Dakota Beacon

While there was a time when I might have described myself as a libertarian, those days are long gone.  In fact, I don’t even call myself a conservative anymore.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, I agree with libertarians on many issues, and their governmental model is vastly preferable to what liberals have visited upon us.  Yet there is a problem: However valid their vision of government may be, their vision of society renders it unattainable.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.  But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”  Now, I certainly agree with the first sentence, as it’s merely a statement of the obvious.  But then we have to ask, what constitutes “injurious”?  And, when determining this, do we completely ignore indirect injury?  Then, if we do consider the latter, to what extent should it be the domain of government?  (When pondering these matters, note that the Founding Fathers didn’t reside on the modern libertarian page.  They certainly would have, for instance, supported the idea of state and local governments outlawing pornography and would be appalled at what is now justified under the First Amendment.)

However you answer these questions, you should question Jefferson’s second sentence.  While it may make sense on the surface, it ignores that spiritual/philosophical foundation affects morality.  And what happens when a people becomes so morally corrupt they elect a government that picks your pocket or breaks your leg?

Lest there be any misunderstandings, I don’t propose that our central government establish religion.  But I do have a problem with the implication that a person’s most fundamental beliefs — which influence action — always do me “no injury,” as this leads to a ho-hum attitude that lessens the will to uphold proper traditions and social codes.  And if you doubt the power of belief, wait until a European nation turns predominantly Muslim and watch what ensues — then get back to me.  

And today’s libertarians have gone Jefferson one better.  They ignore not merely religion’s effect upon morality but also morality’s effect upon government, as they apply their ideology not merely to law but also social codes.  Indulging “moral libertarianism,” they not only oppose anti-sodomy and anti-polygamy laws, they also look askance at social stigmas that could discourage such sexual behaviors.  Not only do they oppose obscenity laws, they’re wary of courageous condemnations of the obscene.  Even that most intrepid libertarian, Glenn Beck, is guilty of this.  When asked during an appearance on the O’Reilly Factor whether faux marriage was a threat to the nation in any way, he laughed and mockingly replied, “A threat to the country?  No, I don't . . . .  Will the gays come and get us?”  I don’t know, Glenn, ask the Europeans and Canadians who criticized homosexuality and were punished under hate-speech law.  

Quite fittingly, right after Beck answered, he quoted the “It neither picks my pocket . . . .” part of the Jefferson quotation, espousing the libertarian idea that we really shouldn’t care what others do as long as they don’t hurt anyone else.  To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, however, this is much like having a fleet of ships and saying that you don’t care how the vessels function as long as they don’t crash into each other.  Obviously, if they don’t function properly, they may not be able to avoid crashing into each other.  So libertarians may say “Whatever works for you — just don’t work it into government,” but what about when someone doesn’t work properly?  Thinking that personal moral disease won’t infect the public sphere is like saying, “I don’t care what a person does with his health — carry tuberculosis if you want — just don’t infect me.” 

And the proof is in the electoral pudding.  Did you ever observe what groups vote for whom and wonder why?  Churchgoing Christians cast ballots overwhelmingly for traditionalist candidates while atheists and agnostics support leftists by wide margins.  In fact, consider this: Virtually every group involved in something those Neanderthal Christians call sinful or misguided votes for leftists.  Goths?  Check.  Homosexuals?  Check.  Wiccans?  Check.  People peppered with tattoos and body-piercings?  Check.  You don’t find many vampirists, cross-dressers or S&M types at Tea Party rallies.   

In light of this, do you really believe there is no correlation between world view and political belief?  In fact, is it realistic to say that there isn’t likely causation here?  And what can you predict about America’s political future based on the fact that an increasing number of people are embracing these “non-traditional” behaviors and beliefs?  The irony of Jefferson’s statement is that whether our neighbor believes in twenty gods or no God, he will likely vote the same way (this is at least partially because paganism and atheism share a commonality with liberalism: the rejection of orthodox Christianity).  And equally ironic is that he will elect people who do injury to the very Constitution Jefferson helped craft.      

So there is a truth here hiding in plain sight: If someone is not a moral being, how can he be expected to vote for moral government?  Do you really think a vice-ridden person will be immoral in business, when raising children and in most other things but then, magically somehow, have a moment of clarity at the polls?  This is why John Adams warned, “Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private [virtue] . . . .”

Despite this, libertarians tend to bristle at bold moral pronouncements that would encourage private virtue.  As was apparent when I penned this seminal piece on the Internet’s corruptive effects, they fear that, should such sentiments take firm hold, they will be legislated and forestall the libertarian utopia.  But they have it precisely backwards.  As Edmund Burke said:

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites . . . .  Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.  It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free.  Their passions forge their fetters.

Thus, insofar as the libertarian governmental ideal is even possible, it is dependent upon the upholding of morality, upon the “controlling power” of social codes.  For not only do they help shape moral compasses, thereby increasing governance “from within,” insofar as that internal control is lacking, the social pressure attending the codes serves to govern from without.  And insofar as this social control is lacking, governmental control fills the vacuum.  As freedom from morality waxes, freedom from legality wanes.

Ultimately, the tragic consequence of the libertarian mentality is that it guarantees the left’s victory in the battle for civilization.  This is because, in libertarians’ failure to fight for hearts and minds in the cultural realm, they cede it to leftists, who aren’t shy about advancing their “values.”  And proof of this is in the social pudding.  You see, if talk of establishing social codes and traditions sounds stifling, know that we haven’t dispensed with such things — that is impossible.  Rather, the left has succeeded in replacing our traditional variety with something called “political correctness,” which describes a set of codes powerful enough to control the jokes we make and words we use, get people hired or fired, and catapult a man to the presidency based partially on the color of his skin.

As for elections, political battles need to be fought, but they are the small picture.  For if the culture is lost, of what good is politics?  People will vote in accordance with their world view no matter what you do.  Thus, he who shapes hearts and minds today wins political power tomorrow.    

The libertarian chant, “I don’t care what you do, just lemme alone” sounds very reasonable, indeed.  But as hate-speech laws, forcing people to buy health insurance and a thousand other nanny-state intrusions prove, when people become morally corrupt enough, they don’t leave you alone.  They tyrannize you.  A prerequisite for anything resembling libertarian government is cast-iron morality in the people.  And we should remember that, to echo Thomas Paine, “Virtue is not hereditary.”

For this reason, neither is liberty.  Scream “Live and let live!” loudly enough in the moral sphere, and in the hearts of men the Devil will live — and the republic will die.

                                                        Contact Selwyn Duke

Unlike for most Americans, the Delaware senatorial primary was not my first introduction to Christine O’Donnell.  I remembered her from as far back as approximately two decades ago, making appearances on shows such as “Politically Incorrect.”  So when I heard about her supposed “extremist views,” I had to wonder if I was overlooking something.  It’s hard to forget such a pretty face, but did I fail to recollect some strange aspect of her ideology? 

So I did a Google search and quickly found criticism of her at the Huffington Compost.  “What better source for getting the dirt, real and imagined, on a Tea Party candidate?” I thought.  Yet I figured I knew what I’d find, and I was right.  Had she ever proclaimed herself a Marxist?  No, that was her opponent, Chris Coons.  Had she ever belonged to a socialist party?  No, that was Barack Obama in the 1990s.  Did she once advocate forced abortions and sterilization?  No, that was the president’s “science czar,” John Holdren.  Had she headed up an organization that promoted “fisting” for 14-year-olds and books featuring sex acts between pre-schoolers?  No, while Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings did do that, O’Donnell’s sin is far different:

She believes in sexual purity.

To be precise, she is a Catholic who embraces the totality of the Church’s teachings on sexuality.  I could elaborate on that, as I’m a devout Catholic myself, but this misses the point.  To wit: The most the left can do when trying to cast O’Donnell as a danger in government is cite something that she believes has nothing to do with government.  She won’t propose the “Self-gratification Control Act” of 2011 anymore than she will mandate that you must attend Mass on Sundays, fast during Lent or believe in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  (Note that former senator Rick Santorum never did, and, as a devout Catholic who often attends Mass even on weekdays, he presumably believes all O’Donnell does.)  What the left is mischaracterizing as her ideology is actually her theology of the body.

Then, I must say that I tire of how the word “extremism” is bandied about so thoughtlessly.  This isn’t primarily because the label is often misapplied.  It is because it is always misunderstood.

The late Barry Goldwater once said, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”  But to be more precise, extremism that happens to reflect Truth is a virtue.  After all, if you live in a land where everyone believes 2+2=5 and you insist it is 4, you’ll be considered an extremist.  All being an “extremist” means is that your views deviate greatly from those of the mainstream.  It doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

But we don’t talk about wrong, or right, as much as we should in this relativistic culture.  Instead, believing “Man is the measure of all things,” we naturally take the norms of current civilization as the default and any deviation from them as defect (in fairness, all cultures tend to be guilty of this).  But the reality is that while Truth sometimes lies at the center of a culture, other times it occupies the fringes.  Sometimes, like an abolitionist in 1800, an extremist is just someone who is right 50 years too soon.  Or you might say that an extremist is someone who upholds the wisdom of the ageless despite the folly of the age.

So saying someone is an extremist relates nothing about his rightness.  The problem with Islamic extremists, for instance, isn’t that they’re extreme — any truly religious person is thus viewed in a secular time.  It’s that they’re extremely wrong.  This brings us to O’Donnell’s opponent, Chris Coons.  

Since we’re digging up old O’Donnell quotations, it’s only fair to delve into Coons’ past.  And when we do, we find this interesting bit of extremism: An article he wrote titled “Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist.”  It details how a trip to Kenya that Coons took as a junior in college served as a “catalyst,” completing his transformation from “conservative” to communist.  Yet, while one could elaborate further here as well, as with O’Donnell, this misses the point.  To wit: Marxism has everything to do with government, as it is about transforming it through socialist revolution into something tried and untrue, something that slays the light and visits a dark age of a thousand sorrows upon its victims.  It’s something that killed 100,000,000 people during the 20^th century and every economy it ever touched.  That is a negative extremism if ever there were one, and it should scare the heck out of every one of us.

And what is this supposedly balanced with on O’Donnell’s side?

Oh, yeah, the sexual purity thing.

Of course, Coons’ piece was written 25 years ago when he was 21 and will be excused by some as youthful indiscretion.  But I’ll make two points.  First, the ability to profile properly is always necessary when choosing candidates, as the information you have at your disposal when judging them is limited and managed.  A politician certainly wouldn’t admit to harboring Marxist passions; thus, in keeping with the maxim “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior,” the best yardstick we have for measuring Coons is actions and pronouncements taken/made before he had a vested interest in lying about his aims.  (And wouldn’t we instinctively apply this when judging someone with a neo-Nazi or KKK history?  Would we give David Duke the benefit of the doubt many would give Coons?)  Then, when profiling, know this: People who embrace communism but then truly renounce it generally become passionate rightists.  Those who remain leftists usually haven’t renounced anything but honesty about their intentions.     

The reason why we should fear Coons is the exact reason why leftists fear O’Donnell: In their universe, moral statements are synonymous with policy positions.  If they don’t like salt, fat, tobacco (paging Mayor Bloomberg) or free markets, they play Big Brother and give us a very un-free society.  But traditionalist Americans are different: We don’t think that every supposedly good idea should be legislated.  We understand that government and its coercion aren’t the only forces for controlling man’s behavior; there is also something called society, with its traditions, social codes and persuasion; and something else called individual striving.  We can preach sexual purity while also adhering to constitutional purity.  As to this, note that while some snarky leftists have criticized O’Donnell for living in the 1800s, the men who gave us our Constitution lived in the 1700s.  And the norm back then was to have traditional sexual mores.  But guess what they didn’t have.  Marxism.

Speaking of which, that great adherent of Marx, V.I. Lenin, once said, “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”  Given that we have a government poised to do just this — with steep tax increases and rapid money-printing that will cause inflation — should we really be concerned about a candidate’s views on sexual propriety?  Or should we be more concerned about a candidate who may be harboring Marxist passions?

So all the libertines amongst us should know that Christine O’Donnell will not take their sex toys away.  But Chris Coons may want to take all their toys away.  To vote for him is to play with fire.

                                                         Contact Selwyn Duke

When writing about Barack Obama’s religious orientation recently, I pointed out that while I do believe he favors Muslim over Western culture, bowing before another — even God — is above his humility grade.  I further mentioned that in keeping with this self-centeredness, Obama is (like all leftists) someone who denies moral reality. 

Ironically, after penning my piece, I became aware of an interview Obama once gave — one quite relevant to the topic at hand.  It was conducted in 2004 by Chicago Sun Times religion reporter Cathleen Falsani while Obama was running for the U.S. Senate, and it offers great insight into the nature of Obama’s “faith.”  I think you’ll be interested to hear what he had to say. 

The whole interview is infused with typical leftist philoso-babble.  Obama says he’s “a big believer in tolerance” and thus looks askance at “certainty” and believes in the necessity “doubt” (an attitude mysteriously absent when pushing health care), bringing to mind G.K. Chesterton’s observation, “Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.”  Yet Obama also told Falsani that he had “deep faith.”  This might cause some to wonder “In what?”  And this brings us to the part of the interview in which he was asked “What is sin?”  Here was his answer:

 “Being out of alignment with my values.”

Perhaps this question was also above Obama’s pay grade, or maybe he studied divinity with Al Gore.  Whatever the case, this is not the definition of sin.  Rather, sin is when you violate God’s laws, or, to put it in more modernistic terms, it’s being out of alignment with God’s values (which are the Truth).  So it was an interesting answer.  Some might conclude that if you define sin as being out of alignment with your values, you believe you are God. 

An even stranger answer came earlier in the interview.  In response to Falsani’s query about whether he prayed often, Obama said, “Uh, yeah, I guess I do.  It’s not formal, me getting on my knees.  I think I have an ongoing conversation with God.  I think throughout the day, I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why am I doing it [emphasis mine].”

Did everyone catch that?  If I pray to God, I may ask Him questions.  I won’t say that I have “an ongoing conversation with God” and then reflexively follow up with “I’m constantly asking myself questions . . . .”

That is, unless I believe I am God.

Now, do I say that Obama thinks he is a supreme being who created the Universe?  Unless it’s a universe of programs, laws, regulations and debt, no.  But I am certain (if it’s still legal to be so) that Obama is a typical leftist: self-centered and solipsistic.  He has deified himself, in the sense that he believes he is above everyone else.  This is why he, showing no doubt whatsoever, feels so sure about reshaping our world in his own image.

His comments also vindicate my assessment of him as a moral relativist.  Whenever you hear “my values,” know that it’s the language of relativism.  It’s the belief that, hey, you have your values, I have mine — you say “potato” and I say “potahto” — and it’s all just a matter of perspective.  This is contrary to any absolutist faith, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.  They teach that God has determined right and wrong and that it is something eternal and unchanging, encapsulated in a word leftists avoid: Truth. 

Understand that “values” itself is a term of relativism.  Mother Teresa had values, but so did Adolf Hitler; values aren’t good by definition — virtues are.  This is why the latter term is hardly uttered in today’s if-it-feels-good-do-it culture; instead, people may boast about how they have values, which is much like a street pusher defending his trade by saying that he provides drugs (which can cure or kill).  A value can be sinful as well as sublime.   

But in the leftists’ universe there is no sin.  After all, they believe as ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras did that “Man is the measure of all things.”  However, if this is so, what is what we call right and wrong?  It then can be nothing but opinion.  But think about the implications of this: If that unchanging and eternal thing called Truth didn’t exist, “morality” couldn’t have any basis in reality.  And this would mean that right and wrong doesn’t exist at all.  Ergo, no sin.     

Unfortunately for Obama’s opponents, however, this insight into his un-faith won’t lose him many votes.  This is because he has a lot of company, as moral relativism is the characteristic spiritual disease of our time.  And this is why I will use this opportunity as, to quote our relativist-in-chief, a “teachable” moment.

A poll in recent years found that, strikingly, 62 percent of those identifying as Christians didn’t believe in Absolute Truth.  I’ll also note that we have seen a great number of articles lately about how Christian youth leave the Church as they move through college.  These two factors are not unrelated.

On a simple level, if there’s no Truth — if virtues are just values and values are just opinion — why pick up your cross and carry it?  Why embrace a faith that places moral constraints upon you (especially the sexual variety, which interferes with moderns’ favorite recreation)?  “If it feels good, do it” then makes more sense. 

Delving a bit deeper, relativism strikes at the foundational act of Christianity: the sacrifice at Calvary.  After all, if right and wrong are just opinion and there is thus no sin, there was no reason for Jesus to die on the cross, was there?  (But He never said that His blood would be shed for you and for all so that opinions may be forgiven.)  So if you haven’t instilled your children with a belief in Truth, don’t be surprised when they leave the Church.  If they don’t believe in sin, they cannot believe in a savior. 

But this doesn’t mean they won’t desire salvation — that is, at least the worldly variety.  And this is one reason why millions of Americans, especially the ever-more-relativistic young, voted for The One.  A people who believed in Truth would never cast such a vote — and those who do believe in it generally didn’t — but when man doesn’t believe in God, he makes man God.  As to why, I explored the reasons in The New American magazine in 2009, writing:

Among other things, people find a belief in God comforting.  It involves the ideas that God, or good, will always triumph in the end; that someone is watching over them, cares for them, will help them, and will be there for them in the end.  Now, since this human need doesn’t disappear along with faith, it follows that people will replace God with something else when they lose faith in Him.  Thus did millions of Germans cheer Hitler believing he represented security, triumph, economic resurrection, hope, and change.  And it isn’t surprising that he rose during the desperate days of the Weimar Republic, with its hyper-inflation and hypo-industriousness.  It is when people are desperate that they search for a savior; when they are brought to their lowest, they have nowhere to look but up.  It is then that they find either the Deity or a demagogue.  And when you mistake the latter for the former, the danger is profound.  For you don’t disobey a god, you don’t question him; a god is infallible.  A prostrate people will follow a messianic leader to the ends of the Earth even if it takes them to the edges of Hell.

. . . Someone who would accept any degree of deification is not only unfit to be worshipped as a god, he is unfit to be followed as a leader.  As G.K. Chesterton said in his classic work The Everlasting Man, “A great man knows he is not God, and the greater he is the better he knows it.... Nobody can imagine Aristotle claiming to be the father of gods and men, come down from the sky; though we might imagine some insane Roman Emperor like Caligula claiming it for him, or more probably for himself.”  It is also correct to say that truly great people know that their leaders aren’t God, and the greater they are, the better they know it.

So, ultimately, the warning here isn’t about Barack Obama.  It is about us.  Our tendency to make man into God will always be directly proportional to our tendency to make God into myth.

Thank God, the myth of Obama has finally been punctured in the minds of many.  As with the Daniel Dravot character (played by Sean Connery) in “The Man Who Would be King,” the natives have now seen Obama bleed, and they’re not happy.  He is bleeding America, and he won’t stop until somebody (hopefully the Republicans starting January) stops him.  After all, why would he listen to the people or compromise with anyone?  Despite his extolling of uncertainty, when he has his “ongoing conversation with God” and is asking himself questions, I tend to think he views the answers as most infallible, indeed.

                                                       Contact Selwyn Duke

Twenty-year-old Naser Abdo joined the U.S. Army more than a year ago.  Now that it’s time to be sent to Afghanistan, however, he’s having second thoughts.  He is refusing deployment, claiming conscientious-objector status.

Has Pfc. Abdo suddenly developed an aversion to all war?  Hardly.  Here are his reasons, as reported by WSMV Nashville:

he said he now believes Islamic standards would prohibit his service in the U.S. Army in any war.

According to documents provided to The Associated Press, Abdo cited Islamic scholars and verses from the Quran as reasons for his decision to ask for separation from the Army.

"I realized through further reflection that God did not give legitimacy to the war in Afghanistan, Iraq or any war the U.S. Army would conceivably participate in," he wrote.

. . . "This is not about proving a point; it's about maintaining true to my Islamic faith and maintaining true to the American values," said Abdo.

Now, I would have a bit of a problem with any soldier who, after enlisting in the military, using resources during the course of his training and collecting a salary, suddenly has pangs of conscience when it’s time to do the job for which he voluntarily signed up.  But, as Fort Campbell (where Abdo has been assigned) representatives have said, they “recognize that even in our all-volunteer force, a soldier’s moral, ethical and religious beliefs are subject to change over time.”  Thus, if Abdo had become an across-the-board pacifist, I might be able to manage a smidgeon of sympathy.  (I would, however, still expect him to be required to pay back every cent the army expended during the course of his training.)  But a change to a mindset that “would prohibit his service in the U.S. Army in any war” is a different matter altogether.  And, although it’s hardly necessary, let’s place this in further perspective.

Since Muslims have been known to war against and kill one another, it doesn’t seem that the problem is simply a matter of fighting other Muslims.  Rather, it appears it’s a matter of fighting Muslims on behalf of America, our little corner of Dar al-Harb.  It seems that Abdo is taking the typical Islamist position that he won’t participate in a war waged by infidel America — only one declared by Allah.

This is a treasonous attitude, as Abdo has served notice that his allegiance doesn’t lie with our nation.  And we have to wonder, if he believed that Allah declared a war against the U.S., would he become a domestic terrorist? 

Common sense dictates that Abdo should not be deployed to a war zone, as someone harboring his beliefs would be a danger to fellow soldiers, if only because he cannot be relied upon to execute his duties.  But he doesn’t qualify for conscientious-objector status, either.  Note that the Department of Defense (DOD) instruction on conscientious objection states that to qualify for the status an individual must sincerely object “to participation as a combatant in war in any form.”  The DOD then elaborates:

3.5. War In Any Form. The clause "war in any form" should be interpreted in the following manner:

3.5.1. An individual who desires to choose the war in which he or she will participate is not a Conscientious Objector under the law. The individual's objection must be to all wars rather than a specific war.

Obviously, Abdo doesn’t object to “war in any form” — just the American form.  As for the unstated “American values” he mentioned, I hope we resurrect the almost lost American value of accountability in his case.  This would mean forcing him to repay the Army its investment in him and giving him a nice long stretch in a very American prison.

                                                         Contact Selwyn Duke  

Now that Barack Obama has decided to be for the Ground Zero mosque before being implicitly against it (perhaps), discussion about his faith has once again reached a fever pitch.  To many, his stance proves he’s a Muslim, with a recent poll showing that almost 20 percent of Americans hold that opinion; to others, it just reflects a desire to be faithful to the Constitution (now, that would be change).  The truth, however, is a bit more nuanced.  Obama is not religiously Muslim.  Culturally, though . . . well, that’s a different matter altogether.

In reality, calling Obama a “Muslim” gives him too much credit.  As G.K. Chesterton once said, “We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.”  The truth, however, is that few people have thought thoroughly and to a definite end.  And Obama is no exception.  He hasn’t even thought matters through enough to understand the folly of statism. Even more to the point, he is a moral relativist, a position the antithesis of any absolutist faith.  Inherent in Islam is that belief that Allah, not man, has authored right and wrong and that, consequently, it isn’t a matter of opinion.  Thus, Obama cannot truly believe in Islam — or in Christianity or Judaism, for that matter (he could perhaps be a Buddhist, but Buddhism isn’t truly a faith but a way of life).

Oh, and since some will ask, how do I know Obama is a relativist?  It’s simple: Virtually all leftists are, as the denial of moral reality that is relativism lies at the heart of liberalism.

Speaking of relativists, this matter of Obama’s “faith” much reminds me of Adolf Hitler and paganism. Like Obama, Hitler sometimes feigned a belief in Christianity, but in reality he held the religion in contempt.  He believed it was “the greatest trick the Jews ever played on Western civilization” and lamented that it was not a warrior creed like Islam or the ancient Germanic paganism with which the Nazis wanted to replace Christianity (I wrote about this here).  Yet, while Hitler’s second in command, Heinrich Himmler, certainly believed in the ancient pagan myths — going so far as to launch expeditions to the Far East to prove them, à la Raiders of the Lost Ark — it’s silly to think that the leader himself viewed them as anything but a utilitarian device.  He wasn’t quite that romantic.

But what about culturally?  For sure, Hitler preferred seeing Swastikas and runes (respectively, pagan symbols and letters) to crosses and crèches, rebuilt Germanic pagan temples to churches.  That was where his passions lay.  (If some are upset at a comparison between Hitler and Obama, know that I’d never call the president a National Socialist.  He’s an international socialist.  Also, Hitler was patriotic.)

Obama also has passions, and there is no question as to where they lie.  As journalist Todd Fitchette wrote in “The un-faith of Obama”:

he continues to openly praise Islam; he bows to Muslim leaders; he claims that the Muslim call to prayer is “the most beautiful sound in the world;” he regularly quotes from the Koran and cites it for directing his life . . . .

In the past year alone he made a big deal out of hosting a celebratory dinner to open the month of Ramadan — held in the state dining room; he refused to attend the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts (an avowed Christian organization), and, refused to attend the National Day of Prayer because he claimed to do so would be offensive to non-Christians.

Then there is that king of Freudian slips, when Obama matter-of-factly said to interviewer George Stephanopoulos, “You’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith,” and didn’t seem headed for a correction until Stephanopoulos interjected.  (Note: This doesn’t contradict my assertion that Obama has no real faith.  Nancy Pelosi has spoken of her Catholic faith, but, also being a relativist, it can be nothing more than part of her cultural tapestry.)

And are Obama’s passions surprising?  He spent some of his formative years in the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, where he was registered as a Muslim in both schools he attended and sometimes prayed on Fridays in a mosque.  Moreover, there is another factor, one most people don’t consider.

As many know, there once was a great boxer named Cassius Clay.  He converted to Islam in 1964, seemingly bothered that Jesus was portrayed as “a white with blond hair and blue eyes,” as he put it, and took the name “Muhammad Ali.”  Of course, the irony of this is that, despite being intensely aware of his slave roots, he rejected the name of an abolitionist (Clay) and took the name of a slave owner (Muhammad).  It also perhaps eluded him that Christians were the first ones to outlaw slavery while Muslims give black Africans rope and chains to this day.

But I mention this because Ali’s path is a common one in the black community; it is why we’ve long had the Black Muslims and why Islamic names are so common among American blacks.  Many blacks have bought the bill of goods that Christianity is the white man’s religion, the faith of oppressors.  And they embrace Islam as part of a rejection of “white” society.

Obviously, being part of this milieu could only have reinforced Obama’s affinity for things Muslim and antipathy for things authentically Christian — of which Western Civilization is one.  And if Americans hadn’t been brainwashed with political correctness, they would have understood this.  With foreign and domestic Muslim influence, attendance at a Black Liberation Theology, pseudo-Christian church and alliances with ex-terrorists and declared communists, Obama perfectly fits the profile of an America hater.  The wolf never really wore sheep’s clothing; it’s just that Americans had wool pulled over their eyes.

As for Obama’s eyes, they cannot look heavenward when they’re so busy looking down on little people who “cling to guns and religion.”  I sense that Obama is a certain kind of person, one much like Hitler — who wanted to create a new German pagan religion with himself at its center — in a particular sense.  This type of person essentially says the following to God, “The Universe just isn’t big enough for the two of us.”  And his little world certainly isn’t, filled to all corners as it is with his bloated, power-hungry ego.  This, by the way, has been acknowledged by more honest secularists.  For example, Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19^th-century poster boy for atheism who is rumored to have been a philosopher (in reality, he is someone who helped discredit the field), once said through his version of Zarathustra, “If there were gods, how could I endure it to be no God?  Therefore there can be no gods.”  I have a feeling that Obama cannot endure it to be no god.

It is, again, unwise to give Obama too much credit.  Good faith is defined as “an act of the will informed by the intellect,” and any kind of faith requires submission to something higher than yourself.  Obama is neither that intellectual nor that humble.  But all humans have passions, and his aren’t hard to discern.  He is anti-American, anti-western, anti-Christian (the traditional variety), anti-white and anti-life.  He is more comfortable dining with Bill Ayres than the Queen of England, more internationalist than nationalist, and perhaps more at home in Dar al-Islam than Dar al-Harb.  He has lived abroad and traveled much, but he is a lover of nations like a Casanova is a lover of women: He has known many but loves, and is faithful to, none — not even the one to which he should be married.  He is a cultural traitor, and, as Cicero said about traitors two-thousand years ago, “A murderer is less to be feared.”  

To quote Chesterton again, he once said, “There was a time when men weren’t very sure of themselves, but they were very sure of what the truth was.  Now men are very sure of themselves but not at all sure of what the truth is.”  The latter describes Obama.  If he does have faith, it is in himself.  And that is a faith terribly misplaced.

                                                         Contact Selwyn Duke   

This article originally appeared at The American Thinker:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/the_truth_about_obamas_muslim.html

Judge Vaughn Walker's legal ruling striking down California's Proposition 8 certainly was no triumph of intellectualism. But while it's easy to thus dismiss it, what's usually forgotten is that reasoning such as his flies only in a certain cultural milieu -- a milieu that, in part, has been shaped by conservatives. Let's examine the matter. 

Walker's lack of intellectualism is profound. Among other things, he said that opposition to faux marriage was ultimately based on "moral disapproval." While this is a rhetorically compelling argument in an age where "morality" has become a dirty word, it is also nonsense. This is not because he is wrong in his understanding of marriage's more cerebral defenders; it is because he is wrong in his understanding of law. For the fact is that all credible legal proscriptions and prescriptions are a matter of "moral disapproval." Don't believe me? I'll explain.

A law is by definition the imposition of a value (and a valid law is the imposition of a moral principle). This is because a law states that there is something you must or must not do, ostensibly because the action is a moral imperative, is morally wrong, or is a corollary thereof. If this is not the case, with what credibility do you legislate in the given area? After all, why prohibit something if it doesn't prevent some wrong? Why force citizens to do something if it doesn't effect some good? You'll never see a powerful movement lobbying to criminalize chocolate ice cream or broccoli.

To provide a concrete example, what is the possible justification for speed laws? It isn't simply "me no like speedy." Rather, there is the idea that it is wrong to endanger others or yourself, and, in the latter case, it could be based on the idea that it's wrong to engage in reckless actions that could cause you to become a burden on society. Of course, some or all of these arguments may be valid or not, but the point is this: If a law is not underpinned by a valid moral principle, it is not a just law. Without morality, laws can be based on nothing but air.

This brings me to a problem with a certain conservative argument. We have heard many, while bristling at Walker's ruling, complain that "one judge has wiped away the votes of seven million people with the stroke of the pen." Like Judge Walker's "moral disapproval" nonsense, such talk certainly is rhetorically effective. And if it is used simply for the purposes of rhetoric, it may be fine. But the reality is that if the Proposition 8 vote had been swung a few percentage points the other way, the measure wouldn't have passed, and the left could be citing the will of the people to buttress its cause.

But right and wrong aren't determined by popular will. Nor should the latter have a bearing on judges' rulings, as they are supposed to be governed by the Constitution. Thus, the problem with Walker's ruling is not that it is anti-majoritarian; it's that it is unconstitutional and dumb.

Since the constitutional factor is obvious, let's delve into the dumb part. Harking back to the foundation of law, if "moral disapproval" is off the table, on what legitimate basis can we refuse to recognize any conception of "marriage"? If right and wrong cannot be a guide -- or if we live in a relativistic universe in which there is no wrong -- then how can you, with credibility, prohibit polygamy or Billy from marrying his billy goat? 

So while many people today believe, in grand relativist fashion, that morality is some arbitrary thing, they have it exactly backwards. Morality is "The Rules," and, just as with a football referee who ignores his game's rules and makes calls based on what feels right, it is when you ignore The Rules that you become arbitrary. Your rationale, boiled down, is then nothing more than "me no likey," nothing more than might makes right. For, to state the obvious, the recognition of morality is the only thing that moors us to reality -- moral reality.

And this is where the 7,000,000-vote argument finds common ground with Judge Walker's judicial activism. Both perspectives ignore morality and reduce the debate to one of who will wield the might that makes right, of who will be that renegade football referee. It is either the tyranny of the majority or the tyranny of a black-robed minority, and who advocates which depends on how each group lines up on a given issue.

(Note: This isn't to say that 7,000,000-vote-argument advocates aren't more morality-oriented than Judge Walker's set. After all, many conservatives would point out that they  cite the majority only because it supported a constitutional and moral position. Nevertheless, when taken at face value, the majoritarian argument is not logically sound.)

So what should be the logical basis for an argument against faux marriage?

Simply that it doesn't exist.

And you cannot have a right to that which doesn't exist.

This is not slick-lawyer sleight-of-hand -- this is what exposes it. For this issue is about changing definitions, not changing rights. After all, like all people, those experiencing same-sex attraction have always had a right to marry and have done so since time immemorial. It's just that marriage was always understood -- correctly -- to be the union of a man and woman. Thus, whoever did get married tied the knot with a member of the opposite sex.

But when we accept that a same-sex union can be marriage -- a standard with no credible basis whatsoever in history (which renders the votes of the ultimate majority) or morality -- the discussion about rights naturally follows. After all, if such a union is marriage and people have a right to marry, how can they be denied recourse to it?

Speaking of majoritarian folly, this brings us to another way most of us have undermined ourselves. While many say the Walker set has redefined marriage, this is nonsense that gives non-thinkers too much credit. They have not redefined it.

They have undefined it.

That is to say, they do not steadfastly, unabashedly, and definitively say, "Marriage is the union between any two adults and nothing else, and here is the moral basis for this conclusion." No, they would then be drawing a line just like the traditionalists, wouldn't they? They would be guilty of the kind of "bigotry," "exclusiveness," and "narrowness" of which they accuse their opponents. Relativists can't have that, so they offer no definition. All they do is imply that the traditional definition is incorrect.

And this is another hole in the Walker set's argument. After all, while they scoff at the claim that legalizing faux marriage paves the way for polygamy and everything else, an "undefinition" excludes nothing. Sure, they can oppose such things, but only as the renegade football referee saying "me no likey."

The reality is that if they cannot definitively say what marriage is, how can they be sure they know what it is not? And this is why their criticism of traditionalists deserves no respect: If they cannot say what defines a "right" marriage, they cannot credibly say the traditional definition is the wrong one. 

Yet they don't have to because, while they can reliably define nothing, we allow them to define the terms of the debate. Know this: Every time you use the term "gay marriage," "homosexual marriage," or even "traditional marriage" (the Lexicon of the Left), you undermine yourself. If one of the first two, it is because you are explicitly acknowledging an imaginary institution's existence. If the last one, you are implying it. For what is the other side of the coin of "traditional marriage"? And if the American psyche is imbued with the idea that "marriages" between same-sex individuals exist and that marriage is a right, well, you can forget the legal and political battles. If you lose the cultural one, everything else follows. It's just a matter of time.

This is why "conservatives" must stop being conservative and start being bold. They must start thinking outside the box. Otherwise, we may win some battles in courts and ballot boxes -- we may carry the approaching November day -- but we'll be sure to lose the war and the way.

                                                      Contact Selwyn Duke

This article originally appeared at The American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/lack_of_intellectualism_is_los.html

There is such a thing as a conditioned response.  Here’s an example: Leftists call conservatives “racists.”  Conservatives cower and stutter some defense.  Leftists call conservatives “racists” some more.  Conservatives cower some more.  Question: How do you think you break this pattern?

We’ve seen this again with the recent vitriol spewed by NAACP head Ben Jealous (a fitting last name).  Speaking at the NAACP convention in Kansas City, Jealous accused the Tea Party of, take a guess . . . cue the “Jeopardy!” music . . .  “racism.”  Just as predictably, many conservatives are running around trying to convince everyone that, by gum, they really are swell guys.  No, really.  I’m not a racist.  I don’t beat my wife.  I don’t kick my dog.  I eat my organic vegetables and drive a Prius.   

Look, why don’t we just save everyone the trouble?  Every time a conservative renders an opinion, we can just play a recording with a little weaselly voice screeching, “You’re a wacist!  You’re a wacist!” (Barney Frank style) followed by a music video featuring The Cowering Conservative — I mean, 1950s-style, duck-and-cover footage with the tune and all.  

And such conservatives abound.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, conservative brethren, I love ya’, man.  But, frankly, too many of you are saps.  You really don’t get it.  People who advocated welfare reform in the 1990s were accused of being “racist.”  If you’re for border control, you’re “racist.”  If you criticize Obama, you’re “racist.”  If you oppose quotas, you’re “racist.”  If you say that, be it nature or nurture, there are differences among groups, you’re “racist.”  If you want English to be the national language, you’re “racist.”  The word has become meaningless, only used to stifle and stigmatize opposition.  And if calling you a heretic worked in that regard, the left would do that.  And if calling you a Fig Newton worked, they would do that. 

Nevertheless, the ploy prevents sap conservatives from speaking — and even conceiving of — certain truths.  They won’t say that so-called racial profiling is just part of proper profiling, they pay lip service to the relativistic idea that all cultures are morally equal, they refuse to call bigoted blacks such as Obama and Eric Holder out on their bigotry, they tolerate double standards with respect to hate-crime-law application and racial jokes, and they let whites persecuted for making innocent comments twist in the wind.  They won’t speak unfashionable truths for fear of becoming unfashionable people.  Well, all I can say is that if the Truth can be “racist,” then hello, I’m a “racist.”  Pleased to meet you.  

And this gets at a deeper point.  On the O’Reilly Factor recently, Bill O’Reilly was discussing the Jealous situation with Professor Marc Lamont Hill.  You know, Hill is the fellow with a Cracker-Jack-box Ph.D. who looks like a high-school kid heading to the prom.  Anyway, the good professor, in so many words, put forth the leftist definition stating that only whites can be “racist” because being so requires one to have “institutional power.”  OK, whatever.  I accept the definition.  Really, I do.

I just reject the word.

What I mean is, I’ve long warned against using the Lexicon of the Left.  “Racism” is a term as stupid as “ageism,” only, we’re inured to it.  We forget that “ism” refers to a doctrine, system or theory.  Thus, of course “racism” will denote doctrine, and is it any surprise that the doctrine is dumb?  Leftist doctrine is usually dumb.  But what’s even dumber is that we actually embrace the left’s doctrinal terms.  This is why I prefer using what simply refers to attitude — “bigotry” — as in Barack Obama is a bigot, Eric Holder is a bigot and Ben Jealous is a bigot.  As for “racism,” it was originated by the left.  So leave it to them.  They can define it.  They can whine it.  And if they ask me, I’ll tell them where they can stick it.

The point is that you can’t prove you’re not a “racist” to the left, because they’ll just define “racist” as being whatever you are.  In fact, sap conservatives, understand something: You’re not going to “prove” anything to the NAACP.  You’re not going to prove anything to the mainstream media.  You’re not going to prove anything to any dyed-in-the-fool liberal.  They are enemies.  And enemies aren’t interested in proof; they’re interested in propaganda.

So cultivate the right warrior attitude.  Look at it like this: If you were engaging in a cold war against the Nazis in 1938, would you bend over backwards to “prove” to them that their propaganda about you was invalid?  Of course not!  They know it’s invalid — that’s the nature of evil’s propaganda.  And it’s designed to invalidate you.  And you don’t respond to enemies with defensiveness and measured responses.

You propagandize against them.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to lie.  Note that while “propaganda” generally has a negative connotation today, it doesn’t denote dishonesty.  It is simply, informs The Free Dictionary, “the organized dissemination of information, allegations, etc., to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement, etc.”  And to damage leftists’ cause, all we need do is tell the truth about them.

So what this does mean is that you have to stop being “conservative” and start being bold.  The only consistent political definition of a “conservative” — the only ones that holds across time and place — is “one who desires to maintain the status quo.”  Well, maintenance men are seldom warriors.  Conservatives too often take a conservative approach, being cautious while their enemies are callous.  They too often bring a rhetorical knife to a rhetorical gunfight.  They too often act like losers — and lose. 

I am not saying that we should stop making reasoned arguments, but those are for the reasonable (those who can be swayed).  They are wholly inappropriate for unreasonable charges from dishonorable children.  They deserve your boot.  You spit in their eye.  For enemies bent on your destruction don’t want compromise; they won’t yield to reason.  They are to be fought and, God willing, defeated.

This means that when a Congressman Joe Wilson shouts “You lie!” at Barack Obama, you respond, “Representative Wilson was wrong.  Obama lies a lot.”  It means that when the left bristles at a satirical letter to Lincoln, you understand that bold, fresh pieces of insanity will always hate satire.  And, personally, do I really care that some Tea Party folks juxtaposed Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler on a billboard?  Not really.  I’m just not that concerned about Mr. Hitler’s reputation.    

And what of civility?  Be wary.  When the left is civil — or calls for civility — it’s usually a ruse.  It’s simply the tactic that best helps them achieve their aims at the moment.  Here’s how it works: Leftists lie through their teeth, and then, when you respond with righteous indignation, they pout like little girls, saying, “You’re mean!  You’re intolerant!  What happened to civility! [Translation: You called our lies lies!  How dare you!]”  Understand that the effect here is to stop sap conservatives from calling lies lies, thus allowing the left to use its greatest weapon with impunity.  Also understand that the worst form of impoliteness is insincerity in discourse.

And understand something else: Leftists are cowards.  They are creatures of the pack, finding their strength only in numbers.  After all, what do you think being politically correct is all about?  It means doing what’s fashionable in our time, what makes you popular.  A man who believes in Truth, such as Thomas More, will die for his principles, alone, twisting in the wind.  A liberal goes the way the wind blows and will die for nothing.  Stand up to leftists en masse, and they’ll fold like a tent. 

So free yourself.  Laugh at the “racism” shtick.  Make it a badge of honor.  Call leftists what they are: cowards, bigots, liars, demagogues, and, worst of all by far, enemies of Truth.  Fight fire with fire.  Remember, millions of good Americans are sick and tired of political correctness and will stand with you.  So just say to our leftist legal aliens: If you like name-calling and you want to fight, OK.  I’m a racist, sexist homophobe, and I’m in your face.  What’s it to ya’?

                                                     Contact Selwyn Duke       

This article originally appear at The American Thinker

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/hello_im_a_racist_pleased_to_m.html

While the Obama administration has chosen the southern side in the Mexican-Arizonan border war, most Americans stand with their countrymen.  They are troubled by the strain illegals place on services, the drugs and thugs moving north and blue-collar job prospects moving south.  Then there is another factor: the political and cultural one.  

It’s well known that, should amnesty be granted to the 12 to 30 million illegals living among us, Barack Obama and his fellow travelers would capture virtually all their votes.  Moreover, given the illegals’ allegiance to their homelands and today’s multiculturalist message, it’s clear that, even if they do learn English, “assimilation” won’t be high on their vocabulary list.  Thus, amnesty not only would radically transform the political landscape, it would constitute a cultural tsunami.  Even pundit Bill O’Reilly recognizes this, saying a couple of years ago (I’m paraphrasing), “If all the illegal aliens are granted amnesty, America will change culturally almost overnight.”  But is the focus on illegal migration excessive?

What do I mean?  Well, how about this proposal: What if instead of granting amnesty in one fell swoop, we did so incrementally, say, to 20 percent of illegals a year for the next 5 years?  That would still have the same ill effects, you say?  OK, how about one million illegals a year until the job is done?  I can hear it now: “Whoa, Duke, all you’re proposing is to trade a knife through the heart for a death by a thousand cuts.  A bad idea implemented more slowly is still a bad idea.  And illegal means illegal.”  But, wait, if Congress passed an amnesty plan, it wouldn’t be illegal.

And neither would the individuals thus made citizens.

Now I can hear some thunder, “Are you nuts?!  This simply makes it a death by a thousand legal cuts!  A bad idea implemented legally is still a bad idea!”  Well, guess what.

I agree with you.

You see, a death by a thousand legal cuts is not actually my position.  Rather, if you’re the average conservative American, it’s yours.  And what I put forth wasn’t actually a proposal.  Rather, it was a reality.  It’s called legal immigration. 

Something often accompanying the disclaimer, “Look, I support legal immigration, but . . .” is “I realize most of the folks coming here are good, hard-working people . . . .”  Now, while I’d point out that it only takes 51 percent to qualify as “most,” this statement is correct in the following sense: Most of those arriving legally are, using moderns’ typical yardstick, good, hard-working people.  And illegals are much the same as those arriving legally.  Another way of saying this is that those arriving legally are much the same as illegals.  And that is the point.  They usually come for economic advancement, not to become American.  They often expect to have their cultural peculiarities accommodated, as opposed to doing what the Romans do.  Their allegiance often lies elsewhere.  And the vast majority vote for leftists.

Let’s look at the facts.  For most of American history, we admitted an average of approximately 250,000 immigrants a year.  After the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 (Ted Kennedy’s baby), however, this figure rose fourfold, to approximately one million a year.  The result: The rate of immigration started to exceed the rate of assimilation.

But it wasn’t just the numbers that changed; it was also the nature.  Eighty-five percent of our legal immigrants now hail from the Third World and Asia, from non-Western cultures.  And many immigrants, such as Islamists, cling to and advance beliefs that are incompatible with — and destructive to — our culture. 

The problem with this is that it isn’t geography that makes a nation, but people.  Replace Americans with Mexicans or Muslims and you no longer have America — you have Mexico North or Iran West.  Thus, if you believe Western culture is an evil force and aim to destroy it, our current immigration scheme perfectly suits your agenda. 

And the proof is in the pudding.  Approximately 80 percent of new legal immigrants, once naturalized, vote as our culture-rending leftists do (for leftist Democrats).  For a specific example, consider that first-time Hispanic voters cast ballots for Bill Clinton by a ratio of 15 to 1.

Of course, some say this will change when the new arrivals become Americanized, but this is an ostrich pipe dream.  For one thing, they aren’t being Americanized, America is being balkanized.  Second, what does it mean to be Americanized?  There are millions of leftists who deliver a message many new immigrants are very sympathetic to: Socialism — or “statism,” if you prefer — is as American as apple pie.

Also remember that a person’s ideology is much like his religion: It involves deep-seated beliefs that the individual lives and breathes.  Ideology often gives people’s lives meaning; they advocate for it, they sometimes die for it, and, even more frequently, they kill for it.

And our culture is dying because of it.  “People get the government they deserve,” as Thomas Jefferson said, because, one way or another, government tends to reflect the people.  This brings us to an important question: Do you want the kind of socialism — or statism, if you prefer — that generally prevails from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn?  Well, understand that immigrants will vote for the same kind of candidates they supported in their native lands, and this won’t magically change because they set foot on American terra firma.  Of course, you could try the following appeal: “Ignore the folks offering you handouts and ethnic studies!  Embrace our heroes and history, our love of small government and personal responsibility.”  Good luck with that, amigos. 

Then there is another factor, one I treated in May of this year, writing:

In a relatively recent phenomenon, approximately 50 percent of legal immigrants have been coming from Mexico. And about 67 percent of American Hispanics have origins in that nation; this amounts to, including illegals, a population of approximately 20 to 30 million — about 20 percent of Mexico's population. What are the consequences of such an unbalanced immigration policy? University of Edinburgh professor Stephen Tierney explains them very well in his book Multiculturalism and the Canadian Constitution, writing:

In a situation in which immigrants are divided into many different groups originating in distant countries, there is no feasible prospect of any particular immigrant group's challenging the hegemony of the national language [press one for English, folks?] and institutions. These groups may form an alliance among themselves to fight for better treatment and accommodations, but such an alliance can only be developed within the language and institutions of the host society and, hence, is integrative. In situations in which a single dominant immigrant group originates in a neighbouring country, the dynamics may be very different. The Arabs in Spain, and Mexicans in the United States, do not need allies among other immigrant groups. One could imagine claims for Arabic or Spanish to be declared a second official language, at least in regions where they are concentrated, and these immigrants could seek support from their neighbouring home country for such claims — in effect, establishing a kind of transnational extension of their original homeland in their new neighbouring country of residence.

In other words, we are allowing the transplantation of a foreign nation into the body of our nation.  Thus, if, like the Mexican government, La Raza and MEChA, you wish to conquer the American southwest in the name of Mexico, our current immigration scheme perfectly suits your agenda.

If our agenda is the preservation of the republic, however, we need to honestly consider the immigration question.  This means realizing that it includes two seldom-addressed aspects: One is whether we should continue to allow immigration.  The second is, what kind of immigration would be beneficial? 

As to the latter, remember that a nation has a “cultural ecosystem,” which enjoys a state of equilibrium.  It is much as with our actual ecosystem: Some non-native elements, such as horses and soybeans, blend in seamlessly.  Others, such as Asian carp, zebra mussels, and nutria can cause severe problems.  This is not because they’re bad by nature, but because they’re incompatible with the system.  Of course, a new equilibrium can eventually be established — you just have to wait for certain native species to be killed off.    

All of the aforementioned brings us to an important point: Illegal migration isn’t the problem.

It’s an exacerbation of the problem. 

And if we’re going to support our current legal-immigration scheme, why get so worked up over illegal migration?  We are already supporting a legal cultural death by a thousand cuts; we are already supporting the importation of nearly a million socialist-leaning voters every year.  All amnesty does is expedite the process.

The norm in man’s history has been to keep unassimilable foreign elements out of one’s land, not invite them in.  Of course, another norm of man has been the will to survive.  I’m not sure that’s an instinct we still possess. 

                                                          Contact Selwyn Duke

This article first appeared at The American Thinker:    http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/immigration_reconsidered.html

While I’m no fan of the Attention Deficit Disorder diagnosis, I think it may be applicable to Barack Obama.  After all, the man seems to suffer from a case of it that mainlining Ritalin wouldn’t remedy.

Just consider Obama’s relationship with Jeremiah Wright.  Despite calling the prejudiced preacher a friend, mentor and uncle, despite sitting in Wrong’s church for 20 years, despite being married and having his daughters baptized by him, Obama says he was completely unaware of the bigot’s anti-American, anti-white, anti-Jewish, anti-Western and anti-Christian views.  And, just so we can appreciate the severity of Obama’s affliction, Wrong has quite conveniently provided a reminder of what those unforgettable views are.  The scene was a five-day seminar at the Chicago Theological Seminary where, for a mere $1000 if taken for college credit and $300 if not, you could be enlightened by Wrong on matters of race, brotherhood and Zionism and kibitz with him during lunch breaks.  Reporting on the wisdom he imparted, the New York Post wrote:

“You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a brother to white folk,” he [Wrong] said. “And if you do not realize that, you are in serious trouble.”

He cited the writings of Bill Jones -- author of the book "Is God a White Racist?" -- as proof that white people cannot be trusted. "Bill said, 'They just killed four of their own at Kent State. They'll step on you like a cockroach and keep on movin', cause you not a brother to them.' "

Wright referred to Italians as "Mamma Luigi" and "pizzeria." He said the educational system in America is designed by whites to miseducate blacks "not by benign neglect but by malignant intent."

Wrong also said, “We probably have more African-Americans who've been brainwashed than we have South Africans who've been brainwashed” and “All your commentaries are written by oppressors.”

As for Wrong’s oppression, whatever its nature, it’s quite a pleasant one.  A few months ago he relocated to a new, opulent, million-dollar home that boasts its own cul-de-sac and proximity to a golf course. 

And then there is the oppression of mental deficiencies.  What I mean is, since Wrong doesn’t seem like a shy, retiring type who hides deeply held views from his inner circle, I can only conclude that Obama’s ADD kicked in again.  Obama never assimilated the aforementioned wisdom from his longtime pastor.  He never heard Wrong bellow “The US of KKK-A!” or “G**d**n America!”  Instead, Obama said about his friend, “Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms.”  “Heard?”  Or is it more like “in one ear and out the other”?  Whatever.  Perhaps, when Wrong’s lips were moving, Obama was thinking about golf or basketball or singing “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round” in his mind while bobbing his head side-to-side.

Of course, we must show compassion for the handicapped, and this is another area where Wrong is found wanting.  In an apparent reference to Obama, the “reverend” said that black leaders were guilty of “cuttin’ and duckin’” at the mention of Louis Farrakhan’s name.  But can he be so sure?  Maybe Obama never really “heard” anything Farrakhan said.

Given this deficiency, though, we have to wonder what, if anything, Obama has learned or is capable of learning.  Will he come to understand that bowing to foreign leaders and apologizing to humanity for America’s alleged sins (which, presumably, he has heard about) doesn’t engender respect in this streetwise world?  Can he figure out that if even thoroughly statist European leaders reject his global stimulus plan, spending your way to oblivion isn’t prudent economics?  Can he grasp that if an oil gusher was spewing oil into the ocean yesterday, and the hole hasn’t been plugged, that it will spew oil into the ocean today?  Can he learn that, if foreign companies with expertise in oil clean-up wish to help in the Gulf, it probably isn’t a good idea to decline their services based on a protectionist 1920 law?  Can he fathom that if our border was porous yesterday, and hasn’t been sealed, that it will be porous today?  Can he learn that illegal means illegal, that amnesty for criminals yields more criminality, and that when “undocumented” weapons of mass destruction come across our southern back door we’ll end up with a very well-documented 9/11-squared?  Can he learn — anything — or does the brain shut down with the teleprompter and start to alpha-theta-wave flatline?

So perhaps Obama isn’t just our first “black” president but also our first ADD president.  At least, that’s what the idea that he could carry on a deep, 20-year relationship with Wrong and not know of the man’s vile views — and not share them to some degree — suggests.  Of course, there is another possibility:

Barack Obama is a liar.

Barack Obama is a radical, a demagogue and a clear and present danger to these United States.

Perhaps the Americans who voted for  Obama need to consider that he not only is one of Wrong’s fellow travelers (the title of Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, came from one of Wrong’s sermons) but, just as damnably, only “threw him under the bus” when Wrong became a political liability; that Obama apologizes because he — and his wife, who said that she never had been proud of America as an adult — are consumed with the typical left-wing hatred of the U.S.; that he spends trillions we don’t have because he’s an out-of-touch fool or, worse still, wants to collapse the free-market system; that he instituted an unconstitutional health-care plan because the nationalization of healthcare is a tenet of communism; that he allows the Gulf’s ecosystem to be damaged in deference to unions or, worse still, because he wants to provide impetus for his cap-and-tax scheme; and that he wants our nation flooded with unassimilable foreigners because he knows that such people, once naturalized, will vote for him and his fellow leftists to the tune of 90 percent.

In 2008, Barack Obama (I’ll clean this figure of speech up a bit) spit down Americans’ backs and told them it was rainin’, and 53 percent of us believed him.  Many of us still do.  But it’s time to grow up and wise up — because our time is almost up.  That deluge of national destruction running down your back is not some unexplainable natural phenomenon.  It is the effluent that naturally flows when you elect Marxists, malcontents and miscreants to office.

                                                        Contact Selwyn Duke      

When people discuss the overall effects of the Internet, they will weigh the good and the bad.  On one side, they may mention how the Web, along with talk radio, has broken the stranglehold over public opinion the mainstream media once enjoyed; on the other, they may cite the pernicious effects of pornography, cyber-bullying or the loss of privacy.  Whatever the analysis and verdict, though, it never truly captures how tangled a Web we have woven.  This is because seldom recognized is a simple and profound fact: The Internet is one of the most powerful forces ever unleashed by mankind.

                                                   The (Mis-)Information Bomb

We have numerous sayings alluding to the power of ideas, such as “Knowledge is power,” “The pen is mightier than the sword” and “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”  And with modern forms of communication, such as radio and television — and now the Internet — ideas can be transmitted at a rate unfathomable for most of man’s existence.  

This makes civilization very unstable.  Think about it: For most of history, the only relatively quick way to change a society was through military conquest, such as when Islam’s hordes turned North Africa Muslim within a century’s time.  Yet, using that as an example, what would have been the Moors’ prospects for success had they been forced to rely on a few proselytizing Imams and handwritten Korans to spread their message? 

But with the modern ability to disseminate information at the touch of a button, the amount of peaceful social change that might have taken 300 years to effect in the Middle Ages may be realized in only a decade today.  So now a lie can get all the way around the world before the Truth even knows the liar has logged on.

This phenomenon of rapid, haphazard change also widens generation gaps, as each generation grows up in a more radically different moral and social environment.  And I should add that, contrary to popular belief, a generation gap isn’t inevitable.  It only develops when the spirit of the age is constantly changing and, as a consequence, the young and old end up worshiping different ones.  If, however, a culture safeguards tradition and insulates itself from competing ideas (a big “if,” I know), everyone will occupy the same page.  For example, I really cannot imagine that any ancient Aztec youth ever said, “No, dad, I don’t want to sacrifice a virgin to Quetzalcoatl today!  And I don’t believe in gods!”

Now, there are those who like to deny the negative effects of these media.  For example, point out that gratuitous sex and violence on television have a corruptive effect, and excuses will fly.  We may hear, “It’s OK because it didn’t cause me any problems,” which is much like saying that “Being a long-time smoker hasn’t hurt me” because you can’t see your blackened lungs and aren’t dead yet.  Or we may hear, “It’s the values taught by the parents that matter,” which is much like saying it’s of no consequence if strangers feed your children foxglove and arsenic as long as you make sure they have a good diet at home.

In reality, these are rationalizations, only trotted out when the onus is placed on something we hold dear.  During moments of clarity, however, even the most ardent cultural apologist knows that entertainment influences thinking.  If this isn’t so, why was there a hue and cry to get “Amos & Andy” and other shows containing old stereotypes off the air? 

Obviously, the examples people set for others matter, and this doesn’t cease being the case simply because the behavior is observed via a screen as opposed to in person.  So while we can argue about the magnitude of modern entertainment’s effect, or about whether it’s on balance good or bad, that it has an effect simply isn’t disputable.   

                                                      Beyond the Kinsey Reports

When people think of the Internet’s dark side, they invariably imagine pornography.  And with smut available to even to 10-year-old fingers just a mouse-click away, its effect is profound.  Yet, as with so many things, it isn’t the obvious that has the most devastating impact.  It’s what remains mostly unmentioned.

Anyone who has posted to an Internet message board knows how quickly interactions can sour.  This is because the coldness and anonymity of the medium removes inhibitions and the incentive to be polite.  That is to say, it’s relatively hard to look into someone’s eyes and be condescending, dismissive or downright nasty, and not just because you have to worry about a punch in the mouth.  But it happens as a matter of course when he is reduced to a screen name and bits and bytes, because he is then disassociated from his humanity.

This brings us to the most important point in this piece: This anonymity breeds not just nastiness but also vulgarity and lewdness.  Yet even this understates the problem, as, in reality, it destroys every wall of propriety that should exist among the family of man.

For example, go into many Internet chatrooms and you will see new acquaintances making sexual comments to one another that, were they to have met in person, would never have passed their lips.  And, even if they were both the Marquis de Sade reincarnated, they certainly wouldn’t make them within earshot of a large group of strangers or in front of children.  Yet all in a chatroom, old or young, see these comments, these things formerly reserved to drunken midnight exchanges in seedy nightclubs. 

The same is true of profanity.  Not long ago, even rough-hewn dock workers guarded their tongues around children (and, a bit longer ago, around women).  On the Internet, however, posters will routinely pepper discussion threads with four-letter words.  And while some children see this, few adults care, partially because no one sees the children.  Their humanity and what remains of their innocence are hidden behind Web handles.

This brings me to a tiresome cop-out.  Many dismiss these concerns by saying, “Hey, kids have heard all these words, anyway.”  Yes, and children may know about murder and torture as well, but this doesn’t justify inundating them with snuff films, does it?  The reality is that such reasoning can be used to justify anything which is why it justifies nothing.  Of course children will, to an extent, be aware of evil, of bad behavior.  But this is far different from the effect of normalizing it.  And when adults use profanity routinely and cavalierly, normalization is precisely what occurs.

This effect of the Internet goes far beyond profanity; it is nothing less than a revolution in the normalization of vice.  It’s much like the fraudulent Kinsey Reports’ effect on sexuality.  Many have pointed out that when these volumes were released and purported to show that deviant sexual behaviors were actually far more common than previously thought, it helped jump-start the sexual revolution.  “After all,” thought many, “if so many people are doing these things, why can’t I give freer rein to my deeper, darker impulses?”  Remember that “Everyone does it” is a very alluring excuse.

The Internet is the Kinsey Reports to the 10^th power.  It is a realm in which dark urges and thoughts, formerly kept in the closet of the mind, are now displayed by millions for the world to see.  And brotherhoods of evil can easily form, where deviants who otherwise would feel isolated and (rightly) abnormal can find refuge in an online community of sexual soulless-mates.  As a friend of mine put it, “Let’s say you’re a guy who likes five-year-old boys; well, now you can go on the Internet and find 10,000 other guys who like five-year-old boys.”

Yet even this doesn’t tell the whole story, as this isn’t just about emboldening perverts and justifying perversion.  It is about making both far more common. 

Many today like to behave as if sexuality is set in stone at birth, but this is ideologically driven silliness.  In reality, human beings can be tempted to sin, indulge, and then develop habits.  And, as with the effects of television, we all understand the reality of this phenomenon when we’re not busy trying to justify cherished sins.  For example, when the matter is tobacco or alcohol, people will insist that manufacturers not target children with cigarette or alcohol advertising.  They don’t assume it’s all meaningless because, heck, kids will just act in accordance with their natures anyway.

So it is with all vices — including sexual ones.  In the wrong environment, people may develop perversions they otherwise wouldn’t.  And, as many civilizations have proven (the ancient Spartans had institutionalized pederasty in their military camps) cultures can create the wrong environment.  The sexuality of man — both of the individual and the group — can be influenced . . . and twisted.

This is why C. S. Lewis said, “Sex is not messed up because it was put in the closet; it was put in the closet because it was messed up.”

The Internet throws the closet of man open in a way it has never been — and never should be.

And it’s no exaggeration to say that the demons released are destroying civilization.  As British philosopher Edmund Burke warned, “It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free.  Their passions forge their fetters.”  The young today are immersed in a virtual world in which coarseness, nastiness, decadence, perversion, superficiality, egoism and nihilism are the norm.  They are instilled with moral relativism’s only guide, “If it feels good, do it,” and then their feelings are twisted in the worst possible way, through vile entertainment, so that what feels good is cultural poison.  The result is that we are breeding barbarians wholly incapable of sustaining a healthy constitutional republic. 

If you have any doubt of this, I’ll conclude with a rhetorical question: For whom do decadent people virtually always vote?  Ah, it is indeed a tangled Web we weave. 

                                                          Contact Selwyn Duke

This work first appeared at The American Thinker:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/online_society_offline_civiliz.html

If you thought that “one man, one vote” reflected the full flowering of representative democracy, think again.  In the village of Port Chester, N.Y., just a few towns north of my locality in Westchester County, there is a new system.  It’s “one man, six votes” — brought to us courtesy of the U.S. Department of Injustice and a lunkhead of a federal judge named Stephen Robinson.

Here’s the story: In 2006, the Injustice Department alleged that Port Chester’s election system was “unfair.”  The problem?  While the village is almost half Hispanic, no Hispanic had ever been elected as a trustee. 

Now, how this hapless village got on the feds’ radar screen, I have no idea.  Were Hispanics intimidated into avoiding the polls?  Were there literacy tests?  Poll taxes?  No, this story will not inspire a movie by the name of Port Chester Burning.  Instead, it seems the problem Uncle Scam had was that the town’s slim white majority — which turns out to vote in greater numbers than their Latino neighbors (Hispanics also account for only about 20 percent of Port Chester’s voting-age population) — along with whatever Hispanics join them, have thus far chosen to elect only white candidates.  That pesky majority rule can be a real bummer, can’t it?

So the Injustice Department — using our tax money — dragged Port Chester into court, which, presumably, cost the village tax money in litigation costs (ain’t being a civil-rights lawyer grand?).  It’s enough to make you wonder if the Injustice Department has too much time and money on its hands, except that it doesn’t seem to have time to tackle real voter intimidation.  Remember that this is the bureaucracy that refused to pursue the case against the Black Panthers who tried to scare white voters away from a polling place in Philadelphia.

This brings us to Federal Judge Stephen Robinson.  He ruled — get the Digitalis — that the village’s practice of having conventional at-large elections violated the Voting Rights Act.  Now, let me put this in the simplest terms possible.  The Voting Rights Act’s purpose was to ensure that everyone would have the opportunity to vote.  Yet this “judge” decreed that “one man, one vote,” and the attendant majority rule, violate the act if they don’t yield a politically correct result.

And the kicker is Robinson’s remedy: He approved a plan to give every resident six votes, which they can apportion among the six trustees to be elected any way they wish.  It’s a scheme known as “cumulative voting.”  No, we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.  Heck, I’m not even so sure we’re in America.

What’s the thinking?  I suppose the idea is that many Hispanics will exhibit great ethnic patriotism and give all their votes to one Hispanic candidate, whereas whites don’t vote as a block to the extent other groups do.  Perhaps we’re seeing an example of leftists nobly shouldering the Liberal White Man’s Burden.

Judge Robinson also ruled that Port Chester must allow residents to show up on any one of five days to cast ballots, a system called “in-person early voting.”

So first the left gave us quotas in schools and businesses, and now we have them in elections.  I wonder, if there is a locality in which whites are only 20 percent of the voting-age population, with a black majority that has never elected a white candidate, will the feds roll into town and work the same voodoo?  What if it’s an area that’s almost 50 percent female but that has never voted a woman into office?  Maybe we should just cut to the chase and mandate that public officials must reflect the demographic composition of their constituencies.

You could also say that this is the next step in the evolution of get-out-the-vote drives.  It used to be that such endeavors were merely geared toward motivating the ignorant and apathetic to cast ballots, as we know that such people will make thoroughly stellar voting decisions if we can only somehow cajole them into the polling place.  But this is so much simpler: Get out the vote by multiplying it.  We don’t need dead people in Chicago anymore — we have deadheads in the Injustice Department. 

Really, this scheme visited upon Port Chester is just another example of liberal bigotry. The leftist social engineers are again dividing people into groups, tacitly claiming that a person of one race cannot adequately represent a person of another, and changing the melting pot into a cauldron of ethnic tension.

So on Tuesday, June 15^th, there was an election in a village in New York.  In preparation, the locality had six forums in English and six in Spanish to explain a new, federally mandated scheme to the voters.  It created various ways of publicizing the election — with tote bags, lawn signs and tee shirts stating “Your voice, your vote, your village”; and reminders in the form of TV spots, brochures and handouts given to schoolchildren, in both English and Spanish — all of which had to be approved by the Department of  Injustice.  It also hired a “non-profit” election research and reform group called FairVote to provide consultation services (our tax money at work — again).  And, when it came time to cast the votes, “federal observers” were on site . . . watching. 

So once again the compassionate, inclusive left is Balkanizing us.  I just wonder what their quota prescription will be when it comes time to partition the nation. 

When the Times Square bombing suspect was first reported to be a “white male,” I shook my head.  I knew that, despite Mayor Bloomberg’s asinine musings about how the perpetrator was probably “homegrown” and perhaps someone upset about the healthcare bill, this was nonsense.  “It’s about as likely as a story about Bill Clinton becoming a monk,” I thought. 

Of course, this was no great insight.  Given that 99 percent of the terrorists bedeviling us today are non-white Muslims, it was just common sense — otherwise known as profiling.

The critics of Arizona’s new immigration law complain that it will lead to “racial profiling.”  In response, the law’s defenders point out that the legislation specifically forbids the practice.

Both groups are wrong.

They accept two false suppositions.  The first is that the practice in question is immoral.

The second is that “racial profiling” actually exists.

Generally speaking, it does not — that is, not in the sense of a phenomenon widespread enough to warrant continual media attention.  In reality, there are only two kinds of profiling: good profiling and bad profiling.  Let’s discuss the difference.

Profiling is simply a method by which law enforcement can determine the probability that an individual has committed a crime or has criminal intent.  Now, when making this assessment, many different factors are considered.  Some have to do with age, sex, dress, behavior, the car being driven, whether or not a person is “out of place” (e.g., a well-dressed fellow in a BMW cruising a drug-plagued neighborhood), and, yes, some have to do with race.  But whatever the criteria, good profiling chooses them in accordance with sound criminological science.  And as soon as we subordinate that standard to anything, such as political or social concerns, we have rendered it bad profiling.

We also render it unfair.  That is, contrary to the notion that using racial factors in profiling is discriminatory, in the negative sense of the word, it is actually the refusal to consider them that is so. 

I’ll explain.  I’m a member of one of the most profiled groups in the country: males.  Law enforcement views us much more suspiciously than females because we commit an inordinate amount of crime.  And we aren’t the only ones, as youths also attract a jaundiced eye for the same reason.  Now, if considering race when profiling is “racism,” isn’t considering sex and age “sexism” and “ageism”?  

The truth is that none of these things are any kind of ism.  And is it just to discriminate among higher-crime-incidence groups — scrutinizing some more closely but not others — based on whether they are in or out of favor politically and socially? 

This is where the capital-D discrimination lies.  If you’re male or a teen, you’re fair game.  But, for instance, when the matter is Muslims, the double standards fly.  When seeking to identify terrorists, the people who have no problem placing the probing eye on males warn that Muslims mustn’t receive extra scrutiny.  But why?  As far as the terrorist threat facing the West goes, “Muslim” is a more consistent part of the terrorist profile than is “male,” as there have been more female suicide bombers than non-Muslim ones.

Some may say we must be especially sensitive with regard to race (yes, I realize “Islamic” isn’t a race), but this is silly for two reasons.  First, it is a hang-up; it is suicidal to sacrifice blood on the altar of political correctness.  Second, there is no blanket refusal to consider racial factors when profiling.  For example, part of the profile for serial killers and methamphetamine dealers is “Caucasian.”

Likewise, given that more than 90 percent of the illegals in Arizona hail from Mexico and Latin America, isn’t “Hispanic” part of the relevant profile here?  Mind you, the operative word is “part.”  To say “This person appears to be of Mexican descent, so he must be illegal” is no different than assuming that every white person deals meth — it would be bad profiling.  But just as a meth dealer will usually exhibit characteristics that distinguish him from Morris the accountant, an illegal alien is usually distinguishable from an acculturated Hispanic American.

And what if you’re a citizen who doesn’t exhibit the differences or one who can’t distinguish them?  If the former, now you know why assimilation matters.  And what of the latter?  Then you aren’t qualified to profile professionally.

Nevertheless, society needs those who are.  As Dr. Walter Williams once wrote:

What about using race or ethnicity as proxies for some unobserved characteristic?  Some racial and ethnic groups have a higher incidence of mortality from various diseases than the national average.  In 1998, mortality rates for cardiovascular diseases were approximately 30 percent higher among black adults than among white adults.  Cervical cancer rates were almost five times higher among Vietnamese women in the United States than among white women.  The Pima Indians of Arizona have the highest known diabetes rates in the world.  Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common among black men as white men.

My, those “racist” diseases.  Of course, race’s and ethnicity’s value as proxies isn’t limited to physical disease but extends to so many things.  Just ask Jesse Jackson.  In 1993 he said, “There is nothing more painful to me . . . than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”   

The reality is that we all profile.  For example, everyone (not just ol’ Jena Jesse) has heard about something called a “suspicious-looking character.”  Also, having been raised in New York City, I’ve often heard people be identified as “looking like tourists.”  Now, what do you think these things mean?  We are able to thus categorize people only because we’re all natural-born sociologists and psychologists; we all possess some understanding of man’s behavior, of what is normal in a given situation, and can use this knowledge to help assess others’ status and intent.  Who wouldn’t be wary of someone with a buzz cut who sports a Swastika tattoo on his forehead?  Who can’t identify an angry countenance as just that? 

Of course, these are obvious examples, and the more subtle the behavior and signs, the more discerning the observer must be to note and draw correct conclusions from them.  Regardless, this ability is good — and wholly necessary for survival.  It is no different from how we profile animals and would pet the sheep but not the wolf; it allows us to avoid danger, both to our person and the kind that could result in being wronged.  And when it’s applied by the police, we call it “profiling.”  Yet it is nothing but the application of common sense within the sphere of law enforcement.  Nevertheless, Jena Jesse and others would disallow good profiling and insist that the police check their common sense at the station-house door.

After Dr. Williams discusses how the prevalence of certain diseases correlates with race, he asks, “Would one condemn a medical practitioner for advising greater screening and monitoring of black males for cardiovascular disease and prostate cancer, or greater screening and monitoring for cervical cancer among Vietnamese American females, and the same for diabetes among Pima Indians?”

Unfortunately, when the matter is the social disease of crime, we not only condemn such a practice, we fire the good diagnosticians.  For example, in an older article about former attorney general John Ashcroft’s investigation of 13 cities for “racial profiling” (thank you, George Bush), ABC reports on efforts to eradicate the practice and writes, “police officials who defended profiling have been removed from their posts.”  Translation: Our security has been placed in the hands of PC lackeys.

Lest I be misunderstood, I don’t say good profiling is the magic bullet for Arizona’s illegal alien problem.  In point of fact, I presented more effective solutions in my piece “Immigration: Solutions, Not Excuses.”  My point is a larger one: Whether the crime is violating borders, bodies or buildings, whether it’s committed in Arizona or Anytown USA, good profiling is not just part of law enforcement. 

It’s the heart law enforcement.

What do you think the legal standard of “reasonable suspicion” is?  What should the police be suspicious of?  Only males, teens, and whites in certain situations? 

The bigots are not those who support good profiling, which scrutinizes all groups in accordance with sound criminological science.  It is the Times Square bombing-analyst hopers (such as Contessa Brewer) who play pin the tale on the honkey, doing their best imitation of the three blind, deaf and mute monkeys.

America, we need to end our hang-up with race — before it ends us.

                                                       Contact Selwyn Duke    

Recently, columnist Charles Krauthammer expressed support for amnesty for illegals, while Newt Gingrich advocated a path to what he called “legality.” The two men stipulated that border control must come first, but, still, what makes these two conservatives such weak sisters on this issue?  Perhaps part of the answer was provided by Dick Morris, who said that immigration is a losing issue for Republicans.

Morris is no pillar of principle, but he knows political trends.  What’s his reasoning?  Over the short term, a hard-line immigration stance benefits many politicians; as for the long term, however, there’s something called demographic change.

Hispanics are the most rapidly growing group in the nation.  In fact, if current immigration and birthrate trends continue, they will become America’s largest ethnic group during the next century. Fifteen percent of the population already, they’re poised to become twenty-nine percent by 2050.

This is relevant because, while many rationalize away the reality, a majority of Hispanics oppose tighter border control. For example, one survey showed that 81 percent of Latinos in Arizona oppose their state’s new immigration law, with 70 percent registering strong disapproval.

Because of this, many have warned Republicans against “alienating” this burgeoning voting bloc. For instance, Simon Rosenberg, the head of a group that studies such matters, said, “If the Republicans don't make their peace with Hispanic voters, they're not going to win presidential elections anymore. The math just isn't there.” 

Unfortunately, the common sense just isn’t there, either. That is, while Republicans recognize this electoral reality, they don’t seem to ask (honestly) what’s necessary to avoid this alienation. Because if they did, they’d realize that the new immigrants’ affinity for liberalism goes far beyond a love for porous borders.

Question: If we imported millions of Scandinavians — who have created the most liberal governments on Earth — would we expect them to magically change their ideology upon seeing American terra firma?  If not, why would we expect otherwise with south-of-the-border socialists?  If they choose Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales types below the Rio Grande, why wouldn’t they above it?  Geography doesn’t change ideology.

Despite this, many Republicans claim they can “reach out” to Hispanic voters and woo them.  This is fantasy.  Today’s immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic, vote Democrat approximately 70 to 80 percent of the time (Bush did better, but, surprise, surprise, he favored amnesty for illegals), and this won’t change.  Oh, there is one way woo them: Adopt Democrat policies across-the-board (you can remain pro-life and against faux marriage) — favoring socialist measures and big government. 

This is, of course, why leftist politicians love unfettered immigration so much: They are importing their voters — socialist voters.

Now, some claim that, since socialism is quintessentially un-American, time, prosperity and acculturation will purge it from new populations.  This is also fantasy.  Would you expect this with the Scandinavians?  As for prosperity, upper classes were more likely to vote for Barack Obama than lower ones.  And acculturation?  The pressure today is not to assimilate but, owing to multiculturalism, to cling to your ethnicity.

The symptoms of this abound.  We have seen new arrivals protest in the streets wielding signs stating “Gringo Go Home” and the shocking video of California teacher Ron Gochez calling for a Mexican communist revolt in the U.S.  Then there was the recent incident in which a girl was told that her drawing of an American Flag was offensive, and another where students were punished for wearing American-flag clothing.  And both of these travesties were the handiwork of a teacher or administrator who reflects the anti-Americanism now permeating the establishment.

It also, sadly, reflects many on the ground.  For instance, commenting on the second incident, student Annicia Nunez, opined, “I think they [the flag-clothing wearers] should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day.  We don't deserve to be get [sic] disrespected like that.  We wouldn't do that on Fourth of July.”  Like many, this girl draws an equivalence between American and foreign holidays.  Don’t ask if she considers herself American.  The only question is if she views herself as Mexican or shows some deference to hyphenation.

And we have become a hyphened nation, less capable than ever of assimilating immigrants.  Yet we now have more than ever to assimilate.  While we admitted only around 250,000 immigrants annually during most of our history, that number has ballooned to approximately 1 million (85 percent of whom hail from the Third World and Asia).  To paraphrase columnist Frosty Wooldridge, the rate of immigration long ago exceeded the rate of assimilation.

Then there is an even more troubling factor: the consequences of taking in so many immigrants from just one country.    

In a relatively recent phenomenon, approximately 50 percent of legal immigrants have been coming from Mexico.  And about 67 percent of American Hispanics have origins in that nation; this amounts to, including illegals, a population of approximately 20 to 30 million — about 20 percent of Mexico’s population.  What are the consequences of such an unbalanced immigration policy?  University of Edinburgh professor Stephen Tierney explains them very well in his book Multiculturalism and the Canadian Constitution, writing:

In a situation in which immigrants are divided into many different groups originating in distant countries, there is no feasible prospect of any particular immigrant group’s challenging the hegemony of the national language [press one for English, folks?] and institutions.  These groups may form an alliance among themselves to fight for better treatment and accommodations, but such an alliance can only be developed within the language and institutions of the host society and, hence, is integrative.  In situations in which a single dominant immigrant group originates in a neighbouring country, the dynamics may be very different.  The Arabs in Spain, and Mexicans in the United States, do not need allies among other immigrant groups.  One could imagine claims for Arabic or Spanish to be declared a second official language, at least in regions where they are concentrated, and these immigrants could seek support from their neighbouring home country for such claims — in effect, establishing a kind of transnational extension of their original homeland in their new neighbouring country of residence.

Note that parts of the U.S. are already so heavily Mexican that their residents perceive no need to assimilate.  Also note that these immigrants have in fact received support from Mexico, as its government has interfered in our domestic affairs and demanded they be accommodated.

Professor Tierney goes on to write, “This fear [of cultural genocide] is often compounded in situations where the immigrant group has historic claims against the receiving country . . . .  For example, in the Mexican-United States case . . . .” 

In this case . . . what?  There is just such a claim.  Sure, it’s specious, but good luck convincing the Reconquistas of this.  As pundit Dr. Jack Wheeler points out here, Mexico’s rulers engender hatred toward the U.S. by, among other things, placing an enormous map depicting Greater Mexico — which includes much of our land — near the entrance of Mexico City’s Museum of National History.  Wheeler writes, “Every class of students on a field trip from their school to the museum is made to sit down and gaze up at the huge map, while the teacher explains how so much of Los Estados Unidos was stolen from Mexico and really belongs to them.”  The rationale is that all the land treaties the U.S. made with European powers, such as the Louisiana Purchase, were illegal and that the regions thus obtained rightfully belong to Mexico.  States Wheeler, “Every Mexican national legally or illegally in the US is told by the Mexican government his or her allegiance is to Mexico — not America.”

Wheeler also claims that Mexico owes its independence to us, as we helped defeat its French overlords.  But belaboring the point is fruitless, as reason plays less of a role in people’s decisions and behavior than many of us like to think.  You won’t reason a person out of ethnic and national patriotism — and citizenship tests certainly won’t purge it from them.  Possession is nine-tenths of the law, like it or not.  The question is, who will possess the American lands in question — and what will American culture be possessed of — a generation or two hence?

So not all immigration is created equal, and Mexican immigration is unique.  For it is not just the migration of individuals — it is the transplantation of a foreign nation into the body of our nation.  

This is just one reason (recently naturalized Times Square bomber types are another) I’ve long advocated at least a moratorium on all immigration.  The people make the country and government, not the other way around. 

Thus, a debate about immigration policy is nothing less than a discussion about what kind of nation we wish to be.  Will it be Mexico North?  Iran West?  Right now we’re looking more like the Balkans. 

In fact, with a socialist voting bloc that threatens to give us a Hugo Chavez North sometime in the future — that is, unless current trends can be reversed — the realizing of Mexican nationalists’ Aztlan dream may not be lamentable.  A partitioning of the U.S. may offer the only hope of enjoying a land where the American dream lives on.

Don’t like the sound of that?  Then you’d better start reversing those trends and initiate that immigration discussion fast — in approximately 20 years ago.  Because it’s later than you think — about cinco to midnight for America.

                                                        Contact Selwyn Duke

Contradiction is no stranger to the mainstream media, and it is on full display in their treatment of Catholic-priest sexual abuse story.  Normally, the media take pains to point out that transgressors should not be used to typify the group with which they’re associated.  For instance, when terrorism is covered, we’re told that the jihadists of the world constitute just a small group of “extremists” and do not represent Islam.  That is, when the media can’t manage to identify such people only as “youths” and must actually address the issue in the first place.  Yet, with the Church matter, they have no problem blaming the Church as a whole, tarnishing the reputations of the institution, Catholics in general and all priests through gratuitous, slanted coverage.  

But there is one group in this story that not only isn’t painted with a broad brush, it’s whited out: homosexuals.  Claim that the abuse was homosexual in nature and you’ll hear accusations of intolerance, bigotry and backwardness.  “Don’t be ignorant,” say the apologists, “Haven’t you heard about psychology and the ‘determination’ that homosexuality and pedophilia are completely different things?”  Well, I will ask if they’ve heard about word definitions.

If these critics are so enamored of specificity and categorical rectitude, they should know that the abuse in question is not pedophilia.  This is because pedophilia refers to sexual relations with pre-pubescent children, and virtually all the victims in the Church scandal were adolescents.  Thus, it is correctly classified as ephebophilia, attraction to older adolescents; or hebephilia, attraction to pubescent children.  If you’re going to embrace psycho-babble, babble correctly.

This is no minor point.  It is the height of silliness to scream about incorrect labeling and feign intellectualism and then yourself apply a word wholly inappropriate to the transgression.  Of course, though, such contradiction is understandable.  Those guilty often don’t know the facts about the abuse and/or don’t know esoteric labels such as hebephilia and ephebophilia (which, of course, belies any claim of intellectualism).  Yet there can be another motivation: If you aim to demonize a target, nothing quite packs the rhetorical punch of “pedophilia.”  And people thus driven cannot plead ignorance — they are liars.

As for me, I’m a simple sort, a man with little use for newly-minted psychological terminology.  And I’ll provide my perspective: Regardless of a boy’s stage of development, he is undeniably male — the same sex as the priest abusers.  And most of the abusers targeted only members of the same sex.  Now, what do you call same-sex attraction?

For those scratching their heads, I’ll expand on the point.  When late homosexual congressman Gerry Studds had an affair with an adolescent male page, did anyone say it wasn’t a homosexual relationship?  If it wasn’t, then his good constituents in Massachusetts must have overlooked his “pedophilia,” as they re-elected him six more times before his retirement.

Of course, some may point out that the kid Studds got Spartan with was 17, and the age of consent in Washington, D.C. is 16.  OK, this is a good starting point.  It then follows that the priests who had affairs with boys of legal age are homosexual.  But this leaves us with an interesting question: What if a man has relations with a boy one day less than legal age?  What about two days less?  A week?  A month?  At what point does the man cease being a homosexual and suddenly become an “ephebophile” who, for some strange reason and in a thoroughly non-homosexual way, only targets male adolescents?                        

Now let’s take it further.  When singer Jerry Lee Lewis married a 13-year-old girl and director Roman Polanski forced himself on one, did anybody say the fellows weren’t heterosexual?  When men are arrested for statutory rape after having relations with 15, 16 and 17-year-old girls, do we say they are not?  When men marry teenage girls — common for most of history and in many parts of the world today — do we view it as examples of that contradiction in terms, non-heterosexual marriage?  And in all the reportage of the cases involving female teachers who have affairs with 13 and 14-year old boys, did anyone stamp his foot and proclaim, “Do not call these women heterosexual, you soft-science Luddite!  Psychologists tell us otherwise!”?  Not only did no one do so, we didn’t even discuss the matter.  This is because the obvious doesn’t warrant discussion — that is, until there is a strong reason for denying the obvious.

Getting back to the defense of Islam I mentioned earlier, truth be known, it makes more sense than saying that men who target teen boys aren’t homosexual.  After all, some might mention that Islam, like all religions, must espouse certain dogma; thus, if terrorism were contrary to Islamic dogma, terrorists could not truly be Muslim — despite their claims of piety.  Yet one could even more credibly use this argument to claim that the Church transgressors are not really priests.  What I mean is, unlike Islam, Catholicism has a teaching body, the Pope and Magisterium, that defines Catholic doctrine; therefore, unlike in Islam, it isn’t a matter of which cleric you choose to believe.  And, to say the least, the transgressing priests did great violence to Catholic teaching, thereby rendering themselves something less than priests in spirit.  Yet facts are stubborn things, and the fact is that the abusers were ordained as priests in the Catholic Church, and no one seems to have trouble accepting that reality.  We do not hear anyone say, “No!  They aren’t priests!  The definition of a priest involves being celibate, and these men were anything but.”  Well, there is another fact here: They not only are/were priests, they also happen to be (or have been, in the cases of the deceased and defrocked) homosexual priests.  And to say otherwise is to be guilty of selective specificity.  Just as critics recoil at the supposed intellectual sloppiness of labeling the abusers homosexuals but will then most sloppily call them pedophiles, they will identify them as “Catholic” and as “priests” but not as homosexual.  Why is this?  Is it just a coincidence that every example here of selective specificity, sloppiness and hypocrisy serves to either protect the reputation of homosexuals or damage that of the Church?

There reason is not hard to discern.  While the abuse in question is a problem of homosexuality, homosexuality is never a problem for our abusive media.  The truth is that if the Church were actually a homosexual organization, with positions aligned with leftism, there could have been twice the abuse and there would have been .2 percent the coverage.  As with the cases of the Duke University academic who adopted two black boys and habitually molested them and Jesse Dirkhising, a 13-year-old boy who was tortured and murdered by two homosexuals in Arkansas, it would be buried faster than a mafia snitch in New Jersey. 

This is why I have said before that the coverage of the Church scandal has nothing to do with concern about youth — it has nothing to do with Truth.  It is simply a hammer with which the media can attack religion, something they hate more than the worst child molester.

Pushing back the frontiers of oxymoronic moronity, the left has added to “non-heterosexual marriage” and introduced the concept of non-homosexual same-sex relations.  It’s the kind of lunacy you disgorge when trying to cloak a truth hiding in plain sight.

Unfortunately, something that is not an oxymoron, but a redundancy, is “deceitful mainstream media.”  And just imagine, these are the same people who accuse the Church of and condemn her for “covering up” a damning reality.

                                                          Contact Selwyn Duke

Initially published at The American Thinker - http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/media_blinders_on_the_church_a.html

With the passage of ObamaCare coming on the heels of government takeover of industries and taxpayer-funded bailouts of the irresponsible, many are wondering how we can turn the socialist tide.  They see Uncle Sam expanding, their rights and economic prospects shrinking and their voices ignored.  For these people, November cannot come soon enough.

But November is not the ultimate solution. In the political universe, seven months is an eternity, and we cannot know precisely how public sentiment will evolve.  Besides, the chances of Republicans retaking both Houses are slim and, even if they do, there’s no guarantee they’ll rise to the occasion.  Some will be Scott Brown types — not the sort to give us tradition we can believe in.

A better solution lies on the local and state levels.  Fifteen states are currently suing the federal government over ObamaCare, and then there is the Tenth Amendment Movement, involving at least 35 states that are asserting their sovereignty over powers granted them by that amendment.  These are good starts, but . . . .

Question: What if the Supreme Court, in obvious violation of the Constitution, upholds ObamaCare?  Do we simply obey unflinchingly and wait for the next federal usurpation?

Certainly, there is every reason to believe the Black Robes will thus rule, as enabling the Leviathan’s tyranny has become their practice.  Of course, many legal “scholars” will provide oh-so intellectual justifications for the incessant expansion of federal power as they lawyer away our rights.  But let’s look at what James Madison, considered the father of the Constitution, wrote in The Federalist, No. 45:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce . . . .

When was the last time we had a government reflecting these limits?  The truth is that Uncle Sam violates the Constitution ever more brazenly with the passage of time, adding to its power and subtracting from our rights.  And it won’t stop unless someone stops it. 

And it is time we stopped it.  The states should send a message: Black Robes, if you won’t do your job, we will do it for you.  No state resident shall be compelled to buy health insurance, and we will not cooperate in the enforcement of such a mandate.  Furthermore, no federal agents may enter our territories for the purposes of such enforcement.  And if they do, they will be arrested.

On top of this immediate concern, states should resolve that the same will apply to all other unconstitutional mandates — regardless of how established and longstanding they may be.

Period.

Now, many people — good people — will object to this prescription.  “How can you defy the courts?” they will ask.  “We must respect the rule of law.”  But what is the law?  The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.  And when a government violates it, it loses its legitimacy, right to exist and legal authority. 

Will we just accept an oligarchic judiciary and abide by its dictates no matter how onerous?  Will we accept social engineers-cum-lawyers’ “interpretations” of plain language regardless of how contrary to the text they may be?  What will we believe, them or our own eyes?  If the former, we are not governed by the rule of law.  We are governed by the rule of lawyers.  

And let us understand fully the moral and legal validity of my counsel.  The Constitution is the contract the American people have with one another, and enumerated in it are the rights and responsibilities of all those party to it.  But it has one serious flaw.

It only works if you actually abide by it.

Now, what if one of the parties, being more powerful, continually violates the contract for the purposes of advantaging itself?  Do you seek redress through the courts?  Sure.  What if, however, this party has the power to appoint judges sympathetic to its tyrannical aims?  What if these judges, with a wink and a nod and legalistic mumbo-jumbo, aid and abet the party in its breach of contract?  Do you just say, “Oh, well, that’s what the contract means now because they said so”?  Or do you recognize a simple fact?

To wit: Through its habitual violation of the terms of the contract, the federal government has rendered it null and void.    

Null and void.  It is silly to think that states have an obligation to follow the law when the Leviathan violates it at will.  It is to fight abiding by Queensberry rules while your opponent makes up his own rules.  That is, if you can even characterize it as fighting and not genuflection.

I know my prescription is bold enough to scare many into believing all the more in November, but be under no illusions.  The idea that we’re going to put the Leviathan in its proper place at the national ballot box is a pipe dream.  The problem of extra-constitutional federal governance is not a new phenomenon; it is approximately 100 years old and so deeply ingrained that the central government views many violations of the Constitution as federal rights. Besides, the Founding Fathers gave us a balance of power between Washington and the states for a reason: Governments don’t willingly relinquish or limit their own power. Thus, it is naïve to think that “asking” the Leviathan to recede into its cage will bring anything but contemptuous laughter. For how long will we say “pretty please”?  For how long will we play by the rules while the Leviathan plays with the rules?  It’s time to stop asking and start telling.      

Moreover, those of us who care about resurrecting tradition are in the minority.  The 11 most populous states boast more than half our population and enough electoral votes to elect the president, and they are a decidedly liberal bunch.  Obama won nine of them — most by wide margins — losing only Texas and Georgia.  Four of them, California, New York, Illinois and New Jersey — which alone have a quarter of the U.S.’ population — are firmly entrenched in the statist camp; three of them, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, have one foot in that grave; and two of them, Florida and North Carolina, are teetering on the edge.  And all of them, along with the rest of the West, are trending left.

It is time for the few remaining pockets of traditionalism to take control of their culture and destiny.  If not now, when?  Will the resurrection of manly virtue ever wait for the next usurpation?  Will we wait until the Black Robes find a justification for hate-speech laws?  Do we sit idly by while cultural traitors manufacture socialist votes by granting amnesty to 13-20 million illegals, people with no allegiance to our nation?  Will we just watch them build a statist electoral phalanx that will support the redistribution of wealth and further constitutional trespass?  I say no.  States should send a message to the Leviathan: If you don’t do your job, we’ll do it for you.  They should make clear that they will not recognize the citizenship of any individual who broke into our nation and was then given a get-out-of-jail-free-if-you-vote-for-me card.

Period.

What’s that you say?  Immigration is a federal role?

Null and void.

And if asked about the constitutionality of the matter, I would just quote a very powerful woman second in line to the presidency: “Are you serious?!  Are you serious?!

Yes, I am serious.  It’s time to stop acting like an abused wife who’d rather take beating after beating after beating than leave the tyrant.       

The sun will not come out in November.  It rises with the vigilant, shines on the stout-hearted, and sets only when a nation’s courage sleeps.