McCain's dubious adviser.
By Paul J Cella Posted in 2008 | Immigration | John McCain | subversion — Comments (112) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Just when I had started to warm back up to John McCain, whom I strongly supported in 2000, along comes a story that is a vivid reminder of what makes him untrustworthy: for all his sacrifice and service to the country, his ideology aims at its dissolution.
The story this time is that John McCain employs as a “Hispanic outreach director” a man who is, in essence, the agent of a foreign power. He is on-record in implacable opposition to assimilation: “I want the third generation [of immigrants], the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first.’ ” He ran an organization which held a cute contest: artistically depict the border fence like Berlin Wall and win a prize! His career, as an oath-bound agent of the government Mexico, consisted of the kind of sanctioned sedition that has grown up all around the pro-immigration faction.
John McCain’s strongest appeal is his patriotism: a love of country that exacted a severe price. But what kind of patriotism can countenance the affront represented by men like Mr. Juan Hernandez? What kind of patriotism can embrace men like him, who make it their business to agitate among foreign-born populations against the sovereignty, the laws, the authority of our country?
To destructive policy (his Comprehensive Dispossess America bill), McCain has added insult. He has crowned folly with subversion. Mark Kirkorian rightly notes that before the Judicial Usurpation of Politics under the Warren Court, McCain’s adviser would be stripped of his citizenship for having accomplished an “expatriating act” by his oath to another government. Let that sink in. For nearly two centuries, before the advent of the tyranny of the Robed Masters of the Supreme Court, American law would have regarded Candidate McCain’s adviser as unworthy of citizenship, on grounds of disloyalty.
So what kind of patriotism countenances this treachery? Patriotism of abstraction, that’s what kind. When America becomes merely a convenient label with which to bundle one’s ideological enthusiasms, merely a shell into which one may pour whatever political content one likes — why, then real existing America may be trampled on with impunity. Actual laws, actual property, actual communities, actual culture: all these return void before the might of America the Abstraction. Cracked eggs for the omelet.
Juan Hernandez should be fired forthwith.
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In fact, I wrote I wrote about it here.
Hernandez shouldn't be affiliated with any GOP presidential campaign. McCain needs to get rid of him.
1. McCain, 2. Thompson, 3. Giuliani, 4. Romney
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
Is McCain in ignorance of this? Of course not. Do you want to elect such a man that would have Mr. Hernandez as a key part of his team?
God help the United States of America.
Which is why forcing him to fire the guy would be a big step.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
is nothing but window dressing.
The issue is NOT Hernandez, it's John McCain. McCain is committed to non-enforcement of our immigration laws, a porous border and rewarding those who've come here illegally.
The solution is not firing Hernandez, it's sending McCain back to the Senate to finish his term so he can retire to Arizona.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
"for all his sacrifice and service to the country, his ideology aims at its dissolution."
Ok, stop. You can't honestly believe this. After reading sentences like this, do you really expect people to take the rest of what you have to say seriously?
The ideology behind mass immigration, the ideology of America as an idea merely, an idea of unlimited openness, is as destructive as any on offer in this country.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
When you throw in the word "unlimited" you make it obviously difficult, but if America isn't an idea, why is it important? And how can you say that a lot of openness, if not an "unlimited" amount, isn't a big part of what made America great?
I mean, come on, let's face it, I'm a decendant of Cherokees, but this country wouldn't have ever gotten great if they were the only ones who ran the place. It took more then Englishmen too.
John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"
but if America isn't an idea, why is it important?
Because she is a great republic, composed of a great people, which has demonstrated what she set out to demonstrate: that a self-governing people may prosper.
It was not the idea of self-government that we were interested in -- a decade after our Revolution, the French demonstrated what mere ideas can degenerate into -- it was the actual practice of it.
If America were only an idea, she would be perfectly unimportant.
As for this notion of openness as the quintessence of America, you will profit by a study of what actual "openness" awaited sedition in this country before about 1960. The relevant Wiki entries will be "Alien and Sedition Acts," "Copperheads," "Edmunds-Tucker Act," "Sedition Act of 1918," "Palmer Raids," "HUAC," and "Smith Act of 1940."
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
You are totally missing the point.
Take away the idea that is America, and what do you have?
Nothing worth preserving. Certainly nothing greater then Canada, Russia, India, Brazil, etc.
America is great because it's based on great ideas. If you don't have those ideas, its no more valuable then any other country out there.
John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"
I just find it foolish and debasing.
Canada is not worth preserving? Tell it to the men who assaulted Juno Beach, after Omaha the nastiest one at D-Day.
America is great because it's based on great ideas. If you don't have those ideas, its no more valuable then any other country out there.
America is great because she converted a great idea into reality. Self-government. The idea alone is nothing.
And why must America be "more valuable than any other country" to be loved? This patriotism of supremacy is dreary stuff indeed. I must contemn "Canada, Russia, India, Brazil, etc" in order to love my country?
In fact, a patriot does not disdain other patriots. A nationalist may, but not a patriot. Because I love America, I can perfectly understand why a Spaniard loves Spain, or an Italian Italy, even if the latter two may be slowly dying.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Canada is not worth preserving?
Thanks for warping the obvious point I was making. I obviously didn't mean any country isn't worth protecting against force.
What I mean is that if, in 50 years, Canada does not resemble Canada anymore, let's say, it resembles Japan, the world loses nothing. Culture changes with time. The only thing worth preserving are ideas.
Anyhow, I talk about it at length in a post below the next. Reply to that if you wish.
John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"
What I mean is that if, in 50 years, Canada does not resemble Canada anymore, let's say, it resembles Japan, the world loses nothing.
Wrong. The world loses the culture that made the men who stormed Juno beach.
Culture changes with time. The only thing worth preserving are ideas.
A detestable sentiment, rendered grammatically nonsensical. Ideas change with time as well, of course. Two seconds of thought will disclose this. Compare the idea of democracy in the founding era to that of today.
So if ideas change too, may we say, according to your logic, that they are not worth preserving either?
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
It is only in seeing the nation as the ideas that the supremacy in virtue is even an issue.
Loyalty and patriotism to the nation itself, as an entity and heritage, does not require denigration of other nations, nor even any comparison whatsoever.
Inasmuch as you are disagreeing with Paul Cella about the nature of the nation's identity as one of ideas, it is useless to emphasize the value of this nation over others. That comparitive valuation is moot under patriotism as Paul Cella has outlined.
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
I don't know who Paul Cella is, so I can't comment all that intelligently on your comment.
That said, you are right that seeing a nation as ideas are the only thing that makes supremacy in virtue an issue.
And it's that exactly what makes America special. Germany is not based on ideas. India is not based on ideas. Japan is not based on ideas. Brazil is not based on ideas. Kenya is not based on ideas. They are more accidents of history. There is nothing wrong with these nations, they have some fine people, some fine culture, some fine history, etc. But they are not based on ideas. The only other nation on earth that is even close to as based on ideas as America is Israel, and Israel has a much narrower mission. That is why I am patriotic. That is why I believe in America.
I'm not attached to America as a geographic location. I don't dislike it, but there are lots of great geographic locations. I do not think Americans are by their nature better people then others. They are only better if they take part of the ideas that the country was founded on. It does not matter if in 100 years the language of America is English, Spanish, or Swahili. It does not matter if we eat Hot Dogs, Burritos or Curry. It does not matter if we like guitars or sitars or barrel drums. I have no desire to "preserve" the color of American skin. I have no desire to "preserve" the style of dress. I have no desire to "preserve" American "lifestyle" or whatever. I care only about preserving the ideas that have made this country great. Nothing else is worth preserving.
John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"
I'm not attached to America as a geographic location.
I am. And many with my heritage are to the point that it would not be America if we relocated it anywhere else. It is not a conservative thought to separate a people from its land, it's radical.
I do not think Americans are by their nature better people then others.
Nor do I. I believe that being with Americans for purposes of cultural continuity, another conservative value, is better for Americans than being with other people.
They are only better if they take part of the ideas that the country was founded on.
No one is better or worse for taking part in our ideas. They just are different for taking part in them. And it is likely that thousands of generations of differentiation, trial and error, and attachment to different value traditions has made some peoples completely incompatible with ever becoming American. It takes an incredible amount of hubris to conceive of one's ideal path to be the only "best" path for all.
It does not matter if in 100 years the language of America is English, Spanish, or Swahili.
No it does not. But if the language is any but english, it will have ceased to be America from the perspective of heritage. It will not be anything to which I dream and hope that my descendants be attached. I would advise them to shun it.
It does not matter if we eat Hot Dogs, Burritos or Curry. It does not matter if we like guitars or sitars or barrel drums.
Or listen to Mandonna, or Britney or the Macarena. Thse are culinary and artistic expressions with more pop culture value than substantial value related to historical, handed down and nurtured threads that form our real culture.
I have no desire to "preserve" the color of American skin.
That's a slippery slope. If tomorrow all Americans were removed and replaced with white French folks who spoke perfect english, enjoyed the same things and acted the same ways as we do they would not be American. So long as they had their French heritage, they would be French because they would be affected by it and have an innate, perhaps even genetic, desire to nurture and hand it down to future generations.
If 100 years from now there are no descendants of the founding generation continuing the tradition of handing down stories and familiar sentiments through the generations, this will no longer be America at all. It might be called America, and look like America, but if all continual family connections with its Puritan founding through its Great Awakenings and its Revolution are severed, then it will not be America from a heritage standpoint. And it will not be something worth caring about any more than I'd care about some distant odd land, whatever and wherever it might be.
I have no desire to "preserve" American "lifestyle" or whatever.
Well, that's just absurd.
I care only about preserving the ideas that have made this country great.
If the ideas that made this nation (look up the root of the word nation) turn out to be such that it's heritage is allowed to dissolve into nothingness, then I'd not give a damn about those ideas because they will have been proved to be failures.
Your silly insistences stand in defiance of history and make a mockery of the very thing you claim to be defending:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
If you think that the founders did not have in mind and heart a specific set of attachments to families who sacrificed to make this nation when they ordained it in the name of "posterity," you really are beyond reasoning. Go have your America the idea, just do it with the lights turned off and quietly. I wouldn't want my child to hear such vile sounds.
Nothing else is worth preserving.
The current result of thousands of generations of loving and caring for the next generation's well being is far more than nothing. It's really sad that there are people who abhor my heritage so much that they would insult it with such arrogant indifference. It sickens me that, thanks to poltiical correctness, our nation is producing this sort of cancerous thought...and in some places nurturing it.
Yuck.
Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security. --Edmund Burke
Blog: TMYN
This nation is and always has been defined above all by certain principles.
Yes, this conception of a nation is in some ways radical. The birth of America was in some ways a radical event.
What is absolutely NOT American is your idea that
"If 100 years from now there are no descendants of the founding generation continuing the tradition of handing down stories and familiar sentiments through the generations, this will no longer be America at all."
We are not a nation of blood. Should we become one, we would cease - and deserve to cease - to be America.
I'm a descendant of colonists, who were British Subjects. Then they were not. They were Americans. And then others came who had not shared in the experience and sacrifice. The first American citizens needed at term to differentiate themselves from those who came after.
Thus, in 1789, an American cartographer coined the term "immigrant." It stuck. It was often used derisively and as a tool to help others stop being as if they were "others" and become with us.
For generations, calling a son or daughter of the American Revolution an "immigrant" would have likely caused a fight. Just because some term or phrase is colloquially accepted in modernity does not give it special power to erase the factual history, the originalism, behind it.
So, as it was handed down to me through many, many lines of my heritage in stories, attitudes and cherished sentiments, this nation is their descendant, their kith and kin. If there is ever nobody here who has had the stories handed from father and mother to son and daughter, if the threads of hundreds or a thousand generations cease to be transmitted by stewardship, this may still be a country called America, but it will cease, in fact, to be a "nation" in respect to its creators.
While it may still be a nation in the political sense, in the original cultural sense it will be something else. And I don't have much affinity for it.
A "Nation of Immigrants" is a book written by John F. Kennedy that has misled many and misinformed a couple of generations. A "nation of immigrants" is an oxymoron.
Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security. --Edmund Burke
Blog: TMYN
Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security. --Edmund Burke
Blog: TMYN
that your brains have fallen out! That we are what we are and have those ideas that you value is the sum of all those things you profess not to care about.
In Vino Veritas
from driving his tanks through the Fulda Gap. If you think America's importance is restricted to the fact that it's an idea; I commend to your literary enjoyment The man In The High Castle by Phillip K. Dick.
"If this ain't a mess, it'll do until one shows up." -Sheriff Bell, No Country For Old Men
What you say here MAY be true, but that's not what you wrote above. You said that McCain's ideology "aims" at the dissolution of this country. Websters defines aims, in this context, as "aspire, intend." By using that word, you wrote that McCain's ideology aspires or intends the dissolution of this country. Such an aspiration/intention would be treasonous. Thus, I understand you to be calling McCain a traitor. You may disagree with him, even emphatically, about this issue, but your emphatic disagreement does not make McCain a traitor.
I regard the ideology in question as subversive of America, and oppose it as a destructive doctrine.
But I'll leave it to you to untangle how attacking an ideology must perforce include a personal attack on the man advancing it.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
By using the word "aims" you said that McCain's ideology overtly and unambiguously seeks dissolution of the country. An ideology with such an overt component would be treason.
A person can believe in an ideology that has an unintended consequence of dissolution of the country without actively seeking (or aiming for) the country's dissolution. In other words, a person can be both disastrously wrong about the consequences of their ideology and not be a traitor.
By confusing the two, you unintentionally (I hope) impugn McCain's motives instead of accepting that you both seek to make this country a better place and arguing about how best to achieve that mutual goal.
I urge you to be more careful in the future.
Yes, that's the point I'm trying to get across. One can be wrong and not be a traitor. The former might cause ridicule. The latter is a capital crime.
I would be, in fact, be aiming at the ground and while I would be certainly "intending and aspiring" to get there with good intentions, having never landed a 747, I would probably kill a lot of people. This wouldn't make me a murderer would it? No, just fatally incompetent.
As such, McCain isn't a traitor, just fatally incompetent.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
One must distinguish evaluations of the man's intent from evaluations of the man's correctness.
You can love your country and be terribly wrong on what's best for us all.
having high confidence that your native level of intent and aspiration would at least match your power of persuasion, I would have little doubt you would bring us all down, if not gently, at least in one salvageable piece.
soli Deo gloria
Properly equipped, a 747 will land itself with no help from you.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
You can always tell when a pilot lands one. It is really not as good. But, they do actually land them in the simulators.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
that transit the Pole or the Great Circle through Anchorage are only under the direct control of the pilot when taxiing. They just taxi them out to the start line, push a few buttons, let the computers talk to the satellites and gyroscopes, and the plane flies itself to Hong Kong, Singapore, or whereever. A million pounds or so, crew of two or three: pilot, copilot, and a loadmaster on some. East Coast or Europe to ANC nonstop, refuel, ANC to the Orient nonstop then vice versa. The crew buy a lot of DVDs!
In Vino Veritas
Seems there is an opening.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
you wouldn't be able to tell that they'd had a psychological breakdown! I've spent some evenings drinking with the fighter pilots from Elmendorf at F Street in Anchorage, you'll definitely know you have a liver the next day! And the freighter pilots are worse! They scrupulously observe the "bottle to throttle" rule, but I don't know that eight hours is enough if your BAC is .50. And the "Bush Pilots" that fly rural Alaska are in their own league for sheer craziness.
In Vino Veritas
are typically so far over the edge they've long forgotten what it looked like or where it was.
With respect to the bush pilots, I was told that they had to take a psychological evaluation test before they could be licensed. And they had to fail it.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
It helps to be nuts. I've never figured out the Russian Roulette riddle; do the odds get worse each time, or is it always 50/50? I have a lot of hours in small planes, big planes too, and I could cheerfully never set foot in another one.
In Vino Veritas
On any individual spin of the cylinder the odds are the same. If you plan on spinning the cylinder a bunch of times, your odds are different at the beginning based on the number of spins you are planning.
Of course, if you are using a Glock...
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
That's all I ever hear.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
This type of action reveals more abou the man's heart and judgment. People will turn this into a thread about amnesty. Tha is not what is important. I previously made this analogy:
Mitt Romney used to be pro-choice. He converted to the pro-life cause and is running and a pro-life candidate. Many people question the sincerity of his conversion. If he then appointed Gloria Steinum or Naomi Wolf to head his Women's outreach program, would people remain similarly mum? I think it would cause outrage and justifiably so. Juan Hernandez is to Mexican-American relations as Gloria Steinum is to the feminist movement. McCain is not fooling anyone anymore. He modified his position for the primary, but his heart is with radical amnesty and open borders crowd. Once in office, he will sell out to that cause.
No, I'm saying people who swear at their colleagues for promoting the English language, scream about goddamned fences, work for think tanks funded by George Soros, and appoint people like Juan Hernandez to positions of authority in a presidential campaign are nuts.
There you go again.
I wish people could separate fact from invective. The quote you so lovingly repeat at every possible turn about fences doesn't mean what you obviously want it to.
The full quote: "By the way, I think the fence is least effective, But I'll build the goddamned fence if they want it."
Objectively obvious is the implicit suggestion that fence is so damned for being a waste of time. He isn't denigrating the idea of security, he's rightly pointing out that your enthusiasm for technology that a caveman could circumvent might be a bit too much "Rah Rah" and not quite enough actual security. He was talking then, as now, about advanced border security, to include increased personnel, advanced tracking and surveillance systems etc.
But you'll get your damn fence, yankee. And your symbolic victory will be literally useless without some 21st century common sense.
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
he's rightly pointing out that your enthusiasm for technology that a caveman could circumvent might be a bit too much "Rah Rah" and not quite enough actual security.
Correct.
But don't tell that to the Tancredo crowd.
John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"
Duncan Hunter did not agree, nor do I. It ain't (or it shouldn't be) "just" a fence.
And anyway, he couldn't have meant exactly what you just said, because that wouldn't have made any sense in the context of the day. I believe his meaning was, "We need employer sanctions and a secure ID card and to reduce the attractiveness of illegal immigration. That will work better than a fence." Trouble is, that's what was promised before, and that's why the people recognized it as BS. Either that, or he was again clueless about something, intentionally or otherwise.
I don't know whether good fences really make good neighbors, but they do tend to slow down the bad neighbors as they try to get into your yard.
The "Third Worst Person in the World" and aiming higher.
But one can legitimately question his values, principles, and thought processes when it comes to:
The rule of law
15 million new democrat leaning voters
The severe economic consequences of illegal immigration, especially in the US southwest
and, national security
FredHead for Mitt Romney!
Do you think Ron Paul has to be mentally ill to be nuts, IS Dennis Kucinich nuts. Nuts is nuts. Please, I'm an attorney and I deal with pinheaded intellectuals wannabes all day that try to play jedi mind tricks with the english languge. Nuts is nuts. Period. I think John McCain is nuts.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
I made the Corner a couple of weeks ago also, for a decidedly less important discussion.
They're reading Redstate for sure. Smart folks!
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
Is fired sufficient? I would think some type of public statement to accompany the firing is in order. He should address why Hernandez was allowed to volunteer, and what the acceptance of his efforts was to communicate. Additionally, shouldn't Senator McCain either explain what is going on with the reform institute? Of if he is no longer a player there, explain why?
This story has the potential for legs. The dems can't use it, obviously. But talk radio and conservative voices can, and will.
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
... if this is any indication, that is.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
That only indicates no current plans. Firing someone who is under fire is certainly nothing new in politics and campaigning.
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
But you don't really think this story is going to get the sort of MSM-legs (the only ones McCain seems to care about) necessary to create the conditions where such a firing would become an option, do you?
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
By republican standards, McCain may have gentle press. But compared to Dan Rather? I don't think so.
If it looks like a salacious scandal they'll happily dump it on his head. It's matter-of-factly dealt with right now because no one is frothing over it enough. But the blogs frothed over Rather, they can froth over this.
Conservative talk radio will be running with this. Firing may already simply be a matter of time.
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
Of course the MSM-will bring this out and make a great meal of it - right about late September, I figure.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
very good friend and supporter, Lindsay Graham as Attorney General and/or Supreme Court nominee wasn't enough?
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Vista really sucks!
The post is about an advisor/consultant to the McCain campaign. I mention another advisor/consultant to the McCain campaign in a light-hearted way and it's a 'threadjack'. WOW, you really need to lighten up.
But seriously, too many people here will use any thread about McCain as a place to make ALL their complaints about McCain, and that's exactly what you're post looked like.
But since you were just joking anyway, we can just put this to rest.
One thing that bothers me about this story is that Mark Krikorian and Michelle Malkin, who initially reported it, accompanied their original blog posts with rank speculation that McCain was considering Hernandez for a cabinet position such secretary of DHS. They cited no other evidence than the fact that Hernandez has the title of Hispanic Outreach Director. Pretty soon the blogosphere was filled with references to Hernandez as McCain's adviser or even, per Hugh Hewitt, "senior immigration adiser."
I haven't seen anything to substantiate this claim. Has anyone seen any specific evidence that Hernandez has advised McCain or has a policy role in the campaign? A campaign spokesman has said Hernandez is an unpaid volunteer who has no policy role. I don't consider Hernandez's work for the Reform Institute to count as a policy role in the campaign. I'm asking if there's anything more direct.
I don't like Hernandez, and I don't think the McCain camp should have given him the title of Hispanic Outreach Director. But I'm unsure of anything he's done for the campaign other than to ask people to support McCain.
It seems to me that what really pushed this story along was Krikorian's and Malkin's speculation about the cabinet position, and many dubious references to Hernandez as an adviser.
As for the point of Hernandez having worked for the Mexican government, I agree that this is a good reason for him not to have an official role with the McCain campaign. But the rhetoric on this is, in my opinion, over-heated. Mexico is an ally and not an enemy of the U.S. Consider John O'Sullivan, editor-at-large of National Review, a British citizen who was an adviser to the British government under Margaret Thatcher. Somehow I don't think that people would be complaining very loudly that he was a former "foreign government official" if he were, say, British Expatriate Outreach Director for the Romney campaign.
is not an American citizen. If he aspired to become one, he would have to renounce his allegiance to Her Majesty's government.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Yes, O'Sullivan is not a citizen, and that's a distinction. Would that make it ok for him to work for a U.S. presidential campaign?
John Derbyshire contradicts your claim that O'Sullivan would have to renounce his British citizenship to become on American citizen in this interesting article about his experience in becoming an American citizen.
http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire042302.asp
He is not an advisor to Senator McCain. However, that distinction is largely unimportant. The perception is the reality. It was up to the Senator and the campaign to anticipate the perception, to understand what they were communicating. That they didn't can be seen as, itself, communicative.
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
In (somewhat facetiously) bringing up the idea of British Expatriate Outreach Director, I'm thinking of people who, like John Derbyshire, are dual citizens of the the U.S. and the U.K.
Dual-citizenship should be abolished.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Why? That would seem to be pretty complicated, since anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen, and yet the law in many countries is that children of citizens are also citizens, wherever they are born. It's not an easy procedure to renounce your citizenship in another country. And it would be pretty difficult to force all U.S. citizens to renounce their citizenship in other countries.
I think that is excessive. There can be special circumstances. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, and great grandparents were stripped of their German citizenship by decree of Hitler, for having fled Germany during the Nazi rise to power.
Germany and the United States set up a special program by which those who were so stripped would be granted dual-citizenship, as a gesture and in remembrance of what happened. Further, this is infinitely inheritable. I and my children are therefore eligible for this program.
I have not taken advantage, but I don't think doing so would be disloyal. That man cannot serve two masters is a philosophical point of view. In practice, there is little question that people can have degrees of loyalty to a variety of different institutions. I am a citizen of Redstate and the Republican Party, each to a different degree.
One can abstractly reason threats to the national identity from things like dual-citizenship. In practice, historically, cultural and national identity are far more resilient. Look at France, Germany, Bavaria, Venice and India for examples.
Insular may equal secure, but secure does not necessarily equal insular. I don't mean that as a straw man substition for your position. It is an adjunct to my position.
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
McCain only has Hernandez in the picture right now because he's pandering for Cuban-American votes. Once Florida is behind us, you can bet Hernandez will be thrown out of McCain campaign HQ post haste.
"What was HE doing here? I'm outraged. OUTRAGED!!!!" - future quote, John McCain.
Welcome to the Straight Talk Express - subject to detours when politically expedient.
and that's a hilarious quote (although i doubt he'll fake outrage when he lets him go - he'll just let him go quietly)
W.C. Fields for President!
www.shortenurl.com/7cxfm
and a couple big ones (he seems to enjoy provoking the party, generally, and specifically he was wrong to support the immigration bills).
but his record is good on most of the big issues:
1. fighting the war and understanding the threat from radical Islam
2. supporting strict constructionist judges
3. reducing spending
4. opposing increases in entitlements
5. favoring low taxes and further tax reductions
obviously, his record is not so good on immigration, which is also a big issue. but this is the one exception. although i don't like it, i can live with it because he's good on the rest of the most important issues.
global warming, patient's bill of rights, campaign finance reform, etc. - all important and, frankly, very annoying - but secondary to the big stuff
W.C. Fields for President!
www.shortenurl.com/7cxfm
If this guy's views on border security are representiative of McCain's, then people who care about security have reason to question McCain.
It's time McCain fired him. The Senator is already having enough trouble getting out his plan to secure the border as it is.
Yah, you are really concerned about terrorists coming over the border. That's the best way to stop terrorism.
That's why you are pushing so hard for increased border security with Canada, right?
John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"
Both.
The argument that border security is a WOT issue, at least in the sense that the Tancredo crowd uses it, is Orwellian. It's true that cracking down on illegal immigration at the border does have some security value, but very little. And the place it would have the most impact would be the Canadian border. We've caught more people from dangerous countries (Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemin, Syria etc.) trying to come across the Canadian border then we have the Mexican border. And the border with Canada is over 3 times as long and we have less then half the amount of border guards. That's a fact, look it up.
Dealing with Immigrants who come over legally and overstay their visas, or who don't do other things they are suppose to do, would be of much higher value for security reasons.
But that doesn't get them what they want. So they spin it.
I don't mind that they are hard line immigration restrictionists, but I wish they would be honest about it. This "WOT = Border Fence" nonsense is insulting. Anybody that actually thinks that will actually stop another terrorist attack should have their head examined.
John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"
I wouldn't call
1. Wanting the 1st Amendment rewritten;
2. Working with liberal Democrats to block conservative judges;
3. Pushing for constitution rights for foreign terrorists;
4. Equating members of the US military with torturers;
5. Pushing to close Gitmo and move terrorists to US soil;
6. Flacking for a "solution" to AGW;
7. Opposing drilling offshore and in ANWR;
8. Pushing for the abrogation of US immigration law;
9. Engaging in class warfare over taxes with Senate Democrats;
"minor" flaws. And with respect to his ability to prosecute the war, he would be worse than either Rudy or Mitt because of the soft spot he's seems to have for terrorist legal rights.
John McCain is a legend in his own mind. He's, quite successfully so far, selling the McCain of 40 years ago while getting you to ignore the McCain of the last 10-15 years. John McCain is unfit to be President.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
AGain, I don't like some of these positions - and you and some other conservatives clearly don't like any of them - but none of them, apart from immigration, is a top-five issue.
We have to distinguish between the big stuff and the secondary stuff (even though, as I indicated in my initial post, the secondary stuff is still important).
In other words, I support McCain because he gets most of the big stuff right, but I expect to have to fight him hard on some other, secondary issues.
But we can fight him hard on those issues and succeed much of the time. Look how we succeeded against Bush's steel tariffs, nomination of Miers, and immigration proposal.
You are welcome to have the last word. I know you dislike McCain strongly and I do not hope to convince you now. I hope you will recognize, however, that we must distinguish between the most important issues facing the country and the rest of the issues.
W.C. Fields for President!
www.shortenurl.com/7cxfm
Yes. However, that's only the first cut. I happen to consider the war the number one issue. I won't vote for a Democrat because they won't prosecute it. I won't vote for McCain because there are other Republican candidates who will prosecute the war more vigerously than he will.
McCain is doing nothing more than pushing his earlier call for "more troops" into the idea that he will be the most effective commander in chief. His earlier call had nothing to do with the strategy of the surge, it was nothing more than a whip to beat Bush and Rumsfeld with.
McCain is not the right man to lead the military. He's got no business being CinC for the reasons I noted above. He may be more committed to military action than the current crop of Democrats, but his positions on every legal issue related to the conduct of the war are unacceptable.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
for his supporters to keep swallowing this stuff and supporting Mr. Straight Talk.
He's learned his lesson blah blah blah. But has an Hispanic Outreach Director who essentially wants to turn the US into permanent day care for Mexico?
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.
Bingo.
McCain's worldview is one of fungible citizens who can be replaced at will with others who might share the same values. There is no American exceptionalism outside its government and constitution. "American culture" is a myth. This is a legitimate position to hold but one I and most Americans don't share.
Juan Hernandez may or may not be fired. That is beside the point. At least some of his rhetoric is grounded in "America the Abstraction," as you put it, and the senator shares the same view at points.
Kaus has no pony in this race. He just saw what other honest people saw, which is the patent absudity of McCain's immigration policy and his shilling for the open borders crowd.
I am getting pushed just a little to far at this point. Remember "with liberty and justice for all?" The rule of law is the rule of law. I'm tired of my liberty being stolen and am I wrong if I want my justice.?
The NEA does not believe in justice. If we do not make a stand now, we are doomed..
"Two legs bad, four legs good."
I remember George Will writing columns during the late 80's that accused Ronald Reagan of being a RINO.
"If this ain't a mess, it'll do until one shows up." -Sheriff Bell, No Country For Old Men
I'm glad you said it too. When I said the same with slightly more hyperbole, it caused a little ruckus.
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/swamp_yankee/2008/jan/26/the_insidious_rel...