Border Security? Unrealistic. Solution: Invade the World!

I ran across this debate over on Vox Day's blog. Putting aside his sophomoric attempts to slap a poster attempting to expose the agenda of the neoconservatives with the trusty "anti-semite" label, I want to draw your attention to Brian's comments, particularly with respect to immigration policy in the context of national security and the Iraq war.

Gregg, a fellow poster, asks what seems to me a perfectly legitimate question:

Riddle me this - If the Bush admin is so concerned about Terrorists, why doesn't he shut down the borders, get rid of driver license for illegal aliens and put a watch on all foregn visa's and kick them out when they expire. Do you think invading Iraq is a better option?

Brian's response?

So you think that we have sufficient manpower to seal the borders? How many people do you think that would take? We can't keep criminals off the streets in NYC with an enormous police force.

The fact that we would most definitely have "sufficient manpower" to stop the chaos at the borders if our troops weren't spread all around the globe defending borders in Europe, Iraq, and Korea doesn't seem to dawn on our friend. No, substantial immigration reform is, in a word, "unrealistic".

What is not unrealistic? Our current foreign policy - the idea of "transforming the Middle East" by spreading "freedom" and "democracy" by the force of arms, attempting to transplant political institutions developed over thousands of years in the Christian West to a part of the world that has never known it -- all because, we're told, America will not be safe until the Arab world has been "liberated". In other words, as Murray Rothbard put it in his cogent analysis of neocon foreign policy, "Invade the World!"

This view is, most importantly, an ahistorical one - there have been despotisms, not just in the Arab world, but all around the world since the founding of the Republic, yet this nation has been secure. A "world democratic revolution" propagated by a series of American military adventures will not cure terrorism, it will cause more of it. The terrorists do not hate us for our freedoms, co-ed education, or Las Vegas. They hate us for our policies. Until we recognize that we will be caught in a cycle of perpetual war with no way out.

Hopefully, Lasting Influence is a Fitting Enough Tribute

I haven’t been doing my fair share of the writing around here lately, and I’m aware of that. I’ll spare you with a drawn out apology about work schedules and my personal life and simply say that with everything going on, this venture seemed to lose a bit of importance, in the grand scheme of things.

News I received yesterday changed that opinion and made me realize how important what James and I are doing is. That news was James telling me that Sam Francis had died.

To explain why exactly someone like me would be stirred by the death of someone whom I’ve never met and only knew in the most tangential of senses, I need to revisit the death of perhaps the most prominent conservative of all time, Ronald Reagan.

I was in my car listening to the radio on New Jersey State Highway 184 heading towards my home town of Perth Amboy when I heard the news. The fact that I remember that shows that it hit me pretty quickly and at decent force. Having hardly been conscious of the world around me when he concluded his presidency, I felt slightly awkward at feeling upset over the death of a public figure. I didn’t know them personally, they knew nothing of me. Why would it be of any more than passing concern? I tried to reason this out when talking with a friend about it and I reached the following conclusion: it was so upsetting because one of the few people in the world who stood for something good is gone, and there is no replacement in sight.

The same can be said about the death of Sam Francis.

He was a rare combination of someone who was both intelligent, on target in their view of the world, aggressive in defending their position and knowing that they’re right, and completely unwilling to compromise, even in the face of repercussions. There are precious few people about whom all of the aforementioned characteristics apply.

My first exposure to his writing came when James, an avid reader of his, suggested I put him down on our YAF conference evaluation form as a speaker we’d like to see at future conferences. I balked because I was unfamiliar with him and his writing, which James supplemented by sending me some of his writing that he felt was pertinent to my views from Vdare.com. I was won over instantly and can credit Sam Francis as a very meaningful influence of the writing you’ve seen here.

Once again, one of the few people in the world who stood for something good is gone. And while no true replacement will ever really materialize, I can attest that this site will do its utmost to do what he did: portray the world as it really is, intelligently and rightly, and never once compromise in the knowledge of being in the right. The Last Angry Men could never hope to be as well versed as Sam Francis, can only dream of his success, but will always keep his message alive, and do its best to be among the few promoting the good in the world today.

In Memory of Sam Francis

Samuel Francis (1947 - 2005)

On Tuesday night, Dr. Samuel Francis passed away from heart surgery complications. Francis, an outspoken conservative and syndicated columnist, was a steadfast ally in the fight against incessant global interventionism, big government, and mass immigration.

Dr. Francis was a man of courage, the type of gentleman who held steadfast to principle in the face of predictable left-wing denunciations and attempts by the right-wing establishment to purge him from mainstream political discussion.

As someone who has attended three week-long summer events put on by the Young America's Foundation, I will never forget a Francis column, penned in the summer of 2003, on the conservative movement's youth. I read the piece just after I got back from attending the 25th National Conservative Student Conference in Washington, D.C., where Anthony and myself met a vast assortment of Bushites, big government idolaters, and Republican party apologists. It rang true then and still rings true today.

As the neoconservatives agitate for more war in the Middle East, our borders are inundated with a flood of illegal aliens, and the Constitution is trampled in the name of "security", it becomes clear just how badly we need more men like Sam Francis. He will be sorely missed.

Related:

VDARE.com's Peter Brimelow on Francis

Dan Flynn on Sam Francis

Chronicles' Tom Fleming on Francis

Jared Taylor on Francis

The Death of the Republican Revolution

In 1994, Republicans wrested control of Congress from the Democrats for the first time in generations. Running on an ambitious platform, Republicans pledged to make the federal government more fiscally accountable, reform the welfare system, pass a balanced-budget amendment, institute Congressional term limits, and generally roll back big government.

Over ten years later, many of the dreams that accompanied that political earthquake have been dashed, as a Republican President and a Republican-controlled Congress pass all sorts of entitlement programs, farm subsidies, corporate welfare, and increase the size of federal government at a rate unseen since Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society."

The New York Times had an interesting piece on this over the weekend:

If the history of the Republican revolution were being written today, a single overarching question would have to be answered: Whatever happened to the promise of smaller government?

Answer? Intimidated by the public response to the 1995 government shutdown and yearning to continue to hold the reigns of political power, the Republicans tossed the promises out the window in a proverbial orgy of spending, waste, and pork. This graphic, from the New York Times, really says it all.

Meet your new Attorney General

As expected, last week the Senate confirmed Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States. Unfortunately, school and family obligations prevented me from building on part I of my conservative case against Gonzales' confirmation.

Although now it's too late, I believe its important for the American people to know about Mr. Gonzales' views on some very important issues - the Constitution, executive power, abortion, racial preferences, and illegal immigration to name just a few.

Race Preferences

Attorney General Gonzales is a staunch supporter of race preferences. As I noted last month, Gonzales played an instrumental role in watering-down the Bush Administration's legal brief in the University of Michigan race preferences cases (Gratz and Grutter).

Illegal Immigration

Gonzales believes, in a quite Orwellian fashion, that illegal immigrants are "lawful citizens" (beats me, I'm still scratching my head). This view undoubtedly inspired professional Hispanic advocacy group, The National Council of La Raza, to issue this endorsement.

Abortion

Last week marked the 32nd anniversary of one of the most blatant and flagrant acts of judicial imperialism in the history of the United States - I'm referring, of course, to Roe v. Wade, which completely usurped the rights of states and local communities to regulate abortion.

One of the major arguments put forth by conservative proponents of President Bush's reelection was the terrifying idea of John Kerry appointing three or four justices to the Supreme Court. In order to prevent such a disaster from happening Kerry had to be stopped by all means (conveniently ignored is the fact that seven of the nine justices currently on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republican Presidents). Conservatives then, no matter how disgusted they were with Bush's fiscal irresponsibility, pandering on illegal immigration, and big government policies, were obligated to vote for him.

Enter Alberto Gonzales. When asked during his confirmation hearing for his views on Roe v. Wade, Gonzales replied:

Of course, the Supreme Court has recognized a right of privacy in our Constitution, and in Roe the court held that that right of privacy includes a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. A little over a decade ago, the court, in Casey, had an opportunity to revisit that issue. They made a -- they declined to overturn Roe, and of course made a new standard that any restriction that constituted an "undue burden" on a woman's right to choose could not be sustained. My judgment is that the court has had an opportunity -- ample opportunities -- to look at this issue. It has declined to do so. And as far as I'm concerned, it is the law of the land and I will enforce it.

A pretty remarkable statement from a nominee of a supposedly "pro-life" President - Of course, as I've documented elsewhere, the idea that this President is some sort of radical pro-lifer, hell bent on rolling back abortion rights, is just not supported by any rational consideration of the evidence.

Where are the conservatives in all of this? One can only echo 2004 Constitution Party Presidential candidate Michael Peroutka, who asks:

Where’s the outrage at Judge Gonzales’ refusal to say anything critical of the Roe v. Wade decision which is, arguably, the most appalling, un-Constitutional example of “judicial activism” in Supreme Court history --- a decision which simply invented a “right to privacy” which has resulted in the killing/murder of more than 40 million innocent unborn babies?

Its a good question and I'd love to hear a legitimate response to it that does not include the obligatory gestations about "the lesser of two evils" and fear mongering about the specter of a Kerry Administration. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a Kerry nominee responding to the question in any other way - American conservatives voted for this? Remarkable.

The Constitution and Executive Power

Aside from his strident support of Roe, perhaps the most disturbing thing about Gonzales are his views on the Constitution and executive power. In 2002, Gonzales cleared a US Department of Justice memorandum which argued that laws banning torture do "not apply to the president's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants" - a blatant assault on the principles enunciated not only in the Constitution, but Magna Carta as well - the idea that no one, not even Presidents are above the law. When given a chance to fully state his position during the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearing, Gonzales had this exchage with Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT):

SEN. LEAHY: Well, let me then ask you: If you’re going to be attorney general, and I’ll accept what you said, then let’s put on the hat, if you’re going to be confirmed as attorney general. The Bybee memo concludes that a president has authority as commander in chief to override domestic and international law as prohibiting torture and can immunize from prosecution anyone — anyone — who commits torture under his act; whether legal or not, he can immunize them. Now, as attorney general, would you believe the president has the authority to exercise a commander-in-chief override and immunize acts of torture?

MR. GONZALES: First of all, sir, the president has said we’re not going to engage in torture under any circumstances. And so you’re asking me to answer a hypothetical that is never going to occur. This president has said we’re not going to engage in torture under any circumstances, and therefore, that portion of the opinion was unnecessary and was the reason that we asked that that portion be withdrawn.

SEN. LEAHY: But I’m trying to think what type of opinions you might give as attorney general. Do you agree with that conclusion?

MR. GONZALES: Sir, again —

SEN. LEAHY: You’re a lawyer, and you’ve held a position as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, you’ve been the president’s counsel, you’ve studied this issue deeply. Do you agree with that conclusion?

MR. GONZALES: Senator, I do believe there may come an occasion when the Congress might pass a statute that the president may view as unconstitutional. And that is a position and a view not just of this president, but many, many presidents from both sides of the aisle. Obviously, a decision as to whether or not to ignore a statute passed by Congress is a very, very serious one, and it would be one that I would spend a great deal of time and attention before arriving at a conclusion that in fact a president had the authority under the Constitution to —

SEN. LEAHY: Mr. Gonzales, I’d almost think that you’d served in the Senate, you’ve learned how to filibuster so well, because I asked a specific question: Does the president have the authority, in your judgment, to exercise a commander-in-chief override and immunize acts of torture?

MR. GONZALES: With all due respect, Senator, the president has said we’re not going to engage in torture. That is a hypothetical question that would involve an analysis of a great number of factors.

As distrubing as Gonzales' disregard for the principle of equality under the law and the idea that one man is above that law, was Gonzales' response to a series of Leahy questions centered on the issue of the indefinite detainment of so-called "enemy combatants", particularly when those "enemy combatants" happen to be American citizens. Apparently, ladies and gentlemen, "the people's attorney" believes the President of the United States has the power to slap the label "enemy combatant" on an American citizen, jail him or her, and essentially throw away the key - to hell with due process and access to legal counsel. Think I'm merely employing hyperbole? Think again.

SEN. LEAHY: I asked you if the president has that. Now in Hamdi, of course, they were talking about the -- oh, the AUMF, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. The Congress had voted on -- for military force in Afghanistan. Hamdi was picked up in Afghanistan.We had a second case, Padilla. There the court kind of punted it. They didn't answer the question. They said the jurisdiction was wrong; it was brought in the wrong court, should have been brought habeas corpus in another court.All I'm asking: Does the president -- the president -- today have the authority to hold a U.S. citizen incommunicado for an indefinite period of time in the United States?

MR. GONZALES: Well, the president does have the authority, under Hamdi -- that's what the court said -- is he could hold an American citizen -- let me be very, very clear. The United States government never took the position that a U.S. citizen detained by its government could not challenge the detention by the government.

SEN. LEAHY: But if you're held incommunicado and have no access to a lawyer or a court, isn't that kind of saying, "Yes, you could appeal to everywhere else, but we're not going to let you out of the cell, we're not going to let you talk to anybody, we're not going to let you have the court. We just want you to know you got all your rights."

MR. GONZALES: Senator, with -- respectfully, not only did Hamdi have access to the courts, he had such good access and such good representation by counsel that his case was heard all the way by the highest court in the land.And so the decision as to whether or not to provide access to counsel is probably one of the most difficult decisions that we have to confront, because there are competing interests here. As a lawyer, I have a great deal of concerns about not providing lawyers to American citizens that are being detained by this country. On the other hand, there's a competing interest of gathering information that this American citizen, this enemy combatant, may have information that may save the lives of American citizens. And our position has been -- is that we provide counsel as quickly as possible --

SEN. LEAHY: Well, that's --

MR. GONZALES: -- that the American citizen -- I'm sorry, Senator. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

SEN. LEAHY: No, no. I was just going to say we can go back to that, and we'll have to, because we're talking about a perfect world. If you do a dragnet, as we found out in some of these dragnets where people are held for a long time, we say, "Whoops, we got the wrong guy." We have --

SEN. SPECTER: Judge Gonzales, did you finish your last answer? Feel free, if you want to.

MR. GONZALES: That's fine. Thank you, Senator.

Conclusion

Needless to say, it will be interesting to monitor the exploits of Attorney General Gonzales over the course of the next four years. The prospects for those who adhere to the principles enunciated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights do not look particularly bright at this point. It is very clear that, unlike our forefathers, Gonzales believes the Constitution is a "living" document and that the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are essentially malleable to the changing of the political wind.

That this is a repudiation of historic conservative political philosophy should be obvious to any rational person no matter their ideological persuasion. Conservatives have traditionally held that our God-given rights are, as the Declaration of Independence declares, inalienable and that the only legitimate function of the state is protect those rights. Gonzales does not believe this and therefore he is simply not a conservative - no matter how many times Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh might claim otherwise.

Addendum (2/15/2005)

Not that this comes as any sort of surprise, but apparently Alberto Gonzales doesn't have much use for another one of the first ten amendments to our Constitution - the second:

The president has made it clear that he stands ready to sign a reauthorization of the federal assault weapons ban if it is sent to him by Congress. I, of course, support the president on this issues.

I like the Southern Party of Georgia's response:

This is disturbing. The Bush Administration nominee for Attorney General has his own version of the 2nd Amendment. He apparently has made a slight modification to the wording contain the real Constitution. According to the Gonzales's version of the Second Amendment it reads:

" ... shall be infringed."

Folks the 2nd Amendment is so clear, " ... shall not be infringed." Our Founding Fathers could have come up with different wording ... For example they could have used something like " ... shall be determined by Congress." or " ... shall be determined by President." But they did not. Ooopppss there is that word that both Bush, Gonzales, and many Republican and Democratic members of Congress seem to overlook - "NOT."

Our Founding Fathers also made provisions for changing the Constitution, Bush and Gonzales should read these provisions. If they disagree with the existing 2nd Amendment they should propose an Amendment - they should NOT just ignore the existing Constitution.

Not that this President's and this Administration's ignorance of the Constitution is new. It was ignored when the President of the United States took this country to war against an impoverished third world nation, crippled by decades of economic sanctions without a declaration of war from Congress, when he signed campaign finance reform into law, and when he helped nationalize education by supporting and signing the No Child Left Behind Act. All indications point towards four more years of more of the same - more fiscal recklessness, more constriction on freedom at home while "expanding liberty" by force of arms abroad, and aggrandizement of power in the centralized state.

Our pledge, here at The Last Angry Men, is to do whatever we can to expose, oppose, and repel this breathtaking drift away from the philosophy that governed the founding of this Republic. In this effort there will be no sacred cows on the Left or Right and no placement of party over principle - only a dedication to exposing the truth about government power and human nature.

Paul against the Empire

Fortunately, there are still some members of Congress who truly get it - that the federal government is not omnipotent, that the Patriot Act represents a flagrant assault on the Bill of Rights, that fomenting a "democratic revolution" around the world is not one of the "limited and enumerated" powers delegated to the central state by Article I Section 8, and that the Tenth Amendment really does exist. One such member is Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx). A staunch defender of liberty under the traditional American definition, Paul is a medical doctor and was the 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for President.

On the topic of foreign policy Paul's views are in the tradition of Old Right stalwarts Garret Garrett and John T. Flynn. Adamantly non-interventionist, Paul often invokes the name George Washington when talking about the necessity of staying out of "entangling alliances" and Jefferson when advocating peace, trade, and friendship with the world's nations. Paul is one of the only members of Congress who sees the folly of the great project of "democratization" - "Democracy is not freedom," Paul writes, "Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom."

Paul opposes the war in Iraq and was one of only six GOP members of the House to vote against the resolution "authorizing the use of force" against Iraq - citing the fact that Congress illegally and unconstitutionally transferred its sole power to decide whether or not to take the nation to war to the President.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Paul even tried to bring the whole specter of "just war theory" into the debate. Arguing that the Iraq War violated the principles enunciated by St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Paul had a predictable run-in with resident Republican Party shill Sean Hannity on Fox News' debate show Hannity and Colmes:

HANNITY: [...] You have said the Christian definition of war doesn't fit in this example.

PAUL: That is correct.

HANNITY: Hang on. And you said, quote, "It says there has to be an act of aggression, and there has not been an act of aggression against the United States by Iraq." Well, by that definition, your Christian definition, I'm using your words...

PAUL: Not my Christian definition. It's been around since St.
Augustine.

HANNITY: All right, but -- but that's...

PAUL: Sean, you've got recognize that.

Well, Hannity never did, and probably never will "recognize that" - along with legions of other self-described conservatives and churchgoing "values voters" across the country. Rest assured though, they will sleep pleasantly tonight believing strongly that it doesn't matter that the war flouts these traditional concepts. You see, dear reader, all that matters now is that we're fighting for "democracy" and "freedom". The fact that this war was not legitimately declared and that Iraq was not an imminent threat to the United States doesn't mean a thing. Throw all of that out the window - the "global democratic revolution" is on the march and it does not look like its advocates will be halted by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or appeals to historic Christianity.

It's More Real than You Realize: Lynyrd Skynyrd and Conservative Pessimism

James related to me an incident from a North Carolina State University College Republicans meeting he attended. He and the speaker, whom he characterized as a “pro-choice, moderate Republican,” engaged in an exchange that saw the speaker call James too “pessimistic” and too “idealistic.”

I wasn’t aware that one could be a pessimistic idealist, but as I demonstrated in my last post, words get thrown about in mainstream politics with little, if any, regard for their denotations. Connotative meaning is much more highly valued (see: War on Terror, i.e., undeclared war on an abstract concept). But, I like to respond to criticisms, so I’ll take on one of the views of that speaker.

No, it won’t be that we’re pessimists. I can’t argue that. I’m a world-class pessimist, and James still puts me to shame. Rather, I’d like to argue that we’re not really idealists.

Intellectuals can often run into a trap of being idealists. It’s not that hard; once you start dealing almost exclusively with theory and abstract concepts, it becomes too easy to structure your worldview based on them. James and I are fairly intellectual. Still, what we’re here to say isn’t idealistic; it’s simple, common-sense criticism grounded firmly in the very much real world of law and modern culture.

To show just how down to earth we are, I’m going to present to you a series of quotes demonstrating fears and concerns similar to ours from a source that could certainly not be accused of high-minded, intellectual idealism: Lynyrd Skynyrd.

For those who don’t know, Lynyrd Skynyrd is a Florida-based southern rock group that had a string of hits in the early to mid-seventies before a plane crash ended the band’s initial run. The surviving members and some replacements re-united in 1987 and the band continues to tour and release albums. Pre-1977 Skynyrd wrote songs from the perspective of young, rebellious Southerners singing about their real lives and perspectives. Indeed, some of their songs provide useful excerpts, for instance, “Things Goin’ On:”

Too many lives they've spent across the ocean.
Too much money been spent upon the moon.
Well, until they make it right,
I hope they never sleep at night.
They better make some changes,
And do it soon.

Or another, a ballad concerned with preserving the rural Southern way of life against the onslaught of urban and suburban sprawl, "All I Can Do Is Write About It:"

Do you like to see a mountain stream a-flowin'?
Do you like to see a young’un with his dog?
Did you ever stop to think about, well, the air you’re breathin'?
Well, you better listen to my song.
And Lord I can't make any changes;
All I can do is write 'em in a song.
I can see the concrete slowly creepin',
Lord take me and mine before that comes.

But for the purposes of this post, I’m more concerned with post-1987 Skynyrd. As they’ve aged, they’ve changed their tone to become a working man’s band, writing songs that would identify with their mostly older audience. The songs are mostly about workand traditional values, but they also provide a useful perspective into the working man’s fears about the world he’s living in.

For instance, take the song “All Funked Up” (“Funked” serving here as a euphemism for the “f” in “snafu"):

Tornados spinnin', I sit here grinnin';
I think we've all seen this movie before.
This is confusin', almost amusin';
It's hard to tell up and down anymore.
When did it get so crazy, how did we lose control?
Everybody’s shouting, how bad it really sucks.

Situation normal:
All funked up, We're all funked up.

We had some leaders, and they were cheaters,
But they came out smelling like a rose.
We should reject them, but we respect them
For what they do when the door is closed.
Nothing in this world a simple man can do;
Stand up and be counted, ain't you had enough?

In the same vein is “The Way:”

Well the sun don't shine where it used to,
And the angels are hidin' their heads.
People don't listen to their hearts anymore,
Seems the good men all are dead.
There ain't no right, wrong, no in between;
That ain't the constitution that they wrote for me.
Got our heads stuck in somethin' overseas,
Standin' ass-deep in hypocracy…

Why all these feelings of worry and disgust with the modern political climate? Because it offends their basic sensibilities. What are those? They’re summed up in “Red, White, and Blue:”

My Daddy worked hard, and so have I:
Paid our taxes and gave our lives
To serve this great country.
So what are they complaining about?

Yeah, we love our families, we love our kids;
You know it is love that makes us all so rich.
That's where we’re at,
If they don't like it they can just…
Get the hell out! Yeah!

My hair's turning white,
My neck's always been red,
My collar's still blue.
We've always been here,
Just trying to sing the truth to you.
Yes, you could say,
We've always been,
Red, White, and Blue.

Now, I’ve seen this version of Lynyrd Skynyrd live, and so has James. We can both attest that this is a band very much in tune with its enthusiastic fan base. The people at these concerts certainly agree with what’s being said in these songs. That’s a lot of patriotic people with solid values, who are hard workers. It’s also a lot of people who are unhappy with the direction things are taking in this country. A lot of pessimists.

Our complaints aren’t just ideological discontent. They’re very real fears about our present and our future. A lot of people out there feel the same way. We’re just trying to give it a voice.