There will also no doubt be those who say this crosses the boundaries of free speech and enters into the realm of inciting crime--they may even deem such words "domestic terrorism." My intent of posting this essay is to illustrate what has been done historically by people we now revere as champions of Liberty--and to illustrate what could happen again if those who just keep pushing with the intent of destroying Freedom don't back off.
Against that background, these speculations could be considered a modest response. Having children, it is my desperate wish--and the reason I have devoted much of my life to fighting the tyranny of gun control--that reason will prevail. It's why I try to rally people to get involved--so that we become so strong, that the potential for confrontation and conflict diminishes into improbability.
Because of this, I don't endorse Mike's conclusion--and that is possibly because he is a more direct and courageous man than me. Nonetheless, I've never insisted on people agreeing with me, and think it's critically important that people understand such sentiments as expressed herein exist. The cynic in me says my way--getting enough people involved and radicalized to render our enemies impotent--is probably a fool's errand. The idealist in me says I can't stop trying.
So perhaps my timidity is helping to keep the frog in the pot. Or perhaps, enough time is being bought so that when the frog finally jumps, he won't be alone.
Read Mike's latest, and make up your own mind.--DC]
Rock 'Em: The Last Chance to Stop the Amnesty Conspiracy
By Mike Vanderboegh
By Mike Vanderboegh
Rebellion is my theme all day;
I only wish ‘twould come
(As who knows but perhaps it may?)
A little nearer home.
Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t’other side the Atlantic,
I always held them in the right,
But most so when most frantic.
When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.
-- The Modern Patriot, William Cowper, 1779.
"And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had...and his sling was in his hand; and he drew near to the Philistines."-- 1 Samuel 17:40.
"Hey, I'm a voter. Aren't you supposed to kiss my butt?"
The Amnesty Conspiracy's bipartisan toadies in the United States Senate wish to ring the death knell for the Founder's Republic. As soon as the 20 million illegals who are now here are, presto, change-o, dubbed "American citizens" and their relatives in the millions upon millions are brought north in "compassionate" reuniting grace, you can hang up any thought of a return to the limited government and constitutional rule of law of the Founders.
Are you concerned about gun confiscation? Its a fact of life in Mexico. Big government intrusion on private free enterprise? Can you say PEMEX? Worried about campaign finance and political corruption? The Mexicans have a word for the endemic bribery that characterizes their government: "mordida"-- the bite, and they expect to be bitten by every official at every level. No matter what issue concerns you, the undeniable tidal wave of a deliberately imported third world culture is about to swamp it.
Let's face it, the only reason we've been electorally competitive this long is that the liberals have been murdering the children within their wombs for the past 35 years. Well, they're going to be importing those wombs now to finish the job.
These folks, God bless 'em, are used to nationalized industries, gun control, soldiers walking the streets dispensing their own rough "justice" with machineguns, identity-grievance politics and, above all, the undefeatable evil synergy of crooked politicians and drug lords controlling events. They are used to being ruled by a godless oligarchy of the privileged rich who know what's "best" for them. You know, they're Democrats.
You may ask anyone familiar with Mexican history since 1912 what the rule of law means south of the border. Or, for a modern example closer to home, take a look at some of the seamier La Raza-dominated suburbs of LA. These millions of newly minted citizens will toil upon the Democrat latifundistas' political plantations as indentured servants for the next fifty years and gradually, in the end, the American Republic will be as dead as its Greek and Roman predecessors. If, that is, it doesn't catastrophically collapse in the next decade or so in a welter of racial warfare and Balkan "ethnic cleansing" that will make the former Yugoslavia look like a kindergarten at play. The devil will walk abroad in the land and our children's children's children will curse our folly.
What then shall we do? Both political parties are equally complicit, ignoring the law and their own sworn oaths to the Constitution, not to mention the polls and the plain will of the majority of the American people who wish them to secure the border, enforce immigration laws and jail the employers of illegals. Like Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, we can only plaintively wonder: "Hey, I'm a voter. Aren't you supposed to kiss my butt?"
You can laugh, but make it a bitter laughter. The Amnesty Conspirators are willing to flout the received political wisdom of the way things are supposed to work because they believe they can change the entire equation of political power in this country without consequence to themselves. They believe that we, the voters, will get mad but that we won't get even. They believe that by the time we figure out what happened, it will be too late.
The last whispered hope of the anti-amnesty politicos is that the House will stop the Senate bill. Now, given all that's happened in the past fifteen years, that is a slender reed indeed to pin your children's future on. I have a better idea. It's an old idea, but I believe that its time has come round again.
"If breaking windows be the sport..."
The breaking windows that the English poet Cowper was celebrating were the windows of American Tories, broken by the Sons of Liberty in the run-up to the American Revolution. In Eighteenth Century America, windows were expensive and difficult to replace. It was said you could tell an American colonist's wealth by the size and number of the windows in his house. As most of the high-ranking Tories loyal to the King were rich, their windows became natural targets when the Sons of Liberty wanted to send a message. If the head of the local militia was a Tory, he would be persuaded to resign his commission by breaking his windows. If a Boston merchant refused to join the boycott of British goods, he would have to hire a glazier in the morning. Tax collectors and other crown functionaries shuttered their houses, only have the shutters torn from their hinges by a mob and then have their windows broken. Sounds harsh? The rise of American independence was accompanied by the tune of breaking glass, and we wouldn't be free today without it.
Of course how free we are, and are going to be, is the question, isn't it? Eight years ago I wrote a speculative piece of fiction called "The Window War" about what might happen if gunowners, outraged by one too many laws restricting their natural, God-given and traditional rights, took the Sons of Liberty's methods to heart and hand.
(You can find it at: http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=1604)
The story circulated to modest approval in the email circles of my fellow gunnies and then dropped into the electronic wastebasket of history. Dropped, that is, until the election crisis of 2000. On the 11th of November of that disputatious year, a fellow named Jeff Head reposted The Window War on the Free Republic website with the notation: "Not advocating anything here. . .just wondering if Mike had thought about a work of fiction called "'Window War II' as it applies to fraudulent elections?" Free Republic was at that time (before its editorial sanitizing in later years by the myrmidons of the Republican National Committee) the premier forum by which conservative activists communicated. Other "Freeper" posters agreed, saying things like "have rocks will travel". The discussion percolated for a few days and then died, until....
"We would not tolerate an illegal government."
Friday November 24 3:11 PM ET
Amid protest, Fla. Counties Plow on With Recount
By Marianne Armshaw and Michael Conner
West Palm Beach, Fla. (Reuters)
Dozens of supporters of Republican George W. Bush protested on Friday against what they called Democrat efforts to "steal" the U.S. Presidential election for Al Gore as Friday's Palm Beach and Broward counties plowed on with reviewing disputed ballots. . .
Unknown persons threw a brick through a window at the Democratic Party's Broward County headquarters late on Thursday or early on Friday when the office was closed, police said. Scrawled on the brick was the message: : "We would not tolerate an illegal government." Plantation, Florida, police were investigating the incident, in which no one was injured.
Within 34 minutes this story was posted on Free Republic with the screaming banner: "The Window War has Begun!" Whether because of the intimidation of the brick or not, the Broward County Dems folded their recount efforts shortly thereafter, and one by one, the rest of the Florida Democratic Party county election officials involved in recounts followed suit over the next several days. Eventually, the Supreme Court settled the issue.
"We have been too law-abiding."
You know, I'd like to think that the fellow who threw that brick had read my piece, but I have no idea. Even if he did, did the brick intimidate the Broward County Dems? Who knows? But I do know this: liberals as a class are cowards. The political/business/racial-identity cabal that makes up the Amnesty Conspiracy are cowards as well. Heck, I know of no American liberals who have been willing to personally suffer, let alone die, for any of their misbegotten beliefs since the early 1960s. They get government to do the heavy lifting for them. They genuflect at its altar and cannot comprehend anyone else who doesn't. And one other thing: they never, ever think that their public actions and pronouncements will have private consequences. And why should they? As I observed in the afterward to "The Window War":
"For sixty years, the liberals have used our respect for the law against us. Each time they moved the line of law to further their agenda, breaking off a bit of the Constitution, we, as law-abiding citizens have backed up grumbling but complying. And why should they stop pushing us back from our God-given liberties? We've never pushed back to stop them. We have been too law-abiding.""I aim to misbehave."
We are at a crossroads in our history. No one can deny it. If this amnesty passes into law, everything after it will be changed in ways that are surely as preventable as they are foreseeable. The Mandarin class of our "betters" has decided they no longer need to listen to us. How then shall we get their attention? What will it take to change the disastrous future they seek to write for us?
Maybe a Sons of Liberty brick through the window of every Democrat and Republican county headquarters with "Jail illegal employers!" written on one side and "No amnesty!" on the other will work. As a tactic, it does have the advantage of having been successfully employed in the past. Just ask Sam Adams. It is past time to demonstrate to the arrogant political class who believe themselves to be our rulers and not our servants that the Sons of Liberty still live. It is time to get their attention. It is time, in the words the fictional Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the Firefly class space freighter Serenity, to "misbehave." Remember, "behaving" has gotten us to this point. What have we got to lose? More importantly, what will we lose if we don't?
For those of you who would hesitate at vandalism in liberty's cause, perhaps you could deliver the brick to your particular politician's office with the message and the implication. They listened last year when thousands shipped bricks to them to build the wall. Maybe they'll listen if you tell them that this time it's through the door by mail, next time it's through the window by hand. Heck, just print out this essay and wrap the brick in it. They'll get the message.
There are those who say that I should be arrested for simply making the suggestion that deliberate political vandalism in the defense of liberty is no vice. I quote to them, "If this be treason, then make the most of it!" To my American brothers and sisters of all races, religions and creeds, who believe as I do -- to those who believe not in the false collectivist promises of those who would rule us, but in the individual liberty and prosperity of the shining city on a hill that was and is the promise of the Founder's Republic -- I say to you: "ROCK 'EM." Let the Window War begin. It won't take long to get the attention of the cowardly and treasonable Amnesty Conspirators. And when we do, somewhere Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty of old will be smiling.
Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776ATaol.com
NOTE: Folks, if you agree with this essay, pass it on. It's the only way the word will spread, for the MSM won't pick it up and most blogs will shun it as well.
30 comments:
I have pledged unto myself that of which I dare not speak ere the opportunity to honor it be denied me.
Lest you think I am too cynical about the Congress, let me refer you to John Fund's latest piece in the Wall Street Journal on this subject (and the WSJ is hardly an anti-amnesty source):
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010103
Relevant quotes:
"Why the rush? Because, to be blunt, the senators don't trust the American people to make sound judgments on such emotional issues as family reunification and national sovereignty."
And this one:
"There's an old rule in Washington that in dealing with any tough issue, half the politicians hope that citizens don't understand it, while the other half fear that people actually do."
Mike Vanderboegh
Thank you for writing this. I shall pass it around to everyone I know. I have been preaching it is time for us to exercise the Second Amendment before it is too late. It is rather harsh. I like your idea much better. I spoke with a Democrat once and was appalled at what he told me. He informed me most Americans cannot think and act responsibly and need the Democrat Party to be told what to do!!
Hey i'm with ye all the way!
Treasonous GOP POS Saxby Chambliss bears you out, Mike--after getting booed for supporting the sellout, he says "he took the crowd’s reaction as a lack of popular understanding of the shape of the current immigration system."
Like we're too bloody ignorant to know when we're being conned.
Linked! And I agree with you completely.
http://www.cigarintel.com/agency/?p=2033
I like the piece but have a minor bone to pick.
"Heck, I know of no American liberals who have been willing to personally suffer, let alone die, for any of their misbegotten beliefs since the early 1960s."
That does not ring true unless you leave out drug overdoses, wayward children, destroyed families, ruined economic sectors, alcoholism, and aids.
Lots of them suffer and die for wrong beliefs as I see it.
Maybe you should say "suffer or die in battle?"
Regards =]
"Heck, I know of no American liberals who have been willing to personally suffer, let alone die, for any of their misbegotten beliefs since the early 1960s."
Oh, for the love of... you can't be serious? It is thoughtless, hyper-charged, emotional dreck like this that gives conservatism a bad name.
That does not ring true unless you leave out drug overdoses, wayward children, destroyed families, ruined economic sectors, alcoholism, and aids.
Dear God, you're even worse. So now only liberals have drug habits, abandon their children, follow poorly thought out economic strategies, hit the bottle, and have unprotected sex?
If you think that you, my friend, are delusional.
And before you go firing from the hip, I run one of the most politically incorrect and conservative blogs out there, but there is a difference between being a thinking conservative and attacking one dimensional cardboard cut-outs that many conservatives seem to think liberals to be (and vice versa).
Saw your response to this, GF, and will link to it tomorrow.
Say what you want "GF."
I'm one of the people well over the thousand dollar annual mark in the current poll.
You have your views I have mine.
Insulting me isn't gonna help a thing for anyone and it was intended somewhat tongue in cheek. I have a very dry sense of humor and if you have none, you would be better keeping that to yourself. We aren't writing for gun grabbers here. This isn't fark.com or reddit.
Regards,
Tom (That Texas guy with all that money invested and spent in the Fincher defense)
Link away David, I'm not ashamed a bit of anything that's ever come out of my mouth. Ask Don Bright what an asshole I am. First and Second amendments are both important.
How about I write fifty times on the blackboard:
I can talk about throwing bricks through the windows of political and government offices but can't lampoon leftists.
Will we be cool again? Pretty Please?
Intentional infighting dooms more anti-gun grabbers than anything else I've seen and I've been around a while.
Regards,
Tom
Wow ...
Gives my blogger name a whole new meaning, now doesn't it?!?!!
RWR
www.rightwingrocker.com
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
- Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution
Folks,
I am taken to task by Goldfinger in what he alleges to be a "caustic commentary" on his blog. Let us take his charges ad seriatim and see if we can achieve some light with the heat.
Mike Vanderboegh
Goldfinger sez:
Apples To Oranges
May 21st, 2007 by GoldFalcon
The War on Guns: Guest Editorial: Rock Em
I’m gonna sum up the above linked post for you and then descend into caustic commentary.
Summation: The American Way of Life is being threatened by illegal immigration and the proper response to inattentive politicians is pointless vandalism.
MBV: No, the proposed vandalism is about as pointed as it can be. It takes political dissatisfaction and applies it to the cause of that dissatisfaction.
Goldfinger: The reason this would be a proper and possibly effective response is because chunking rocks through windows worked for the Sons of Liberty two and a half centuries ago.
MBV: Merely pointing out that vandalism in liberty's cause is as American as apple pie.
Goldfinger Commentary:
OK, let’s delve into this, shall we? Leaving aside the assertion that illegal immigration is a threat to our very lives and would somehow trigger ethnic cleansing on a scale that would dwarf the events in the former Yugoslavia, what –precisely– would tossing bricks through windows accomplish?
MBV: But you can't leave that aside. It is perfectly a predictable result of the resentments, emotions and racist agitation exploiting those resentments and emotions that can be seen in the recent rise of recruiting on the part of the neoNazis and Ku Klux Klan. Have you paid attention to the racial warfare that is already a fact of life between black and brown in LA?
Goldfinger: Mike Vanderboegh, author of the guest editorial, seems to believe that because it worked for Samuel Adams it would have some practical impact today –even while claiming that the only reason it did work for the Sons of Liberty was due to the expense of glass in Colonial America.
MBV: Hardly, and I thought I was the one supposedly guilty of straw man arguments.
Goldfinger: Well lets look at that. Did the Sons of Liberty contribute substantially to our freedom? I would argue no. If vandalism could have changed the course of things there would have been no need for that bloody conflict known as The Revolution, now would there? What their activities did do was prompt the British to increase the troop presence in the Colonies. The men at Lexington and Concord weren’t having a rockfight, they were involved in an all out shooting war.
The Sons of Liberty were terrorists. They attempted to use fear and intimidation against the civilian population in order to enforce a trade embargo. And it didn’t work. Armed revolution did.
MBV: Silly man. One would not have happened without the other. What the Sons of Liberty did, at Samuel Adams' expert direction, was to a.) demonstrate to all that the people preserved the "spirit of resistance" (as Jefferson called it) to tyranny and b.) laid the groundwork for Lexington and Concord by ensuring, among other things, that the militia organizations were in the hands of the revolutionists.
Goldfinger: And, hey, as long as we are dusting off old mothballs, why stop at the bricks? The Sons of Liberty also used to drag merchants out into the square and then tar, feather, and beat them. Perhaps this is the approach we need to illegal immigration, eh?
MBV: Now, there's an idea. But in the modern context a bad one. Means and methods, my boy, means and methods. No matter how offended by events, conservative/libertarians are not going to gather into mobs. The more daring will, however, risk a bit of guerrilla vandalism against property in a good cause. And then there's the audience to consider. The good guys (which is us) are only targeting property not people, thus showing our restraint (again, from history: the few times the Boston mob got out of hand cost Sam Adams' cause points in popular opinion).
Goldfinger: But let’s for a moment, go back to my original question: what would it accomplish in today’s world? If every single local and national office that housed a Republican or Democrat politician woke up to find a rust-red Nev-R-Bust™ sitting on top of the Xerox machine amid a pile of busted glass it would not shift policy a single inch. Police and glaziers would be called, arrests would be made, CNN would run the story and that would be it. 72 hours and most of America wouldn’t even remember that it happened. This is not eighteenth-century Massachusetts or Virginia and the dispersion of the populace guarantees that modern Americans would feel no personal connection to the act and, thus, it would be forgotten.
MBV: Why don't we try it and see what happens? Heinlein's dictum about naked force applies here, and I don't think I've mistaken the audience. Broken windows are a poll of sorts, measuring how upset otherwise law-abiding folks are at events. In our recent history, the Civil Rights movement toiled in non-violent struggle well below the national threshhold of anyone actually doing anything beyond clucking their tongues UNTIL the advent of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, the Black Panthers and urban riots threatened racial civil conflict. THEN the federal government got serious about enforcing civil rights laws. Ben Franklin said "Nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as the prospect of being hung in the morning." Broken windows all over the country may at least be considered a wake-up call for a noose measurement appointment.
Goldfinger: But why should this even be considered? Is illegal immigration poised to destroy us as Mr. Vanderboegh claims? Do we face the threat of oppression and denial of basic human freedoms as did Samuel Adams?
MBV: The "threat"? Certainly the Founders' would say so.
Goldfinger: Do the Mexican immigrants hold in their asparagus stained hands the keys to our destruction? Certainly not. There is not one charge leveled against the illegal Mexican immigrant that was not leveled against the European immigrants of the past, except one: now it’s illegal.
MBV: No. The fact is that current Mexican illegals (and this is by far the greatest component of the influx) do not wish to learn English nor do they wish to become American citizens. This is borne out by opinion polls of the illegals themselves. In any case, it is precisely the corrosion to the rule of law that makes them the greatest threat to our liberties. Nothing is more deleterious to a free society than the suspicion that there is one set of rules for one group and one for another. Here, by codifying law-beaking on a massive scale, the mandarin class is telling us that we no longer live in a society of laws, but a society of men. "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." This is sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind.
Goldfinger: Drain on the system? Check.
MBV: Total Crap. What welfare guarantees existed for the folks who came through legally at Ellis Island? What tax-payer dollars were expended on them after their entrance? Did they have WIC? Unemployment? Guaranteed health care? Housing payments? The full panoply of the modern welfare state will become available to these newly-minted "citizens" in the millions. And you thought Social Security was going to be a problem in the future.
Goldfinger: Refusal to assimilate? Check.
MBV: The charge was made by nativists, certainly, but almost all of those immigrants came here WANTING to be American, striving to learn English, wanting to be accepted. They did NOT say, "I want to make a bunch of money and go back to the shtetl in Poland." And what about the Reconquista activists who embrace the idea of "Republica Del Norte"? You think they might be able to sell their theories to a large number of new, poorly educated and poorly paid voters eager to see insults to their national pride and machismo vindicated by independence from the "gabachos"?
Goldfinger: Taking jobs from Americans? Check.
Bringing criminal cultures with them? Check.
MBV: MS-13 and the Mexican drug cartels make Al Capone look like a Methodist.
Goldfinger: Sending money back to the homeland? Check.
All of these were leveled at the great waves of Chinese, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish, and Russian immigrants. Get that straight in your head. Every single charge was made against every group. Hell, the argument could be made that many of them still refuse to assimilate. Little Italy? Chinatown? The Diamond District? Half the fucking civil servants in Boston? These ethnic enclaves serve as incubators for Americans, not threats to our way of life.
MBV: Even if I accept the premise without argument, what were the percentages of immigrants to the overall population that they assimilated to? Taking 60 million (illegals plus family members south of the border) and dropping them at once into a population of 300 million dwarfs anything ever seen. Plus, that was in an expanding industrial economy providing a pathway to a better life. We see now with the shrinking housing market how problematic that's going to be for this vast new underclass. Make 'em citizens and they're all an even greater drain on the taxpayer than anyone ever imagined. (Except us brick-throwers.)
Goldfinger: What’s the worst case scenario? Mexican immigrants become the majority? What would happen then? Well, I can tell you. You see, for the past five years I’ve lived in a town in Washington State that is fully sixty percent Hispanic, most of them immigrants, many of them illegal. Certainly there were differences (most of the signs were in Spanish for instance –many dispensed with English all together), but there was nothing earth-shattering. It didn’t turn into little Tijuana on Cinco de Mayo; there weren’t shootouts in the streets; no kidnapping for ransom; no South American Drug Lords working me over like I was an extra in Three Amigos, no roving bands of Mariachi’s with half of the Springfield Armory in their guitar cases.
MBV: Good for you, but your experience is not typical. I can give you dozens of anecdotal examples contrary. Can you say: MS-13? Can you say neighborhoods turned into "colonias" with forty in house? Can you say "LA"?
Goldfinger: Life was normal. American even. The kids watch Barney and Dragon Tales and learn English in the schools, then they go on to college and get packed full of the same stuff that other American kids get packed full of and by the third generation they are as American as somebody born in Lincoln’s Log Cabin.
MBV: You may not have noticed but they don't teach "American" in the colleges anymore, they teach multi-cultural, politically correct identity politics and collectivism.
Goldfinger: Certainly nothing worth the hyperbole “the devil will walk abroad and our children’s, children’s children will curse us.”
MBV: A nice, if obviously clumsy, attempt at out-of-context false argument. Those words refer to what will happen if there is a racial civil war. You HAVE heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences?
Goldfinger: As far as politicians spitting on the Constitution in regards to this issue. I’ve checked my handy-dandy desktop copy of the Constitution and I can’t see a single bloody reference to immigration anywhere. So perhaps what Mr. Vanderboegh takes umbrage with is politicians ignoring the will of the people? OK, I can see that, but the responsibility of citizens then is to change the politicians, not to become ineffective criminals.
MBV: In the largest sense, this isn't about immigration, illegal or otherwise, except as a tool that the elites will use to finally swamp the bill of rights and trump the ability of contrarians like us to effect political change through the ballot box. You don't want to see the results when that happens. Because then it WILL be a matter of guns and not of bricks. We will then have let it go too far without bloody correction, which is what I am trying to avoid. We will only know if we are "ineffective" criminals if we try and fail. We've tried everything else. With a nod to Claire Wolfe, I'm trying to suggest a way to avoid "shooting the bastards." Let's break a few windows and see what happens.
1) Voting is not a right, it is a privilege. I choose not to avail myself of that privilege.
2) My right and the right of others to move freely (except on someone else's property) and to engage in voluntary contracts, outweigh any government attempt to infringe on those rights.
3) There is no right to violate the rights of another, whether directly or through "voting".
All of the arguments against Mexican immigrants could be defused if America would get rid of the welfare state and the authoritarian War on Drugs, and gun prohibitions.
I am afraid that a "rock throwing" would be misunderstood unless each rock was wrapped in a dissertation about why it was thrown; Americans of many stripes are pissed at the government in so many areas that no authoritard would instinctively understand why it happened.
Kent, I know that's a libertarian/anarchist mantra--just get rid of the welfare state and then no problemo, but it doesn't quite work out that way and here's why:
First of all, good luck eliminating all that--because we can't even test your theory until that happens--and in the mean time, well, we see what's happening.
But then we need to eliminate authoritarianism in the rest of the world, too--because people just don't come here for benefits--they come here for economic opportunity not available to them in their land of origin. They come here to escape repression. Until incentive to oleave a high pressure area to go to a relatively lower one changes, that is, until they establish more freedom, the incentive will remain.
If left 'unregulated'--and think of a valve here--nature will always equalize pressure.
The reason citizens can move freely from state to state is--or at least has been--because we share more in common culturally and economically than not--when you bring someone in who is content to work for $10 per day. that may make economic sense if the measure is strictly by the numbers, but what's left unacco8unted for are the hidden costs to those benefits--yeah, we can get cheaper produce at the market, or cheaper goods at WalMart (and disregard for a moment that everything bought from China goes to a government-controlled entity that funds a growing and belligerent military presence using technology our government and business "leaders" have also seen fit to provide them--capitalists and rope and all that), but what are the costs borne by society at large--again getting back to unassimilated MILLIIONS affecting every aspect of public life--and that brings us back to my 1st point.
As long as we have a national government under the Constitution, we need to remember that it was established "for ourselves and our posterity." If we do that, they'll have a great model to template off of and achieve more advancement, more development, to where trade and moving back and forth can be more seamless and less disruptive.
Bringing million in who are used to government repression, squalor, lack of education, etc. into a technological and liberal society is not a formula for anything but chaos and ultimate Balkanization/conflict.
As to your 2nd point, Mike stated: "'Jail illegal employers!' written on one side and 'No amnesty!' on the other..." What further "dissertation" would be needed to make the intent any clearer?
If you believe that immigration is a bad thing, then I can see your point that unless you eliminate authoritarianism world-wide, you will still have people coming here to try to escape it. I don't see that as a problem. If they want to escape tyranny, I welcome them. I only think it is a problem when my money is stolen -through taxation- to pay for other people's welfare. In that case, I don't care where they were born one tiny bit. I'm not saying it would be easy to eliminate the welfare state; only that it is desirable, just as eliminating ALL gun "laws" is desirable. Just because something hasn't yet been done, does not mean it wouldn't work if it were done. Yes, there would be massive resistance from the parasites, but it should still be done.
People who come here for economic opportunity are not the problem. These people enrich us all. Our culture benefits from them, and in some cases they even create jobs. They also become consumers, spending money that they earn in our communities. It is not possible for them to send all their wages back home, even if that is their desire.
I'm not sure that politicians would understand the notes on the brick. Unless they "received" it in context. Perhaps Mike's estimation of their intellect is higher than mine.
Linked. I suspect it's going to gain some currency.
Kent, we simply cannot absorb the rest of the world. Your position is akin to saying one lifeboat had the capability to rescue all who were drowning from the Titanic--get enough on board and the whole thing swamps and capsizes.
Google "Immigration Gumballs"--which pretty conclusively demonstrates even so-called "legal" immigration cannot be sustained at the levels being encouraged.
Kent sez: "I'm not sure that politicians would understand the notes on the brick. Unless they "received" it in context. Perhaps Mike's estimation of their intellect is higher than mine."
They can always find a consultant smart enough to figure it out and patient enough to explain it to them.
Every time I see someone defend immigration without making a distinction between legal and illegal, I almost retch!
I have no quarrel with those immigrants who come here legally, whose goal it is to become Americans in the fullest sense of the word. My wife is in that crowd.
But those that scale fences, swim rivers, and cut to the head of the line; those that insist on bringing the home country with them and clinging doggedly to their old culture, I have nothing but disdain for these people.
For a variety of reasons our elected officials have decided to ignore our wishes. I agree with the author who suggests that it's time to misbehave in defense of liberty. No one need get hurt, but we need to GET THEIR ATTENTION NOW!!!!!!
Think (and ACT) Before you Feel.
The Lesson of the Founders
Goldfinger takes me to task above:
"But why should this even be considered? Is illegal immigration poised to destroy us as Mr. Vanderboegh claims? Do we face the threat of oppression and denial of basic human freedoms as did Samuel Adams?"
And I answered: "The "threat"? Certainly the Founders' would say so."
Some folks have chided me for being too "paranoid" or "conspiratorial" in suggesting it is time to break windows. Like Goldfinger, they do not percieve oppression now and, presumably, would have us wait for it before acting. This is not the way of the Founders. I present in proof of this statement, the following excerpt from historian Gordon S. Wood:
In the American Revolution, he wrote, "there was none of the legendary tyranny of history that had so often driven desperate people into rebellion. The Americans were not an oppressed people; they had no crushing imperial shackles to throw off. In fact, the Americans knew they were probably freer and less burdened with cumbersome feudal and hierarchical restraints than any part of mankind in the eighteenth century. To its victims, the Tories, the Revolution was truly incomprehensible. Never in history, said Daniel Leonard, had there been so much rebellion with so 'little real cause.' . . . The objective social reality scarcely seemed capable of explaining a revolution . . .
As early as 1775 Edmund Burke had noted in the House of Commons that the colonists' intensive study of law and politics had made them acutely inquisitive and sensitive about their liberties. Where the people of other countries had invoked principles only after they had endured 'an actual grievance,' the Americans, said Burke, were anticipating their grievances and resorting to principles even before they actually suffered. 'They augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.' The crucial question in the colonists' minds, wrote John Dickerson in 1768, was 'not, what evil HAS ACTUALLY ATTENDED particular measures-- but what evil, in the nature of things, IS LIKELY TO ATTEND them.' Because 'nations, in general, are not apt to THINK until they FEEL, . . .therefore nations in general have lost their liberty.' But not the Americans, as the Abbe Raynal observed. They were an 'enlightened people' who knew their rights and the limits of power and who, unlike any people before them, aimed to think before they felt."
(Source: Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, UNC Press, 1969, pp. 3-5)
I say we would do well to emulate the Founders, to think and ACT before we feel, when it will be too late. We must act, as in break some windows, just to see if our putative representatives are paying attention. The Founders would. They wouldn't have waited this long.
Mike Vanderboegh
Pinson, AL
"All of the arguments against Mexican immigrants could be defused if America would get rid of the welfare state and the authoritarian War on Drugs, and gun prohibitions."
Plus 'leventy billion...and I'm not an anarchist, I'm a fusionist: too conservative for the libertarians, too libertarian for the conservatives. Basically, no one likes me. ;-)
I think dismantling the welfare state might not be as hard as all that. It doesn't have to be done all at once (good job too, because barring a cataclysm it won't be), either. Tackle it a bite at a time, and as each bite is taken, the perverse incentives for migration will dwindle, and the economic issue will approach moot as fewer migrants will come for the wrong reasons and more for the right reasons.
David, with all due respect, I think we can absorb a heck of a lot of people before we have to worry about being full up, so long as they are interested in creating wealth, not living off strangers' extorted wealth. I go, until I see convincing evidence to the contrary, with the late Julian Simon. Human ingenuity is a nation's greatest resource, and within the limit (just as Newtonian mechanics still "work" within the limit--explaining why would require a bunch of philosophy of science, the details of which are numerous and dull), more is better. Considering the number of depopulated small towns in the Wheat Belt, I don't think we're near the limit, apart from the taxpayer burden.
That said, what is desperately needed is a means of separating the people who want to create wealth (at whatever level) from the Republica del Norte irredentists and the terrorist sleeper cells coming in the same way at the same time.
As Mr. Vanderboegh said, means and methods. If you don't want to throw bricks, mail them or leave them by the door in the middle of the night. "We didn't throw this one."
Likewise, dragging a business owner known to hire illegals into the street for tarring and feathering might be suboptimal in this time and place, but the goal isn't to tar and feather somebody, it's to bring public opprobrium to bear. It's to publicize, embarrass, and humiliate. There are ways to do that that don't involve blowback in the form of felonious assault charges. I'm not talking about useless giant papier-mache head stuff--we've got smart, motivated people on our side. I'm sure we can come up with something suitably original.
We have to deal with the game as it is laid out on the board. That requires cleverness, of which I'm sure we have plenty, and patience, which, being Americans, maybe we don't have so much. We need to develop it, though.
The alternatives are to accept eventual defeat, or to kick over the board. The former is unacceptable, and I'd rather it not come to the latter. In that regard, I'm with David. I've got a lovely wife (who puts up with a lot) and young children, and I'd like nothing better than to raise them and tend an apple orchard (if I had one) in peace and prosperity.
I think we can win without it, though it might take three generations. In a back-handed way, think of it as a blessing: Doesn't taking a hand in the animating contest of our time--will we be citizens or subjects?--beat the heck out of American Idol or mooning over the latest useless gewgaw in the Sharper Image catalog?
Well reasoned, Oldsmoblogger. You see the essential thing. I would like to carry on a private conversation on some of your ideas. Can you email me? GeorgeMason1776ATaol.com
Thanks
Mike Vanderboegh
If someone comes here to be American, I say welcome. If they come here and bring their failed system with them and work to install it here, I say fuck 'em.
So, he isn't actually familiar with what the election bill entails, he's worried about our Precious Bodily Fluids, his proposals start at Krystalnacht and go south, but hey, as long as it stops gay Mexican terrorists from sneaking across our borders to unplug our comatose women, it's a good thing.
There is only one redeeming trait in this fascistic dribble of diarrhea--I forwarded it to a bunch of fence-sitting liberals with the heading, "Why You Should Own a Gun."
It worked. Several are convinced.
Congrats.
Now I wonder if I should ask KABA to pull all my old articles so I'm not slimed by association.
I find it supremely ironic that Sen. Chambliss said:
“We could either sit on the sidelines and we could throw rocks, or we could become engaged and make what we knew was a bad bill, better,”.
Be careful what you say senator it just may be prescient.
First up, I'm not a US citizen- I'm looking on at the problem from the outside.
Would a window war solve the problem of Washington not listening to the voters? Who can say. What I do know is that illegal immigration isn't just about people coming to America and trying to make a better life/earn some more cash. Sure there are lots of people doing just that and while it seems inoffensive they are breaking the law- generally more than one as many need fraudulent documents too. Are Americans to simply accept that one segment of society can thumb their noses at justice while the rest cannot. Just look at Powerline today and the story of the sex-slave brothels. The local PD didn't get involved because they are a de facto sanctuary city. Illegal aliens are able to break the law with impunity. American citizens are not treated like that.
Anyway, back when the Reagan amnesty came around there were something like 3 million illegals in country- far too many to deal with. Now we're looking at more like 12 million. What's it going to be like in another ten or fifteen years? 30 million, more?
Add to that the terrorist threat-
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/007582.htm
And then there's the crime element-
http://crypticsubterranean.blogspot.com/2006/11/cost-of-illegal-immigration.html
"Based on a one-year in-depth study, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. She analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants."
That's nearly a quarter of a million sex offenders. Should the US give them amnesty too? There's much more in that article. I suggest you read it.
Get a load of this from Bob Novak. Per "Republicans" like Novak, "U.S." Senator Lindsey Graham, "U.S. Representative" Bob Inglis, "U.S." Senator McCain, etc., anyone who wants borders and limits on immigration is a bigot.
(Graham recently told the reconquista group "La Raza" (The Race), " we're going to get comprehensive reform and we're not going let the bigots stop us .")
"Evans-Novak Political Report for 5/23
6. The tolerance by many on the right (and in some segments of the labor left) for deviation on this issue is non-existent. In a closed-door debate at a recent retreat of the conservative House Republican Study Committee, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) warned that the GOP ran the risk of looking like the racist National Party of South Africa on the immigration issue . Most of his conservative colleagues disagreed, holding that anti-immigration campaigning did not hurt the GOP in 2006. The bitter debate reflected the split over immigration in conservative ranks.
7. Democrats benefit most from kicking this issue further down the road and dragging it out as long as possible. Republicans will continue to self-immolate as long as they are forced to discuss the immigration issue. It created great rancor in GOP ranks in 2006 and cost the party heavily with the Hispanic vote. A cycle full of harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric could prove devastating for the Republican nominee in 2008. The best thing that can happen for the Republican Party is for the bill to pass over their objections , freeing up the 2008 presidential candidates to move away from the immigration issue."
According to Novak, Inglis, Graham & Co, anyone who would limit immigration is a race-baiting bigot who wants an American Apartheid. So the Enlightened Ones will have to treat American voters like the children we are and do what's best for us "over our objections". Of course, they'll have to keep up the Potempkin Village representative government show for a while. Countries, borders, sovereignty, constitutions, republics ... so déclassé. Graham also claims "being an American is just an idea". If you think you're a voter, you're a voter. Look at the bright side: Compassionate Conservatives have 5 billion potential new Republicans to grow the Party with! Compassionate conservatives. They're so caring, they'll give your country away.
Of course, Novak's all Bolshevik doubletalk. Sure, if it weren't for primitive anti-immigrant rhetoric, Repubs would've had the Hispanic vote. What a crock. Repubs lost because of Iraq. If the House had gone along with "comprehensive immigration reform", they would've lost many more seats than they did. If they go along with this one, the R Party will be committing suicide.
Anyway, how much of the Hispanic "vote" is legitimate, and I don't mean by Graham's subversive standards? In California, illegal aliens register to vote by mail without proof of citizenship. When they get the election packet they mail in a request for absentee ballot and vote by mail. No official ever sees them at any stage of the process. Fill in a name, sign the name, mail in. They can do it 10 times each with different names and signatures without risk of prosecution. EVERY registration and vote is presumed valid, and the authorities don't like it when someone questions the presumption.
For decades, Cal authorities have refused to prosecute even clear-cut cases. They don't want to know. Instead, they go after people who try to do something about it, labeling them racists or threatening to prosecute for harassment (e.g. Orange County Repubs a decade or so ago).
Plus, tens of millions of anchor baby kids of illegals have been wrongfully given unconstitutional citizenship, and many are now voting "legitimately".
What's happening is a coup d'etat. The Citizens of America are losing this country, fast.
And then we have "Libertarians", who when it comes to immigration turn into the economic equivalent of religious fanatics, unable to see EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE contrary to their beliefs, no matter how painful or obvious.
Even now, when all but the dimmest of the dim can look around and SEE the myriad harms of excessive immigration and sense that Rome is starting to burn, true believer "Libertarians" can only waste everyone's time arguing about whether or not unlimited immigration would be a good thing if we had no welfare state.
AS IF WE DON'T HAVE ONE. As if the welfare state is likely to end tomorrow. As if, even if we granted 100% of Simon's dubious theories, we shouldn't at least keep our borders until the welfare state IS abolished.
Unbelievable.
Russ Howard
I feel as if most classic rock bands are only famous today for being in the right time period.?
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