Immigration.

Trumping America

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

I think I have figured out the Trump phenomenon. His success in the primaries comes from supporters who behave at the maturity level of 15-year-old boys and 13-year-old girls. They are not quite children, not quite adults, and driven by raging emotional responses to anything they cannot or choose not to understand.

They are willing to sacrifice civil liberties and constitutional protections in the pursuit of fighting terrorists. They are willing to employ torture as a means justified by their mistaken belief it will protect America.

They support a candidate who said targeting families, including children, is a worthwhile military strategy. One he is prepared to order our military to carry out. Trump, with all his pride in his Ivy League education, must have skipped history and ethics. His was a poison ivy education.

Here is a quote Trump and his supporters could adopt in support of effective genocide.

Raymond D’Aguilers, a witness to the victorious end of the Crusade of 1096-1099 in Jerusalem, wrote

‘Men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers.’

Men, women, and children not of the Christian faith dead at the hands of the faithful. Unbelievers meaning those who believe differently than the one holding the sword or the launch codes for nuclear weapons.

Trump must believe My Lai was the most successful operation during the Viet Nam war. Unless he missed the story on TV.

Trump’s idea is not even original. Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheik Mohammed thought it a good idea. If we follow Trump’s logic, flying planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon was brilliant.

This country is in a lot of trouble if anyone, let alone a candidate for the Presidency, takes such policies seriously.

They risk destroying the very freedom and moral character that built this country.

Trump screams he will lead us to Making America Great Again. By what measure? By what means? He wraps himself in the flag, portraying himself as the ultimate patriot.

To quote Samuel Johnson, “Patriotism is the refuge of the scoundrel.”

Trump’s idea of patriotism encompasses all the evil of nationalism that no rational American should condone.

Out of this fire of ignorance, Trump emerged as the poster boy of xenophobia.

This pseudo-tough, swaggering, ne’er do well spouting invectives and threatening anyone not in lockstep with him. An American version of ‘das Herrenvolk.’

A schoolyard bully picking on the weak while his “fans” stand around with their cell phones recording and posting their childish voyeuristic nonsense, afraid to stand up for what’s right.

We face the real specter of a President whose policy platform consists of acting like a junkyard dog.

During the last debate, where supporters considered jokes about the size of appendages high humor, there was only one adult on the stage. Trump was not it. Yet his supporters are okay with that.

The reality that people are fooled into believing Trump represents the best of America is frightening.

Nevertheless, he is winning the primaries. True, he is winning Republican primaries under a system rigged to favor the lead candidate; designed to minimize the chance of a brokered convention. They never imagined the rise of the Donald and his living, but brain dead, hordes.

Keep this in mind; he is winning with at best 35% of the vote. Which means 65% of the vote went against him. Many of these are winner take all contests.

Staunch conservatives, like the Tea Party and others, deserve some of the blame here. As Stephen King so aptly wrote. “Conservatives who for 8 years sowed the dragon’s teeth of partisan politics are horrified to discover they have grown an actual dragon.”

We can only hope a St. George will arrive on the scene to slay the dragon before he incinerates us all.

If Trump wins, he will have at least given us one thing of value. We will need that slogan, Making America Great Again, once his Presidency ends. I fear, if there is a Trump presidency, we’ll be singing the line from the Paul Simon song, America.”We’ve all come to look for America…”

 

Celebrating a Lie

/ Joe Broadmeadow / 2 Comments

To borrow a line from Paul Simon’s song, Kodachrome;

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school

It’s a wonder I can think at all…

Although much of the “Lie” I write about began in the first years of my education. Having taken the time to undo and uncover many of these ingrained falsehoods, it is indeed a wonder I can think at all.

In this particular instance, I am talking about Columbus Day and celebrating those things (all false) we were taught about this man and that period of history. To summarize;

  1. Columbus proved the world to be round (False, the fact of the world being round was well established)
  2. Columbus discovered America (False. Not only did he not discover it, he didn’t even know where he was)
  3. Columbus had a fine relationship with the “Indians” (False, he captured many, compelled them through brutal measures to reveal treasures and infected them with European strains of viruses and bacteria that killed them (this last part might be a stretch since they didn’t understand the science of infection but nevertheless this was left out of the “history” books I was compelled to read))

My point here is why do we continue to “celebrate” a man responsible for the devastation and enslavement of many Native Americans (they did not even know they needed to be discovered) and attribute false claims of discovery to his journeys at the expense of the truth.

I think it might be time for this country to start celebrating truth, not patently false fairytales intended to obscure the realities of the atrocities visited upon the true Native Americans.

We need to describe Columbus as he truly was, one of the first in a series of Illegal Aliens invading this land.

Maybe there is something to preventing illegal immigration, albeit some Five Hundred Years too late.

ISIS, Immigration, and the Law

/ Joe Broadmeadow / 1 Comment

In a February 25, 2015 column by Ann Coulter (www.anncoulter.com/columns/2015-02-25.html), Ms. Coulter complains about the narrow-minded focus of the country on certain issues.

Now, I do not often agree with Coulter. However, her columns are always well researched, supported by sound argument, and well written.  In this piece, she makes some valid points, and misses some others.

Coulter writes that Congress and the media fixate on ISIS and the crisis in Syria, yet ignore a much more serious domestic problem, illegal immigration. Or, more to the point, crimes committed by illegal aliens.

History is replete with Governments using Foreign affairs, war being a favorite tool, to divert attention from more pressing, and difficult to solve, domestic issues.

Coulter recites a number of incidents involving illegal immigrants committing violent crimes, ranging from assault and robbery to rape and murder.  She details how many of these illegals have extensive criminal records.

The complicity of the media in underreporting crimes by illegal aliens smacks of political correctness run amuck.  In many ways, this is more troubling.

She derides Congress, in particular the new Republican majority, for “gassing on about what’s happening 7000 miles away.”  She points out that ISIS has killed four Americans, while illegal immigrants have committed thousands of violent crimes killing many American citizens.

As she says, “if you don’t want to be killed by ISIS, don’t go to Syria.”

Where I diverge with Coulter, and the whole deport every illegal immigrant philosophy, is that while the law is clear, the Justice of its application is not.

First, the easy part, if you are in this country illegally and commit a violent crime you go to jail, and then you get deported. This is the ultimate no brainer.

Why not just deport them, you might ask?

Despite rumors to the contrary, prison is not enjoyable.  Giving them a free ride home is like pardoning the crime.  Let them do the time, all the time, no parole eligibility by virtue of their illegal status, then back to their country. While I am willing to extend access to our system of Justice to everyone, regardless of his or her immigration status, it is only to a point

Here is where it gets complicated and blanket deportation will not work.  Most illegal immigrants obey the law. Hold on there you might say, they came here illegally, and they already broke the law.  True, but many came here out of desperation.  Many left countries plagued by violence from their own government, starvation, horrendous conditions; they came here for the sake of themselves and their families.

Then, many of them had children who were born here yet, by virtue of the law, are illegal.

Justice in this country is famously blind.  However, the true strength of this country is its Justice tempered by Mercy.

There need be a path so those that are here, following our laws and contributing to the cultural mix, can remain here.  The words on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free,” are meaningless unless we find a way.

We should demand of our Congress and President, cooperation in finding a solution to illegal immigration.  One that fully protects our citizens from violence yet tempers Justice with mercy for those who have heard the message of the Statute of Liberty and believed in it.

If a time arises that ISIS poses a direct threat to this country, I have the utmost confidence in our ability to respond effectively.  No military in the world can provide the maximum opportunity for each member of ISIS to enjoy martyrdom like the US military.

In the past, playing the world’s police officer brought us only a few things, a host of dead American service personnel and the rending of our society at home. We cannot ignore the rest of the world, but more importantly, they cannot ignore us.  By strengthening our own society, we influence the world for the better.

This country will never truly be in trouble, until people stop trying to come here.