The View From 1776

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Why has the impact of large-scale immigration since the 1960s been so different from that of the even larger influx of roughly 22 million non-English-speaking immigrants between the Civil War and our 1917 entry into World War I?

The answer is, in a word, education.

Multi-cultural and PC education is a virulent force that sabotages assimilation of immigrants into the political and cultural traditions of the United States. 

In the earlier era the paradigm was the ‘melting pot,’ the idea that disciplined education of immigrants’ children in the public schools would teach them the English language, our history, and our Constitutional traditions, thereby transforming immigrants into Americans within a generation.  The motto “e pluribus unum” (from many peoples, one nation) was taken seriously.

It worked.  By the outset of World War II, the multitudes of hyphenated Americans were first and foremost Americans, however justifiably proud they were of their ancestral history and traditions.

Now in California we have illegal-immigrant Mexican demonstrators clogging highways to demand their ‘rights,’ while waving Mexican flags and carrying placards declaring that California really belongs to Mexico.  In the most recent gubernatorial race, Arnold Schwartzenegger’s opponent was Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamente, a member and active supporter of La Raza, the lobbying group that opposes Americanization of Mexicans and promotes the goal of reclaiming California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas as parts of Mexico. 

Having as many as twelve million people living illegally among us as if they were an invading and occupying army quartered at the expense of legitimate citizens is bound to foment fierce opposition.  It’s universal human nature, as the European experience with separatist and subversive Muslim enclaves demonstrates.

American education had long embraced the concept of cultural pluralism, that students should have an understanding of the many different cultural backgrounds and histories of peoples who had joined together to create the United States. 

In the 1960s the educational theory changed into one of ethno-centrism – the idea that cultural differences should be emphasized – after President Clinton’s Baby-Boomer-anarchist generation turned college campuses into political demonstrations and sit-ins, destroying records and computer centers.  Colleges led the way with black studies, women’s studies, and other ethnic studies departments, along with separate black and Hispanics dormitories. 

Americanization became for students in the 1960s and 70s what spiritual religion had been for Marx a century earlier: the opium of the masses imposed by the power elite to subjugate the poor.  Not just cultural separatism, but anti-Americanism became the standard. 

Those Clinton-generation anti-Americans are, of course, now the faculties and administrators of our school system.  They support illegals’ demands for separate, Spanish-language education, for the same reasons they support atheistic, amoral materialism: as a means to undermine the Constitutional traditions of our nation and clear the way for imposing a ‘good socialistic society.’

Let’s not forget, by the way, that Mexico is a revolutionary-socialist country in which the original collectivist clique of socialists still dominate the political scene.  All the more reason for teachers’ unions and socialist educators to support illegals and Spanish-speaking separatism.

Let’s not forget, also, that were Mexico not a collectivized socialist nation, its people would not be so disproportionately poor and would not have to invade the United States to find a decent living.

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Columnist Tony Snow, in a TownHall.com column cites other statistics that bolster the Wall Street Journal’s support for receptivity towards immigration, even by illegals.

IMMIGRATION DEBATE NEEDS COMMON SENSE
By Tony Snow
Mar 31, 2006

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Illegal immigration seems to have spawned a dreary debate about the merits of Mexicans, when it should be drawing attention instead to a very different matter: how to build on the luster and wonder of the American dream.
 Immigration is not the pox neo-Know Nothings make it out to be. Begin with the astounding influx of illegal immigrants, the vast majority of whom hail from Mexico. While the population includes an eye-popping number of crooks, drug-dealers and would-be welfare sponges, it also provides a helpful prop for sustaining American economic growth and cultural dynamism.

 Princeton University sociologist Douglas S. Massey reports that 62 percent of illegal immigrants pay income taxes (via withholding) and 66 percent contribute to Social Security. Forbes magazine notes that Mexican illegals aren’t clogging up the social-services system: only 5 percent receive food stamps or unemployment assistance; 10 percent send kids to public schools.

 On the work front, Hispanic unemployment has tumbled to 5.5 percent, only slightly above the national average of 4.7 percent and considerably lower than the black unemployment rate of 9.3 percent. Economist Larry Kudlow praises Hispanic entrepreneurship: “According to 2002 Census Bureau data, Hispanics are opening businesses at a rate three times faster than the national average. In addition, there were almost 1.6 million Hispanic-owned businesses generating $222 billion in revenue in 2002.”

 Skeptics counter that immigrants have clogged our hospitals, which is true—but primarily in places that offer lavish benefits to illegal immigrants.

 As for crime, the picture doesn’t quite conform to conventional wisdom. Heather McDonald discovered that illegal immigrants in 2004 accounted for 95 percent of all outstanding homicide warrants in Los Angeles and two-thirds of unserved felony warrants. (Gangs, aided and abetted by laws that prevent local officials from handing illegal-immigrant criminals over to federal authorities, account for much of the mayhem.)

 On the other hand, the most comprehensive survey to date of national crime data concludes, “In the small number of studies providing empirical evidence, immigrants are generally less involved in crime than similarly situated groups, despite the wealth of prominent criminological theories that provide good reasons why this should not be the case.”

 Authors Ramiro Martinez Jr. and Matthew T. Lee note, for instance, that the Latino homicide rate in Miami is three times that of El Paso, Texas, which has one of the nation’s largest immigrant populations. That’s not just an anomaly. Another major study, “U.S. Impacts of Mexican Immigration,” by professors Michael J. Greenwood and Marta Tienda reports that “crime rates along the border are lower than those of comparable non-border cities.”

 This doesn’t mean immigrants from Mexico are saints—it just means that they may not be the marauding horde some make them out to be. As it turns out, crime rates in the highest immigration states have been trending significantly downward.

 Total crime and property crime in California are half what they were in 1980; violent crime has fallen more than a third. The state’s Hispanic population during that time has increased 120 percent.

 Similar trends apply in other high-traffic states, with the exception of Colorado. While Arizona’s population grew 41.8 percent between 1993 and 2003, for instance, the rates for every major category of crime fell.

 Why, then, the fuss? In America today, unemployment remains low, employment is booming, wages have begun to grow in tandem with the economy, tax receipts are exploding at the federal and state levels, and the United States continues to run laps around its European and Asian economic rivals.

 The United States somehow has managed to absorb 10 million to 20 million illegal immigrants not only without turning into Animal Farm, but while cranking up the most impressive economic recovery in two decades and the most prolonged period of declining crime in a century—all in the teeth of the post-9/11 recession, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the double-whammy hurricane season of 2005.

 Rather than panicking, the political class might want to take a deep breath and attempt a little common sense. Virtually everyone agrees that we need to secure our borders, deport lawbreakers and slackers among the illegal-immigrant population, and revitalize the notion of citizenship by insisting that prospective citizens master the English language and the fundaments of American history and culture.

 The Statue of Liberty symbolizes America’s affection for the world’s tired and poor, the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Before someone razes Lady Liberty and decides to erect a wall to “protect” America from the world, shouldn’t we at least spend a little time trying to get our facts straight?

Tony Snow is the host of The Tony Snow Show on Fox News Radio.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com

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The following article appeared in the Intellectual Conservative website and was also published on the Free Republic website.

MUCHOS DEL NERVIO: AN ABUNDANCE OF MEXICAN NERVE

By Carol Turoff

Mexican nationals jam American streets, waving Mexican flags and chanting demands. illegal immigrants are long on audacity and short on judgment.
The defiance was unrestrained: Emanating from hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens marching in cities across the United States; dangerously clogging roadways while boldly demanding “rights” from the citizens and elected representatives of this country. Exactly what rights do those in this country illegally possess?

Such unbridled temerity while waving the Mexican flag and chanting, “Today we march, tomorrow we vote!” in Spanish, should serve as a wake-up call to those who value the sovereignty of this great country and take the rule of law seriously.

We have watched eastern European nations suffer balkanization. Just months after the mostly Muslim slums of Paris became seething hotbeds of weeks-long rioting, destruction and arson, areas inhabited by illegals are referred to as “no-go” zones, where police refuse to enter. The magical City of Light now cowers under threat of more violence by marauding gangs.

Make no mistake. America’s marchers did not rise up spontaneously. They were incited by Spanish language media and clergy. The raw nerve exhibited by these lawbreakers as they issue threats is appalling. Meanwhile, the US Senate reacted by passing a sweeping immigration reform bill, which in effect, acquiesces to the outrageous antics of those who blatantly disregard our nation’s laws.

Few Americans are anti-immigrant. The operative word, given short shrift by the liberal media, is illegal. And, the Big Lie, repeated often enough to give it an aura of veracity, is that illegal entrants are merely taking jobs Americans won’t take. The construction industry is a prime example of the propagation of this deception. Not so many years ago, tradesmen supported middle class American families. Visit any construction site today, and one rarely finds an English speaker. These are not jobs Americans refuse to take. They are jobs Americans cannot afford to take at the substandard wages uneducated illegal workers are willing to accept. Multiple families, in violation of city housing codes, often reside in single family homes, exacerbating neighborhood decline.

Driving the problem is Mexico’s failed economy and corrupt government. President Vincente Fox is unique among national leaders in that he is eager to allow his country’s vigorous youth to desert their own land. His government provides brochures detailing the safest routes, locations of desert water stations, and how best to avoid border patrol agents. The reason is clear: Mexico’s economy is propped up by the $20.035 billion yearly in remittances sent home by its citizens residing in the United States. Reuters reports this figure is an increase of 20 percent compared to 2004. Remittances from an estimated 11 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. have become the third largest source of income for Mexico after oil exports and tourism.
President George W. Bush has been a major disappointment in addressing border security. Intent on placating the business community, ever desirous of cheap labor, he waffles on reform measures and meaningful efforts to secure our porous borders. Democrats, anticipating another minority voting bloc to tuck in their pocket, fare no better with their lack of will to address this crisis. Neither party is prepared to risk alienating the growing Hispanic sector.

Sen John McCain (R - AZ), garbed in unconcealed presidential aspirations, addressed passage of the abysmal senate bill. Saying the marchers “galvanized congressional support for the bill,” he proved threats work. McCain denies this bill offers amnesty. It contains a provision for those who fulfill certain conditions, such as agreeing to pay fines, learn English, and satisfy requirements for a background check. It also allows illegal immigrants with a high school diploma to enroll in college, paying in-state tuition. McCain calls this, “Earned Citizenship.” He has yet to address imposition of penalties if those given this amnesty refuse to accept the provisions. His bill decriminalizes being here without permission, so what is the incentive? When penalties don’t apply, the proper term is amnesty.

Another issue never addressed is that of children born to the so-called “guest” workers, President Bush enthusiastically promotes. Their children, born in the United States to non-citizen parents, are granted automatic citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment, instituted to address the status of children born to newly freed slaves immediately after the Civil War, has outlived its intent and begs for reconsideration.
The cost of illegal immigration is high. Burdens placed upon public education, health care facilities, the criminal justice system and social welfare agencies escalate with each wave of desert crossers. Most importantly, a post 9-11 America demands that secured borders must be a priority.

Profile: Carol Turoff is a former two-term member of the Commission on Appellate Court Appointments. During her eight years on the commission, she participated in the selection of four of the five current Arizona Supreme Court Justices as well as 17 judges on both Division I and II of the Arizona Court of Appeals. Appointed by two governors, Turoff served with three chairing Supreme Court Justices.

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I read your article “Outsourcing, Immigration, and Education” with great interest and always appreciate your point-of-view and presentation.  I agree with your premise that our educational system, especially K-12, is responsible for turning out substandard students, relative to many other countries, has had and is having deleterious effects on the nation as a whole.  However, I am at odds with some of the material you report.  My response, not necessarily in the order in which the material appears in your write up, is given below.

Sometime ago you posted an extended email exchangeof mine with Dr. Paul Chiu on the topic of research in the U.S. since WW II.  In that exchange I made it clear that since universities overbuilt themselves in the 60s on government demand and funding, engineering and science colleges are now struggling to stay afloat by bringing in foreign students.  The problem is that for the most part we no longer get ‘the cream of the crop,’ but the rejects, from India, China, Korea, and literally none from Taiwan or Japan.  The good ones stay home where high caliber education and jobs are available.  The students (rejects) that come and stay here will be our next generation of technical leaders by default.

The reason many U.S. students are opting out of engineering and the science is that there are scant few jobs doing ‘real’ engineering and science, and the starting pay is considerably less than what a BS in marketing or business gets, fields that take considerably less effort to get a degree in.  When you get into the graduate ranks there is even more of a pay discrepancy.  (I worked with a 100 Ph.D.s in science and mathematics at Bell Labs in the late 1970s all doing economic and business analysis for AT&T and the Bell system.  Bell would not hire business or economics majors to do this work since they did not have the analytical and mathematical skills of the scientists and mathematicians.  I, with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, made a starting salary of  $26K/year, which was about $10K more than my colleagues got who stayed in science and could get a job.  However, MBAs were, at that time, receiving starting salaries of $40K - $45K/year.)  Those jobs that are available are heavily weighted toward minority hires, especially in U.S. universities.  (Scientific research in the US has been on the decline for some years.  In private industry most died off in the 70s and the last bastions of ‘real’ R&D in industry, Bell Labs and IBM, were killed off in the 80s.)  Nevertheless, the production of bachelor engineering and science degrees in the U.S. is still a higher density of population than India and China:  U.S. 757/million; India 199/million; and China 497/million.  (Source: Duke University School of Engineering.  Note that when China reports degrees in engineering it lumps in mechanics, technicians and other technical positions.  The number presented here is corrected for this over count.)

The National Science Foundation, made up of mostly academics, and which has been found to be wrong in their statistical reporting on several previous occasions, has been crying wolf on science and engineering for decades.  This is simply because it is in their own interest to keep the over abundance of universities populated with students justifying the existence of in place science and engineering programs.  Presently, this country does NOT have a critical shortage of engineers and scientists.  

We literally now have tens of thousands of technical people out of work (including myself for over 1 ½ years) or underemployed and our Congress is poised to issue another 30,000 H-1B visas to bring foreign technical people here.   Ignoring this situation some in Congress, and now some economic pundits, are advocating that we put more money into universities to produce more engineers and scientists.  What seems to elude these people is the need to create more technical jobs, without insourcing, and the rest will take care of itself.  And, I respectfully disagree with you, but economics is indeed the root cause.  If I recall correctly, people brought in on H-1B visas are brought in by a company and are bound to the employment of that company for the length of visa.  Their salary is also set by the company and is generally below U.S. market wage because it is based on the country of origin in which employment took place.  They do get cost of living adjustments but the basic salary is far below what U.S. engineers and scientists would be getting.

Indeed, the quality of the research coming out of India, China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan has been growing in quality and quantity in the last decade or so as witnessed by the number and quality of research papers from those countries appearing in referred journals.  The Bush administration’s response of throwing more money at R&D is ill conceived and window dressing to a problem that most politicians just do not quite understand.  As I understand it, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and many DoD funding agencies, such as DARPA, AFOSR, ONR and ARO will be responsible for the distribution of these new monies.  First and foremost this means proposal writing, which in turn means that for every $100K of grant or contact money awarded there will be several hundreds of thousands spent in time and resources writing multiple proposals that are rejected.  It also means that a good portion of the funding will go to premier universities and perceived premier R&D companies.  It also means that 20% of all funding will be set asides for minority companies and historically black universities, that is, awarded on the basis of status, not necessarily demonstrated research competence.  And finally, with the exception of the NSF, research topics are set by the funding agencies in accord with DoD needs and are usually more of a forced technology development nature than research, which naturally drives technological evolution.  Moreover, these topics change ever several years making it difficult to develop any substantial expertise in a field essentially for doing quality research.

The bottom line is that we as country have little appreciation, no less understanding, of the critical issues associated with research and its importance to long term technological/economic development.  Policies by politicians only tend to confuse the situation even more as they do with most things.

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Much very confused thinking has poured forth in response to Congress’s finally trying to come to grips with the illegal immigration problem. 

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Catholic Church in Los Angeles has reportedly urged his church members to break the law should Congress enact measures to stop illegals.  This, of course, is the mode of ‘thinking’ supporting liberals’ judicial activism, not to mention the Parisian college students rioting in the name of social justice: not the law enacted by representatives of the people, but what the liberal-socialists think ought to be the law.

For others, it’s an application of John Dewey’s amoral, atheistic doctrine of pragmatism: do whatever works for you, if you can get away with it.  Support and hire illegals because you want cheap labor.

The social justice argument for letting illegals flood the country is a variant of the socialistic objective of income redistribution.  Freedom, say the liberals, can exist only when everyone has nearly equal income and everyone has unlimited free access to all of society’s goods and services. 

As Alain asks below, why stop with the illegals? The socialist ideal always has been a world government such as the UN, so why not share our wealth equally with all of Mexico? 

Let’s not forget that Jesus, when asked about the hated taxes imposed by the Roman Empire, replied, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Matthem 22:21).  Respect for the law is essential to everyone’s well-being.  Flouting the law is an injury to the whole of society.

It’s one thing to give water and medical aid to an illegal who is near death crossing the desert to enter the United States illegally, but quite another to support his breaking the law.

Alain deals with this issue in the following post:

Alain’s Response to Jackie T. about illegal immigration

Posted: March 27 2006

This is my response that I wrote to a woman named Jackie T. Here is the letter she wrote to me:

(RE: Socialists attack Minuteman Protestor in Chicago)

Dear Alain,

I am a Republican, but I am also a Christian, and after reading the hateful, un-Christianlike article about illegal immigrants, I do not want to receive any Email from you. I suggest you read the 25th Chapter of Matthew in the Bible and rethink your attitude toward the poor Mexicans who only came here to feed their starving families. Jesus would not smile down upon the Minutemen. You are on the wrong moral side of this!

Sincerely,

Jackie T.

.........................

Dear Jackie T.,

I have removed you, and am sorry to see you leave my newsletter. I do want to say though, there is nothing hateful about wanting to uphold the law, nor was there anything hateful being done by the Minuteman who was attacked - he had just arrived and gotten out of his car to peacefully protest against the bank giving home owners loans to people who are here in America illegally. Though the people who assaulted him I would say were hateful, and I make this assumption based on their actions of physically assaulting him.

Just wondering, where would you personally draw the line?

Would you welcome with open arms the entire population of Mexico, all the countries of Latin America, all the countries of South America, not to mention the other parts of the globe. How about the entire population of Sudan, Nigeria or other poor African nations? Can they ALL come over here and walk across our borders since they are poor and want a better life?

Where would you personally draw the line?

We already have more than the entire population of many countries here illegally; that is they came into our country against the law and do not have citizenship.

I am not even asking you to consider the criminals, the gangs, the drug runners or any of that ilk right now, just the normal every day working people.

There is nothing wrong with people wanting to move to America. My ancestors did. The difference is they followed the rules. They came here legally.

If we do not draw a line some where, we are not a sovereign nation. If we say it is ok for the current 20 million or so to be here, and the thousands more who cross our borders illegally daily, then we must simply get rid of all immigration laws and have totally free and open borders. Then any one who feels like it can just walk in and claim American citizenship on a whim.

You can not say “leave these illegal’s alone, they are just poor people wanting to make a living”, but then tell others they can not come in. The rules (Read that as the LAW) must be applied evenly and equally to everyone.

There must be a line some where.

Right now, we have a line. Our government has rules and regulations in place that people can follow, they can go through the process, and become American citizens with all that entails.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and myself personally, support those who follow the rules. We also believe that the line, the LAW, needs to be enforced.

Otherwise we must simply throw up our hands and say, “Well we gave it a shot, but America simply does not exist anymore.” One of the founding principles, one of the things that has made America stand out against the weird tapestry of our globe, is that we are supposed to be a nation of laws. If our laws no longer have any meaning, then neither does the once great country called the United states of America.

I will stand with law and order, and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

As for Matthew 25, I assume you are talking about Matthew 25:31-46. All Christians should do their best to help feed and cloth the poor. You must understand though, this is the individual Christians job, not the nations. It is the individual Christian who will be standing in judgment before our Lord, not our nation. I myself work weekly helping people in need, and I give more than my tithe to the church to food pantries on a regular basis. These are my individual works.

Matthew 25:31-46 does not apply to the nation, but it does apply to me.

That is my opinion.

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John Maynard Keynes, the high priest of socialistic scientism applied to economics, wrote in 1923 that “the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.” James Turk, an international authority on gold and gold prices, explains that the true barbarous relic is, not gold or the gold standard, but central banks.

In Monograph Number 55, published as “The ‘Barbarous Relic’ – It is Not What You Think,” by the Committee for Monetary Research and Education, Mr. Turk provides a concise historical review and analysis of the role of currency vs fiat money now produced in excess amounts by central banks, including the Fed. 

His monograph is readily understandable by anyone, even by readers without training in economics or banking, and I urge you to acquire it and to read it.  To that end, contact Elizabeth Currier at the Committee for Monetary Research and Education, 10004 Greenwood Court, Charlotte, NC 28215-9621, (704) 598-3717. 

Mr. Turk demonstrates that central banks, from their inception, have tended to succumb to pressures to create fiat money faster than the increase in underlying assets produced by their economies. 

Governments pressure central banks to ‘create’ money by purchasing government debt, thereby avoiding the need to raise taxes to fund welfare-state hand-outs.  Commercial banks support the resulting excess credit creation, because it provides them more funds to lend at a profit.

The result is a false sense of economic well-being such as today’s economy in which our massive trade deficit has effectively been financed by the explosion of so-called home equity (based on the inflated market price) loans on private homes.  Our great-grand-parents would be astonished at the extent to which so many of us live far beyond our true means, floating on credit card debt.

To explain this process, Mr. Turk takes us on a summary tour of central banking history.  It begins with chartering of the Bank of England in 1694, just five years after the Glorious Revolution that ousted dictatorial James II and produced the English Bill of Rights in 1689.  London merchants had been prominent in the opposition to James II, wishing both to end the king’s arbitrary confiscation of their assets and to provide for a satisfactory currency to support expansion of trade.

The intent was that the Bank of England hold gold and silver coins and bullion and issue equal amounts of paper currency, which could be redeemed for gold or silver.  Paper currency was then more accurately called bank notes (paper currency even today is simply a promise to pay, a debt of the central bank or of the government).

Over the ensuing two and a quarter centuries, central banks have drifted away from the original concept and repeatedly issued bank notes (or deposit credits to commercial banks) in excess of their underlying assets.  The result invariably is inflation and business recession.  Excess credit leads banks to make too many loans, which leads businesses to over expand because of the disjunction between apparent prosperity reflected in credit availability and the real underlying demand for goods and services.

It was this process, financed throughout the 1920s by the Federal Reserve, that created the capital goods bubble that burst, drowning us in the Great Depression of the 1930s.  President Franklin Roosevelt’s attacks on businessmen and stock market speculation were either ignorance, or more likely Joseph Goebbels-style propaganda to gain public support for the socialistic collectivization of power by the New Deal.

Gold historically was the anchor that restrained central banks from excess credit creation.  If currency in circulation must be held to a strict ratio to gold in the central bank’s possession, inflation will be avoided.

Breaking that link guarantees inflation.  The only question is how much inflation will result.

Following the prescription of Harvard’s socialistic economics department professors, President Roosevelt shortly after taking office in 1933 devalued the dollar to create large-scale inflation at one shot and, at the same time, made it illegal for individuals to own gold or to honor their contracts, most of which permitted the debt holder to require payment in gold.  Mr. Roosevelt’s true purpose was to manage the nation’s credit as part of the socialistic state-planning he had promised in his 1932 campaign.

Even President Roosevelt’s fellow socialist Benito Mussolini chided him, saying that no government had ever managed to inflate its economy into prosperity.

Commodity prices were stable throughout our history until the advent of the New Deal.  Since then, excess credit by the Federal Reserve has been the general rule, and inflation has never stopped.  At best inflation has been held to small digits. 

The gold standard’s last vestiges were tossed aside by President Nixon in 1971, leaving the dollar to float as a managed, fiat currency.

The consumer price index increased 475% from the beginning of President Roosevelt’s administration in 1933 to the start of President Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1981.  In the span of the Johnson, Nixon, and Carter administrations, we experienced the worst burst of inflation in the nation’s history, wiping out more than half the value of people’s life savings. 

Men were forced to ‘moonlight,’ holding several jobs, and mothers were pushed into the full-time work force just to pay the rent and grocery bills.  Juvenile delinquency, not surprisingly, increased, drug abuse became common, marriages broke up, sexual promiscuity became the norm, illegitimacy soared, education collapsed, and we got President Clinton’s Baby-Boomer anarchist rebels who today are busily destroying what remains of the nation’s moral fiber.

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Democrats Have Become the Party of “Sex, Crime, and Corruption"

Washington, DC – Political scandals seem to have become the norm in
Washington DC. From Jack Abramoff to President Clinton and Monica Lewinski,
the scandals do not appear to follow the party lines – at least on the
surface. But a closer look at the history of political scandal reveals
something completely different.

In their new book, DONKEY CONS: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic
Party veteran reporters Lynne Vincent and Robert Stacey McCain, discover
that the truth lies in the history.

From bribery and kickbacks to sex scandals, espionage, terrorism, and rape,
DONKEY CONS chronicles, for the first time, the panorama of Democratic crime
and corruption. Vincent and McCain have generated a truly impressive
retrospective compilation of incidents and scandal that clearly demonstrates
the breadth of the problem and leaves the reader wondering what comes next.

Thoroughly researched, using anecdotes and intimate details, this book shows
the serial corruption within the Clinton presidency wasn’t an anomaly, but
the logical legacy of the modern Democratic ethos. As author McCain says,
“The Democratic Party is like the Gambino mob with matching federal funds.”

As the 2006 election season approaches, DONKEY CONS is not only a look at
what the Democratic Party has become, it is a glimpse into the future and an
invaluable resource for every American voter.

Lynn Vincent is features editor at World Magazine, where she covers news,
politics, and current events. She also teaches in the World Journalism
Institute. Vincent resides in San Diego, California.

Robert Stacy McCain is an assistant national editor for the Washington
Times. His series of columns on the National Standards for U.S. History won
the George Washington Medal from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.
McCain resides in Washington, D.C.

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An editorial in the Wall Street journal edition of 3/27/06, called “The Other Immigrants” recaps points made here in earlier postings.

First, the Journal comments on the hash made of public education by liberal progressive education (multi-culturalism and PC brain-washing) and the fecklessness necessitated by the teachers’ unions. 

The Journal editorialists write, “Mr. Specter would let more foreign students become permanent residents by obtaining an advanced degree in math, engineering, technology or the physical sciences and then finding work in their field. It’s unfortunate that the U.S. isn’t producing more home-grown talent in these areas, and the fault there lies with our K-12 educators and their political backers who tolerate poor performance. The reality today is that the U.S. ranks sixth world-wide in the number of people graduating with bachelor’s degrees in engineering. Jobs will leave the U.S. and our economy will suffer if bad policy limits industry’s access to intellectual capital.”

Second, the Journal underscores the incongruity of immigration policy that functions like a sieve to admit eleven million or more illegals, yet rigidly boots engineering and science students after they have received high-tech degrees, to a considerable extent, at American taxpayers’ expense.

“Another important reform addresses foreign students who want to work here after graduating from U.S. colleges and universities. It doesn’t make a lot of sense in today’s global marketplace to educate the best and brightest and then send them away to England or India or China to start businesses and develop new technologies for U.S. competitors. But that’s exactly what current U.S. policy encourages by limiting the employment prospects of foreign students who would rather stay here.

“Anti-immigration groups and protectionists want to dismiss these market forces, arguing that U.S. employers seek foreign nationals only because they’ll work for less money. But it’s illegal to pay these high-skill immigrants less than the prevailing wage. And employers are required to document their adherence to the law.

“According to a new study by the National Foundation for American Policy, our broken system for admitting foreign professionals also contributes to outsourcing. Since 1996 the 65,000 annual cap on H-1B visas has been reached in most years, sometimes only weeks into the new year. This leaves employers with the choice of waiting until the next fiscal year to hire workers in the U.S. or hiring people outside the country.”

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The news media have given lots of coverage, including photos and TV footage, to the street mobs protesting against immigration legislation now before Congress.  What I’ve seen prompts questions and observations:

1.  How did these “spontaneous” demonstrations happen simultaneously in cities so widely separated?  Did some liberal, anti-Bush group organize and coordinate them?

2.  Was the purpose to inflict further damage on the President’s opinion-poll ratings? Or was it to block efforts to stop illegal immigration?  Why cause grief to President Bush, when he has alienated his core-conservative backers by continuing to push for some sort of policy that would be favorable to the illegals?

3.  Placards carried by demonstrators in all of the street marches proclaimed similar messages, such as “Immigrants Have Rights” and “America was built by immigrants.” This is sophistic baloney.  Few people today object to legal immigrants who pay taxes.  Illegal, non-taxpaying immigrants should have no legal rights to remain here, to receive welfare benefits, or to send their kids to public schools or American colleges at taxpayers’ expense.

4.  What underlies most people’s opposition to present immigration policies and their insufficient implementation is, in fact, a sense of fair play.  Why should we finance these people, most of whom in cities like LA openly declare that they owe no allegiance to the United States and consider themselves still to be citizens of Mexico or other nations.

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Movie viewers tend to suspend disbelief when they watch a film.  Even though they know they are watching fiction, they absorb much of the attitudes projected by the movie script and assume that the circumstances portrayed are factual.

Leni Riefenstahl’s movies, made under the direction of Joseph Goebbels, were hugely influential in selling the Nazi program to the German people in the 1930s.

The Communist Party recognized the propaganda power of movies at the same time and set out to gain control of Hollywood script writers and directors.  Ronald Reagan, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, had to spend much of his time fighting them.

Regarding the essential role of propaganda, I wrote in Conspiracy Susceptibility:

“By definition liberalism necessitates aggregating its political subjects into economic and social classes.  The mechanism for doing this is propaganda, as exemplified in the forty-year pamphleteering run-up to the French Revolution that put rampaging mobs into the streets.  Social and economic classes must be made to believe that they are the victims of conspiratorial forces in order to justify punitive action against enemies of the socialist party.  Hitler’s National Socialism would never have gained control of Germany without the propaganda genius of Joseph Goebbels, the master of the Big Lie.

“People must be inculcated with the gnostic belief that only the collectivized political state can provide their salvation.”

Writer Wes Vernon makes a compelling presentation of past and ongoing liberal-socialist influence, today dominant, in Hollywood on the UsaSentinel website.

Columnist Marie Jon’ describes the same phenomenon among journalists in her article on the Renew America website.

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