Dec 16, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Robert Tracinski at TIA Daily:
The anti-immigration House Republicans who just pushed through a massive assault on immigration stand for a giant fraud. They claim to be patriots, acting out of a desire to protect America from an "invasion" of illegal immigrants. In reality, they are promoting an agenda that is thoroughly un-American, both in its goal and in its methods.
It has often been said that America is a nation of immigrants, but few people understand how deeply this is true. It is not just that America was settled and built almost entirely by people from somewhere else--from English settlers in the 18th century, to Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants who came at the turn of the 20th century, on through every other racial and ethnic group in the world. The deeper reason America is a nation of immigrants is that the motives and goals of immigrants--and the moral outlook they represent--are the essence of the American character.
Why do immigrants come to America? They come for the freedom to pursue a better life. They do not come merely for jobs that pay more than what they can make back home. They come for the kind of culture that makes those jobs--and a million other opportunities--possible.
The immigrants I know are drawn here by the distinctively American culture of work and achievement that is the essence of our national identity. America was founded on the idea that all men are endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And how is happiness pursued? By hard work and ambitious effort. To become an American, this is the only creed one has to accept: the political ideal of liberty, the economic ideal of a free market, and the cultural ideal of individualism. Many immigrants do not have a full, explicit understanding of all of these ideas. But they do know that they are escaping from stagnant and corrupt nations in which little is possible to them, and they are coming to a land in which everything is possible.
They come because this is a nation where anyone can improve his life through his own effort, limited only by his talents and his capacity for hard work.
That is the essence of what we call the "American dream." It's what most of our forebears did, from the first settlers in Jamestown nearly 400 years ago, to a Polish carpenter named Traczynski (the spelling was later simplified) who came here a little more than a century ago, to the Indian, Chinese, and yes, Mexican, workers who continue to come here today. They all came here in pursuit of the most American of ideals: the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
So why are so many Republicans coming out against the American dream?
Read the rest.Dec 15, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Dr. Andrew Bernstein will be interviewed on Air America radio about his new book "The Capitalist Manifesto" on Monday Night starting at 7:00 p.m. EST for 10 minutes with Thom Hartmann, who is filling in as a guest host Monday night. Please tune in for Dr. Bernstein's presentation of the immense amount of historical evidence proving the moral and practical superiority of capitalism over any variety of statism (i.e. monarchy, theocracy, dictatorship, communism, Nazism, socialism, welfare statism, etc.). You can listen on the web using: http://www.airamericaradio.com/listenDec 15, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Yesterday's WSJ featured an inspiring eulogy to a Lebanese newspaperman, Gebran Tueni, who was assassinated by Syrian-directed assailants. In reading it, I was touched by his courage and integrity, and was again reminded how difficult a task it would be to regain freedom, if we continue to allow it to evaporate here in the West. The whole article is worth reading, but here are a few quotes from it:In 2000 he had broken his country's long silence by publishing an explicit call for Syria to get its troops out of Lebanon. He had no patience with the press self-censorship that tends to become the rule under jackboot regimes. "If you accept to enter the game of blackmailing, it's your fault," he said. "We try to have an independent paper."
Asked about the dangers of such a stance, he catalogued quickly that he had been shot twice, in 1976 and 1989; kidnapped briefly, in 1976; and exiled in 1990 for three years.
Tueni's defiance of despotic rule extended not only to Syrian occupation but to the presence of Hezbollah in Lebanese politics. He described Hezbollah as "an imported product from Iran. It has nothing to do with Lebanese identity." He went on to explain that Hezbollah is "a direct threat, acting in Lebanon like a state within a state," with "weapons everywhere." Hezbollah, he said, has its enticing side, building hospitals and schools, and providing free education to children of poor families--"but what are they teaching?" Hezbollah's strategy, he said, "Is to transform us into an Islamic republic." Tueni described Iran as providing Hezbollah's weapons and the funding, and Syria as providing "the cover."
...
An-Nahar's new building had armed guards and bulletproof security shields and doors. But sitting in his corner office with its big picture windows, not far from the spot where Hariri was murdered, Tueni seemed both brave and terribly vulnerable. I asked him if his own life was in danger. He said he expected a wave of Syrian-backed "assassinations, booby-trapped cars," but did not think that could stop Lebanon's democratic movement. "They can kill one, two, three of us" he said, but then they are "finished."
Dec 12, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
The office of the district attorney for Los Angeles County has released a document indicating the overwhelming amount of evidence of Stanley "Tookie" Williams's guilt. From the introduction:
On February 28, 1979, Stanley Williams murdered Albert Lewis Owens during a robbery of a 7-Eleven convenience store. On March 11, 1979, Stanley Williams murdered Tsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang and Yee-Chen Lin during a robbery at their family run motel, the Brookhaven. In March of 1981, a jury convicted Stanley Williams of the first-degree murder and robbery of Albert Lewis Owens, the first-degree murders of Tsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang and Yee-Chen Lin, and the robbery of Tsai-Shai Yang.
The jury also found true the allegations that Williams personally used a shotgun during the commission of each of the murders and robberies. Finally, the jury found true the special circumstance allegations of robbery-murder and multiple murder.
On April 15, 1981, the trial court, following the jury's recommendation, sentenced Williams to death. On October 11, 2005, the United States Supreme Court denied Williams' petition for writ of Certiorari. On October 24, 2005, Williams' execution date was set for December 13, 2005.
This cold-blooded killer, Stanley Williams, now seeks mercy, the very mercy he so callously denied Albert, Tsai-Shai, Yen-I, and Yee-Chen. Stanley Williams does not deserve this mercy. In fact, despite the overwhelming nature of the evidence against him, and despite the non-existence of any credible defense, Stanley Williams has steadfastly refused to take any responsibility for the brutal, destructive, and murderous acts he committed. Without such responsibility, there can be no redemption, there can be no atonement, and there should be no mercy.
For nearly 25 years, justice has been held in abeyance while Williams took advantage of a legal system designed to protect his rights. His rights have been protected. It is now time for the victims' voices to be heard. We ask that clemency be denied, and that the ultimate punishment, imposed so many years ago, now be fulfilled.
The document clearly exposes the lies of the celebrity-scum Save Tookie PR machine.
Related Reading: A Politically Correct Nobel Peace Prize for Murder by Michelle Malkin
Stanley "Tookie" Williams is co-founder of the violent Crips street gang in South Central Los Angeles, and resident of death row in San Quentin, Calif. A perfect candidate for the Leftist Nobel Peace Prize.
Nov 21, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Fox News:
The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that "intelligent design" isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, becoming the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States. The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges. "Intelligent design isn't science, even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science."
[...] Last week, Pope Benedict XVI waded indirectly into the evolution debate by saying the universe was made by an "intelligent project" and criticizing those who in the name of science say its creation was without direction or order.
Questions about the Vatican's position on evolution were raised in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn. In a New York Times column, Schoenborn seemed to back intelligent design and dismissed a 1996 statement by Pope John Paul II that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis." Schoenborn said the late pope's statement was "rather vague and unimportant."
Nov 18, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--Both the Democrats and Republicans are wrong about what to do now in the Iraq war. The Democrats want to retreat immediately and the Republicans want to "stay the course." Neither proposal will make America safe from Islamic terrorism.
As Republicans have noted, withdrawal at this time would be perceived by the Islamic fundamentalists as a major defeat of the West and draw more recruits to their cause. But as the Democrats have noted, staying our current course--which has no standard of victory and no clear connection to protecting America from Islamic terrorism--is a disaster that has already resulted in the death of two thousand Americans.
The solution is neither embracing defeat nor staying a losing course; the solution is to pursue victory. We must define war objectives designed solely to protect the American people from Islamic terrorism, and then execute those objectives by any means necessary. Above all, we must make it our objective, not to bring the good life to every corner of the Middle East, but to make the terrorist states of the Middle East non-threatening--which means that we must end state sponsorship of terrorism.
In Iraq, we must crush the insurgency immediately--which includes choking its backers, Iran and Syria--and let the Iraqis themselves take on the responsibility of establishing a government that will not threaten America. Once the insurgency is crushed the priority should be on eliminating the regime that is the greatest terrorist and nuclear threat to the United States in the Middle East: Iran. Such a policy would serve as a death blow to bin Laden, al-Zarqawi and the rest of the fundamentalists, who attract their recruits with the hope that America can slowly be defeated.