional executive orders (issued by the U.S. President). Executive orders, which carry the weight of law, usurp Article I, § 1 of the Constitution: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Since executive orders violate the Constitution, all agencies established thus are irrefutably unconstitutional. Sadly, such wanton desecration of the “supreme Law of the Land” wholly pervades American government.

Although Americans assume their government acts within the bounds of law, a perusal of the Constitution destroys this fallacy. Unfortunately, many Americans not only remain oblivious to this fact but also hold a false perception of government’s purpose. The purpose of government is not to coddle Americans but to endow them with liberty and self-responsibility. Remember Reagan’s words: “Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.” Washington cautioned, “Government…Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Unfortunately, Americans have ignored these caveats and forgotten the value of freedom, becoming evermore disillusioned by government propaganda. Thomas Jefferson stated, “The people cannot be all, and always, well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.” As the cornerstone of American diplomacy, the Constitution remains thoroughly misunderstood, and any misunderstanding of such a foundational text will progressively compound in severity. Too many Americans fail to comprehend or even consider the Constitution, and of those who do, too few decry the usurpations against it. If America continues in apathy – in indolence – considering not our nation’s Constitution, tyranny will only ensue.

But America does not have to sink into oppression; liberty does not have to be dissolved. America’s future remains a conscious choice, one capably left in the hands of Americans by the Founders, who designed our system of checks and balances in the Constitution as a protectorate of personal liberty. Moreover, Americans must not forget the Declaration of Independence, whose famous lines remain etched so brilliantly in American history: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Whenever government ignores public opinion, disgracing their oath to uphold the Constitution by superseding our liberties, the people have the right, nay, the responsibility to rise and demand change, and if the politicians fail to act, Americans must elect new officials. Submission and tolerance – these are the seeds – that when allowed to flourish, quickly sprout the roots of tyranny. Virgil cautioned, “Yield not to evils, but attack all the more boldly.” Americans must heed this advice. Americans must orchestrate a political insurrection to restore our Constitution; if they succumb, submit to bureaucrats and allow the erosion of our Constitution to persist, America will undoubtedly sink into a sea of tyranny and oppression. Remember Lincoln’s words, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

By abandoning the Constitution, America pursues a tortuous path of self-destruction situated on the brink of tyranny – a path of such precariousness, that a return to safety, a return to freedom can only resound if Americans wake from apathy and effect change, resurrecting the Constitution to the supremacy of the Founders’ original intent. Throughout history, revolutionary ideas have instigated cataclysmic change, and undoubtedly, America has experienced irrevocable transformation from select ideas, works, and events. Above all, the Constitution reigns supreme, proving the most centric and pivotal document in our nation’s history. And it is this document which America must never forget.

Copyright © 2008 by federalist_now