Paul's Blog of Wisdom

Look at this:

A six-day operation has led to the arrests of 179 "immigration violators" in Clark County, federal officials announced Thursday, and most of the people arrested already have been removed from the country.

Okay, that's good, but look at this:

Vicenta Montoya, an immigration attorney who represents several illegal immigrants who were arrested during the operation...also accused immigration officials of trying to "intimidate the undocumented community."

"Intimidate the undocumented community?!" What?! Do people realize how loony tunes they are? I don't even know what to say to this. The "undocumented community" is here illegally. Enforcing our immigration laws is kinda, sorta those immigration officials' jobs. Apparently, though, that's just too much. It's intimidating, you know. Maybe our police officers should stop arresting rapists and murderers because that would be intimidating to the criminal community. Things like this just make my hair stand on end. What is wrong with people?

Look at this paper to see how raising the minimum wage in Washington increased the unemployment and poverty rates and decreased employment growth. You know, this is basic economics and it's really not the slightest bit surprising.

The Senate has done at least one good thing during the immigration debate:

As part of the ongoing debate on immigration reform, the Senate on Thursday voted on two amendments to make English the "national language," as well as set a "common and unifying language."

Something like this should be a no-brainer, right? After all, even my wife the immigrant, for whom English is her third language, is absolutely adamant that English should be the national language and that every person who comes here should speak English. Well, apparently it's not a no-brainer for the Democrats who are tripping over themselves to sell out our country in order to get some extra Hispanic votes:

In a largely symbolic vote that took hours of deliberation, the Senate approved the English as the "national language" bill with a vote was 63-34.

Only 63-34?! This should have passed 100-0 and then had Dick Cheney come in and vote just to make the vote 101-0. Go read the article yourself and let your jaw drop over the stunning pandering for Hispanic votes. It's disgusting. Here's the most disgusting quote:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada went further. "I really believe this amendment is racist. I think it's directed basically to people who speak Spanish."

Yes, everyone who thinks that people who come to America should speak English is racist. *Sigh* I apologize to everyone in America for having voted for Harry Reid. That was easily the worst vote that I've ever made. I'm sorry. As disgusted as I am by the Republicans right now, I am even angrier at the Democrats. The Democrats are so pathetic it makes my skin crawl.

This is disturbing and unpleasant, but I believe that it is vital to know. I have said that we can't possibly fight a war if we don't even know who the enemy is. With that in mind, Raymond Ibrahim has written an article entitled "What Would Mohammed Do?" It's obviously a play on the expression "What would Jesus do?" that many Christians use. However, the answers for Mohammed are a whole lot different from the ones for Jesus. Take a look at this:

Allah proclaims: “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity [i.e. embrace Islam], then open the way for them: for Allah is oft forgiving, most merciful” (Koran 9:5).

Or this:

Islam was established by the sword. This is an historical fact, not an accusation. It’s not for nothing that Saudi Arabia, home of the Prophet and Islam, depicts a scimitar with the words “There is no god but Allah and Mohammad is His Prophet” on its national flag. Both Muslim and non-Muslim histories of Islam agree that the Warrior-Prophet personally waged war after war with the express purpose of spreading Islam.

These were wars forcing other peoples, first Arabs then non-Arabs, to embrace Islam and submit to the life-guiding Words of Allah (the Sharia), or else to pay tribute and live in humility as subjects of Islam, or else, to die by the sword.

Or how about this?:

Islam is a rigorous faith with many laudable principles and prescriptions. Many people, not only Muslims, agree that other cultures can learn from the ideas of mercy, charity, and justice that also underlie Islam. But the fact remains that establishing Islam’s supremacy itself is the first principle, according to its holiest books and history. Moreover, based on the actions of the Prophet, his Companions and first caliphs, establishing Islamic hegemony through the sword was and thus is the norm.

In other words, whereas "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" is the single most important teaching of Christianity, the spread of Islam is the single most important teaching of Islam. For this reason, I believe that the very existence of Islam will be a problem and a threat for the world as long as the religion exists. I realize that that's about as politically incorrect as one can be, but that's what I truly believe.

One of the first instincts of many in the West, including me, was to say that the terrorists don't represent Islam, that people have done horrible things in the name of Christianity before, that it's really a religion of peace but the terrorists have skewed it, yada yada yada. I personally believe that these ideas that we preach (as if Westerners who know absolutely nothing about Islam really understand Islam better than Muslims do) constitute a borderline religion of our modern liberal societies and that these ideas, which we follow with religion-like faith, will lead to our destruction if we don't wise up. So, the question remains, what would Mohammed do?

In discussing President Bush's plan to send National Guard troops to the southern border, here is what an editorial in the New York Times said:

America must send its overtaxed troops to the border right now, they say, so a swarm of ruthless, visa-less workers cannot bury our way of life under a relentless onslaught of hard work.

Wow. I don't even know where to begin on this sentence. First of all, liberals have to stop the nonsense argument that every single illegal immigrant is here simply to work hard for the betterment of their family. That's bull and everyone knows it. Yes, that's true of most of them, but not all. Just look at the 100,000+ illegal immigrants who are in American jails for felonies, with American taxpayers paying $50,000 per year for each one of them. The argument that everyone who comes here is just going to be an honest, hardworker is just stupid, especially coming from writers who live in a city where almost 3,000 people were slaughtered less than 5 years ago. They, of all people, should realize what can happen when you don't keep track of who's coming into your country, but their ultra left-wing bias clearly clouds any semblance of logic left in their brains. But wait, there's more:

Rather than standing up for truth, Mr. Bush swiveled last night in the direction of those who see immigration, with delusional clarity, as entirely a problem of barricades and bad guys.

So, because I think that we should secure the border first before we discuss a guestworker program, I see this entirely as a problem of barricades and bad guys. What's that? You want more? Here you go:

His plan to deploy "up to 6,000" National Guard troops to free the Border Patrol to hunt illegal immigrants is a model of stark simplicity, one sure to hearten the Minuteman vigilantes, frightened conspiracy theorists, English-only Latinophobes, right-wing radio and TV personalities, and members of Congress who have no patience for sorting out the various and mixed blessings that surging immigration has given this country.

First of all, I have to point out the obvious. The National Guard is called the National Guard! Get it? As in, they're there to *guard* the *nation.* That's kind of their reason for existence. I really don't think it's outrageous to use the National Guard to guard the nation when our nation is clearly not being sufficiently guarded at the moment. Apparently, if I think that we should do something crazy like enforce our laws, I'm either a "vigilante," a "frightened conspiracy theorist" or a "Latinophobe." Nice. Demonizing your opponents on an issue as racists because you can't beat them in an intellectual argument. Very classy. Boy, the Times just sinks lower and lower every day. Not to mention that I think it's been shown pretty clearly that the Minutemen are not vigilantes. They sit in lawnchairs armed with telephones to call the Border Patrol when they see someone crossing illegally. Boy, what whacko vigilantes they are! More:

He denounced "amnesty" again, but did not speak up forcefully enough for a citizenship path for the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants who, in huge national marches in recent weeks, have made their hunger to assimilate powerfully clear.

Oh, yes, those people who were waving Mexican flags around (until the organizers realized it made Americans angry and told them to wave American flags during the later marches) and the majority of whom think that the Southwestern U.S. belongs to Mexico clearly want nothing more than to assimilate into our society. To all the people who say that we should be legalizing all the people who came here legally, I point them to all of the people who came here legally, including my wife. My wife went through years of paperwork, English tests, bureaucracy, interviews and paid lots of money to be able to come here and to stay here. How can people possibly say that after she went through all of that to come here legally that all the people who just gave our law the finger and came here illegally should be allowed to stay. That is offensive on a personal level because of all the crap my wife had to go through to come here legally. I say that they might as well come and spit in my wife's face.

Apparently, the President is going to announce a deployment of National Guard troops to the southern border. I personally think this is a great idea, but I have 2 concerns. My first concern is that he is just going to use this Guard deployment to score points among his base in order to be able to push through an amnesty for the current illegal immigrants and a guest worker program which the government bureaucracy probably can't handle. I absolutely do not support an amnesty and I support a guest worker program in theory if it worked the way it's supposed to work, but it's already been shown that the government can't even effectively handle screening of the number of immigrants we already have coming in. Adding hundreds of thousands more per year would almost certainly be very ugly and would likely just lead to more chaos. My second concern with the Guard deployment is that it would just be short-term. I fear that the President would do this now while the public is focused on the issue, then quietly remove the troops later when the pressure is off, allowing the huge flow of illegal immigrants to continue once again. I'm hoping he'll address these issues on Monday night in his speech. We'll see. If he does address these problems, that'll will go a long way to rebuilding support among his base, including me. I've been wavering on him big time lately.

Okay, stop the presses! I have some shocking news. I know you'll be horrified. Okay, deep breath. Here I go. It appears that the NSA is doing its job! Take a moment to let that sink in. Yes yes, I know, you're shocked. You should be. It appears that the NSA is about the only federal agency actually doing its job. Am I the only one who thinks that the hysterics over USA Today's story about the NSA collecting *external* data on people's phone calls is ridiculous? Obviously, I'm not, as you can see here:

The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort.

It appears that the majority of Americans have their head screwed on right. Once again, it appears that one of the things that angers the ultra-left the most appears to be about the only thing on which the majority of Americans agree with the President. From what we've heard so far, there is no law-breaking going on here whatsoever. The NSA is not collecting *internal* data, meaning that they're not listening to people's calls. They're examining patterns of *external* phone call data to try to find any patterns that link it to terrorism. Last I checked, this was kinda, sorta the NSA's job. For the people who are against this, I ask them to be intellectually honest and simply call for the abolishment of the NSA because if you oppose this, you quite simply oppose the NSA's existence, since this is what they do. We should make sure that they don't do anything illegal and that they don't start just listening to domestic phone calls randomly (the previous hubbub about wiretapping was on international calls, remember), but at the moment, it appears that these things aren't happening.

When we were attacked on our soil and had 3,000 of our people killed, we were told that this was a war that we were fighting and that we might have to sacrifice in order to win this war. Most, if not all, Americans accepted this premise. Yet, almost 5 years later, this is the most we've been asked to sacrifice and that's just too much for the far left. Wow.

Side question: why aren't the high and mighty media who got so mad about intelligence leaks when it involved Valerie Plame getting mad about *this* leak? I thought they hated intelligence leaks. No liberal bias in the media? Sure. Can anyone still say that with a straight face?

Here's a big *sigh*. Why do we continue funding the U.N. when it does things like this:

Cuba, China, Russia, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia were among countries winning seats that human rights advocates say do not merit places because of their poor record of protection of freedoms.

Those countries are now on the U.N. Human Rights Council. China, with among the heaviest Internet restrictions of any country on Earth? Saudi Arabia, where you get jailed, and probably worse, simply for being a Christian? Cuba, which doesn't allow its citizens to leave, where people are jailed and beaten just for disagreeing with the government and where the children of dissidents are denied education? Sheesh. The U.S. pays something like 50% of the U.N.'s dues. Why? I think that burning the millions of dollars that we give to the U.N. to keep poor people living in the Northeast warm in the winter would provide a better use than giving it to the U.N.

Are we winning in Iraq? Can we win in Iraq? Take a look at this:

A retired army general who was once called Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "most outspoken critic" over the war in Iraq now says the U.S. is achieving its objectives there. Barry McCaffrey, perhaps best known as President Clinton's drug czar, blasted the Pentagon in 2003 for invading Iraq without enough troops to keep the peace after the fall of Baghdad.

But after a week in Iraq, McCaffrey praised the morale and effectiveness of U.S. forces as "simply awe inspiring," called the Iraqi Army, "real, growing, and willing to fight," and noted that "the Iraqi police are beginning to show marked improvement in capability."

And while he called foreign fighters a "tactical menace," McCaffery reports, "the foreign jihadist fighters have been defeated as a strategic and operational threat to the creation of an Iraqi government."

Or go here and read about the captured al Qaeda documents we've found in Iraq showing the desperation among al Qaeda in Iraq. We've basically defeated the insurgency in Iraq. They can still cause some damage, but they are simply no longer a threat to the stability of the country or the government. Soon, we're going to start disarming the various local militias, too. By the end of this year, I predict that it will be obvious to anyone who pays attention that we're obviously winning in Iraq.

This is just amazing, yet it doesn't really surprise me. There was a pro-amnesty rally (and don't let people fool you with any other terms like "rallies for immigrant rights," these were pro-amnesty rallies, plain and simple) on Monday that shut down the Las Vegas Strip, which is one of the busiest roads in the world. In fact, the intersection of Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard is the single busiest intersection in the world. The rally then went to a local park. Look at this:

Local ordinances require organizers of any event that will block a roadway to obtain a free permit, hire workers to barricade streets, and pay for police officers to route traffic. For an event like Monday morning's rally in a city park, the law requires organizers to apply for a permit and to purchase an insurance policy against park damage.

Monday's organizers neither applied for nor acquired any permits. So far as is known, they have made no attempt to pay police.

The police have no intention of citing anyone at all over this rally. As the newspaper states, one can make a strong case that these requirements are unconstitutional infringements on people's free speech rights. That's not the problem, though. Look at this:

For instance, Chris Christoff, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, says he was turned down for a permit for a similar march, intended to honor veterans, a few years back. "The reason they (the county) gave was that they couldn't close the streets off because it was a safety hazard." Mr. Christoff says he was told he would also have to come up with $25,000 for an insurance policy, pay overtime for police officers to monitor the event, and pay workers to put up barricades.

So, our military veterans were turned down for a permit, but not illegal aliens. Incredible, huh? I'm tempted to say that it's unbelievable, but that wouldn't be even close to true. In fact, it's quite believable. Our screwed up, disgustingly politically correct society apparently thinks that illegal aliens are better and more deserving than our military veterans who quite literally put their lives on the line to protect all of us. This would be funny if it weren't so disgusting. Seriously, what is wrong with us?

It's commonly accepted knowledge now that Afghanistan was the "right" war while Iraq was the "wrong" war and that Afghanistan is progressing better towards being a stable democracy than Iraq is. However, I predict that a year from now, it will be obvious and it will be commonly accepted knowledge that Iraq is actually progressing better than Afghanistan both in terms of security and in terms of the political situation.

Boy, I've been sighing an awful lot lately. Here's the newest reason why:

As gas prices average $2.91 nationwide, according to the Energy Department, the House approved a bill that would impose criminal penalties and fines of up to $150 million for energy companies caught price gouging. It failed to pass by the two-thirds vote needed a measure to increase refinery production by making it easier for companies to get into the business. That vote was 237-188.

I'm going to tell people a secret. There are already laws and penalties against companies for collusion, so this legislation is pointless. If there is evidence of collusion among oil companies, it should be punished according to the current laws on the books. Oil company collusion has been investigated multiple times, by Republican and Democratic Presidents and there has never been any evidence of collusion found.

This legislation naturally brings one to the next question: What constitutes price gouging? The legislation calls on the Federal Trade Commission to define what price gouging is. How does one define this? Is it simply profit above a certain level? I'll tell you, I sure as hell don't want the government saying how much profit a company in a free market can make. How do they determine this level above which a company is gouging? Yes, Exxon Mobil had $10 billion profit last quarter, but that was on $100 billion revenue. That's a relatively high profit margin, but not shockingly so. For instance, in the third quarter of 2005, Google made $381 million profit on $1.6 billion in revenue. Therefore, Google had a much higher profit margin than Exxon Mobil did, but no one is screaming about Google's "gouging." With Google's profit margin in the third quarter of 2005, if they had $100 billion in revenue, they would have had over $23 billion in profit. Obviously Google is gouging! We need to punish them! Give me a break. If there's collusion, punish it. If not, give it a rest.

As for the second part, Congress passed up the chance to do something that would actually have an effect on gas prices, namely streamlining the process to build new refineries and allowing drilling in ANWR. They're excellent at passing meaningless legislation that makes it seem like they're actually doing something, but when it comes to actually doing something, just forget about it. *Sigh*

Before the illegal immigration hullabaloo started, I said that over the coming years and decades there would be increasing pressure by Mexicans to take back the southwestern U.S. At the time, what I said probably sounded crazy and unduly alarmist to most people. Take a look at this:

“On NPR's ‘All Things Considered,’ Gloria Ramirez Vargas, a politician in Baja, Calif., rallied her constituents with a similar cry: ‘Many Mexicans are nourishing the ground in the U.S., but those lands were once ours. Those same lands, which now with intelligence, with love and with a lot of work, we are re-conquering again for our Mexico’” (http://jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin050306.php3).

This is not confined to a few extremists. This quote is by an elected politician in Mexico saying flat out that Mexicans are “re-conquering” the southwestern U.S. for Mexico! That seems to signal that the majority of her constituents believe that as well, as she probably wouldn’t say that if her constituents were totally against it. This is a huge problem. We are letting in millions upon millions of people, the majority of whom think that the southwestern U.S. belongs to a different country. If Mexicans had the desire to assimilate they would rise up nationally and scream at the top of their lungs that they disavow themselves from this politician’s remarks. Do you see that happening? Of course not, because most Mexicans agree with her. Don’t believe me? Check this out:

“The poll found that 58 percent of Mexicans agree with the statement, ‘The territory of the United States' southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico’ Zogby said 28 percent disagreed, while another 14 percent said they weren't sure” (http://oglebay.blogspot.com/2006/04/mexican-poll-results.html#links).

Worried? Well, you should be. Letting in millions upon millions of people who resent us and who think that much of our country rightfully belongs to them would be roughly equivalent to Israel letting in millions upon millions of Palestinians. It would be suicidal for Israel to do that and it would be suicidal for us to continue on our current path. If we don’t do something about this soon, we’re going to have MAJOR social problems in the coming years and decades. French-style riots can’t happen here? Just wait.