Rights, Immigrants, and the American Dream

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, 1883

This is the end of the poem found in the Statue of Liberty. What I find interesting about it is that you almost always hear the first part “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses” without the “yearning to breathe free” part. And yet this is the promise of America. The reason that immigrants were coming to our nation was not because of the great health care, or the wonderful education that they could receive or any sort of reason like that. It was so that they could be free. They wanted to work, and to enjoy the fruits of their labor without having others take from them what they had earned. This idea of freedom, of a way of life where you neither owed anything to anyone nor did anyone owe you anything, was transformational.

This is the reason for the line “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses”. It was not because of charity or pity. Instead it was because in the nations that were ruled by kings and lords, men who took their place in life by their birthright, these huddled masses were wretches that were considered a problem. But give them to us and we will give them freedom, and these people who were a drain on your nation with your system of authority granted by birthright, will become our strength.

These former wretches came to our shores and they worked, and they invented, and they turned the wheels of industry. And our strength, which came from those who were rejected by other nations, grew so great that America is now the strongest nation that the world has ever seen. Even in our current economic decline, our economic, military, cultural, and technological influence is unprecedented in the history of the world.

Yet over the years, this system has changed. We have lost the notion that everyman is free. All of our ideas have been perverted. Freedom no longer means living without owing anything to anyone or being owed anything by anyone. We now say that freedom is taking from the rich and giving to the poor. There is weak logic for this, such as the thought that the rich have not come by their wealth honestly. But this is a fallacy. If the rich's gains are ill-gotten they should be tried in court, the answer is not to introduce a system of denying people the enjoyment of the fruit of their labor. Nor can you say that the disadvantages of being poor are so great as to have ruined the American Dream. For in a free nation there has always been a tradition of the poor, through their discipline and ingenuity born from their poverty, toppling the power held by those who gained it through inheritance.

The idea of a right no longer means what it did at the founding of our nation. Take the line from The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. What are rights in this document? Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. These cannot be given. That is why we are endowed by our Creator with rights. No man can give life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, he can only take it away.

Today rights refer to the government's guarantee to another man's property or service. Today's “rights” violate yesterdays freedom. The “right” to health care requires making slaves of doctors, or the people who's property is confiscated to pay for their services. The same is true of the “right” to an education.

This is why the bronze plaque in the Statue of Liberty that has Emma Lazarus' poem engraved on it no longer applies. This is the reason why open boarders are no longer a good idea. Our society has gone from a place where people are transformed from being dependent on the state to being industrious, to the exact opposite.

Just what I wanted! A big banker in the oval office!

Turns out that Herman Cain is a former chairman for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. From WND:

Cain has faced criticism from some conservatives for his service as deputy chairman (1992-1994) and chairman (1995-1996) of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who this week launched his own 2012 campaign for president, has consistently sponsored bills calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve System, which prints and controls the dollar and sets associated interest rates.Paul also authored the 2009 book, "End the Fed."

However, Cain told WND those who are troubled by his time at the Fed should do some research on the subject.

"They need to go back and look at how the Fed performed in the decade of the '90s when I was on the Fed board," he said. "I'm not on the Fed board now."

He continued, "Secondly, if that's going to be the single disqualifier for people not voting for me, then they are certainly going to pick the wrong person to be president of the United States. Do you want to know why? Because if you end the Fed – this is what Ron Paul wants to do – how many jobs is that going to create? How much energy independence is that going to create? How many immigration problems is that going to fix? How much spending is that going to take?

The problem with saying that the Fed did a good job in the 90s is that its entirely irrelevant. The whole idea of the Fed is kind of like the portion of the EPA dedicated to reducing CO2 emissions. It doesn't matter of they do a good job because the job that they are doing shouldn't be done in the first place.

Plus the whole point of electing someone who is not a politician, would be to get some one who is not from the world of elitists. And if you put the kind of people who are elitist in order, it goes first big bankers, then politicians, then media moguls or something like that. So his history is actually a little worse than some one who has spent their lives in the world of politics.

Christians don't need to worry about being politically correct

As a man who has complete disregard for politically correct culture, I tend to shock a lot of people with my views, especially in Christian circles. But as I see it, anyone who holds a Christian world view has absolutely no use for political correctness. The reason for this is that the major basis for political correctness is that all people groups, genders, religions, cultures, etc, are equal. That may seem all well and good if you spend zero time thinking about it. But as I Christian I certainly don't think that all religions and cultures are equal. Cultures of people who serve God are better. Jesus said that no one comes to the Father but by him, and so I can conclude that only 1 very narrow religion is good, and the rest are evil.

Most Christians are not shocked by any of this. But then when it gets to equality of race and gender, I'm also totally open to inequalities. For example, I believe that men have a greater natural aptitude for math. Whats more, I believe that Asians have a better natural aptitude for math, and higher education in general. Black and Hispanic students on the other hand seem to have less natural born ability to preform well in school. And you can say that its because of nurture and culture all you want, but really that goes against what most people observe, and seems to come from the fact that people are not comfortable with the conclusions that best fit the observations.

We see this same thing in all sorts of animals. Different breads of dogs have different intelligence, and although I have not researched it, I'd be shocked if the same was not true for cow, pigs, goats, cats, and basically every other domesticated and wild animal for which there is variety with the ability to cross breed. So should the default conclusion be that of all biological beings humans are completely unique in this way?

I would say that there are definitely some things that set men apart form the animals, but being exactly the same across all races according to all metrics is not one of them. Different races also have all manner of physical differences including heath problems, and greater physical aptitudes. Very few people would argue against that because its just too obvious. So why should something like intelligence by any different?

The reason that these thought don't bother me is because as a Christian I have a view on innate human value that is not affected by any of this stuff. The atheist/humanist views the worth of a person by the ability to produce, which certainly is tied to such things as intelligence. But as a Christian I view that as a perverse and wrong measurement of value. The only real value a person can have comes from their relationship with God. And God does not find people more or less valuable because of their intelligence. It's not like He keeps us around because we're always giving Him such good ideas. Instead, I believe that all people are valuable because God said that He treasures all of them. And because of this I can honestly evaluate the world without getting into eugenics or Nazism. So I have no use for political correctness.

Oh look, more praise for Newt's intelligence

Not one hour after my last blog post, National Review (see establishment conservative publications) put out an article praising Newt for his great intelect.

One major source of Newt’s problems is that he is almost always the smartest guy in the room. Compounding this problem is an ability and compulsion to defend any position he takes. For a politician this can be an enormous problem because it creates a climate where he can’t take unwelcome advice from his staff

Although one could argue that the article's author's definition of intelligence might better define words like “bull headed” or “dismissive”, I find the following much more interesting

Gingrich is very wedded to the idea that he should be on the majority side of every major public policy issue. That’s why he believes in framing policy questions so they become “70-30 issues” (or sometimes even “80-20″ issues) — i.e. issues where he’s on the side of 70 percent of Americans against the 30 percent “elite.”

This is the problem with Gingrich and basically all of the Republican contenders. They do not stand on principle. Instead the try and gauge what an electable politician looks like and mold themselves to fit that image. The problem is that their convictions then only go as deep as their perception of public opinion.

The only exceptions seem to be Herman Cain, who is not pushing principles so much as a leadership process, and Ron Paul. Even though Ron Paul takes some crazy stances, such as his stance on immigration, and his undying belief that Muslim countries would be all sun shine and roses if only we pulled out of their affairs, it is still refreshing to hear a candidate take stances on nothing more than what he believes to be right.

Newt's damning honesty

From http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/can-newt-gingrich-control-newt-gingrich/?hp.

"One of the most painful lessons I’ve had to learn, and I haven’t fully learned it, obviously, is that if you seek to be the president of the United States, you are never an analyst, and you are never a college teacher because those folks can say what they want to say," Mr. Gingrich said.  

And yet, the frank admission was even more striking because it came at the end of an interview in which Mr. Gingrich proved himself completely unable to follow his own advice. He slammed the Republican Medicare proposals in Congress, declared the city of Detroit “destroyed” by food stamps and implied that he supported the individual mandates at the heart of President Obama’s health care overhaul.

When you don't even remotely represent the people who's votes your asking for, then yes candor is extremely harmful.  Turns out that it'll take a little more that being repeatedly referred to the smartest man in Washington by establishment conservative publications to win the presidency.  

Relying on God

I recent weeks I have been struggling with the issue of what to do with my life. I have felt stalled with where I am at, and been wrestling with God on where I should go from here. In the process of trying to do something, anything but just staying the course, I have toyed with several ideas for how to re-shape my life. I have tried thinking of start ups that I can do I my own time, looked at going back to school, looked at all sorts of activities that I could become part of, and none if it ever panned out. Even this blog has been part of my search for something new. I have asked for prayer on this topic on many occasions and received several words and visions that I believe did come from God. I was told by one person that they saw image of me as a restless bull running in one direction only to stop and then tear off in another direction. They said that God would show me where to run. Another person told me that they saw my life as a roller coaster and it was currently slowly climbing that first big hill, and nearing the top, where it would finally go over the edge. Another person told me that God was saying to them that I have a very good mind, but that it is not the only gift that God has given me or wants me to use. Yet another person told me that God was saying that there was something that I had shelved for a later date that I should take off the shelf. And the last word that I received on the subject was that the person had a vision of me trying to remove a heavy tarp in order to see what was underneath. But the tarp was too heave for me. They then told me that God wants to help me lift this tarp, and reveal His plan.

Having all of this on my mind has been exhausting. But I believe that I have finally come up with the answer, which I am going to share in the hope that it will be useful to those of you still following my blog as well.

Yesterday I was talking with my mom and we found that we were both reading the book of Leviticus. We talked about the laws of cleanliness, and I suggested that maybe not all of the laws had any real connection to living healthy, although some of them certainly do. Instead I thought that they might be more akin to the laws about clothing and how the Jews were to cut their hair, which was done to set them apart as God's people. It may have been obedience for the sake of obedience. And God promised that if they were obedient He would bless them. I believe that God does this as a way of reminding His people that their success does not come from themselves, but from Him.

This had me thinking about the patriarchs of the faith. For the most part they simply moved to where God told them to go, or in some cases found them selves enslaved (Joseph), or fleeing for their lives (Jacob). And then wherever they were they were obedient to God, and He blessed them in all that they did. Not once does the Bible mention a cunning plan that one of them came up with the raise the best sheep, or harvest the fullest crops.

And now I've been looking back at my life, and the opportunities that I've had. And in basically all cases, I made my cunning plans for how I would find a job, or a new job, or get a better contract, etc. And in every single case, my plans were all in vain. Instead, God opened the way for me, which is to say I was contacted for my job by people that I had not applied to. I got my current contract not by any plan of mine, but because my boss revised it and re-sent it to me.

And this is my answer. I don't have to figure out some amazing plan for what to do next. I don't have to risk going back to school only to find that is not where God was leading. I am at the bank of the Red Sea, and I have been trying to plot out the best path to swim across it. But that is not how God has chosen to work in my life. Instead He is asking me to stay at the bank, and when the time is right He will part the Sea for me. And when He does, I will be ready, and I will run as hard as I can across that divide, but further attempts to swim across by myself would certainly only result in my drowning.   

Politically correct = I wish it were correct

In the fallout from the White House releasing Obama's birth certificate and the predictable racism screeds, I've been thinking about what drives P.C. culture. And I think that most of what it comes from is people seeing things that contradict their world view, and instead of processing those facts and adjusting their world view accordingly, they actively deny those facts and claim that to do otherwise is immoral.

One extremely obvious example is the P.C. notion that terrorism is only part of a fringe part of Islam. It is stated all the time. Even the conservative commentators will always qualify the statement that we are at war with Muslim terrorist with statements that they are not true Muslims, but perverting the religion. And yet, we regularly see whole Islamic nations collaborating with terrorist, or even engaging in acts of terrorism. Hamas, the democratically elected party in Palestine, has condemned the execution of Osama bin Laden. Why would they do this if they did not support him? Many prominent Muslim clerics have condemned the way in which Osama bin Laden was put to rest. They have said that dumping his body in the ocean violated Islamic law. But if he was not a “true” Muslim, and other followers of Islam did not see him as one of their own, why does it matter? And it is becoming more and more clear that Pakistan knew about and was actively aiding Osama bin Laden. This is to say nothing of Iran's statements of intent to blow Israel off the map, the new election of Hezbollah's (Hezbollah is the Shiite version of Al-Qaeda) democratic take over of Lebanon, or Egypt's rioting mobs brutalizing and raping American reports who actually supported them.

But if Islam is a religion of violence and death instead of peace, then it would mean that either all cultures or all people groups are not equal. And all cultures and people groups should be completely equal, so to recognize the murderous ways of Islam wherever it rules would be wrong.

This same logic can be applied to our president. All you have to do to see that compared to most presidents the man is a complete idiot is to watch a video of him taking questions. It's painful wading through all the uh...'s and um...'s. Contrast that with this video of Clinton answering a “gotcha” question from Herman Cain back during his presidency. He almost never stumbles, draws on a lot of facts and figures that I certainly didn't know before watching the video, makes good calculations on the fly, and in all comes out looking pretty good considering that he was selling pure snake oil. George Bush was no Clinton, but even he actually manages to make his point, draw on a number of specific relevant facts, and does so without rambling.

This is in sharp contrast with other black firsts. The first black boxer to have a title bout, went on to not only win it, but gain the reputation of being the greatest boxer up to that point in history. He is still widely regarded as the best ever. Jackie Robinson, although not generally considered the best, was an extremely good. And this is not a phenomenon that is limited to just sports. Many black artists who may not have had specific break through moments, there are certainly examples, such as Ella Fitzgerald, of black people finding their way in the world of the arts and blazing very bright trails and some of the best to have ever lived. And so Obama, as the first black president should be one of the greatest ever. And any facts that detract from that are to be held as racist.   

To busy on monday

Last Monday my job took a great deal more time out of my evening than expected and as such I was not able to get my post out.  I'll get it out some time tonight.

Just a thought

I was looking at the time line for when they actually knew where Osama bin Laden was and when they actually did the raid.  You can see what the time line was for yourself here.  I found this to be particularly interesting:


 March and April. Obama held a series of National Security Council meetings "to develop courses of action to bring justice to Osama bin Laden." There were at least five meetings: March 14, March 29, April 12, April 19 and Thursday.


So the last meeting before the raid took place one day after Obama released his birth certificate.  I can't help but think that the plan was to release it on Wednesday knowing that on Sunday all of the national focus was going to be on the culmination of nearly 10 years of military operations, thus distracting from his birth certificate, and hopefully ending the discussion.  I seriously doubt that it will work, but the timing cannot be a coincidence.  

This Kind Of Silliness

Last week, two major news bombshells where dropped. After three years of stonewalling Obama finally released his birth certificate, and Osama bin Laden was finally killed.

What amazes me about the way that the dust is settling on the birth certificate issue, is how the mainstream media (ie, Fox, CNN, MSNBC) are not skipping a beat in the way the are constructing their narrative. Virtually all of the major hosts, including Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly are on the record years ago saying that the so called “birthers” were crazy because Obama had already released his birth certificate.

And now instead of saying “Woops, we're sorry. Turns out that Obama didn't provide source documentation for his eligibility to be President until now. Our bad.”, they are going on the offensive and saying, “See, you were wrong in your accusations all along.” This is troublesome, as almost all of the players who were pushing for the release of his birth certificate were not saying that he was definitively ineligible, but rather that he had not proved his eligibility with proper documentation. Now the talkers are mischaracterizing people like Joseph Farah and Alan Keyes just like they mischaracterized the certificate of live birth as being no different from a long form birth certificate.

The other troubling thing is how the long form birth certificate was immediately accepted with zero foristic analysis. When the president has spent three years and estimated millions of dollars of legal fees to hide a document, no sane person would believe that said document is not a fake without having experts comb over it first. Even then, unless we are offered some better explanation of why his birth certificate was not release sooner than “We do not have time for this kind of silliness”, it seems unlikely that it can ever be viewed without suspicion. Obama could have released his birth certificate, passports, college records, and all other relevant documents in less than a 10^th of the time that he has spent fighting court battles, and fending off questions in the press over these issues. There is an absolute end to the relevant documents that can be produced, and non of them should contain any damaging information if the president is to be believed. The fact that he has decided to hide all this information strongly suggests that he is hiding something. Does that mean that he is ineligible to serve? No, but it does strongly suggest that he is lying about something, and therefore we should not take his word about his birth certificate without first analyzing it.

The sad thing is once you do look at the birth certificate with a critical eye, it completely falls apart. The first problem is the obvious difference between the version released by the Associated Press and the version released by the White House. Both are presented as being either copies or photographs of the document. Neither one is was released with the disclaimer that it was some how modified for public viewing, but obviously one is printed on green safety paper, and the other is on white paper with no patterns. Either he went from not having any birth certificate to having two copies, or one of those has been altered on a computer. I haven't found too much on the AP's copy, but White house copy was certainly doctored, and fairly lazily as well. If you look through market-ticker's analysis, you might be able to write off some of the problems, but to my admittedly amateur knowledge, there is no way that a picture or a copy could cause the pixelation seen in the upper right hand corner of document. If you think that it may just be some guy who is pulling your chain, go to the origional document released on the whitehouse.gov site and see for yourself. A full 6 days later they are still brazenly displaying the same document with obvious problems.

So in this light, not a lot has changed. There is still plenty of reason to view Obama's birth with suspicion, and although this does not mean that he is not eligible to serve, it still means that he has not yet proved that he is.

And now as before, if the document is accurate, and they doctored it for no other reason than to mess with the American public, if we are to believe Obama's birth narrative, he's eligibility is still in question. It is not clearly defined in the constitution what it means to be a natural born citizen, but at the time of the adoption of that document, it was understood most likely to mean a person born to parents who are both citizens, and born in the country. In the case of John McCain it was decided that being born to 2 American parents on a military base was enough even though it was not inside the borders of the US. So it could be argued that being born to 1 American parent on US soil is enough for Obama, but the issue should be explored. As it is, the so called “birthers” are correct in believing that even though the law might not be broken, we don't know for sure and those people who are sworn to uphold it have not just failed in their duty but actively refused it.

For the second big bombshell, I'm not going to say too much. The dust is still settling, and it is premature to make definitive statements on it. However, I will say that it is somewhat jaw droppingly elitist for Obama to have dumped the Osama's body in the Ocean so soon after finding it. I don't have any reason to believe that Osama was not actually killed, but it would have been nice to have some outside confirmation done before the body was put beyond all reach.