What Matters

Just You Wait

"The attack on the West is among other things

an attack on the mind of the West. To be equipped with the mind

of the West is like being an idiot savant, mentally defective

but with a special gift for making arithmetic calculations. It is a mind

without a soul, efficient, like a calculator, but hopeless in doing what is

humanly important. The mind of the West is capable of great economic success,

to be sure, and of developing and promoting advanced technology,

but cannot grasp the higher things in life, for it lacks spirituality

and understanding of human suffering."

I'm a fan of the West. Big fan. And while we should avoid self-loathing as much as possible, don't we all know that there is some truth to the quote above? Whether these words were written by Ghandi or bin Laden is irrelevant; what matters is that there is truth to them, and that eventually that truth will be visited upon us by people who will use our "advanced technology" to make us confront "human suffering" on a scale that we cannot comprehend.

One of the ugly realities of globalization is that Western weapons will inevitably be obtained by decidedly non-Western thinkers. Only someone from the West, such as myself, could be so absurd as to talk about "rational" uses for nuclear weapons, since they are the most irrational invention imaginable, but they still allow some room for logic.

That logic was once known as Mutually Assured Destruction, which worked just fine. The reason, the only reason it worked, was that all actors involved were Western. Even the Russians, those insrutable Slavs, Eastern in many ways, fell into the broader Western fold. All nuclear actors, in other words, were deterable. Only the West would assume that such a situation was sustainable.

We will see a nuclear weapon used in the near future. It may be used by a state, perhaps Pakistan, but more than likely it will be used in a terrorist attack. If a nuclear bomb is detonated in this country, we can say goodbye to the last tattered remnants of our republic. Does anyone think that the reaction to a strike would be anything less than immediate and indefinate martial law?

There once was a "logical" reason to develop nuclear weapons; a fanatical, yet ultimately deterrable enemy, had to be crushed. It was, in the cold Western sense, "logical" to use these weapons on Japan. The problem is that it has been supremely logical to destroy these weapons ever since. Instead, these weapons were built by the thousands.

Here is where the West lost itself. Was it "logical" to build more than enough nuclear weapons to kill every human being on Earth? And, even if that was deemed logical in some theoretical clusterfuck of a universe, was it logical to assume that anyone that could conceivable procure these weapons would be "logical" themselves? The answer to both questions is no.

It is illogical to assume that other people are logical. This is the West's fatal flaw. We will see it realized. Just you wait.

The Word

Amendment I (1791)
"Congress shall make law no respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and the petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The constitution is as much about what it does not say as what it does say. The 1st amendment is the sacred cow, bandied about in the service of various and variegated causes, but how many of us have actually read it?

Here is the source of the river that is the Bill of Rights: the denial of rights. The denial of rights, not the granting of them. Take a minute with that; let it marinate. The most liberal document of all time was never about legally granting rights to the individual; it was about legally denying rights to the government.

The constitution, as timeless as it is cast, is, by definition, a product of its time, just as surely as the New Testament or Hotel California are. Hotel California had a better ending, by the way. The constitution is a window into a time when the biggest perceived threats were the federal government and the British Empire. Things have changed.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”

Read the first amendment; has Congress made a “law respecting the establishment of religion”? Of course it hasn’t. Definitions have changed, however. It is now asserted that the very existence of religious motifs or practices in any public place is legally equal to a “law respecting the establishment of religion”. This is the desecration of logic.

Secularism itself is a religion, and if the law allows religion to be utterly eradicated from all public venues, it will have served as a collaborator in the surrender of the very nation to a religiously nihilistic cult called secularism that shields its attacks on other religions and its "right" to undermine all concepts of objective morality with the mantle of “tolerance”.

“or abridging the freedom of speech”

Like everything else, “speech” has changed. When the constitution was written, speech, even in its most powerful incarnation, could only reach whoever could physically hear it, and let’s face it: people can only yell so loud. Now, “speech” can reach literally billions of people, many of whom would not have understood said “speech” if they had heard it delivered in the native tongue of the speaker.

Despite the quantitative, if not qualitative, explosion of speech that is the inevitable result of technology, the Congress has still refrained from passing a law that has abridged the freedom of speech. There are people who have more opportunity to speak, of course, but this cannot be allowed to be conflated into federal intervention. If a millionaire hands out a million pamphlets, that’s not a violation of my rights.

To plunge into the mirror, there also must be limits on free speech. Most of these limits are left to discretion in a responsible and sober republic. I do not perceive this to be happening in my nation. There is no discretion; there is only profit. The state of speech in our land is embarrassing, but it must be acknowledged that the government has not significantly restricted speech; the corporations have simply decided to propagate and export a nihilistic and materialistic ethos to the rest of the Earth, who they assume won't be offended by the casual sex and even more casual violence of American pop "culture". Great diplomacy, idiots.

“or of the press”

Thank God for the press. The current problem with the press is, much like the problem with freedom of speech, an issue of discretion. The press has to be able to leak government secrets; that is a contradiction that any republic must maintain. It must show discretion, however, when it comes to publishing national secrets. Not all secrets are designated as such to protect our leadership from scandal; many of them are designated as such to protect you and me from getting blown up.

In 1998, for example, some intrepid government official decided to leak to a major American newspaper that American intelligence had been listening in on Osama bin Laden's phone calls. Mr. bin Laden, after reading this tidbit in the newspaper, proceeded to tighten up his communications a bit and has never since used a cellular phone. It is not hyperbole to say that freedom of the press, exercised sans discretion, can get people killed. Thousands of people.

"or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Again, the government has not abridged this right. It has proven far too willing to totally ignore the grievances of peaceably assembled people, in my view, but that is a far cry from violating the spirit of the amendment.

When we soberly assess the first ammendment, we see that the government has not abridged the rights of citizens, but rather that the citizens have taken an absurd set of expectations to a nearly nihilistic level. The ACLU types insist that "freedom of speech" must mean freedom to insult religion and publish child pornography. Defending the vilest and most extreme interpretations of "freedom" does not protect freedom; it cheapens it, undermines it, and makes the rest of the world wonder why we're in such a rush to export it.

Of Heads and Hearts

Here's the problem with illegal immigration...it's illegal. Do people ever march in the streets demanding their right to do other illegal things? Are there marches of people demanding their right to drive drunk? Their right to sell cocaine? The right to committ fraud? Speaking from the head here, we owe it to ourselves to be able to soberly say a couple of things: Firstly, there is no "right" to break the law. Secondly, if it is the policy of the United States to not enforce immigration law, the United States will not exist as we know it when my unborn children are my age.

The heart, of course, begs for compassion. My head has no problem telling my mouth and my pen that all illegal immigrants need to be deported immediately. My heart, of course, calls me a soulless prick for even thinking this and defies me to look a man in the eye and tell him to go back where he came from. What we must do, to be honest with ourselves, it to try to close that gap.

Part of being honest with ourselves is acknowledging that any of us, any of us, if we could, would come here illegaly if that's what it took to care for our families. Being pissed off about illegal immigration, which I am, has absolutely nothing to do with the immigrants. Immigrants are stronger, harder working, and braver than I am. They should be exalted for their sacrifices, all made in the cause of ensuring better lives for their children.

The anger, my anger, is directed at my government. The government has a job to do and it is refusing to do so. Because of its utter dereliction of its duty, the United States is exposed to an unprecedented flow of undocumented people into our country. Once here, these people are exploited by business, which drives down the wages of American citizens. They are also forced to live in the shadows, these immigrants, non-persons in the land of the free. This is intolerable.

People who defend illegal immigration must ask themselves this: do you want to live in a country where millions of people are non-persons? I don't. Do you want to live in a country without a middle class? I don't. Do you want to live in a country with an entirely unguarded border in this age of terrorism? I don't. Do you want to live in a country where human beings are crammed into the back of trucks and traded back and forth as commodities, not as people but as cheap labor? I don't.

The favorite mantra of those who supported unlimited immigration is this: America is a land of immigrants. This is true, but to a far more limited degree than most people realize. Yes, American has historically welcomed many immigrants, but focus on this: more people have entered this country illegaly in the past 6 years than have come here legally in the entire history of the nation. So yes, there were many English, Irish, Italian, and German immigrants. But despite all their multitudes, from across continents and centuries, they are outnumbered by undocumented immigrants coming from Mexico since 2000.

Saying that American has always had immigration as an argument for tolerating this unprecedented influx is like doing nothing to respond to the 9/11 attacks because, after all, America has always had terrorism.

We must acknowledge that, depsite all our faults, people want to come here. Lots of people. Billions of people. If our policy is to allow anyone who can physically get here to stay here, our country will be swallowed up. Recognizing this, enforcing the border is a simple act of self-preservation. Countries have the right to define themselves and defend themselves. You think our immigration policy is inhuman and cruel? Try reading Mexico's immigration policy.

Advocates for the illegal also speak of the immigrants rights. Again, our heart knows that every person is equal in the eyes of God, and my head has absolutely no urge to argue against that point, which I take as a given. My head, however, must remind us that rights are not substantive unless they are actively protected. This is what governments do. So, yes, someone born in North Korea has the same rights as I do in the eyes of God. In the eyes of temporal existence, however, this person has no rights. Why? Because he does not have a government that protects them.

Illegal immigrants do not have many of the "rights" that they refer to. They have human rights, of course, but no civil rights. They are not citizens of the United States. The government of the United States, for all its faults, is a defender of the rights of American citizens. If that same government willingly ignores its own laws in the interest of "tolerance", what kind of country do we live in? One that will protect our rights? Maybe not.

I understand that to many, this reeks of jingoism. How easy for me to say these things, born a white male in America, with historically unprecedented opportunities. I acknowledge that. However, we also must acnowledge that in order for America to serve its own citizens, it needs to enforce its own laws. Allowing millions of people to be imported as objects, used and abused by American businesses, and consigned to the shadows, is not good for anyone. It's not good for the immigrants, when measured against American notions of human rights and dignity. It's not good for American citizens, who see rights and benefits claimed by people who are not legally enfranchised in any way, and its not good for our country, who can bomb Baghdad but cannot lock its own back gate.

Make Shit Work

If there is one problem with American governance today, it is this: American governance does
not exist. The task of American governance has, slowly but surely over the course of sixty years, morphed from “make sure Alabama has schools” to “make sure Seoul has anti-aircraft missiles”. This is not to say that Seoul should not have anti-aircraft missiles; it is simply to say that Alabama used to be closer to Washington, D.C. than Seoul.

I am a republican, miniscule fucking “r”. By republican, I mean believer in the republic. I am disposed of the increasingly unpopular delusion that the American government is supposed to govern America. I pride myself in not having absurdly naïve expectations of our government. I don’t expect my government to mediate the politics of Baghdad, especially when considering the fact that Iraqis simply refuse to speak American; I do, however, expect my government to do run of the mill things such as…oh….preventing tens of millions of anonymous and illegal immigrants from flooding our nation. Or, perhaps, rebuilding New Orleans after it suffered more physical damage than Hiroshima.

I don’t want a president that can bring peace to Iraq. A president that could bring peace to Iraq would be like a president that could eradicate lust from the hearts of men or beauty from the face of children; these are impossible tasks. I want a president that can make shit work. There are no classes on how to invade and occupy and pacify an Arab country. Know why? Nobody’s ever been stupid enough to attempt it.

There are, however, many authoritative books written on how to balance a budget, secure an airport, rebuild a city, guard a border, and other such remedial tasks which are apparently too pedestrian and not quite romantic enough for our government, which is dangerously taken with delusions of grandeur and neglect of duty.