Some are offended at the President's use of the word 'ass'. Frankly I don't find it offensive at all. It's one of my own favorite words, as, for example if I were to say something like, "The POTUS is an ass." But never mind that just now.

It's not even offensive to me that he is looking for assess to kick. What is offensive is the general direction he's looking for this ass. This is a man who cannot call terroritists, well, terrorists. He's reluctant to use the word "enemy". He's not looking for any terrorist ass to kick. He's not looking to kick any Taliban ass. He's not looking for any Hamas ass to kick. He's not looking for any Hezbollah ass to kick. And he most certainly is not looking for any illegal immigrant ass to kick -- not that I have a problem with that one. (If anything he's probably more interested in kicking some Arizona governor ass.)

That is what is really offensive.


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The furor over Arizona entails belief that it is a crime to be in the United States, but not in any single state, illegally, as well as that enforcement of immigration laws requires racial profiling when performed by state agents but not federal agents. Right. We all know how ethically up-standing the unfederal government is.

Limbaugh thinks what bothers the Left about Arizona is the left's need of illegal voters. Perhaps. But there is something else for the Left to worry about. For perhaps the first time since the 19th century we have a state taking upon itself to enforce the terms of the U.S. Constitution, in response to federal malfeasance.

If illegal immigrants don't have to obey federal immigration law, why should U.S. citizens obey a federal law requiring the purchase of health care insurance? Oh. Yeah. The unfederal government will actually enforce the latter. That's right. I guess the real question is: Will the unfed object to states passing laws making it a crime for state citizens to disobey the law requiring the purchase of health care insurance, or will the unfed be glad for the help?

Frankly, I think it would be great if we had immigration policies even half as sensible as Mexico's, with all of which I entirely agree and support, by the way.

Yes, I read the bill.

In the bad old days of private slavery, the overseers used whips to keep those slaves in line. Now in the good old days of public slavery the overseer uses fiat regulation to keep us in line. In the bad old days, if the overseer had wanted a slave to drive less, he'd give the slave a whippin'. Now, when they want us to drive less they give us a regulation.

There is a bit of common ground. In both cases, the overseers know it's all for the slaves' own good. After all, no one (no one in his right mind) can object to a clean energy economy, or saving the planet, or whatever they think is best for us all.

Yes, it will be good for us. Of course it will. Never mind that immigrants -- legal and otherwise -- seem not to share that conviction:

[E]conomic opportunities are universal. If you feel them and sense them, so do others outside the border — and they want to be part of it. If they don't feel them and sense them, maybe it is time to wake up and realize that they don't exist as they used to.

Time was when shelters just across the border, where people lived until they saw an opportunity for safe passage, were filled and overflowing. Now they are empty. Time was when the border-patrol vans and buses hauled people here and there, whereas now they just drive around on day trips, looking for some sign of life.

To have an "immigration problem" is enormously flattering for a country. For that problem to go away is a dark cloud, a bad omen, a sign that something is going terribly wrong. The absence of an immigration problem can quickly turn into an emigration problem.

[...]

Emigration out of the United States has been growing every year since 1991, from 252,000 in 1991 to 311,000 in 2005. I couldn't find data past that point, but can there be any doubt where we are heading with this? Low-skilled employees want nothing to do with us. High-skilled employees are not allowed in. Enterprise is being killed at every turn. It won't be long now before larger and larger numbers of people vote with their feet.

A final insult is how US tax law treats its emigrants from this country. It continues to tax them as if they were lifetime slaves. Wherever you go, the force is with you.

The heck of it is that all of this could be turned around today. A social consensus against tyranny can form and strengthen. It only takes political will to let freedom reign. ~ Lew Rockwell, here.

I wonder if that "jmwtex" guy (whom I mentioned just below) would favor abolishing the expatriation tax law on the grounds that it, like a woman being forced to carry a baby to term, is a form of slavery? I'll have to ask him.

"[P]rophecies of what the courts will do...and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
There must be a civil right to trespass. How else to explain a thirty-two million dollar lawsuit, by 16 Mexican nationals, in which the defendant, Roger Barnett, is said to have violated their civil rights?

They trespassed on his land, known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as "the avenue of choice" for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally. He stopped them at gunpoint. Now, they sue him for $32 million dollars.

You have to love the way some people attempt to subvert the law to their purposes. One of the counts alleges that the Barnett conspired, in violation of 42 U.S.C. §1985(3), to deprive Plaintiffs of their right to interstate travel. (See Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment , p. 2.) Note the logic: the right to interstate travel implies the right to trespass on private property. Want to go from Texas to Kentucky? Forget the highways; hop in a four-wheeler and drive in a straight line. And if any property owner objects, just assert your right to interstate travel. Beautiful. Reminds me of that line from Beverly Hills Cop: "What's the charge for getting hit by a car? Jay-walking?"

Barnett's attorney presented a strange argument against this charge:

[I]llegal aliens have no constitutional right to interstate travel. It would seem counterintuitive to maintain that an illegal alien, who is subject to arrest and removal by the government at any time (as indeed Plaintiffs were removed), and whose interstate transportation is a felony, 8 U.S.C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(ii), possesses a constitutional right to travel within the United States; at the very least, this would be a strange species of “constitutional right.” (Defendant's Motion , p. 7, emphasis mine.

No kidding. You don't have a right to be here in the first place. Indeed, your being here (as a consequence of an illegal border-crossing) is a violation of federal law. So, you have no right to interstate travel. That's deep.

In his essay, "The Path of the Law", Justice Holmes wrote, "The primary rights and duties with which jurisprudence busies itself...are nothing but prophecies.... [A] legal duty...is nothing but a prediction that if a man does or omits certain things he will be made to suffer in this or that way by judgment of the court."

In case Justice Holmes's style is a bit difficult to grasp, whenever someone says, "You have a legal duty to perform some act R," what he really means is, "I predict that if you do not perform R the court will make you suffer in some way," (e.g., by throwing your butt into jail). "You have a duty" is, therefore, nothing but a threat of force.

Conversely, a legal right is nothing but a prediction that if a man does or omits certain things he will not be made to suffer in this or that way by judgment of the court. It's getting more and more difficult to know what our rights are, not because we can't read the Constitution (that's easy enough, which is why so many people don't like it), but because we can increasingly not predict those things for which a court may make us suffer.

And that's limiting ourselves to what courts decide. Juries are entirely unpredictable. A woman sues McDonald's because the hot coffee she spilled on herself was, well, hot. And the jury awards her damages. (You can read an interesting 2004 legal discussion of this case, here.)

I suspect Barnett's in trouble and will probably have to sell his ranch to pay the damages.

During the campaign we were informed that while government (i.e., the federal government) can’t do everything it ought at least to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. (By the way, both candidates told us this. They did so, however, in different ways, so it may not be so very clear that the Republican candidate believes it just as wholly as the Democrat candidate.)

But what if you’re owed what the government is going to do for you? Back in March Ed Kaitz described a conversation he had on a flight once. He was talking to the man sitting next to him on the flight, a black man, about the success of Vietnamese fishermen:

I had been working on Vietnamese commercial fishing boats for a few years based in southern Louisiana. The boats were owned by the recent wave of Vietnamese refugees who flooded into the familiar tropical environment after the war. Floating in calm seas out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, I would hear tearful songs and tales from ex-paratroopers about losing brothers, sisters, parents, children, lovers, and beautiful Vietnam itself to the communists.

In Bayou country I lived on boats and in doublewide trailers, and like the rest of the Vietnamese refugees, I shopped at Wal-Mart and ate a lot of rice. When they arrived in Louisiana the refugees had no money (the money that they had was used to bribe their way out of Vietnam and into refugee camps in Thailand), few friends, and a mostly unfriendly and suspicious local population. They did however have strong families, a strong work ethic, and the "Audacity of Hope." Within a generation, with little or no knowledge of English, the Vietnamese had achieved dominance in the fishing industry there and their children were already achieving the top SAT scores in the state.

While I had been fishing my new black friend had been working as a prison psychologist in Missouri, and he was pursuing a higher degree in psychology. He was interested in my story, and after about an hour getting to know each other I asked him point blank why these Vietnamese refugees, with no money, friends, or knowledge of the language could be, within a generation, so successful. I also asked him why it was so difficult to convince young black men to abandon the streets and take advantage of the same kinds of opportunities that the Vietnamese had recently embraced. His answer, only a few words, not only floored me but became sort of a razor that has allowed me ever since to slice through all of the rhetoric regarding race relations that Democrats shovel our way during election season:

"We're owed and they aren't."

In short, he concluded, "they're hungry and we think we're owed. It's crushing us, and as long as we think we're owed we're going nowhere."

That conversation took place back in the 1980s. Now, I think, just about all of us think we are owed.

So the Russian military has been ordered to halt operations.

You really have to admire how quickly the Russians were able to move. I was thinking they'd just go ahead an annex Georgia. The swiftness of the operation put me in mind of one of my favorite scenes in The Hunt for Red October:




No doubt, plans for such a retaliatory invasion have been on the table for years, South Ossetia being a contestable area and all. Dick Morris has an article at his website comparing this invasion to another one around seventy years ago:

On October 3, 1938, Adolf Hitler’s armies marched into Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia. Germany said it was responding to separatist demands from the large German population that lived there and that she was merely honoring their desire for reunion with Germany. Hitler’s tanks took over a vital part of an independent country that had largely rejected his overtures and allied itself with the West. Neither Britain nor France nor the United States did a thing to stop him.


On August 7, 2008, Vladimir Putin’s armies marched into South Ossetia, a part of Georgia. Russia said it was responding to separatist demands from the large Russian population that lived there and that she was merely honoring their desire for reunion with Russia. Putin’s tanks took over a vital part of an independent country that had largely rejected his overtures and allied itself with the West. Neither Britain nor France nor the United States did a thing to stop him.

Encouraged by his occupation of Sudetenland, Hitler continued his designs on Czechoslovakia itself and invaded the rest of the nation a few months later.

Will history continue to repeat itself?

For now, it doesn't seem like history will repeat itself. We'll see.

There was, in the Morris piece, another passage of some interest:

Russia has encouraged migration by ethnic Russians into its satellite empire ever since Stalin’s days and now is using the provinces with large Russian populations to foment discord in nations that lean to the West.

It seems to me there is another country in the world which encourages migration by its citizens across the border into a neighboring country, which has experience the fomenting of discord. The name of this country escapes me at present, but it's right on the tip of my tongue. I know I've read a lot about it, but I just can't remember it. Oh, well. It's probably not a big deal.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…. Declaration of Independence

Governments are instituted in order to secure those rights which we have as gifts from our Creator. Governments, furthermore, derive their conditional right to rule “from the consent” of those over whom these governments rule.

Properly, the governed are understood to be citizens of the geographic area being governed (inhabited by those seeking to secure these rights to themselves), not simply any Tom, Dick, Harry, or Maclovio who just happens to be in the area. In fact, if Tom, Dick, Harry and Maclovio happen to be foreign nationals, citizens, the governed, those who give their consent (which foreign nationals have not done) to the government, have a right to expect the government to which they have given their conditional consent, will protect them from foreign nationals. They might expect that the government to which they’ve given their consent will deport foreign nationals, especially violent offenders, who break the laws. They wouldn’t expect their government, to which they’ve given their consent in order to secure the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, would actually make it impossible to enforce laws enacted precisely for the purpose of securing the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But that is exactly what sanctuary cities do. That is what San Francisco, a city with a long-standing practice of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who commit felonies from possible deportation, has done. Such is the case with Edwin Ramos, who is accused of three counts of murder in the June 22 deaths of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16.

They were shot near their home in the Excelsior district when Tony Bologna, driving home from a family picnic, briefly blocked the gunman's car from completing a left turn down a narrow street, police say.

Ramos, a native of El Salvador whom prosecutors say is a member of a violent street gang, was found guilty of two felonies as a juvenile - a gang-related assault on a [city bus] passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman - according to authorities familiar with his background. (Here)

You’re driving home, or to anywhere, and for just a few moments you block a street onto which the driver of another car wishes to turn. Normally, the driver will honk his horn at you, possibly even flip you off. Edwin Ramos is different. If he wants to turn onto a street and you get in his way, he can shoot and kill you.

It gets worse. This is not Ramos’s first “tangle” with the law in San Francisco. In fact, his previous entanglements made his immigration status deportable. But San Francisco’s government (instituted to secure the rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness) which derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, does not allow its law enforcement officers to ascertain anyone’s immigration status.

What should people do when their government, instituted to secure the aforementioned rights, goes out of its way to protect violent law-breaking foreign nationals? Cosmopolitanism is a nice idea, but at the end of the day, people institute governments for their own protection, to secure to themselves the rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Most of us have no difficulty to extend protection to foreign nationals within our borders, but those foreign nationals should receive conditional protection. And that protection should be conditioned upon their demonstrated willingness to follow the rules. When they break the rules it is both foolish and dangerous not to ask whether they are here legally or illegal, and then to act accordingly. When governments won’t do that, it can no longer be justly said that they exist to secure to the people who formed those governments the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Some of us here in Nolodicere think that our small community ought to declare itself an explicity Christian municipality. (Don't worry, the heathen will be allowed to remain, especially the ones who work in restaurants. The sabbath-breakers among us need people to feed them after church. "Feed me, Seymour!" Ahem. I digress.)

There is a catch: we are governed by U. S. federal law. According to that law such an act as we propose would be unconstutional.

But who cares? I think we should do it anyway. If a city as large and visible as San Francisco can disregard federal law, an insignificant municipality such as I live in should easily be able to pull it off. (Side bar: My favorite part of the story is where opponents of the ad campaign are referred to not as "anti-illegal immigration" but "anti-immigration".)

Wait. Actually, there is another catch. Both St. Paul and St. Peter are on record as exhorting obedience to governing authorities (see, e.g., Romans 13.1-7; 1 Peter 2.13-17). I guess it's awfully convenient, for San Francisco, that San Francisco is not a Christian municipality, nor can be.

for whatever they may be worth.

Worthwhile commentary, here.

(Not that there's anything wrong with it, of course.)

If you think a country has the right to enforce its immigration laws, including deporting that who break those laws, then you have a lot in common with slave owners in the south:

"One of the great challenges facing us is that we do not commit the same mistakes with our growing Hispanic population that we did with African Americans 150 years ago and beyond. We're still paying the price for the pathetic manner in which this country handled that." (Here.)

See? Huckabee thinks (or doesn't) just like a liberal.

Selwyn Duke offers this pungent retort:

Outrageously, it seems Huck can't distinguish between denying citizens the protection of the law and requiring non-citizens to follow it. (Emphasis mine.)

Right. And not only can Huckabee not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens per se, he can't distinguish between Hispanic citizens and Hispanic non-citizens. Deporting lawbreakers does nothing to the Hispanic population. My parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and others are in no danger of being deported -- or anything else -- simply for being Hispanic. And no harm is done to my family because some lawbreaker who just happens to be Hispanic gets what the law says he has coming to him. Dealing with illegal immigrants who happen to be Hispanic is no more an attack on the Hispanic population than a crack-down on the mob constitutes an attack on the Italian population.

Also, it is telling, isn't it, that Huckabee thinks the only people here illegal are Hispanics?

Senator Clinton has a rather predictable opinion on why immigration has become such a hot issue. Overlooking the possible significance of the difference between the number of illegal immigrants in the 1990s versus the present number (i.e., 12 million, conservatively), Mrs. Clinton says, «¡It's the economy pendejo!»

During the 1990s, I cannot remember being asked about immigration ... Why? Because the economy was working ... And average Americans didn't have to go around looking for someone to blame. -- H/T: Rush Limbaugh

Different people likely have different reasons for caring about immigration reform. Some probably are "racist". Some, as Senator Clinton claims, probably are set off because they blame illegal immigrants for our economic woes. Sure: it's illegal immigration, not the whole sub-prime business -- among other things. Sure. That's what it is.

Some of us (perhaps especially Neo-Calvinists) are motivated by the simple fact (derived from the notion of sphere sovereignty ) that nations have rights, one of which is the right to exist. This right of nations to exist includes the right to say who comes in, who stays, who can become citizens and how they do so. And the standards which nations may use in formulating these laws can be whatever those nations desire them to be. Those standards can even be racist. (Now, I would object to racist standards for the U. S. But one wonders what to do about that. My objection is rooted in my faith. The Left-Liberal understanding of the separation of church and state would have it that my religious objection to racism would violate the separation if it became public policy.)

Some of us think it is improper for the leaders of our nation ignore this for apparently-political gain, or for any other reason. For one thing, the enforcement of laws against citizens and legal aliens does not comport well with non-enforcement of laws against illegal aliens. It's lawlessness.

Think of it. One set of our nation's laws stipulates conditions which must be met in order for foreigners to enter the country. Another set of our nation's laws stipulate, for example, that citizens pay taxes on their income. The first set is not enforced; it is violated with a great deal of impunity. The second set is enforced. The people against whom the laws are enforced are citizens. The people against whom the laws are not enforced are not citizens. Ah, the blessings of liberty!

Perhaps Senator Clinton could consider the possibility that while some people may be motivated solely by economics (assuming they understand economics), still others may be motivated by a certain sense of the unfairness of it all. The unfairness of citizens perhaps going to jail for, say, tax evasion, while illegal immigrants are to be issued drivers' licenses. And it isn't just the unfairness: there is a certain arbitrariness in enforcing one set of laws against one group of people, but not enforcing some other set of laws against some other group of people. And arbitrariness is one of the hallmarks of tyranny.

Accept the proposition that governments may pick and choose which laws to enforce, and against whom, and you already accepted tyranny. "Tyranny Lite", perhaps, but only at the beginning. When I started smoking, I smoked "lite" cigarettes. By the time I quit, I was smoking some pretty harsh stuff, sometimes even unfiltered. In fact, I can inhale when I smoke a cigar and not get sick. I also took up "smokeless" tobacco and, shall we say, didn't need a spitoon. I'll leave it at that. Once you get acclimated to "lite", getting acclimated to "heavy" is only a matter of time.

Perhaps Senator Clinton could consider the possibility that many of those who are now motivated by economic factors have always been concerned about illegal immigration, but were willing to suffer it in hopes that the problem would yet be resolved. Now, however, seeing that (a) the problem is still with us and is actually worse just in terms of numbers, (b) that illegal immigrants are to be treated as de facto legal residents, and (c) the problem is now (arguably) having economic costs, they have finally had enough. Twenty-one years ago it was three million illegals. Today is upwards of 12 million. What's it going to be in another twenty years? Forty-eight million?

There's a passage in the Declaration of Independence (the second paragraph, as a matter of fact) which acknowledges that people are "more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable" than to take drastic actions in treating these "evils" (the drastic action being, of course, in the Declaration, the abolition of a government). Even if people are now concerned about illegal immigration for economic reason, that is no reason for thinking that illegal immigration is otherwise inconsequential. If economic factors have made a formerly-sufferable evil now insufferable, it is irrelevant to the evil itself that economics has rendered it no longer sufferable. For whatever reason, it is now insufferable. Given the vissisitudes of economics it is wiser to treat the illegal immigration problem than to attempt to fix the economic problem. Economics is difficult for laymen (and law-makers are laymen when it comes to economics) to understand, much less "fix". Illigal immigration is a matter of border-enforcement. The wisest course of action must surely be to fix the simpler problem first.

But then, we are talking about lawmakers here. Not much future in looking for wisdom there, apparently.

Mrs. Clinton's attempt to blame the President and his party (by extension from the economy) indicates her belief that concern about millions of illegal immigrants will go away when people find their pocketbooks in better condition. She doesn't have to solve the immigration problem. All she has to do is treat the concern over illegal immigration by treating one of its supposed effects. Clearly, then, she intends to do nothing about illegal immigration. One can, I hope, be forgiven if it appears the immigrants can stay and do whatever they want as long as her constituents suffer no economic disadvantages.

The way she has framed the discussion it makes perfect sense. The flagrant overlooking of a set of our laws is not really the problem. The economy is the problem. Fix the economy and we'll resume ignoring illegal immigration because then no one will care since it doesn't affect them personally. We'll also no doubt resume ignoring the arbitrary enforcement or non-enforcement of the laws.

The way she has framed the discussion also assumes very little (if any) concern for national sovereignty. But then if liberals cared about national sovereignty their fellow-traveling judges wouldn't be inserting the laws of other nations into our constitutional jurisprudence, subjecting us to "jurisdiction[s] foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws" (see Declaration, para. 15).

Like Lose an Eye I didn't bother watching the debate last night. In fact, I don't watch debates since the last Presidential election season. As one who has actually read parts of The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, the debate between Bertrand Russell and Father Copleston on the existence of God, and a whole host of other debates, I find most political debates to be pathetically sophomoric.

Also, watching something I can just read a transcript of -- or a news story about -- is a terribly inefficient use of my time: I can read faster than anything will every happen in a debate. So I have read.

Most distressing was Giuliani's exchange with Romney on immigration. America's Mayor is supposed to be a hot-shot lawyer. Boy he must be out of practice.

In an effort, no doubt, at a tu quoque, he took Romney to task for employing illegals to do landscaping at his home. In order to deflect Romney's criticism of Giuliani's sanctuary-city-like immigration policy, Giuliani accused Romney of having a sanctuary mansion. When Romney explained that he didn't hire the people himself, but rather employed a landscaping company (which company -- not Romney --employed the illegals) Giuliani dismissed it as irrelevant because no matter how it occured the fact is that Romney had illegals working right under his nose.

What ever happened to intent? Because that -- and not the simple presence of illegals within one's jurisdiction -- is the issue. Giuliani intended to be lax in his policies. Romney didn't. Giuliani knew he had illegals; they weren't exactly under his nose. Romney didn't know, even if only because he didn't think it proper for him to ask about someone's legal status simply because they spoke with an accent. (Think about what Giuliani would have done with it if Romney had done so!)

Intent. It's relevant. It's absence on Romney's part is what separates him from Giuliani.

Then there was Senator McCain on waterboarding:

McCain, who has shown no love for Romney during the campaign, seized on Romney's response to a question about the legality of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Romney said that as a candidate he would not publicly discuss what techniques he would rule out. That prompted McCain, a former Vietnam POW, to assert that waterboarding is indeed torture and should not be tolerated.

"Governor, let me tell you, if we're going to gain the high ground in this world ... we're not going to torture people," McCain said. "How in the world someone could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted on people who are in our custody is absolutely beyond me."

The Senator may want this thing he calls the high ground, but I want this thing I'm calling victory in the war on terror. Victory in a war and this "high ground" the Senator speaks of may be mutually exclusive objectives. There are some who think our doing nothing in response to 911 would have gained us this "high ground". Getting their idea of the "high ground" certainly will not get us a victory in a war. Since the Senator and these other people are both using the term "high ground" it must be something subjective. Victory in a war, on the other hand, is pretty objective, if not elusive at times.

And as for the legality of waterboarding -- as I've said at least once before: Let them continue to urge Congress to illegalize waterboarding if they object so strongly to it. Senator McCain can assert that waterboarding is torture. But as objectionable as waterboarding may be, it is not torture unless and until it is defined as such in the law. It isn't torture because McCain says it is. It's a rule of law kind of a thing. (Look at this way: Some people think abortion is murder. It isn't, not until Roe is overturned, returning the matter to the states and the states define it as such.)

So there it is. We have one candidate who can't (or just won't) distinguish between actively assisting illegal immigrants and simply being unaware of the immigration status of someone else's employees. And we have another candidate who thinks his opinion of what the law should say has the force of law, and people should be appraised accordingly.

Oh. Yeah. Senator McCain's we're-all-God's-children slap at the so-called based was a truly precious moment. We're all God's children is supposed to have some sort of specific implications for border enforcement policy I guess. Gosh. We're all God's children. Therefore what? His comprehensive immigration reform isn't really a logical implication of the proposition. We're all God's children. Well, heck, let's just do away with all borders. Then we won't have any illegal immigration to worry about. Anywhere.

You are now free to move about the globe.

H/T: Professors R-Squared

"It does not take a stethoscope to hear the pulse of New Yorkers on this topic," Mr. Spitzer said, standing with a half-dozen members of New York’s Congressional delegation who had supported his original move to give licenses to illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants driving legally.

Admitting he has failed to sell New Yorkers on the merits of the plan, NY Gov. Spitzer is giving up his plan to license illegals to drive.

Merits? What are the merits of making it possible for people in a nation illegally to drive in that nation legally? What hubris: It is not that the plan was without merits, but that the voters just couldn't be convinced of the merits. The plan itself has the merits. The problem is the voters. (Darn them! Idiots!)

I wonder what he'd do for an encore. Offer chips and beer to a man who broke into his house to watch a football game?

"You're here illegally. But, by all means, help yourself to our streets."

Then there's Jose Serrano:

Today, it is not Spitzer that lost, it is America...because we could have gotten a long way in New York to dealing with a real issue.

Frankly I don't see the loss in a nation's asserting its sovereignty. Not licensing illegals is quite consistent with the notion of border enforcement, which is itself consistent with national sovereignty. I don't see the loss in a nation's refusing to make it easier for those who have crossed its borders illegally to travel about on its roads with impunity. (Here's something I'd like to see: for Spitzer and his ilk cross into Mexico, or even Canada, illegally and apply for a driver's license. I'm keen to learn how that works out for them!)

It is amusing -- bit in no way surprising -- to note that, for Serrano, "dealing with a real issue" means dealing with it the way Democrats think it should be dealt with. My way or the highway! So to speak. Like the way some couples compromise.

Husband: I want a dog. She wants a cat.
Friend: So what are you going to do?
Husband: We compromised.
Friend: Oh? How's that?
Husband: We're getting a cat.

One has to wonder just how a nation loses by treating people as if they truly are in said nation illegally.

"Mr. Auslander, you're here illegally. Now, we can't have you driving on our roads without a license. So, here's your license. And remember, Mr. Auslander: if you break any of our really important laws (not our immigration laws, of course) you may be subject to deportation. So behave yourself out there. Seriously. We mean it. Really. No foolin'."

Like Yakov Smirnof used to say: "What a country!"

Liberals know they're losing the demographic war. Christians have lots of children and adopt lots of children; liberals abort children and encourage the gay lifestyle in anyone with a flair for color.

They can't keep up.

Population expert Nick Eberstadt recently speculated in The Washington Post that a principal reason for America's high fertility rate compared to Europe's is its religiosity.

Well, that leaves liberals out.

The Democratic Party is in the fight of its life against a conservative demographic trend. Its only hope is to gerrymander America to make the poorest half of Mexico a state. Only a massive influx of criminals, wards of the state and rioters can save them. – Ann Coulter

It’s surely a possibility.

Johnny Sutton was a guest last week on Laura Ingraham’s show. (2nd Hour, 20 July 2007) Part of the discussion was about whether Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila (the man whose rights were deprived by Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean) was armed. Sutton’s line of reasoning went something like this: Only one out of every five hundred drug smugglers (which is what Aldrete inarguably is) is armed. “What this tells us is that smugglers don't carry guns.” And, therefore, Aldrete was unarmed when he was shot by agents Ramos and Compean.

Smugglers don’t carry guns. Therefore, Aldrete was unarmed. Oh, my.

This line of reasoning doesn't work, for two reasons. First, the proposition “Smugglers don't carry guns” translated for purposes of logical analysis, is that “For all smugglers, no smuggler is a gun-carrier.” So goes Sutton’s reasoning. But clearly this in not the case, for Sutton has already informed us that in fact one in five hundred smugglers does in fact carry a gun. “Smugglers don’t carry guns” (or, “For all smugglers, no smugglers is a gun-carrier”) is a universal negative. But this sort of proposition is unwarranted by the justification (i.e., one of five hundred smugglers carries a gun). The proposition warranted by the justification is “For all smugglers, some smugglers are gun-carriers”, a particular affirmative.

So in reality the most Ramos and Compean could know is that most smugglers don't carry guns. But since (as Sutton admits) one in five hundred smugglers does carry a gun, they had no reason to think that Aldrete would not be that one in five hundred. The question is not how many smugglers in a sample have been found with firearms. The question is whether Aldrete was armed when he was shot, or at least whether Ramos and Compean had reason to believe he was armed. (You know, like when he turned and pointed – something – at them.)

The second problem with Sutton’s reasoning is that it shifts the burden to the defense. In our system, the burden of proof is upon the prosecution. The accused is innocent until proven guilty. If part of the prosecution’s case against Ramos and Compean is that Aldrete was unarmed and therefore they shot an unarmed man, thus depriving him of his rights, then they have to prove not that Aldrete was probably unarmed (because only one in five hundred is armed) but that he was, in fact, unarmed. The way Sutton has it, the prosecution has only to present some statistics about the number of smugglers who have been armed (even if those statistics are uncontested), leaving it to the defense to prove that in this case the smuggler in question was armed.

If Sutton’s reasoning here is an indication of how prosecutors (and jurors) think the burden is met, then I fear for anyone who’s ever accused of a crime.

The issue isn’t going to go away. We do have to do something about that southern border, and about the 12 million illegal guest workers. But there are some things to bear in mind about the country that 56 percent of those illegal guest workers are coming from. And these things ought to encourage us not to be apologetic about wanting to insist on our border.

It is interesting that we have been criticized for believing that we can enforce our borders without being embarrassed by it. We were called, among other things, nativists for wanting to do precisely that. It’s ironic when you think about it.

Want to talk about nativists? (And, on the subject, why we think the senate are largely ignorant.) Let’s have a look at certain provisions of the Mexican constitution ( here; english translation here).

Some of the pandering to which we have been treated included heartwarming stories of the (legal) immigrants serving in our armed forces. In the U. S. a naturalized citizen can serve as a commissioned officer, even to the extent of serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. This is not true in the United Mexican States (see const art. 32). If you want to be a commissioned officer in the Mexican armed forces, you must be native born; naturalized citizens need not apply.

Here in the U. S. a naturalized citizen can be elected to the House or the Senate, even to the governorship of a state (like Arnold Schwarzenegger); a naturalized citizen can even be a member of the cabinet. This is not the case in Mexico, where one must be a native born Mexican citizen in order to serve in the federal legislature or the cabinet (Arts. 51, 95, 99). Again, naturalized citizens need not apply. (And propononents of the bill called us nativists!) It’s a bit more stringent if you would like to be President. If you are native-born, but your parents were not, sorry, no presidency for you. (And we are criticized because Governor Schwarzenneger cannot run for President. At least here in the U. S. his sons can do.)

Here in the U. S. those who supposedly are stuck in the shadows engage in political demonstrations, marches and the like (including the flying of the flag of their homeland). Mexico would not permit non-citizens to do so (art. 9); indeed the Mexican president is permitted summarily – without any legal proceedings whatsoever – to deport any foreigner whose presence he deems inexpedient (art. 33). And Mexico most certainly would not permit illegal guest workers to stage protests and demonstrations. (If we did that we would be treated to lectures on human rights.)

You know those evil “vigilante” minutemen on the border that the Mexican government objects to? Article 16 of the Mexican constitution states, "in cases of flagrante delicto, any person may arrest the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities." So Mexican citizens have a constitutional right to arrest illegal aliens and hand them over to police for prosecution. (I’m sure those illegal aliens will be well-treated by those arresting citizens.) Our minutemen are odious simply for watching the border and alerting law enforcement to encroachments of our borders. Imagine what would be said about them if they had the federal constitutional authority to conduct citizens’ arrests!

I object to none of Mexico’s constitutional provisions. It’s their country; it’s their business. I’ve written several times on this blog that I believe in the right of nation-states to protect and preserve their borders. I also believe in the right of nation-states to preserve their cultures. And the preservation of the Mexican culture – which, as Octavio Paz once wrote, is still in many respects a work in progress – is one of the reasons for those stringent constitutional provisions. I understand the purpose of those provisions: to ensure that those who may wield the power to alter the culture have imbibed that culture, and know that culture, and love that culture, and will therefore (hopefully) be disinclined to work to alter that culture.

It would be nice if Mexico, which has provided around 56 percent of our illegal guest workers, would acknowledge that we have the same right and privilege they so enjoy.

You have to love political discourse in this country. When you can’t find an argument which either actually supports your own position or refutes some portion (if not all) of your opponent’s position, you simply assert that your opponent’s position can be compared to that of some odious group, no matter how superficial the similarity.

Yesterday (27 June) while driving home from the office, I was listening to the Hugh Hewitt show. A caller to the show, in the course of his discussion of the bill, made the assertion that the United States cannot deport 12 million people – not because of the physical impossibility of such a deportation, but because doing that will get them (i.e., the United States) compared to nazis.

I’m not going to waste time distinguishing the deportation of illegal guest workers from the deportation of Jews in order to put them in concentration camps and gas them. I’m not going to waste time distinsuishing flying illegal guest workers home (or busing them, or sending them via passenger train) from herding them into cattle cars – again for the purposes of putting them into concetration camps and gassing them.

I don’t need to distinguish the two cases because the simple fact of the matter is that if we can’t deport 12 million without being compared to nazis then we can’t deport even one.

Let’s work backwards here. If we can’t deport 12 million people without being compared to nazis, may we deport 11,999,999 people? More than likely, even deporting just 11.9 million will still get us compared to nazis. What about 10 million? Can we deport 10 million without being compared to nazis? Again, probably not. How about just one million two hundred? Can we deport just that number? That’s 10 percent of the 12 million we’re talking about.

What’s the magic number? At what point do you get to deport illegal entrants into your country without being compared to nazis? Is it one hundred twenty thousand? That’s one percent of the number we’re talking about. Can we do that? If so, then can we deport one hundred twenty-one thousand? How about one hundred twenty-two thousand? If so, how about one hundred twenty-three thousand? At some point as we move down the number line we should come to that figure which these people would allow us to deport without comparing us to nazis, right? But then we can ask, “Why that number and not just one more?” and so on and so on until we get back to 12 million.

(Of course, it’s worse than that. For once they tell us how many people they will allow us to deport they’ll have to tell us who we may deport. Why these one hundred twenty-two thousand and not those one hundred twenty-two thousand, or those over there? So, really, we can’t even deport the one hundred twenty-two thousand.)

If you can’t deport 12 million people, then on what grounds do you deport just one? Besides, these 12 million (as I have the figures) are only the illegal Mexican guest workers. Since the caller asserts that we can’t deport 12 million, he must mean the Mexicans. Would he then assert that we can deport the remaining 18 million? Probably not. So again, we can’t deport anyone.

If we can’t deport 12 million, then why should we deport Zoila Meyer? And if we can (morally, not physically) deport Zoila Meyer, without being compared to nazis, then why can’t we deport 12 million illegal guest workers?

Note: I am not a proponent of mass deportation. I just disagree with the proposition that doing so -- if we did -- would earn us a just comparison with nazis. Give me a break. Deportation means sending them home, not to the gas chamber.

Think tanks occasionally provide information which lawmakers may use in making policy decisions. As a think tank of one I humbly offer the following simple explanation for any and all senators (in your own language) of why many of your constituents don’t believe you about the present immigration bill.

Let us symbolize all present immigration laws as {L}, and any arbitrarily selected stipulation of such law (i.e., a subset of {L} as S.

Here’s our problem:

(1a) Presently {L} requires, among other things, that S.
(2a) But {L} is not presently enforced in its entirety; and one of the provisions not enforced is S.
(3a) Therefore (and oddly enough) S does not occur.

Let us now symbolize the new immigration law as {N} and any arbitrarily selected stipulation of such law as P.

Here’s what we are intended to believe:

(1b) The new law {N} requires, among other things, that P.
(2b) Whereas {L} was never fully enforced in its entirety (including the provision that S), we may rest assured that {N} (including, among other things, the provision that P) will be enforced in its entirety.
(3b) Therefore P will occur.

Right. Sure. Great. No problem.

Surely, senators, you jest. You tell us that we desperately need {N} as the only alternative to {L} because {L} (i.e., the “status quo”) is not working. You have yet to explain just how, given the facts as stipulated in (2a), above, we are to have any confidence that {N} will work. Given the uncontested truth of (2a), above, we are sceptical of (2b). Can you blame us?

You all seem to be under the impression that legislation is sufficient to correct a problem. In our system (which admittedly can be difficult to understand), legislation is only one-third of the operation of the laws, the other two-thirds being execution (see Art. II of the Constitution for more on this) and adjudication (see Art. III of the Constitution). (Your own powers and responsibilities are discussed in Art. I, incidentally.) When you find a way to assuage our fears about those other two-thirds you be sure and let us know.

In the meantime, please stop talking as if the simple act of passing legislation fixes anything.

Recently, Linda Chavez took opponents of the senate bill to task for racism, saying that while many of them may not be racist their opposition to the bill means that they are “comfortable” in the company of those who are racists.

Now, as it turns out, we may find that our opposition to the bill also means we are “comfortable” in the company of (non-racist) leftists.

My internet acquaintance and “colleague”, Josue Sierra, blogs on six hispanic organizations opposed to the senate’s immigration spill – I mean, bill:

1. The Hispanic Federation
2. The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
3. The League of United Latin American Citizens
4. The National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities
5. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network
6. The William C. Velasquez Institute

Sierra's last sentence sums up nicely a concern I share with him:

I'm concerned that La Raza is not fighting against it... I wonder why?

I too wonder why. I wonder why because the aforementioned latino groups are not right wing. What is it? Is it that La Raza is to the right of these groups? It’s hard to imagine that: William C Velasquez was once a state-level (Texas) Coordinator of El Movimiento Social de la Raza Unida (The Social Movement of the United Race) and later Field Director of the Southwest Council of La Raza.

In the end, it doesn’t matter much because I’ve read substantial portions of the bill, and entire analyses of the bill. But it is instructive to hear the silence from the media when it comes to “brown” – and leftist – opponents of the bill.

The Center for American Progress offers up the corrections to many myths about immigration.

Without stipulating to the whole of this exercise in myth busting, I do have one criticism. On the issue of the jobs that illegal guest workers do, the report says:

Myth: Out-of-work natives could replace undocumented immigrants in our workforce.

Reality:Removing all undocumented immigrants from the U.S. workforce would leave 2.5 million low-skill jobs unfilled. In a paper commissioned by the Center for American Progress, William & Mary economist David A. Jaeger found a telling disparity between myth and reality in the effects of immigration on the workforce: out-of-work natives could not effectively replace undocumented natives. The jobs that undocumented immigrants currently hold require a substantially lower skill set than most jobless natives possess. As a result of the skills gap, only 105,000 natives could appropriately replace the 2.5 million immigrants in very low-skill jobs, leaving 2.4 million positions unfilled. Such a loss would put states with large immigrant populations, such as Arizona and California, in dire straits. (Read the fuller explanation in the full report, David A Jaeger, PhD., “Replacing the Undocumented Workforce,” here. And hereinafter referred to as “Report”.)

According to the report (page 3) out-of-work natives cannot effectively replace illegal guest workers because the natives possess a substantially higher skill set than illegal guest workers in these low-skill jobs. Specifically, the report refers to the inability of our-of-work natives to replace illegal guest workers. Report 3.

Are they kidding?

One would think, “Wait. If I have a higher skill set than someone else, then my skill-set just may include the skill set possessed by an illegal guest worker.”

But, reading the report, one finds that possession of a skill set (i.e., ability) is not the issue. The reason that the higher skilled, out-of-work native cannot replace the lower skilled, working illegal guest workers is not the skills possessed. The reason, according to the report is that lower skills means lower wages. But still, it isn’t the skill set which is the problem. In reality, it’s an attitude problem.

If the undocumented immigrants were removed from the work force, these natives would either remain out-of-work or would need to find jobs requiring lower levels of education... .

Even if all of the out-of-work natives were to replace undocumented workers, 2.8 million natives with a high school diploma or some college would need to take lower-wage jobs that are currently held by undocumented immigrants with less than a high diploma or even less than a 9th grade education. Future job growth in the U.S. is also likely to be dependent on low-skilled occupations that require a high school diploma or less. Removing undocumented workers from the economy would not be a panacea for native unemployment. Report 4, 5.

The most that this report tells us is that, if one insists on acquiring a college education, one may also have to accept a job which does not require the skills associated with that education. One may also, as a consequence, have to accept a job which pays less than what that college education might otherwise command.

Something else this report tacitly tells us is that it is not just employers hiring illegal guest workers which causes, or contributes to, the illegal guest worker problem. Those Americans who would rather be unemployed (and probably living on the public dole) than work jobs requiring a lower skill set, and therefore paying lower wages, are also making their own contribution to the problem.

The issue is one of motivation. Think of it. Millions of people will travel thousands of miles to work jobs that a certain portion of Americans will not travel even hundreds of miles to do. I have read stories of Mexican families who haved saved tens of thousands of dollars, not to send their children to college but rather to send their children (with the help of coyotes) to the U. S.

Those out-of-work natives just haven’t experienced the proper motivating circumstances.