As a Christian, and as an American, I frequently wrestle with issues that seem to be in tension between those two states. One is not always certain that these tensions are more contrived than real, but certainly there are issues which force one to think the matter through. Illegal immigration, and cultural and national standards, fall into that area.
There are those who will claim that all cultures are equally worthy. That's nonsense: who would prefer to live in a cannibalistic society, for example? And few would willingly live in a Marxist state - that's why the Berlin wall was erected, to keep the prisoners in.
And there are those who believe that the defense of national boundaries is un-Christian, or un-Progressive, or something else that they don't like. I doubt that these same people don't lock their own front doors. If that is OK, then defending the border should be as well. Among other things, Chistian charity should not be construed as to require giving away your neighbor's goods without consent. Give of your own substance, but don't steal from others to do so. And you aren't required to let the burglars even into your own home.
The self-proclaimed elites in our centers of power have bought into the idea that our US territory is not worth defending, or have determined to make a variety of bad excuses for their refusal to defend the boundary. I believe that the results of that will be expressed at the ballot box in the upcoming elections. While I regard the Democrat position in this - and most other issues as well - as being ridiculous and despicable, the de facto Republican one is no better and little different.
I have reproduced below a section of some exchanges that I had early this year with a Republican county chairman in Tennessee. I don't have his permission to reveal his name or comments, so the posting will be limited to my own statements.
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original post in late March
This last weekend saw something that I had hoped never to see in this country - mobs in the streets of our cities demanding, DEMANDING that we forego the rule of law, acquiesce in a flagrant pattern of what is at best felonious behavior, and remake our country into an extension of Mexico. It cannot, surely, have escaped anyone's attention that the majority of the flags being displayed were not the Stars and Stripes, but the flag of a foreign power. A nation that has if fact forfeited any right to be considered a friend, neighbor and ally. It is beyond comprehension, beyond belief, that the borders of this nation of ours are not being vigorously defended by high walls and military patrols.
It is beyond my understanding why we have de facto sanctuary areas in our very neighborhoods, why illegal aliens are not being sought out and deported the very same day, why we are continuing to permit mob rule in our streets by criminals openly promoting the reconquista of large parts of US territory.
I can not understand why I suddenly need to punch "1 for English" on a telephone system.
I can not understand why local manufacturing companies hire illegal aliens with impunity.
But, most of all, I can not understand the stance of the Republican Party, in particular at the national level and most particularly in the office of the President.
It is not helpful when those who call for the enforcement of existing laws are demonized as "vigilantes", when lawless behavior is winked at, when our borders and national sovereignty are being subsumed in an "open borders" worldview that the overwhelming majority of all Americans reject.
I find it even more discouraging when messages on this subject sent to my Senators are either met with a general form letter (Sen. Frist) or studiously and totally ignored (Sen. Alexander). I can promise you that ANY primary challenger to Lamar Alexander will get my active support, and I will do my utmost to bring others along. I don't care if the candidate is Donald Duck, he'd be better.
INS agents, augmented if necessary by the military, should have gone through those crowds yesterday and illegals should have been back across the border by nightfall with the clothes on their backs and nothing else. Nothing.
Instead, this mob, something eerily similar to the riots in France, was unchecked. The actions of the government of Mexico amount to acts of war. At the very least, we could stop the charade.
And, while we're at it, stop the President's deliberate gloss of the differences between legal and illegal immigration. Illegal aliens are felons. We do not reward felons, at least not as a matter of general policy. Why are we proposing to do so in this case? Illegals should be apprehended, deported, and never-never-never permitted legal residency.
A few words about these so-called "Guest Worker" plans.
They stink.
I invite any and all to examine the record of guest worker efforts elsewhere. Look at Europe.
- See how the "guest workers" have turned large parts of France into places the police dare not go.
- How the guest workers have taken over large parts of Germany.
- It was the children of guest workers who set off bombs in London busses.
- Or killed film makers in Holland.
- Or committed gang rapes in Australia.
- Or in Norway.
- Or control the types of cartoons that may be published in Denmark.
Guest Workers is a term that when parsed means we are deliberately creating a hostile subculture that is unassimilated and inassimilable within our country. Rather like deliberately introducing foreign organisms into one's body. Who would deliberately do such a stupid thing? Then why is such being seriously proposed? If it is the
intention of the Republican Party to lose the next several elections, this is the right way to go about it. I can tell you that the resentment that I hear from every part of the nation, including this county, is very real, very deep, and will certainly be reflected at the ballot box. Is this really what was intended?
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After a brief exchange, I responded as follows:
The comments I made were far more temperate than some I've heard in the course of my daily activities. There are a lot of people, including some you would not think of, who are just downright livid over this situation. It crosses lines of party, faction, race, age, social status, and others. There is a strong perception, unfortunately true in some cases, that the Republican party, particularly the old Rockefeller wing of it, is in favor of illegals as their presence tends to drive down the wages at the low end of the pay spectrum. If I hear "jobs Americans won't do" one more time, I'll throw a shoe at the TV.
I know how hard it is to get people to come to work on time and really work. But I, like many others, have put in his time, thank you, at mowing lawns, sweeping floors, scrubbing toilets, and working on farms. The so-called ''jobs Americans won't do''. I wouldn't want to do any of them for the $1.80 an hour I once got. But I could do them again if necessary and Americans still do every one of them. I did these things, and so did many others, and we learned a work ethic and frankly resent the 'jobs Americans will not do' - it's a lie, an insult, and it's uncalled-for. Now, between the illegals who will mow your lawn for cash under the table, and the Social Security and child labor laws, kids who could be out learning the value of work are pushed out of consideration and illegals take the work.
More to the point, illegals are here, we know it, and nothing happens. Local police pick them up on a variety of charges up to and include murder and rape, compounded by their very presence in the country, but INS tells them to "catch and release". You know it, I know it, everyone knows it, and NOTHING is being done except to insult those who want the laws enforced. A wall is proposed on the border, one that should have been erected after the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, and it is opposed on the grounds that it might work. (And is opposed on our own soil by the representatives of a nation with which we are essentially at war.)
Go down off I-640 onto Rutledge Pike early some morning and head over towards Mascot (note: this is an industrial park area northeast of Knoxville, TN, but the Morristown area is no different). Look to your right by the Dollar Store and see the crowd standing by the road. And that's only one example. Or go over into the Industrial Park in Mascot and watch who's working the 2nd and 3rd shifts, and not a one can speak a word of English over at some of them (you can research that one yourself). Been going on a while and it's no secret.
There are examples everywhere, and the party that was once known for law and order, which has been in power in two branches of the federal government for over half a decade, refuses to enforce the laws on the books. And everyone knows it. Go over to the grocery stores. Why do you think the Food Lion has a section with masa flour, a variety of Mexican foods, Mexican laundry products, and candle jars with the Virgin of Guadalupe painted on the sides? You think the people from the Church of Christ, or any local Baptist are buying them? You think it's an accident that you now have to ''punch one for English ......" even to use a credit card at Wal-Mart or Food City? And those are just some of the comments that I've heard in the last few days.
Anyone who thinks that this simmering rage will not be expressed, at the ballot box and in other, less savory ways I fear, is living in a cloud cuckoo land.
There is a term that needs to be remembered. It is "social fabric", and it deals with the ways we live and conduct our lives, ways which often have little or nothing to do with the laws and the government. It includes the niceties of manners, conduct, behavior, and such. It is a delicate but important thing. It means we know, without a law, not to belch or pass gas in public, to allow the aged, infirm, and ladies to sit while we guys stand, to turn the music down, to take time for the small kindnesses. It means we volunteer our time and money for charities, public services, and Boy Scouts. Yet we see in many places that the Emergency Rooms in hospitals - and sometimes the entire hospitals -- that were started and often maintained by donations, fund raisers, and such for the good of the community, are closing because they can't afford the burden place upon them by persons whose very presence in the country is a crime. At best. How do you think those volunteers feel when they are called racists and vigilantes and their concerns are ignored or slandered by the chief magistrate? The social fabric is strained when we throw out the traditions of assimilation, of rule of law, of wanting to be Americans, in favor of multiculturalism, reconquista, of expanding entitlements given to those who not only do not want to be Americans, they want to remain whatever it was that they were before.
The large display of Mexican flags in large numbers this week has emboldened those who, like La Raza, MEChA, LULAC, MALDEF, and others, join with the stated intent of the government of Mexico in intending to retake large sections of the United States. And our government DID NOTHING. Nothing.
And when I write my elected Senators, one passes off pabulum and one ignores the entire thing entirely. Calling Lamar Alexander a RINO is too kind. He needs to find something else to do. Wal-Mart is hiring. Though even Wal-Mart expects you to actually DO the job you were hired for, something he seems to have forgotten.
In the meantime, the State and local Republican organizations are strangely silent on a matter that has the concern of many citizens. I can not believe that ducking issues is the way to proceed.
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Since then, it's gotten worse.
We have seen, not progress, but further retreat. I see that two agents of the US Border Patrol have now been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for the ''crime'' of shooting, in the buttocks, a smuggler with hundreds of pounds of narcotics. A smuggler who escaped back to Mexico and then complained of his ill-treatment. A case brought by a US Attorney under the Department of Justice headed by Attorney-General Alberto Gonzalez and the Presidency of G.W. Bush.
It is difficult to find temperate language to accurately describe my reaction. My belief is that these agents should have been rewarded for faithful service (and then sent for marksmanship retraining), not prosecuted. The US Attorney is someone that I class as rating somewhere approximating whale dung at the bottom of the ocean, and Alberto Gonzalez is one of the President's very worst appointments (marginally better than Powell).
But the President is paid to be the responsible person, and I am disgusted by his attitude and actions on this whole issue. I regret that he won the 2000 nomination. I fear that those of us who were ''broken glass'' Republicans have accomplished little more than to be enablers of terrible public policies.
