Racism: an Issue Whose Time Needs to Pass

Racism, and by extension discrimination, is based on the idea that decisions and actions will be taken with regard to someone’s ethnic lineage. If one makes any judgement based solely on one’s skin color, the distinction becomes even more extreme. For instance, "Italians make good food and Germans make good cars," is racist, it’s even discriminatory, but it’s not a negative and there is fairly ample evidence to support each contention. However, if I say, "Italians don’t know how to make anything that doesn’t break," it’s now discriminatory in a negative way no matter what one says about Ducatis and Fiats.

To take it further, "white men can’t jump, and so they will be banned from the NBA" is an example of extreme racism and discrimination. All the statements preceding that one could be said to be one’s opinion. But, when it comes to barring someone from an activity because of their ethnicity, then it becomes a legal issue.

If a child is barred from attending a particular school, eating in a particular restaurant, or drinking from a particular water fountain, it is racism at it’s worst. If the power stopping her is a private individual, that person can and will be tried, convicted, and spitted for depriving the child of her civil rights. If the power stopping her is the government, then the child will be condemned as being racist herself and standing in the way of decades of civil rights activism.

Say what? Does that make any sense?

Well, it does to some. The Supreme Court overturned forced racial diversity in a brilliant and stunning exhibition of common sense. Of course, the person being denied entry to a school in this case was white and wanted to go to the school near her home. The school board said, "no way, we have enough white students."

The stated goal of the old civil rights movement was to stop the negative discrimination that was stacking the deck against so many people. If that is the case, then when society comes to a point where race isn’t a consideration, everyone should be happy. Right? Obviously not. People are calling this recent decision discriminatory and pushing us back to the days of segregation.

Brown vs. Board of Education, cited by both the consensus and opposing members of the court, dictated that schools could not make decisions on where to put a student based on the student’s skin color. That was a great decision. Sadly, this is not what people took away from that ruling.

Now, "civil rights" activists are horrified by the most recent SCOTUS decision. Why? Why if the idea of racial parity is the ideal would anyone who says they are concerned about civil rights want a policy based on race to stand? The answer is simple and one of the oldest in the history of the world: because they have a power base that needs the status quo to continue.

Many of the most vocal minority rights leaders would be out of work if race stopped being an issue. The end result of what they really want is not an end to discrimination but to replace negative discrimination with positive discrimination, aka preferential treatment.

I’m no fool. Negative racism towards blacks (and it’s "black," not "African-American," the same way I’m "white," not "European-American," and first and above all we are "Americans") still exists in this country. It’s a terrible thing and should be stomped out wherever it is found. However, two wrongs don’t make a right and if we are going to strive for a higher ideal, we need to live it. Race shouldn’t be a factor for anyone and if the law is to recognize that, it must recognize that across the board. In fact, it shouldn’t even have to recognize anything, race simply needs to become a non-issue and it won’t if official policies are based on it.

Want to help the poor? Then help the poor. Want to help AIDS victims? Then help AIDS victims. In reality, there will be problems that are defined by racial lines, but they are not as prolific as we make them out to be and often the division is one created by those special interest groups who gain power and notoriety by doing so. But, in cases which must be addressed as a racial group, do so in the same way any other group would be addressed, be they unwed mothers, the homeless, unemployed military veterans, and other such groups having a difficult time. Don't do it by punishing or making policies which affect other racial groups.

I can’t say this enough. Two wrongs don’t make a right. To continue racism in any form is to hurt society and plays only to those with vested interests. When a black presidential candidate complains about racism, I have to ask myself just how much racism can there be? when many polls show that same black candidate in the lead.

Reject all racismand in any form you find it, unless of course you are shopping for a nice car or looking for a good plate of baked ziti.

Shades of Tammany Hall

As the baby boom generation ages, it’s been interesting to watch the slow shift in beliefs touted as gospel by The Left. In the 1960’s and 1070’s, it was about freedom and individual expression. Now, how ironic is it that, the hue and cry is for more government and lamenting the rise of true individual expression.

This was driven home to me by two discussions in as many days.

The first was on a local radio program. The host and guests were lamenting term limitations and the fall of the old-boys’ network in the Arizona state legislature. Was this on the conservative talk radio that Hillary Clinton wants to impose limits upon? No, this was on local NPR affiliate KJZZ, broadcast from the campus of the Arizona State University in Tempe.

Two former state-level politicians were telling the world how sad it is that members of our legislature don’t spend their first few terms mute, literally not allowed to introduce any measures and rarely allowed to join in debate. In the "good old days," you had to earn the right to represent the people who elected you, and you had to get your campaign money through one man. Sure, it was bad if you were at odds with that powerful figure, but, really, that was your own fault, wasn’t it? It made things soooo much easier and efficient. To add insult to injury, freshmen senators now have the audacity to think that they are an equal of the majority leader because their votes carry the same weight. Yes, those halcyon days of yore were so much better. New members of the club could be ushered in to all the secrets of the inner workings, shown the path to life long political power, and the establishment had continuity and a sure hold on the legal process in Arizona.

The second discussion was a BBC podcast where a Silicon Valley pariah was claiming free content on the internet is destroying society. Why anyone could publish anything! This is having the terrible consequence of destroying the "legitimate" media. And, it undermines traditional education where students are spoon fed selected facts by the government system. Who is there to censor and decide what the public sees and reads? Why, the society is going to crumble because we will be unable to distinguish fact from lie if anyone can say anything. At it’s core, says this expert, is the lack of money. No money is being exchanged for information and this upsets the dynamic in an unacceptable way. I can’t help but wonder if he was recently turned down from a job with a newspaper. It never occurred to him or the interviewer that maybe the public is tired of the left wing slant and selective culling of the news by the major media outlets, so that we gladly adopt new sources of information.

What happened to the idea of the freedom of expression, once held so dear? What happened to the values of a free market? What happened to the idea that a free flow of ideas is healthy for government, society, and commerce? What happened to over throwing the man and power to the people?

While the party line has changed over the years, both of these articles find themselves still firmly planted in the fields of current Liberal thought. Rather than the old Liberal "I just want to be free," it’s the now, "the public is too stupid to take care of themselves, and an intelligent person such as myself has to tell those poor sods up from down."

It’s this basic distrust of the average person that fuels the Ruling Elite mentality of the Left. They are distrustful and scared of what a society unfettered by an "enlightened", stranglehold rule might get up to. I can understand that to a bit. After all, the old saying goes, "an individual person is smart, but the general public is stupid."

But so what? In this great experiment in democracy, the common man eventually finds his feet no matter how fast the waters of change are flowing. And, 99 out of 100 times, they find not only solid ground, but profitable, solid ground long before the government or educational institutions are even aware there is a flood. In doing so, the common man pays the taxes that allow the Liberal Elite to gripe about how stupid the common man is.

Times may change, and those who feel they are being denied their place in a structure they are used to are going to be spitting out sour grapes. That’s fine. Change brings opportunity and our modern age is constantly bringing more voice and influence to the average, stupid, common man like myself. If someone is afraid of that, then maybe they have something to be afraid of.

Constitutional Erosion and the Second Amendment: Why America Should Care

Anyone giving this page even the most cursory glance will see that firearms hold a significant interest to me. Some of you are understand that, some don't. But, even if you aren't a gun owner, I'd ask you to read this particular post. And, if you are a gun owner, I still think you will find something in this one to think about and talk about with friends and family.

In future posts we'll cover some of the more pointed issues about gun control. However, I'd like to take a different tack today, one that affects all Americans - liberal, conservative, even the ambivalent. It has to do with the course we set for ourselves and our country.

For years, the gun culture has warned about marginalizing the Second Amendment. I'm not going to go into Constitutional scholarship, but a bit of background is important for a person to understand what is at stake and why non-gun owners need to care about this issue.

The Second Amendment says:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The anti-gun crowd, including the the ACLU, talks about the right to arm ourselves as a collective right. That means it belongs to society as a whole, specifically the government, not an individual. They cite a few Supreme Court decisions from the 1800's and one from the early 1900's to support that position. During that time frame, the entire Bill of Rights was viewed as recognizing collective rights, with the individual states having power to regulate such things as freedom of speech and of the press.

Today, we have correctly gone back to the original intent of the founding fathers and the idea of inalienable, individual rights. Even the typically liberal law journals have been forced to recognize that when "the people" is referred to, it identifies the private citizen. In "The Embarrassing Second Amendment," Sanford Levinson, a Harvard law professor, detailed this for the Yale Law Review.

That's a quick background and, like I said, we'll go into the agonizing details of Constitutional Law at another point in time. Even if you don't completely agree with the individual rights interpretation of the "the right to keep and bear arms," I'll ask you to admit that the Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights and has never been rescinded.

When we ignore entire segments of the Constitution, and individual and civil rights by extension, we begin down a slippery slope. What happens when we allow one part, any part, of the Constitution, to be ignored, is that we accept the idea that our laws and rights are amorphous, changeable by the government and public opinion. Of course, the entire idea of the Constitution is to protect society from that very thing.

We live in a society with two very distinct evils in our midst: a government hungry for more power and a growing population who wish to abrogate the responsibilities of adulthood. That means there are fewer and fewer challenges from the people when rights are infringed.

I vote Republican. I admit that. It's not that I have any love for the Republican party, but it's that the Democrats scare the beejeebers out of me with their desire for a nanny state. Sadly, the Republicans no longer stand for individual rights, either.

Alright, am I am alarmist?, I mean, the government needs to be allowed some regulation such as interstate commerce. Yes, but, let's look at some big and small things happening in our country today. We have Hillary Clinton's "village" to raise children. That's not a nice "community" thing where someone watches your kid while you run to the store. She means that the government knows better than you do about what your child needs to learn and who they should be, and that they have the right to enforce their will over your very own children. She has said exactly that. We have Rudy Giuliani who, as Mayer of New York City, used his prosecutor's background to "creatively" interpret laws in ways they weren't meant to be used but which allowed him to go after the people and groups he wanted to affect. He even brags about such issues in his book Leadership. People accepted it because they liked the result, but was it the right thing to do? Shouldn't he have gone through the proper process to pass actual laws doing what he wanted?

Agree or disagree, this is a problem. We complain about The Patriot Act, but we cower and cringe when it comes to defending ourselves. Just the other night, I was dumbfounded when a news anchor talked about a recent murder, "but the good thing is that a witness called 911 so quickly that the police found the suspect before he could get away." Geez how good was that for the victim? Wouldn't it have been better if the witness stopped the murder? Is our response to a random killing to pick up a telephone? It is because we have been led to believe that it's the government's job to protect us.

We often hear about police chiefs saying, "yes, fighting back saved a person this time, but they shouldn't have taken the law into their own hands." I have a huge problem with this on many levels. For one, self-defense is not vigilantism. Two, in a government for the people and by the people, the law is inherently in our hands to begin with. Vigilantism is wrong because it denies a person due process under the law, not because citizens want a wrongdoer off the streets.

How is a society supposed to maintain individual rights when we ask the the government to do for us what we won't do for ourselves? You say, "that's dramatic, of course we need the police!" I never said we didn't. But, I point out that societies collapse slowly, not in a dramatic parking lot attack. If we won't take charge of our lives at the dramatic moments, we are going to have a difficult time with those things that bring about doom through slow erosion.

The answer, of course, is our Constitution. It's the document that has made our country unique in all of history. Even when it was first drafted, it was something very special, unique in putting the person before the state. Today, John Edwards talks of a politician's "followers," not supporters, not constituents, but "followers," sheep following obediently behind their master.

If we are to keep the Constitution meaningful, then all of it has to be meaningful or it is doomed. Divided we will surely fall. And that is really the point here: if you believe in one part of it, you need to believe in all of it. We can't pick and choose for all of society and for the generations who follow us. We must hold our government to the letter of the law and the intent of the Constitution. If you even for a moment believe the Second Amendment supports an individual right when it says "the people," or if you even slightly believe it just might, maybe mean the individual, then it has to be part of the bundle of rights which we stand together to defend. If you believe that the issue needs to be decided by the courts, then it needs your support until due process has had it's day.

History is not over and attacks on our rights continue. Don't like the Patriot Act, don't like McCain/Feingold, don't like wire taps, don't like people being quarantened without even having a judge review the facts, don't like Guitmo, don't like anything you feel infringes on civil rights? The cure for ambivalence is in the individual caring and taking part in the process. And the tool to use and the shield behind which to withstand the assaults on our rights is the Constitution.

Let no child be thrown out of the lifeboat. Those journalists who feel their First Amendment rights are being trampled supported the trampling of the Second Amendment. Those churches who supported gun control due to (erroneous, IMHO) pacifist beliefs have seen their First Amendment rights severely limited. Those same groups such as the ACLU who supported the collective/"only government should have guns" position now can't understand how we got to the point where we have government invading our privacy electronically and literally having men in black masks and toting machine guns kicking down our doors with little cause or provocation.

It goes beyond the straight Constitutional issues as applied to institutions such as the press and church and it goes beyond issues such those with which the ACLU concerns itself. We see the results and consequences everyday when small, well funded special interest groups are allowed free sway to reinterpret a document labored over by the men who fought to make America free. Parents who saw guns as instruments capable only of evil have seen their children murdered in the classroom, unarmed teachers having no way to fight back. City councils who wanted easy answers for inner-city crime and directed their police forces to focus on gun confiscation and gun buy back programs have seen their crime rates sky rocket while those cities and states which enacted right to carry laws have seen their crime rates plummet.

The McCain/Feingold Campaign Reform Act took away the First Amendment rights of all groups, groups formed because individuals of like minds had no way for their voice to be heard otherwise. Agree with their voices or not, they do have a Constitutional right to free speech. Now, that right is no longer recognized. In the meantime, wealthy millionaires such as George Soros can still be heard and have the financial means to plaster the media with their own views. I can hear the Left cheering. But, it goes the other way, too. The NAACP is now limited in what they are allowed to promote, and people like Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, can say whatever he wants, too. Disturbingly, the cry seems to be that limits should be put on the Big Money, which is what McCain/Feingold said it was to do. There seems to be no outrage over the limitation on the Little Guy's First Amendment rights.

Just as with the "war on drugs," the "war on terrorism" has seen a large escalation in governmental power. The Patriot Act was hated by many, but it still passed. Wire tapping without court order, something done by every president, not just Bush, went into overdrive. We know that terrorists use our loopholes to hide from the government, but, as Benjamin Franklin said, "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." Or, as I tend to less eloquently put it, "it's all fun and games until it ends up on your doorstep."

If you don't want to see your rights taken away, then you need to make sure no one else has their rights taken away. The fight over gun control and the Second Amendment is where the most vicious fighting for the integrity of the Constitution is taking place. The tip of the spear is the National Rifle Association. They never say everyone must own a gun, but they unwaveringly say the Constitution can not be bargained away or it's the beginning of the end. Many non-hunters buy a hunting license each year because they support the game and fish departments of their state in conservation and recognize that such departments get a huge part of their funding through the sale of hunting and fishing licenses. Likewise, many non-gun owners pay the $35/year for an NRA membership because they recognize the Second Amendment as the focus of the attacks which, if successful, will mark the beginning of the end for the document which has made America unique in the history of the world.

If you are a gun owner and you don't have an NRA membership, you are letting the rest of us do the heavy lifting for you while you reap the rewards. If you aren't a gun owner but have a heart felt desire to see America continue on as one in which we celebrate individual rights, I would encourage your to consider the annual membership fees to the NRA as a small price to pay in order to back the one organization doing the most to support the Constitution. At the very least, be aware of the gun control debate and what is at stake so that you can respond and support the idea that the Constitution was meant for the people, not the government, when attacks on individual rights are made.

If you won't do it for everyone, one day you will find the issues you care about under assault, and who will be left to stand by you?

This idea was captured so well by Pastor Martin Miemoller in his poem, "First they came..."

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Immigration

Due to the recent demise of the Kennedy/McCain Immigration Bill, I wanted to put a few thoughts together about our current problem with illegal immigration.

I had written a long, drawn out statement, but I deleted it. I was just recovering lots of ground, so why go through all of that again.

A few points:

1)READ “Mexifornia” by Victor Davis Hanson (no relation, link to the right). For those of you unfamiliar with VDH, he has a very unique perspective on this issue. He is a Professor in the University of California and teaches Classics. He also is a farmer in California's central valley area and works the small family farm he grew up on. His mind is sharp, he works and lives in an area heavily affected by this issue, and he has a very deep understanding for how America has changed in the last fifty years. Lest someone think I'm pointing you to a Limbaugh-esque tirade, VDH is a Democrat, though of the old school and not the current liberal ruling elite mentality. He offers some wonderful insight and it's not a blame/deport them all fest, not in the least.

2)This border wall issue. When someone says “build a wall” I know they have never been on the border. I live in Arizona and started exploring the border country when I was attending the University of Arizona in Tucson. I'm telling you that no one is going to seal either border – north or south. It's too large, too remote, and too wild. To build a fence is a waste of money that can be better spent elsewhere. It's going to cost a fortune, be ugly in a beautiful part of this nation, and do absolutely nothing for our security. In fact, it will diminish it because it's a fell good measure that will incline people to relax.

3)This isn't a racial issue no matter what Geraldo Rivera says. It's an issue encompassing a racial class, but it's not racial at it's core. People are upset about it because there is chaos and no accountability. We see hospital bills left unpaid to the point places such as Brownsville, Texas, has considered closing their hospital. Maybe they have, I only heard they were thinking of it. Talk to anyone in the medical field in any border state and the problem is huge.

4)Like it or not, this entire thing is going to end up with amnesty. We might as well face it, swallow the pill, install a guest worker program, and get on with business.

5)The only way it's going to stop under the current laws is by closing down the small business owners who would hire Americans if Americans were willing to work those sorts of jobs. I know people in both the construction and restaurant businesses, and they simply can't find willing Americans. Our unemployment is less than 4.5%. The large corporations can afford to pay the fines and fight in court while still being an active, thriving business. We need the workers. If we have a guest worker program, at least they can be taxed and tracked. And, most of the illegal workers are very hard workers. I was on a job site one time where a demolition crew was working. Those guys worked so hard I felt like a slacker for only doing 80 hours a week (then, no more hours like that for me anymore.)

6)We need to stop catering to the illegals, allowing them to function without becoming Americans by nature and attitude, citizenship can come once they prove themselves. This is heart of the issue as the years go by. We don't raise our own kids to be proud of their heritage, it's going to be impossible to instill a patriotic attitude in new immigrants. This one is all on us, folks. We have to demand more of our youth and a whole lot more of our schools.

7)English has to be the language of choice. If you don't speak it, you will get no where. Spanish services will do to the Hispanic population what welfare has done to the blacks – created a low economic comfort zone that affectively keeps them always at the poor end of our society. We have to stop doing such things.

8)No matter what we do, we cannot ignore the legal immigrants. These people follow all our laws, come here to better themselves, and we make them go through an overly complicated process that is frustrating, takes years, and costs thousands of dollars in legal fees. That is unacceptable to say the least.

9)Yes, entering the USA illegally is a crime – hence the “illegal” moniker. But, there is a difference between a guy coming north to find work hard at a better life and the scumbag pusher and thief who is a leach on society. We can't use the same paint brush on all “criminals.” Once we realize that, amnesty is easier to accept.

10)This is a hot button issue. Everywhere I go, this is the issue that gets people worked up. The politicians don't want to touch it because they don't want to lose the Hispanic vote. Well, only citizens can vote, and lot of the Hispanics who are citizens have lived here all their lives and feel like victims, too.

11)We have to demand more of Mexico so that a better economy is possible, enticing fewer people to come north. Right now it's businesses as usual with graft and corruption and keeping huge amounts of money in the hands of a few families. They need to let go of the reigns and pass laws making it easy to open a business. The free market will take it from there.

Those are a few of my talking points on this issue. I live in a border state and a lot of the talk I hear coming from the east and from those who never leave the urban area of Phoenix is unrealistic. I say we make an arbitrary date, say January 1, 2006. Prove you were in the country then and everyone gets a free pass – legal gets their citizenship, illegal gets a guest worker pass. All business register their guest workers, and then it's a whole lot easier to weed out the bad apples and figure out who is causing problems.

There is obviously more to this issue, but that's a good place to start.