perfidy

This Fox story informs us that California will allow illegal aliens to get driver's licenses.

The legislation, by Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, would help undocumented immigrants get drivers' licenses by allowing them to submit a federal taxpayer identification number or some other state-approved form of identification to the Department of Motor Vehicles instead of a Social Security number. (emphasis mine.)

I think that California is quite purposefully ignoring something very important here, as their euphemistic description of illegal aliens indicates.

These are illegal aliens, for chrissake! We can have a meaningful and interesting debate over all the issues surrounding immigration except for this one. Access for foriegners: easy or hard? How long can they stay, and what can they do while they are here? How many immigrants a year, from what countries, and with what skills? How quickly can we assimilate them, and how should we do it? What requirements for naturalization? Reasonable people can differ on these issues, and I've heard good arguments for many sides of the argument.

But, illegal immigrants do not deserve the benefits we extend to our own citizens, and to those who have moved here legally and dealt with the insane bureaucracy of the INS. They are here illegally. If caught, they should be immediately deported. Any "undocumented immigrant" who shows up at a CA DMV should be instantly shown the door, and warned not to come back.

I am prepared to welcome any citizen of any nation regardless of race, creed, color, or hairdo - provided that they come here in accordance to the laws of this nation. Otherwise, get the hell out. It is ridiculous to extend to them taxpayer funded benefits when their very existence in this country spits on the laws we live by. And amnesty for illegals is a slap in the face to all the immigrants who did jump through all the hoops to get here legitimately.

They don't need an ID. They need a bus, ship, train or plane ticket home. 

Dear Mr. Abraham,

On Face The Nation on Sunday, you said:

"Rate-payers, obviously, will pay the bill because they're the ones who benefit [from an upgrade of the nation's energy infrastructure]."

Here is my message and sage advice to you on behalf of American taxpayers: Screw you, Poindexter.

I'm not kidding, Spence. Cram it. With walnuts.

Best regards,

P-saurus.

[update] I mean, seriously, Spence! Have you seen my bill? I could hire people at minimum wage to run around a human-sized gerbil-wheel connected to magnets to generate power for less than what I'm paying now. 

For the Ministry's inaugural assault, I choose as our target this bunch of blinkered racist nozzleheads:

Parents: White Teacher Should Not Teach Black History Group Of Parents Protest District's Decision OBERLIN, Ohio -- A group of parents said they will fight a possible decision to allow a white teacher to lead classes in black history at Oberlin High School.

In this brief article from News Channel 5 in my hometown of Cleveland, we learn that civilization is dead.

"the parents said using a white teacher would send the wrong message to black students"

What good is civilization if we cannot all learn from the knowledge that our civilization has accumulated? Am I not permitted to study and ponder the life of Martin Luther King, because he was black and I am white? Will I be consigned to the outer darkness if I ever mention anything I learned to someone who is black?

This is complete and unremediated bullshit. One of my strongest memories from a black period of my life - the year that I dated Margaret, the psycho hosebeast - is the two day long argument I had with her over how much people of different backgrounds can actually communicate and understand each other. Margaret took the position that it is in fact impossible for a white male of privilege (subtext: me) could understand the inner life of a oppressed minority. (subtext: her.) This of course ignored the fact that she grew up in a house five times the size of mine, and her father was one of the five richest accountants in California. It also ignored the fact that she did not look in the least bit hispanic, and in fact got upset that summer because someone whose ancestors came from Finland could get a better tan than she could. But why bother writing books, explaining your life in print, studying the past if the end result is that no one except those who share your upbringing can understand what you say? This is parochialism of the most severe kind.

Of course, my mind was an open book. She could understand and benefit from my culture. She could criticize my history, beliefs and culture with impunity. And the great thing was, she was immune from any kind fo response I might make. If I offered some comment on her culture, well I just wasn't qualified to say anything. I could not judge her, or anyone like her, or anyone in fact who shared her political beliefs.

I hate being reminded of Margaret. Which is one more reason to hate these idiots in Oberlin. These parents have abandoned civilization. They are saying that black history is meaningful only when taught by black teachers. Is it meaningless otherwise? Does it hurt the self esteem of fragile black minds to hear the stories of Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington and all the rest from white lips? It would send the wrong message, they say.

What message do they want sent? Clearly, not a message that Martin Luther King would have endorsed. If the message is racial amity and togetherness, this action certainly isn't sending it. If we wanted to send a message of racial harmony and set a positive example, a white (or asian or hispanic or jewish or martian) teacher teaching black history would be ideal. And throw in a black teacher teaching Shakespeare for good measure.

The message that these parents want sent is a message of racial apartheid, only we're not allowed to call it that. It's only bad when white people do it. It is supreme irony that race conscious blacks and liberals are doing everything in their power to recreate the segregation and hatred that the civil rights movement labored and sacrificed to end.

We both have engaged in a significant amount of moral finger pointing. This person is bad, this person is evil, this person is more diabolical than this other person, naughty, naughty. If you want to level such accusations, feel free. I'm just unwilling to continue it myself.

As to the leftist protestors, I see a consistent amount of vitriol directed at leftist protestors, in so many words liberals who do this, liberals who do that, liberal stupidity, idiot socialists, in actual words "Commie Tommie Daschle" (as if), leftist "ass-hatted fuckwits," and so forth. Extremely negative comments are consistently directed at people whose ideas and statements fall to the left of the political spectrum, and it gets personal. Just because there are occasional caveats, fine shades of meaning, and distinctions, when someone in so many words or in plain language denigrates and insults a group of people to which I belong I am in turn and by extension denigrated and insulted. I don't recall offering myself specifically as a punching bag. Nor do I recall making blanket statements about the stupidity or ass-hatted fuckwittery of conservatives, or people right of center, what have you, of any stripe.

I have made specific criticisms of Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher, and much further outside the realm of credibility herself, Anne Coulter, but when have I extended those criticisms to any group of right-winged people? I have criticized Fox News, not for being on the right, but for reporting inaccurately, and for such instances as when they have a guest who believes that EYE-rack is "full of Buddhists," without correcting that guest, or offering a retraction or correction. The New York Times, many of whose staff members appear to hold leftish beliefs, has also dropped the ball on accurate reporting. Have I defended the NYT and attacked Fox News solely on the basis of political orientation? If you can find evidence that I have done these things I claim to be innocent of, I'll make a public blog apology.

I have after all, in times past, said, in so many words, "Okay, fine, fair enough, alright." When have points ever been conceded to me? Are you still holding a belief that Nazis fell on the left of the political spectrum? Was there smoldering in silence without concession?

Back to the leftist protestors, personal liberties in America were not created in America, but rather maintained in America by people with leftist ideas and through protest. The American Civil Liberties Union is largely left in character, for want of a better term, and has defended personal liberty to the point of arguing that Neo-Nazis should be permitted to march in Skokie, Illinois. Leftish reporters who refuse to reveal their source protect freedom of the press. Anti-war protestors who seized control of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago defended their right to freedom of assembly while simultaneously protesting the war.

And where do those ideas about personal liberty really come from? America? Don't make me laugh. Ideas about freedom of the press, assembly, and speech, as well as societal egalitarianism and responsible government with separate branches came collectively from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was Swiss, Voltaire, who was French, John Locke, who was English, and various other European thinkers, most of whom were your arch-nemeses as Frenchmen and women. And correct me if I'm wrong, but ardent supporters of those rights in the political field, such as Georges Danton, sat on the LEFT side of French assembly houses, hence the term. And let's see, Alexander Hamilton, a rightist of his time and place, OPPOSED the Bill of Rights! Hmm, gee I wonder, who, oh who must have pushed for that Bill of Rights? Well, if Hamilton the rightist opposed it, then maybe it was the left of that particular time and place? You think? Thus, both the creation in Europe and the maintenance in America of individual liberties come from the leftists of the past, the recent past, and even the current time, as I've argued, are thanks to filthy, puking leftists.

As foot-notes:

1) Morocco did not oppose, and technically invited, the American military presence in 1942. The World War II analogies don't work. That was there and then, this is here and now. History is not the present, it is the past.

2) The pronunciation of Iraq is not the same as Paris. Paris in English is Paris. Roma in English is Rome. Deutschland in English is Germany, Espana is Spain, (please forgive the lack of an appropriate diacritical mark), Eire is Ireland, Italia is Italy. Those things are all fine. EYE-rack is not the English word for Iraq. Saying EYE-rack is roughly the same as saying, "last night I had EYE-talian food at the Olive Garden." Which has more than a grain of truth.

3) Hussein has been removed from power. Fine. But there was nothing altruistic about the U.S. government and military initiating his removal. When a consigliare wants a Capo whacked, he gets whacked. It had nothing to do with the fact that the Capo was selling drugs to children in his own mother's neighborhood. All I've asked is that the administration, for once, tell the truth about why it went to war. Improving the lives of Iraqis no longer under Hussein wasn't it. They could give a damn about the lives of Iraqis. That was an unintended consequence. I doubt, for that matter, the Iraqis killed by American bombs and various other American weapons of mass destruction feel all that liberated. Whether or not Iraq was truly liberated has yet to be seen. It depends on what follows. An American puppet state won't protect the liberties of Iraqi's, seeing as Hussein didn't back when he was still taking orders from Washington. There's good in this, and there's also bad. How much bad remains to be determined. Bad in that the administration has lied to the American people and the world. Bad in that civilians were killed. Bad in that American military personnel lost their lives, and their families will never see them again.

4) I do not believe the UN is a cesspool. I think it's a good step toward a single world government. The kinks have yet to be worked out, but these things take time.

5) World opinion is not irrelevant. Americans, though many of them seem to think so lately, are not on this planet alone. We live with other nations. I think we should work with them rather than against them.

6) Dictators are problematic. Perhaps working with the international community might alleviate that.

7) As to salving the fragile egos of the Middle East, it's got nothing to do with that. I'm just tired of people who reveal and indeed revel in their ignorance with gratuitous mispronunciation.

I was unaware that I was guilty of moral finger-pointing. I was careful to limit my comment to the pathetic leftist protestors, not merely leftists in general. I notice that you did not challenge the other parts of that sentence, so I assume that you agree with the fact that the UN is a cesspool, and world opinion is irrelevant in regard to the cynical European governments and third world dictators.

And, I was unaware that leftists had anything to do with all those liberties I like so much. Did socialists write the Constitution and Bill of Rights? I imagine it would read rather differently if they had. Socialists didn't exist until after Babeuf (and weren't even called that until Owen), and the left began with the French revolution. The Constitution was written two years before that began. The only significant "new" rights since then came out of the civil war, and that was hardly a leftist enterprise. Abolition and Civil Rights were largely Christian in their origins. And, it seems odd that all these people are mistakenly calling themselves leftists and communists despite your conviction that they are not.

As for Iraq, why did we ruthlessly invade Morocco in '42? They had never invaded us. As for Afghanistan, it was the home of all those Al Qaeda training camps, and the Taliban was in tight with bin Laden. Afghanistan did not attack us, true, but it harbored those who did. And I guess we were completely wrong to liberate Iraq. We should find Saddam, apologize, and reinstall him in Iraq, so his son can go back to feeding dissidents into wood chippers feet first. Is it impossible for you to imagine that there might be good in this, and that the effect on the Iraqi people is net positive?

Most of the hijackers were Saudis. And I think the time or reckoning for Saudi Arabia is long overdue.

Buckethead wrote that, "The UN is a cesspool, and world opinion is irelevant when it is being generated by cynical european governments, third world dictators and pathetic leftist protestors." Really, do tell? You know, a lot of those freedoms you're fond of might not exist had it not been for leftist protest at various points in recent history. Admittedly, there are people these days masquerading as leftists who want to restrict various freedoms and make us wear helmets, but as I'm reiterating, those people constitute le gauche faux.

Buckethead also wrote that, "We were attacked, and we are taking steps to assure that it does not happen again." Indeed? When did Iraq attack the United States?

For that matter, the U.S. appeared unable to offer any solid, hard evidence that Afghanistan in fact had a hand in attacking the United States. Most of those hijackers were Saudis. What the attackers of 11 September 2001 did was extremely wrong, but I will not belabor this point as I've tired of this moral finger-pointing that tends to go on with this blog. But I'll point my finger one last time and say that what the U.S. did was wrong, too. There was no verifiable evidence that the nations the United States has attacked had anything to do with the attack on the U.S. itself.

Buckethead writes: 

Mike and I may differ on what services should be provided to the poor, but I think he'll agree that we should not be giving handouts to people who own their homes, have investment portfolios, and a pension.

Damn straight.
 

Okay. Clarification noted.

As far as semantic arguments over what is and is not an empire go, I tend to fall on the side of the dictionary - if you rule it, own it, use it for your economic purposes without particularly caring what happens to the subject population, you're talking empire. Much as I abhor the term "American Global Hegemony" it is more accurate. We have power, influence and what not coming out of our ears, more in fact than we quite know what to do with. We are first, second and third among equals. But we haven't created an empire. 

Going halfway around the world to terminate the leader of a nation that pissed us off may be uppity, forceful, arrogant, domineering, renegade, of doubtful wisdom, wrong or even evil. But if after we do, we give it back, it's not imperial. Perhaps its more like empire's kindler, gentler, third cousin twice removed on the maternal side. And she has a great personality. 

And as for blogging politesse, I just wanted to assure all of my fellow tuppenny pundits that what I have done up to this point is not an attack on the morals, intelligence, ancestry, judgment, honor, personal grooming habits or sexual orientation of anyone. That way, when I do make a personal attack, it will be obvious that that was what I wanted to do. 

"Cultural Historian," huh? I heard that cultural historians were four-flushing, devious, deviant, dimwitted pinheads who couldn't narrate their way out of a wet paper sack. And that when they weren't failing to write even mediocre history, they spent their time engaged in questionable unsafe same sex practices with their aunt-mothers, brother-fathers, and any filthy goat that happens to be wandering by. And they have the perspicacity, good sense and wisdom of a retarded paint chip on crack.

Like Mike, I should like to say that I don't mean any of what I write as an assault on anyone in particular. (If I am assaulting anyone, I'll be specific.) I tend to come across a bit stronger in writing than I do in person.