Pat and Bay Buchanan on Arizona and Illegal Immigration

Pat and Bay, are, I believe, brother and sister. They each had a column the other day on the same subject. Here are some of the choice bits. From Pat:

With the support of 70 percent of its citizens, Arizona has ordered sheriffs and police to secure the border and remove illegal aliens, half a million of whom now reside there.

Arizona acted because the U.S. government has abdicated its constitutional duty to protect the states from invasion and refuses to enforce America's immigration laws.

[snip]

What is the response of Barack Obama, who took an oath to see to it that federal laws are faithfully executed?

He is siding with the law-breakers. He is pandering to the ethnic lobbies. He is not berating a Mexican regime that aids and abets this invasion of the country of which he is commander in chief. Instead, he attacks the government of Arizona for trying to fill a gaping hole in law enforcement left by his own dereliction of duty.

He has denounced Arizona as "misguided." He has called on the Justice Department to ensure that Arizona's sheriffs and police do not violate anyone's civil rights. But he has said nothing about the rights of the people of Arizona who must deal with the costs of having hundreds of thousands of lawbreakers in their midst.

How's that for Andrew Jackson-style leadership?

Obama has done everything but his duty to enforce the law.

[snip]

The tasks that Arizonans are themselves undertaking are ones that belong by right, the Constitution and federal law to the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Homeland Security.

Arizona has been compelled to assume the feds' role because the feds won't do their job. And for that dereliction of duty the buck stops on the desk of the president of the United States.

[snip]

Last year, while Americans were losing a net of 5 million jobs, the U.S. government -- Bush and Obama both -- issued 1,131,000 green cards to legal immigrants to come and take the jobs that did open up, a flood of immigrants equaled in only four other years in our history.

What are we doing to our own people?

Whose country is this, anyway?

From Bay:

President Obama had the audacity to call Arizona legislators “irresponsible” for passing the law, claiming it will lead to racial profiling. What about the massive invasion along our border that exposes Americans to ever-increasing levels of violence against Americans, including murder and kidnapping? What about their civil rights? Not so much as a footnote for them.

[snip]

A lot of well-meaning Americans who are sympathetic to people who want to come to this country in search for a better life and who follow the rules are tempted to fall for this trap.

What they don’t know, and what open border fanatics try to hide, is that America is letting in more legal immigrants than ever before. Currently one out of every six workers in the country is foreign born.

The Department of Homeland Security recently released its legal immigration figures for Fiscal Year 2009 (October 2008 through September 2009). During this period, over five million people lost their jobs. Amazingly, we increased the number of green cards from 2008 to a staggering level of 1,130,818, over 800,000 of whom can compete against American workers. Outside of the 1986 amnesty, which led to millions of illegal aliens taking green cards, this is the second highest number of green cards we’ve issued since 1914.

Now, I just know there are going to be readers that think I'm raaaaaacist for even bringing this subject up, let alone quoting the Buchanans. Tell you what, before you play that card, consider that my wife is half Mexican, my children (obviously) are a quarter Mexican, that there's Indian blood (Choctaw, to be specific) in my family, that I teach Mexican immigrants, and so forth, and take the time to read my thoughts on racism. Do at least that much, okay?

How Dare You Fight Back

When I opened up The List of Things That Offend Muslims the other day, I noticed "self-defense" on the list.

So I clicked on the link. I'd say the story is unbelievable, but where the "religion of pieces peace" is concerned, nothing surprises me anymore.

Truly Le Mot Juste

Doug Giles does have a way of putting things:

...we can’t say squat about Islam anymore. Oh, hell no. Muslims are groovy no matter what they do, and anyone who says otherwise … is … well … evil … in the eyes of the thought police who’re heading up the United States of Political Horse Smack.

Check it out: When Muslims kill 3,000 Americans, we can’t call them “wicked.” When they abuse women, cut off little girls’ clitorises, stone unruly wives, honor kill their teenage daughters for texting someone not named Achmed, and keep precious women in stone-age bondage worldwide, we can’t say that’s BS because that might offend them. And God forbid we should offend folks who’re six bubbles off level and don’t get basic women’s rights.

Oh, I know what some of you are going to say. I've heard it so many times I can hear it bouncing around in my head even now, before you've picked your jaw up off the floor so that you won't slobber all over your keyboard as you rush to vent your indignation over these comments. "Most Muslims aren't like this. Most Muslims are perfectly peaceful."

And that is true--as far as it goes. But it does not go nearly far enough.

For one thing, I defy you--any of you--to demonstrate that the problems Giles listed aren't real horrors for untold numbers of people. They are real, as you can easily find out for yourself. I challenge you: subscribe to Jihad Watch for a month. Just put them in your Google Reader list, or in your RSS reader or whatever. You don't even have to read all the articles. I'm telling you, and I'm serious as a heart attack, the headlines alone will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, both because of what they say and because of their incredible frequency. The truth is that you won't even have time to read everything that comes through that site. There's just too much of it.

And for another thing, let me suggest that you try this: you go ahead and google for countries according to percent of Muslim population. Then you google for countries according to education level, human rights, liberty, etc.

You already know what you're going to find, don't you? That there is really quite a correlation between how high the Muslim population is and how dismal the human rights situation in a country is. Try it. See if I'm wrong.

It's not so much that most Muslims are peaceful, as it is that the higher the Muslim percentage of the population goes, the more special concessions they demand (ask the folks in Detroit!), the more control they demand, the more adherence to sharia law they demand, and so forth, until there are so many that they can squash dissent.

And a last thing: you go back and look at history. Look at what happens when Muslims have money and the capacity to project power. You will quickly find that Islam is an expansionist religion. They don't hesitate to spread Islam by the sword whenever they can. When they have not actually done so, you can bet your bottom dollar it's because they've met defeat on the battlefield and/or run out of money to finance war, war being a very expensive proposition, after all.

"Religion of peace," my tuchus. And people don't want us to say a darn thing about it, lest we offend and inflame the li'l boogers. It's madness. Have you ever checked out the list of things that offend Muslims? It's getting endless. The only way not to offend Muslims is to convert to Islam.

Well, they can bite me on that one. Ain't a-gonna do it.

From a Column by Kathryn Lopez

She writes:

Everywhere I go some group seems to be handing a copy out. The Constitution, it seems, is the hottest ticket in town.

When I was talking to people and snapping pictures at a recent Tea Party, I ran into a man sitting and reading a Heritage Foundation pocket-sized version. At a cocktail party in Northern Virginia this week, I was handed another one from the American Civil Liberties Union. The list goes on.

One of the most encouraging things I have seen in years is how so very many people are taking an interest in the Constitution for the first--or at least it seems like the first--time in their lives. I am glad for this. It may be too little, too late, or it may be the first stirrings of something greater.

Read it, and read The Federalist Papers, too. The Constitution is not actually that hard to understand. It is only multiple attempts on the part of many politicians over a period of decades to make it say things that it does not actually say that makes people think that it is hard to understand.

You Need To Read This

Every word.

Brilliantly Put by Jonah Goldberg

Perfect.

...dissent has gone from being the highest form of patriotism under George W. Bush to the most common form of racism under Barack Obama.

Part of Freedom...

...is having the right to defend it. Part of having a right to life is being able to defend yourself.

As I said yesterday, I have never understood how anyone can think that a disarmed people can be called "free."

History Teaches Well

As God is my witness, I have never understood how anyone can call a disarmed people "free."

Oh, This Was Rich...

Via Michelle Malkin:

Loved it!

The Great Equalizer

I have often been amazed by how many people view guns negatively. I had a supervisor ask me one time, "Have you ever had a relative who got killed by someone with a gun?" I had to answer in the negative. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "See, if you had, you'd know that gun control is a moral imperative."

What I didn't say, and would have said, had I been quicker on my feet, was, "Have you ever had a relative whose life may have been saved when she brandished a firearm?" I have--and I have a very, very hard time with people who think that she should have encountered that threat unarmed.

If Only...

I so wish I could afford all the guns and ammo that I really would like to have...

People Forget Sometimes

One of my favorite lines from one of my daughter's favorite movies is, "It's a sword; it isn't meant to be safe."

It's weird how many people seem to think that war should, somehow, well, not be so nasty. The reality is that it is mostly about killing enough of the enemy quickly enough, not only to put a stop to the hostilities, but to do so on terms favorable to your own country.

Sometimes Nothing Else Will Do

Some Folks Require More Convincing Than Others

The Way It's Always Worked

That this works is not difficult to discern from history. Not that it is an absolute truth, but in general, for a nation to be weak or to show weakness is to invite attack. Not that one should necessarily be belligerent; that is just as clearly an error. But you sure want the first thing to cross a potential attacker's mind to be, "No way I'm messing with that guy." In general, deterrence works, suicidal Islamofascist goons excepted.

Amen, and Amen...

This wonderful thought was sent to me by a friend. There will be a few more coming in days ahead.

Some Bon Mots from Dennis Prager

Mr. Prager has several interesting things to say in this column:

...the God-based morality of the Declaration of Independence and all the Founders.

Yes, all the Founders. Even the so-called deists, while not theologically Christian, were ethical monotheists, i.e., strong affirmers of ethics rooted in the will of the Creator. As Steven Waldman, no conservative, writes in "Founding Faith," a book that has been praised by Left and Right, "Each felt religion was extremely important, at a minimum to encourage moral behavior and make the land safe for republican
government."

[snip]

Leftism functions as a secular religion, and its adherents understand that the major obstacle to the dominance of Leftist policies and values is traditional religion, specifically Christianity. With the demise of Christianity in Western Europe, Leftist ideas and values came to dominate that continent. America, the most religious industrialized democracy, remains the great exception.

[snip]

Leftism opposes America's three great values -- what I call the American Trinity...-- "E Pluribus Unum," "Liberty" and "In God We Trust." The Left uses diversity and multiculturalism to undermine E Pluribus Unum ("From Many, One"). It substitutes equality (of result) for liberty, and the powerful state for the powerful free individual. And it seeks, perhaps above all, to replace "In God We Trust" with a secular society and secular values.

[snip]

The Left tells us that non-Christians are offended by the government celebrating Good Friday. As a Jew, permit me to say that any non-Christian offended by Good Friday or Christmas gives new meaning to the word "narcissist." To seek to erase the name Good Friday is an exercise in self-centeredness and ingratitude that is jaw-dropping. We non-Christian Americans live in the freest society in human history; it was produced by people nearly every one of who celebrated Good Friday, and we have the gall to want to rename it?

[snip]

Most Americans will characterize the Davenport attempt to rename Good Friday "Spring Holiday" as Political Correctness. That it is. But the term itself is Politically Correct. Like everything PC, the term itself hides its true meaning, which is Leftism. Political Correctness is invariably produced by the Left. The term, therefore, should not be PC; it should be OTL, "Offends the Left."

One of the most galling things about the way the Left deals with Christianity is its habit of saying the most moronically uninformed and ignorant things about it. Leftists get their ideas about Christianity from a mutually-reinforcing group of Christianity's critics and the Westboro Baptist Church, and hardly ever bother to actually read the Bible or anything decent defending Christianity. More often than not, they sound embarrassingly ignorant on the subject and aren't even aware of it. Then they have the unmitigated gall to act as though a country whose founding laws and documents are thoroughly rooted in Biblical ideas and whose founders explicitly said that they were counting on the religious character of the people--that being overwhelmingly Christianity at the time--has somehow moved beyond the faith that shepherded it into being.

Except for This One, I Guess. What Difference Could That Make?

Every so often, I see some headline or other that makes me think: There are folks who start out with the idea, more or less, that the real truth about God cannot be really known. A lot of those people also think that all religions contain something of the truth, point the way to God in some way.

Then they run across, say, a story about Ugandan child-sacrifices, and--if they make the connection from the story to their thoughts on religion in general at all, which, believe me, they don't always do--their thinking alters. Now, it's most religions contain something of the truth, point the way to God in someway. Most religions except, obviously, that one. Somehow, they know that one's not right.

But how? How do they know that? And if they know that, why is that means of knowing not applicable to other religions? That is, if they can know that Ugandan religions that trade in child sacrifice are not right, why can't they, by the same means, know that Santeria, or voudoun, or Thuggee (Okay, that one's probably died out...), or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Islam, or Christianity is right or wrong? In whole or in part?

I'm not sure I see a whole lotta options here. Seems to me that either you admit that you can, in fact, by some means, know that a religion is right or wrong, in whole or in part, or you are pretty much stuck with the idea that you can't really know for sure that child sacrifice isn't a pathway toward God. If, then, you can know something of the truth about God, why wouldn't you be responsible for believing it? Why wouldn't you be responsible for doing what God wants you to do, if you can, in any degree, discern what that is? Why wouldn't you be responsible for finding out as much truth about God as you can? And if, in your searching, you find out quite a bit of truth about God, why wouldn't you be responsible for telling others?

Favorite Goldwater Quotes

Lately, I have often found myself wishing that we had another Barry Goldwater on hand. A few favorite quotes:

Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny.

***

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

***

And here we encounter the seeds of government disaster and collapse -- the kind that wrecked ancient Rome and every other civilization that allowed a sociopolitical monster called the welfare state to exist.

And my absolute favorite, one that I wish I could get tattooed somewhere on my body, one that outlines, in brief, the ideas that I would run on, were I ever to run for office:

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution ... or have failed their purpose ... or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty, and in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

What happened to people who think like this? I mean, in the Republican Party? I know what happened to them in the Democratic Party; Roosevelt drove a stake through their hearts. But how did the Republican Party get to the point where the chief worry many of us have is that we will, yet again, end up opposing the Democrats with what is, essentially, Democrat Lite?

Dunces

(Sigh) I was reading Linda Chavez a day or so ago. You know, I'd heard about this:

...the story broke that RNC money paid for a night out on the town for a group of young donors and staff at a bondage-theme nightclub in West Hollywood, Calif., aptly named Voyeur.

but not about this:

...Steele has his own problems, namely very expensive tastes. During his tenure, he's spent RNC money on private jets, limousines, and four-star hotels on his frequent travels -- nearly $9,000 at the Beverly Hills Hotel on one stop. The RNC has about $13 million less in the bank than when Steele became chairman, and he's raised less than he's spent during his tenure, putting the RNC in poor financial shape heading into elections in the fall.

I think there's real hope for big electoral gains for the Republican Party this Fall. But increasingly, it seems to me that leadership at the top of the party is so bad that it's going to be very much a case of us making those gains in spite of our leadership, not because of it. We will win, probably not because voters perceive Republicans to be a good choice, but because Democrats have proven themselves to be a disastrous choice. And when we do (I hope!) win, we are going to face the fact that the Republican Party leadership now in power is going to still want to run the show.

What a mess.

Quote from a Facebook Friend

Regrettably, I don't think I can give the man proper credit without blowing my identity. But here 'tis:

I do not like it Uncle Sam, I do not like it Sam I am. I do not like these dirty crooks, Neither how they cook the books. I do not like when Congress steals, I do not like their secret deals. I do not like this Speaker Nan, I do not like this "YES WE CAN!" I do not like this kind of hope, I do not like it, nope! nope, Nope!

Amen, brother, amen...

Simple Burgers

Burgers, as far as I am concerned, are a staple item of the American diet. Here are two simple recipes that I've used, both of which have met with not inconsiderable approval from family.

Version 1:

This is very simple indeed. All you do is take ground chuck and add 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and 1 teaspoon of Wright's liquid smoke per pound. You may, of course, at your discretion, use another brand of liquid smoke, but so far, I have yet to discover a brand that is the equal of Wright's. Of course, add more or less of these seasonings (and any others that may strike you) to your taste. These will be excellent, either on the grill (the recommended method), or in a cast-iron skillet.

You may be wondering: why the liquid smoke, if you are going to grill them? And the answer is that burgers cook too quickly to pick up a pronounced smoke flavor from grilling alone. Sure, there is some, certainly enough to make it worth your while to get the coals going, but the liquid smoke doesn't hurt.

If you're not familiar with the use of a cast-iron skillet--and this seems more and more common these days--it is very simple: heat the thing to just-a-little-hotter-than medium heat, making sure that the pan is hot before you flop in your burgers, and then cook the burgers to the desired degree of doneness. Cast iron is a cooking medium par excellence; if you haven't learned how to use it, I recommend that you make the effort. Start with this excellent book.

Don't know how to use a grill? There are several excellent books, but this is one of the best for those unfamiliar with the subject.

Version 2:

This is very simple, too. Simply take your ground chuck and add about a quarter cup of salad dressing per pound. Personally, I favor blue cheese, but I have also used ranch with success. Cooking methods are the same, but watch out for the burgers crumbling.

"I Don't Care About the Constitution..."

The fireworks start about 46 seconds into the clip.

Aaaaannnd theeere you have it, ladies and gentlemen; a view of constitutionality that is, I suspect, at the bottom of most Democratic thinking on the subject of health care.

Your government at work!

Kat Writes a Good 'Un

Read this one. Your time won't be wasted.