"Food For Thought"

The Eternal Lure of Nationalism

2/27/2018 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

In a surprise overtime victory in the finals of the Olympic men's hockey tournament, the Russians defeated Germany, 4-3.

But the Russians were not permitted to have their national anthem played or flag raised, due to a past doping scandal. So, the team ignored the prohibition and sang out the Russian national anthem over the sounds of the Olympic anthem.

One recalls the scene in "Casablanca," where French patrons of Rick's saloon stood and loudly sang the "La Marseillaise" to drown out the "Die Wacht am Rhein" being sung by a table of German officers.

When the combined North-South Korean Olympic team entered the stadium, Vice President Mike Pence remained seated and silent. But tens of thousands of Koreans stood and cheered the unified team.

America may provide a defensive shield for the South, but Koreans on both sides of the DMZ see themselves as one people. And, no fool, Kim Jong Un is exploiting the deep tribal ties he knows are there.

Watching the Russians defiantly belt out their anthem, one recalls also the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City where sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on the podium, black gloved fists thrust skyward in a Black Power salute, asserting their separate racial identity.

Western elites may deplore the return of nationalism. But they had best not dismiss it, for assertions of national and tribal identity appear to be what the future is going to be all about.

Some attendees at the CPAC conclave this past week were appalled that Britain's Nigel Farage and France's Marion Le Pen were present.

But Farage was the man most responsible for Brexit, the historic British decision to leave the EU. Le Pen is perhaps the most popular figure in a National Front party that won 35 percent of the vote in the runoff election won by President Emmanuel Macron.

And the most unifying stand of the NF appears to be "Let France be France!" The French people do not want their country invaded by unassimilable millions of migrants from Africa and the Islamic world.

They want France to remain what she has been. Is this wrong? Is preservation of a country, the national family one grew up in, not conservative?

In Hungary and Poland, ethnonationalism, the belief that nation-states are created and best suited to protect and defend a separate and unique people, with its separate and unique history and culture, is already ascendant.

Globalists may see the U.N., EU, NAFTA, TPP as stepping stones to a "universal nation" of all races, tribes, cultures and creeds. But growing numbers in every country, on every continent, reject this vision. And they are seeking to restore what their parents and grand-parents had, a nation-state that is all their own.

Nationalists like Farage, who seek to pull their countries out of socialist superstates like the EU, and peoples seeking to secede and set up new nations like Scotland, Catalonia, Corsica and Veneto today, and Quebec yesterday, are no more anti-conservative than the American patriots of Lexington and Concord who also wanted a country of their own.

Why are European peoples who wish to halt mass migration from across the Med, to preserve who and what they are, decried as racists?

Did not the peoples of African and Middle Eastern countries, half a century ago, expel the European settlers who helped to build those countries?

The Rhodesia of Spitfire pilot Ian Smith was a jewel of a nation of 250,000 whites and several million blacks that produced trade surpluses even when boycotted and sanctioned by a hating world.

When Smith was forced to yield power, "Comrade Bob" Mugabe took over and began the looting of white Rhodesians, and led his Shona tribesmen in a slaughter of the Matabele of rival Joshua Nkomo.

Eighty-five percent of the white folks who lived in Rhodesia, prior to "majority rule," are gone from Zimbabwe. More than half of the white folks who made South Africa the most advanced and prosperous country on the continent are gone.

Are these countries better places than they were? For whom?

Looking back over this 21st century, the transnational elite that envisions the endless erosion of national sovereignty, and the coming of a new world order of open borders, free trade and global custody of mankind's destiny, has triggered a counter-revolution.

Does anyone think Angela Merkel looks like the future?

Consider the largest countries on earth. In China, ethnonationalism, not the ruling Communist Party, unites and inspires 1.4 billion people to displace the Americans as the first power on earth.

Nationalism sustains Vladimir Putin. Nationalism and its unique identity as a Hindu nation unites and powers India.

Here, today, it is "America First" nationalism.

Indeed, now that George W. Bush's crusade for democracy has ended up like Peter the Hermit's Children's Crusade, what is the vision, what is the historic goal our elites offer to inspire and enlist our people?

Arrogance of Unchecked Power Believes Itself Above Accountability

The Clown Show

2/8/2018 - Derek Hunter Townhall.com

It doesn’t take much for liberals to lose their cool, or their minds. Pretty much all you have to do is disagree with them politically, then duck and cover. But this week saw more than the usual share of insanity from our friends on the left, which is worthy of note.

The release of the memo from the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee must’ve put a bur under the saddle of their instability because since Friday they’ve been in full gallop of crazy, unable or unwilling to stop.

First, the Democrats on the committee, after claiming the release of the Republican’s memo would be damaging to national security because it revealed “sources and methods” for gathering intelligence (it did neither), are now set to release their own memo – a reported 10-page defense of the government using partisan rumors peddled by Russian government officials to spy on Americans. It’ll be an amusing, if not informative, read.

The release of the Democrats’ memo was supported unanimously by the Intelligence Committee, unlike the Republican memo. No Democrats wanted the public to know what their government was up to when it was the GOP telling the story, but zero Republicans made any attempt to stop the liberals from telling their side. Weird, right? 

Yes, some liberal journalists are grousing about how the memos weren’t released simultaneously, but they are lying to the public. There is a very specific procedure for releasing information of this sort that requires time for the various interested parties to have a chance to weigh in. Democrats did not start the procedure for their memo until long after trying to block the Republicans' memo. So they, the Democrats, are responsible for their memo’s delay, not partisan actions by Republicans. You won’t hear that on MSNBC or CNN.

Still, in response to the release of the GOP memo, there are reports of anger inside the FBI. There are even reports that the anger “could cause spy agencies to start sharing less with Congress.” That’s exactly the problem with the FBI now – the arrogance that accompanies unchecked power that believes itself above accountability. 

Were the FBI, or any intelligence agency, to refuse constitutional oversight of Congress, that agency needs to be gutted and eliminated. It would need to be replaced, they serve a vital purpose when they follow the rules, but obstructing oversight would make them a rogue agency that has to be destroyed. 

The lead Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, was exposed this week as being so desperate to find dirt on Donald Trump that he was willing to have staff coordinate with a foreign government to get it. It turned out that he fell for a prank, but it’s telling that he would do exactly what he’s accusing Trump of doing in order to “get” the president. The media mostly yawned at the hypocrisy. 

Not to be outdone, the media seized on a joke President Trump told in Ohio, calling Democrats not applauding good economic news in the State of the Union Address “treason.” It was clearly a joke in response to something someone in the crowd said, but you’d think he was calling for the execution of liberals by the reaction to it. Of course, liberals have a rather deep recent history of calling Republicans traitors, to the cheers of (and in coordination with) the media, but why let the facts stand in the way of a good pearl clutching? 

Hysterically, alleged conservatives even engaged their fainting couches over the joke. Bill Kristol, having difficulty adapting to not mattering anymore, said the joke was “disgraceful” and suggested Congress censure the President. It’s sad to watch people so desperate for the attention they once earned through their ideas now clamor for it with temper tantrums. Hatred, it seems, trumps logic.

It’s been a joke of a week, and the punchline comes to us from The Atlantic magazine. The solution they offer to conservative pearl-clutchers is simple: vote for Democrats. The authors claim to support many Republican principles, but advocate abandoning them because, you guessed it, Trump. 

It would be a great parody, were it not so real. But it will find an audience with the Kristols and the other passengers of the “we’re the true conservatives” clown car emptying its contents on cable news nightly. Their seething hatred over Trump soiling their relevance has overridden what they made their names professing were their principles. Anger from Democrats is expected, from Republicans it's misplaced. 

Does Trump say or tweet things that make me shake my head sometimes? Absolutely. But I know the real problem in Washington is in Congress. Trump would sign just about anything put in front of him, but the “conservatives” in Congress aren’t putting anything in front of him. Not even fairly innocuous things that could pass the Senate in an election year. If Bill Kristol wants to point fingers, maybe he should look in the mirror, and at all the people in his clown car’s backseat. They have an opportunity to get done things they’ve always claimed were their priorities, and instead they’re occupying their time campaigning against the one man who would happily sign their priorities into law…if Congress would only send them to him. That, perhaps, is the biggest joke of all.

The divided States of America Stumbles Onward

The Right and Wrong Approaches to Immigration

7/14/2018 - Andy Schlafly Townhall.com

“This will be our last chance, there will never be another opportunity!” to protect Dreamers, President Trump properly tweeted as the U.S. Senate plunged into a debate about immigration policy.  The Left wants amnesty for Dreamers, who are illegal aliens who entered our country as young adults.

President Trump is right to insist on funding for a border wall, which would cost less than 1 percent of our national budget, and an end to chain migration whereby relatives of immigrants are brought in with little or no screening.  President Trump’s approach is welcome relief to the failed, open-door policies of the prior Republican leadership.

Meanwhile, an unexpected voice weighed in from the other side of the world.  In Abu Dhabi, an oil-rich emirate in the Persian Gulf, former President George W. Bush was speaking at a conference organized by Michael Milken, the junk bond king of the 1980s.

“Americans don’t want to pick cotton at 105 degrees,” Bush said in response to a question, “but there are people who want to put food on their family’s tables and are willing to do that. We ought to say thank you and welcome them.”

Bush was right that Americans don’t want to pick cotton at 105 degrees, as we can tell you from personal experience.  But he was wrong to say we ought to welcome people from other lands so poor that they are willing to do that kind of work to put food on their family’s tables.  

When we were teenagers, we spent a memorable summer vacation working on a cotton farm in the Mississippi delta east of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  It was a miserable experience, but fortunately for us, it lasted only about two weeks.

It was too early to pick the cotton when we were there around the Fourth of July, but we learned how to chop it.  Chopping cotton means chopping weeds with a hoe without damaging the cotton plant. 

After awhile, we wondered why we saw no one else doing this backbreaking work in the 100-degree heat of the Mississippi delta, where cotton fields extend as far as the eye can see.  That’s when we realized that chopping and picking cotton were already being done by machines, and the people who used to do it by hand had moved on to better jobs.

Once upon a time, more than 200 years ago, Americans imported African slaves to do the unpleasant work of cultivating cotton.  Slavery was abolished in 1865, but African Americans continued to toil on cotton farms in conditions of extreme poverty that prevailed in the defeated Southern states.

About 75 years after the Civil War, some inventors finally made a successful cotton-picking machine.  This invention came years later than the famous harvester invented by Cyrus McCormick, because cotton is so much harder to pick than wheat, corn or soybeans.

During the same period in which mechanization swept the cotton fields of the South, millions of African Americans moved north in search of economic opportunity and greater freedom.  During this period known as the “great migration,” many black Americans found higher paying jobs in the factories of Chicago and Detroit, while others achieved success and fame in sports and entertainment.

Thanks to a legal and economic system that rewards invention and innovation, our high standard of living means that no American of any race has to chop or pick cotton at 105 degrees anymore.  Bush grew up in Texas, which grows more cotton than any other state, and he should know that.

Bush’s foolish comment combined two of the worst slogans of the pro-amnesty movement, the myth of “jobs Americans won’t do” and the myth of “crops rotting in the fields.”  On the contrary, the enormous growth of computer-aided automation, robots, artificial intelligence, and driverless vehicles is eliminating whatever opportunity there used to be for poor people from other countries to earn a living here.

While the debate rages in Washington, another debate is roiling the state of California, which has more immigrants (10 million) and more illegal aliens (2.4 million) than any other state.  California’s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, is warning that state’s employers not to cooperate with the federal government.

“Businesses are increasingly caught between California and Washington,” the Wall Street Journal reports.  A new state law imposes fines of up to $10,000 on employers who provide information about their employees to federal immigration officials.

In the last presidential election, California went in a markedly different direction from the rest of our Nation.  But the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution requires that California obey the same federal laws on immigration with which the other 49 states must comply in protecting American workers against illegal aliens.

In the end, Californians might thank President Trump for taking a strong stand against illegal immigration, which is estimated to be costing that state about $30 billion per year.  That’s far more than the costs of building a border wall to permanently solve the problem.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously in 2016.

Outstanding Article on Biblical Reference to Immigration!

The True Biblical Response to Illegal Immigration and DREAMers

2/11/2018 - Arthur Schaper Townhall.com

My Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) hosted another error-ridden town hall in Hermosa Beach last week. On immigration, he claimed to support two parts of President Trump’s proposed(?) plan: granting legal status to 1.8 million young illegals; and enhancing border security (although Lieu called the border wall “stupid”). He differed on ending chain migration and the diversity lottery. He quoted the Bible in his defense: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” (Matthew 25:35).

My response: “Then take them into your home!” Amnesty advocates preach their open-border morality, but don’t live up to it. Moreover, Jesus’ statement is directed toward individuals who welcomed strangers into their own homes voluntarily. Any form of amnesty imposed by our government is not voluntary.

My consternation with these Biblical arguments has grown since reading this article in the Christian Post, when evangelical leaders, many of whom I respect, pressured Congress to pass some kind of DREAM Act. Pastor Samuel Rodriguez of Sacramento, CA stated in a January press conference: "The wall is a physical object created by man. 800,000 human beings created in the image of God by God.” Walls are Biblical, affirmed by God in Scripture. In fact, God commands the construction of walls around Jerusalem both the Old (Nehemiah 1:1-7:3) and the New (Isaiah 54: 12; Ezekiel 42:20).

 In another letter to Congress, Evangelical leaders wrote: "Roughly 700,000 young people are poised to lose their right to work lawfully in the U.S., not to mention their dreams of a future in this country—the country they were brought to as children, without choice.” First of all, this country is not responsible for their parents’ crimes, which have harmed their children. Children should not be punished for the sins of their parents (cf. Jeremiah 31:29), but natural consequences remain. A mother breaks into my home, steals my car, and her children use the ill-gotten gains for good. I am still entitled to restoration of my property (Exodus 22). Illegal aliens are stealing this country’s space, resources, and wealth.

In response to these pro-enforcement arguments, preachers cite The New Covenant (Hebrews 8:10-012), which asserts that we are no longer under law, but under grace. However, grace is not arbitrary. Jesus died on a Cross for the sins of the world, the just for the unjust (1 John 2:2; 1 Peter 3:18). A payment must be rendered. Why should law-abiding citizens pay for lawbreakers?

If Christian leaders want to preach accurately on immigration, they should first acknowledge a few things:

1. Nations are God’s idea, not merely man’s construction, and rewarding illegal immigration harms nations. Genesis 11 reports God created multiple languages—and nations—to stop mankind from building the Tower of Babel. The dissolution of border security and national sovereignty are unholy gestures. To contend for amnesty based on a misplaced understanding of scripture is not tenable. There will come a time when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess Christ Jesus as Lord, but for now nation-states remain as part of God’s plan. Rampant amnesties only erode national boundaries.
2. Citizenship is a principle defended in the Bible. In the Old Testament, strangers were respected (Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 10: 19), but they were expected to adopt all the customs of Israel, not retain their original cultural views (Numbers 15: 14-29). In the New Testament, Paul the apostle asserted his Roman citizenship to redress the abusive treatment of Roman soldiers (Acts 22:22-23:11). He also addressed his fellow Christians as “citizens of heaven” (Philippians 3:20, Colossians 3:5-16). Membership in a defined, national compact matters and should not be pushed aside. Many illegals in this country, especially DREAMers, are hell-bent on retaining and imposing a neo-pagan culture in this country, estranged and unsubmissive to our country’s constitutional rule and civic culture.
3. Christians are called to honor their rulers (and rules!) among the nations (1 Timothy 2:1-2; 1 Peter 2:17). To dismiss the authority of temporal rulers, especially on matters of immigration, is unholy and unwise.

Instead of championing amnesty, Christian leaders should reference the ideal immigrant: Ruth the Moabite. Unlike the 11 to 16 million illegal aliens in our country, per official tallies, Ruth did not break into her adoptive nation of Israel. She had a sponsor, her mother-in-law Naomi. There were other factors which Ruth obeyed, too (Ruth 1:16-17):

1. “For whither thou goest, I will go”: She would attend to Naomi, recognizing her place in her new country as based solely on the goodness of her mother-in-law. She did not enter into Israel as a political radical or busy-body.
2. “Where thou lodgest, I will lodge”: She would live with Naomi, not depending on someone else, particularly the state or taxpayers, to provide her housing. Her needs would come from her sponsor, not by force from other inhabitants in Israel.
3. “Your people will be my people”: This statement sums up assimilation perfectly. She pledged to become an Israelite. How often do our leaders today talk about the importance of immigrants adopting American customs, rather than demanding that we accommodate their foreign ways?
4. “Thy God [will be] my God.”: while our free society does not demand religious adherence to one creed, we should expect immigrants to embrace our cultural and moral values. For this reason, I am adamant against accepting adherents of Sharia Law, for example, or other religious sects which endanger life and property.
5. “Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried”: Ruth pledged a complete break with her pagan country and culture. She refused to abandon her new country or identity.

At the very least, politicians and pastors should stop shaming the public by misusing Scripture. Christians should have a ready defense when amnesty advocates distort Scripture for selfish political ends. Every country has a right to strong borders, safe citizens, and a secured sovereignty. These are not un-Christian expectations in the slightest.

WDC Has Become a Crime Scene

Why FISA-gate Is Scarier Than Watergate

2/8/2018 - Victor Davis Hanson Townhall.com

The Watergate scandal of 1972-74 was uncovered largely because of outraged Democratic politicians and a bulldog media. They both claimed that they had saved American democracy from the Nixon administration's attempt to warp the CIA and FBI to cover up an otherwise minor, though illegal, political break-in.

In the Iran-Contra affair of 1985-87, the media and liberal activists uncovered wrongdoing by some rogue members of the Reagan government. They warned of government overreach and of using the "Deep State" to subvert the law for political purposes.

We are now in the midst of a third great modern scandal. Members of the Obama administration's Department of Justice sought court approval for the surveillance of Carter Page, allegedly for colluding with Russian interests, and extended the surveillance three times.

But none of these government officials told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the warrant requests were based on an unverified dossier that had originated as a hit piece funded in part by the Hillary Clinton campaign to smear Donald Trump during the current 2016 campaign.

Nor did these officials reveal that the author of the dossier, Christopher Steele, had already been dropped as a reliable source by the FBI for leaking to the press.

Nor did officials add that a Department of Justice official, Bruce Ohr, had met privately with Steele -- or that Ohr's wife, Nellie, had been hired to work on the dossier.

Unfortunately, such disclosures may be only the beginning of the FISA-gate scandal.

Members of the Obama administration's national security team also may have requested the names of American citizens connected with the Trump campaign who had been swept up in other FISA surveillance. Those officials may have then improperly unmasked the names and leaked them to a compliant press -- again, for apparent political purposes during a campaign.

As a result of various controversies, the deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, has resigned. Two FBI officials who had been working on special counsel Robert Mueller's team in the so-called Russia collusion probe, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, have been reassigned for having an improper relationship and for displaying overt political biases in text messages to each other.

The new FBI director, Christopher Wray, has also reassigned the FBI's top lawyer, James Baker, who purportedly leaked the Steele dossier to a sympathetic journalist.

How does FISA-gate compare to Watergate and Iran-Contra?

Once again, an administration is being accused of politicizing government agencies to further agendas, this time apparently to gain an advantage for Hillary Clinton in the run-up to an election.

There is also the same sort of government resistance to releasing documents under the pretext of "national security."

There is a similar pattern of slandering congressional investigators and whistleblowers as disloyal and even treasonous.

There is the rationale that just as the Watergate break-in was a two-bit affair, Carter Page was a nobody.

But there is one huge (and ironic) difference. In the current FISA-gate scandal, most of the media and liberal civil libertarians are now opposing the disclosure of public documents. They are siding with those in the government who disingenuously sought surveillance to facilitate the efforts of a political campaign.

This time around, the press is not after a hated Nixon administration. Civil libertarians are not demanding accountability from a conservative Reagan team. Instead, the roles are reversed.

Barack Obama was a progressive constitutional lawyer who expressed distrust of the secretive "Deep State." Yet his administration weaponized the IRS and surveilled Associated Press communications and a Fox News journalist for reporting unfavorable news based on supposed leaks.

Obama did not fit the past stereotypes of right-wing authoritarians subverting the Department of Justice and its agencies. Perhaps that is why there was little pushback against his administration's efforts to assist the campaign of his likely replacement, fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Progressives are not supposed to destroy requested emails, "acid wash" hard drives, spread unverified and paid-for opposition research among government agencies, or use the DOJ and FBI to obtain warrants to snoop on the communications of American citizens.

FISA-gate may become a more worrisome scandal than either Watergate or Iran-Contra. Why? Because our defense against government wrongdoing -- the press -- is defending such actions, not uncovering them. Liberal and progressive voices are excusing, not airing, the excesses of the DOJ and FBI.

Apparently, weaponizing government agencies to stop a detested Donald Trump by any means necessary is not really considered a crime.

Words Did Have Meanings - Not Anymore

There Are Two Americas

2/1/2018 - Derek Hunter Townhall.com

Remember John Edwards? The former Democratic Senator who was John Kerry’s running mate in 2004 and carried on an affair while his wife was fighting for her life? Yeah, that scumbag. Back before his being a scumbag was confirmed he ran for president in 2008 on the idea that there are “two Americas,” one rich and one poor. He was half-right; there are two Americas, but they aren’t divided by income, they’re divided by a willingness to live in reality.

This division has always existed, there have always been people who only see what they want to see. But those people used to be the fringe, the strange aunts and uncles who never married and every one gave a sigh of relief when they left family gatherings. 

It was fine while they wandered their personal Grey Gardens, but now they’ve entered the halls of power, or at least have become such a large part of the Democratic Party that elected officials are catering to them and demanding legislation to force us all to live in their perverted world. 

Words have meaning. If they didn’t, communication would be impossible. But liberals are now bastardizing those meanings to the point that communication with many liberals simply isn’t worth it. 

“Illegal alien” was the term used to describe, well, illegal aliens. It’s a term used commonly in law because it’s an accurate description. That was deemed “offensive” once Democrats decided to expand their victimhood identity politics stable and pander to Hispanics. It has since morphed from “illegal alien” to “undocumented alien,” then “undocumented migrant,” and now “undocumented resident,” like these illegal aliens are just someone who ran to Home Depot and forgot their wallet. 

“Chain migration” was a common term used to describe, well, chain migration – when someone immigrates to the country and then sponsors various family members they apparently can’t live without…except for the fact that they moved thousands of miles away from them, to another country. Then all of those people can help bring in other family members they can’t live without after moving away from them.

Republicans and Democrats used that term for decades because that is the term that describes it. Now it’s considered racist by leftists, which puts it on par with, quite honestly, everything and anything liberals don’t like. They prefer “family reunification” because it’s a subtle appeal to emotion, which overrides logic in people who don’t pay close attention to things. 

But no one wants to ask a simple question: If someone can’t live without their uncle, their grandparents, or cousins, why’d they move away from them? And why should anyone care that you can’t live without your extended family? You left them. If you miss them so much, why not go back? 

That’s racist to ask, according to our self-appointed moral arbiters on the left…who spent decades vomiting the talking point “You can’t legislate morality, nor should you try,” every time anything related to morals was discussed. But time, as with all things, changed. Now liberals want to legislate based on morality, but only their morality. And that morality demands the meaning of words change to fit what they want them to be.

What once everyone understood is now an ever-evolving mystery with no end. There used to be two genders, now there are dozens and not keeping current with whatever the latest created-on-a-whim term some patchouli-wearing, hyper-sensitive Brooklyn hipster creates to explain how their attention-seeking mind feels on a random Tuesday afternoon is a hate crime.

Words no longer have meaning. And without words having meanings, what does? How can people communicate when they both speak the same language but the words mean different things to them?

The answer is you can’t. 

Maybe the further answer is you shouldn’t? 

I don’t know. Watching CNN or MSNBC is like looking into an alternate universe. I’m sure the same is true when a liberal watches Fox. How can you reconcile with someone who can’t comprehend how you view the world?

How do you compromise with someone who wants the exact opposite of what you want? There’s no middle-ground with someone who wants the government to do something about an issue you believe the government has no business being involved with. 

One side wants an ever-growing government with tentacles into all aspects of the economy, society, and your life. The other side wants the government to be limited to the powers clearly laid out in the Constitution and to otherwise be left alone. There is no compromise between those two desires. It’s a zero-sum game, if someone wins that means someone has to lose. And as words have their meanings changed to suit the political whims of the moment by one side, there are becoming fewer and fewer ways to even talk about it. I don’t know where it leads, or how soon it will get there, but it sure doesn’t look good.

The Debate is Over 'Illegal' Immigration - Not Immigration

Immigration Lies and Hypocrisy

1/31/2018 - Walter E. Williams Townhall.com

President Donald Trump reportedly asked why the U.S. is "having all these people from sh*thole countries come here." I think he could have used better language, but it's a question that should be asked and answered. I have a few questions for my fellow Americans to consider. How many Norwegians have illegally entered our nation, committed crimes and burdened our prison and welfare systems? I might ask the same question about Finnish, Swedish, Welsh, Icelanders, Greenlanders and New Zealanders. The bulk of our immigration problem is with people who enter our country criminally from Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East. It's illegal immigrants from those countries who have committed crimes and burdened our criminal justice and welfare systems. A large number of immigrants who are here illegally -- perhaps the majority are law-abiding in other respects -- have fled oppressive, brutal and corrupt regimes to seek a better life in America.

In the debate about illegal immigration, there are questions that are not explicitly asked but can be answered with a straight "yes" or "no": Does everyone in the world have a right to live in the U.S.? Do Americans have a right to decide who and under what conditions a person may enter our country? Should we permit foreigners landing at our airports to ignore U.S. border control laws just as some ignore our laws at our southern border? The reason those questions are not asked is that one would be deemed an idiot for saying that everyone in the world has a right to live in our country, that Americans don't have a right to decide who lives in our country and that foreigners landing at our airports have a right to just ignore U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.

Immigration today, even when legal, is different from the immigration of yesteryear. People who came here in the 19th century and most of the 20th century came here to learn our language, learn our customs and become Americans. Years ago, there was a guarantee that immigrants came here to work, because there was no welfare system; they worked, begged or starved. Today, there is no such assurance. Because of our welfare state, immigrants can come here and live off taxpaying Americans.

There is another difference between today and yesteryear. Today, Americans are taught multiculturalism throughout their primary, secondary and college education. They are taught that one culture is no better or worse than another. To believe otherwise is criticized at best as Eurocentrism and at worst as racism. As a result, some immigrant groups seek to bring to our country the cultural values whose failures have led to the poverty, corruption and human rights violations in their home countries that caused them to flee. As the fallout from President Trump's indelicate remarks demonstrates, too many Americans are afraid and unwilling to ask which immigrant groups have become a burden to our nation and which have made a contribution to the greatness of America.

Very unfortunate for our nation is that we have political groups that seek to use illegal immigration for their own benefit. They've created sanctuary cities and states that openly harbor criminals -- people who have broken our laws. The whole concept of sanctuary cities is to give aid, comfort and sympathy to people who have broken our laws. Supporters want to prevent them from having to hide and live in fear of discovery. I'd ask whether, for the sake of equality before the law, we should apply the sanctuary concept to Americans who have broken other laws, such as robbers and tax evaders.

We should not fall prey to people who criticize our efforts to combat illegal immigration and who pompously say, "We're a nation of immigrants!" The debate is not over immigration. The debate is over illegal immigration. My sentiments on immigrants who are here legally and who want to become Americans are expressed by the sentiments in Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus," which is on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty and in part says, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."