The Dooryard

Immigration bill deserves support

When I first heard about the proposed federal immigration bill, I was watching Fox News. I can't remember who it was on there, but I heard lots of "amnesty for criminals," and I immediately had a negative view of it.

Then I read what was in the bill: A dramatic increase in border security, a 12-year path to citizenship, and fines for people who came here illegally. The people who want to become citizens have a long road to hoe to get it.

So why the cry of amnesty? Because the Pat Buchanans of the world, whose all-or-nothing social conservatism has as many destructive elements as those on the far left, simply don't want Mexicans coming here en masse, and because they are hung up on the notion that these people came here illegally when they first crossed the border. I have the same concern about their illegal actions. But, we don't just kick out everyone who has committed a crime. Each crime has its appropriate punishment, from fines for speeding to jail time for theft to the death penalty for murder. Coming across a country's border illegally? While I'd love to see a massive fine, the $5,000-plus laid out by the bill seems appropriate and would raise tens of billions of dollars.

 

On the other side, many Hispanics, illegal immigrants, and other apologists for illegal immigrants are angry because the bill makes it too hard to get citizenship, and because the bill makes what an individual can add to America more important than their family. God forbid a nation should look out for its own best interest and try to attract skilled workers.

I think everyone involved with the bill, from Ted Kennedy to President Bush, should be commended for the bill. At a time when America is being torn apart by partisan politics it is encouraging to see people on both sides of the aisle come together, compromise, and make things happen.

A win for decency, life and individual rights

The Supreme Court this week took a brave stand against murder that finally puts some codified limit on the right of a woman to unilaterally murder a child. In a 5-4 decision, the court decided that intact dilation and extraction abortions, also known as "partial-birth abortions" or "brain-suck abortions," are Unconstitutional. The decision upholds a law already passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.

I didn't understand exactly what these abortions are until I read a description in Wikipedia today:

Once the cervix is sufficiently dilated, the doctor uses an ultrasound and forceps to grasp the fetus' leg. The fetus is turned to a breech position, if necessary, and the doctor pulls one or both legs out of the birth canal, causing what is referred to by some people as the 'partial birth' of the fetus. The doctor subsequently extracts the rest of the fetus, usually without the aid of forceps, leaving only the head still inside the birth canal. An incision is made at the base of the skull and a suction catheter is inserted into the cut. The brain tissue is removed, which causes the skull to collapse and allows the fetus to pass more easily through the birth canal.

Some are trying to say the term "partial-birth abortion" is inaccurate. You tell me: Does it not describe the procedure written above? The child is partially born, and then its brain is sucked out of its head. Sounds right to me.

I was stunned to read some negative reaction to this ruling. One poster on a blog said, "a woman should have the right to terminate a fully viable baby." And that sums it up: To many, a woman should be able to kill her child whenever she wants to, even after it's been born. That is the extreme position, but sadly it is held by some.

I think abortion is a terrible thing. Horrible. It is murder. However, unfortunately, I think at this point it's something we in this society have to live with. But there should be limitations, as there are on all rights (funny how many abortion-rights people want no limits on abortion, but they want a limit on guns, the right to which is written right into the Constitution). And this is a wonderfully positive, life-affirming step in that direction.

Free speech when it suits them

Some "artist," Michael Petry, is making a bit of a name for himself with his art exhibit, America the Beatiful, that looks at our great country's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. One of the pieces is an American flag with pearls (left) sewn into the flag in the design of a cumshot by an actual gay man. It is by far the most crude, disgusting, shameful way to use the American flag I have ever seen.

On the other side, we have the continue battle raging over a single confederate flag flying on state grounds in the state of South Carolina. Black and other liberal groups have tried for years to get all confederate flags removed, but this one lone flag stands, and the state legislature refuses to remove it, saying that it represents an important part of state history (which is, of course, true). Now, some black coaches have gotten the NCAA to take aim at South Carolina's university, and the NCAA may strengthen its existing ban on postseason tournaments and games held in the state.

Various people would defend the sperm-covered flag; many others would defend the confederate flag. Unfortunately, few would defend both because political agenda, not individual rights, are what is most important to so many Americans today.

Though I personally find the former absolutely disgusting and I would like to see it gone, while I find the latter to be one group's fight for self-expression (the supports of the flag) against the ever-growing P.C. police (in this case the black coaches), I defend the right of both to exist.

• Kentucky hoops team refuses to play South Carolina team

A civil war not our own

I was surprised to hear that President Bush is pushing to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq. Surprised because I figured that, with the opinion polls on the war where they are, and with the country clearly rejecting the war's direction at the polls in November, and with the Baker report pushing for a reduction in troops, Bush would adjust his strategy.

This war is a very tricky thing because it's not really a war. President Clinton began a new era of the military as peace-keepers. I thought then, and I think now, that that is a just use of our military. As the lone superpower, and with a United Nations that is virtually useless, it falls in part on American shoulders to protect people around the world. This war in Iraq is, essentially, a peace-keeping mission, it is not a war. The war ended with the fall of the Hussein regime and Bush declaring the war is over. Since then, American troops have been busy trying to limit civil unrest.

So why would Bush want to increase the number of troops in Iraq (and with a number that is half or a third of what most experts think is needed to have an impact)? One thing I can think of is Iran. With Hussein gone, it is Iran who should most be in our crosshairs, and I wouldn't be surprised one bit if this was to keep Iran in check, or as preparation for an attack of Iran.

The other rationale is what he said five years ago that a vast majority of Americans agreed with: We would take the fight to them. The Middle East is the home of so many who have caused horror and destruction in our world. By taking the fight to them, they would be less willing and able to take the fight to us. For whatever reason, since we did take the fight to them, they haven't attacked American soil again.

American sentiment, as it always does, has turned against this military action. When I saw FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS (review coming soon) last week, I was surprised to hear that support for World War II had waned in the U.S. at one point. Unfortunately, Americans forget quickly and have little long-term will as a people. Plus, they are fed one-sided information by the liberal media constantly, so it's somewhat understandable that they may start to side with them after too long.

For my money, I think it is time to start withdrawing some of our troops from Iraq. We won the war. Saddam Hussein was removed from power and he is now dead. We are now fighting someone else's war, a civil war. And while we have a stake in that war and we should have a small part in it, it is the right of citizens of a nation to fight one another. It's an ugly business, but there is a long history of civil wars. And unfortunately, much of the Middle East is not civilized enough to get along with people they disagree with, so they fight.

I'll be interested to hear President Bush's arguments tomorrow night for increasing the number of troops. I'll keep an open, yet skeptical, mind.

It's hunting season

I grew up in a hunting family. Every male, from grandfathers to uncles to cousins, hunted; heck even my grandmothers hunted. To kill a deer was a right of passage into manhood. I remember thinking as a kid that I wouldn't be respected in my family until I killed a deer. The funny thing is, I'm still left wondering if that is, in fact, the case.

I never did shoot a deer, though I went hunting for several seasons. It was always this week. While many of us spend November thinking about elections and turkey and early Christmas shopping, so much of the country has deer and moose and grouse in their cross-hairs. During Thanksgiving week my family would head up to Maine, and my father and I would trudge out in the cold and (sometimes) snow tracking deer.

The only deer I ever saw hunting was on the first day I ever set out. I remember it so vividly. We came upon a cutting and about 100 yards away were five deer bounding through the small levelled trees. Over the next three or four hunting seasons I spent every hunting trip wondering what I would do if I actually had the chance to shoot a deer. I didn't buy into the Bambi argument, but I have always treasured innocent (including non-human) life. I have trouble killing  a spider (which has spurred more than one argument with Dan).

I'm not against hunting in any way. Innocent life is taken every day so I can have a chicken salad sandwich or some boiled lobster, or a turkey for Thanksgiving. I simply don't want to be the one to do it. Staring through the scope down the barrel of a gun, I always wondered if I'd be able to pull the trigger with a live animal staring back at me. I imagine I could do it, but it would haunt me for days and weeks afterward. I remember while hunting that I had wished I had a camera in my hand instead. But, that yearning for acceptance and manhood kept me armed.

I think hunting is a wonderful thing, and is a rich part of American history, dating back far beyond the arrival of Europeans. I simply don't want to be the one pulling the trigger.

Giving thanks while acknowledging the suffering

I learned about Thanksgiving in my Cape Cod elementary school about 45 miles from Plimoth Plantation. New Englanders take that early American history very seriously, and the celebration of Thanksgiving has always been dear to me. It was taught to me as a coming together of Pilgrims and American Indians, before the two sides embarked on a bitter war that waged for two centuries.

Some teachers are now using Thanksgiving to teach about the atrocities of the European settlement of America. There's a fine line here that begs for explanation. The first Thanksgiving supper was, by all accounts, a peaceful one of sharing (actually, there's only one written account of the feast itself, but there's nothing else to suggest that there was hostility between the English and the Wampanoag Indians). The celebration of that meal should reflect the meal itself.

However, the treatment of the American Indians by the Europeans was at times atrocious. The worst atrocity committed by any president was the Cherokees' Trail of Tears, which was an illegal expulsion of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia by President Andrew Jackson (the first Democrat elected president). Many American Indians certainly committed crimes against the Europeans, but to nowhere near the extent that the Whites slaughtered the Indians.

I think it's important that our children understand that history. But I also think it's important that our children be allowed and encouraged to celebrate the positive moments of our history, not just wash over them because bad things happened, too. This Thursday, I'll be thinking of my ancestors on both sides of the struggle (my family goes back to the American Indians and the early settlers of 1620 and 1621), and I'll be thanking them for their contribution to what has become this country I so love.

The sad past of Senators-turned-President

Right now, three of the four frontrunners in the 2008 presidential race are United States Senators: Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). Historically, however, candidates winning the presidency right out of Congress don't fare so well in the election or once they take the presidency.

The last President elected out of the Congress was Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.), 46 years ago. He was killed in his third year as president. You have to go back another 40 years to Sen. Warren G. Harding (R-Ohio), left, who also died in his third year in office (1923). Another 40 years before that was Rep. James A. Garfield (R-Ohio), who was shot and killed in his first year as president.

Abraham Lincoln had served in the House of Representatives, but he wasn't a Senator or Congressman when elected. In fact, he is one of the very few men to have been elected president while not holding public office. The last position he ran for before his run at the presidency was Senator, which he lost to pro-slavery Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln was shot and killed in his fifth year as president.

You have to go all the way back to crazy-haired Franklin Pierce (right) in 1852, before the Civil War, to find a Senator (he represented New Hampshire) or Congressman elected to the presidency who didn't die in office.

"Being necessary to the security of a free State"

While in Maine visiting my parents last weekend, we got into a great conversation about gun control. I'm a strict interpreter of the U.S. Constitution. Again, I'm a STRICT interpreter. The reason I stress that is because I believe a huge majority of people don't know what the Bill of Rights actually says, and that they tend to ignore certain parts of each amendment.

For example, the First Amendment doesn't guarantee free speech. It says that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." It says nothing about the courts or the executive branch doing so when need be. It's the only place in the Bill of Rights where Congress is specifically mentioned, and I think that is important.

As for the Second Amendment, again, the very beginning of the amendment is key: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The reason the amendment is there is to allow for the people to protect themselves against their own government (which is why Janet Reno's over-the-top attack of the Koresh compound was so vile) and against any governments which might attack our country.

This came up during the conversation with my Dad. He lives in Maine and has been around guns since he was a little kid (and the same was true for me). Guns are second nature to him. He even has a holster to carry a gun around town. We talked about why that was or was not necessary, and he said it was needed to protect himself.

Now, the right to bear arms wasn't created to protect himself from anyone but the government or other governments. Still, my father has a real purpose for carrying a gun. In smalltown Maine, police officers are few and far between. Keeping the peace is largely up to the citizens; and generally, in Maine and other rural states, peace is kept.

People talk a lot about how many guns there are in the U.S., and how we have such a high murder rate. Well, most of those guns are in these smaller, rural towns where the murder rate is so low; it's the cities where the people with guns generally start aiming them at each other. That's something that Michael Moore's lame arguments in Bowling For Columbine completely overlooked.

Beyond the obvious use for hunting (which is a good reason to own a rifle, but a bad reason to own a handgun), my father also likes carrying a handgun when he's out hiking. Their cabin is in bear country, and you just never know if you'll be the unlucky statistic to be attacked by one; In that moment, having a handgun in your holster would be a really good idea.

Interestingly, we started talking about Kim Jong Il, and his quest for weapons (and if you believe his reported apology and claim that North Korea won't be doing more tests, then you may have a future as an advisor to Hillary Clinton). Someone in the room seemed to start to argue that he had every right to a nuclear weapon. I disagree. While it may eventually prove folly, we in this country have been stripped of the right to own certain weapons. Missile launchers and tanks come to mind. And nuclear weapons. Everyone, and every country, should have the right to defend herself. However, sometimes the extension of a right hurts the rest of society so much that that right has to be restricted. It's the old "You can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater" argument, and it's a good one. Kim Jong Il does not and should not have the right to have a nuclear weapon; And the right of Americans to own certain weapons (again, though this may prove folly before the end) can be and should be limited.

Remember, the amendment says "the right to ... bear Arms shall not be infringed," it doesn't say that those Arms can be anything you choose.

"The Broken Branch"

Somehow, several years ago, I subscribed to the The Daily Utah Chronicle newsletter - the independent student newspaper at the University of Utah. Today's lead article interested me a great deal (I usually just pass over it). Thomas Mann co-authored a book called The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track. In it, he discusses how Congress over the last 30 years has devolved into an increasingly useless, partisan entity.

"I believe that the U.S. has always seen ourselves as a paragon of democracy for the world," Mann said during a speech at the University of Utah, "and now the world looks at us and chuckles about the frailties, flaws and shortcomings of our own system."

I, for one, couldn't care less how the rest of the world views us; most of the rest of the world is deeply envious of the United States and Americans, and their judgment is clouded. However, I am like many Americans in that we have long thought there was something wrong in Washington, something that goes past political parties and ideology.

I've said here before, and I'll say it again, that what is really lacking in Washington is real leadership. We haven't had a president in the White House who provided respectable leadership in 18 years; and, except for the first two years of Newt Gingrich's rule of the House, Congress hasn't had a true leader since former Speaker Tip O'Neill left the House in 1987.

When people with small minds or little vision are left to leadership positions, there is an inevitable faltering of the institution they lead. Hopefully some young blood will be able to turn that around in the next few years.

Related: Check out Congress.org, a pretty informative Web site to stay up on the happenings in the Capitol.

Voting is a right AND a responsibility

I have long thought how easy it would be to vote fraudulently. Every polling place I've ever gone to barely looks at your ID (the last one, here in Manhattan in 2004, didn't see my ID at all), shows you the names of other people who are registered to vote, and has truly no good way of stopping people from coming in, posing as other people, and voting a few times. Plus, virtually anyone can register to vote.

The House of Representatives yesterday passed a bill called the Federal Election Integrity Act, mandating that people show photo identification, and as of 2010 mandating something that proves national citizenship like a passport or an enhanced driver's license. Head Dem Nazi Nancy Pelosi issued a statement saying it's unAmerican blah blah blah. Yeah, it's soooo unAmerican to have to show a photo ID to vote. God forbid you might have to show a simple form of identification in order to perform one of the most powerful actions you can in a Democracy.

I've long thought people who didn't know the issues in an election should not vote. I abstain from elections in which I don't know the candidates or the issues, particularly with questions on a ballot. Every American has the right to vote. But, we also have the responsibility to do our homework: To read up on the election, to really think about what we're doing when we cast our vote. And if someone doesn't care enough about voting to get a passport or some other proof of U.S. citizenship, then I'd recommend they not vote because they have not lived up to their responsibility to their fellow Americans to take their vote seriously.

I was listening to Michaelangelo Signorile's blatherings today about this, as he was saying this would somehow keep poor people away because they can't afford to pay for the forms they need to get the ID cards. It's a very sad argument, claiming that poor people care about voting on a more shallow level than rich people. (BTW, his show is just about the funniest on all of Sirius (except Howard, for other reasons); people calling up to support his nonsense every day; you've got to tune in.)

Shocker: The New York Times is saying the evil Republicans are just trying to suppress voters, it's unAmerican - in fact, I think they just ran Pelosi's statement as their editorial. I couldn't find an actual news story about the bill in the Times (it may be there - I just couldn't find it); of course, they ran a story yesterday about a judge in Georgia voiding one law mandating photo IDs for voters. To the NYT, though, their editorials are about as fair and balanced as their news stories anyway.

The real reason many Democrats and liberals don't like the idea: Because they're afraid that people won't be able to illegally vote for them. They are no more patriotic than the Republicans; and they are no less willing to trample people's rights when it serves their own political motives. This bill, though, provides some common sense to an incredibly important part of our democratic process.