Reflections From a Murky Pond

The state legislature of Arizona recently drafted the United States’ most comprehensive, stringent, and potentially effective anti-illegal immigration law, SB 1070, which Governor Brewer signed into law on Friday, April23, 2010. As expected, Liberals and their minority tenants went insane.

The Liberals have called Arizona’s new illegal immigrations as being equivalent apartheid, Nazi Germany, and the old Jim Crow laws. Various Leftists have advocated punitively boycotting Arizona and the race-baiting filth, Al Sharpton, ever eager for the self-aggrandizement, has promised to lead riots across Arizona if SB 1070 isn’t revoked.

Of course few, if any, of these sorts have bothered to read Arizona’s SB 1070 – the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act – or compare to current federal immigration laws and their supposed enforcement. Those that have likely don’t care; they’re too steeped in hatred of America, racism vs. Whites, and their own political agendas to worry overmuch about facts that contradict their views.

President Obama claims the law is misguided and his Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, has parroted her boss’s assessment and added that this is a Homeland Security matter best left to the federal government to solve.

What I find far worse than “misguided” is the fact that no federal administration in decades, irrespective of political party, has done anything except ignore or exacerbate the threat to America posed by our porous and ever more dangerous southern border. They’re ongoing outright refusal to even enforce the laws currently on the books is worse than misguided; it’s criminal and a dereliction of the duties of the POTUS and has been based solely upon political expediency and pandering.

Tags: 10th Amendment | America | Arizona | Crime | Democrats | Drugs | Hispanics | Immigration | Law | Mexico | Napolitano | Nationalism | Obama | Politics | Racial Profiling | Racism | Terrorism

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Is a man and man, possessed of and by a similar nature and drives to his fellows, irrespective of his race, ethnicity, or creed? Are all peoples essential equal at a fundamental level in that they all have similar aspirations and have both base and sublime desires that resemble those of all other peoples?

Many Americans claim to believe that the answer to all these questions is yes, all men are equal.

Indeed, answer is contained within the single most quoted line from our Declaration of Independence and has been used many times as a rationale for changing our nation’s laws.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

The very wording of this declaration, combined with what we know of the Founding Fathers’ theologies and philosophies, sets forth the inherent equality of all of Man as a matter of Natural Law.

But, if this is case, one would be forced to accept the bad along with good. Whether it is merely people’s belief that all men are inherently equal or a fact of Natural Law that they are, in fact, equal in both propensity for nobility and for ignominy then one should expect roughly similar results and responses any stimulus that is applied to a group people, irrespective of their race, ethnicity, or creed.

That being the case, why do so many people in America believe that “domestic aid” programs will achieve any better results than the bulk of both private (NGO) and governmental foreign aid programs have achieved in the many decades of their existence?

Tags: America | Exceptionalism | Foreign Aid | Liberals | Money | Nationalism | Politics | Poverty | Prejudice | Socialism | Society | Subsidies | Wealth | Welfare

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

There’s an ill wind blowing, both from the from the clean-energy program from last year’s Stimulus and from some of Obama’s erstwhile Democrats in the Senate. It’s carrying the wreak of failure and internal dissent straight into the face of President Obama and his Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner.

It seems that the renewable energy grants included in the Stimulus are stimulating other countries’ economies instead America’s and various Democrats in the Senate are rightfully angered by this.

From Politico:

Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana announced Wednesday a new initiative to require the “Buy America” provision of the stimulus to all programs, not just the government ones. A study done by the Investigative Reporting Workshop found that 79 percent of the $2 billion in clean-energy grants allocated since Sept. 1, 2009, has gone to foreign wind companies.

“We are demanding the Obama administration suspend this program immediately … [and] indefinitely,” Schumer said. “We are sending a letter to Secretary [Timothy] Geithner asking him to halt all payouts for this program until we in Congress can go back and fix this law.”

The senators highlighted a wind farm project in west Texas, which received stimulus aid and is projected to create 3,000 jobs in China and a tenth as many in the United States.

“Some of us complained about this to the administration back in November when this project was first announced, so it’s not that they don’t know about it, but the Energy Department in their reply said they were powerless to stop it because projects like this are automatically eligible for the grants. That answer is not good enough,” Schumer said. “The goal of the stimulus is to strengthen the American economy, and that means creating jobs here in the U.S. not in China.”

That’s right; 79% of the $2 billion in clean-energy grants allocated through the Stimulus since Sept. 1, 2009, have gone to foreign wind companies. That’s $1.58 billion of the American taxpayers’ money going into the coffers of foreign companies.

It’s shockingly refreshing and somewhat heartening to see at least some of the Democrats in Congress not bowing and scraping to Obama and actually looking out for Americans.

At least it proves that President Obama’s claims that the Stimulus and renewable energy would each create jobs was true, at least in a Rovian sense; just the bulk of them won’t be American jobs.

Tags: Casey | Democrats | Economy | Employment | Energy Independence | Free Trade | Geithner | Green | Jon Tester | Nationalism | Obama | Politics | Protectionism | Schumer | Sherrod Brown | Stimulus | US Senate | Wind Power

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Politics, The Environment. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

As is right and proper, the 2nd Presidential Debate of the 2008 US Presidential election campaign included questions on US foreign policy and the use of US military forces in foreign countries. The War on Terror as it is being fought in Afghanistan and Pakistan was a key point in these questions. Each candidate was asked how they would handle with hunting down Al-Qaeda terrorists within Pakistan.

Since I have friends in Pakistan this interested me on a more personal level than it did many of the viewers of the debate. My friends, who are fairly secular and educated would be placed in direct peril if the government of Pakistan collapsed due to the rising unrest, insurgency, and terrorism that could result from an increased and expanded US and / or NATO campaign within Pakistan.

So let us discuss Pakistan’s fate at the hands of each of the US presidential candidates. Each candidate has a different approach to the question. Each approach will have a different impact on the nation of Pakistan and its peoples.

The question:

Should the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and not pursue al Qaeda terrorists who maintain bases there, or should we ignore their borders and pursue our enemies like we did in Cambodia during the Vietnam War?

Sen. John McCain’s answer:

We need to help the Pakistani government go into Waziristan, where I visited, a very rough country, and — and get the support of the people, and get them to work with us and turn against the cruel Taliban and others.

And by working and coordinating our efforts together, not threatening to attack them, but working with them, and where necessary use force, but talk softly, but carry a big stick.

McCain wants to work with the Pakistani government and military to remove Al-Qaeda. More importantly he seems to want to work with the people in Waziristani region to convince them to help remove Al-Qaeda. This means that Pakistan gets to keep its sovereignty – and probably its government – intact. It also probably means that the Pakistani military will bear the brunt of the attacks into the Waziristani region of Pakistan.

From a purely American-centric point of view I find Sen. McCain’s plan to be unsatisfying. I can also find several flaws with this methodology for dealing with Al-Qaeda.

Firstly, there’s no positive proof that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s regime is friendly enough towards the US to consider aiding us in this struggle. Secondly, McCain’s plan hinges on successfully winning “the hearts and minds” of the Waristanis.

Sen. Barack Obama’s answer:

What I’ve said is we’re going to encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our nonmilitary aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants.

And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

Obama wants also wants to work with the Pakistani government and military to remove Al-Qaeda – when it suits our purposes to do so. He makes no mention of- or allusion to working with the people in the Waziristani region to further this effort. This means that US forces will bear the brunt of the attacks into the Waziristani region of Pakistan.

From a purely American-centric point of view I find Sen. Obama’s idea very emotionally appealing; our dead and bereaved from 9/11 deserve to be avenged. I can find several grievous flaws in his plan however.

Firstly, Zardari’s regime is already quite unfriendly to the US and Pakistani troops have already fired upon US / NATO forces within and near the borders of Pakistan; Obama’s plan would most likely escalate that violence into open warfare. Secondly, Obama’s plan would require that US forces launch unsupported attack into Waziristan. This is an action that the Soviets and the Pakistanis themselves have failed at accomplishing.

From Pakistan’s point of view…

I would have to say that Pakistan would fare better with Sen. McCain as President of the United States of America than with Sen. Obama in that role. In point of fact I think Pakistan would do much better with McCain than they would with Obama.

McCain’s plan is a cooperative effort with the Pakistani government and the people of the Waziristani region. By involving all parties it would mitigate the potential for disaster to be the Pakistani government and it’s people.

Obama’s plan seems to focus on using financial aid to convince Zardari’s regime to aid our forces, or at least ignore our encroachments into their territory.  This would likely result in an increase of violence and terrorism in Pakistan if Zardari’s regime could even be convinced in the first place.  Alternatively Obama’s plan could place Pakistan in open warfare against the US and at odds with Waziristan. Either is a recipe for disaster within Pakistan.

Tags: 2008 Elections | Al-Qaeda | Diplomacy | McCain | Nationalism | Obama | Pakistan | Sovereignty | Taliban | War On Terror

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 1:39 pm and is filed under 2008 Election, Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.