Miscellany 32: The Immigration Fiasco; Half of All Bankruptcies Caused by Our Medical System; Building Roads to Nowhere; Abrupt Climate Change; Racial Profiling; Spain’s Legacy of Corruption

Copyright © 2006 Joseph George Caldwell.  All rights reserved.  Posted at Internet website http://www.foundationwebsite.org.  May be copied or reposted for non-commercial use, with attribution to author and website.  (13 December 2006)

Contents

Miscellany 32: The Immigration Fiasco; Half of All Bankruptcies Caused by Our Medical System; Building Roads to Nowhere; Abrupt Climate Change; Racial Profiling; Spain’s Legacy of Corruption. 1

Miscellany: Commentary on Recent Events and Reading. 2

None of the Above. 2

The US Can’t Deport Chinese Illegal Immigrants! 3

Gov. Bill Richardson Seeks Pardon for Mexican Illegal-Alien Criminal 3

One out of Seven Mexican Workers Now in US. 5

Half of All US Bankruptcies Caused by Our Medical System.. 5

Milton Friedman Dies. 6

Remembering General George S. Patton. 9

Another Euphemism: Low Food Security. 9

Easy Credit 10

US Government Loses 111,000 Immigration Files. 11

Building Roads to Nowhere. 12

Country of 300 Million Cannot Field Army of 150 Thousand?. 12

The Iraq Study Group Report 14

Some Interesting Reading. 15

Never Complain, Never Explain, and Never Apologize. 16

Alcohol Percentages Disappearing from Beer and Wine Labels. 18

Jewish Ban on Christmas Trees. 19

Hoover Vacuums Sold to Foreign Firm.. 20

Groupers Are Friends. 20

Abrupt Climate Change: Imagining the Unthinkable. 21

Quote of the Day. 21

Effects of Mass Immigration to America: Cultural Destruction, Genital Mutilation, Environmental Destruction, Overcrowding, Murder 22

Spain’s Legacy of Corruption. 24

The Grand Deception about Mass Immigration. 29

The Debate over Racial Profiling Continues. 33

The US Population Explosion. 38

Miscellany: Commentary on Recent Events and Reading

None of the Above

On the November 11, 2006, edition of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight television program, a viewer sent an e-mail expressing observing that in the recent midterm election (on November 7), the American people had thrown out the Republicans and elected Democrats in their place, since the Republicans were doing a sorry job of running the country.  The viewer went on to say that in the next election, if the Democrats do not do a good job, then we will throw them out and re-elect Republicans!

Is this guy an idiot, or what?  What good is accomplished by replacing parties that do not perform by previous parties that did not perform?  After they have both been replaced with each other, several times, is it not patently obvious that both parties and the democratic system that they perpetuate and that perpetuates them, are fatally flawed?  Can he not see that the Republicans and the Democrats are made from the same cloth – that both parties support the wealthy elite that own and control the country, and that it does not make a whit of difference with respect to anything important (e.g., stopping the destruction of the environment, stopping the mass extinction of species, stopping global warming) which party is in charge of the Presidency or Congress?

The US Can’t Deport Chinese Illegal Immigrants!

On the October 30, 2006, edition of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight television program, Lou Dobbs reported that there are now an estimated 40,000 illegal Chinese aliens in this country, and that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Service has deported only 600 of them.  Why has ICE not deported all of them?  Well, it turns out that China refuses to take back any Chinese deportee unless we can prove that he is Chinese!

Lou Dobbs keeps repeating that our leaders are idiots.  This is very plain.  They are acting like the guests of the Mad Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland.

We don’t have to prove anything to anybody.  If a person cannot prove that he is a US citizen, then give him 30 days to leave the country, or else face lifetime hard labor in a rural labor camp.  Very quickly, all of the 40,000 Chinese illegal aliens would be gone.

Gov. Bill Richardson Seeks Pardon for Mexican Illegal-Alien Criminal

Every few nights, Lou Dobbs reminds us of the case of Elvira Arellano, a Mexican criminal who has taken refuge in a Chicago Church.  She sneaked into the US a number of years ago and had a baby who has been granted US citizenship under the US insane and misguided – and unconstitutional – policy of granting automatic “birthright” citizenship to any person born on US soil.  She now pleads to be allowed to remain in the US with her citizen son.

The cowardly Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service has refused to deport her, claiming that they have more important things to do.

Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico recently added a new twist to this drama.  On the December 4, 2006, edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Gov. Richardson stated that he has sent a letter to the President requesting that he pardon Arellano, on the grounds that it will be a hardship on her US-citizen son if she is deported and she chooses to leave him here in the US.  This is insane!  It is hard to believe that this is the same Bill Richardson who a few months ago declared a state of emergency in New Mexico from the mass invasion of illegal aliens from Mexico.

Lou Dobbs pointed out that several million “anchor babies” have now been born to illegal aliens.  Does Richardson propose pardoning of all of their criminal parents, too?  Under the US Constitution, birthright citizenship is to be granted only to children of parents under the jurisdiction of the US government – it was never intended to grant US citizenship to the children of every Mexican whore who slips into the US and has a baby.

I have a better idea.  Let’s strip all of the anchor babies of their US citizenship, which, according to the US Constitution, should never have been granted in the first place, and summarily deport them, along with their criminal parents.

A few nights ago (about December 7), Governor Richardson appeared on the Loub Dobbs program (a speech at Georgetown University?), decrying the construction of a fence / wall between the US and Mexico, to keep illegal aliens from invading across the US/Mexico border.  This is a rather unusual position, from the same governor who a few months ago had declared a state of emergency from the flood of illegal aliens from Mexico into his state.  Richardson is contemplating running for President in 2008, and so he is evidently now trying to appease the Hispanic segment of the population.  That would explain his unusual position on the border fence, and his attempt to have Arellano pardoned.  A politician can change his color faster than a chameleon!

Richardson asserted that the fence would not work, and that it would hurt our relationship with Mexico (as if the latter matters a whit!).  As I have written before, of course the fence will not work – that is why the US government is building it (to appear to be doing something about illegal immigration, but in fact doing nothing that will reduce immigration levels, either legal or illegal; spending much money (as in the war in Iraq) to keep the economy going – and the US severely burdened US middle class working even harder!).  If Richardson were a member of the wealthy elite, he would realize that the fence is just a boondoggle project for the construction industry, and that its purpose is not to reduce total immigration.  Perhaps he does realize this, and just isn’t saying so, to appease illegal aliens and the Mexican government.

One out of Seven Mexican Workers Now in US

Lou Dobbs cited an interesting statistic a few nights ago.  It is now the case that one out of every seven employed Mexicans now works in the US.

Half of All US Bankruptcies Caused by Our Medical System

On the December 12, 2006, edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, it was reported that half of all bankruptcies in the US are caused by inability to pay medical bills.  Under our perverse system of insurance-based medical care, medical costs have skyrocketed to the point where almost no one can afford care, unless he has medical insurance.  Unfortunately, the cost of medical insurance is now so high (twelve thousand dollars per year for a family) that few can afford it unless their employer offers it as a fringe benefit.  And, under the current system of massive international free trade, in which US employers paying ten to twenty dollars an hour must compete with foreign labor earning 30-50 cents per hour, many employers are now ending health insurance coverage for their employees.  Lou Dobbs reported that an estimated 47 million US workers now have no health insurance.  The only prospect for many middle-class US families to obtain access to medical care is to lose all of its assets, so that it qualifies for indigent care (Medicaid).

US medical costs are now so high that many uninsured families will lose all of their assets, including their homes, upon their first major medical incident.  Under the US system of medical insurance, the US government guarantees million-dollar incomes to doctors, while millions of citizens have no access to care at all.  The rotten US medical system serves only the wealthy elite.  The system transfers billions of dollars of taxpayer money to physicians, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and medical equipment manufacturers, while denying most citizens access to basic medical care at reasonable cost.

Milton Friedman Dies

The American economist Milton Friedman died on November 16, 2006, at age 94.  He was the twentieth century’s most outspoken proponent of laissez-faire capitalism.

Mr. Friedman dedicated his life to promoting the concept of expanding economic productivity and economic efficiency.  This economic-based philosophy has been embraced by all of the world’s nations.  Very regrettably, this approach to government is destroying the biosphere.  As the noted mathematician and economist John Maynard Keynes observed, economics is a pernicious system that cannot last.

Keynes observed (in his 1930 essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”) the fatal limitations of economics as a long-term basis for human society:

“Some day we may return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue – that avarice is a vice, that the extraction of usury is a misdemeanor, and the love of money is detestable.  But beware!   The time for all this is not yet.  For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not.  Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little while longer.”

Milton Friedman’s laissez-faire capitalism is now in the process of destroying the US middle class.  His views are correct that laissez-faire capitalism increases economic production and efficiency (more goods produced for the same cost, or the same goods produced for less cost).  Unfortunately for the US middle class, there is no way that they can retain high salaries, when, under massive international free trade, they must compete with workers in Third World countries who are making 30-50 cents a day (compared to their 10-20 dollars per day).  But Friedman cared nothing about quality of life for Americans – all he cared about was increasing economic activity and economic efficiency.

Middle-class Americans could be well off in 1950, when they did not compete with the world’s poor.  Then, American families could afford a house and a car, with only one parent working.  Now that America has transferred its technology to the rest of the world, workers in Third-World countries can be as productive as US workers.  Without abandoning massive international free trade (in this case, tariffs to equalize the cost of labor), the wages of US workers must fall to those of the Third World.  Now, both adults in a family must work, and many middle-class families will never own their own home.  Friedman’s philosophy will eventually transform the US into a Third World country.  But he would be very happy.  Economic activity and economic efficiency will have increased.  As Friedman would argue, everyone will be better off – on average!  But the quality of life for the American middle class will have been destroyed, as they are forced to lower their wages to Third-World levels.

More than any other single person, Milton Friedman, as the world’s greatest promoter of laissez-faire economics, will have been responsible for the death of the American middle class.

It is interesting to note that Friedman was a Jew.  It is the Jews who lobbied hardest for passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which flooded America with millions of immigrants from nonNorth-European cultures.  That Act has done more to destroy US culture and US environment than any other single piece of American legislation.  That Act destroyed the US culturally and environmentally.  Friedman’s economic philosophy has destroyed the quality of life for the American middle class.  In view of the fact that Jews represent a very small proportion of the US population, it seems more than coincidence that these two phenomena were promoted mainly by Jews.  And it is a fact that the US entertainment industry, controlled by Jews, produces many films promoting the destruction of US Christian culture and morality (e.g., American Christians, but not American Jews, in homosexual, bisexual, and interracial relationships).  In view of their small representation in the population, the fact that the strongest efforts aimed at weakening or destroying American culture and environment have been spearheaded or funded by Jews lends credence to the assertion, as some have charged, that the Jews, as a group, are attempting to weaken or destroy American culture.  Have these efforts been undertaken simply to control US policy toward Israel, or is something more sinister going on?

Remembering General George S. Patton

This past week I watched the movie, Patton.  This is one of my favorite films, recounting General George S. Patton’s role in commanding US armies in North Africa, Sicily, and Europe during the Second World War.  Perhaps my favorite quote from the movie is: “Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance.”

There is a memorable scene in the film in which General Omar Bradley is expressing his disapproval of Patton’s aggressive approach in the Sicily operations, in which he drove his men mercilessly toward victory: “There’s one big difference between you and me, George.  I do this job because I am trained to do it.  You do it because you love it!”

Another Euphemism: Low Food Security

On the November 16, 2006, edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Lou Dobbs ridiculed the introduction of yet another euphemism – “low food security.”  What was so very wrong with the words, “poor” and “hungry”?

Easy Credit

For years, banks, credit-card companies, and loan companies have been extending easy credit to millions of Americans, even though they have no ability to pay.  Ads abound offering loans to people with bad credit.  The interest rates and fees charged on credit are astronomical – routinely 20 percent, and sometimes as high as 21,000 percent (see Time magazine, How Credit Cards Soak You, by Daniel Kadlec, October 23, 2006).  So-called “payday” loan companies routinely charge about one-thousand percent annual interest.

Many young families are deluged with offers of easy credit, which is nearly impossible to resist.  The offers fill Internet web pages and mailboxes, every day.  A major reason why middle-class households get into financial trouble is medical expense.  Half of all bankruptcies in the US are because of medical bills, which are absurdly high because of America’s medical insurance program, which transfers massive amounts of money from the middle class to health-care providers.  Middle-class Americans can no longer afford medical care, which has been priced way beyond their means by failed US government policies.  It is just a matter of time until, unable to obtain medical care, they succumb to the incessant temptation of easy credit.  Very soon, many of them cannot pay even the interest on their accumulated debt.  Many Americans have now taken out “home-equity” loans, so that the once common goal of owning one’s own home upon retirement is now beyond reach for many.

If these usurers want to extend easy credit to people who are not creditworthy, that is fine.  But they should risk losing their foolish investment.  Instead, the US government provides the full force of the law in attaching their assets, homes and incomes of the hapless debtors.  This is not a morally defensible use of taxpayer money.

US Government Loses 111,000 Immigration Files

It was reported on the November 30, 2006, edition of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight (and the Spartanburg Herald Journal) that the Citizenship and Immigration Services has lost the records of 111 thousand applicants for US citizenship.  So what did it do?  Request that the applicants resubmit the information?  Of course not – it simply went ahead and granted citizenship to 30,000 people whose records were lost.

US citizenship is now regarded by the US government simply as a means of increasing the population by one percent per year, to increase the size of the economy and the income and wealth of the wealthy elite who own the country.  It awards citizenship to up to a million people each year, including 50,000 in a “lottery,” and thousands of “anchor babies” (“birthright” citizenship granted to anyone born on US soil, even to those of illegal aliens (criminals)).  The US government is now pressing for to place the 12-20 million illegal aliens now present in the country – criminals who have broken US immigration laws – on a “path to citizenship.”

Have the employees of the CIS been punished for losing the 111,000 files, or for their unwarranted granting of US citizenship to 30,000 people?  I doubt it very much.  Perhaps, as punishment, 30,000 members of the CIS should be exiled to the countries of the people to whom they so cavalierly gave US citizenship.  Then they might learn to value it a little more that they evidently do today.

Now that US citizenship is valued only for its monetary use, the fall of the country is not far off.

Building Roads to Nowhere

On a recent trip through a new part of town, I was struck by the massive amount of road-building that is going on, as the country erects the infrastructure to accommodate its exploding immigrant population.  This is so foolish.  Within 50 years, all of the planet’s petroleum reserves will be exhausted, the industrialized world will be gone, most of the world’s population will be gone, and these roads will be empty.

It is a tragic waste for the nations of the world to expend the energy from a one-time windfall of fossil fuels on a few generations of human beings, investing in things that will have no long-term value or consequence.

Country of 300 Million Cannot Field Army of 150 Thousand?

On the December 4, 2006 presentation of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, the observation was made that it is remarkable that a country of 300 million cannot afford to field an army of 150 thousand soldiers in Iraq, without experiencing severe difficulty.  What is wrong here?

Just as in the war in Vietnam, the US government is fighting a no-win war in Iraq.  Centuries ago, Machiavelli described the three ways in which a defeated enemy may be administered (“winning the peace”): (1) kill everyone (as the Romans did to the Carthaginians, or the Jews did in the Promised Land); (2) flood the conquered country with your own people (as China is now doing in Tibet); or (3) set up “puppet” governments of strong local families who are beholden to you for their support, and let them administer the country any way they wish, as long as they pay suitable homage (in this case, give us access to Iraqi oil).  The US has not adopted any of these three approaches, and it will not, and it will therefore lose the war.

The US government is spending about 100 billion dollars a year, or one-third of a billion dollars a day, on the war in Iraq.  It is spending this much because it has adopted a very high-cost, high-technology approach to warfare (e.g., cruise missiles, fancy electronic systems, jet fighters).  Unfortunately, these sophisticated weapons are pretty much useless against guerrilla warfare, as was previously encountered in Vietnam and is now encountered in Iraq.

The use of inappropriate weaponry, strategy and tactics in this asymmetric conflict is not, however, the reason why we are not winning.  Quite apart from the use of inappropriate weaponry, strategy and tactics, the US government is losing the war (or peace) in Iraq because it has no intention of applying Machiavelli’s principles to win it.  It simply chooses, no matter what the circumstances, to send very expensive high-tech soldiers into combat to be blown to bits by home-made bombs, and 150 thousand of those high-tech soldiers are all that it can afford.  It is just pigheadedly “going through the motions” of waging war / peace the way that it wants to, without a passionate commitment to achieving the goal of victory, and without applying much common sense in the principles of the “art of war.”  It could field a low-cost army of a million soldiers instead, but it would still lose, because it would still not be following Machiavelli’s dictates.

The US government has told many lies about the war – that its purpose was to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, that it was to combat terrorism, and that it was to bring democracy to the Iraqi “people,” when the real reason was to obtain access to Iraqi oil.  Now that all of these purported objectives have been shown to be irrelevant or unachievable, one might expect it simply to walk away, since it does not appear to be willing to change strategy / tactics.  But it cannot easily do this, because it wants the oil – the unstated reason for the war.  To continue to “stay the course” at this point, it would now, finally, have to admit the real reason for starting the war, since all of the other reasons have been shown to be irrelevant or unachievable.

The Iraq Study Group Report

Last Wednesday (December 6, 2006), the Iraq Study Group issued its report on its assessment of the war in Iraq, and recommendations.  As I recall, the Group has been meeting for nine months on this effort.  From the summaries that I have read in the press, it does not appear that they understand the problem, or have fresh ideas.  They suggest that the US reduce its combat role to an advisory / training role, and let the Iraqis do the fighting.  Fighting for what?  Iraq is not a “people”; it is a collection of diverse ethnic groups who hate each other.  Iraq is not a people, and it is not a nation.  It is just a collection of small ethnic groups that the British assembled into a “country” after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.  It is naïve to expect a fractionated collection of people to fight and die for such a worthless concept.  The Sunnis will fight and die for Sunnis; the Shiites will fight and die for Shiites; and the Kurds will fight and die for Kurds.  But they will never band together and fight and die for someone else’s ill-conceived idea of a state.

The Iraq Study Group report dismissed the idea of partitioning Iraq into three major ethnic states (Sunnistan, Shiastan, Kurdistan) – the very thing that Machiavelli would have suggested.  It also argues against precipitous disengagement, in the opinion that that would lead to a “blood bath.”

The report does not appear to offer any insight in how to win or end the war.  If the US follows the path now discussed in the media of a substantial withdrawal by early 2008, another thousand US soldiers will be killed, another 5,000 wounded, half of them seriously, and the “blood bath,” if it occurs, will simply be postponed for one year.

Some Interesting Reading

A few weeks ago, the “New Age” section of the local Barnes and Noble Bookstore contained several copies of a new book by Daniel Pinchbeck, entitled, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Jeremy Tarcher / Penguin, 2006).  The book is interesting reading, and contains discussions of a variety of other “New Age” books.  The most interesting of these was The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World, by Amit Goswami (Jeremy Tarcher / Penguin, 1993), which describes the relationship of the “New Physics” (quantum physics) to traditional spiritualism and religion.  Goswami presents additional material in Physics of the Soul: The Quantum Book of Living, Dying, Reincarnation and Immortality (Hampton Roads, 2001).

Pinchbeck references another author who is often cited in New Age literature, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1995).  Teilhard de Chardin was a French Jesuit theologian and scientist also known for his work in paleontology and Egyptology.  The Catholic Church forbade publication of his works during his lifetime, but, after his death, embraced them (in the Second Vatican Council).  The book Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Writings Selected with an Intdoduction by Ursula King (Orbis Books, 1999) presents a selection of Teilhard de Chardin’s writings.  Teilhard stressed the metaphysical importance of matter (“divine milieu and blazing matter”) and the evolutionary development of the universe.  It was Teilhard who introduced the concept of the “noosphere” – a layer of thinking between people around the globe – that has been embraced by many New Age writers.

Pinchbeck makes frequent reference to several other books, including Jean Gebser’s The Ever-Present Origin: Authorized Translation by Noel Barstad with Algis Mickunas (Ohio University Press, 1985, translation of Ursprung und Gegenwart (Duetsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1949, 1953)).  This book is formidable, and I have not had time to read it.

Pinchbeck discusses the problems with the Gregorian Calendar, and refers to several books by José Argüelles: The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology (Bear & Company, 1987); Earth Ascending: An Illustrated Treatise on the Law Governing Whole Systems (Bear & Company, 1984, 1988,1986); and Time and the Technosphere: The Law of Time in Human Affairs (Bear & Company, 2002).  I have glimpsed at these books, but not had time to read them.  My interest in them is that I once proposed a revised 12-month solar calendar (http://www.foundationwebsite.org/NewAgeCalendar.htm ), whereas Argüelles argues strongly in favor of a thirteen-month lunar calendar.  After reading these books, I will add a note on the lunar calendar to my website.

Never Complain, Never Explain, and Never Apologize

A recent Yahoo news article referred to 2006 as the Year of the Apology.  It was referring to the rash of apologies by politicians and entertainers for a variety of “rants,” such as Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic ramblings to a police officer while drunk and Michael Richards’ rant against two blacks in the audience of a night club performance.

I believe that it was Henry Ford who coined the maxim, “Never complain, never explain,” and Lee Iacocca who coined the addendum, “Never apologize.”  Now I am not saying that one should never apologize, but it should be kept to an absolute minimum.  Apologizing for the sins of our fathers, such as Germany’s apologizing for the Jewish Holocaust or America’s apologizing for black slavery or the decimation of the American Indians, is never appropriate, in my view.  Should Spain demand an apology from the Arabs for the Moorish invasion of Spain, and England demand an apology from France for the Norman invasion?  Should France demand an apology for Julius Caesar’s invasion of Gaul?  We shame only ourselves, we are not at all responsible for our ancestors’ actions, and need not apologize for the transgressions, losses or conquests of our ancestors.

Many people, when intoxicated or angered or tired or frustrated, may express remarks that are hurtful to others.  People sometimes do this even to people they love, such as their spouses or children.  If the words, spoken out-of-character, are not reflective of the person’s normal feelings or views, then an apology or statement of regret or retraction is appropriate.  But this barrage of apologies from politicians and entertainers is getting to be a little much, and the display of groveling is disgusting.

When Anita Bryant criticized homosexuals, her singing career went down in flames, and she stood her ground.  She did not grovel and apologize, in order to get her contracts back, as lucrative as they were.  When Jimmy the Greek and Howard Cosell expressed their views on blacks, they also paid dearly.  I don’t recall their groveling, either.  When Pope Benedict XVI recently quoted an historical criticism of Moslems for their violent past, he was lambasted by Moslems.  He expressed regret for their reaction, but steadfastly refused to apologize.  He did not grovel.  Jimmy Carter is now being blasted by Jews for presenting Palestinian views in his new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (Simon & Schuster, 2006).  He steadfastly refuses to apologize.

How much greater regard we have for those who make provocative remarks and stand by them, or express casual regret for those inappropriately offended by misspeaks, than for those who misspeak and then grovel.

Alcohol Percentages Disappearing from Beer and Wine Labels

Recently, I have noticed that some beer and wine labels do not state the percentage alcohol in the product.  This is a disturbing trend.  For either product, the main reason that I purchase the product is for the alcohol.  If beer and wine did not contain any alcohol, I would not drink any.

In the case of beer, the percentage alcohol usually ranges from 0 to five percent.  If I end up with a three-percent alcohol beer, I am getting about half of what I am purchasing the product for.

One recent been stated that it contained one “standard drink.”  Now, prior to seeing this on the beer label, I had no idea what a “standard drink” was, and so I looked it up on Wikipedia.  The problem with this measure is that it is not at all standard – it varies tremendously by country.  In the US, it means 14 grams of pure alcohol (by weight), or 17.7 milliliters (.6 fluid ounce) (by volume).  So a 12-ounce bottle of 5%-alcohol beer contains .6 ounce of alcohol, or one standard drink.

This situation, in which alcohol content is not stated, is particularly distressing in the case of wine.  I am quite allergic to potassium metabisuphite, which is added to American wine as a preservative.  Wines that have higher alcohol content require less preservative, and I am less likely to end up with a two-day headache after drinking a glass.  As a result, I only purchase wines that have high alcohol content, such as 13 percent or 14 percent.  If the label no longer states the percentage alcohol, I am at a serious disadvantage.

In this day of massive detail in food labeling, it is hard to understand how such an important fact can be omitted.

Jewish Ban on Christmas Trees

On Lou Dobbs Tonight, it was reported last week that the Seattle-Tacoma Airport was removing all of the Christmas trees that it had set up, because a Jewish rabbi had threatened to sue the airport, since a Jewish menorah had not also been placed on display.  Since Christmas is a Christian holiday, not a Jewish holiday, it is hard to understand his logic.  Lou Dobbs referred to the rabbi as Rabbi Grinch.

It turns out that the airport was well within its legal rights in setting up the trees, according to a long-standing Supreme Court decision.  The cowardly airport authority evidently simply caved in to the rabbi’s threat to sue, without even looking into it.  The Jews defend their culture very strongly, and it has lasted thousands of years.  Christians do not defend theirs, and it will soon be gone.

The Jewish Rabbi would do well to remember that the US was founded by Deists, not by Jews.  Jews have been welcome guests in the US for a long time, but when they attack mainstream US culture, they do much to destroy this goodwill.

Hoover Vacuums Sold to Foreign Firm

Because of America’s policy of massive international free trade, it is in the process of losing all of its manufacturing capacity to low-wage Third-World countries.  It was recently announced that the Hoover vacuum cleaner company has been sold to a Chinese firm, and that the three remaining US Hoover factories will be closed.

Hoover is an icon.  In Africa, people use the term “hoover” instead of “vacuum” to refer to cleaning with a vacuum cleaner.

America no longer produces any Singer Sewing Machines, and many other machines and appliances that were in fact invented here.

The loss of manufacturing capacity in the US is directly due to the adoption by the US government of a policy of massive international free trade.  If tariffs were imposed to adjust the cost of imports to reflect the low cost of labor in Third-World countries (30-50 cents per hour instead of 10-20 dollars per hour), America would have retained its manufacturing capacity.  The US government has betrayed the American worker.  Its policy of massive international free trade is eliminating US manufacturing jobs and driving the wages of the American middle class down to the level of those in Third-World countries.  This is being done solely to line the pockets of America’s wealthy elites.  When is the American worker going to put a stop to this treachery, and take its leaders to task?

Groupers Are Friends

The latest fad in restaurants is grouper.   It is presented in a variety of ways, and often is a featured item.

I used to SCUBA dive (in the 1980s), and I have seen grouper on many occasions.  They are very large – some larger than me, and they are very friendly.  They simply float a few feet from you, looking curiously at you.

They are friendly, gentle creatures, who deserve better than to be slaughtered for human food.  I can’t get as excited about fish that are raised in commercial fish farms, such as tilapia and salmon, but to slaughter wild groupers for food is obscene.

When I am told in a restaurant that the specialty of the day is grilled or fried grouper, I inform the waiter that groupers are my friends, and I don’t eat my friends.

Abrupt Climate Change: Imagining the Unthinkable

A few years ago, I saw references to a Pentagon report on the national-security implications of abrupt climate change.  The references seemed legitimate, but I did not find a copy of the report on the Internet at that time.  At the time, I surmised that the report was just another “urban legend,” such as the “Report from Iron Mountain.”  Recently, however, on a television program on climate change (the History Channel, as I recall), the narrator made reference to this report.  I rechecked the Internet, and there are now plenty of sources for this report, such as http://ww.grist.org/pdf/AbruptClimateChange2003.pdf .

Quote of the Day

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.  …Charles DuBois (artist, painter)

Effects of Mass Immigration to America: Cultural Destruction, Genital Mutilation, Environmental Destruction, Overcrowding, Murder

Now that the US is being flooded with immigrants from alien cultures, we are seeing some interesting trials.  The October 29, 2006, issue of the Spartanburg Herald Journal contained an article (by Doug Gross of the Associated Press) about the trial, in Lawrenceville, Georgia, of a man, Khalid Adem, who is accused of circumcising his 2-year-old daughter with scissors.  His wife, Fortunate Adem, stated, “He said he wanted to preserve her virginity.  He said it was the will of God.”  As immigrants flood in from Africa, the practice of female circumcision is becoming more common in the US.  Adem is a 30-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia.

Mass immigration is bringing big changes to America.  The biggest one, of course, is the explosion of population from 150 million in 1950 to over 300 million today.  Almost all of this massive population increase is from immigration, since US birth rates had declined to replacement or below-replacement levels by the 1970s.  This massive population growth has caused the destruction of about 150 million acres of natural land, which has been converted into concrete-and-steel infrastructure for the increased population – roads, parking lots, homes, schools, hospitals, stores, and the like.  Our national and state parks are now so overcrowded that it takes up to a year to make a reservation to visit, and the cost of a white-water-raft trip down a “wild” river now costs thousands of dollars per person.

The term “single-family dwelling” used to refer to a three-or four-bedroom home.  That description is no longer apt, since a dozen immigrant families may now squeeze into a home that traditional US culture saw fit for a single nuclear family.

The August 20, 2006, issue of the SHJ presents an article (by Ryan Teague Beckwith of The News and Observer of Raleigh) entitled, “Owners of Hispanic food stands having tough time in N. C.”  Regulations in North Carolina cities prohibit trucks from selling food on city streets and in residential areas, and for more than a short time in commercial sites smaller than a major shopping center.  If you travel through Mexico (as I did on numerous occasions when I lived in Tucson, Arizona), you will see food being sold from shacks and trucks and stands.  That is fine for a Third-World country, but we had a society that had advanced beyond that.

The lunch trucks discussed in the article are called loncheras.  With the soaring population of Wake County (where Raleigh is located), estimated at 70,000, there has been a commensurate explosion in loncheras.  People are complaining about the trash and traffic problems generated by the loncheras, and there have been clashes between lonchera operators and police and zoning inspectors.

The August 20, 2006, issue of the SHJ contains an article (by Matt Reid of the Associated Press) entitled, “Hispanic immigrants crowd parks across nation.”  Spanish is now heard in many US parks, where non-English-speaking immigrants are now crowding out the country’s traditional English speaking population, an overcrowding many facilities.  When I worked for a firm in Tucson, Arizona, in 1982, I asked an Hispanic lady why I never heard any of the Hispanic employees speaking Spanish to each other (I was taking Spanish lessons from Pima Community College at the time).  She told me in a hushed voice that Bell (the firm) would not like to hear any Spanish spoken in the workplace.  In my four years with Bell (1982-1986), I never heard a single word of Spanish spoken.  Now, I hear it in workplaces everywhere.  How times have changed.

Recent immigrants – both legal and illegal – are responsible for the deaths of over a thousand American citizens each year, though murder and automobile accidents.  They have imposed severed demands on our social services and medical-care services, forcing up the cost of education, social-service and medical care for its long-term citizens.

Spain’s Legacy of Corruption

I refer often to the fact that mass immigration is destroying America’s Northern European culture.  Many people don’t think that culture matters, but culture is the most important thing that distinguishes one group of human beings from another.

As an example of the effects of culture, take the case of Mexico.  You hear more and more the complaint, “Why doesn’t Mexico take care of their own people, by developing its own economy so that its people would not flee to the US for jobs?”  Well, Mexico has had a century, since the Revolution of 1910, to clean up its act and do something for its people.  Why hasn’t it?  The reason is simple – culture.  Everywhere the Spanish and Portuguese colonized the world, they left behind a culture of corruption.  It is not just Mexico’s government that is corrupt, it is the entire Mexican culture.  In any country that holds to traditional (colonial) Spanish culture, there will always be a few very rich people and a mass of very poor people.

While I was taking Spanish lessons at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, the class agreed to sing some Spanish songs.  I did not realize it at the time, but “Spanish songs” meant traditional Mexican songs, such as rancheras or corridos, not “Iberian-peninsula” Spanish songs from Spain.  I owned some Julio Iglesias records at the time, and offered to copy the words so that the class could sing the songs.  The teacher, Maria Luisa, exclaimed in no uncertain terms that the class would not be singing any Julio Iglesias songs.  In my ignorance, I asked her why.  She explained to me that Julio Iglesias was Spanish, not Mexican, and she would never forgive Spain for what they did to Mexico.

What do you think of when you think of Mexico?  Beautiful mariachi ballads and good beer, or corrupt police?  Well the beautiful Mexican folk songs, so reminiscent of German oom-pah-pah music, and the fine Mexican beer, are imports from a migration of Germans to Mexico in the early 1800s.  The corrupt police you can thank Spain for.

Pray that you are never arrested and placed in a Mexican jail.  In 1982, when I was SCUBA diving in Mexico, the average cost to get out of a Mexican jail was $30,000.  Unlike the US, which follows English common law, Mexico follows Napoleonic law.  One of the significant differences in English common law and Napoleonic law is that, whereas under English common law you are assumed innocent until proved guilty, under Napoleonic law you are assumed guilty until you prove your innocence (as in a US tax court! (illegal under the US Constitution – but that’s another story)).  During my many trips to Mexico, my wife’s luggage was stolen from our car and our car was wrecked by a hit-and-run driver while we were eating in a restaurant.  You would not believe the trouble that I had to go through with the Mexican police, simply to get them to issue a police report that I could give to my insurance company.

The main reason why immigrants from non-North-European countries are flocking to the US and other former British colonies (e.g., Canada, Australia) is that British culture is vastly superior to their cultures.  British culture – the culture of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the other Founding Fathers of the United States – was the culture on which America was founded, and made it great.  The other cultures, whose citizens are now fleeing in droves to the US, Canada, and Australia, have had decades to provide for their citizens, since the Western world has been freely giving away its technology and foreign aid for half a century.  Those cultures – Asian, Hispanic, African, Middle Eastern – care nothing for their own people, however, and have chosen to use the aid simply to line the pockets of the rich. 

By flooding the Anglo countries with immigrants from inferior cultures, the inferior cultures will quickly transform the Anglo countries and cultures into their own inferior cultures.  They will kill the goose that laid the golden egg.  It is easy to understand why people from inferior cultures would flock to the US and other Anglo countries, even if their doing so will eventually lead to the destruction of those countries.  But why would the Anglos allow this to happen?  It seems to be some sort of self-destructive, suicidal defect in the culture – turning the other cheek, and giving the beggar the shirt off your back, even though it will lead to your own downfall.  Or perhaps, as the Achaemenian Emperor Cyrus observed, soft countries breed soft men, and those who indulge themselves of the labor of others should be prepared to exchange places with them.

The US is being swamped by people from inferior cultures, and they are quickly converting it into the same kind of inferior Third-World culture from which they came.

The destruction of Anglo society in the US is now evident everywhere.  Because of the US government’s mass immigration policy, there are now an estimated 400 thousand Hispanics in South Carolina, where I went to high school in the 1950s and now live.  Whenever a locality allows Hispanics and the speaking of Spanish, the native population, which speaks only English, quickly lose their jobs to Hispanic immigrants.  This past week I applied for Medicare, since I will turn 65 next March.  At the Social Security Office, both of the clerks dealing with the public were Hispanics.  Just a few ago, those positions would have been filled by Anglos.  They will never be filled by Anglos again.  For the telephone interview that I conducted as part of the application for Medicare, the interviewer was Hispanic.  School teachers in areas inundated by Hispanics are now losing their jobs to Hispanics.  Hospital staff, legal staff, and local-government staff who deal with the public are now Hispanic, in any area that has been allowed to go Hispanic.  School teachers in Miami, who were previously all Anglo, are now mainly Hispanic.  When you are looking for work in an area that has permitted Hispanics to infiltrate in large numbers, you will find yourself at a distinct disadvantage if you do not speak Spanish, and you will lose many jobs to the invaders.

As I passed my bank today, coming back from the Social Security Office, it was not open yet.  There was a crowd of about 15 Hispanics waiting outside the door.  They were waiting to cash their employment checks, and to send money back to relatives in Mexico and other Latin-American countries.  The remissions of Hispanic and Asian workers are a massive drain on the US economy.  It is regrettable that those immigrants who seek to flee their own inferior cultures are now sucking dry the very country they chose to embrace.

Most immigrants do not love American culture – and certainly not the illegal ones who are criminals (guilty of breaking US immigration laws).  They are here for the money, and nothing more.  They love the free schools, the free medical care, the opportunity to send their earnings back to their families in their native countries, and the opportunity to strike it rich that is freely available here but denied to them in their home countries by their venal and corrupt cultures and governments.  They are taking all that they can, and giving nothing of value in return.  Their presence here destroys our environment and culture.  Immigrants to America consume up to ten times more commercial energy than they did in their former countries.  The economic activity in which they are engaging is not only destroying the US environment and culture, but is also accelerating the destruction of the planet’s biosphere and robbing all future human generations of a viable, ecologically diverse planet.

When I was a teenager in Spartanburg many years ago, you did not have to worry about crime.  Loitering was not permitted, and vagrants were not allowed in respectable neighborhoods.  We did not bother to lock our house unless we went on vacation.  In a 1955 Chevrolet, the ignition could be turned on with a key, and the key removed and left stored at home.  This was done by my wife’s family, who owned one.  Now, you must lock your house and car, or it or its contents will be quickly stolen.  My brother-in-law, Don, has carried his tools in the back of his pickup truck for decades, with never a problem.  Now, with immigrants everywhere, this is no longer a good idea – all of Don’s tools were stolen from the back of his truck last week.

How can Americans let this happen to their country and culture?  It is amazing to see it happen.  America’s venal leaders are selling the country down the river to line their pocket with the wealth that an expanding economy provides.  It is easy to see why our venal leaders are destroying our country and culture.  They are evil, greedy men.  But why would the US population – the US middle class – allow this to happen?  Anyone who is 50 years old can see the massive decline in the US quality of life that has occurred since passage of the Immigration Act of 1965.  Does no one care?

The Grand Deception about Mass Immigration

Since passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, there has been mass immigration to the US from alien cultures.  The main impact of this mass immigration has been destruction of the natural environment and destruction of traditional American culture.  Each immigrant causes the destruction of about one acre of natural land, so that more than 100 million acres of natural land has been destroyed by immigration since passage of the Act.  Most immigrants since 1965 have been from alien, nonNorth-European cultures.  Foreign languages, such as Spanish, which were rarely heard in 1965 are now commonly heard in most places.  In some places, such as Lagrange, Georgia, the entire English population has been displaced by Hispanics.

Although the major impacts of mass immigration are destruction of the environment and traditional North-European culture, the arguments in favor of immigration never address these issues.  Instead, they invariably focus on whether mass immigration is good or bad for the economy.  That is the only measure that matters to the proponents of mass immigration.  All that matters to them is the money!

As I have argued for years, mass immigration is generally very good for the economy and the wealthy, and the government (as the Bible says, “A large population is a king’s glory”).  The economy grows, since it is necessary to provide infrastructure and services to the increased population.  The massive influx of immigrants – about three million a year, or about one percent of the population – give the economy a tremendous “shot in the arm.”  To some extent, US workers lose jobs to immigrants, who are willing to work for less, but this is not a major effect.  The wages of low-wage US citizens are depressed somewhat by the massive influx of very-low-wage-earning immigrants, but massive international free trade is a more significant factor than mass immigration in depressing wages of the American middle class.

If you look through the newspapers or magazines for articles about the impact of mass immigration on America, you will find little or nothing on their destruction of the environment and traditional North-European culture.  Instead, you will find article after article touting the fact that the immigrants are contributing economically and having little effect in taking jobs from Americans or reducing their wages.

For example, the August 11, 2006, issue of the Spartanburg Herald Journal contains an article (by Stephen Ohlemacher of the Associated Press), entitled: “Pew Center Report: Immigrants not taking jobs from Americans.”  The report states, “Big increases in immigration since 1990 have not hurt employment prospects for American workers, says a study released Thursday.  The report comes as Congress and much of the nation are debating immigration policy, a big issue in this fall’s midterm congressional elections.  The Pew Hispanic Center found no evidence that increases in immigration led to higher unemployment among Americans, said Rakesh Kochhar, who authored the study.  Kochhar said other factors, such as economic growth, played a larger role than immigration in setting the job market for Americans.”

This is such a deceptive smokescreen.  According to this and similar studies, since immigrants are not causing the unemployment rate to rise, that is the end of the discussion.  Nothing else matters.  The country can forget about it.  Meanwhile, the environmental and cultural destruction continue unabated.

The November 16, 2006, issue of the SHJ presents an article (by Katrina A Goggins of the Associated Press) entitled, “USC study debunks myths about immigrants.”  The article states, “The study found the immigrants make significant economic contributions. ‘They came here to work, Lacy [Elaine Lacy, research director for the University of South Carolina’s Consortium for Latino Immigration] said.  ‘They want to help with living expenses for family members in Mexico and to save money for housing, businesses and retirement in Mexico.’”  That is fine for them, but the cost to the previous citizens is more destruction of the environment and culture.  Those aspects were never mentioned in the article.

The August 18, 2006, issue of the SHJ contains an article (by Seanna Adcox of the Associated Press) entitled, “Immigrants vital to success of state’s farms, farmers say.”  The article states, “Without immigrants, South Carolina’s farms would go out of business, two farmers said Thursday at a state agricultural meeting.”  As long as the US promotes massive international free trade, so that US workers have to compete with Third-World workers earning one twentieth what they do, that is true.  In 1950, the US did not force its workers to compete with foreign workers earning a fraction of their pay.  Now, under free trade, it does.  The only way that some businesses, having a high labor input, can survive in today’s free trade environment is to have access to low-wage immigrant labor.  But that would not be the case if the country simply imposed tariffs to equalize the labor component of the foreign goods to the labor component of US goods.

The US government does not want to discourage free trade, because it benefits the wealthy.  The US government never classifies the low wage rate of Third-World countries as an “unfair business practice.”  It only classifies egregious criminal activity, such as predatory “dumping” of goods at below cost to destroy industries (as was done for years by the Japanese against the US television industry).  The US government has been directly responsible for the loss of major US industries, such as ceramics, shoes, textiles, electronics, and steel, most of these because US industries were placed in direct competition with low-wage foreign workers.  If the US were to impose tariffs to equalize labor costs, American goods would be the cheapest in the world, because we are the most productive (for a number of reasons, including hard work, creativity and trust).   Despite the tremendous capabilities of American labor, the US government has sought, in service to the wealthy elite, to destroy the American middle class (through its policy of massive international free trade, placing the American worker in direct competition with low-wage foreign labor), by driving its wages to the levels of Third-World countries.

The article continues, “Peach farmer Chalmers Carr and nursery and sod grower Tomas Legare said Congress must come up with an immigration policy that both secures the borders and creates a sensible guest worker program.  Otherwise, all our food will be imported instead of grown here, they told the South Carolina Agricultural Council members.”  As long as massive international free trade prevails, this statement is true.  But if massive international free trade is stopped, or if tariffs are imposed to equalize labor costs, then foreign food will be more expensive, since its production costs will be equalized and it will have greater transport costs.

The article states, “’You’re not going to find Americans to do unskilled, backbreaking labor.’”  As long as massive international free trade continues, this is true.  There is no way an American wants to earn 30-50 cents an hour, which is the going wage rate in Third-World countries.  But in the absence of massive international free trade, Americans will pick peaches and apples and cotton and grapes, and do nursery work, as they did in 1950, before massive international free trade became a reality.

Economists scream that this is inefficient, and that “everybody” loses, when we do not take advantage of low-cost labor in foreign countries, or low-cost labor from immigrants (legal or illegal).  It certainly is less efficient, but why should Americans sacrifice their high quality of life for global economic efficiency.  Why?  Because it makes money for the wealthy elite who own the country, that’s why.  It does not benefit this country, which is losing its natural environment and its North-European culture, at all.  The argument is set forth that consumer goods would be more expensive if we do not let foreign goods into the country duty-free.  That is true.  But are you willing to give up your environment and culture simply to have lower-cost consumer goods?  It seems that most Americans are, and they will as a result lose their once-fabulous country and way of life as a result.  The low-cost consumer goods of today’s global-free-market economy will be quickly forgotten a hundred years from now, when today’s consumers are dead and gone.  But the price that future generations will be paying for today’s cheap goods is a permanently ruined environment and a lost culture.  When you sell your soul to Mammon, do not expect to win in the long run.

The Debate over Racial Profiling Continues

The August 17, 2006, issue of the Spartanburg Herald Journal contains an article (written by Jill Lawless of the Associated Press) entitled, “Foiled terror plot sparks debate about the profiling of passengers.”  The article reads, “As airport security tightens, checkpoint lines grow and tempers fray amid fears of devastating airborne attacks, more and more Britons are calling for the use of profiling to decide which travelers should be singled out as possible threats.  Advocates say it’s common sense: elderly women and families with young children pose little risk.  Opponents argue it’s an ineffective policy which will alienate Muslims and – in the words of a senior police officer – create an offense of ‘traveling whilst Asian.’  ‘Any measures introduced have got to be intelligence-led and not beard-led,’ said Shahid Malik, a lawmaker with the governing Labour Party.”

Here, in that same issue, is an editorial by Kathleen Parker.

Profiling gets renewed fan base In war against terror. In the wake of last week's foiled terrorist plot in Britain, sensible people are reconsidering our government's stubborn opposition to profiling.

Among the sensible elsewhere are officials of the British Department for Transport, who are proposing ethnic profiling as a means of more effectively identifying potential terrorists. The predictable chorus of opposition has chimed in on cue.

The Muslim Council of Britain has warned the government to think "very carefully," saying that including "behavioral pattern recognition" in passenger profiling would lead to discrimination. A spokesman for the council said, "Before some kind of religious profiling is introduced, a case has to be made."

Challenge accepted. Most terrorist acts of the past several decades have been perpetrated by Muslim men between the ages of 17 and 40. Following is a partial Islamic terrorist resume:

Eleven Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics (1972); U.S. Marine barracks blown up in Beirut (1983); Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacked and elderly, disabled American passenger killed (1985); TWA Flight 847 hijacked (1985); Pan Am Flight 103 bombed (1988); World Trade Center bombed (1993); U.S. embassies bombed in Kenya and Tanzania (1998); USS Cole bombed (2000); Sept. 11, 2001; Madrid and London train bombings (2004 and 2005).

Goal is to save lives

Yet we are torn. Profiling seems both un-American and dangerous in an era of slippery slopes. The paranoid leap is that detention camps are just around the bend. Thus, instead of deciding to closely scrutinize airline passengers who fit the description of a likely perpetrator - based not on bigotry but on evidence, history and common sense – we frisk the elderly and confiscate toddlers' sippy cups.

Critics of profiling insist that focusing on one group will distract us from other possible terrorists – presumably all those Baptist grandmothers recently converted to Islam. They also invariably point to Timothy McVeigh, as if one white-bred misfit – or the occasional white Muslim – cancels out 35 years of Middle Eastern terrorists invoking Muhammad.

For a nation that laments its lapse in dot-connecting before 9/11, we are curiously blind when it comes to dealing honestly with certain people of a certain sort. Profiling isn't aimed at demonizing Muslims; it's aimed at saving lives, including Muslims.

We can focus energies and resources where plausible, including at airports where profilers are invited to be polite and discreet. And we can listen to sensible Muslims like Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of the al-Arabiya news channel, who wrote in the Arab News two years ago what our own officials struggle to say.

‘An Islamic Enterprise’

Said al-Rashed: "It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.... We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women."

And the West cannot survive if we continue to avert our eyes from the obvious.

On the legal questions, profiling has at least one notable defender - John Banzhaf, a George Washington University public interest law professor best known for taking on tobacco and fast food. Banzhaf argues that racial profiling is constitutional if done in accordance with U.S. Supreme Court guidelines that ethnicity not be the sole criteria. Other considerations for potential hijackers might be age, gender, behavior or clothing.

"Obviously, the government's interest in protecting the lives of thousands of citizens from a major terrorist attack is at least as ‘compelling' as a better college education," he says.

For the past several years, Banzhaf has been a pain in the neck to the tobacco and fast-food industries. Let's hope he proves equally troublesome to the terrorists among us.

Kathleen Parker is an Orlando Sentinel columnist who resides in Columbia. Her e-mail

address is kparker@kparker.com .

[End of Parker article.]

Here are my comments on profiling from the draft American Independence Movement platform (September 11, 2001):

Profiling.  “Profiling” to assist the apprehension of criminal suspects is authorized and encouraged, particularly with respect to race, gender and ethnicity.  Profiling is the logical, scientifically well founded practice (Bayes' Rule, search theory) of taking account of distinguishing characteristics of a criminal in the quest to apprehend him.  These characteristics may be of any type, but the more unusual the characteristics are (i.e., the more nearly unique they are to the suspect) the more useful they are in helping to track down a criminal.  For this reason, membership in minority groups, such as minority ethnic/racial groups, are particularly useful (e.g., it is much more useful to know that a suspect is a Hmong or Japanese than a white man, since there are fewer of the former than the latter).  To hamstring the efforts of the police by requiring them to ignore crucial information in their work is not only stupid and wasteful, but criminal.

If a man commits a rape, it is common sense to look for a man, not a woman.  If a black man commits a crime, it is common sense to search for suspects in the black community, not in the white community.  If an Hispanic or Arab commits a crime, it is common sense to search for the perpetrator in the Hispanic or Arab communities.  These examples are obvious, since the characteristic of the suspect is known.  But the logic of profiling is just as relevant if particular characteristics are not known with certainty, but are simply known to be correlated with a particular crime.  Some examples….  If most or all of the embassy bombings last year were done by Islamic fundamentalists and another embassy is bombed, it is prudent to concentrate the search for the perpetrators in the Islamic community.  If a group of men in white sheets are seen lynching someone, it makes sense to interrogate members of the local Ku Klux Klan.  If the drinking-while-intoxicated hit-and-run rate is several times higher for Mexican drivers than others, it is right to focus more attention on that segment of the population than on others.  If a sex crime is committed against a child, it makes sense to check out local residents with a history of child molestation.  If a kidnapper cannot pronounce "els," it is reasonable to suspect an oriental and allocate more effort investigating that group.  If a young girl is abducted from her family, it is commonsense to spend more time investigating men than women, who rarely commit this type of crime.  All profiling is prejudicial and discriminatory, but it is the logical approach to use to apprehend a criminal.  Profiling based on any characteristic correlated with a criminal act -- even if based on race, gender, religion, language or ethnicity -- is the proper way to investigate a crime.  To deliberately ignore characteristics that are known to be correlated with a crime may be politically correct in today's US society, but it is wrong.

The hands of our police will not be tied by an irrational demand to ignore race (or any other known characteristic) in the attempt to apprehend a suspect, if race is an evidential factor in a particular case.  If race (or any other characteristic) is uncorrelated with a particular crime, then of course it makes no sense to target people of a particular race in the search for the criminal -- but that is not racial profiling: it is racial persecution.  On the other hand, if a crime is committed by a “one-armed man,” then police will be permitted to and expected to look for a “one-armed man,” despite the prejudicial aspersions that this casts on the minority population of one-armed men, and notwithstanding the inconvenience or indignation that may be felt by innocent one-armed men who are interrogated.

The US Population Explosion

The US population is literally exploding.  Since US birth rates dropped to replacement level by the 1970s, the population explosion is from immigrants and their offspring (immigrants have higher-than-replacement birth rates).  Since passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, there has been a mass immigration to the US, from alien (non North-European) cultures.  The legal immigration to the US is now about one million people per year.  In addition, because the US government refuses to secure its borders, there is an additional influx of about two million illegal immigrants per year.  The total population increase from immigration (including immigrants and their progeny) is about three million per year, or about one percent per year (of the population of three hundred million).  This is comparable to the growth rate of some Third-World countries.  This massive population growth from immigration, and the economic activity that it spurs, is a major thing that is keeping the US economy afloat at the present time.

As I have written many times, this mass migration is destroying the US environment and US traditional North-European culture.  It is a cause for considerable regret.

Here is an editorial written by Mona Charen on the US population reaching the 300 million mark.  It appeared in the October 23, 2006, issue of the Spartanburg Herald Journal.

300 million?  We should rejoice rather than lament it

One recent morning, my family and I ogled a beautiful 1-dayold infant girl featured on Fox News as the 300 millionth American. She was so cute that we were prompted to dig out pictures of our own kids as babies.

But, shhh, can you keep a secret? There is no actual baby we can identify as the 300 millionth American. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, there were about 11,265 people born per day in 2004. Assuming they were born at all hours of the day, that's about 470 per hour.

But as the Census Bureau Web site further explains: "The nation's population will reach the historic milestone of 300 million on Oct. 17 at about 7:46 a.m."

The estimate is based on the expectation that the United States will register one birth every seven seconds and one death every 13 seconds, while net international migration is expected to add one person every 31 seconds. The result is an increase in the total population of one person every 11 seconds.

In other words, we have no idea who the magic 300 millionth person may be. It could be a new immigrant, or it may be the blinking, yawning little wonder we watched on the news.

Replacement birth rates

Statistics can be misleading. Recall the politician who, when told that overpopulation in Mexico was so extreme because "every 60 seconds, a woman gives birth," declared, "We've got to find that woman and stop her!"

Some news outlets greeted the advent of the 300 millionth American with anxiety. There were worried references to pollution and scarce resources, sprawl and crowded classrooms. The same headlines could have greeted the 200 million milestone passed in 1967 – and that's about how up-to-date those analyses are.

In fact, there are more reasons to celebrate our fecundity than to lament it.  Let’s take a look at the rest of the developed world.

In the 1980s, we were instructed that Japan's economic juggernaut would overwhelm us in short order. But today Japan is failing to reproduce. Its birth rate is among the lowest in the industrialized world, and its rate of decline is the fastest.

Japan, now at 127.7 million (Asia Times), is expected to shrink in half in 70 years. Absent immigration (and the Japanese have never been keen on that), younger workers will face

punishing tax rates to support the swollen ranks of retirees.

In Europe, fertility rates are similar. A replacement birth rate is 2.1 children per woman. As Mark Steyn points out in his droll but devastating book "America Alone," a number of countries in Europe (Greece: 1.3, Italy: 1.2, Spain: 1.1, Russia: 1.14, United Kingdom: 1.6) have fertility rates "from which no human society has ever recovered."

Rising Muslim population

Unlike Japan, Europe does have immigrants. But that doesn't solve Europe's problem, it compounds it – because Europe's immigrants are Muslims, many of whom, for many reasons, are not assimilating. On the contrary, a frightening percentage actually wishes to destroy the societies they have infiltrated.

In "Londonistan," Melanie Phillips limns the problem: "No fewer than 26 percent of British Muslims feel no loyalty to Britain, 13 percent defended terrorism and up to 1 percent were `actively engaged' in terrorist activity. ... This last number ... added up to at least 16 thousand terrorists or terrorist supporters among British Muslims."

The average fertility rate for Muslim women in Europe is 3.5 children. For non-Muslims, the rate is 1.4. If present fertility rates among ethnic Europeans and Muslim immigrants continue for another decade or so, Europe as we have known it will be gone by mid-century.

This time, Muamar Gaddafi got it right: "There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe – without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."

America's growth is a sign of economic, spiritual and psychic vigor. Sure, we have immigration problems, but the alternative to expansion, as we are witnessing elsewhere in the world, is oblivion – or worse.

Mona Charen is a columnist with Creators Syndicate (www.creators.com).

[End of Charen article.]

FndID(103)

FndTitle(Miscellany 32: The Immigration Fiasco; Half of All Bankruptcies Caused by Our Medical System; Building Roads to Nowhere; Abrupt Climate Change; Racial Profiling; Spain’s Legacy of Corruption)

FndDescription(Miscellany 32: The Immigration Fiasco; Half of All Bankruptcies Caused by Our Medical System; Building Roads to Nowhere; Abrupt Climate Change; Racial Profiling; Spain’s Legacy of Corruption)

FndKeywords(immigration failure; medical system causing bankrupcies; roads to nowhere; abrupt climate change; racial profiling; Spain's legacy of corruption)