illegal immigration
On Immigration, Speech Suppression, War, Terrorism, Police and More, It’s Cultural Death By Compassion Poisoning
Compassion is a wonderful thing. A nation cannot govern or even survive, however, using compassion as its guiding ethical principle. The United States currently seems hell bent on disproving this fact, and is well on the way to confirming it. It is too bad that this is true, and we should all agree that it’s a damn shame that you can’t run a successful democracy without periodically inflicting pain, creating suffering and harming some human beings in order that many more can live in peace and pursue their lawful ambitions and desires. Nonetheless, that is an immutable fact of existence. Government policy that attempts to deny it is not merely incompetent and naive, but ultimately suicidal. A culture that elevates compassion above all other values like responsibility, accountability, prudence, process and proportion is betting everything on the inherent goodness and rationality of humanity. History tells us it’s a losing bet.
When I woke up to the horrible news of the Paris attacks, and after I had finished simultaneous laughing and crying about the fact that President Obama picked yesterday to proclaim that the threat of ISIS had been “contained,” it suddenly occurred to me that the majority of the crises this nation struggles with today are linked by the same cultural and leadership malady. The United States increasingly is unwilling to accept the reality that governance is utilitarian, and that punishment, deterrence, sacrifice, pain, retaliation and accountability are indispensable tools that must be used and used unapologetically. The alternative is chaos, and chaos is what we are facing.
An impressive number of these crises have been in the news this week: Continue reading
Border Patrol In An Ethics Train Wreck At U. Cal-Irvine
Ethics Train Wrecks are situations where nearly everyone involved—adversaries, victims, authorities, and usually reporters and journalists— behave unethically. This story is typical of the breed.
The October 22 student job fair at the University of California-Irvine included many organizations that cookie cutter liberal students have reviled since I was in college, but somehow it was the only the Border Patrol that was under fire from anti-immigration enforcement activists.
Protesters accused the federal agency charged with protecting U.S. borders of “unjust killings, …. racial profiling, use of force, and unjust violence.” The Border Patrol, leaving little reason to give us confidence in its general ability to brave more perilous challenges, allowed itself to be run off, and and to permit what may have been non-students to prevent actual students from gaining access to a job opportunity.
“We regret to inform the community that out of concern for the safety of CBP Recruitment Officers, U.S. Customs & Border Protection will no longer be participating in the UCI Fall Career Fair,” said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio in a statement. The perceived hostility on campus was accompanied by a Change.org petition signed by around 600 people, demanding that the agency be banned from the job fair. The petition claimed “having Border Patrol agents on campus is a blatant disregard to undocumented students’ safety and well-being” and is insulting to “mixed-status families.”
The petition, like the vast majority of Change.Org. petitions, was moronic—ignorant, irresponsible, silly and unmoored to reality.
The passengers on this ETW: Continue reading
The New York Times Goes Full Orwell
Expanding on the recent alarm sounded here about the Democratic Party and progressives increasingly resorting to the tools and values of totalitarianism in order to by-pass democracy in their quest for power, I must flag today’s editorial by the New York Times, calling for the “retirement” of the word “alien.” As in all disguised efforts to indoctrinate by making opposing views impossible to express or even think, the Times uses a set of false arguments to achieve its goal, which is apparently open borders. Why does the most preeminent newspaper in the country have such a sickening and irresponsible view? I don’t know. These are the people who determine the content of the news, however. I’m not sure which would make this screed more frightening, the fact that the editors don’t recognize the methods of totalitarianism, or the fact that they do, and are embracing them.
Here, in part, is the editorial’s argument for “retiring,” as in “banning,” the word “alien,” with my comments in bold:
Over the years, the label has struck newcomers as a quirky aspect of moving to America. Many, understandably, have also come to regard it as a loaded, disparaging word, used by those who regard immigrants as less-than-human burdens rather than as assets.
[ Straw man. Who that was not immediately condemned far and wide has ever described immigrants as less than human in the last 50 years? The Times is engaging in deceit: this editorial isn’t about “alien,” but illegal aliens—you know, the people that Donald Trump was obviously talking about and the Left and illegal alien advocates intentionally misrepresented his comments to push their agenda. As for the term “illegal immigrants,” damn rights it’s disparaging, because they are illegal, and citizens and newspaper editors ought to regard law-breakers as “burdens rather than as assets.”]
Continue reading
Move-On And The Progressive Fondness For Silencing Opponents Rather Than Rebutting Them
And what’s more democratic than preventing your opposition from speaking?
As if to prove my recent post about the totalitarian thrust of the recent Democratic candidates’ “debate,” aka socialist infomercial and the disturbing number of Democratic supporters who are falling into lockstep, here come Move-On.Org and a Hispanic advocacy group to demand that NBC rescind an invitation to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to host the November episode of “Saturday Night Live.”
Of course they are. These are the same people who shouted down Republican or conservative speakers in college, or got their spineless school administrator to ding any commencement speaker who would challenge the cant they absorbed from their leftist professors. Hillary Clinton was gleefully accepted by her corrupted Democratic supporters as a SNL guest this month, but having both parties’ frontrunners get TV exposure on the same prestige venue is what so many progressives hate and fear—an even playing field. Here’s part of the petition on Move-On: Continue reading
The Same Students Who Defend Illegal Immigrants Appropriating American Rights And Benefits Make Clemson Grovel For Borrowing Mexican Culture
Actually, they didn’t make Clemson grovel, Clemson chose to grovel rather than teaching the proper lesson, which is that when you live in this melting pot culture, every thing it has belongs to you, and everything you bring to the pot belongs to it. Clemson’ ethical and responsible response to two students who were “offended” by “Mexican Food Night” and students wearing sombreros should have been “Oh, grow up!”
Clemson Dining’s “Maximum Mexican” night is a regular event popular among students. However, when two students took to Twitter to protest that the “#CulturallyInsensitive” food fest was offensive, Clemson officials rushed to apologize. The university also has a Irish-themed night for St. Patrick’s Day, but it might survive because the Irish missed their opportunity to become political correctness bullies and dictators.
Another student objected to the wearing of sombreros, saying, “Our culture isn’t a costume and we will not be mocked!” Once again, the correct response from the University was “shut up, you’re embarrassing yourself, and if you can’t understand this country better than that, then you really should do some nation shopping. ” Continue reading
Consider: The Fact That People Are Attacking This Ad As Sexist And Racist Is A Big Reason Donald Trump Is Leading In The Polls…
It’s called advertising …. to men who like looking at beautiful women.
The Horror.
If this video advocates unethical conduct, I’d appreciate someone telling me what it is. No, treating the problem of illegal immigration as a joke is not the same as arguing that it is a joke. Try again.
Thank you.
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Pointer: Instapundit
The Pope’s Smoking Gun
I have been touched by the passionate defenses of the Pope during his visit here, by sincere believers who desperately wanted not to see what was going on. If only Pope Francis respected his supporters enough to live up to the ideals they projected on him, which included insisting, against all evidence, that he was merely talking in broad, moral generalities to Congress rather than lobbying for progressive policies, like making illegal immigration legal.
He was, we were told, only showing us where “true North” was according to the Church. I guess he just forgot to bring up abortion, which the Church regards as murder (and Joe Biden too, when he’s not playing politics) as he was lecturing our legislators about “human rights.”
The second he returned home, the Pope threw gay couples under the Popemobile, stating that Kim Davis’s position as a government official refusing to obey the law was a “right.” Again, his defenders insisted that this was just an abstraction. Now we hear from Davis’s lawyers that she had a secret meeting with Pope Francis. Davis says that he hugged her, gave her a rosary, and told her to “stay strong.”
“That was a great encouragement. Just knowing that the pope is on track with what we’re doing, it kind of validates everything to have someone of that stature,” Davis said.
Naturally, those who can’t handle the truth will say she is lying. There is no evidence that Kim Davis is untruthful, and her lawyer would be facing discipline if they falsely reported what did not occur. This really happened. Continue reading
Yes, The Pope Is A Hypocrite
The absurdity of the U.S. media doing backflips over the Pope while the largely godless progressive movement momentarily treats a religious leader as if he is the authority on all things was magnified by the Pope’s remarks to Congress yesterday, which you can read, if you have time on your hands, here. One example will suffice, or at least one is all I have time and stomach for.
The Pope called for open borders, specifically in the U.S:
“On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. Let us remember the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ This rule points us in a clear direction. Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated. Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves.”
To begin with, this is ethically and politically simple-minded: no serious ethicist believes that reciprocity works as an ethical system in all circumstances, and one of those circumstances in which serious people recognize it does not is governing nations. Sounds nice, though, doesn’t it? But never mind. Never mind also that a nation built on ideals, traditions, cultural norms, and an acceptance of common values cannot take in unlimited people unfamiliar with and unsympathetic to these core cultural elements and survive. The issue, for now, is hypocrisy.
The Pope’s own domain, Vatican City, a sovereign political entity, has millions of visitors a year but allows only those who meet strict criteria to be residents or citizens. According to a 2012 study by the Library of Congress, about 450 of its approximately 800 residents have achieved citizenship . Citizenship is limited to church cardinals who reside in the Vatican, the Holy See’s diplomats, and those who have to reside in the city because of their jobs, such as the Swiss Guard. Spouses and children who live in the city because of their relationship with citizens, including the Swiss Guard, are also granted citizenship. Very few of the Vatican’s citizens are women. Continue reading
Donald Trump Is Despicable, But Gavin Newsome Is About The Last Guy I Care To Hear Say So
Full disclosure: I don’t trust anyone who poses for photos like this. No, it’s NOT the hair! Well, not just the hair…
Gavin Newsom, California’s current Lt. Governor and formerly the rogue mayor of San Francisco, should license his image to be placed by the definition of “hypocrite” in the dictionary. A vocal critic of Kim Davis and others who use their conscience to justify defying the law on gay marriage, he initially gained fame by defying California law and authorizing same sex marriages in his city.
He is shameless.
I just watched Newsom on CNN while trying to keep my gorge down, as he was piously condemning Donald Trump for (correctly) opposing illegal immigration. Then he said—and this takes pathological gall— that this is what makes California “so great”: it not only embraces diversity, but benefits from it.
Thus we have the willfully Orwellian progressive definition of “great.” California is out of water thanks to decades of mismanagement. It is a fiscal disaster. Businesses are fleeing the state; a huge tax increase looms. It protects illegals from law enforcement, and some of those illegals are exactly the ones Trump was talking about. They kill people. Ask Kate Steinle about how great California is. Meanwhile,the state is at war with itself; some would like to break it up entirely.
The state’s definition of diversity is also straight out of Bizarro World, as is its skewed version of tolerance. The University of California Board of Regents, for example, is considering a policy to make the university system “free from acts and expressions of intolerance.” Translation: You must adopt the prevailing progressive cant in speech and attitude on campus, or you will be crushed. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 