The Imminent Crumbling of Western Civilization

“Every nation has sites of memory that give its people a sense of themselves as a single entity. But we Americans have a special need for these sites. A country like ours, composed of so many immigrants and so many races and ethnicities, has never been able to assume its nationhood as a matter of course…..

Without our history, we lose our sense of what holds us together and makes us a single people. McDonald's and Starbucks scattered about the land are not enough to make us a nation. We need our history in order to be a nation, but we also need to know our past in order to know our future.

The best place for our youngsters to acquire knowledge of our history is in school. Yet from all the data gathered, it appears that young people are not learning much about America's past. One recent test of seniors from 55 top liberal arts colleges revealed an appalling ignorance of American history. Eighty-one percent of the students could not identify Valley Forge or the ringing words from Lincoln's ''Gettysburg Address" -- ''Government of the people, by the people, for the people." Only 34 percent could name George Washington as the victorious general at Yorktown.” By Gordon S.Wood, Boston.com

Recently I purchased and viewed a DVD entitled, “The Siege of Western Civilization”. It is basically a presentation by Herb Meyer in conversational, plain English of the monumental importance to the world of Western Civilization, the very real and imminent danger to its survival, and the singular role America must play, almost without assistance, to enable its continued existence.

The unique role thrust on the United States as the only viable defender of Western Civilization is placed by Mr. Meyer in the context of the very real threats to our own survival as the country we have known since our founding. The greatest threat is posed by not teaching our history to our children. Obviously the similarity of Mr. Meyer’s motives in producing this DVD to my own motives in creating and maintaining this weblog become very obvious when you listen to his fascinating presentation.

Mr. Meyer is described on his website as a man who “served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of the CIA and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. In these positions, he managed production of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimates and other top-secret projections for the President and his national security team.

Mr. Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior U.S. Government official to forecast the Soviet Union’s collapse – for which he was awarded the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the Intelligence Community’s highest honor.”

I intend to make sure that all the people I know and love have an opportunity to view this DVD, which is available at www.siegeofwesternciv.com.

What About President Bush?

“The President "lied" us into war. Much of the pre-war intelligence was wrong. The civilian defense chief was detested as "brusque, domineering and unbearably unpleasant to work with." Civil liberties were abridged. And many embittered Democrats, claiming the war had been an utter failure, demanded that the administration bring the troops home.

George Bush? Well, yes - but also a President who looms far larger in American history, Abraham Lincoln. One is struck by the parallels in reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's masterful new book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.” Thomas Bray , Real Clear Politics

I have admired President Bush since he came onto the national scene, but my admiration increased tremendously when he showed his toughness in fighting off the attempts of the Democrats to steal the 2000 election in Florida, and tried again in Ohio in 2004. I can’t imagine having the toughness and the self-confidence to persevere given the number of fifth columnist liberals embedded in the government, academia and in the press trying to destroy him and his programs. These people all think they know better what this country’s policies should be than the people who elected this president, and they will stoop to any means to destroy him and his team. Vice President Cheney, who has served this country well as a Congressman, as a Defense Secretary and as VP, is treated in the mainstream press as though he were some sort of criminal, even to the point where he was excoriated for getting the advice of people from the energy industry in helping to set an energy policy. Imagine the gall, to ask someone who knows something about the subject for advice!

The other day, after I posted my article about the machinations of people like Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame and Richard Clarke, I also submitted my article to Freerepublic.com, a conservative forum. One of the responses, from an unknown contributor whose screen name is “the invisible hand”, had these things to say:
“Tangentially, the President and his staff have, over and over again, consistently demonstrated an unusual wisdom for leadership that must be called genius. Over and over, in the most treacherous of circumstances, with the highest stakes in history, they have deftly dispatched enemies within and without. It has been a marvel to see….

No less a marvel is all the ranting by alleged "conservatives" who seem all of a sudden to believe that the administration is really lame after all, that the genius must have been luck, when America encounters high oil prices, immigration debates, and allegedly low poll numbers. It is then that people seem to suddenly realize that they are smarter than the President after all, because, after all, they don't get what he's doing. All they know is that they are feeling the bug-bite of an iota of sacrifice, the kind that liberty demands, only in such a measure that the Founders must be spinning in their graves to see their protestations to these, the merest hints of inconvenience. Perhaps the most thankless job of all is leading the American people in this age.,,,,

Start with the Bush Doctrine. But each and every alleged scandal has been an attack that has been thwarted. Just look at it: the media has the public convinced that everything is wrong and it's all Bush's fault, even hurricanes, for goodness sake! The media is an evil dictatorship that's had the Good Bush Administration in its sights from the beginning. Dealing with such an adversary is no simple matter. Most people simply couldn't take it. But this administration has kept its sense of humor, its integrity, its clarity of vision, its effectiveness where it has counted. The media and its backers are determined to make every domestic effort a failure, after failing to make every foreign effort a failure. They would destroy this country (and are) if doing so would impugn the President…..

Now ask yourself why. Why is he their arch enemy? Because he has the audacity to stand up to evil; to promote liberty, while their most cherished possession is dictatorship and oppressive force, the absolute dominion they have had over public opinion for generations. And they are sensing in him such a threat, that they have pulled out the stops to discredit him, and the entire world sees right through it, and thinking men everywhere know he's right, and the media is a wounded dragon….."

I think the Democrats are in for another rude awakening this fall, when red state voters show that, maybe they have been largely silent, but they have been watching and evaluating what has been going on, and they are quite skilled in separating lies and spin from truth and substance. Particularly in these dangerous times, they don’t want control of their country turned over to folks whose only talent is in defaming and spreading lies to regain power. The old saying is that no good deed goes unpunished, but we really do want grownups with a sense of decency in charge. The country has become very aware that Democrats mainly complain while Republicans act.

Being Unpopular about Global Warming - a guest editorial by Mason P. Wilson

One can hardly pick up a paper or magazine or listen to the nightly news without hearing some more about Global Warming, but Global Warming cannot explain the recent increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes since water vapor, the fuel for hurricanes, increases only a few percent for every degree of temperature rise. The experts at Colorado State University who most accurately predict the number of hurricanes each year also find no evidence of global warming in their predictions.

Recently an editorial in the Wall Street Journal written by Dr. Richard Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, also debunks this popular theory. I have been following all of these articles and even studied in detail the treatise written by the IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the bible of proponents of Global Warming. Surprisingly they start out with the premise that Global Warming is caused by man and consider no other source¦ no wonder they have come to the conclusion that Global Warming is caused by man. Woefully lacking is consideration of any other cause such as Plate Tectonics which causes volcanoes and emits the same greenhouse gases they claim are causing Global Warming. There are a number of articles concerning plate tectonics and climate change in the geology journals.

I suppose most of you remember the recent headlines that the glaciers in Iceland are retreating at a much faster rate than can be explained by global warming. Yes, they are calving at a higher rate, but nobody states that glaciers move more quickly and calve at a higher rate when the snow and ice accumulate in the higher elevations, just like when it rains in the uplands, more water flows to the ocean, and we get floods. There have been some reports that the snow on top of Greenland glaciers has increased over the most recent years. Nearby in Russia, they had to abandon their Ice Station at Vostok for the first time ever on March 4, 2003 because of the unusual amount of pack ice.

Glaciers in Antarctica are also growing at an alarming rate; that is, except one on the peninsula just above the Antarctic Circle, that appears to be decreasing. Glaciers in New Zealand are growing and calving at an alarming rate also; so much so that they have issued warnings to tourists visiting this area to be extra cautious. The Nisqually glacier on top of Mt. Rainier grew by 17 meters (51 feet) between 1994 and 1997. At the same time, one cannot ignore the melting of the permafrost in some parts of the Arctic, but one has to be careful not to blame this on global warming.

The climate steering currents of El Nino affect the steering currents for weather throughout a major portion of the world. The temperature of El Nino can warm portions of the Pacific as much as 14 degrees. Some believe the heat source for El Nino is from underwater volcanoes. Certainly, there are some major climatic changes happening in the world. There is fear and some evidence that the Gulf Stream is weakening and might eventually be unable to keep the British Isles warm¦ is this the beginning of another Ice Age?? Surprisingly some say this also is the result of Global warming. The theory supposedly states that the less saline water caused by melting of the glaciers prevents the cold water from flowing south blocking the warmer Gulf currents to flow more freely to the north. All that is reported are the measurements of the currents, but if this hypothesis is true they must also measure salinity to prove their case. So far I have not found an article on salinity that supports this theory.

Recently there was an article stating that the magnetic north pole is also rapidly moving westward at an alarming rate and could end up in the middle of Siberia within the next half century. Don’t be too alarmed; it has done this in the past, in fact, the poles have completely shifted from north to south. It is generally thought that the shift of the magnetic pole is due to a shift of the magma currents far below the surface of the earth. Remember that the mid-Atlantic ridge is where much of the magma comes to the ocean floor as the tectonic plates in the Atlantic pull apart. This ridge runs from north to south in the mid-Atlantic and runs parallel to the Greenland ice fields. It comes to the surface as lava some two hundred miles away in the volcanoes in Iceland. Are we barking up the wrong tree?; you decide.

Mason P. Wilson, Jr., Ph.D.
Former Director of the Energy Center and
Professor Emeritus
University of Rhode Island

Yes I Do Have Friends Who Are Liberals

Some of my liberal friends (yes, I do have friends who are liberals) often express amazement, or say I am exaggerating, when I point out an example of the overwhelming, liberal-left dogma that infects our schools and colleges and brooks no expressions of disagreement with the “party line”. We have pointed out the case of the Harvard President, Larry Summers, forced to resign because he suggested there may be differences in the sexes. We have also pointed out that several college professors have been denied tenure or fired for suggesting that Darwinism has some holes in it or that global warming (if it exists) may not be linked to man’s activities. Practically every day there is another new example of a teacher smearing President Bush. If I wanted make things easier for myself, I could devote my weblog only to discussions of the taking over of our institutions of learning by purveyors of leftist propaganda and the hate-America, hate western-values fifth column best exemplified by Ward Churchill. Here is one of the latest examples:

OSU librarian slapped with “sexual harassment” charge for recommending conservative books for freshmen

Ohio State University will press forward with frivolous investigation despite ADF letter Thursday, April 13, 2006, 11:30 AM (MST)ADF Media Relations 480-444-0020

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Officials at the Ohio State University are investigating an OSU Mansfield librarian for “sexual harassment” after he recommended four conservative books for a freshman reading program. ADF has demanded that OSU cease its frivolous investigation, yet the university is pressing forward, claiming that it takes the charges “seriously.” “Universities are one of the most hostile places for Christians and conservatives in America,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David French, who heads ADF’s Center for Academic Freedom. “It is shameful that OSU would investigate a Christian librarian for simply recommending books that are at odds with the prevailing politics of the university.”

Scott Savage, who serves as a reference librarian for the university, suggested four best-selling conservative books for freshman reading in his role as a member of OSU Mansfield’s First Year Reading Experience Committee. The four books he suggested were The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian, The Professors by David Horowitz, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’or, and It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum. Savage made the recommendations after other committee members had suggested a series of books with a left-wing perspective, by authors such as Jimmy Carter and Maria Shriver.

Savage was put under “investigation” by OSU’s Office of Human Resources after three professors filed a complaint of discrimination and harassment against him, saying that the book suggestions made them feel “unsafe.” The complaint came after the OSU Mansfield faculty voted without dissent to file charges against Savage. The faculty later voted to allow the individual professors to file charges. On March 28, ADF sent OSU officials a letter informing them of Savage’s constitutional rights. A copy of the letter can be read here. The university so far has declined to stop the investigation, saying in its response that it takes “any allegation of sexual harassment seriously.”

“The OSU Mansfield faculty is attempting to label a librarian as a ‘sexual harasser’ because they disagree with his book suggestions,” said French. “It is astonishing that an entire faculty would vote to launch a sexual harassment investigation because a librarian offered book suggestions in a committee whose purpose was to solicit such suggestions.”

ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

Thank God for the Center for Academic Freedom and for Students for Academic freedom.

Understanding the Valerie Plame and Mary O'Neil McCarthy Cases

Out of the societal revolution of the 1960's, and in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, many changes have taken place in the fabric of American society. Since then, the following concepts have been under attack from within:

Religion in general and Christianity in particular
America's role as a beacon of hope in a cruel world
The authority of government, church and school leaders
The whole concept of duty, honor, country
The superiority of western and American culture over other cultures
The military's role in advancing and defending American interests

In the place of these concepts, people, who I will call multiculturalists, have infiltrated our institutions with an agenda which includes the substitution of their belief system:

American wealth is built on oppression and racism, for which we all must make amends
I am my own authority; whatever feels good to me is appropriate behavior
The world exists to give me pleasure without any responsibilities
All other cultures are superior to western and American culture
The military's role is to advance society and to keep the peace that has been negotiated

Is it any wonder, then, that President Bush, in attempting to develop and pursue a strategy for fighting Islamic terrorism, would find multiculturalist moles embedded in every government arena - including the military, the State Department, and the C.I.A.?

Why should it surprise anyone that Joe Wilson would be employed by his wife, Valerie Plame, to undermine President Bush by lying about the attempts by Saddam to purchase Nigerian yellowcake? This is the underlying truth of the supposed outing of Valerie Plame. Why should it surprise anyone that a top CIA official, should leak a lie about supposed Eastern European prisons being used by the CIA to torture terrorist suspects. These people are multiculturists of the worst sort. They believe they know more about what is best for this country than the president who voters in the U.S.A. elected to be their leader.

It has become apparent in the last few days that Mary O'Neil McCarthy, the CIA official appointed by Sandy (pants) Berger, is the person who has been fired for leaking this classified information. Since there were no such prisons, it’s entirely possible that Director Goss suckered her into revealing herself as a dangerous mole.

When we are warned by people like Victor David Hanson, Herb Meyer and Ben Stein that we are greatly hampered in our attempt to save western civilization from the Islamofascists by the undermining of our own culture from within, these are examples of the internal enemies they mean. Our State Department and C.I.A. are full of Joseph Wilsons, Mary McCarthys and Richard Clarkes and our schools and colleges are full of people like Ward Churchill and the New Jersey teacher who used his classroom to spew vitriol about the president. When they appear on our radar, we need to understand what they are trying to do so we can counter it, and we need to understand that almost all journalists in the mainstream media are constantly trying to advance this multiculturalist agenda.

So The Price Of Gas Is Starting To Hurt

I went out this morning, got gasoline for my car, and saw that overnight gas had gone to $3.05 per gallon. Later on in the day I heard on TV that President Bush's approval rating had fallen again. I wonder if the talking heads have seen the following graphic:


The red line represents Bush's approval rating; the blueline is the reciprocal of gasoline prices. In other words, when gas goes up, Bush goes down, and when gas goes down, Bush goes up.

If you recall, back in January I authored two pieces about Peak oil coming and the three things we must do: 1. fight to corner available sources, 2. switch to alternative fuels as fast as we can, 3. develop more domestic oil. The future is now.


The above graph starkly illustrates the situation the U.S. and all other developed and developing nations face; the peak is here and the competition to direct needed oil to one's own country is severe and will get much worse.

The above graph illustrates the extent of drilling activity in the U.S.A. Restrictions on drilling, largely put in place by Democratic politicians, far outweigh market factors in limiting our own drilling activity. The red line shows that activity, while the gray line shows market prices for oil. The next graph is even more telling. These restrictions (like in ANWR and in the Gulf of Mexico) have almost completely shut down exploring for new oil.



President Bush has attempted, over and over again, to push for more oil exploration and for development of nuclear power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The spin-masters of the Democratic Party, aided by their willing accomplices in the press and TV, have made him the fall guy instead of placing blame where it belongs - right in the laps of the Democratic politicians (especially Senator Nelson of Florida) who have been successful in stopping any new exploration and development. Their calls to get out of Iraq are also beyond comprehension.

A Fish With Feet?

Much is being made in the liberal press of the discovery of a fossil said to be a fish with some evidence that it had feet. There have been other such discoveries that were initially proclaimed as the “missing link”. These discoveries, sooner or later, have all been exposed as either fraudulent or irrelevant, and most people who identify themselves as proponents of Intelligent Design accept the fact that evolutionary changes take place within a species. Where we draw the line is in accepting the theory that evolution explains the origin of life and the creation of new species (Darwinism).

A more compelling bit of information on this matter is the following:
“Over 500 doctoral scientists have now signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution. The Scientific Dissent From Darwinism statement reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

The list of 514 signatories includes member scientists from the prestigious US and Russian National Academy of Sciences. Signers include 154 biologists, the largest single scientific discipline represented on the list, as well as 76 chemists and 63 physicists. Signers hold doctorates in biological sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, computer science, and related disciplines. Many are professors or researchers at major universities and research institutions such as MIT, The Smithsonian, Cambridge University, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, the Ohio State University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Washington.” www.evolutionnews.org

Unfortunately, under prodding or from legal attacks by the ACLU, some school boards have actually retreated from their policy that the teaching of Darwinian evolution should be accompanied at least by the disclaimer that not all scientists accept the THEORY of Darwinism and that there are other possible explanations. The ACLU continues to collect huge fees and fines by bringing school boards to court and challenging even this mention as an unconstitutional infringement of the separation of church and state.

In other words, with our judicial system overwhelmingly polluted by activist, liberal judges, school boards are afraid that even a mention of a possibility that Darwinism might be faulty will bankrupt them. The Dover case was a perfect example of this ongoing travesty.

I Love Judge Judy

“Judge Judy, also known as Judge Judith Sheindlin, is celebrating her 10th year on television, and she has never been more popular. She has one of the top programs in syndication, earning her a reported $30 million a year. Her books, with titles like "Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining," and "Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever," have been best sellers. And she has some serious fans. Last summer, both the novelist Kurt Vonnegut and the Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen made semi-serious suggestions that she should be considered to fill Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court.” ADAM COHEN, The New York Times

In this world of “spinspeak” (see http://spinspeak.com), it’s so great to watch Judge Judy once in a while and see her cut through the lies, spin and evasions and reach a clear-cut decision in a flash. I wish that the real world was more like that. Recently I witnessed a hearing during which Senator Finegold (who wants Congress to censure President Bush) had John Dean (of Watergate fame) called as a witness to buttress his censure attempt. I was reminded of a Judge Judy exchange during which a mother told Judge Judy that her son told her that a picture had fallen from the wall, smashed the fish tank and killed all the fish. Judge Judy responded,”your son is a liar, and you are an idiot”.

Recently, also, I submitted a column of mine to a liberal political forum to see what kind of reaction I’d get. I know better, but I could not believe the twisting of history, the conspiracy theories and the just plain hatred I found there. The comments were so off the wall and so full of obscenities that I could not even begin to answer them. There was no common ground of understanding on which to begin.

One of the issues between liberals and conservatives that bothers me a lot is the failure of many liberals to see the distinction between attacks on a person because of the criminal or immoral things he does, and attacks because of disagreement with his policies or beliefs. Conservatives attacked President Clinton personally because of the unsavory aspects of Whitewater (no other President ever dismissed every federal district attorney on his first day in office – presumably to kill the Whitewater investigations), because he committed perjury and obstruction of justice and because he sexually harassed a White House intern half his age from a position of great power.

On the other hand, liberals have tried to destroy the reputations of so many people only because they had views of the proper role of government that was different from theirs. I am thinking of Justice Bork, Senator Tower, Sec. Donovan, Justice Thomas, Justice Roberts, Justice Alito and others. I am also thinking of their attempts to brand our president as an incompetent liar, and to blame the deaths of African-Americans from Katrina on a deliberate policy of the vice-president. This summer’s NARAL ad and the attempt of NY Times reporters to pierce the shield of confidence of the adoption records of the Roberts’ children is another case in point.

I know that attacking politicians personally is a fine old American tradition, and that conservatives attacked Roosevelt, Truman and others, but the extent to which liberals carry this now has gone way, way out of bounds; liberal Justices Breyer and Ginsburg were never subjected to hateful invective. Conservative thinkers, like David Horovitz and Ann Coulter, actually need police protection when they are invited to speak at college events. This is what you get when Democratic leaders like Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore and Harry Reid spew their foul tirades.

Defending Our Culture From Within and Without

The single, most important ingredient in the lives of my grandchildren is something they have not been taught and never think about; their inheritance of western culture as revised by the American Revolution. Why should they think about it? After all, I never thought much about it; the difference is that I was taught about it, but the rise of leftist thought and multiculturalism has ended the teaching of these values to our children in our schools and in our colleges.

The greatest advances in history in human freedom and material abundance came about when the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Age of Exploration occurred in Europe – all at about the same time. It was Christianity that provided the environment for these movements and culminated in the ideas enshrined by our Founding Fathers in our Constitution that all people have rights given by God, and that governmental power is granted by the people to those who govern. The benefits of science, technology, medicine, art, music, constitutional government, democracy, the jury system, free enterprise, literacy, productivity, the concept of progress, the high standard of living, the raised status of women, and racial equality all had their roots in the Renaissance and the Reformation and are all hallmarks of American and western culture.

It has become the policy of much of American Academia to discard all that is uniquely “Western” in favor of a worldview which elevates every other culture to a higher status and advances the idea that Christianity should be relegated only to the role of a ‘black magic’ religion which is irrelevant to the pursuit of knowledge and has nothing to do with the progress of world cultures.

American and Western Culture are under attack by barbaric Islamists whose worldview is entirely opposite to ours and who believe that their God has given them the duty to impose their views on others by force, killing all who will not submit. If we are to defend our culture successfully, we must defeat internal attempts to weaken it and teach our children the importance of defending it no matter what it takes, no matter what sacrifices must be made, and no matter how long the struggle might take. We need to reestablish the teaching of world and American history in our public schools, we need to end the nonsense of multiculturalism, and we need to defeat or ignore the know-nothings demanding the withdrawal of our military from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thinking the Unthinkable; On the Wrong Side in Yugoslavia?

The roughly 5000 unspeakable acts of murder and mayhem committed by Islamofascist terrorists on innocent people just since 9/11 have got me wondering – did we come in on the wrong side in the conflict between the Serbians (Christians) and the Bosnians (Muslims) in the former Yugoslavia, and have we and the western world gone after the wrong group of war criminals? I am well aware of the horrendous barbarities committed by the Serbians against the Bosnians and others, but do we really know what transpired to drive them to these acts before the conflict aroused our interest? I admit to having been skeptical when former President Clinton committed our military to protect the Bosnian Muslims, but I did decide to support him at the time.

What did we really know about this age-old conflict? After all, if one were not aware of the five times that Arab countries attacked Israel with the help and complicity of the Palestinians, and if we did not know how much of the condition of the Palestinians today can be traced to the actions of their Arab neighbors, one might be tempted to sympathize with their plight and consider the Israelis to be the aggressors. If one did not know that Muslims consider Jews to be no better than pigs to be killed and driven into the sea, one might be fooled into seeing some moral relevance in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

A few days ago I watched an excellent series that the History Channel presented on the horrors of 9/11. This event has transformed America and the world. Our civilization and the lives of our children and our grandchildren will continuously be at risk until we stamp out the madness of Islamic terrorism, and perhaps something was going on in and around Bosnia-Herzegovina that we did not really understand at the time. Were we on the wrong side? Did we betray our World War II allies and take the part of former Axis sympathizers in our ignorance of history? Have we also helped Albanian Muslims to colonize Kosovo as part of the world-wide Islamic plan to regain their lost empire?

I do not know the answers, but every day my acceptance of vengeful acts against the Islamic butchers grows.

Are Problems of Iraq, Islamofascism and Immigration Too Great?

This morning I am feeling melancholy about the future of our country. I see so many huge problems confronting our children and grandchildren. It’s not so much that I am beginning to think that we cannot solve them, it’s that I am thinking that we may have lost our resolve to do what is necessary to solve them.

The war in Iraq is not going that badly, but the violence continues, and the parties cannot seem to work out political differences. The strategic decisions were wise, but, as Condi Rice said the other day, we have made thousands of tactical errors, and the time and resources it will take for a successful outcome seems not to be within us. It was, and still is, a wise and bold move to remove Saddam and encourage a fledgling democracy in the middle of the huge oil reserves and in the heart of the terrorist movement, but we have greatly underestimated the animosity and capacity for violence between the Shia and the Sunni populations. We have to stay the course, but will we? Unfortunately the Democrats offer nothing but partisan sniping.

The cartoon riots and the attempt to arrest and execute an Afghan citizen for converting from Islam to Christianity have also shaken my belief that Muslim terrorism is confined to a small portion of the 1.5 billion Muslim population around the world. Where are the voices of these ordinary Muslim people in denouncing the violence and pointing out that these acts are contrary to Islam? Even within our own country we see Muslim organizations like CAIR excusing and even tacitly supporting these animals. Our strategy is sound if there are, indeed, peaceful Muslims and moderate Muslim countries, but this war with the Islamofascists is just starting. Do we have the stamina and the will to persevere? Again, with their stupid censure and impeachment talk, the Democrats offer only obstructions to the real work that needs to be done, and we shot ourselves in the foot with the Dubai ports deal fiasco.

The immigration problem also seems beyond our capacity to solve. Obviously we cannot continue to support hordes of illegals entering our country, and we must build a fence, increase our enforcement efforts and fine employers. At the same time, we need these people to harvest our crops and perform menial jobs, and it is foolish to think we might actually round up 12 to 20 million illegals and send them all back. We also need something like the McCain-Kennedy proposal to allow them to earn citizen status by paying fines, and by learning English and American history. We must stop the nonsense of bilingual education. Once again the poison of multiculturalism rears its ugly head. The 500,000 illegal Latinos in the streets of Los Angeles looked alarmingly like the Muslim youths rioting in France. I have little confidence that the Republican Party, my party, has the wisdom and the courage to bring about this combined solution. At least twice before we thought we had solved this problem, but lacked the will to see it through.