THE National Anthem

You probably couldn't avoid hearing today about the release of a Spanish-language version of The Star Spangled Banner. Some people said it was no big deal, but I firmly disagree. The Spanish national anthem is the Marcha Real (Royal March) for the country of Spain. America's anthem was written in English and should be sung in English. I am sick and tired of this business. Get real. If you want to be in America and enjoy the tremendous liberty and opportunity of our land, then for Heaven's sake, be an American!

And don't even get me started on the way they changed the words...

Is Flag Burning Protected Speech? It Depends Which One

If you burn an American flag, it's free speech (at least according to current Supreme Court decision--I think that's nuts, and don't recommend you attempt to exercise that right in my presence!) and you cannot be prosecuted. However, if you burn a Mexican flag in protest against the pro-illegal immigration folks, that will get you charged with a crime in Tucson, Arizona.

For the record, I wouldn't burn a Mexican flag, and don't think Roy Warden should have done so. But if freedom of speech means it is OK to burn an American flag, in the name of what logic can it be illegal to burn a Mexican one?

This is just one more example of political correctness run amok. For the sake of clarity, here's what you need to know:

"Undocumented workers" are illegal aliens--as in people are breaking the law.
"Guest worker program" is something that already exists for people who are willing to follow the rules...but that isn't what the President means--he means amnesty, but realizes the public won't back it if he calls it what it is.
"Fence" is a four-letter word to people (on both sides of the border and in both political parties) who want to keep the flow of illegal immigrants going strong.
"Majority" is what the Republican Party is trying to give away in both the House and the Senate.

Pedersen's Stealth Campaign Another Bad Sign for Democrats

Once upon a time (before a string of polls showing a 20+ point lead for John Kyl), Democrats listed Arizona among their targets for a pickup in their drive to retake control of the Senate. Jim Pedersen, a multi-millionaire developer and former chairman of the state Democratic Party, was persuaded to run, and has already kicked in over $2,000,000 of his own money.

Now Pedersen has started running his commercials, and they are yet another reason why, despite lousy polling nationwide and the apparent suicidal tendencies of the Republicans, I still think the Dems will fail to gain ground in this November's elections. In fact, I'm still standing by my prediction from two months ago that the Republicans will actually gain seats in the Senate!

Pedersen is running a completely stealth campaign. There is not a single mention of his party affiliation in the ad. Before you dismiss that as a red-state tactic, remember that we have a Democrat governor (who just vetoed both an abortion restriction bill, and a bill cracking down on illegal immigrants) and most of the state level offices are held by Dems. Even more telling than what it leaves out is what the ad says. Pedersen declares his independence: "I don't care if an idea is a Republican idea or a Democrat idea" and ends with the tag line "Nobody's Senator but ours."

In the special election for felon Randy Cunningham's seat in California recently, the Democratic candidate took the same tack. (It didn't work for her either...and if you can't win on the "culture of corruption" in CA-50, where can you?) If candidates are running from the Democrat label, that's not a good sign for their party.

The door of opportunity is wide open. The Republicans are doing everything they can to hack off their own base, from unrestrained pork spending, to failing to confirm more judges, to refusing to take control of the borders. But they aren't running in a vaccuum. And the Democrats aren't going to win without a plan--which they refuse to disclose if they even have. The fact that they have candidates hiding from their party label is bad news for How-Weird Dean and his buddies.

Comparing Slavery and Illegal Immigration

A Welfare State With Illegal Immigration Offers Businesses a Better Deal Than Slavery
by Darnell MaGavock at Indpendent Conservative

Let me start by saying I don’t endorse either slavery or illegal immigration. But looking at things from the economic standpoint of a company that hires illegals today versus the use of slave labor in the 18th and 19th centuries, illegal immigration offers companies a better deal than any slave owner ever had. The reason is the modern day welfare state that is known as America.

During American slavery, the slave owner was responsible for the total care of the slave. Although slave masters did this “on the cheap” they had to provide housing, food, clothing and medical care for the slave and their entire family. This resulted in the institution of slavery being more of a loss than gain over time. The only other option was to grant freedom to slaves who were a great expense, but that involved the strain of possibly breaking a family. Separating families often resulted in the other slaves trying harder to escape to be with loved ones. Non-profitable slaves were not sellable, because nobody else wanted the burden. This was the slave master’s dilemma, that people like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin figured out. They realized that slavery was not financially good over time - because the “free labor” was not really “free”, given the need to provide full care to the slave labor force. This was in addition to the expense of buying a slave in the first place.

Today’s employer of illegal immigrants does not have any of the hassles experienced by slave owners. The employer of illegals offers them a very small salary and no benefits. Which means such an employer never runs the risk of going cash-flow-negative on labor costs. They can adjust wages at will, because they will always find an illegal that is willing to accept the rate. This is the reason Cesar Chavez once disliked illegal immigration. If one set of illegals tried to “strike” for better wages, the company would simply replace them with new illegals that were willing to accept the pay rate offered to them.

So the employer of illegals has no direct issues with having to fund housing, medical or the expense of educating the children of illegal immigrants. These are expenses that American taxpayers have been funding. Government (funded by taxpayers) helps illegals secure home loans and encourages banks to give them out. Government (funded by taxpayers) is picking up the medical expenses of illegals. Government (funded by taxpayers) is educating the children of illegal aliens.

You may have seen the CNN Special “Immigrant Nation: Divided Nation”. If you did, you saw profiles of illegals that live in my county of Gwinnett Georgia. The show often tried to make granting amnesty to illegals look like a good thing, but like the slave master’s dilemma, even the tax paying illegals do not come close to covering the expenses involved in caring for them.

Excerpts from, Transcript of CNN Special Report - Immigrant Nation: Divided Nation

…
HINOJOSA: Ten years ago when I first came to Georgia, I asked people if there was a Latino neighborhood, or barrio. I got a lot of strange looks.

Now I’m here in the heart of just one of the many Latino barrios in Georgia. I can get some of the best tacos outside of Mexico right here 24 hours a day. The home of Martin Luther King, the state that gave us the civil rights movement, is now home to half a million Latinos, a 300 percent increase in a decade.
…
HINOJOSA: Estimates vary, but somewhere between 7 and 20 million people are living in this country illegally, one of the largest populations of undocumented immigrants in the world. Most of them come across this border. According to the U.S. government, over 1 million were caught last year alone.

This latest wave of immigrants has spread far beyond the southwest and the West Coast. Latino immigrant communities are now fixtures across the nation, especially in the south, in places like Gwinnett County, Georgia.
…
HINOJOSA: Rosa first came to Georgia two years ago, all alone.

Last year, unable to bear the separation any longer, Rosa paid a smuggler $5,000 to wade her children across the river at night, but they were caught at a checkpoint and immediately deported. Rosa faced a difficult decision.

ROSA (through translator): I told my daughter, you have two options. I either stay in Mexico with you, or I will leave for the States for another year in preparation to bring the two of you. Then my daughter told me to return to the States so I could bring them eventually.
…
HERCHEK: I’m afraid that America could become a third world country. We’re importing poverty by millions every year.
…
HINOJOSA (on camera): The numbers say it all. Ten years ago, these schools served very few Spanish-speaking students. In 2003, one out of 10 students listed Spanish as their primary language, $26 million will be spent in Gwinnett County in English language services.
…
HINOJOSA: Federal law says people are entitled to emergency medical care, whether or not they’re in this country legally. In one year Georgia paid $58 million in emergency Medicaid reimbursement for undocumented immigrants.
…
The smugglers will be paid almost $6,000 by Rosa if they were successful, would show border agents false papers for the children. They didn’t make it.

Despite their fake papers, Junior and Rosita were detained. The smugglers were arrested. The children were returned to Mexico and reunited with their grandmother. Despite the set back, Rosa vows to try again.

ROSA (through translator): I will keep trying to bring them. The sooner the better. If in 15 days I find someone to bring them here, then we will try again with them.
…

Unlike slavery, with illegal immigration the burden of expenses is carried by the entire nation. So instead of individual plantation owners having to endure the expenses of supposedly cheap labor, it is a burden carried by taxpaying Americans.

It is my family that endures pain, while waiting behind illegals for medical care. It is my tax dollars that pay for education of illegals, that by school rules have 6 years to learn English and many drop out before ever finishing school. So they take up much space and expense, while not even learning much during the process. While school time is spent on illegals, it diverts resources and teaching time away from children in a legal family. And I’m not even going to get into the issues with gangs. (That would require its own post.)

The issues I see here in Gwinnett County, Georgia will only get worse with anything that encourages illegal immigration or makes them feel they will be rewarded. And the issues will get worse for America. The nation will not be able to sustain the expense of this dilemma for much longer. It is causing the nation to engage in a race to the bottom and then we all lose.

America’s borders need to be secured and the only means made for immigration should be via the current legalization process. What employers of illegals see as a “resource” is really a great expense. Immigration requires regulation to prevent this nation’s collapse.

__________________________________________

This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we’re going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

Reflection on Chivalry

94 years ago yesterday, the "ship that couldn't sink" did. One of the most famous disasters in history, the sinking of the Titanic stands as a monument to arrogance and pride. And yet...

If you judge by the numbers, the Titanic is also an outstanding example of chivalry. Twenty per cent of the men on board survived, while nearly seventy-five per cent of the women survived. Once upon a time, "women and children first" was more than a slogan or a trite phrase. It represented a cultural expectation that men would sacrifice their own safety to protect the "weaker vessels." (Yeah, I know it's horribly un-PC of me to say it that way using Biblical language. Deal with it.) And even under intense and unexpected pressure, when the chips were down, most of the men did the right thing.

If chivalry is truly dead (which seems to be the goal of some), we are all--men and women--poorer for it.

Buy From Us, We Think You're Stupid

Lately it seems like there has been a trend toward advertisements that demean and insult the very customers the ad is supposedly aimed at attracting.

1) Dodge is running a commercial with two ultra rednecks longing for the new Hemi engine. One throws the cover from a truck onto the hood of his buddy's car right before he runs off the road. Yep, Dodge wants all the stupid rednecks to buy their new trucks.

2) Burger King has the strangest corporate spokesperson (king?) in history. The latest ad shows him pretending to push a construction worker off a high-rise being built. Yep, that sure makes me want to eat there.

3) Sonic has a couple in the front seat of a car with an idiot husband insulting his wife over and over...while she grins and eats the food. Another ad features the same idiot husband with a buddy suggesting insane food combinations they wish Sonic would offer. Why?

I could go on (and feel free to add your own pet peeve commercial in the comments) but what is the point? Who is sitting around tables at ad agencies saying, "Yeah that's it--let's insult our customers and tell them we think they're stupid. That should drive sales right through the roof!"

Hey, wait. I can do that. I know lots of good insults...is anybody out there hiring?

Guard the Borders

Monday, April 10, has been dubbed by pro-illegal activists as the National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice. After two weeks of both large-scale and ad hoc protests, they are trying to bring it all together before their big Walk Out on May 1st.

There are more protests scheduled around the nation - more than 100 have been registered at www.april10.org. Find out what’s going on in your town or city – you’d be surprised by some of the locales of the organized protests.

While the rest of America goes on with making a living and having a life, these rallies could very easily be fizzling out or, on the other hand, gaining momentum and proliferating. (Personally, I'm wondering just how many days of work and school these people can skip before it starts to hurt.) Either way, Americans want to know what is being said and done by these interlopers at the rallies. We must keep an eye on things, because our faint-of-heart senators won't. They are on an ill-deserved two week vacation, after all.

Several members of the Guard the Borders Blogburst are planning to observe the rallies in their areas and report back with photos, quotes, and/or more. So this edition of the Blogburst will be presented in two parts; today's notice and a follow-up on Tuesday with what we glean from various rallies across the nation. Stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, let's make sure that our senators have a stack of NO AMNESTY faxes and phone messages when they get back from vacation. They still have a lot of debating to do, and we need to be sure that they are absolutely clear on where we, as Americans, stand on the issue.

To send in a free FAX, go to NumbersUSA. Or click here for all the contact information for your congressional representatives.

_________________________________

This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It was started by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we’re going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration facing our country, join our blogburst! Just send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

Why 12 Million Illegals? Three Day's Notice of Inspections!

Yesterday I spent some time talking to a senior Border Patrol agent (nearly 20 years on the job) here in Arizona about the “reform” making its way through Congress and what he thought would come of it. (In short, he said it’s all window-dressing and nothing will change.) In the course of the conversation he told me something that totally blew my mind.

Before they are allowed to go to an agricultural facility—a farm or a ranch—and check to see if the workers are legal, they are required to give the owner two to three days notice! I honestly thought he was joking. When he saw the look on my face, he assured me he was serious. I asked if they ever found any illegal aliens in such a search, and he laughed. And no wonder…with three day’s notice, even in the slowest moving person in the world can be out of sight when the officers show up.

The next time you hear there are 12 million illegal aliens in the country, remember this story and understand why nothing is being done about it. Folks, no matter what the Congresscritters say about being serious about enforcement, don’t believe it. The stuff they put in the laws that they brag about, they then turn around and quietly undermine with regulations that don’t get any publicity. Make no mistake about it, the campaign contributors will see to it that Congress forces the men and women who are charged with catching illegal aliens to work with their hands tied behind their backs.

So when you hear that this time they’re serious, remember the three days notice and don’t buy what they’re selling.

Senate Immigration Bill Is a Sham and a Sell Out

Senate Republicans leaders today announced a compromise (compromise in Republican Senate-speak being the term for giving up everything you want and getting nothing in return) on immigration that is a complete and total sellout of their base and their principles...but not their donors. Everyone who supported this disgusted mess should be removed from office at the earliest possibility.

Speaking of real reform, here's a proposal from DonkeyCons I can get behind 100%--Deport Senate Republicans. Read the whole thing...but don't be drinking anything while you do or your computer will suffer the consequences.

Save the Endangered Salmon

An endangered salmon species in Oregon is facing a grave threat to its continued existence...no, not from evil developers or heartless Republicans, but from sea lions! Of course since the sea lions are protected under the Marine Mammals Act, solving this problem is a little tricky. My suggestion--let's talk to the sea lions and understand why they hate the salmon and want to commit genocide against them. After all, until we really understand what motivates them, can we hope to persuade them to stop?

Mark Twain Was Right (Why Things in Iraq Are BETTER Than You Think)

Twain once famously characterized three categories of falsehood: There are lies, @#$@#% lies, and then statistics. If he lived today, he'd probably add a fourth category--media reports. Things are going horribly in Iraq right? We're losing right? Bloodshed and violence abound right? Well, if you get your info from the dinosaur media you'd sure think so....but not so fast. Do you know how many people--American soldiers, Iraqi soldiers, and civilians--have been killed each month for the last six months? Do you know there's a trend? And it's NOT up!

Consider this from My Election Analysis: (Hat tip: The American Mind)

81, 76, 50, 49, 43, 25

What are these numbers? This week’s Powerball winners? A safe deposit combo? (snip)

No, they’re the number of troops that have died in hostile actions in Iraq for each of the past six months. That last number represents the lowest level of troop deaths in a year, and second-lowest in two years.

But it must be that the insurgency is turning their assault on Iraqi military and police, who are increasingly taking up the slack, right?

215, 176, 193, 189, 158, 193 (and the three months before that were 304, 282, 233)

Okay, okay, so insurgents aren’t engaging us; they’re turning increasingly to car bombs then, right?

70, 70, 70, 68, 30, 30

Civilians then. They’re just garroting poor civilians.

527, 826, 532, 732, 950, 446 (upper bound, two months before that were 2489 and 1129).

My point here is not that everything is peachy in Iraq. It isn’t. My point isn’t that the insurgency is in its last throes. It isn’t. My point here isn’t even to argue that we’re winning. I’m at best cautiously-pessimistic-to-neutral about how things are going there.

My only point is that, at the very least, people who complain that good news coming out of Iraq gets shuttered by the press aren’t crazy. I’m a regular denizen of the right-leaning blogosphere (though I spend about half my daily routine with left-leaning sites), and I was unequivicolly shocked when I saw this. Completely the opposite of what I’d expected. My non-scientific sample of three friends, all of whom are considerably more bullish about the prospects in Iraq than I am, revealed three people similarly surprised by these numbers.

I’m guessing if I polled people on this site regarding the direction those numbers were going, and people didn’t answer strategically (eg figure I was up to something from the question words), no one would predict any of those numbers were on a downward trend, or were even flat.

Again, my point isn’t that we’re winning. My only point is that if the data you’ve received left you completely surprised by these numbers, what does that really say about the completeness of the data you’ve received?

Incidentally, these statistics are compiled by the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank.

Channeling John McEnroe; Then Changing my Mind

Today one of the worst-kept secrets in TV history was finally officially confirmed as Katie Couric announced she is leaving NBC to become the anchor of the CBS evening news. My initial reaction was to channel John McEnroe on the tennis court--"You cannot be serious!"

But on reflection the move makes perfect sense. For decades CBS has had the most liberal anchors in America. In Walter Cronkite, followed by Dan Rather, the news chair was occupied by someone who cast a dim eye on America's role in the world. We had Cronkite's convincing but wholly false report of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam as an American defeat. We had Rather reading "fake but accurate" memos in a piece designed to hurt President Bush's reelection effort. So why not Katie? She's probably the most liberal, anti-Bush, anti-war on terror person on network news today. Katie's a perfect fit for CBS...and one more reason (if anyone still needs one) not to watch.

Selling Citizenship Slaps my Brother in Law in the Face

Republican Senators are still trying to find a compromise that will allow them to ignore the wishes of their core constituents and instead placate their core contributors by allowing at least most of the estimated 12 million illegal aliens currently in the States to remain. The latest version would allow those who have been here for five years or more (estimated 7-8 million) to pay a fine and then get started toward legalization. Of course they loudly still insist in the face of all logic that this isn't "amnesty."

This selling of citizenship is a slap in the face to millions of people like my brother in law. He is a Mexican national, and he played by the rules. He stood in the lines. He put up with the duplicated (and even triplicated) requests for information. He filled out the paperwork. He did everything he was supposed to do. Even when it looked like he would not be allowed into the country for his own wedding, he refused to follow the advice he received to sneak in and straighten it out later. Thankfully, the red tape got cut just in time, and he made the wedding!

It is an insult to that good and honorable man for those who did not obey the law and follow the proper procedure (as pointless and frustrating as it sometimes is) to be allowed to "buy" their way onto the path toward American citizenship by paying a fine of $2000. Any immigration "reform" that allows illegals to cut to the front of the line is both morally and logically wrong. Further, it is political suicide for the Republicans to continue down this path.

Obviously I am not opposed to immigration--legal immigration. In fact, although many on "my side" of this issue do not agree, I support both an increase in the number of legal immigrants, and a streamlining of the process for citizenship. But none of that justifies what is happening in Washington right now. I hope and pray that Frist, Allen, Kyl, Cornyn and the rest of the Senators who take American sovereignty and security seriously prevail.

Roll on the Floor Laughing Out Loud

Got this via email from Jack Lewis this morning--if you can read this without laughing, you're a nicer person than I am (no comments on that please!).

WARNING: Don't be drinking anything when you read this, you may ruin your keyboard.

I referenced this story by link, in the post about Cynthia McKinney, but I wanted to mention it further here, in case anyone missed it. It seems that someone had been stealing oven doors in South Bend, Indiana. The police were baffled why someone would want oven doors enough to go around stealing them.

Then the police began investigating complaints from people who'd gotten a really good deal on a flat screen TVs, that apparently didn't work. Those in Rio Linda (and Cynthia McKinney, if she happens to read this) will most likely need to click on the link to figure out why these two seemingly unrelated problems have to do with each other.

Fear the Chop

The Braves started off the new season with a (less than resounding) 11-10 win over the LA Dodgers. Andruw Jones, who was robbed of the MVP award last year picked up right where he left off, homering and driving in 4 runs. So we'll see. Again this year the "smart" guys pick somebody else, usually either the Mets or Phillies to finally win the NL East...but until one of them proves it, I think the Braves are still the team to beat. The offense this year should be improved, especially if Chipper doesn't miss half the year. 3 errors on opening day ain't pretty, but the defense should still be sound. I think it will be a good regular season...prior to the annual Bobby Cox can't manage a short series season.

In the Spirit of Generosity...

In the same spirit of generosity that leads me to post the beautiful Tucson weather reports in the middle of winter for most of the country, I'd just like to point out that because Arizona doesn't do Daylight Savings Time, we did not lose an hour of sleep last night!

April Fools? Nope, Just Another Day in PC America

The American flag has been banned at a high school in Colorado! You read that right. According to AOL News, the school made the decision because students opposed to the pro-illegal immigrant protests were waving American flags in response. It's a good thing to promote civility and polite discourse, but this is insane. The principal who made that decision should be fired. He certainly doesn't understand what America is about well enough to be in charge of educating young people.

Tuscon School Officials Find Way to Stop Student Protests

After three straight days of protests featuring hundreds of high school students marching through the streets of Tucson waving Mexican flags and chanting slogans against enforcing immigration laws, Tucson school officials have found a way to stop the protests.

They cleverly scheduled Saturday. Apparently the commitment of the local teens to immigrant rights does not extend to giving up their free time. As long as they aren't getting to cut classes, the idea of protesting loses its attractiveness. I expect other school districts around the country who are struggling with the issue to copy this strategy once they learn how effective it is.