Only 3 days left in April and it's snowing in Paradise. If I hear one word about draught or conserving water, I'll faint !!!
Another thing that makes me faint is our government's handling of the illegals problem. One of my favorite columnists is Victor Davis Hansen and his piece today is really worth the read.
I especially like this comment from one of his readers.....
8. steveaz
Thanks for this one, Victor.
I rub elbows with lefty academics all the time in Flagstaff, and the other night, between Tequila shots and fits of dancing to Santana’s latest disc, the issue of Mexicans’ immigration flows into the SW came up.
I asked a liberal acquaintance (she used to work for Jerry Torricelli’s campaigns in NJ) what the hang up was. Why, I asked, shouldn’t Mexico’s citizens line up to apply just like Polish, Indian, Russian and Chilean citizens have historically done. She said I was racist for asking.
But I wouldn’t drop it…I replied that the hang-up is Mexico’s citizens have never adopted the American Bill of Rights, and that if they did I’d be the first to push for El Norte’s unification with the Mexican South and to add one more star to our flag. My liberal friend turned pale, her mouth hung open, and she gasped for air like a landed lung-fish. She had never entertained the idea that there may something special about America, and something lacking in Mexicans’ traditional jurusprudence that might argue against permitting their un-documented immigration.
After blustering and waving her hands in the air, finally she blurted out, "Mexico would NEVER want to join America!" Of course, every Mexican national who crosses into Arizona, California or Texas is refuting her, and she knows it, but still she could not relinquish her liberal anti-American talking point. The seconds passed uninterrupted, and I let silence slowly make my point for me: my "liberal" fellow-citizen neither relishes the Bill of Rights that her political party claims to champion, nor does she thinks that any other person in the world should.
But there is one more juicy contradiction to note. When I floated the topic of unification with Mexico my interlocuter got flabbergasted: any extension of America’s Constitutional order, even if it is sanctioned by a public referendum in a neighboring state like Mexico, is to be opposed. This, she says, is "extending American Imperialism," and, furthermore, nations are oppressive, patriarchal constructs that should be dissolved in order to achieve "global harmony." Problem is, this registered Democrat (an American political party) cloaks her defense of illegal immigration in racialist terms that invoke "Hispanics," and "Latinos" as facile proxies for the Mexican nation and its government policies – which she has no problem whatsoever defending and extending.
So which is it? Is all nationalism bad, or is just American nationalism bad? Is Mexico’s socio-political tradition compatible with ours, or not? And, do Democrats revere our bill of rights, or is it just a Monopoly card for them – something to get them out of jail free, a property on Boardwalk, or a win in the next election?
From my liberal Democratic friend’s responses, I gather that so long as the target is America, so-called nationalism, immigrants’ cultures, and even our beloved "human rights" are ready pawns in the Left’s electoral games. But, turn the light onto other nations, other cultures, and other, non-American modes of jurisprudence, and suddenly all are sacrosanct, immune to scrutiny, and taboo.
Perhaps it’s her London School of Economics degree, or her Princeton education, or her tenure inside "the Torch’s" New Jersey political schemes, or her failed marriage to a black panther in the sixties, I’ll never know. But, with every shot of Tequilla, my arguer began to sound more and more like Edward Said, only she bandied about her version of his "Orientalism" to defend illegal immigration from scrutiny and not suicide bombings. Small difference, I know…but she is an East Coast Democrat. And there’s time a plenty to man the ramparts for Islamist terror later on.
Thanks for this one, Victor.
I rub elbows with lefty academics all the time in Flagstaff, and the other night, between Tequila shots and fits of dancing to Santana’s latest disc, the issue of Mexicans’ immigration flows into the SW came up.
I asked a liberal acquaintance (she used to work for Jerry Torricelli’s campaigns in NJ) what the hang up was. Why, I asked, shouldn’t Mexico’s citizens line up to apply just like Polish, Indian, Russian and Chilean citizens have historically done. She said I was racist for asking.
But I wouldn’t drop it…I replied that the hang-up is Mexico’s citizens have never adopted the American Bill of Rights, and that if they did I’d be the first to push for El Norte’s unification with the Mexican South and to add one more star to our flag. My liberal friend turned pale, her mouth hung open, and she gasped for air like a landed lung-fish. She had never entertained the idea that there may something special about America, and something lacking in Mexicans’ traditional jurusprudence that might argue against permitting their un-documented immigration.
After blustering and waving her hands in the air, finally she blurted out, "Mexico would NEVER want to join America!" Of course, every Mexican national who crosses into Arizona, California or Texas is refuting her, and she knows it, but still she could not relinquish her liberal anti-American talking point. The seconds passed uninterrupted, and I let silence slowly make my point for me: my "liberal" fellow-citizen neither relishes the Bill of Rights that her political party claims to champion, nor does she thinks that any other person in the world should.
But there is one more juicy contradiction to note. When I floated the topic of unification with Mexico my interlocuter got flabbergasted: any extension of America’s Constitutional order, even if it is sanctioned by a public referendum in a neighboring state like Mexico, is to be opposed. This, she says, is "extending American Imperialism," and, furthermore, nations are oppressive, patriarchal constructs that should be dissolved in order to achieve "global harmony." Problem is, this registered Democrat (an American political party) cloaks her defense of illegal immigration in racialist terms that invoke "Hispanics," and "Latinos" as facile proxies for the Mexican nation and its government policies – which she has no problem whatsoever defending and extending.
So which is it? Is all nationalism bad, or is just American nationalism bad? Is Mexico’s socio-political tradition compatible with ours, or not? And, do Democrats revere our bill of rights, or is it just a Monopoly card for them – something to get them out of jail free, a property on Boardwalk, or a win in the next election?
From my liberal Democratic friend’s responses, I gather that so long as the target is America, so-called nationalism, immigrants’ cultures, and even our beloved "human rights" are ready pawns in the Left’s electoral games. But, turn the light onto other nations, other cultures, and other, non-American modes of jurisprudence, and suddenly all are sacrosanct, immune to scrutiny, and taboo.
Perhaps it’s her London School of Economics degree, or her Princeton education, or her tenure inside "the Torch’s" New Jersey political schemes, or her failed marriage to a black panther in the sixties, I’ll never know. But, with every shot of Tequilla, my arguer began to sound more and more like Edward Said, only she bandied about her version of his "Orientalism" to defend illegal immigration from scrutiny and not suicide bombings. Small difference, I know…but she is an East Coast Democrat. And there’s time a plenty to man the ramparts for Islamist terror later on.
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