Feet Of Clay

Those of us who have supported President Bush through thick and thin since his first election in 2000 are scratching our heads at his behavior with this immigration bill. We have always understood and believed that, warts and all, he loved this country and had its best interests at heart, and would tolerate nothing from the Left that might undermine U.S. sovereignty.

But, for some odd, unknown-to-us reason, the President has chosen to take a stand on behalf of a bill that not only could undermine the very identity of America, but WILL. Sovereign nations are identified as those political entities having defensible borders, a common language, and a unique system of laws. This bill will destroy every one of those aspects of U.S. sovereignty in a single, fell stroke. How the President can not understand this is beyond all of us who admire him, and it leaves us wondering how he suddenly turned against everything he appeared to fight for before.

A couple of things come to mind without too much serious cogitation: For one thing, he is a “lame duck,” a President on his way out. Generally, lame ducks don’t do an awful lot in their last year or two in office but sign bills and make personal appearances. He doesn’t “have a dog in this race,” as the saying goes. He doesn’t have to run for re-election, so he can just “coast” until January of 2009. There are exceptions, of course, but this has more or less been the rule for as long as I have been paying attention to the goings-on in Washington.

The next is simple: Politics. The Left has constructed this bill as a way to not only round up for themselves as many new potential voters as possible, but they have built it in such a way that it will achieve nothing less than the total degradation of George Bush’s Presidency. Talk about having your cake and eating it, too. The Left has swerved into the one thing that will leave this country with a bad taste in its mouth regarding this President. Chicanery and underhanded dealings have always been their long suit.

For us as individuals to admit we have feet of clay is one thing. Admitting that one whom we admire has the same affliction is much harder to do, especially if that individual is “larger than life.” Taking a skeptical, less-than-supportive viewpoint when thinking of the Presidential politics involved in this persistent murder/suicide pact put together by people who hate him is very disturbing. Why would he knuckle under to the likes of Ted Kennedy after all these years of standing firmly against him? Why is this the only cause he feels compelled to support, even if it costs him everything, up to and including his national reputation and the support of the electorate?

Those on the Left, of course, believe the President is a cloddish dolt; ignorant, foolish, and just plain stupid. For them, it’s an easy thing to look within his mind and see what they perceive to be “nobody home.”

And, speculation continues to abound in the press–with the obvious polarization according to political stance–even to the point of some saying that it is because he promised his sister-in-law (Jeb’s Latina wife) that he would put this through for the sake of her and her family. He may eventually explain his reasoning for his support of this evil bill, but in the meantime, we are all left to wonder why he doesn’t say anything beyond expressing his support for it and urging the rest of us to get on board.

It is hard to believe that he would have so little political vision that he would not see what an anti-American thing this bill really is. He accuses those who refuse to support it of not having read it.

The opposite is more likely: The loudest and most telling statements against the bill come from those of us who have read what we can find of it. There can be no doubt about this: The bill is evil in intent, in method, and in consequences. To pass it as it stands is nothing less than seditious. It undermines the legal system. It rewards lawbreakers with rich bounty and government largesse. It ties the hands of law enforcement at all levels. It has not one thing in it that could conceivably be construed as beneficial to American sovereignty.

The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, after all. His father, George Herbert Walker Bush, caved in on something else that was momentously important to the electorate: an increase in taxes, after he repeatedly made the vigorously bold proclamation: “Read my lips! NO NEW TAXES!” Then turned around and signed a huge tax increase. It looks like W just can’t not follow in his father’s footsteps, after all. We could always give him credit for being his mother’s son, but it looks like he is more like his father than we ever knew.

This could be the one decision in his tenure that would put him decidedly into the “Great Presidents” column. With one stroke of the pen, he could insure his place in history alongside Reagan, Lincoln, and other Presidents whose love for the nation took precedence over personal political expediency, or some New-World-style European Common Union, with no borders between the North Pole and the Panama Canal.

But if this bill makes it to his desk and he signs it into law, his legacy will be that of being the one individual who could have saved this country from destruction, but became, instead, the one who failed the test and allowed the dream to die.

Related commentary here

Fish-Stink And Vampire Bites

Time was in America when the average adult had a lot of personal autonomy and freedom, and the government, small and more or less adhering to the Constitutional restrictions placed upon it, butted out more often than it ever butted in.

This left Americans with the freedom to do what they wanted, go where they wished, own whatever they had, and proved beyond a doubt that freedom was worth much more than we thought. We had a gold-standard treasury, which meant there was actual gold backing up the currency in circulation. That was then.

This is now, and we are nearly flattened under the galumphing, odorous, malevolent juggernaut of government as it rolls over our rights and freedoms and nips us, willy-nilly, in the bud. Schools are puddles of blithering mediocrity, super-singularities of fiscal irresponsibility and bureaucratic chicanery, all dumbed down beyond even a child’s ability to cope. When a kid can come home and say school stinks and the teachers are stupid, and be telling the truth, there is something fishy somewhere. We are taxed almost 40% of our income to provide for the latest harebrained scheme to be thought up by the bunch of old hippies now infesting the Houses of Congress.

When the government of a presumably sovereign nation not only refuses to close the borders, then further insists upon granting citizenship to every last criminal trespasser who makes it onto American soil regardless of that trespasser’s criminal record in the past, something is fishy in Washington D.C. for sure. And this is just for starters.

When the government commits us to war for the freedom of another country (knowing we’ll go, because that’s what we do), and commits the lives and blood of thousands of our finest young people to be offered on the altar of world freedom, yet continues to clamp down on public freedom at home, or ignoring the whole concept of “sovereignty,” something truly smells fish-like in the Halls of Infamy.

When the government can’t even agree on whether to fund the actions, safety, or care of those troops without loading the bill with a bunch of self-serving pork and political expediency, the stench of sculpin is truly in the air.

I don’t know about you, but I feel betrayed by the President, who has utterly squandered the love and support he had from us at his election by getting behind the current “immigration” bill after a full term and a half of honest, forthright, patriotic service. What has happened to him and his resolve? Has he just given up on standing on principle? What does Ted Kennedy have on him to make him simply fold up like a cheap lawn-chair, without a whimper or a twitch?

And, am I the only one who feels a sense of loss whenever I contemplate the numerous vampire-bites the government has put into the Constitution in the last 30 years, sucking the blood and life from the most beautiful document written in modern times?

We don’t care if they take all our money and autonomy as long as we can keep maxxing out one credit card after another, have a new car every two years, and never pay more than a simple installment on the interest on our consumer debt. We don’t care that our mortgages (literally, “death grip”) leave us with $250,000 homes furnished from WalMart, or that we are two payments away from bankruptcy and foreclosure. They didn’t teach us anything about this in public school, did they?

We don’t care that we are the fattest and sickest generation of Americans that ever lived, thanks to the blandishments of the commercials that saturate our television programming, and the slick, colorful ads in our papers and magazines. And, if that wasn’t enough, they know we are stupid (because they know what the schools are up to), so they believe we have to be told what to do from morning till night: “Wear a helmet!” “Don’t smoke!” “Don’t eat animal fats!” “Don’t drive over 55!” We interpret these dire admonitions as signs that our influence-loving, power-craving politicians care for us, the little people who put them into office. And as long as they care, we never miss the influence or the power that we have given to them.

We have gladly given over the inalienable supply of freedom that we are all born with and turned it over to the politicians in the fishiest-smelling place in the country, in return for their care for us. We eventually become so used to being cared-for and powerless that we never notice our own vampire-bites, and that our pittance of power is gone, willingly given up through the blandishments and smooth words from the fishlips of the politicians who took it and ran to Washington to squander it to make names for themselves.

Perhaps, though, we haven’t been sucked completely dry. Maybe there is some hope yet. There is a Presidential election coming up in a little over a year. One can only pray that there are enough of us who have a little blood left to send a message to Washington: “Hello, down there!! What part of the Tenth Amendment* don’t you people understand??”

Otherwise, it’s going to look pretty grim for Hail, Columbia, The Gem Of The Ocean…

*Article X. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Memorial Day Reading

Most of today’s posts around the blogosphere, obviously, have to do with Memorial Day, and with freedom. So far, they are all stunningly good. Some are provocative, some seem to have stirred up the demon that lurks in the breasts of leftists. I present for your Memorial Day meditation, the following:

The American Spectator
Dr. Sanity
Eternity Road
The American Thinker

Memorial Day From The Iraqi Front

Michael Yon reports from Iraq. Good reading. May we be worthy of the sacrifices these people have made on our behalf (If you don’t think there’s a connection between what we are doing in Iraq and YOUR freedom, I have this beachfront property in southern Utah I’d like to sell you…).

Memorial Day, 2007

Since September 11, 2001, I’ve learned a lot about freedom and flag-draped coffins. I’ve learned in a very real way that freedom is not free. And, I learned that we must celebrate our honored dead whenever we can, and render them all the honors they deserve. They didn’t think about honors when they put their lives on the line, and just “did their duty.”

The military funeral in America is a pageant of patriotism and honor. Flags saluted, folded, and presented. Color guard, rifle squad, fancy full-dress uniforms. The slow, lamenting strains of “Taps” lifting up and out over the landscape to announce that another hero has fallen. The grief and the prayers, the firing squads, the slow cadences. My heroes.

“My Country ’tis of Thee, sweet land of Liberty! Of Thee I sing.” How can we not put our hands over our hearts and wipe away the tears whenever we sing of America, her flag, and her glory? “Oh, say! Does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave o’er the Land of the free, and the home of the brave?” “God bless America, land that I love!” “Oh, beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain!” Have you ever heard a new patriotic song? It seems like only the “rednecks” of Country music seem to be able to find enough patriotism to sing about. But they have done a wonderful, eloquent job of it, and although their songs will probably not be included in “Patriotic Classic” collections, we know that what they sing about comes straight from hearts full of gratitude and love for America.

This might be a good time to visit the National Cemetery in your area. We need more images of those thousands of white markers marching off into the distance in all directions in the peaceful settings; still standing in their ranks and files, still keeping the endless watch.

We can pray for ‘no more flag-draped coffins,’ but in reality, if were that ever to happen, we would lose this soul-deep awareness of the sacrifices that freedom requires.

For all of you heroes who have watered the freedom of this country and the soil of countries released from bondage and captivity with your lives and blood, I put my hand over my heart, and I look at my flag. In that flag, I see the red of your blood; left on many places in foreign lands. I see the white purity of your honor, unbesmirched, immaculate, as only a real sacrifice must be. And I see the blue field that symbolizes your fidelity; “Duty, Honor, Country!” your battle cry; the stars that call out the names of every state in the Union; all proudly recognizing their sons and daughters whose heroism must always be celebrated and revered; the sacrifice of limb, of mind, of blood, and life. “Greater love than this hath no man; than he lay down his life for his brothers.”

For your gift of freedom does not go unremarked. We are the proud and honored recipients of the freedom you so dearly bought. Our children will be blessed because of your sacrifice, their lives free because of your stalwart spirit.

America, you are so very blessed in your heroes. You are honored by the sacrifices of those fallen heroes, and by the courage and history of those who return alive. America, you truly are the most blessed nation on earth.

Bringing A Butterknife To A Gunfight

The anonymity of the internet makes it easy to express the lowest parts of one’s thoughts without much fear of reprisal or prosecution. Some websites are proof of this, being nothing but outhouse loads of vile filth. Others are scabrously racist. Still others are bitterly atheistic or full of hatred for anyone marked as “other.” Email is even easier to use for weaponry. It is specific in its targets, and anonymous enough that anyone dedicated to using it for warfare can cover their tracks quite well.

Sometimes, it helps those of us who like our own opinions best to see some of the examples of this no-holds-barred poison. It helps us count our blessings that our blogs are seen by so few and don’t really stimulate the kind of responses that seem to be attracted to the more well-known pages. Apparently, to these people, it’s only racism when the person they are hating says it, but not when it spews from their own mouth/keyboard, covered in explicit and derogatory sexual terms, surrounded by all the unsubstantiated accusations that can be conjured up. Dragging spouses and other significant people into the muck is standard practice for these people, who are doing the very things of which they accuse good bloggers. It merely proves that the good bloggers are stirring up thought. “If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody’s not thinking,” said General Patton.

It turns out that most of the people who write for the mainstream on the internet are pretty conventional. They try to get their ideas across in clear language without stepping on too many toes. But, occasionally, someone is going to claim that their toe WAS stepped on, deliberately, by you and you alone. This is always sufficient cause for them to open the floodgates of their filth, hatred, and bile and dump the contents squarely on your head.

I count myself blessed to have a couple of kind bloggers as friends, whose posts always inform, and sometimes inspire. I’ve never found them to be what could be considered racist or inflammatory. So, it’s pretty obvious that when a “correspondent” uses email to spew their filth onto these bloggers, they are looking for an opportunity to do just that, and nothing more. Like the pubescent boy waiting for the bathroom with ulterior motives, these people lurk around the fringes of the internet, waiting for the opportunity to express their sexual frustration in words of scatology, prurience, and sadism.

These people look on the internet as their personal diaries, and believe that they can put there whatever they wish. The content is up to them, and by their fruits, you shall know them. If you have never encountered these people, thank God, but if you write for the ‘net, you won’t be able to escape for long.

Individuals who feel it necessary to use scatalogical, perverted, or racist language to express their feelings don’t have a point to make beyond the fact that they are so poorly equipped to enter the interchange of ideas. Taking a knife to a gunfight is a singularly foolish way to do battle, but with their limited vocabluary and stunted thought processes, they flounder in, splashing all around them with their filth and making no point except the one of their immaturity and ignorance and the depraved character of their minds.

Bad News To The Left

And this is just the beginning, I hope.

Hello…What’s This?

Even more on the POS Bill before the Senate:

In the last few years we have experienced price hikes in gasoline directly as a result of refinery capacity limits when it came to hurricanes, formulation changes and now cold winters. Why cold winters? Refiners are forced to choose between cracking oil for gasoline versus home heating fuel in the run up to the winter season. Now let’s add to this equation that by 2025 (less than 20 years away) there will be approximately another 50 million people living in the US, bringing the total population to 350 million or a further 20% increase in population. So, how will we supply gasoline given the difficulty of building new refineries?

Thanks here to American Thinker.

Scary Beyond Words

I know you’re probably tired of reading about the “No Illegal Left Behind” bill, but sometimes, it’s hard to know just how much people have read about a topic. I guess I just want you to know as much as possible. This just came from REDSTATE.

Money quote duplicated here:

The bill effectively shuts down our immigration-court system. If an alien in the removal process is eligible for the Z visa, the immigration judge must close the proceedings and offer the alien the chance to apply for the amnesty. The wheels of justice won’t just turn slowly, they’ll go in reverse.

The bill transforms the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from a law-enforcement agency into an amnesty-distribution center. If ICE officials apprehend an alien who appears eligible for the Z visa (in other words, just about any illegal alien), they can’t detain him. Instead, ICE must help him apply for the Z visa.

Scary beyond words. John Boenher calls the bill, “A piece of sh*t..” I think he’s much too kind. Kennedy and the others who sponsored and support this bill should be impeached. Apparently, they haven’t gotten the memo about deliberately undermining the sovereignty of the nation.

If that doesn’t tell you what you need to know, THIS WILL. Michelle Malkin has performed the heroic duty of reading the entire bill.

And, just to make sure you get the gist of this post today, go here and read this for further clarification.

Only In Alaska…(pt. 1)

Just listening to the local news. The headline story was about a fight that broke out at a party in the next town over the weekend. Apparently, the party of the first part backed into the vehicle of the party of the second part and put a ding in it. By the time the dust settled, there were thirty people involved: all the obvious and expected fisticuffs, of course, seasoned with a dash of gunfire, and topped by at least one airlifted injury.

And I noticed in the morning paper that the ubiquitous burn barrels will have to wait before being torched off because of dry weather conditions. This area is heavily forested, and burns like tinder in the summer, and it’s almost invariably caused by lightning, but the occasional spark from a burn barrel or campfire can also set off terrifying fires that burn for days or weeks. But, everybody has a burn barrel. Handy gadgets, those. You can buy a 55-gallon drum for fifteen dollars, or two for twenty, and they are already prepared for burning, with holes punched here and there to facilitate combustion. Since people here (the old-timers, at any rate) understand the use, care, and feeding of burn barrels, they are a practical addition to any suburban or rural yard.

And, the tourists are here. Motorhomes and campers are everywhere. Out-of-state license plates almost outnumber Alaskan tags. The trains come through more often, all duded up in fancy new paint jobs and towing observation cars from all the major tour companies. Living in Alaska is like being a member of the cast at Disneyland…