Trivia time

Question: What is, stacked vertically, taller than the Empire State Building and the Washington Monument combined, growing exponentially, is pink in color, the demand for which has once already exhausted the nation's pink paper supply, and is the brainchild of World Net Daily editor Joseph Farah?

That's right:

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Congress poised to criminalize Self-government and Independence

In a short column written for the Washington Post, Ezra Klein explains why the Town Halls during the Congressional break are likely not to effect the final outcome of the health care debate which he considers something of a foregone conclusion. In other words, says he, Congress is most likely going to pass the health care bill, and the alien-in-chief is, of course, going to sign it into law. This in spite of all the opposition fireworks we saw at tht Town Halls last month.

Klein's take on the matter is almost identical to my own, which I've expressed here and elsewhere a number of times over the past months since the health care debate was first initiated in Congress. My perspective on this issue is a pretty simple one -- Democrats, who currently hold a clear super majority in the House, and a not so clear but nontheless large majority in the Senate, have been chomping at the bit since they lost their majorities back in 1992, waiting for the moment they would regain power enough to push their socialist agenda through without serious opposition.

I'm not much of a candy eater myself and never have been, but I'm reminded here of when I was in basic military training. For about the first two and a half to three weeks of basic training, my comrades and I were all deprived of, among other things that before we'd taken for granted, access to any kind of candies and soda pops. When we were finally let out onto the break area for an hour one evening, well, I must have eaten about six candy bars and drank about as many pops. Again, I've never liked candy very much, but the idea that I had been denied access to it for upwards of two and half weeks drove me to injest as much of it as I could while I could for fear I might not get another chance, or that it might be long in coming. I think that's similar to what's happening here. If you give them free reign, or virtual free reign, if but for a couple of hours, so to speak, the Democrats and the RINOs in both houses of Congress are almost sure to take full advantage of it, and damn the consequences, really. Like myself at that youthful age, they're very much immature and display a real lack of self control (not to mention common sense). Indeed, I would say that our word for the 'Gamers' -- "Arrested Adolescents" -- applies in this case as well. On the other hand, Mr. Klein and I could both be completely wrong about this, not about the immaturity and hell-bent attitude on display in the U.S. Congress, but about the ultimate passage of the health care bill. I don't think so (that we're wrong), but there is that remote possibility. We shall see in due time.

Klein's article is posted beneath the fold. (H/T: VFR)

The State of Health-Care Reform

The research seems pretty convincing that impressive speeches don't do much to transform the dynamics of presidential approval. But then, tonight's speech doesn't need to do much. And it doesn't need to do much because health-care reform is in pretty good shape. Bills have now passed four of the five relevant committees. The outlier committee, the Senate Finance Committee, is circulating its outline and seems likely to pass a bill within the next week or so.

At that point, the bills will go to the floor of the House and Senate, where passage isn't certain but seems pretty likely. And once the bills pass the House and the Senate, final passage of the conference report (the merged bill) is a good bet. And the president's signature is then a sure thing.

That's the context for Obama's speech: It's sort of health-care reform's version of the State of the Union. And the State of the Process is strong: The legislative politics of health care are in considerably better shape than August would have suggested or the ongoing coverage has really articulated (in part because the Finance Committee was gummed up until this week).

Obama's job, then, isn't all that difficult: It's bringing public perceptions of the health reform process closer in line with the underlying reality. And that underlying reality is that the bills are fundamentally pretty similar, there's a fairly high level of consensus, and there are some crucial elements that need to be worked out over the next few weeks, and seem like they will be. The town halls made health-care reform seem chaotic and incomprehensible and disorderly, but at the moment, it's really anything but. In fact, it's closer to agreement than it ever has been before.

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Hunker down people, things are fixin' to get rough!

Is Gerald Celente all he's cracked up to be among certain television and radio media personalities? I don't know, but it seems like Mr. Celente has put together a pretty impressive portfolio of accurately predicting certain trends before they actually begin to manifest themselves in a significant and noticeable way.

Perhaps like me you've seen Mr. Celente appear recently as a guest on various network news programs such as Glenn Beck's show on Fox News. Of course the guest segments on those shows are always too short to get a good feel for who these personalities are and how believable they may or may not be. Celente is nonetheless capitalizing on the economic uncertainty amongst the folks, thus making a name for himself beyond the confines of New York City and economic elitists. And he's making dire predictions for our short term future, including, yes, 2009.

So what is Mr. Celente predicting for this year, 2009, and how can we get to know him better? See below the fold.

________________________________________________________

Here's the first segment of Celente's guest appearance on the Alex Jones radio program from Dec. 18, 2008:



Also, here's Celente's appearance on Art Bell's Coast to Coast radio show of the same date:



And here's the first segment of Catherine Austin Fitts's December 19, 2008 appearance on Coast to Coast where she discusses the same topic and in which she offers some down-to-earth practicable steps that individuals can take in order to prepare themselves, their families, and their local communities to best deal with the impending economic collapse. In other words, to become more self-sufficient, self-sustaining, and self-governing on an individual and a local level:

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Nuff said?

Not by a long shot! Picking up where I left off in the entry immediately preceding this one, in which I quote Oklahoma Republican Senator Harry Coates as saying that "enforcing immigration laws is up to the federal government, not businesses," in a statement supporting federal suspension of key provisions in Oklahoma's law, I'd like for us to examine the implications of Coates's statement a little closer.

Besides the implied meaning of the statement which I discuss here, the statement is further problematic taken at face value without the implied meaning. Taken to its logical conclusion, it is the task of the federal government, and only the federal government, to craft, debate, pass, enforce and scrutinize any and all immigration standards on the books in this country even to the remotest parts. That's why dependents like Coates insist that if there is the slightest hint or perceived contradiction between federal immigration law and state immigration law, the former always trumps the latter which must be done away with forthwith. So the legal citizens of the United States, and of every state and municipality under its rule are relegated, according to Coates, to waiting for hell to freeze over or for their respective communities and towns and states to be completely and utterly ransacked by the invading hordes of third-worlders, whichever comes first. In other words, say the Coateses of the world, the United States must first be destroyed before we can allow any portion thereof to initiate policies designed to secure its own preservation independent of the all-powerful all-knowing all-encompassing federal government.

All-destroying attitudes like this literally make me sick to my stomach. But that's liberalism for you in a nutshell. And yes Senator Coates, I'm calling you a liberal, your affiliations with the Republican party definately notwithstanding.

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FrontPage interview with Bruce Tefft

More on the incompatibility of Islam with the West

I was over at VFR earlier scanning Auster's new articles when this one caught my attention. Certainly I was compelled to go over to FrontPage Mag. and read the entire interview with Mr. Tefft, so I did, and here's something intriguing that I found and thought I would share. At one point in the interview Tefft concludes his answer to an FP question in the following manner:

Tefft:

... But I'm an ex-spy, not a theologian -- from the spy-war aspect, the best thing the West can do in this war with Islam is to publicize and support morally and monetarily the apostates and ex-Muslims. They know the evils of Islam better than any outsider.

When I read this at first it sounded good and reasonable and made a lot of sense to me. Certainly a Muslim apostate/ex-Muslim who has renounced the religion of Islam would know much more than an outsider about the evils of, and inherent to Islam. And it cannot be bad, if Islam is so evil, for a Muslim to come to the light and renounce his faith in the religion of Mohammed, can it? Therefore we should publicize and fund these people, right? Then I came to my senses and recalled the Islamic principle of Taqiyya, or religious deception. In fact, earlier in the interview Tefft makes light of the practice of this principle in Islam when he states:

For a Muslim to pledge allegiance to a non-Muslim nation state would be either hypocritical or blasphemous -- something a true Muslim would not, or could not do. This is the case unless he was under a special jihadist dispensation from an Islamic cleric (as the 9/11 hijackers were) to infiltrate enemy territory and to act as the enemy does, in order to perform his mission. (italics added)

But further explanation of the principle, how it may be used and to what extent, may be found in Gregory M. Davis's excellent summation on the principles of Islam, Islam 101.

Mr. Davis writes:

Historically, examples of taqiyya include permission to renounce Islam itself in order to save one's neck or ingratiate oneself with an enemy. It is not hard to see that the implications of taqiyya are insidious in the extreme: they essentially render negotiated settlement -- and, indeed, all veracious communication between dar al-Islam and dar al-harb -- impossible. It should not, however, be surprising that a party to a war should seek to mislead the other about its means and intentions. Jihad Watch's own Hugh Fitzgerald sums up taqiyya and kitman, a related form of deception. (italics added)

So, what are we to conclude from this? Well, the conclusion I draw from it is that it would be virtually impossible to determine for sure whether you were dealing with a legitimate and sincere apostate/ex-Muslim given this principle of taqiyya in Islam to deceive the enemy in pursuit of victory over him. I mean, if the supposed apostate, working under the principle of taqiyya as described here is going to, in Tefft's words, "act as the enemy does," then he's going to dress like him, talk like him, groom himself like him, and most importantly rail against the evils and injustices of his true faith in accordance with his underlying purpose of accomplishing his mission, is he not?

So what is the answer to this dilemma? If we have no way of knowing who we're dealing with, friend or foe acting as friend, due to the deceitfulness authorized of his religion/former religion when we meet up with an "ex-Muslim"/"apostate," then what should be our approach to him? Is the answer not lying within the principles of separationism? Is it not to be skeptical of and distrust him to the point that we materially restrict his ability to harm us by his deceit, should he be operating under the principle of taqiyya or kitman -- the principle of deceiving his enemy in any way he can to accomplish his mission? Should we not thwart his mission before his mission ever gets underway?

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On the idea of Secession (Part 2)

(Update: I've added a few initial thoughts on the comments I've received so far.)

This is an important, as well as a very interesting topic. I'm going to post the excellent comments that I got to the original entry under the read more section of this entry in hopes that this will prevent their being missed (Please post additional comments pertinent to this question here)...

VA writes:

Terry, you've written a very well-thought out entry on this topic.
I appreciate your point of view.
I think many of those who are involved in the secessionist movement are not necessarily driven by pure animus towards DC, but an alarm at what is being done in and to our country. For many reasons it looks as though our elected officials have cut themselves off from the will of the people, which as you know, is supposed to be the basis for our government. I think many people, seeing a government which is utterly unresponsive to our will, think that such a government is no longer legitimate.

"[Bear] always in mind that a nation ceases to be republican only when the will of the majority ceases to be the law." - Thomas Jefferson: Reply to the Citizens of Adams County, Pa., 1808

"The mother principle [is] that 'governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.'" - Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

The fact that our government seems to be attempting to overturn the people by repopulating our country with a new majority is extremely serious. I can't imagine that our forefathers would accept such a thing; their grievances against King George were not as serious as today's grievances.
Having Confederate ancestors, I don't see secession as a great evil per se, though it's not something to be taken lightly by any means. Still I think there has to be the option of peacefully leaving the Union if it no longer is what it was designed to be, and if it no longer embodies the will of the people.
Peaceful separations have happened in history.

Fellow AFBer, Mike Tams writes:

Good post. I'd say that my thoughts on the matter aren't far different from yours. A voluntary union should imply a perpetual right to dissolve it - for legitimate reasons, and then it's not a matter to be taken lightly. Dissolving the Union would hold, in my opinion, grave consequences both here and abroad.

And lest Mark Alexander think we're on the same page here, I must reiterate that dissolving that bond would only be just for just reasons; and then, I would imagine that such a dissolution would be followed by another, different, union. History may have been written much differently had our union been less effective.

Populist writes:

While I'm not familiar with the calls for secession (who or why), I find the very notion a farse. In addition to representatives that will govern with the will of the people, I believe that the states need to rely less on the "central government" (to borrow a term from Mr. Morris)to govern. To me, because of party politics, the state governments have become to intertwined with the "central government." These so called representatives are more interested in who controls the house/senate and White House (not to mention re-election), than what is best for these United States. We, the governed, need to wake up from our seemingly endless slumber and take back our government! We have allowed a minority of power brokers, from both parties, to determine the direction of our country and it doesn't take a genious to see that they are running it right in to the ground.

(I will add any further comments on this idea under this title, as well as my own replies to the comments later on.)

**********

Here are my initial thoughts on what my commenters have said so far:

First, I didn't mean to imply that these secessionist groups are necessarily driven by pure animus toward the central government, only that this is the impression I get from what I've read of them so far. My impression could be totally wrong, to be sure, and VA is right to point this out.

Also, I don't necessarily believe that these secessionist movements are bad, or that they'll ultimately result in dire consequences for the United States, though this does concern me, as it does all of my commenters.

Indeed, I think a good argument can be made that the mere threat of secession might alarm folks enough to say to themselves "hey!, we've got a serious threat here of breaking up the union of these States, which could potentially result in putting the disparate parts, and therefore the whole North American Continent, in a very precarious and vulnerable situation. We better try to devise a better plan here; a plan to strengthen, not to dissolve the union."

And this is one reason that I think it is dangerous for us to ever look on secession as illegal, unconstitutional, or whatever. If we consider it to be so, then we deprive ourselves, this nation, of one method of detecting a problem and correcting itself. I.e., the threat of the break up of the union.

I've written many times in the past, but for the benefit of Populist let me reiterate, that the American Civil War resulted in some very problematic alterations to our form of government. Essentially we went from a Federal Representative Republic where there was a built-in balance between the national and the federal aspects, to a centralized form of government where the moderating influence of federalism was essentially removed via incorporation which the fourteenth amendment provided an avenue for the federal courts to assert and enforce, though this was not the intent of the framers of the fourteenth amendment. Things have steadily degenerated ever since.

Nonetheless, this is what has happened, and I think it's perfectly understandable that many Americans do not (yet) realize how far we've strayed from the original legitimate, self-correcting design of this government. I mean, this is all we've known for how many decades? We cannot allow it to continue though. And if it takes the threat of the breakup of the union to get people to realize there's a huge problem here that needs to be resolved, then I'm all for it. We just need to be able to help them understand the true nature of the problem, and the proper way of going about fixing it. If this can be done without breaking up the union (and I'm persuaded that it can and must), but rather in actually strengthening it, then I can hardly see how dissolving the union of these States to be the preferable alternative. Though an alternative it must remain.

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Recent Encounter with a Mexican Illegal

I've been wanting to do a blog post on this for a couple of weeks now, though I'm just now getting around to it.

I know several illegal immigrants in my area. Some of them I like, others I don't care much for. I've seen them come and I've seen them go. Several of those that I know personally, who work in my profession, I've loaned my tools, taken time out of my schedule to instruct them on how to do a job properly, and so on and so forth...

But there's one Mexican illegal I know who lives in my area, and has lived here for at least four or five years, if memory serves, and who also works in my profession, which is how I came to know him. He is a young guy, in his mid to late twenties, married with two children last I knew.

Though I knew he was still around, I had not seen this individual in probably six months or more until just a couple of weeks ago. I was in the local Lowes store picking up supplies for a job we were on when this individual tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around to see who it was, we shook hands and began a nice five to ten minute conversation wherein we discussed the well-being of our families, our work, and this and that. We parted company expressing to one-another how genuinely happy we were to know that the other was getting along well.

This is an individual that I genuinely like, and it seems that the feeling is mutual. And once I got back to the job site I shared with my employees (who also know and like this individual) that we'd run into one-another at Lowes. Then we got into the inevitable conversation about Oklahoma's new immigration laws and how this would affect our friend. But the conclusion that we came to was that we seem to be faced with an all-or-none proposition here. And if that's the choice, then I have to go with the latter. The former is simply unthinkable because it is suicidal.

In short, I think my Mexican friend is the exception, not the rule. Indeed, given the number of Mexican illegals I've encountered in my area over the last several years, I'd say he is the extreme exception to the rule. And as much as I'd like to keep him, or to trade him for ten, twenty, or even a hundred native scumbags, my exceptional friend cannot be the determinant as to Oklahoma's internal immigration policy, nor to my view of that policy. He's not a citizen of my State, nor of the United States. And until he becomes one legally, he has no rights under our constitution and laws.

At times I may come across as being a heartless individual as concerns immigrants, which is not the case at all. I have a heart for these people and their plight, and I certainly wish them no ill will. It is also very fresh to my memory where I came from, which cannot be said to be "priveleged" in any sense of the term. On the other hand, I cannot allow my emotions to run wild with me, and to control my thinking on this or any other subject as the liberals do.

I wish my friend the best of luck once Oklahoma's immigration law takes effect in November. I hope he'll apply for citizenship through the proper channels. And hopefully Providence will smile upon him for it.

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A Formal (Webster's) Invite to the Honorable Tom Tancredo

(Update: Lawrence Auster has done me a big favor in posting my invitation letter to Tancredo's staff (which I managed to get through the proverbial back door at Tancredo's website), slightly edited, in a full VFR entry to itself. Thanks go out to Mr. Auster.)

Back on August 8th, I put up this important blog post concerning the battle about to ensue over Oklahoma's "toughest immigration legislation in the nation." For more information on what's scheduled to happen on October 1st, one month prior to the actual enactment of Oklahoma's new immigration legislation, as well as what the new law actually entails, please read the post linked above...

I was over at Tancredo's website earlier, and I wondered whether Mr. Tancredo would be available, and/or, interested in attending an event such as the one scheduled October 1st on the steps of the Capitol in Oklahoma City. On the home page of Tom's Presidential Campaign Website, I noticed two links one can click on to invite Tom to an event. So I wrote up a letter of invitation and tried to send it. But after several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to put this blog post up concerning the matter.

Now, I'll continue to try to use the official method for making Congressman Tancredo aware of, and to invite him to this event. But as for now while there seems to be some trouble with the remote server not responding to my message,...

I hereby post Webster's formal Invitation to Tom Tancredo to be in attendance and speak at the scheduled demonstration to be held at the date and place mentioned above. Traditionalist Conservative Oklahomans would be honored to have you, Sir. And as the event scheduled is obviously intended to make a public showing of the beginnings of the downfall of Oklahoma's new law, and thereby to discourage other States from defending themselves against unlawful incursions of illegal invaders, following my state's lead, your presence at this event is of national, not just state and local import.

There you have it.

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Knowing Your Enemies

VA has another nice post up today that she's calling "Those outlawed emotions, again." VA makes some good points that need to be made, and that I'd like to discuss here in a more lengthy entry. But for now I'd like to focus on one statement VA makes in her post...

VA writes:

"I have to return again to Yeats's line, 'The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.' Our enemies, whether they are Latinos with revanchist intentions, or Moslems with jihad, fast or slow, in mind, ARE full of passionate intensity, while too many Americans are still in a state of denial or else they have emotionally and spiritually been disarmed. That must change, otherwise we are outclassed and overwhelmed."

This brings to mind something I recently read in Paul Sperry's book, "Infiltration, How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington." Mr. Sperry bemoans the fact, and rightly so in my opinion, that we Americans do not know our enemy well. In this case, of course, Sperry is concentrating on our enemy, Islamism.

Mr. Sperry writes:

"We are fighting a spiritual seduction we have yet to fully grasp and comprehend, hung up as we are on measuring the dreams and happiness of others against our own dreams and happiness...A virtual taboo exists in official circles about Islam's role in terrorism. It is treated as if it comes out of the blue, as if there is no religious pattern. According to the president, we are fighting "evil-doers" and "a bunch of cold-blooded killers." To hear him and the FBI director, terrorism is generic, not Islamic." (emphasis mine)

Sperry continues:

"The first rule of war is know your enemy. You cannot defeat it if you do not know what motivates it.

Yet shockingly few FBI supervisors running counterterrorism cases have ever picked up a copy of the Quran to read it, let alone study it. "Supervisors don't study the Quran. They don't do any independent analysis," says former FBI special agent, John Vincent..."When you're fighting terrorism, you have to know how they think," adds Vincent...

Unfortunately, the enemy knows us better than we know it. The al-Qaida training manual quotes an old Muslim general: "The nation that wants to achieve victory over its enemy must know that enemy very well." The Islamic terrorists have studied our system inside and out, and they know its weaknesses and how to exploit them. They know about our open society, our civil liberties, our heavy ethnic mix, and our lax immigration enforcement all too well."

(I'll be adding more to this post later.)

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What does the constitution say about immigration?

The question has come up about whether a State in this Union has the right to create and enforce its own internal immigration laws, and I think this begs an answer...

I have my own view of the subject, of course, and this view of mine is liable to come out at some point along the way. Indeed, it has come out before elsewhere, but I'd like to discuss the topic here at Web's.

I'm definately not one of those "roll over and just take it, that's the way it is" kind of fellows, which is probably fairly obvious to some of you. So, when someone says to me that my State, for instance, cannot defend itself against an invasion by illegals because federal law prohibits it, I don't necessarily just accept that. I can give you a prime example here...

I recently sent an email to one of my State legislators (young fella, seems nice enough'n'all) asking whether he and the legislature were preparing to battle for our State's new immigration law. In reply he basically informed me that "the Legislature has done all it can do in crafting the law, now it's up to the courts to determine whether it'll stand." To me, this legislator has already conceded defeat. He is saying that we (the State Legislature) may suspect that the federal government has abdicated its responsibility, and if our suspicions are correct, then we have the authority to take up the slack for our citizens.

But who determines whether the State legislature's suspicions about the fed are correct? Apparently the fed, according to this legislator.

Now, I don't know whether this is the general position among the members of our State legislature. Since this individual is a democrat, and our State Congress is majority Republican, I would venture a loose guess that it's probably not the general view shared by the majority, at least not to the extent that this legislator seems to hold the view. But I certainly could be wrong.

Given that example, which is probably a pretty good measure of what State legislators believe across the country, on what principle do they found this belief?

The U.S. Constitution is deafeningly silent on the issue of immigration. In the original, Congress is given authority to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, Article I, Section 8. That being about the extent of what the constitution says concerning immigration, and that only by inference, it seems to me that we'd have to look elsewhere to determine whether what its silence seems to imply is in actuality the case.

Fortunately we're not left totally in the dark on the subject, or to our own devices in assuming that its relative silence on the subject means this, that, or the other. In Federalist #42, Madison discusses briefly what was intended by this phrase "The Congress shall have power...to establish a uniform rule of naturalization." Says he:

"The dissimilarity in the rules of naturalization has long been remarked as a fault in our system, and as laying a foundation for intricate and delicate questions. In the fourth article of the Confederation, it is declared ``that the FREE INHABITANTS of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice, excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of FREE CITIZENS in the several States; and THE PEOPLE of each State shall, in every other, enjoy all the privileges of trade and commerce,'' etc. There is a confusion of language here, which is remarkable. Why the terms FREE INHABITANTS are used in one part of the article, FREE CITIZENS in another, and PEOPLE in another; or what was meant by superadding to ``all privileges and immunities of free citizens,'' ``all the privileges of trade and commerce,'' cannot easily be determined. It seems to be a construction scarcely avoidable, however, that those who come under the denomination of FREE INHABITANTS of a State, although not citizens of such State, are entitled, in every other State, to all the privileges of FREE CITIZENS of the latter; that is, to greater privileges than they may be entitled to in their own State: so that it may be in the power of a particular State, or rather every State is laid under a necessity, not only to confer the rights of citizenship in other States upon any whom it may admit to such rights within itself, but upon any whom it may allow to become inhabitants within its jurisdiction. But were an exposition of the term ``inhabitants'' to be admitted which would confine the stipulated privileges to citizens alone, the difficulty is diminished only, not removed. The very improper power would still be retained by each State, of naturalizing aliens in every other State. In one State, residence for a short term confirms all the rights of citizenship: in another, qualifications of greater importance are required. An alien, therefore, legally incapacitated for certain rights in the latter, may, by previous residence only in the former, elude his incapacity; and thus the law of one State be preposterously rendered paramount to the law of another, within the jurisdiction of the other. We owe it to mere casualty, that very serious embarrassments on this subject have been hitherto escaped. By the laws of several States, certain descriptions of aliens, who had rendered themselves obnoxious, were laid under interdicts inconsistent not only with the rights of citizenship but with the privilege of residence. What would have been the consequence, if such persons, by residence or otherwise, had acquired the character of citizens under the laws of another State, and then asserted their rights as such, both to residence and citizenship, within the State proscribing them? Whatever the legal consequences might have been, other consequences would probably have resulted, of too serious a nature not to be provided against. The new Constitution has accordingly, with great propriety, made provision against them, and all others proceeding from the defect of the Confederation on this head, by authorizing the general government to establish a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States."

(More to come later)

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