A few weeks ago, I wrote an article describing Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law and why most opposition to it is misled or misleading in its criticism.
Now, some weeks later, both opposition and support for the law have spread across the country and even down into Mexico, with Mexican president Felipe Calderon calling the law “backward” and issuing travel warnings for Mexicans traveling to the state of Arizona. Uhh, excuse me, Presidente Felipe, what exactly are you criticizing? Did you forget the tenets of your own country’s immigration laws and policies?
Did you conveniently forget that Mexico mandates that all levels of law enforcement (which includes the Mexican military) must enforce the national immigration laws? Is Calderon ignoring the fact those laws are in many ways tougher on both legal and illegal immigration than are immigration laws in the United States? Being in Mexico illegally is a felony which will put the offender in jail for at least two years. All potential immigrants must be able to contribute positively to the Mexican economy, society, and the general well-being of Mexico. Those who aid in illegal immigration and those foreign visitors who violate their visas or enter Mexico under false pretenses are either imprisoned or deported, or both.
So Mexico clearly has no issues with enforcing tough, sensible immigration laws. Why, then, is President Calderon hating on Arizona? Mexican politics may be rife with corruption, but this is hypocrisy of the highest order from our southern neighbor.
The most glaring aspect of this criticism from the Mexican president is the way in which he implies that Arizona’s law is racist and/or promotes racial profiling; it is a way of expressing racial solidarity with his people, the Mexicans and Chicanos, against those pesky white Arizonans who dare to enforce America’s immigration laws. Why else would Calderon make such statements, considering his country’s own immigration policies? Mexico’s laws are very harsh on other Central American immigrants who come to Mexico illegally. The Arizona law isn’t explicitly aimed at Mexican immigrants, no matter what the law’s opponents claim. In this way, President Calderon of Mexico acknowledges that he has done nothing to close the spigot of illegal immigrants flowing north out of his country into the United States. He accepts the fact that Mexican immigrants are the most numerous of immigrants in the southwestern United States, and despite the crackdowns on illegal immigrants in his own country, Calderon cannot stand by while his people (many of whom are fleeing the violence and corruption of his country) may be forced to endure the enforcement of American immigration laws, which are not nearly as harsh as his own.
President Obama is set to meet with Felipe Calderon soon, and immigration is sure to be high on the agenda. Seeing as how both presidents have similar opinions on Arizona’s law, the outcome of such a meeting is worrisome at best. The fact that the American president agrees with the Mexican president’s opinion on a harsh American immigration enforcement bill in a state on the Mexican border belies where Obama’s allegiances lie.
This is not to say that Obama is in league with Mexico in some sinister way. But I can guarantee if one of Mexico’s Central American neighbors lodged a similar complaint to Felipe Calderon about Mexico’s immigration policies, Calderon would tell that country exactly where they could shove their complaint.
Arizona passed this law allowing its state and local law enforcement branches to enforce federal immigration laws because the federal government has largely failed at their task. The murder of rancher Robert Krentz is only one of a multitude of murders in Arizona by illegal immigrants. Arizona also now boasts one of the kidnapping capitals of the country, thanks to illegal immigration and the crime that comes with it. When people say that our southern borders are broken, many politicians laugh it off, like President Obama did in a speech shortly following the signing of Arizona’s law. I guess it’s easy to laugh about broken borders when one resides in Washington DC or Chicago. For Arizonans, though, broken borders are no laughing matter.
A country that cannot adequately control its borders is not sovereign. Border security and immigration enforcement are tasks that the federal government legitimately must undertake, since the national borders outline several different states. If the federal government fails in their task or outright refuses to secure the border, as has been the case now for decades, then it must be the state’s imperative to enforce those laws themselves. All the whining and gnashing of teeth over Arizona’s new law ignores the fact that the federal government is not and does not want to secure the borders without comprehensive amnesty to the tens of millions of illegal immigrants currently residing in the US.
Many opponents of Arizona’s law claim that it is solely the responsibility of the federal government to enforce immigration policies and secure the border. I’d be willing to bet that most of those opponents also believe the responsibilities of health care and saving the environment lie with the federal government, too. Time and time again, the federal government has proven that, as its responsibilities, mandates, and subsidies grow, so do its incompetency and inefficiency (not to mention its outstanding debt). Combine that with an unwillingness to secure the border or enforce immigration policy, and we have disastrous situations like that in Arizona which require state and local action to help regain control of the problem.
I was somewhat surprised by cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle calling for all-out boycotts of Arizona. Granted, those cities are Democratic hotbeds of leftist politics, but rarely does one state or locality call for a boycott of another over state policy. This demonstrates the growing political divide in the United States. There will be a showdown, political or otherwise; I can promise you that. It is merely a question of when, where, and in which manner the showdown takes place.
This showdown will not necessarily be between Republicans and Democrats, or even between conservatives and liberals. Some conservatives opposed Arizona’s law, and I’m sure there exist some liberals who agree with it. A clash between Obama’s supporters and supporters of the Tea Party movement might be more accurate, but even that is a shaky description of what may be on the horizon.
The movie trailer that appeared in the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez film Grindhouse for the fake movie “Machete” has been recently redone in light of the signing of Arizona’s immigration law. The new trailer features actor Danny Trejo giving a warning to Arizona, followed by a trailer describing a movie in which Mexicans in the United States wage violent war against Americans who want to enforce US immigration policy and secure the borders. I’m sure there’s more to the plot than that, but politically, that’s what the movie was about.
Is Robert Rodriguez secretly organizing a race war between Chicanos and European-Americans? I doubt it. It’s just entertainment at the end of the day. But if the plot of the movie were reversed, with some white American protagonist waging war against criminal illegal immigrants, would that even make any airtime? How quick and strong would the condemnations come from every news network in America? Couple this new trailer for “you-fucked-with-the-wrong-Mexican” “Machete” with the calls for boycotts of Arizona and with Los Angeles high school teacher Ron Gochez’s call for revolutionary action to his Latino students, and we can see the political divide growing further.
I do not claim to know what lays beyond the horizon, folks. I leave such predictions to people like Gerald Celente and his Trends Research Institute (which, by the way, anyone looking for chillingly accurate predictions of national and global trends should check out). What I and many others can see, however, is a growing, bubbling, frothing, volatile dissatisfaction with the direction of American government. Each side of the political divide is blaming the other side for radicalizing and drifting towards the fringe. The result is gridlock in Congress and polemics by almost everyone in Washington DC. This happens often in times of economic turmoil. The recent senate primary wins, which include Rand Paul of Kentucky, show that the political status quo in Washington DC will not last much longer.
The American political scene has always hovered mostly around the center-right position, no matter who’s in the White House. Under Obama, however, American government has drifted to the center left, and have certainly increased the statism championed by George W. Bush; Obama’s supporters have backed him almost every step of the way. The so-called “radicalization” of the political right is merely a desire for true conservative principles of limited government, balanced budgets, and state sovereignty rather than the usual GOP appease-and-compromise strategy that has left no distinction between Democrats and Republicans.
So does something wicked this way come? Only time will tell. As the new Arizona law illustrates, however, if the federal government cannot do its job when it comes to the border and immigration, those who are affected the most and have the most to lose from government inaction will do the job instead.
While Presidents Obama and Calderon are meeting in DC bemoaning the “racism” of Arizona’s immigration law with their fingers crossed behind their backs, Arizonans will be securing their state and doing what should have been done in all states a long time ago.
May 19, 2010
April 28, 2010
The Looming Immigration Showdown (Part 1 of 2)
Finally!
After months of wrangling over health care, immigration is back in the political spotlight. It was only a matter of time, and both Republicans and Democrats quiver before the notion of addressing the issue. Both parties have something to lose in the immigration debate. Republicans who support amnesty and Democrats who do not will both lose votes. Both parties claim to support tougher border enforcement, but they've been pitching that line for decades now.
What sparked the thrust of immigration to the forefront of political debate in the United States? I'm sure a lot of people will point to Governor Jan Brewer signing a tough new immigration enforcement bill into law recently. I argue that another incident is at the root of the immigration debate renewal: the murder of 58-year-old Robert Krentz, a rancher in Arizona, by an illegal immigrant who then scuttled back into Mexico.
Krentz's death is not a statistical anomaly; it wasn't a glitch in the Matrix. Representative Steve King of Iowa released statistics in 2006 which suggested that twelve Americans were murdered by illegal immigrants per day. This would amount to 4,380 murders per year.
What makes Krentz's murder more poignant are the circumstances of his death. Apparently Krentz was checking the water lines and fencing of his family's property when he discovered a lone illegal immigrant. Krentz's brother has mentioned that Krentz had radioed to him that he had found an illegal immigrant, and was going to try to give him some water.
No one knows exactly what happened next, but Robert Krentz was mortally wounded. He managed to drive part of the way back to his ranch house in his ATV, but died with the engine running and the lights on before he got there.
Days before the killing, Krentz's brother Phil reported possible drug smuggling through their ranch property, which led local authorities to find 290 pounds of marijuana and eight illegal immigrants on the property.
Robert Krentz has become the new rallying figure for those in America who want something to be done about illegal immigration and crime. Whether Krentz would have wanted that is immaterial. It's one thing to sneak across our southern border, take advantage of civil services, and speak little to no English all the while. It's quite another to murder innocent Americans on their own private property.
Within weeks, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the immigration enforcement bill into law, igniting a firestorm of controversy, polemics, protests, riots, and boycotts by civil rights leaders.
So what's all the hullabaloo about? Opponents of the law claim that it will lead to racial profiling, discrimination, and Arizona becoming a police state. Any cursory glance at the law's provisions would quickly dispel such outlandish claims.
As it stands, the law merely provides local and state law enforcement with the legal means to enforce federal immigration laws. If any person with whom the state and local authorities come into contact is suspected of being an illegal immigrant, those authorities have the means to assess their legal status, and if they are found to be in the country illegally and are convicted of the initial offense that led to the authorities approaching them in the first place, then the illegal immigrant is transferred into federal custody.
The clauses in the law with which the law's opponents take issue are those which give local authorities the right to question a suspect's immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion." Of course, for civil rights leaders like Al Sharpton and several Hispanic lawmakers in Congress, this means a de facto Nazi-Germany-Jim-Crow-police-state.
How ludicrous. A few things to consider:
1) The law gives state and local authorities the means to enforce federal immigration policy. There are no special powers given.
2) Since there are no special powers given in the law beyond what is already written, there will not be Arizona cops roaming the streets and rounding up Mexicans.
3) There are multiple clauses in the law that specifically prohibit racial profiling and which protect the rights of lawful, legal citizens.
4) Any officer proven to have acted solely on the basis of race will be punished, so Arizona cops actually have something to lose if they are guilty of racial profiling.
It's fascinating to watch how opponents of the law (which are comprised of both Democrats and Republicans, by the way) dance around these basic facts. If there hasn't been rampant racial profiling in Arizona beforehand (which we have to assume, since Al Sharpton and his ilk haven't opened their mouths about it until now), then why will this new law, which specifically prohibits and penalizes racial profiling, suddenly turn Arizona into a police state?
It won't. But claiming such gains a lot of political points and rallies the leftist troops.
Another claim by opponents of the law is that it will destroy any incentive that Mexicans had to cooperate with police investigations, since they would then run the risk of being apprehended or deported themselves. Of course, one has to wonder how much illegal immigrants cooperate with American authorities in the first place. My bet is that they don't. Besides, there is another provision in the law which allows a police officer to forgo assessing someone's immigration status if the officer feels that such an action will hamper police investigation efforts for other crimes.
The state of Arizona was forced to pass this law because of the federal government's inability to enforce its immigration laws in the border states. Ask Republicans, and they'll likely agree with that statement; ask Democrats, and they'll say it's a failure of the federal government to come to a compromise on the immigration issue in order to pass effective enforcement measures. Both points are correct, but it's important to realize that Congress hasn't reached a compromise on the issue because pro-amnesty legislators continue to push for "a pathway to citizenship."
"A pathway to citizenship"...that sounds so lovely, doesn't it? It brings to mind the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz. But for those calling for such a "path", it amounts to amnesty, pure and simple. Those illegal immigrants put on this "pathway to citizenship" will not be deported or penalized for entering the country illegally; they'd probably be put to work picking vegetables or mowing lawns.
That's not being "racist". Most illegal immigrants find work in those fields, as well as in construction. These stereotypes come from somewhere. But how much more cheap labor do we need injected in to our majority-service economy? We need to be manufacturing and producing more high-quality finished goods. But that's a topic for another article.
Amnesty is the weakest solution to the 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States (and that's a VERY conservative estimate; others, like the company Bear Stearns, peg that number at about 20 million). The alternative is deportation, which is lambasted as inhumane, racist, and all other degrees of "bad" by proponents of amnesty. Another alternative, to do nothing about the illegal immigrants currently here, is unsustainable.
So what do we do? Stay tuned for Part 2 of this essay to find out.
After months of wrangling over health care, immigration is back in the political spotlight. It was only a matter of time, and both Republicans and Democrats quiver before the notion of addressing the issue. Both parties have something to lose in the immigration debate. Republicans who support amnesty and Democrats who do not will both lose votes. Both parties claim to support tougher border enforcement, but they've been pitching that line for decades now.
What sparked the thrust of immigration to the forefront of political debate in the United States? I'm sure a lot of people will point to Governor Jan Brewer signing a tough new immigration enforcement bill into law recently. I argue that another incident is at the root of the immigration debate renewal: the murder of 58-year-old Robert Krentz, a rancher in Arizona, by an illegal immigrant who then scuttled back into Mexico.
Krentz's death is not a statistical anomaly; it wasn't a glitch in the Matrix. Representative Steve King of Iowa released statistics in 2006 which suggested that twelve Americans were murdered by illegal immigrants per day. This would amount to 4,380 murders per year.
What makes Krentz's murder more poignant are the circumstances of his death. Apparently Krentz was checking the water lines and fencing of his family's property when he discovered a lone illegal immigrant. Krentz's brother has mentioned that Krentz had radioed to him that he had found an illegal immigrant, and was going to try to give him some water.
No one knows exactly what happened next, but Robert Krentz was mortally wounded. He managed to drive part of the way back to his ranch house in his ATV, but died with the engine running and the lights on before he got there.
Days before the killing, Krentz's brother Phil reported possible drug smuggling through their ranch property, which led local authorities to find 290 pounds of marijuana and eight illegal immigrants on the property.
Robert Krentz has become the new rallying figure for those in America who want something to be done about illegal immigration and crime. Whether Krentz would have wanted that is immaterial. It's one thing to sneak across our southern border, take advantage of civil services, and speak little to no English all the while. It's quite another to murder innocent Americans on their own private property.
Within weeks, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the immigration enforcement bill into law, igniting a firestorm of controversy, polemics, protests, riots, and boycotts by civil rights leaders.
So what's all the hullabaloo about? Opponents of the law claim that it will lead to racial profiling, discrimination, and Arizona becoming a police state. Any cursory glance at the law's provisions would quickly dispel such outlandish claims.
As it stands, the law merely provides local and state law enforcement with the legal means to enforce federal immigration laws. If any person with whom the state and local authorities come into contact is suspected of being an illegal immigrant, those authorities have the means to assess their legal status, and if they are found to be in the country illegally and are convicted of the initial offense that led to the authorities approaching them in the first place, then the illegal immigrant is transferred into federal custody.
The clauses in the law with which the law's opponents take issue are those which give local authorities the right to question a suspect's immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion." Of course, for civil rights leaders like Al Sharpton and several Hispanic lawmakers in Congress, this means a de facto Nazi-Germany-Jim-Crow-police-state.
How ludicrous. A few things to consider:
1) The law gives state and local authorities the means to enforce federal immigration policy. There are no special powers given.
2) Since there are no special powers given in the law beyond what is already written, there will not be Arizona cops roaming the streets and rounding up Mexicans.
3) There are multiple clauses in the law that specifically prohibit racial profiling and which protect the rights of lawful, legal citizens.
4) Any officer proven to have acted solely on the basis of race will be punished, so Arizona cops actually have something to lose if they are guilty of racial profiling.
It's fascinating to watch how opponents of the law (which are comprised of both Democrats and Republicans, by the way) dance around these basic facts. If there hasn't been rampant racial profiling in Arizona beforehand (which we have to assume, since Al Sharpton and his ilk haven't opened their mouths about it until now), then why will this new law, which specifically prohibits and penalizes racial profiling, suddenly turn Arizona into a police state?
It won't. But claiming such gains a lot of political points and rallies the leftist troops.
Another claim by opponents of the law is that it will destroy any incentive that Mexicans had to cooperate with police investigations, since they would then run the risk of being apprehended or deported themselves. Of course, one has to wonder how much illegal immigrants cooperate with American authorities in the first place. My bet is that they don't. Besides, there is another provision in the law which allows a police officer to forgo assessing someone's immigration status if the officer feels that such an action will hamper police investigation efforts for other crimes.
The state of Arizona was forced to pass this law because of the federal government's inability to enforce its immigration laws in the border states. Ask Republicans, and they'll likely agree with that statement; ask Democrats, and they'll say it's a failure of the federal government to come to a compromise on the immigration issue in order to pass effective enforcement measures. Both points are correct, but it's important to realize that Congress hasn't reached a compromise on the issue because pro-amnesty legislators continue to push for "a pathway to citizenship."
"A pathway to citizenship"...that sounds so lovely, doesn't it? It brings to mind the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz. But for those calling for such a "path", it amounts to amnesty, pure and simple. Those illegal immigrants put on this "pathway to citizenship" will not be deported or penalized for entering the country illegally; they'd probably be put to work picking vegetables or mowing lawns.
That's not being "racist". Most illegal immigrants find work in those fields, as well as in construction. These stereotypes come from somewhere. But how much more cheap labor do we need injected in to our majority-service economy? We need to be manufacturing and producing more high-quality finished goods. But that's a topic for another article.
Amnesty is the weakest solution to the 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States (and that's a VERY conservative estimate; others, like the company Bear Stearns, peg that number at about 20 million). The alternative is deportation, which is lambasted as inhumane, racist, and all other degrees of "bad" by proponents of amnesty. Another alternative, to do nothing about the illegal immigrants currently here, is unsustainable.
So what do we do? Stay tuned for Part 2 of this essay to find out.
January 24, 2010
Bernanke, Banks, and Catastrophically Shifting Tectonic Plates
Banking reforms:
President Obama wants to impose new regulations on banks to halt what he calls “risky lending.” President Obama has once again demonstrated his complete lack of understanding of the fundamental causes of the recession. It was his Democratic presidential predecessor Bill Clinton’s administration which encouraged Fannie and Freddy to give loans to people who couldn’t necessarily pay them back (subprime loans), all in the interest of “fairness” and equality. It was George Bush who continued that policy. To blame the banks for the housing bubble and its subsequent burst is like blaming your car for getting arrested for drunk driving; risky lending was encouraged by government, so Obama blames the free market and offers more government as the solution. As a result, the American stock market, particularly in reference to those bank stocks, has plunged deeper into the toilet for three days straight so far.
And Obama wonders why people are so goddamn angry with his administration after his first year in office.
Haiti:
Over 100,000 people are confirmed dead in Haiti from the recent devastating earthquake. The human suffering in that country is indescribable and unimaginable for most Americans.
The subpar infrastructure has been rendered completely useless, save for the main airport, which normally saw air traffic of about 80 planes a day (or something like that). The US military has increased the efficiency of the airport, and it now is processing about 130 planes, I believe. And here in America, people are getting all angry at the US military, wondering why it’s taking so long to distribute aid and why that aid is having little effect. Celebrities didn’t miss a chance to thrust themselves dutifully into the spotlight to demonstrate their humanitarianism by encouraging economically-bankrupt America to throw money at Haiti.
So in a country with no working infrastructure, hundreds of thousands of dead, an ineffectual government, a roaming gaggle of criminals who escaped from the wrecked prison by the Haitian presidential palace, and a frantically desperate population, our solution is to send wheelbarrows full of money? That’s ridiculous. None of you should donate a penny to Haiti. Haitians need care packages; Haitians need food, water, medicine and other medical supplies, and construction equipment. Haitians aren’t really going to be able to run to their local Home Depot or Rite Aid to pick this stuff up, either. Americans should hold on to their dwindling dollars and organize shipments of actual supplies. Americans should volunteer their skills and physically help out in Haiti, if they can. But I fear that Haiti will become a black hole of donations, with millions of dollars going in and no progress coming out. So save your money, America, and give some help to Haiti that they can actually use.
If Americans want to donate money to a cause, they should donate to their local tent city, or something similar.
Ben Bernanke:
Ol’ Ben is expected to pick up the confirmation for a second run in the Federal Reserve. His supporters, including President Obama, praise his actions during his first tenure, saying that he staved off a potentially devastating depression and mitigated the effects of the recession. As if keeping interest rates artificially low (almost at zero) for this long, printing more fiat currency backed by nothing, and bottomless quantitative easing is going to help us in the long run. What good is a rallying stock market or a small boost in consumer confidence if our currency isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on?
President Obama wants to impose new regulations on banks to halt what he calls “risky lending.” President Obama has once again demonstrated his complete lack of understanding of the fundamental causes of the recession. It was his Democratic presidential predecessor Bill Clinton’s administration which encouraged Fannie and Freddy to give loans to people who couldn’t necessarily pay them back (subprime loans), all in the interest of “fairness” and equality. It was George Bush who continued that policy. To blame the banks for the housing bubble and its subsequent burst is like blaming your car for getting arrested for drunk driving; risky lending was encouraged by government, so Obama blames the free market and offers more government as the solution. As a result, the American stock market, particularly in reference to those bank stocks, has plunged deeper into the toilet for three days straight so far.
And Obama wonders why people are so goddamn angry with his administration after his first year in office.
Haiti:
Over 100,000 people are confirmed dead in Haiti from the recent devastating earthquake. The human suffering in that country is indescribable and unimaginable for most Americans.
The subpar infrastructure has been rendered completely useless, save for the main airport, which normally saw air traffic of about 80 planes a day (or something like that). The US military has increased the efficiency of the airport, and it now is processing about 130 planes, I believe. And here in America, people are getting all angry at the US military, wondering why it’s taking so long to distribute aid and why that aid is having little effect. Celebrities didn’t miss a chance to thrust themselves dutifully into the spotlight to demonstrate their humanitarianism by encouraging economically-bankrupt America to throw money at Haiti.
So in a country with no working infrastructure, hundreds of thousands of dead, an ineffectual government, a roaming gaggle of criminals who escaped from the wrecked prison by the Haitian presidential palace, and a frantically desperate population, our solution is to send wheelbarrows full of money? That’s ridiculous. None of you should donate a penny to Haiti. Haitians need care packages; Haitians need food, water, medicine and other medical supplies, and construction equipment. Haitians aren’t really going to be able to run to their local Home Depot or Rite Aid to pick this stuff up, either. Americans should hold on to their dwindling dollars and organize shipments of actual supplies. Americans should volunteer their skills and physically help out in Haiti, if they can. But I fear that Haiti will become a black hole of donations, with millions of dollars going in and no progress coming out. So save your money, America, and give some help to Haiti that they can actually use.
If Americans want to donate money to a cause, they should donate to their local tent city, or something similar.
Ben Bernanke:
Ol’ Ben is expected to pick up the confirmation for a second run in the Federal Reserve. His supporters, including President Obama, praise his actions during his first tenure, saying that he staved off a potentially devastating depression and mitigated the effects of the recession. As if keeping interest rates artificially low (almost at zero) for this long, printing more fiat currency backed by nothing, and bottomless quantitative easing is going to help us in the long run. What good is a rallying stock market or a small boost in consumer confidence if our currency isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on?
January 19, 2010
Health Care Czars? No Thanks.
The health care system of the United States needs some reform. Truly progressive and effective reform cannot come from the federal government, however. Here’s why.
One side of the health care debate, the side which is dominated by politically left-leaning Democrats and liberals, the argument states that the solution to millions of Americans’ lack of adequate health insurance is a government-run “public option” health care plan which its supporters say will force private insurance companies to become more efficient and reduce costs to Americans. The other side of the argument which is comprised of right-leaning Republicans and conservatives claim that legislation establishing a public health care option is tantamount to a federal government takeover of health care, and in addition to not actually reducing health care costs for Americans on a private insurance plan, would also launch the national deficit into the stratosphere and lead to usual government inefficiency in health care.
Neither side of the debate is arguing that the current health care system that exists in the United States is perfect, or does not need to be reformed. Both sides admit that the current system is inefficient, unresponsive, and grossly expensive. As is usually the case, the argument about solutions to this issue are divided by those who want more government involvement (liberal Democrats) and those who want less government involvement (conservatives). My question to liberal Democrats is this: if you truly believe that our current health care system is inefficient, unresponsive, and grossly expensive, then why in the world would your solution include the federal government as the driving engine of this policy train?
The only entity that is less efficient, less responsive, and worse with money than insurance companies is the federal government. The only body less accountable than large corporations is the federal government. Don’t think so? How long did it take the federal government to distribute water at the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? What has the federal government done to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States? Why does the US have one of the worst infrastructures (in terms of roads, bridges, et cetera) in the world, despite being one of the richest nations on earth? And we’re now considering entrusting that same federal government to make crucial decisions about our health care?
The big-government solution of throwing money at a problem and multiplying bureaucrats and bureaucratic agencies rarely, if ever, leads to a successful resolution of a national problem. The health care problem in the United States is no exception. Want some proof? Just look abroad to the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. An argument by liberal Democrats goes something like this: “It’s a shame how far the United States is behind Europe in providing health services to its citizens.” This argument is based on the premise that governments are good at running health care, and should therefore provide “free” health care to citizens; the example of the NHS in the UK demonstrates otherwise.
While the currently-debated public option in the United States is quite a distant stone’s throw away from the NHS, British MEP Daniel Hannan pointed out that the UK had a similar “public option” which precluded the current socialized health care industry in that country. In reference to the slippery slope of socializing or nationalizing an industry, Hannan rightly asks, “Where does it end?” Indeed, giving the federal government the opportunity to provide a non-obligatory public health care option could open doors at the policy level of further burdensome expansions of the federal government.
Unlike private corporations, the financial coffers of the federal government are essentially endless, so long as Congress approves. This means that the federal government is entirely unresponsive to consumer concerns, efficiency and cost of care, and other market mechanisms that drive pricing because in terms of finances, the government doesn’t have to worry about a loss of funds due to customers finding better care elsewhere. Combine this with the natural tendency for government programs of any sort to foster crippling dependency among the citizens benefiting from them, and we have the National Health Service of the United Kingdom. The United States is currently trotting down the same road that the United Kingdom has traveled, and that road leads to rationed care, cueing for services, and potential months of waiting time; in short, typical centralized government inefficiency.
Lastly, our national deficit and public debt is outrageous. The national public debt is just over $12 trillion. President Obama, one of the driving forces behind the pending health care legislation, promised Americans that the bill will help ease the national debt. Many Congressmen and even the President himself promised that they would not support any bill that adds to the national deficit. President Obama estimated that the initial costs of the planned health care reform would be about $900 billion. Although that may seem like small potatoes now after the multi-billion-dollar “stimulus packages,” $900 billion is truly a staggering price tag for a non-obligatory service. Even now, though, after the bill has passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Obama team is admitting that the initial $900 billion price that America had been quoted during the debate is not enough. James Cabretta of the Heritage Foundation estimates that (even after the four years of “preparation” to raise revenue for the health care project) the bill will actually cost about $2.3 trillion between 2014 and 2023. Both the House version of the bill and the Senate version have comparable price tags when all costs are considered.
What sort of allegedly-responsible government would tack on over two trillion dollars to an ever-bloating $12 trillion of national public debt? Despite what President Obama and President Bush said, the federal government cannot stimulate the economy in a way that will also fill the government’s coffers. The health care bill is therefore more than just fiscally irresponsible; it’s comparable to giving a compulsive gambler a bottomless credit line.
If President Obama and his supporters really want to reform American health care for the better, then they will be best served avoiding the federal government option. The current bill is almost all costs with no guaranteed results, in addition to the political implications of socializing medicine. America will be better off finding innovative market solutions to our health care woes, as can be found in Switzerland’s health care system. Liberty always works better than centralized planning.
One side of the health care debate, the side which is dominated by politically left-leaning Democrats and liberals, the argument states that the solution to millions of Americans’ lack of adequate health insurance is a government-run “public option” health care plan which its supporters say will force private insurance companies to become more efficient and reduce costs to Americans. The other side of the argument which is comprised of right-leaning Republicans and conservatives claim that legislation establishing a public health care option is tantamount to a federal government takeover of health care, and in addition to not actually reducing health care costs for Americans on a private insurance plan, would also launch the national deficit into the stratosphere and lead to usual government inefficiency in health care.
Neither side of the debate is arguing that the current health care system that exists in the United States is perfect, or does not need to be reformed. Both sides admit that the current system is inefficient, unresponsive, and grossly expensive. As is usually the case, the argument about solutions to this issue are divided by those who want more government involvement (liberal Democrats) and those who want less government involvement (conservatives). My question to liberal Democrats is this: if you truly believe that our current health care system is inefficient, unresponsive, and grossly expensive, then why in the world would your solution include the federal government as the driving engine of this policy train?
The only entity that is less efficient, less responsive, and worse with money than insurance companies is the federal government. The only body less accountable than large corporations is the federal government. Don’t think so? How long did it take the federal government to distribute water at the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? What has the federal government done to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States? Why does the US have one of the worst infrastructures (in terms of roads, bridges, et cetera) in the world, despite being one of the richest nations on earth? And we’re now considering entrusting that same federal government to make crucial decisions about our health care?
The big-government solution of throwing money at a problem and multiplying bureaucrats and bureaucratic agencies rarely, if ever, leads to a successful resolution of a national problem. The health care problem in the United States is no exception. Want some proof? Just look abroad to the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. An argument by liberal Democrats goes something like this: “It’s a shame how far the United States is behind Europe in providing health services to its citizens.” This argument is based on the premise that governments are good at running health care, and should therefore provide “free” health care to citizens; the example of the NHS in the UK demonstrates otherwise.
While the currently-debated public option in the United States is quite a distant stone’s throw away from the NHS, British MEP Daniel Hannan pointed out that the UK had a similar “public option” which precluded the current socialized health care industry in that country. In reference to the slippery slope of socializing or nationalizing an industry, Hannan rightly asks, “Where does it end?” Indeed, giving the federal government the opportunity to provide a non-obligatory public health care option could open doors at the policy level of further burdensome expansions of the federal government.
Unlike private corporations, the financial coffers of the federal government are essentially endless, so long as Congress approves. This means that the federal government is entirely unresponsive to consumer concerns, efficiency and cost of care, and other market mechanisms that drive pricing because in terms of finances, the government doesn’t have to worry about a loss of funds due to customers finding better care elsewhere. Combine this with the natural tendency for government programs of any sort to foster crippling dependency among the citizens benefiting from them, and we have the National Health Service of the United Kingdom. The United States is currently trotting down the same road that the United Kingdom has traveled, and that road leads to rationed care, cueing for services, and potential months of waiting time; in short, typical centralized government inefficiency.
Lastly, our national deficit and public debt is outrageous. The national public debt is just over $12 trillion. President Obama, one of the driving forces behind the pending health care legislation, promised Americans that the bill will help ease the national debt. Many Congressmen and even the President himself promised that they would not support any bill that adds to the national deficit. President Obama estimated that the initial costs of the planned health care reform would be about $900 billion. Although that may seem like small potatoes now after the multi-billion-dollar “stimulus packages,” $900 billion is truly a staggering price tag for a non-obligatory service. Even now, though, after the bill has passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Obama team is admitting that the initial $900 billion price that America had been quoted during the debate is not enough. James Cabretta of the Heritage Foundation estimates that (even after the four years of “preparation” to raise revenue for the health care project) the bill will actually cost about $2.3 trillion between 2014 and 2023. Both the House version of the bill and the Senate version have comparable price tags when all costs are considered.
What sort of allegedly-responsible government would tack on over two trillion dollars to an ever-bloating $12 trillion of national public debt? Despite what President Obama and President Bush said, the federal government cannot stimulate the economy in a way that will also fill the government’s coffers. The health care bill is therefore more than just fiscally irresponsible; it’s comparable to giving a compulsive gambler a bottomless credit line.
If President Obama and his supporters really want to reform American health care for the better, then they will be best served avoiding the federal government option. The current bill is almost all costs with no guaranteed results, in addition to the political implications of socializing medicine. America will be better off finding innovative market solutions to our health care woes, as can be found in Switzerland’s health care system. Liberty always works better than centralized planning.
December 7, 2009
Why Is It Business As Usual at Copenhagen?
Human beings are funny sometimes.
One hundred years ago, industry and manufacturing were praised as the mules upon the backs of which the American and European economies rose to power. One hundred years later today, the industrialized world seems to be kicking itself for succeeding at the expense of our planet.
Can anyone remember specifically when the topic of anthropogenic (man-made) climate change became the theme-du-jour among world leaders and activists? The environmental movement has been around for decades, but it seems that only recently have proponents of man-made global warming received the attention they so craved.
At first, it seemed as if the only people who cared about global warming were a handful of climatologists and environmental activists. Enter former Vice President Al Gore from stage left.
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth came out in May of 2006, almost four years ago. The documentary largely consisted of a live slide show presentation given by Gore himself, the topic of which was global warming as caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
I am a political scientist, not a climatologist, so I left the research and the analysis of data to the appropriate experts; the details will not be covered here, save for the main argumentative points of each side of the global warming debate. What I will be covering are the clear political implications and mechanisms that now define the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) debate more so than does the actual science.
An Inconvenient Truth was lauded by critics, world leaders, and audiences alike as being one of the most important documentaries recently made. At the Sundance Film Festival at which it was first played for audiences, the documentary received three standing ovations; 66% of viewers polled said that the film changed their mind about global warming, while 74% of viewers said that they would change their daily habits as a result of knowledge gained from the film. The documentary also won an Academy Award; Al Gore himself (along with the currently-scandalized Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)) won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
Within a couple years, governments, politicians, and populations were sounding the siren call for action on climate change. The predictions and views in An Inconvenient Truth were alarmist at best and downright fallacious at worst, but upon the proximate release of the doomsday film The Day After Tomorrow, people were ready to believe that the world would destroy itself with massive hurricanes and catastrophic weather phenomena if immediate human action was not taken to curtail global warming.
One thing on which both sides of the AGW argument agree is that Earth’s climate has been changing since the planet’s creation. There have always been periods of warming, just as there have been periods of cooling (the Ice Age, anyone?). Most of these climate changes have taken place without global industrialization; where the two sides of the AGW argument differ, however, is how much impact the relatively recent industrialization of much of the world is the main culprit in the alleged current warming trend. People on Al Gore’s side claim that the carbon dioxide emissions from industry, transportation, and energy production are the main culprit in the recent upswing in global temperatures, since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Those who oppose this view claim that humans’ role is overstated, and that the energy output of the Sun is the real determinate of global temperatures, as has clearly been the case since time immemorial.
To me, both arguments seem to hold weight, although I tend to side with those who believe that, if the globe is getting warmer, then it’s most likely due to the gigantic ball of fire that gave our planet life rather than SUVs and cow farts.
I’ll spare my readers the intricate details of each argument; you all are big kids now, so pull up your Pull-Ups and research for yourself.
What has only been talked about in the past couple weeks, however, is what many climate change skeptics have been dealing with for years: what they rightly call “the politicization of science” in which the scientific process and results are manipulated for political gain. Due to the recent “ClimateGate” scandal in which reams of emails and documents from the University of East Anglia’s climatology department were hacked and leaked to the public, these claims of politicization seem to be pretty much on-target.
To make a long story short, the hacked emails and documents suggest collusion among the scientists and professors involved to manipulate or cover up certain scientific data that was harmful to the alarmist conclusions of the proponents of AGW. Some of the emails also indicate that dissenting opinion on the topic in the scientific community was actively suppressed in order to give the impression of consensus in the scientific community (see Al Gore’s quote during his Senate hearing where he angrily insists that there is consensus on the issue). This is all in addition to the revelation that entire sets of raw climate data were deleted, possibly after there were Freedom of Information requests for that data. If that isn’t politicization of science, I don’t know what is.
Of course, those scientists and professors involved are screaming “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!” They claim that the emails in question were a tempest in a teacup, and that what was revealed has no impact on the aforementioned “consensus” that global warming is largely man-made and MUST BE STOPPED. World leaders are also saying how much of a shame it would be if this “all-important action on climate change” wasn’t taken by the governments of the world in order to avert disaster because of a “few” leaked emails and documents.
This is not science, ladies and gentlemen. This is politics, unabashed and sinister politics. The current global warming conference in Copenhagen, Denmark is proof-positive of this.
Such politicization is not new, however, but the Copenhagen summit isn’t just a powwow of world leaders; it’s not a United Nations meeting. It is one of the most prominent examples of governments coming together in an international setting to enact both international and domestic policies geared toward a political goal. The only other example that comes to mind is the Geneva Convention.
It is interesting to note that the atmosphere (pun intended) of the Copenhagen summit is strikingly similar to the atmosphere of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Copenhagen is now dubbed “Hopenhagen;” the summit began with a video of children pleading with their leaders to not let them die a catastrophic death related to a rise in global temperatures. My God, who wouldn’t want to do something about climate change?? There are also sad-faced pictures of the G8 leaders aged by ten years, with quotes from the year 2020 expressing dismay at “not doing anything about climate change” back in 2009 when they had the chance. The AGW campaigners have actually made the most powerful people on earth feel like giant asses before the summit has begun, as if to preempt any non-action against the global warming bogeyman. And, both thematically and literally, President Barack Obama is those leaders’ Great Black Hope in the fight against global warming, which is why he will be the last leader to make a presentation at the summit. What way to seal the deal on a new form of global governance than to have the summit’s closing argument be given by the world’s most beloved politician?
What’s even more ludicrous is the action which the AGW proponents support in order to combat this change. If Al Gore’s supporters are correct and the past century of industrialization has dramatically altered the global climate, then their solutions sound like the equivalent of shooting an incoming tornado with a shotgun in order to save one’s house. In order to prevent the polar ice caps from melting and entire populations of people and animals from dying in scenes straight out of The Day After Tomorrow, emissions from the globe’s most industrious nations will be “cut” somehow by around 20% for most nations. The United States has even agreed to have carbon emissions down 83% of the 1990 level by 2050! Wow! And the European Union has agreed to institute binding legislation for all its member states, even without an agreement at Copenhagen! Oh yeah, and all those developing nations in Asia and Africa will have to transfer all their third-world energy production into clean energy, of course, since the African Dream of industrialization and modernization might force polar bears to swim a little more than usual.
And now that ClimateGate has torn a gaping hole in the alleged scientific consensus on AGW (or, at the very least, called into question the need for global governance on the issue), the Copenhagen summit is trucking along full-speed ahead without so much as a hiccup from those parties involved. Again, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
Frankly, that seals the deal: the fact that it’s business-as-usual in Copenhagen among the globe’s most powerful leaders, something which is rarely (if ever) achieved so harmoniously, is absolutely indicative of something much larger than just cutting carbon emissions. Such action can be taken by legislative action inside the countries involved at the summit. There exists no global governmental body with the power to set, monitor, and enforce emissions levels, but such mechanisms to cut emissions exist within the framework of the countries themselves. So then why is a global summit needed except to establish such a global governmental entity? Why else would the world’s most powerful leaders get together in Denmark other than to set up a brand-new body of global bureaucrats whose job it is to set, monitor, and enforce emissions cuts?
There has been much documentation of the conspiracy theories about the New World Order of global governance by elites. Alex Jones’ film The Fall of the Republic lays out in detail these theories, and the people who have so often called Jones and his supporters “cranks” and “wack-job conspiracy theorists” are becoming less and less convincing. We have in the Copenhagen summit a unique opportunity for globalists to completely dissolve any guise of national sovereignty, something which is essentially already lost among the parties of the European Union. If a governmental body was set up that would set, monitor, and enforce emissions policies in all involved countries around the world, then that entity would have direct influence on the legislative processes and the market economies around the world.
The Copenhagen summit is anti-business, anti-industry, anti-development, and essentially anti-success. Here in the United States, manufacturing has mostly been outsourced to China and other developing nations for cheaper labor costs. Under Barack Obama’s leadership and the Copenhagen summit, the United States is poised to see a complete systemic collapse of what remains of the manufacturing and industrial base which made this country as economically powerful as it used to be. Americans want cleaner energy and cleaner industry; this is demonstrated clearly by market forces which demonstrate that more and more people want cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars and “green” households, so long as the costs don’t skyrocket. But the globalists have co-opted that growing desire and twisted it to mean that more and more people support a global “solution” to global warming. And frankly, with the alarmist forecasts of massive hurricanes, melting polar ice caps, disappearing cute polar bears, arid desert/drought scenes, and entire land masses flooded, who wouldn’t have cause for concern?
Scratch the calloused surface, though, and it doesn’t take much to realize that something much more ominous is at play, here. Clearly the Copenhagen summit is about more than just the sketchy anthropogenic global warming cause, and if Barack Obama is at all the representative of the American people as he claims to be, then he should consider protecting American sovereignty rather than frittering it away in Denmark.
For a good documentary on the other side of the global warming debate that the Copenhagen cohorts don't want you to hear, go to:
The Great Global Warming Swindle
One hundred years ago, industry and manufacturing were praised as the mules upon the backs of which the American and European economies rose to power. One hundred years later today, the industrialized world seems to be kicking itself for succeeding at the expense of our planet.
Can anyone remember specifically when the topic of anthropogenic (man-made) climate change became the theme-du-jour among world leaders and activists? The environmental movement has been around for decades, but it seems that only recently have proponents of man-made global warming received the attention they so craved.
At first, it seemed as if the only people who cared about global warming were a handful of climatologists and environmental activists. Enter former Vice President Al Gore from stage left.
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth came out in May of 2006, almost four years ago. The documentary largely consisted of a live slide show presentation given by Gore himself, the topic of which was global warming as caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
I am a political scientist, not a climatologist, so I left the research and the analysis of data to the appropriate experts; the details will not be covered here, save for the main argumentative points of each side of the global warming debate. What I will be covering are the clear political implications and mechanisms that now define the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) debate more so than does the actual science.
An Inconvenient Truth was lauded by critics, world leaders, and audiences alike as being one of the most important documentaries recently made. At the Sundance Film Festival at which it was first played for audiences, the documentary received three standing ovations; 66% of viewers polled said that the film changed their mind about global warming, while 74% of viewers said that they would change their daily habits as a result of knowledge gained from the film. The documentary also won an Academy Award; Al Gore himself (along with the currently-scandalized Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)) won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
Within a couple years, governments, politicians, and populations were sounding the siren call for action on climate change. The predictions and views in An Inconvenient Truth were alarmist at best and downright fallacious at worst, but upon the proximate release of the doomsday film The Day After Tomorrow, people were ready to believe that the world would destroy itself with massive hurricanes and catastrophic weather phenomena if immediate human action was not taken to curtail global warming.
One thing on which both sides of the AGW argument agree is that Earth’s climate has been changing since the planet’s creation. There have always been periods of warming, just as there have been periods of cooling (the Ice Age, anyone?). Most of these climate changes have taken place without global industrialization; where the two sides of the AGW argument differ, however, is how much impact the relatively recent industrialization of much of the world is the main culprit in the alleged current warming trend. People on Al Gore’s side claim that the carbon dioxide emissions from industry, transportation, and energy production are the main culprit in the recent upswing in global temperatures, since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Those who oppose this view claim that humans’ role is overstated, and that the energy output of the Sun is the real determinate of global temperatures, as has clearly been the case since time immemorial.
To me, both arguments seem to hold weight, although I tend to side with those who believe that, if the globe is getting warmer, then it’s most likely due to the gigantic ball of fire that gave our planet life rather than SUVs and cow farts.
I’ll spare my readers the intricate details of each argument; you all are big kids now, so pull up your Pull-Ups and research for yourself.
What has only been talked about in the past couple weeks, however, is what many climate change skeptics have been dealing with for years: what they rightly call “the politicization of science” in which the scientific process and results are manipulated for political gain. Due to the recent “ClimateGate” scandal in which reams of emails and documents from the University of East Anglia’s climatology department were hacked and leaked to the public, these claims of politicization seem to be pretty much on-target.
To make a long story short, the hacked emails and documents suggest collusion among the scientists and professors involved to manipulate or cover up certain scientific data that was harmful to the alarmist conclusions of the proponents of AGW. Some of the emails also indicate that dissenting opinion on the topic in the scientific community was actively suppressed in order to give the impression of consensus in the scientific community (see Al Gore’s quote during his Senate hearing where he angrily insists that there is consensus on the issue). This is all in addition to the revelation that entire sets of raw climate data were deleted, possibly after there were Freedom of Information requests for that data. If that isn’t politicization of science, I don’t know what is.
Of course, those scientists and professors involved are screaming “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!” They claim that the emails in question were a tempest in a teacup, and that what was revealed has no impact on the aforementioned “consensus” that global warming is largely man-made and MUST BE STOPPED. World leaders are also saying how much of a shame it would be if this “all-important action on climate change” wasn’t taken by the governments of the world in order to avert disaster because of a “few” leaked emails and documents.
This is not science, ladies and gentlemen. This is politics, unabashed and sinister politics. The current global warming conference in Copenhagen, Denmark is proof-positive of this.
Such politicization is not new, however, but the Copenhagen summit isn’t just a powwow of world leaders; it’s not a United Nations meeting. It is one of the most prominent examples of governments coming together in an international setting to enact both international and domestic policies geared toward a political goal. The only other example that comes to mind is the Geneva Convention.
It is interesting to note that the atmosphere (pun intended) of the Copenhagen summit is strikingly similar to the atmosphere of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Copenhagen is now dubbed “Hopenhagen;” the summit began with a video of children pleading with their leaders to not let them die a catastrophic death related to a rise in global temperatures. My God, who wouldn’t want to do something about climate change?? There are also sad-faced pictures of the G8 leaders aged by ten years, with quotes from the year 2020 expressing dismay at “not doing anything about climate change” back in 2009 when they had the chance. The AGW campaigners have actually made the most powerful people on earth feel like giant asses before the summit has begun, as if to preempt any non-action against the global warming bogeyman. And, both thematically and literally, President Barack Obama is those leaders’ Great Black Hope in the fight against global warming, which is why he will be the last leader to make a presentation at the summit. What way to seal the deal on a new form of global governance than to have the summit’s closing argument be given by the world’s most beloved politician?
What’s even more ludicrous is the action which the AGW proponents support in order to combat this change. If Al Gore’s supporters are correct and the past century of industrialization has dramatically altered the global climate, then their solutions sound like the equivalent of shooting an incoming tornado with a shotgun in order to save one’s house. In order to prevent the polar ice caps from melting and entire populations of people and animals from dying in scenes straight out of The Day After Tomorrow, emissions from the globe’s most industrious nations will be “cut” somehow by around 20% for most nations. The United States has even agreed to have carbon emissions down 83% of the 1990 level by 2050! Wow! And the European Union has agreed to institute binding legislation for all its member states, even without an agreement at Copenhagen! Oh yeah, and all those developing nations in Asia and Africa will have to transfer all their third-world energy production into clean energy, of course, since the African Dream of industrialization and modernization might force polar bears to swim a little more than usual.
And now that ClimateGate has torn a gaping hole in the alleged scientific consensus on AGW (or, at the very least, called into question the need for global governance on the issue), the Copenhagen summit is trucking along full-speed ahead without so much as a hiccup from those parties involved. Again, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
Frankly, that seals the deal: the fact that it’s business-as-usual in Copenhagen among the globe’s most powerful leaders, something which is rarely (if ever) achieved so harmoniously, is absolutely indicative of something much larger than just cutting carbon emissions. Such action can be taken by legislative action inside the countries involved at the summit. There exists no global governmental body with the power to set, monitor, and enforce emissions levels, but such mechanisms to cut emissions exist within the framework of the countries themselves. So then why is a global summit needed except to establish such a global governmental entity? Why else would the world’s most powerful leaders get together in Denmark other than to set up a brand-new body of global bureaucrats whose job it is to set, monitor, and enforce emissions cuts?
There has been much documentation of the conspiracy theories about the New World Order of global governance by elites. Alex Jones’ film The Fall of the Republic lays out in detail these theories, and the people who have so often called Jones and his supporters “cranks” and “wack-job conspiracy theorists” are becoming less and less convincing. We have in the Copenhagen summit a unique opportunity for globalists to completely dissolve any guise of national sovereignty, something which is essentially already lost among the parties of the European Union. If a governmental body was set up that would set, monitor, and enforce emissions policies in all involved countries around the world, then that entity would have direct influence on the legislative processes and the market economies around the world.
The Copenhagen summit is anti-business, anti-industry, anti-development, and essentially anti-success. Here in the United States, manufacturing has mostly been outsourced to China and other developing nations for cheaper labor costs. Under Barack Obama’s leadership and the Copenhagen summit, the United States is poised to see a complete systemic collapse of what remains of the manufacturing and industrial base which made this country as economically powerful as it used to be. Americans want cleaner energy and cleaner industry; this is demonstrated clearly by market forces which demonstrate that more and more people want cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars and “green” households, so long as the costs don’t skyrocket. But the globalists have co-opted that growing desire and twisted it to mean that more and more people support a global “solution” to global warming. And frankly, with the alarmist forecasts of massive hurricanes, melting polar ice caps, disappearing cute polar bears, arid desert/drought scenes, and entire land masses flooded, who wouldn’t have cause for concern?
Scratch the calloused surface, though, and it doesn’t take much to realize that something much more ominous is at play, here. Clearly the Copenhagen summit is about more than just the sketchy anthropogenic global warming cause, and if Barack Obama is at all the representative of the American people as he claims to be, then he should consider protecting American sovereignty rather than frittering it away in Denmark.
For a good documentary on the other side of the global warming debate that the Copenhagen cohorts don't want you to hear, go to:
The Great Global Warming Swindle
December 1, 2009
The Seeds of Swiss Minarets
One of the best comments I’ve recently heard from a person who disapproved of the latest Swiss vote on minaret construction was something like “only a symbolic victory over symbolism can be a Swiss victory.”
That comment alone made me laugh heartily…guffaw, even. That tickled my funny bone.
The popular vote to ban the construction of any new minarets in Switzerland has polarized opinion, with half of everyone supporting the Swiss people’s efforts to preserve the unique character of their nation, and the other half bemoaning the alleged intolerance and bigotry of the Swiss people.
The opponents of the vote have a point: the banning of a religious symbol is discriminatory, and it will make Muslims angry. What the opponents have gotten completely wrong is the reasoning that such discrimination is a mistake or “evil” in some way.
The Swiss have had it pretty good so far in the past few decades. With a culture that reflects a blend of European influences, multiple official languages, and unwavering neutrality, internal and external conflict with and within Switzerland are rare. As most articles have pointed out, Islam is the second most popular religion in Switzerland behind Christianity, and most Islamic activity that occurs in Switzerland is under the radar. Thus, to many, the banning of minarets is a rough-palmed slap in the collective face of Switzerland’s Muslim community. This is true, but only to the extent that one assumes the premise that the Muslim community in that country is going to expand to an extent that would require the building of more and more mosques and minarets. Otherwise, the banning is symbolic only, and we know how Muslims react to symbolic offenses (see: the Danish Mohammed cartoon scandal).
The supporters of the vote claim that the minaret is a political symbol implying creeping Sharia law and Islamic dominance. This is like saying that crucifixes on top of churches are political symbols implying Judeo-Christian dominance and the supremacy of God’s law. Both assumptions are both true and not true, because the fact of the matter is a building is just that: a building. What it means is only what people give it. To some Muslims, a minaret in a country that’s ethnically and culturally homogenous (Western) may indeed be a symbol of coming Islamic dominance; to others, it may be a proud symbol of their faith. To others still, it might just be a building.
But the banning of minarets is indeed symbolic. It is a majority of the Swiss telling the world that Switzerland is Switzerland, and they will determine the character of their country. It’s that same majority telling the Muslim minority in their country that they are welcome to practice their faith, but that they reside in Switzerland, not Saudi Arabia, and that the Swiss intend to uphold that distinction. It is a decision to preserve the cultural integrity of their nation, not just to deny Muslims their right to worship (which the vote has nothing to do with).
The political left hates this. To them, the idea that the Swiss are defending their culture and the character of their nation is bigotry, intolerance, racist, and any number of buzz words used by that crowd. The left loves to boast of the “tolerance” and good-heartedness of the Swiss people, and how much this vote has destroyed that image. Politicians are rushing to overturn the vote in some phony, cockamamie “human rights” court. “The multicultural nature of our country is what makes it great!” claim these people. How ridiculous.
Supporters of the vote rightly claim that Muslim-dominated countries are extremely intolerant of other religions and cultures, and that the Swiss are trying to prevent what will be an increasingly anti-Swiss attitude among a potentially growing Muslim population there. Opponents argue that to sink to the intolerant level of those Muslim countries is merely answering barbarism with more barbarism. Once again, the opponents of the vote are right, but for the wrong reasons.
Switzerland has had the good fortune of having a relatively tame, quiet Muslim community. There have been no terrorist attacks, no Muslims calling for the murder of a Swiss popular figure, and no burning of the white-crossed Swiss flag. People are now concerned that these acts of terrorism will now come since this vote has been passed. What the opponents of the vote basically are saying is that they are terrified of Muslims, and that Europeans should do every possible thing in their power to avoid offending them. It’s as if the teachers on a school playground told the other kids to do whatever the school bully says, because he will beat up all the kids if they don’t and the teacher is powerless to do anything about it. That argument, simply put, is absolute 100% concentrated cowardice.
France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany. What do all these countries have in common?
Did you guess it?? If you guessed “a burgeoning Muslim population that is increasingly self-isolated, violent, anti-Western, and politically powerful, which is also set to overtake the native European population by sheer numbers in the near future,” you’re right!
Not so long ago, the populations of the aforementioned countries began opening immigration to all corners of the globe. After World War Two, any ethnic or cultural homogeny was indefensible as a good thing, for such a thing was too reminiscent of Nazism. For years after the last shot of the Second World War was fired, Western Europe remained ethnically and culturally homogenous, with a few exceptions. Europeans hailed the new age of peace and cooperation after two horrible intercontinental wars.
Now, in 2009, the multicultural experiment for which no one voted is failing. The French, British, Dutch, and most other Europeans thought that it didn’t matter whether or not their countries’ populations were made up of boring old white Europeans, Africans, Arabs, or Asians; their country would still be theirs, still be recognizable, still be consistent in terms of values and culture. Anyone who still claims this is dangerously delusional. From “no-go areas” for police in London and Paris, terrorist attacks, assassinations of public figures, anti-Western rhetoric, and honor killings, the wave of immigration from the Third World has had zero benefits for any of these European countries. “Diversity” (meaning fewer people of European descent, as it is used these days) is not a strength; quite the contrary, the evidence actually supports the opposite.
And all of these horrible, negative effects did not come about because these European countries held a vote like the recent Swiss referendum. They came about because the culture of Islam is one of conquest and domination. The political left will blame the inherent racism and discrimination by the native European population for a sense of isolation and alienation among non-Europeans. That argument is a tired one, and operates under the false premise that foreigners shouldn’t feel like foreigners in a foreign land. Fewer and fewer people are drinking the Guilt Kool-Aid anymore.
Are there tolerant, friendly, peaceful Muslims? Absolutely. Without question. But as we’ve seen in the past decade in Europe and around the world, these examples are the exceptions, not the rule. Even if these good examples were the rule, I ask this: if the few exceptions to this peaceful model of Islam kill a few dozen non-Muslims in their own country, is the diversity still worth it? How about a few hundred? How about three thousand? Is diversity still our greatest strength then? How many people have to die in the name of Allah before diversity is no longer a strength to its champions, but a weakness?
I think the Swiss people have seen the devolution of European society in certain urban areas of the rest of Europe due to mass immigration, and I think they know on an instinctive level that what they see is not what they want Switzerland to become. So, yes, the vote is symbolic, but on a much deeper, more cultural level.
And who can fault them at this point?
“Islamophobia”…that’s a good made-up word. Champions of multiculturalism use this pejorative term to describe Europeans’ defense of themselves and their culture from the growing dominance of Islam literally in their backyards. The political left blames the recent Swiss vote on “fear,” just like when they use the terms “xenophobia” and “homophobia.” They like to accuse the opponents of “diversity” of cowardice and of acting out of fear, because it implies irrational thought. But to me, “Islamophobia” doesn’t describe an inherent wariness of radical Islam. Rather, the term describes the people who are terrified of offending Muslims in any way, for any reason, under any pretense, even if it leads to cultural suicide. The real Islamophobes are those who allow radical Muslims to do any damn thing they please in Europe and the United States without resistance for fear of violence and “unrest in the Muslim community.”
And under the leadership of such Islamophobes, radical Islam has permanent footholds in Europe. The deaths will not stop, nor will the terrorism in the name of Allah, nor will the growing parallel Muslim communities within urban Europe. Native Europeans’ birth rates are falling (or stable at almost zero), and in addition to a steady flow of Third World immigrants, those immigrants also have much bigger families and higher birth rates. The Europeans are being beaten in their home turf, and there could come a day where Islam will officially dominate the continent without the need for a jihad. Just read the statements of various Muslim imams both in Europe and around the world. The recent Swiss referendum was just a seed of cultural reawakening in Europe, a growing awareness of the dangers of unfettered immigration for the capitalist purposes of a cheap work force.
Let the seed grow, lest Europe be lost.
That comment alone made me laugh heartily…guffaw, even. That tickled my funny bone.
The popular vote to ban the construction of any new minarets in Switzerland has polarized opinion, with half of everyone supporting the Swiss people’s efforts to preserve the unique character of their nation, and the other half bemoaning the alleged intolerance and bigotry of the Swiss people.
The opponents of the vote have a point: the banning of a religious symbol is discriminatory, and it will make Muslims angry. What the opponents have gotten completely wrong is the reasoning that such discrimination is a mistake or “evil” in some way.
The Swiss have had it pretty good so far in the past few decades. With a culture that reflects a blend of European influences, multiple official languages, and unwavering neutrality, internal and external conflict with and within Switzerland are rare. As most articles have pointed out, Islam is the second most popular religion in Switzerland behind Christianity, and most Islamic activity that occurs in Switzerland is under the radar. Thus, to many, the banning of minarets is a rough-palmed slap in the collective face of Switzerland’s Muslim community. This is true, but only to the extent that one assumes the premise that the Muslim community in that country is going to expand to an extent that would require the building of more and more mosques and minarets. Otherwise, the banning is symbolic only, and we know how Muslims react to symbolic offenses (see: the Danish Mohammed cartoon scandal).
The supporters of the vote claim that the minaret is a political symbol implying creeping Sharia law and Islamic dominance. This is like saying that crucifixes on top of churches are political symbols implying Judeo-Christian dominance and the supremacy of God’s law. Both assumptions are both true and not true, because the fact of the matter is a building is just that: a building. What it means is only what people give it. To some Muslims, a minaret in a country that’s ethnically and culturally homogenous (Western) may indeed be a symbol of coming Islamic dominance; to others, it may be a proud symbol of their faith. To others still, it might just be a building.
But the banning of minarets is indeed symbolic. It is a majority of the Swiss telling the world that Switzerland is Switzerland, and they will determine the character of their country. It’s that same majority telling the Muslim minority in their country that they are welcome to practice their faith, but that they reside in Switzerland, not Saudi Arabia, and that the Swiss intend to uphold that distinction. It is a decision to preserve the cultural integrity of their nation, not just to deny Muslims their right to worship (which the vote has nothing to do with).
The political left hates this. To them, the idea that the Swiss are defending their culture and the character of their nation is bigotry, intolerance, racist, and any number of buzz words used by that crowd. The left loves to boast of the “tolerance” and good-heartedness of the Swiss people, and how much this vote has destroyed that image. Politicians are rushing to overturn the vote in some phony, cockamamie “human rights” court. “The multicultural nature of our country is what makes it great!” claim these people. How ridiculous.
Supporters of the vote rightly claim that Muslim-dominated countries are extremely intolerant of other religions and cultures, and that the Swiss are trying to prevent what will be an increasingly anti-Swiss attitude among a potentially growing Muslim population there. Opponents argue that to sink to the intolerant level of those Muslim countries is merely answering barbarism with more barbarism. Once again, the opponents of the vote are right, but for the wrong reasons.
Switzerland has had the good fortune of having a relatively tame, quiet Muslim community. There have been no terrorist attacks, no Muslims calling for the murder of a Swiss popular figure, and no burning of the white-crossed Swiss flag. People are now concerned that these acts of terrorism will now come since this vote has been passed. What the opponents of the vote basically are saying is that they are terrified of Muslims, and that Europeans should do every possible thing in their power to avoid offending them. It’s as if the teachers on a school playground told the other kids to do whatever the school bully says, because he will beat up all the kids if they don’t and the teacher is powerless to do anything about it. That argument, simply put, is absolute 100% concentrated cowardice.
France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany. What do all these countries have in common?
Did you guess it?? If you guessed “a burgeoning Muslim population that is increasingly self-isolated, violent, anti-Western, and politically powerful, which is also set to overtake the native European population by sheer numbers in the near future,” you’re right!
Not so long ago, the populations of the aforementioned countries began opening immigration to all corners of the globe. After World War Two, any ethnic or cultural homogeny was indefensible as a good thing, for such a thing was too reminiscent of Nazism. For years after the last shot of the Second World War was fired, Western Europe remained ethnically and culturally homogenous, with a few exceptions. Europeans hailed the new age of peace and cooperation after two horrible intercontinental wars.
Now, in 2009, the multicultural experiment for which no one voted is failing. The French, British, Dutch, and most other Europeans thought that it didn’t matter whether or not their countries’ populations were made up of boring old white Europeans, Africans, Arabs, or Asians; their country would still be theirs, still be recognizable, still be consistent in terms of values and culture. Anyone who still claims this is dangerously delusional. From “no-go areas” for police in London and Paris, terrorist attacks, assassinations of public figures, anti-Western rhetoric, and honor killings, the wave of immigration from the Third World has had zero benefits for any of these European countries. “Diversity” (meaning fewer people of European descent, as it is used these days) is not a strength; quite the contrary, the evidence actually supports the opposite.
And all of these horrible, negative effects did not come about because these European countries held a vote like the recent Swiss referendum. They came about because the culture of Islam is one of conquest and domination. The political left will blame the inherent racism and discrimination by the native European population for a sense of isolation and alienation among non-Europeans. That argument is a tired one, and operates under the false premise that foreigners shouldn’t feel like foreigners in a foreign land. Fewer and fewer people are drinking the Guilt Kool-Aid anymore.
Are there tolerant, friendly, peaceful Muslims? Absolutely. Without question. But as we’ve seen in the past decade in Europe and around the world, these examples are the exceptions, not the rule. Even if these good examples were the rule, I ask this: if the few exceptions to this peaceful model of Islam kill a few dozen non-Muslims in their own country, is the diversity still worth it? How about a few hundred? How about three thousand? Is diversity still our greatest strength then? How many people have to die in the name of Allah before diversity is no longer a strength to its champions, but a weakness?
I think the Swiss people have seen the devolution of European society in certain urban areas of the rest of Europe due to mass immigration, and I think they know on an instinctive level that what they see is not what they want Switzerland to become. So, yes, the vote is symbolic, but on a much deeper, more cultural level.
And who can fault them at this point?
“Islamophobia”…that’s a good made-up word. Champions of multiculturalism use this pejorative term to describe Europeans’ defense of themselves and their culture from the growing dominance of Islam literally in their backyards. The political left blames the recent Swiss vote on “fear,” just like when they use the terms “xenophobia” and “homophobia.” They like to accuse the opponents of “diversity” of cowardice and of acting out of fear, because it implies irrational thought. But to me, “Islamophobia” doesn’t describe an inherent wariness of radical Islam. Rather, the term describes the people who are terrified of offending Muslims in any way, for any reason, under any pretense, even if it leads to cultural suicide. The real Islamophobes are those who allow radical Muslims to do any damn thing they please in Europe and the United States without resistance for fear of violence and “unrest in the Muslim community.”
And under the leadership of such Islamophobes, radical Islam has permanent footholds in Europe. The deaths will not stop, nor will the terrorism in the name of Allah, nor will the growing parallel Muslim communities within urban Europe. Native Europeans’ birth rates are falling (or stable at almost zero), and in addition to a steady flow of Third World immigrants, those immigrants also have much bigger families and higher birth rates. The Europeans are being beaten in their home turf, and there could come a day where Islam will officially dominate the continent without the need for a jihad. Just read the statements of various Muslim imams both in Europe and around the world. The recent Swiss referendum was just a seed of cultural reawakening in Europe, a growing awareness of the dangers of unfettered immigration for the capitalist purposes of a cheap work force.
Let the seed grow, lest Europe be lost.
October 27, 2009
Why We Don't Need Further Interdiction in Colombia
The governments of the United States and Colombia are in the process of concluding a deal which would allow the United States to expand its military and law enforcement presence in that country for the stated purposes of security and drug law enforcement. The Colombians especially want more security from the drug cartels and insurgents, and the Americans want the stem the flow of illicit drugs from Colombia into the United States. A quick look at the United States’ “War on Drugs” and its effects would very easily demonstrate that this latest move is detrimental to both goals and will in essence be yet another costly failure in American policy.
At a basic level of analysis, the American “War on Drugs” has failed. Its initial intention was to stop the proliferation of illegal substances within the United States in large part by operations of interdiction with the coerced cooperation of countries of interest, most of which are located in Latin America. However, like the prohibition of alcohol in the 1930’s, the War on Drugs has failed to stop the flow of ANY drug into and/or within the United States. As the militarization of drug enforcement intensified, the drug cartels, gangs, and so-called “narco-terrorists” increased their fighting capabilities, too. These manufacturers and distributors of illegal drugs have enormous amounts of resources, especially in the black market. Restrictions on the trafficking of firearms and munitions have no effect on those gangs’ ability to acquire guns and ammunition. So, in essence, as the drug enforcement teams’ guns got bigger, so did the guns of the people they were fighting.
The result of greater interdiction is the exact opposite of the intention: the destabilization of entire regions due to the growing strength and influence of drug cartels in Latin America. Places like Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Mexico have been plagued by increasingly-violent cartels that have no qualms about killing politicians, police officers, and members of the military to achieve their goals. Again, the result of greater interdiction by the American Drug Enforcement Administration in foreign countries in order to enforce American drug laws in those countries is the destabilization of those countries.
And now the US government is pressuring Colombia to allow greater interdiction capabilities in order to increase stability in that country. Really? Can they possibly be serious? What previous indications convince the proponents of such action that this will work?
The fact of the matter is that it will not work. Ever. Greater interdiction efforts in Colombia by the United States will further destabilize that country, which is arguably one of the last staunch supporters of the United States in that region. The Latin American people are not stupid, and they see the results of American drug enforcement as described above. The recent upswing in anti-American sentiment is not a coincidence. Radical anti-American communist leaders like Hugo Chavez are empowered by American efforts in that region because American interference in Latin American domestic affairs harms Latin Americans. The carrot of economic assistance that is usually dangled in front of the leaders of those nations is no longer enticing as Latin American countries continue to dissolve into violent chaos.
The prohibition of drugs in the United States is ludicrous because it does not have the intended effect of reducing violent crime. The architects of the War on Drugs assumed that a reduction in supply would dry up demand for the drug as prices rose. This would be true if the illegal drug trade worked anything like the regular free market. Alcohol prohibition gave rise to Al Capone and other violent violators of that prohibition, and people still produced, trafficked, and consumed alcohol in the United States. Similarly, drug prohibition has led to an increase in violent crime as people are driven to kill, either to support their addictive habits or to secure the “turf” of a certain drug cartel.
Whether or not drugs are good or bad is unfortunately not relevant. Prohibition does not work, pure and simple. To support it is therefore nonsensical. There are other, more effective ways to combat drug abuse which prohibition measures ignore and (ironically) prohibit through their nature. The clear solution to both the problems in Latin America and in the United States is to end this prohibition on drugs. Legalizing marijuana, as a first example, would make the illegal marijuana market dry up due to lack of demand (or the illegal growers and distributors would legitimize their business, which would add tax revenue to the United States’ coffers).
Insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. More interdiction in Colombia is a pretty good example.
At a basic level of analysis, the American “War on Drugs” has failed. Its initial intention was to stop the proliferation of illegal substances within the United States in large part by operations of interdiction with the coerced cooperation of countries of interest, most of which are located in Latin America. However, like the prohibition of alcohol in the 1930’s, the War on Drugs has failed to stop the flow of ANY drug into and/or within the United States. As the militarization of drug enforcement intensified, the drug cartels, gangs, and so-called “narco-terrorists” increased their fighting capabilities, too. These manufacturers and distributors of illegal drugs have enormous amounts of resources, especially in the black market. Restrictions on the trafficking of firearms and munitions have no effect on those gangs’ ability to acquire guns and ammunition. So, in essence, as the drug enforcement teams’ guns got bigger, so did the guns of the people they were fighting.
The result of greater interdiction is the exact opposite of the intention: the destabilization of entire regions due to the growing strength and influence of drug cartels in Latin America. Places like Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Mexico have been plagued by increasingly-violent cartels that have no qualms about killing politicians, police officers, and members of the military to achieve their goals. Again, the result of greater interdiction by the American Drug Enforcement Administration in foreign countries in order to enforce American drug laws in those countries is the destabilization of those countries.
And now the US government is pressuring Colombia to allow greater interdiction capabilities in order to increase stability in that country. Really? Can they possibly be serious? What previous indications convince the proponents of such action that this will work?
The fact of the matter is that it will not work. Ever. Greater interdiction efforts in Colombia by the United States will further destabilize that country, which is arguably one of the last staunch supporters of the United States in that region. The Latin American people are not stupid, and they see the results of American drug enforcement as described above. The recent upswing in anti-American sentiment is not a coincidence. Radical anti-American communist leaders like Hugo Chavez are empowered by American efforts in that region because American interference in Latin American domestic affairs harms Latin Americans. The carrot of economic assistance that is usually dangled in front of the leaders of those nations is no longer enticing as Latin American countries continue to dissolve into violent chaos.
The prohibition of drugs in the United States is ludicrous because it does not have the intended effect of reducing violent crime. The architects of the War on Drugs assumed that a reduction in supply would dry up demand for the drug as prices rose. This would be true if the illegal drug trade worked anything like the regular free market. Alcohol prohibition gave rise to Al Capone and other violent violators of that prohibition, and people still produced, trafficked, and consumed alcohol in the United States. Similarly, drug prohibition has led to an increase in violent crime as people are driven to kill, either to support their addictive habits or to secure the “turf” of a certain drug cartel.
Whether or not drugs are good or bad is unfortunately not relevant. Prohibition does not work, pure and simple. To support it is therefore nonsensical. There are other, more effective ways to combat drug abuse which prohibition measures ignore and (ironically) prohibit through their nature. The clear solution to both the problems in Latin America and in the United States is to end this prohibition on drugs. Legalizing marijuana, as a first example, would make the illegal marijuana market dry up due to lack of demand (or the illegal growers and distributors would legitimize their business, which would add tax revenue to the United States’ coffers).
Insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. More interdiction in Colombia is a pretty good example.
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