Friends, since this blog began and really was intended to chronicle the life of a conservative in the State Dept., and since that period of my life is over, I've decided to blog elsewhere. Please join me in dispatches from the depths of blue state Oregon at:

Deep in the Blue

Hope to see you there.

KevinV

A) Christopher Hitchens, "Still a Soixante-Huitard", City Journal:

The lowest form of solidarity, I remember reading somewhere, is generational. What do you have to do, after all, to qualify as a "baby boomer"? Membership in that vast sodality means that you were in your late teens or early twenties during the sixties: an underwhelming achievement that required no more than being able to say "present." As someone born in 1949, I prefer to consider myself not a mere sixties person but a soixante-huitard. If there didn't happen to be French argot for this, I would still want to answer to the name "sixty-eighter."

For me, this date-stamped association of memories and ideas and bygone struggles has almost nothing to do with the checklist recently evoked onscreen by Tom Brokaw, which ran the gamut from the Tet Offensive and the murder of Martin Luther King to the images of Haight-Ashbury and the mystic lyrics of Buffalo Springfield. That year was for me a rite of passage, a sort of ordeal, as well as a kind of joy and liberation.

Like most years and most decades, it didn't begin or end on strict calendar time. The sixties themselves didn't get started until at least 1963, and the psychodrama of 1968 arguably opened with the death of Che Guevara in the fall of 1967. I myself would argue that it began earlier, with the fascist military coup in Athens in April of that year and with the first strong manifestations of open dissent in Czechoslovakia. If you were a real political soixante-huitard, which meant that you were in one way or another related to the New Left, what you looked for and hoped for was a resistance to both the Eastern and Western "blocs." Sex, drugs, and rock and roll were strong options, but they were just that-optional. In my cohort, we kept our hair short and our demeanor non-psychedelic, the better to appeal to the workers at the factory gate, who, we thought, were about to see through the realm of illusion foisted upon them by a combination of consumerism and the Cold War.

Laugh all you like. You didn't see the workers in that French plant in 1968, rearranging the big letters of the factory owner's name (Berliet) so that the sign over the gate now read liberte. * * *

There are also soixante-huitards whose adventures are less well known and far from over. I have met them among the tiny minority, from Bosnia to Zimbabwe to Iraq, who have struggled to evolve a consistent antitotalitarian politics and to marry it to a thoroughgoing internationalism. One day, perhaps, their less glamorous story will also be told. The owl of Minerva, as Hegel put it, takes wing at dusk. Only at the close of an epoch can one begin to evaluate it. * * *

Or B) Cyril de Pins, "Mai 68 ou le vide en heritage," Causeur.fr?

We are the heirs of May 1968. It is indubitable. But we no longer see ourselves only in that light. Those, like myself, who were born after 1970, only inherited what was bequeathed to them by the preceding generation, the generation of those who were in their twenties during the springtime festivities regarded by so many as a revolution. And this heritage is indeed impoverished: it consists of a juvenile proclivity to publicly complain and denounce, of an unlimited and blind confidence in youth and in oneself, of a hatred of the principle of authority, and of a hateful rejection of the past.

The Communist Internationale said, "Let us make tabula rasa of the past." May 1968 and its lyrical little soldiers did just that, shouting: "Run, comrade, the old world is behind you."

The least one can say is that they pretty much succeeded: there is no longer a student who knows who Danton or Marat were, who can distinguish a Romanesque church from a wash house, or who can even say who Lenin and Mao were. Students today use history in the same way as their elders: history is good only insofar as it proposes imperfect rough drafts of our modernity.

* * *

Like all spoiled children, they destroyed what they received, what history had preserved for so long, those languages, those traditions, the instruction inherited from the Jesuits and spread by the Republic. They replaced all of that with their whims, their fantasies and by the memory of their youth.

* * *

We received only the narcissism of history's spoiled children and their "feel good" notions; we received no knowledge, no savoir-faire. Therefore, is it not up to our generation to judge the record of May 1968 and the actions of its participants, rather than the generation that has already done enough to deaden the minds of its descendants and deprive them of culture? But THEY are the only ones we hear! For forty years they are all we hear, as if France had begun with their shouts and their slogans; every day they strut, like veterans of a war, when in fact they are recent pensioners. The REAL resistance fighters, who owed their careers to their commitment, had both courage and modesty.

To merge my politics with my passion for MMO gaming:

omg, de Pins just totally pwned Hitchens.

A quiz:

Question One: Which of the following views on the fundamental nature of Islam presented by a president of the United States of America fits more closely with actual events and your own personal knowledge?

A) The View of President George W. Bush:

The Islam that we know is a faith devoted to the worship of one God, as revealed through The Holy Qur'an. It teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy, and peace.

B) The View of President John Adams:

The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.

Question Two: Which of the following views on the advisability of negotiating in good faith with Muslims strikes you are more closing aligning with objective historic experience of such negotiations?

A) The View of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

Last week in Annapolis, the parties, Israelis and Palestinians, agreed to launch negotiations to establish a Palestinian state and to achieve a peace treaty by the end of the year -- by the end of 2008.

* * *

Most Palestinians now believe that Israel will always be its neighbor and that no Palestinian state will be born through violence. And for most Arab states, the question now is not whether Israel is going to exist, but on what terms to make peace with Israel.

B) The View of President John Adams:

Of Mahometan good faith, we have had memorable examples ourselves. When our gallant [Stephen] Decatur had chastised the pirate of Algiers, till he was ready to renounce his claim of tribute from the United States, he signed a treaty to that effect: but the treaty was drawn up in the Arabic language, as well as in our own; and our negotiators, unacquainted with the language of the Koran, signed the copies of the treaty, in both languages, not imagining that there was any difference between them. Within a year the Dey demands, under penalty of the renewal of the war, an indemnity in money for the frigate taken by Decatur; our Consul demands the foundation of this pretension; and the Arabic copy of the treaty, signed by himself is produced, with an article stipulating the indemnity, foisted into it, in direct opposition to the treaty as it had been concluded.

Question Three: Why is it that what passed as quite obvious common sense historically is now viewed as outlandish today, even when such "outlandish" views comport quite readily with observable reality?

A) Because previous generations possessed an oppressive and racist view of non-White, non-Christians, which distorted their views.

B) Because Liberalism is a lie and ideology that has blinded our leaders as sure as Marxist dogma blinded the men who used to stand on Lenin's Tomb.

Results:

If you answered "B" to all the above, congratulations. You may not know this, but you are a radical opponent of the institutions around you.

If you answered "A" to all the above, please do go back to sleep. Then again, maybe not. Perhaps you see rainbows and unicorns both while sleeping and while awake.

My on-line friend and all around good guy Lewy14 and I recently exchanged posts at Discarded Lies. Since it captures many of the things I've been thinking about lately, I post the exchange here as well. Please do join the conversation.

KevinV (responding to a graph showing the incredible growth in box office receipts since the late 70s):

This graphic actually displays one of my main reasons for moving in my heart from pretty mainstream conservative to a more radical position.

When I was younger, I remember debating the market and culture with my friends on the Left and a few on the further Right. They always sounded paranoid to me and more than a little off-base. To my mind, the market operated within the bounds of accepted legal norms, social traditions and cultural markers that tended to mitigate its worst features.

Well, now that I'm older I've seen my own arguments in practice and, wow, was I wrong.

In fact, the market has run rough-shod over all of these things and is even now in the process of running right over my country's existence as a nation, in the name of cheap labor and retail sales.

Over the past three decades of my life, I've seen just about everything that I've cared deeply for or, in fact, loved, turn to shit by the famous invisible hand.

It didn't take the steroid scandal to see that baseball had run off the rails, with age old traditions tossed aside for the chance to market bad-ass baseball caps to gangsters. But, as the Wall St Journal will tell you, baseball has never been so healthy. Revenue and attendence are at record levels.

You didn't have to sit through the left-arty cliches and "Jon" Stewart's obnoxious smarminess last night at the Oscars to know that the movie industry is a mere shadow of what it once was. Yet, as this graph shows, business is booming.

It's the same in field after field. Restaurants are doing well but the food, atmosphere and service have never been worse. Governments have never had such fat budgets, but their ability to perform their duties is laughable. Schools have never been so well funded, and they educate next to nobody.

Across the board, the market has achieved levels of rationality and uniformity that have crushed any other voices, imposing a lowest-common demoninator outlook as the money men look to the next cultural atrocity to squeeze more dollars out of an increasinly brutalized marketplace.

Look at our TV shows, our movies, god forbid, our pop music: blood and criminal chic fairly oozes out of it all while the Davos-going businessmen behind it lecture us on global warming.

I don't know where it's headed, but I am no longer afraid or ashamed to say that I am an enemy of all of it and if I find a movement that makes sense and in which I can fight it, I will.

Lewy14:

Kevin, I can understand your frustration but I think you have the wrong culprit: the "root cause" is not the market but the general malaise (at best) and self hatred (typical) of America itself. There is no will to exist, no will to be. Howard Zinn won, we are bad, we need to go away.

Unless and until this changes, no amount of "market reform" (meaning coercive control over what you are allowed to buy and what you are allowed to sell, and at what price) is going to help the situation one bit.

If we rediscover what it means to be an American and actually desire to remain Americans, as opposed to post-martial European-style or the northernmost Latin American country or some kind of zoo where the crowd is angry and the Americans are on the inside, in cages, being laughed and cursed at--if we say no to all that and can remain ourselves, then the market isn't going to be an issue.

Consider Japan. They have a free market, but the collective behavior that permeates that market is cultural, organic, and not (always) legislated. The Japanese are, right now, looking into the abyss and figuring out whether they want to make it. I think they will. And in ten years Japan will be just as overrun with Hello Kitty and fancy cars and gadgets and everything else, but the people will be happier and the population will grow and they will have made a reckoning with history (not the one we'd have them make, to be sure), and they'll be a lot more confident and assertive on the world stage. Or not. But the market will have little effect.

I was going to do a point by point refutation of your list Kevin but I'll just say briefly that I don't see how the Government Budget or poor schools is the fault of the market, or how deprecation of the market culture is going to solve these problems.

Just what kind of "market reform" is going to restore our collective will?

KevinV:

In a sense, of course, you are exactly right: the market is merely a tool, a set of rules formatting the domain in which lawful economic activity may occur. In that sense, it makes no more sense to blame this particular tool for the things in our culture and national life that I despise than it would to curse the hammer I've dropped on my toe.

Put that tool in a different context of use--by the Japanese Civilization or, imagine, a revived American nation no longer radically alienated from itself--and its handiwork retains all altogether different character.

Of that, I have no doubt.

But even a most benign tool leaves marks of its passing and its constant use impacts the environment around it with its effects. In the case of free market capitalism, that effect is all around us.

Today, it is pretty much an academic consensus except amongst a few diehards that Marx was a bad political philospher and and an even worse economist. And so he is. But the man's works would not have had such a tremendous impact on our lives in the West and in the Orthodox Civilization unless he had at least a few truths to tell. Most of the Communist Manifesto is unreadable drivel, but on the impact of this particular tool, Marx hit that hammer square:

Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.

The result is all around us. Men and women have been reduced to market units, trained from birth to size each other up on the basis of use and worth to self. Marketing has trained the vast majority of our countrymen to regard anything of more than a year's age as "history," meaning, useless, to be disregarded. What was shocking yesterday is commonplace today and will soon be replaced my something even more "shocking" to get our attention (and our dollars).

In this environment, the very sinews of traditional life are nigh on impossible, the comforts earlier generations derived from living right, according to recognized values, is fading quickly.

Have you ever wondered why the criminal is so popular now? Gangster films, gangster television shows, gangster rap, gangster fashion?

Because the gangster is liberal democratic capitalism's last man, its most perfect creation: freed from anything other than an unerring sense for the relative values of commodities—-be they drugs, clothing or women—-the gangster buys low and sells high, taking what he wants. On what basis is he to be opposed?

Morality? Whose? Where can you buy it?

Tradition? Whose?

The word honor has long since had not any meaning to most, and walks around like a chicken with its head cut off thanks to the last remnants of the Jacksonians still with us in the (mostly) European-American middle class.

Idiocracy is not our future; it is here.

NRO's Lisa Schiffren writes at the Corner:

Hillary and the Newest Immigrants [Lisa Schiffren]

Given Hillary's feminism — it would be clever to keep on highlighting the all too true consequences of escalating Islamic immigration. Hispanic immigration may just look like new votes to her. But what about the story Kathryn linked to below, about the powerlessness of the British welfare state to deny benefits to second and third wives? No feminist of Hillary's generation will find that bigamy tolerable — even if they want to increase the reach of the welfare state. Indeed, no woman of Hillary's marital history will find that tolerable either. Hillary is bound to react with extreme disgust — as all right-minded people do — to the importation of nice rituals like genital mutilation and honor killing. Keep the focus on the next immigrants rather than the last ones, and she will want to slow it down too.

This entry prompted me to write the following email to Ms. Schiffren, which makes a point about the key line dividing today's mainstream conservatives and those of us who have realized, against our wishes in many cases, that the nature of the current crisis does not allow for mainstream anything:

More and more lately, as I'm reading the Corner, I've begun to feel like one cynical, reactionary radical. Steyn complains about the human rights commission's actions in Canada and asks why no liberal/left folks are worried about the opressive precedent and I think "of COURSE they're not worried Mark, they exist to shut you up and criminalize rightist thought, of COURSE this doesn't worry the left." Mark Kirkorian says that people are trying to make a distinction between free speech and "hate speech" and points out how dangerous to free discourse this is and I think "yes, that's the point. See Steyn, Mark, Legal Troubles Of."

And then I read your above-entitled post in which it appears to me that you are under the misguided impression that feminism has something to do with the legal rights of women. It does not. It was, is and will remain a club upon which to strike certain European political and legal traditions and nothing else.

I am sure you have noticed--have you not?--the profound silence in the official feminist movement regarding the status and treatment of women by the Taliban. I am positive you have remarked upon the absence of stories in the New York Times about the targeting of young, female students in Iraq. I know you are intelligent enough to have realized that the treatment of women by men in the Sudan is not nearly on the same scale of importance as how women are treated on U.S. college campuses.

There are only two possibilities here: either the feminist movement has simply over-looked matters central to them to which conservative writers need only to bring to their attention to get the press releases humming, or they don't give a good god-damn about women in any of these places and, in any case, they're probably about cultural traditions that we, as Westerners, are not well-placed to criticize.

Again, at the risk of sounding like a radical, I think the time has long since passed that NRO and other conservative journals of opinion begin recognizing that we are not engaged in a debate, but a fight. Human rights law is all about criminalizing alternative points of view. Victim's groups and other race-and-gender based organizations are about tearing down the West, not criticizing Muslims.

Until we stop acting like our adversaries are merely misguided people who need to be argued to their senses and start fighting as if they mean to take our liberties away from us, we're nothing more than sheep who bleat a bit more than most as the wolves circle.

Over at the wonderful Discarded Lies website, a sort of virtual second home to me, a place whose regulars form the only kind of parliament I'm interested in keeping my good name with, co-proprietor Evariste has posted a very heart-felt piece, asking the sort of fundamental questions that all good people of whatever political stripe should be asking themselves in these dangerous times. I won't quote the whole piece (I encourage you strongly to read it all) but it seems to me that Evariste's main point is here:

So what's a guy like me supposed to do? Keep reading New Sisyphus and VFR and fuming about everything? Why are there no serious leaders with serious thoughts and substance any more? I guess people like me are doomed to a lifetime in political wilderness, railing against a system that doesn't notice and doesn't care. They're buffoons on the left and buffoons on the right, and they're all my enemy because they're the enemy of my country. You know how Ahavat Yisrael is a mitzvah for Jewish people? Love of one's fellow Jews and Israel? Why don't we have any politicians who have Ahavat America and Americans? Isn't it crazy that so many of our politicians were declaring us to be racists and rednecks, who need to be shut up, when we got mad about the illegal immigration amnesty bill they were trying to railroad through? What's so horrible about liking being American and liking America and wanting to preserve it? Why doesn't anyone in power truly love America, Americans, and American ideas? Why are our leaders a bunch of jetsetting citizens of the world who want to rule Mexicans and Somalis instead of Americans? Can we toss them out and get some American leaders instead?

This is indeed the main question facing America today. It is a tribute to his insightful style that Evariste has nailed the issue directly, rather than dance around it as most do.

The key to understanding this issue and how it is now playing out before our eyes is to understand the tragic substitution of the central conception of America as a nation and as a polity that was a largely unintended and unanticipated consequence of the Liberal Revolution of 1968, arising from out of the Cold War context.

Okay, so the answer isn't snappy. So sue me. It's clunky and it's complex, but it also happens to be true, to the best of my ability to discern the truth of the matter. I leave it up to you to decide on that point. I compel no one. Yet.

To properly explain my response I would need a book-length affair with academic footnotes and sociological studies, so I won't even try to properly explain it. Instead, I'll just outline what I think is going on here with appeals here and there to facts or phenomena that I move the court to take judicial notice of.

WWI destroyed the self-confidence of the West and introduced into its affairs a deep, and reasonable, fear of the fires of nationalism. The unresolved matters of that horrific war led directly to the next, which further sullied the good name of nationalism. It also had the rather interesting side-effect of leaving the United States as the Last Man Standing.

Now, not just any nation could have fulfilled the role of Last Man Standing, so it's not entirely correct to note it as the whimsical outcome of fortune. Had, say, Belgium emerged from the War relatively unscathed it still would not have been up to the role. But given the US' economic, political and military might, its heritage, its traditions and its international position, the US was the de facto leader of the Western World at the conclusion of the affair.

But it was not the leader of the world. In what was once the Orthodox world, a competitor state, the Soviet Union, made a play for global dominance.

The resulting Cold War is well-known, as is its global reach. The standard operating procedure was a fight for influence among the various peoples of the world, not the least in Europe herself, which required American officials to quickly leave behind the parochial concerns of places like Iowa or Montana for exciting new places like Greece and Viet-nam.

The result was the internationalization of the government of the United States, NSC-68 and the USG's wholesale transformation into an instrument of global responsibility. Not for nothing does the Department of Defense divide, not the U.S., but the entire world into "commands." Or does it not strike you as odd that the U.S. Army should have a command with "responsibility" for Africa or East Asia?

This much, at least, is well-known and unremarkable. I hope to this point it is also relatively uncontroversial.

It was this new out-ward looking, leader-of-the-free-world version USG that stumbled into the 1960's and the Western-world-wide Liberal Revolution. We may talk of Dr. King on this day, or of a struggle for civil rights, but the fact is that this Revolution was universal across the West, a replay of 1848 with better communications and media.

The roots of this sea change in law, politics and morals are well-known and not worth repeating here. What I'm after here is how they fused with the new internationalized USG forged from the fires of the Cold War.

The dominant feature of the Liberal Revolution was to make equality and non-discrimination not a feature of our political life but the organizing principle of political life. Whereas once it was alright for minorities to be minorities and for the majority to be dominant while tolerant, now the state was given all sorts of new powers to go into the institutions of majority dominance and dismantle them.

The USG's internationalized responsibilities began to reflect the internalized values of the Liberal Revolution. That is, as the USG now looked at all of its citizens as exact equals it began to apply that same outlook to its foreign charges as well.

The end result is a world we are all familiar with: one in which there is no issue that the United States is not directly responsible for and for which it must or should have used its powers to ensure the absence of nationalist or racial conflict, i.e. to enforce equality. Thus, even remote racial conflicts, like that of Rwanda, become over time a failure of the United States and not at all the responsibility of Rwandans or, God forbid, the Europeans.

The twin internationalizing pressures of the Cold War and the Liberal Revolution produced, therefore, a transformation in the self-image of America and Americans. Rather than being a specific people with a specific history, we are now an ideal to which anyone can adhere to, a proposition nation that could be filled with anything or assume any responsibility and still be America.

In order for any leader to speak of reversing this and restoring the America-that-was, that leader would have to do two, equally unthinkable things: 1) he would have to renounce American world leadership and put an end to the culture of international dependence it has fostered; and 2) he would have to confront and take issue with all the central assumptions of the Liberal Revolution. And he would have to do this while every institution of any heft-academic, cultural, social and political-have already long-since transformed themselves to hew to the twin revolutions in American affairs of the 50's and 60's.

In short, such a leader would not only have to take on the entire establishment as we know it, he would even lack a readily-accessible rhetoric in which to couch his opposition.

The end result is that the political and social realm is left ceded to those who accept its dominant characteristics while minority malcontents like me might as well be speaking in a dark room at night, alone.

It is my belief (okay, you got me: hope), however, that this situation cannot long endure. The inherent strains in the internationalist mind-set run up against two immovable objects.

The first, is the reality of civilizational conflict in the international realm. As Huntington has demonstrated conclusively, foreign affairs follow a quite predictable civilizational paradigm and any attempt to build bridges is futile. After all this time, East is East and West is (still) West.

The second, is the reality of human nature in the national realm. All these kind words about civil rights, diversity and equality and European-Americans are still quite aware of who they are, who they want their kids in school with and where they are going to live.

In order to damp down the conflicts that the denial of these two immovable objects will continue to throw up, the USG will have to fight ever more ridiculous wars, take on ever more onerous responsibilities, impose ever more regulations on its people, take on ever more tyrannical powers to compel adherence to the dictates of diversity.

This state of affairs cannot last forever.

Inevitably, there will come a crisis and it is at that time that the construction of a rhetoric of alternatives will become possible. Possible, mind you, not inevitable.

Until then, Evariste, we are men without leaders, partisans without a party, countrymen without a country.

And we wait.

One of the most interesting things about the relationship between the United States of America, which is, by the way, a real country in North America with real citizens and not, say, a dreamy ideal that millions around the world aspire to, and Mexico is the shameless level of Mexico's sense of entitlement to all things Estadounidense.

Typically, it's Mexico this and Mexico that, flag waving, red-white-and-green and Our Lady of Guadalupe stickers, but say one cross word and they get this quite funny hurt look on their face--threaten the river of gold flowing their way and all of a sudden we're all amigos and one big happy familia and can't we just all get along?

It's funny when it's not pathetic, but at times the smug Mexican sense of entitlement boils over into the outrageous.

Of course, our so-called leaders are in part responsible for encouraging these periodic displays of Mexican helplessness. It's gotten so bad that it is routine for high-ranking members of the Mexican government to issue statements or make speeches about US domestic affairs, even to sometimes summon our diplomats for lectures on our responsibilities. All of which we smile and take.

In case you think I exaggerate, please direct your attention to the following report from the Tuscon Citizen (Gannett-owned, local Tuscon, mainstream paper) about visiting Mexican legislators who are, er, a bit put-out by Arizonans presuming to pass legislation affecting the State of Arizona:

Sonoran officials slam sanctions law in Tucson visit

A delegation of nine state legislators from Sonora was in Tucson on Tuesday to say Arizona's new employer sanctions law will have a devastating effect on the Mexican state.

At a news conference, the legislators said Sonora - Arizona's southern neighbor, made up of mostly small towns - cannot handle the demand for housing, jobs and schools it will face as illegal Mexican workers here return to their hometowns without jobs or money.

The law, which took effect Jan.1, punishes employers who knowingly hire individuals who don't have valid legal documents to work in the United States. Penalties include suspension or loss of a business license.

Its intent is to eliminate or curtail the top draw for immigrants to this country - jobs.

The Mexican delegation, members of Sonora's 58th Legislature, belong to the National Action Party (PAN), the party of Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon.

They spoke at the offices of Project PPEP, a nonprofit that provides job retraining for farmworkers and other programs. [Translation: Mexican activists]

The lawmakers were to travel to Phoenix for a Wednesday breakfast meeting with Hispanic legislators. [Translation: Latino legislators elected by the people of Arizona are openly, and expectedly, working on behalf of their racial brothers, i.e. Latino elected officials in America occupy a completely different political space then their European-American colleagues...ask youself: why?]

They want to tell them how the law will affect Mexican families on both sides of the border.

"How can they pass a law like this?" asked Mexican Rep. Leticia Amparano Gamez, who represents Nogales.

"There is not one person living in Sonora who does not have a friend or relative working in Arizona," she said in Spanish.

You said it, lady.

Note that she also presumes to deliver her lecture in Spanish.

Nothing will change in Mexico until the border is drawn sharply, both physically and, more importantly, mentally.

Mexican smug self-satisfaction and sense of entitlement notwithstanding, the day we forthrightly tell these people that we are not responsible for them in any way, shape, manner or form is they day they, perhaps, grow up and take responsibility for their failed state.

Or not. I'm not holding my breath.

I'm just waiting for someone to come along and shove that offensive sense of entitlement right up their Mexican asses.

One of the things that is most tiring about being right-wing in modern America is having to put up with the conservative press' "outrage piece o' the day" in which some lame example of PC or thoughtless government action is held up as confirmation that We Are The Way and The Truth.

It's just as tiresome as the Left's similar process and no more enlightening.

But what really gets me is when it betrays the type of blindness that today's Liberal-Right has become famous for.

Take NRO for example. Today it and much of the right-of-center blogosphere is focusing on the latest weasel words out of the mouth of a British minister. The report setting off the fury is as follows:

Government renames Islamic terrorism as 'anti-Islamic activity' to woo Muslims

Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism.

In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity".

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam.

Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion.

Of course, what's actually interesting about this is not the well of outrage it is supposed to invoke, but that, so far as I know, not one of the oh-so-conservative commentators has bothered to point out that this minister is saying absolutely nothing that has not been the oft-stated policy of President George Bush and the Government of the United States from almost the moment the Twin Towers were felled.

As President Bush said upon rushing immediately to a mosque after the attacks of 9.11.

Remarks of the President before the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., September 17, 2001:

Like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday's attacks. And so were Muslims all across the world. Both Americans and Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our TV screens.

These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that.

The English translation is not as eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran, itself: In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule.

The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war.

This is no different in substance from what the Home Secretary has said.

But don't expect today's blinkered "conservatives" to notice, let alone tell you that.

NOTE: The following comment of mine first appeared in the comments to the post below, but since it touches upon a point that I feel is central to understanding not only where I am coming from but where we as a people are I thought to re-post it on its own:

It is true that those of us who have left those areas of the US that have already experienced massive Mexican and Central American immigration constitute a type of vanguard. We can point to our experiences with our new neighbors and argue against the Mexicanization of our new homes.

At times, this argument seems strong. After all, it is an easy thing to go to a school board just considering adopting bilingual education and point to the fact that California and Arizona tried it, it failed and it was abolished.

Ultimately, however, such arguments are bound to fail given the lack of any counter-narrative for a right-wing political movement to appeal to for American authenticity. Right now, the entire political culture is captured by liberalism. It is a necessary pre-requisite to winning such battles that there be seen to exist an alternative story, an alternative rhetoric that has cultural and political acceptance.

Going back to my biligual example above, no matter how good the facts are, the reviewing officials, the credentialed experts they will rely on, the educational establishment and the educational unions all will offer a much-stronger counter-narrative. One of inclusiveness, service, community-outreach, etc., that will prevail at the end of the day.

I know that you have interpreted such comments from me in the past as a type of fatalism, that we're bound to lose.

In a way, I plead guilty as charged, in the same I way I feel sure in saying that, given the current rules structure and environment in the modern NBA, me and my four closest friends are sure to lose if we play the Lakers.

The key to eventual victory is to realize that we are not in a reform or movement era. Arguments, facts, examples, questions will not suffice.

We are in a revolutionary era, one that requires the birth and construction of a new nationalist political party and movement which has the will to disobey and the guts to not only disregard the rules, but to mock them. Until then, there is no point in fighting City Hall.

As I never tire of telling people: The FBI sends its agents to CAIR fund-raisers.

Until we truly grasp what that means and act accordingly, we conservatives are just sheep that bleat slightly louder than the rest.

-- There is a sound wall now along Highway 26 right on the Beaverton-Hillsboro border that I pass by every day. When it was first built I was saddened because I began to see how the concrete walls of my former hometown, L.A., came to be. You see, a new housing development was going in and, as it was right up against a freeway, and as freeways are astonishingly loud creatures, whoever it was that gave approval for the development required a sound wall. It's long, high and grey and goes only so far as the development does. After that, mercifully, it's back to open fields and trees with occasional "improvements," though I'm sure that will be put to an end, sooner rather than later.

About three months ago I noticed at the end of the wall brand new Mexican gang graffiti. Whoever was responsible for the wall had it painted over. It left an off-grey smudge on the wall, still ugly, but the gang statement was painted over.

Waste of time and effort, I thought, but, hey, this is all new to these Oregonians. No doubt they have many lessons coming their way.

About a week later, the same gang graffiti appeared in the same, exact location. A few days later, it was covered up again with another coat of off-color grey.

Then again.

And again.

And then again.

Last week, I noticed the gang graffiti again. I waited for the wall owner's response. To date, there has not been one.

Like water on stone until the stone becomes nothing more than brittle powder. Again and again and again and again.

-- There is an Albertson's by my house that I don't go to anymore. Why? Because it's across the border. Don't bother looking, you won't find it on any map, but this border is written in the hearts of my neighbors and colleagues. They won't call it the "border," of course, and they'll deny its existence if you press them on it (until you get a few drinks in them, at any rate), just like they'll deny the phrase "we're looking for a house in a good school district" doesn't mean what it clearly means.

But that doesn't mean the border isn't there.

One day, a few weeks ago, I was driving by and had, by chance, an urgent need to pick something up at the store. It was a pain to drive by a perfectly good store, so I pulled in against my better judgment.

I got out of the car and got one kid out. Then another. I was reaching for kid number three (the last kid) when up pulled next to me a souped-up Nissan. Five Mexican teen-agers got out. Long white t-shirts. Oversized jeans/pants. Gold ropes. Black baseball caps with my grandfather's beloved Dodger's logo on them (MLB approved their sale in black, to increase market share; yet another sell out by those privileged to lead). Alarm bells went off.

Lots of kids in my arms.

I go into the store. I get my thing. I come out. Car is gone, as are teenagers, as is my car's maker's logo, pried off my trunk.

Translation: This ain't your store no more, White-ass prick. And whatcha gonna do about it?

All store signs in Albertson's are now bilingual.

-- Dateline: Anytown, Oregon:

Talk to anyone who knows [Local High School] Assistant Principal [Latina Woman], and you'll hear the same words: She is an inspiring, dedicated role model and advocate. Since arriving in Anytown at age 15 with her father and six siblings, [Latina Woman] has achieved one distinction after another, most recently being selected to serve on the Anytown City Council.

* * *

The District Strategic Plan of 2000-2005 opened a new door for [Latina Woman] when the Office of Hispanic Outreach was created to better address the needs of the growing Hispanic population.

"The reason she was selected as Director was her strong connections with the community," says another of her mentors, Deputy Superintendent [Latino Man - completely a coincidence, you understand]. "Residing in the community, she has her fingers on the pulse. She knows the families, the businesses, and the agencies that work in the Latino community. She built alliances and relationships that have strengthened the District. It's through her effort that the Office of Hispanic Outreach has been recognized as a national model."

Same old story I saw in L.A. Race-conscious Latinos working the system and advocating for their people while European-Americans are so scared of their own shadow they don't even acknowledge they are a people.

-- My wife decides to take our children to the new local parks and recreation department public swimming pool. It's the "Aquatic Center." When she arrives, she is greeted in Spanish and told to pay $5 a head. As she's fishing for cash or a debit card, all these "Latino" families come piling in, waving pale yellow cards at the officials demanding my wife and children pay.

My wife asks what they are and are told that they are free passes given out to "disadvantaged youth."

-- Despite lavish local parks and recs facilities, a local private club, which offers the same exact parks and recreational facilities offered for vastly reduced prices by the local government parks and recs department, is doing booming business. It's got a steep entry fee, but we've found a lot of our friends and neighbors are members.

Care to guess why?

-- From the Anytown, Oregon Police Department web-site:

Goal :

To reduce the length of time graffiti is visible in Anytown by educating the public about proper removal. We will educate community groups about reducing repeat graffiti through prompt removal.

Strategies :
. Educate community about reducing the reoccurrences of graffiti in neighborhoods.
. Translate educational material in Spanish.
. In addition to ongoing removal, arrange for an annual city-wide graffiti removal.
. Engage youths in graffiti removal.

a building, fence, and other properties by engaging civilian volunteers to participate in the process of graffiti removal. Through community education, we will educate our citizens to first report the graffiti to police and then remove the graffiti within 72 hours

Historically, grafitti has been an ongoing problem in the City of Anytown. We know that graffiti or "tagging" seems to increase during the spring and summer months. The reasons for graffiti ranges from bored kids to gang-related behavior by "marking areas" with graffiti that identifies a particular gang.

No.

Historically, Anytown has not had an on-going problem with grafitti. It's all part of the re-write of our history. Everything has always been thus, so shut up about it and get to painting over this grafitti!

-- Dateline, City-Next-To-Anytown, Oregon:

It was the first ripple of gang-related activity in town in a number of years - and Neighboring School District, local law enforcement officials and county gang experts are determined to squelch it.

They're attacking the issue with a combination of community awareness - holding parent forums at local schools - and extra-vigilant policing.

One such meeting, called "Gangs in Our Community," drew 150 parents and community members to school Nov. 16 to hear from county gang experts.

Presenters included [Latino Name One], a juvenile counselor; [Latino Name Two] of the Anytown County Sheriffs Office and [Latino Name Three] of the county Interagency Gang Enforcement Team.

Presented in Spanish and translated into English, the information was aimed at helping the largely Latino crowd understand the "gang mentality" and learn ways to dissuade their teens from joining, said [Hapless White Guy Name], assistant superintendent.

"The most important thing for all of us is our children, and that's why we're here," [Hapless White Guy Name] told the audience of mostly-Latino parents.

"We want to hear more about how to keep our kids safe."

Well, the game's pretty much given up here in this little local news story, isn't it? How this little nugget of reality happened to slip by the censors is beyond me. Latino public administrators and Latino police officers at a public school lecturing Latino parents in Spanish about how their kids are overwhelmingly in Latino gangs, which are new to Neighboring Town and, well, you wouldn't exactly be shocked if I told you that this once sleepy town is now seeing an exodus of certain, tax-paying individuals of a certain hue, now, would you?

Coming up next are headlines like this: "Dwinding Tax Base Cited As Need For More Direct State Funding of Neighboring Town School District" and "Local Boy, 15, Shot Dead At Late-Night Party."

-- The ads in the bus stops and benches changed last month. They are now uniformly for Latino radio stations, in Spanish.

But we drive on, to our jobs and our families. We have bills to pay, after all. Two sets, actually. The first for the "public" officials and infrastructure described above and the second for the alternative "private" institutions we've fled to.

And no one has the simple courage to stand up and say simply "no."

No.

No to the Mexicanization of our people, our communities and our culture.

Because that would be wrong.

So, shut up and keep those checks rolling.

Ladies and gentlemen: As I come to terms with the end of a very busy work season and begin a new year, I have more than a few ideas about what I want to do with my poor, neglected blog. A word of explanation: When I stopped writing on this site some time ago, I really felt that I needed to stop. Then, of course, I decided that I needed to write. In the interim, however, my readership dropped dramatically. My fault.

Then, as I began to change my political views, I got the idea to morph this site into a new one, the New Nationalist. However, a friend pursuaded me that my reasoning for doing this--that is, this blog was started when I was an FSO and an officer of the President and it is unseemly for such a person to blog under the same title and name when taking exceptional offense to that same President even if the commission is resigned--was not sound. I returned. And my readership dropped even more dramatically. Again, my fault and my apologies.

When I re-launch, and re-launch I shall, it will be with new features and some new ideas. And I won't make the same mistakes again.

In the meantime, I present one of my favorite old NS posts: The Paradox. Please do let me know what you think.

-- KevinV

Some weeks ago I found myself in an intense debate about our government's tactics in the Iraq War with some of the folks over at Little Green Footballs. The debate was far-reaching but soon evolved into a simple dispute. I argued that the Bush team's over-zealous love affair with elections and confusion of the concepts of the majority and democratic legitimacy had caused it to neglect its natural allies in Iraq in favor of a misguided strategy that requires the U.S. to enter combat on behalf of something called the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the leading group of the coalition that won parliamentary elections there. My point was that in fighting for democracy in an occupation the occupying forces cannot waste time with anti-democratic forces, even if they are the majority.

To say that this view provoked incredulity is an understatement. "Democracy means majority rule, you moron!" was the kindest reply my point of view elicited. Again and again, I was told that elections are the root of democracy and majority support the only source of democratic legitimacy.

That, of course, is hogwash of the highest source, the type of simplistic thinking that has led us so far astray in our struggle to introduce liberty in the Islamic world. I could spend half my day setting forth my reasoning and argue in detail, but I'd rather tell you a story. A story with a moral, a point that will make my case for me, but an entertaining story nonetheless. It's a story I've been thinking rather a lot about recently and one I think is under-noticed in the noise and fury of the history of the West.

It is a story about France. Forgive me if you know some of the detail here, but this sketch will assume the reader knows nothing of French history save the barest outline. Let us begin:

France under the ancien regime was ruled by the kings of the Bourbon dynasty. You've probably heard of the greatest of them, a king by the name of Louis XIV who ruled France from 1643 to 1715, an astonishing 72 years. Often misleadingly called "absolute" kings, the Bourbons actually had to deal with a tangle of ancient bodies, differing rights of certain classes (especially with regard to taxation), a mess of differing offices and posts and the claims of the guilds. In any case, the king ruled in a very real sense, appointing ministers of state, conducting foreign affairs and war and granting titles and rank.

One day, way back in 1789, the French decided that they had had enough of kings and had a revolution. Not surprisingly, this event is known as the French Revolution. The Revolution ushered in a new, democratic form of government with an elected body of legislators called the Republic. This government, known nowadays as the First Republic, went through an ever-more-authoritarian series of executives, moving from the Convention to the Directory to the Consulate, until a man named Napoleon Bonaparte was leading the nascent Republic in battle on all fronts and throughout Europe. The First Republic ruled from 1792 to 1804.

Eventually, Bonaparte formalized his personal rule and the First Republic gave way to the First Empire (note that the "firsts" came much later; at the time no one though there would be more of them). The First Empire ruled from 1804 until 1814 when Napoleon's enemies finally defeated the great general and banished him.

Europe was then ruled by monarchies, so it's no surprise that the victorious allies imposed on a war-weary France a return to the old ways. This event was called the Restoration and it involved a return to the Bourbon monarchy in the person of Louis XVIII and, later, Charles X. The restored Bourbons ruled France from 1814-1830, with a tiny scare from a returning Napoleon thrown in for historical drama.

Charles X was an intensely traditional man, however, and his steadfast refusal to acknowledge that the world had changed since the Revolution brought the monarchy into a bad light. More and more Frenchmen saw it as a relic and an unresponsive one at that. So, some good people got the idea to bring the monarchy into the modern era by ushering in a more constitutional form of government. One of the good guys who led this march was none other than Lafayette, the great French hero of our own revolution in 1776.

The result was the overthrow of the Bourbons and their replacement by the rival royal family, the Orleans. The new king was named Louis-Philippe or, as he sometimes styled himself in proper republican style, "Louis-Egalite." This new quasi-British constitutional monarchy is called the July Monarchy and it ruled France from 1830 to 1848.

The liberal monarchy, however, was not enough to stop the tide of renewed revolutionary fervor that hit Europe in 1848. The republicans took to the streets and tossed the monarch out, instituting the Second Republic. The Second Republic ruled France from 1848-1852.

The presidency of the Second Republic was won by a Bonaparte, this one the great emperor's nephew. You won't be surprised at this point to learn that Bonaparte tossed off the republican mask in 1852 and re-installed the empire. The result was the Second Empire, which ruled France from 1852 to 1870.

In 1870, Prussia invaded France in a war that went very, very badly for the new emperor. The Second Empire fell like a house of cards, leading to the establishment of the Third Republic.

In a period of less than eighty years, within a long-lived man's lifetime, France was ruled by the First Republic, the First Empire, the Bourbon Monarchy, the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, the Second Empire and then the Third Republic. There was no reason to suspect in 1870 that the life span of the Third Republic would be anything other than a handful of years.

Then, an amazing thing happened: the merry-go-round stopped. The new government signed a peace deal with the Prussians, suppressed the rival revolutionary Paris Commune government and her sister communes, rallied the republicans to its banner and unified the nation. France had lost Alsace and Lorraine, but found a government it could live with. From the crushing defeat of 1870, the initially wobbly Third Republic found its legs and, with each passing decade, it's rule become more and more normal, more and more expected, more and more quite simply just the way things are. Memories of kings and emperors dimmed.

The legislature was elected by a suffrage more or less popular, and the head of state was an elected President. In short, the government of the Third Republic was a creature we would today recognize as democratic. Its power derived from the ballot box, its authority from common consent, its laws from a democratic parliament, its force backed by popular sovereignty.

The horrific shock of World War I did not budge the Third Republic from its perch. Despite the occupation of much of the French countryside and the horrific losses inflicted on the French people, the Third Republic endured. Elections at all levels went on, governments rose and fell according to parliament's wishes and make-up. And, when the great ordeal was over, not only was it still standing, the Third Republic was victorious.

Year after year, government after government, the Third Republic went on, establishing once and for all the principle that, for the French, the republic is the form of government that divides them the least. France was, at last, and after so much struggle, a democracy in its soul and not just in name.

In the 1930's, the government of France was presented with the growing threat of Nazi Germany and, like their British counter-part, was divided on how best to meet that threat. Many advocated a policy of caution combined with a defensive posture. A few, war-mongers with names like Churchill and DeGaulle, advocated rapid re-armament and military confrontation with the then-young Third Reich, but they were out-voted and not in favor. In any case, the normal democratic process held in France right up to the start of World War II.

In September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and both Britain and France declared war. You probably know what happened next: Germany conquered Poland, took Denmark and Norway and then, in May, 1940, a mere eight months from the blitzkrieg that overran Poland, Hitler invaded France itself. France's darkest hour had come.

The French government directed the conduct of that war, of course. Elected and appointed ministers directed control of the national defense effort and the French military was solidly under civilian control. To summarize: at the outbreak of WWII, the French were ruled by a democratic government that had, by French standards, an incredible pedigree of stability and legitimacy.

Now, the story is going to get a little more complicated from here on out. I'll simplify things quite a bit, and some of the detail will thus be lost, but for the most part the story is straight forward. Here goes:

The war was not looking good for the French. The new German doctrine of armored warfare proved its effectiveness on the battlefield and simply went past the French system of fortified defenses. Within a few days the Germans outran their line of greatest advance in WWI and threatened Paris itself. Everywhere in France the roads were packed with fleeing refugees and, even more pitiful, fleeing soldiers.

At this time the French prime minister (so-called in English because that term lets us understand his role; in French he is officially the president of the council of ministers) was a man of impeccable republican credentials by the name of Paul Reynaud. Reynaud was a known advocate of the hawkish tendency when it came to matters German, but his government was composed of representatives of all the popular tendencies of his day. The President of the Republic was a man by the name of Albert Lebrun.

As the war went from bad to worse, Reynaud sought to shake things up by bringing fresh blood into the government. One of the new men brought in was the new commander of the improvised French 4th Armored Division, General DeGaulle. DeGaulle took up his duties as the under-secretary of state for defense and quickly realized that the defense of France required rapid reinforcement and a retreat to a defensible position.

In that regard, DeGaulle was entrusted with studying varying scenarios in which France could go on fighting. There was some discussion of pulling the government and what was left of the Army into Brittany, there to link up with the French Navy as a fighting redoubt and an entryway for British and (it was expected) American troops. Another plan was to lift the entire government and army to Algiers and continue the fight from French North Africa and elsewhere in the French Empire.

While this discussion was going on, the Reynaud government moved from place to place, always a few days ahead of the ever-advancing Germans. Cabinet meetings were held, as normal, and orders given, as would be expected. To assess London's ability to provide further assistance, DeGaulle was sent to London on an official mission. There the junior minister found that the RAF was needed for the defense of Britain and that, while Britain would do what she could, what she could do was precious little.

DeGaulle returned to France and the current seat of government to find a cabinet in deep disagreement about the way forward. Some, including most of the defense establishment and the Army, argued that the war was already lost and that peace must be sought on advantageous terms while France still had some bargaining chips. Others, like Reynaud himself, wished to find a way to continue to resist. Many others were somewhere in between.

DeGaulle sat in on meetings in France during these dark days in which high British officials were also present. The British were, of course, doing everything they could do to keep France in the fight. But the trend in opinion was not moving the warriors' way. Faced with occupation and ruin, many prominent members of the French government concluded that cutting a deal with Hitler before they were powerless before him was the best way to secure France's long-term national interest.

DeGaulle returned to London, this time with orders to coordinate with the Royal Navy plans to cover a French evacuation to North Africa, where the fight would continue. When he arrived, he found Jean Monnet, then the head of a joint British-French defense materiel purchasing agency (later one of the architects of the European Union) and the French ambassador knee-deep in a plan that just a few days before would have been unthinkable.

The plan? Nothing less that a full, formal and legal union of Britain and France into one nation. Only by convincing the French government that Britain remained committed to the fight could the French government come to see the utility of continuing the struggle. Churchill, initially taken aback by the proposal, heartily endorsed it. The idea was to merge the two nation's fighting forces and allow the French to continue to resist from Africa and Britain, with a new combined fleet ruling the waves.

DeGaulle called Reynaud and set forth the proposal. The Prime Minister was enthusiastic. At last, something to strengthen his hand with the defeatists! DeGaulle hurried back to France as Reynaud called a cabinet meeting to discuss the proposal.

Was it to be the union or an armistice? That was the question before the government that eventful night. To remind you: this government was the elected government of France, the Third Republic, in power through the ballot box. The discussion went round and round, but it was immediately clear that the prospect of union with Great Britain was not popular. The proponents for seeking Hitler's terms for an armistice won the debate and carried the day. As a result, Reynaud tendered his resignation to President Lebrun, who accepted it grudgingly.

The President was then faced with a problem. Who should he ask to form the next government? Who had the support of the parliament? When he summoned the heads of the two chambers, they both suggested he re-appoint Reynaud, but that was out of the question. That faction in the government that had won majority approval in cabinet was led by Petain, the hero of Verdun and WWI. Lebrun was informed that Petain was ready to serve if called and that he had lined up a list of ministers who had all already agreed to serve and to get the job done. Accordingly, the President of the Third Republic called on Petain to form a government, which he did immediately. A message seeking terms for an armistice was sent to Hitler by way of Madrid that very night.

Those terms were dictated by Hitler and accepted by Petain. They required the division of France into two zones, one occupied directly by the Germans and the other ruled by the French government formed by Petain and headquartered in the town of Vichy. These terms were accepted and, truth be told, were very popular with the average Frenchman on the street. The war was over, the bombs stopped falling and if the Germans were beasts at least they were polite enough on the streets and in the cafes.

Our story would end there except for the whole point. You see, one man in that government, DeGaulle, rejected the outcome. He was just a junior minister and had been out voted and out argued at every turn. The duly elected government of France had decided to ask for an armistice and ask for one it did. The duly elected president of France had asked Petain to be the man to lead the government in that endeavor and lead it he did.

DeGaulle rejected it all. Every last bit of it. The Third Republic had been the government of France for 70 years. This meant nothing to DeGaulle. The President had appointed Petain who then exercised the powers voted him. This also meant nothing to DeGaulle.

Instead, he got on a British plane to a foreign country, practically alone, landed in London, tossed his baggage in a loaned Mayfair flat, and claimed to all who would listen to him that he, Charles DeGaulle, was the leader of France.

Yes, you read that right. He appointed himself leader of the French. No election, no appointment, no nothing. He wasn't even in France at the time. He gave a speech the next night, on June 18, 1940, that no one heard and even fewer Frenchmen cared about. It was carried on the BBC. Here is what he said:

The leaders who, for many years, were at the head of French armies, have formed a government. This government, alleging our armies to be undone, agreed with the enemy to stop fighting. Of course, we were subdued by the mechanical, ground and air forces of the enemy. Infinitely more than their number, it was the tanks, the airplanes, the tactics of the Germans which made us retreat. It was the tanks, the airplanes, the tactics of the Germans that surprised our leaders to the point to bring them there where they are today.

But has the last word been said? Must hope disappear? Is defeat final? No!

Believe me, I speak to you with full knowledge of the facts and tell you that nothing is lost for France. The same means that overcame us can bring us to a day of victory. For France is not alone! She is not alone! She is not alone! She has a vast Empire behind her. She can align with the British Empire that holds the sea and continues the fight. She can, like England, use without limit the immense industry of United States.

This war is not limited to the unfortunate territory of our country. This war is not finished by the battle of France. This war is a world-wide war. All the faults, all the delays, all the suffering, do not prevent there to be, in the world, all the necessary means to one day crush our enemies. Vanquished today by mechanical force, we will be able to overcome in the future by a superior mechanical force.

The destiny of the world is here. I, General de Gaulle, currently in London, invite the officers and the French soldiers who are located in British territory or who would come there, with their weapons or without their weapons, I invite the engineers and the special workers of armament industries who are located in British territory or who would come there, to put themselves in contact with me.

Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. Tomorrow, as today, I will speak on Radio London.

Who was this man to question the actions of a legitimate, elected government and its lawful decision? From what source did he think he drew the right to speak for France? Who is this ridiculous figure absurdly calling for volunteers to join him in London to fight for France?

France "can align with the British Empire?" Sure, she can, but the lawful government of the Third Republic debated that and rejected it outright. DeGaulle had lost that argument to a panel of elected ministers. DeGaulle had been there when the proposal was shot down.

"The war is not finished"? The democratic government decided to seek an armistice. Who was DeGaulle to reject the armistice and wage war? By what right? Who elected him king? To coin a phrase: supreme executive power arises from the mandate of the masses, not some farcical loquacious ceremony.

Make no mistake about it: this one man, literally with just a handful of supporters around him, declared himself to the exclusion of elected authority the embodiment of Republican France and France's will. For the next four years he would continue to insist that he and he alone spoke for France.

Our story must end here. Today, of course, France is still a republic (Version 5.0): still a democracy, still with elected parliamentarians and an elected president, still subject to the power of the ballot box.

So, I must ask you after having heard this story: if the democratic government of France today were to trace her history back, who would her grace fall upon for the year 1940? Would her story run through an office in Vichy or a office in London?

Who is the ancestor of this great democratic nation? Who embodied her popular will, the essence of French democracy, the spirit of the republic? Who carried the hopes, dreams and aspiration of millions of French men and women in 1940? Who carried with them that day the authority of the French people? Who spoke for France in June, 1940? With who was the imperishable flame of French liberty? Which was more "democratic"?

The elected government of France?

Or a lone man in a London basement making a speech?

Iowahawk has obtained the first draft of the Foer...the Foer...er.....explanation as to why TNR published laughable made-up stories as...as...commentary on the de-humanization...imposed by...war...or, well. Let's let Iowahawk take it.

Soldier A: "I swear upon my BDUs that everything Scott Beauchamp wrote is 100% true. I personally remember seeing Stumpy in Kuwait. As Scott Beauchamp's poignant and true tales illustrate, the soul-sucking horror of war ends up twisting our own humanity. Beauchamp's darkly humorous memoir is among the most indispensible in the annals of war, and destined to be a best-seller."

Soldier B: "I swear upon my BDUs that everything Scott Beauchamp wrote is 100% true. I personally saw Stumpy in Kuwait. As Scott Beauchamp's poignant and true tales illustrate, the soul-sucking horror of war ends up twisting our own humanity. Beauchamp's darkly humorous memoir is among the most indispensible in the annals of war, and destined to be a best-seller."

* * *

Naturally we wanted to learn more about these stories--although, in hindsight, the genesis of these anecdotes in such a nonchalant aside should have provoked greater suspicion, along with the fact that he cc'd the email to Brian De Palma and Oliver Stone. Not wanting to be beat out by a Hollywood greenlight, we sent Beauchamp the okay and ran with the stories.

Mark Steyn writes in The Corner:

One of the critical differences between America and the rest of the west is that America has a First Amendment and the rest don't. And a lot of them are far too comfortable with the notion that in free societies it is right and proper for the state to regulate speech. The response of the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security to the Danish cartoons was to propose a press charter that would oblige newspapers to exercise "prudence" on, ah, certain controversial subjects. The response of Tony Blair's ministry to the problems of "Londonistan" was to propose a sweeping law dramatically constraining free discussion of religion. At the end of her life, Oriana Fallaci was being sued in France, Italy, Switzerland and sundry other jurisdictions by groups who believed her opinions were not merely disagreeable but criminal. In France, Michel Houellebecq was sued by Muslim and other "anti-racist" groups who believed opinions held by a fictional character in one of his novels were not merely disagreeable but criminal.

Up north, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced the other day that at least two of Canada's "Human Rights Commissions" – one federal, one provincial – had agreed to hear their complaints that their "human rights" had been breached by this "flagrantly Islamophobic" excerpt from my book, as published in the country's bestselling news magazine, Maclean's. Several readers and various Canadian media outlets have enquired what my defense to the charges is. Here's my answer:

I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn't have to.

If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts. That way lies madness. America Alone was a bestseller in Canada, made all the literary Top Ten hit parades, Number One at Amazon Canada, Number One on The National Post's national bestseller list, Number One on various local sales charts from statist Quebec to cowboy Alberta, etc. I find it difficult to imagine that a Canadian "human rights" tribunal would rule that all those Canadians who bought the book were wrong and that it is beyond the bounds of acceptable (and legal) discourse in Canada.(Emphasis Added)

Mark Steyn is an incredibly intelligent and perceptive writer whose insights are almost always keen, but on this issue his imagination has failed him. For not only is it possible to imagine the various human rights commissions finding against him, it is in their very nature to do so. That is what they are for.

As regular readers will know, one of this blog's central themes has been the danger of human rights as a concept. As with fundamental rights under the US Constitution, once a right is found to be a "human right," it is a right beyond question and beyond debate. It becomes something so fundamental, so basic, that to even raise a question about its correctness or applicability is to place oneself in lock-step with those who would deny human beings the dignity of their basic rights. It is, in short, to become a colleague of Nazis, of Latin American death squads, of the most evil and vile men in history.

And this, of course, is the point.

Having failed to secure popular support for their public policy prescriptions and their social goals, liberals throughout the Anglosphere fell back upon a by now well known alternative strategy: the imposition of those desired rules and regulations by judicial action.

For a time, this worked. It worked especially well in those countries with parliamentary systems and fractured or weak conservative opposition, like Canada. However, despite some resounding successes early on, it did not work so well in countries with either a robust conservative opposition, like Australia, or those in whose law the concept of individual liberty was especially strong, like the U.K, or especially in those who had both, like the United States.

In the Anglosphere countries, conservative opposition to the imposition of liberal norms and public policy prescriptions in many cases rolled back advances liberal jurists had imposed. Welfare stopped being a benefit for a while and became a personal property right that requires a full state due process hearing to scale back or deny, but this was overturned. Criminal procedure was loaded down with so many protections for the defendant that criminal prosecution itself became highly problematic, but then this, too, was overturned. Campus administrators sought to create a new breed of student by convincing young people that speech should necessarily be restricted on matters touching upon certain protected classes, but then found themselves facing disapproving courts.

There are some success stories from this liberal tactic (abortion being the most obvious) but by and large this process has become counter-productive at worst and very troublesome and difficult to maintain at best. Despite the best efforts of good lawyers, the ABA and decent judges, the barbarians shouting about their "rights" and about "limited government" still had arrows in their legal quivers.

But what if we were able to move beyond that?

The concept of human rights and fundamental liberties is already present in the Anglo Common Law tradition. Once it was realized that, unlike mere judicial opinions, one cannot argue with a human right, the new tactic was revealed in all its glory.

Go ahead and visit the webpages of the various human rights NGOs and read their views. You'll find nothing more than liberal/left public policy prescriptions dressed up with the force of undeniable right.

This is not an accident.

Steyn is wrong. If freedom of speech means that one can say as one pleases, then an equally powerful "balancing" human right must be found to prevent anyone from objecting to the new order. Human rights legislation and commissions exist to enforce liberal norms from an unassailable position. Similarly, hate crime laws exist to politicize crime to liberal ends.

And if you object, well....you're just anti-human rights and pro-hate, aren't you?

We always knew tyranny would arrive with smooth phrases and a smile. Now, here it is.

The question is: what are we going to do about it?

The Politico reports:

Immigration crosses party lines

Immigration was, until recently, an issue likely to cause only Republicans political heartburn. With the party's Big Business factions battling its increasingly vocal secure-the-borders grass-roots advocates, immigration looked like an internal GOP squabble that had little electoral upside.

That now seems like ancient history.

Immigration is emerging as an issue that is resonating with independent voters--the very ones who carried Democrats to landslide victories in 2006, winning control of the House and Senate. And it's presenting Democratic candidates with the challenge of how to discuss an issue they're not used to being defensive about.

Immigration is now viewed as an issue that affects key domestic areas long considered Democratic turf: health care, crime and education.

Growing numbers of immigrants--legal and illegal--are changing the composition of affluent suburban towns across the country, impacting independent and Democratic-leaning voters, who are concerned that schools are overcrowded, health care systems are strained and crime is on the rise.

Forty percent of respondents to a newly conducted, Democrat-sponsored Democracy Corps poll said the main reason the country is going in the wrong direction is that "our borders have been left unprotected and illegal immigration is growing." Immigration was easily voters' top priority, beating out concerns over the Iraq war, health care and the economy.

Republican pollster Rob Autry said the immigration issue polled near the top of the list among independent voters in last month's surprisingly competitive special election in a solidly Democratic Massachusetts district, where he polled for Republican Jim Ogonowski's campaign.

This literally doesn't matter.

The American people overwhelmingly reject massive immigration when asked their view and have for decades. Conservatives feel stronger about it than liberals do but mix them together and you still have a very comfortable majority in favor of limited legal immigration, enforcing border laws and stopping illegal immigration altogether.

That majority has *never* managed to see its preference put into policy. If a law does get written, it is unenforced. If a proposition or referendum passes (like California's Prop 187) it is quickly found unconstitutional and invalidated by a reviewing court. If some public event causes the authorities to have to make a show of action, the action will be largely symbolic, with the government arm charged with making that action ensuring that "stakeholders" such as Latino pressure groups and immigration attorney lobbies are involved from the start, so that there is a party around to exercise its full "due diligence" rights, thereby slowing the demonstration project down to a year's-long snail's pace.

Conservatives regularly express puzzlement at all this. One hears a lot of talk about "elites" and their interests being different than that of "normal" Americans.

This is all nonsense.

What is going on here is that having adopted an inclusive definition of what it means to be American, the American people and its government have lost the ability to construct a case to be made to object to immigration that fits within the ideals of the current political age we live in.

It's not that the opposition cannot mobilize. It is that it lacks a believable rhetoric in which to make its case. It literally cannot construct an argument that is recognizably American in any way the vast majority of the American people would define that term.

In that sense, the anti-immigration forces face much the same dilemma as so-called "moderate Muslims". They may believe that their country/faith should do certain things or adopt certain policies, but they are unable to point to any rhetoric or tradition within Americanism/Islam as currently understood by which to justify their point of view. And, so, it remains an unorganized, individual phenomena with no political power.

Until we begin addressing that root cause, no change is possible. And that cause cannot, by definition, be addressed within mainstream political organizations or institutions.

While American conservatives focus on very important issues, like whether Romney or Huckabee is the man to beat, what Senator Lott's resignation means and how many illegal aliens deserve tax- and penalty-free bonus citizenship prizes, here are a few questions from, say, right field that I would really like answered, if it's not too much of a bother.

Question One: In 2001, an organized Islamic terrorist group known as "Al-Qaeda" launched terrorist attacks on the United States of America, killing more than 3,000 people in four separate, horrific attacks on our people and our soil. It soon became known that Al-Qaeda was sheltered in the country of Afghanistan then under the control of a similarly radical Islamic organization called the "Taliban." Rightfully, the United States went to war with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It is now November, 2007, and the Taliban still exists as a viable organization, with military assets in the field, still conducting acts of war against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Why have we been unable to defeat a small, ill-equipped militia in six years?

Question Two: The President of the United States has a duty, and took an oath, to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. Are immigration laws being enforced?

Question Three: In 2003, the United States went to war with Iraq, after that nation routinely defied legitimate United Nations inspection requests regarding its known WMD programme, a matter made most urgent for the United States given the then-demonstrated willingness of Islamic radicals to execute WMD attacks upon the US, the Iraqi regime's open state of war with the United States and the Iraqi regime's past use of WMD attacks during its earlier war with the Islamic Republic. Given that the objectives of that war were met within two months, why are U.S. armed forces attempting to settle disputes among Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites concerning the future of Iraq?

Question Four: Earlier this year, a major Interstate System bridge collapsed in the United States. This year, how much has the Government of the United States spent on infrastructure in the nation of Iraq and how does that figure compare to that spent by the Government in the United States?

Question Five: On July 4, a nation with which we are currently at war under armistice, known popularly as "North Korea", launched a rocket with an unknown payload on a trajectory that would have taken it near the State of Hawaii. What steps has the President taken to protect the United States given this open act of war and clear breach of the armistice agreement?

Question Six: Hezbollah, an international terrorist organization which has hung, strangled, mutilated and humiliated the corpses of U.S. military officers, which has announced as one of its goals the killing of Americans anywhere it finds them, operates in the open in Lebanon, where its leaders hold press conferences in public in broad daylight, when not operating their television station. How does this fact square with the President's stated War on Terror goals?

Question Seven: The Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the United Kingdom's established church and a member of its Parliament, has attracted international attention due to his remarks condemning the United States and claiming that it has lost its moral standing. Has the President objected? Has his Ambassador in London? Do we not have a duty or a sense of honor compelling us to respond at the highest possible level given the source of the condemnation of our nation?

Question Eight: Conservatives pride themselves on their pro-business, free-market policies. Given that Arizona business is engaged in a very high profile effort, not least through its Chamber of Commerce, to overturn Arizona's recently enacted laws regarding the hiring of illegal aliens and, further, given the U.S. Chamber's vocal and key support for the failed immigration amnesty effort in the Senate earlier this year, might we not want to address how those pro-business views mesh with business-as-it-actually-is-conducted and what this means for the future of the United States?

Question Nine: Education, at all levels, is firmly in the grip of the Left, yet our only response continues to be calls to privatize education via vouchers, an idea firmly rejected again and again by huge majorities of Americans, who believe that a common, public education is key to passing on our culture, our heritage, our history, our beliefs. May we not want to reconsider our approach, given that fact?

Question Ten: Is the United States comprised of a people, Americans, who are overwhelmingly European by heritage, Christian in outlook and culture, with a distinct history, a legal tradition embodied in the common law, and a devotion to republican government? Or is the United States comprised of citizens, Americans, who so long as they adhere to the basic tenets of the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, may be of any heritage, any religion, carry distinct cultures and beliefs, with their own ethnic and national histories, with a shared devotion to democracy and equality?