The Truth About the Israeli Boat Raid

Don't let the MSM or the far left run this story. This video

and this report spell out what really happened.

Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.

However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons.

One soldier who came to the aid of a comrade was captured by the rioters and sustained severe blows. The commandoes were equipped with handguns but were told they should only use them in the face of life-threatening situations. When they came down from the chopper, they kept on shouting to each other “don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” even though they sustained numerous blows.

Dangerous Words

Are you frickin' kidding me?

The president's top counterterrorism adviser on Wednesday called jihad a "legitimate tenet of Islam," arguing that the term "jihadists" should not be used to describe America's enemies.

During a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, John Brennan described violent extremists as victims of "political, economic and social forces," but said that those plotting attacks on the United States should not be described in "religious terms."

[...]

"Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children," Brennan said.

So what do we call it, genius? Radical extremism? That's more vauge than Islamism or Jihadists. The wrongers of Islam? What name would fit the politically correct (and dangerous) view of the Obama administration on the issue of radicalized Muslim terrorists?

The fact is that Islamism is an ideology with religion at its core. It has political (imperalism) and social (Sharia) aspects to it as well, but when people quote the Koran in videos of exploding trucks or terroristic threats, one may think religion has to do with it. Or are we to assume every dark skinned person is a devout Muslim and its just part of their culture? Kind of like how the Left assumes every white conservative is a Baptist bigot driven by "hate" and "greed".

Honestly, I want to know how the Obama White House wants us to identify this religiously-driven ideology?

Keeping Your President In Line

I plan on a longer post on this subject, but as a filler read this:

One of the guys, a physically imposing 6’7″ laid back dude, had a hot girlfriend – let’s call her Kay – with a great personality. She was every guy’s dream girlfriend. One night, all of us were sitting around in the living room splayed across dirty couches watching TV when Kay started gossiping about inconsequential private matters involving her boyfriend and his family. She meant no harm by it, and we weren’t really paying attention, but he obviously didn’t like the idea of her revealing personal details from his life. Out of the blue, he thundered

“SHUT THE FUCK UP KAY!!”

Now, don't you want to be Mr. 6'7” when you read this:

Asked if he agrees with President Calderon's view that the Arizona immigration law "that is forcing our people to face discrimination," President Obama said in the Rose Garden just now that it "has the potential of being applied in a discriminatory fashion."

He said a "fair reading" of the law -- suggesting that he has read the legislation, unlike his Attorney General as of last week -- indicates those who are at risk of being deemed possibly illegal could face "harassment" and that the judgments law enforcement would need to make to apply the law are "troublesome."

or this:

The State Department on Tuesday defended a top-ranking diplomat who expressed regret to China last week about Arizona's immigration law during a discussion on human rights in Washington. Spokesman P.J. Crowley, in an interview with Fox News, disputed the notion that Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner was apologizing to China, saying he was actually "standing up" for America by describing how debate functions in a "civil society."

But he echoed other top Obama administration officials in describing the law as a gateway to "racial profiling" and doubled down on Posner's comments to the Chinese. 

I don't think I need to repeat what every American should be thinking about our President and his minions. Kay, you're not alone in having a big mouth.

Word Police: That's So Gay

I know I'm very late to this, but hey, I'm here. And GP will probably get a buttload of hits for some of the words I'm going to use in this post. Hmm....

***

For a long time, “gay” meant happy, elated and so forth. Shakespeare used it. Now its the identifier of homosexuals, specifically male homosexuals. Lo and behold, the thought police come out in force to make you feel guilty for co-opting a word they recently co-opted.

Meet thinkb4youspeak.com.

*shudder*

The simple truth is that THEY'RE JUST KIDS. KIDS WILL SAY OFFENSIVE, STUPID THINGS.

When I grew up it was “Jew”. You were “jewish” if you were cheap. You acted like a “jew” if you acted (GASP!) “gay”. Kids pick up on words and mutate them to their end... kind of like the Left (something I'm working on for a future, giant post). For God's sake, male white kids still go around calling each other “nigger” because the biggest market for black gangsta rap is young, middle class white kids. Even more disgusting is that the biggest market for stripper-inspired club music is pre-pubescent girls.

Anyway, jumping on them for using “gay” is stupid, totalitarian and, frankly, makes you a douche. But that's my opinion, you totalitarian douche!

Honestly, give “gay” 30-50 years and it'll mutate again.. It'll probably end up being a word for frivolous:

“Your honor, this lawsuit brought against my client is beyond gay. The plaintiffs have no grounds.”


“John Edwards was a lawyer that took many gay cases.”


“It is the finding of this court that the ACLU bring supremely gay issues to these chambers.”


“The President's new supreme court pick has a history of taking gay cases and making them gayer.”

And just because I can:

God bless America. May it be gay!

The You're A F***ing Moron Dept.

I check out lefty blogs a lot, but I tend to avoid lefty orgies like Crooks and Liars. Sadly, I checked it today and saw this: James Galbraith: 'Zero' Danger Posed By Deficit.

And THIS is the smartest comment I found:

If the government borrows too much money, then interest rates rise and it makes borrowing more expensive for the government and the people. That can put a damper on economic growth.

And if the government prints money, then the currency is devalued -- that means inflation at home.

But interest rates aren't very high right now, and inflation isn't either, so we've got some breathing room. OTOH, Greece is kinda screwed in the "printing money" thing because they don't mint their own currency anymore, but that's not the case for the US.

No, we don't have breathing room, idiot. Our interest rates are near zero, that means giant amount of cheap credit, the very thing that created every bubble since central banking became the norm. The Fed is printing money like its toliet paper and because they're printing it the value of our currency is nearing the cost a single sheet of two-ply. The federal deficit was tripled. Congress passed a health care bill that has risen past the one trillion dollar mark and plans to nationalize more crap. Demographics is about to kick our ass as the Boomers will start getting their generational warfare money (Social Security), which "owes" its people TRILLIONS, not billions, TRILLIONS of dollars over the next 10-20 years. And guess what? THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T HAVE THAT MONEY! These are serious liberal people who write and post at C&L. This is the brains behind the Obama administration. Dear f***king God.

And for the record, Greece was screwed because it spent itself into a debt 125% plus of GDP (according to Wikipedia). That means it owes the entire value of its economy PLUS an extra 25% on top of that. Greece has to first MAKE MONEY, hence the radical measures, so it can start paying back its entire value and then some. This isn't including interest, mind you. Michelle has written a lot of this and will write more.

It's been a long, tiring, taxing day today, so I apologize for my rudeness. I shouldn't insult the retarded.

UPDATE: Federal government's obligations - $65.5 trillion BEFORE health care.

Still think we've got breathing room, buddy?

The World’s Big, Fat, Greek Bailout

…will soon become a Greek tragedy. Currently, the very short sighted markets are celebrating. Markets around the world have rebounded ever so nicely, as once again irresponsibility has been bailed out. The world’s largest banks need not worry. It is of no concern that the big banks of France and Germany were over exposed to PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) debt. They can continue to loan money, and politicians can continue to promise all things to all people to keep them nice and dependent. However, these celebrations and fantasy living will soon come to an end since this move has only added fuel to the impending storm.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund have coughed up some cash to the tune of $1 trillion, and the Federal Reserve has found yet another way to monetize its debt. Just as it did in 2008, the Fed will swap Euros for dollars. The Fed will then use the Euros to purchase the debt of “Eurozone” nations. This will simply be a contest between the European Central Bank’s printing press and the Federal Reserve’s. In addition, the same excuse that was used to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is being used to make a case for the current situation. The bailout will ease market volatility and assure that large banks remain solvent. Take no notice of the fact that Fannie and Freddie are now asking for billions more, as they have disclosed horrendous first quarter losses. However, no one is concerned with those pesky little details.

One may ask what Greece and other European nations are doing to get a handle on the situation. Greece seems to think that raising taxes is the answer. Apparently, Greece seeks to expand its underground market that vacuums almost 30 percent of eligible tax dollars. The old saying “blood cannot be squeezed out of a turnip” applies here. Never in history have tax hikes added life to a stagnant economy, but what would we expect from a country that hasn’t yet figured out that socialism doesn’t work?

This measure is a devastating blow to free markets and sound fiat currencies. What is going to happen when the $1 trillion given to the Eurozone is swallowed up in less than a year? How many more billions should Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac receive? What’s going to happen to individual states such as California, New York and Illinois as they begin to default? How much longer can Asia prop up Europe and the United States? China has a bubble on the brink of bursting, as they have learned to live off the cheap credit hog. Japan also has a debt problem along with an aging population and a healthcare crisis that lies ahead.

Americans won’t stand for bailouts around the world, as no one is going to let go of their entitlements. People who are concerned about the values of their 401ks and taxpayer dollars going overseas are blind to the bigger picture. All of Asia has been financing the United States’ reckless monetary policy for quite some time. The printing presses will never run out of gas; but the currency will be worthless, as the world will see an inflationary storm that it has never seen before. Investments and entitlements aren’t worth anything if the currency in which it is valued is worthless. Am I suggesting people flee equities and bonds completely to hoard gold? No, although I believe gold has not yet peaked out. However, the world had better wake up to the fact that the battle of the printing presses, expanding entitlements and bailing out irresponsibility cannot continue. Either we go down the horrendous inflationary road and continue with statist governments calling the shots at the expense of people’s freedom; or people realize that we need to endure a severe global recession, and let government return to its proper role. The former is certainly worse than the latter. In either instance, recession and inflation is unavoidable; however the sooner we take our medicine, the better off the long-term picture will be.

We Can Change Things

I'm prone to believe worst-case scenarios. I was brought up by my pragmatic parents to hope for the best and plan for the worst. Advice that's come in handy on several occasions. With geo-politics, economics and social history, there is so much that can happen that predictions of doom aren't exactly unwarranted, but they're just one of several paths history can take.

There are plenty of people who have full belief that we are doomed. John Derbyshire wrote an entire book on the subject of pessimism while blogger Vox Day makes his economic and demographic predictions of apocalypse from his hideaway in Italy. Both men are smart and talented writers. Yet, even when I'm in full belief the next 5 years will be the most transforming years since the end of World War I (Iran's rise to regional hegemon, a long recession if not depression, social strife due to the first two), I am not of the mind that it's all doom, gloom and the end of America.

People like to believe in determinism even if they're anarchists, libertarians, hippies, yuppies or whatever. In Closing of the American Mind, Alan Bloom pointed out that people have become more attached to determinism and prophecy than before. Today's politics is laced with those who see the end and want us steered towards or away from it. No political party in America is living in the now, the current, the real; we're all stuck staring at the horizon or at ourselves, like the scientists in Gulliver's Travels. By not watching what's in front of us, we are not adapting to the world, we are adapting to our predictions of the world. We're adapting to fantasy re-creations of how the world works. For example, the Left has blamed capitalism for the housing crash and the financial crash, but all the evidence points to bad regulations, not lack of regulations; government interference in the market, not lack of government interference; easy credit, not lack of people (specifically poor minorites) getting credit; and myopic oversight, not lack of oversight. Yet, the agenda of the Democratic-led Congress isn't opening markets, closing the easy credit faucet, strengthening regulations already in place or making sure they actually have oversight of the GSEs. It's the exact opposite.

Americans, both left and right, especially left, need to wake up and live in the now. The right-wing too has its dreamers, many of the tea party leaders see a world beyond the welfare state, they see America right after the Constitution, they see the end of progressivism. These things are nice, but they aren't realistic. The most important thing right now, above all things, above illegal immigration, Fannie and Freddie, and yes, even above the ending of Iran's nuclear ambitions, is the financial well-being of America. That is the ONLY problem we should be focusing on right now.

But we aren't, are we? Arizona, for better or for worse, brought illegal immigration to the top. The President is pushing the nationalization of 401(k)s, increasing corporatism in the economy, bringing out the worst in our social tensions. Even Republicans, the self-labeled party of the free market, the balanced budget and of the Revolutionary tradition, crumble quickly when given the chance to sign on to short-term gains. They don't have the balls to do what's necessary. They too have the one eye staring outward, one eye staring inward. They can't see the flames or smell the smoke.

Like I said, the doom saying isn't unwarranted. In fact, its more legitimate than any flowery talk coming from the President or anyone else. Things look bad, are bad and will probably get worse. But, guess what? Actions speak louder than words. Doing things end up changing things. Taking stands create barriers to the predicted end. If the Republicans and Blue Dogs actually believed what they talked about, then they would be drawing a line in the House and Senate chambers and telling their fellow “leaders” of America that things need to change now, not later, not tomorrow, not after lunch. Now.

For 60 years and change, we've been happy to be moderates, to work together and play nicey nice with other people money. We've spent ourselves into a corner. We've become addicted to government created consumer addiction, easy credit and easy lives. To fix the mess we're in, we need to have radical change. We need to quit credit, quit bubbles and quit the quick buck. That won't work anymore. It never really worked to begin with. As the IMF politely put it, the party is over. Everyone needs to go home, sober up and report for work in the morning. To save ourselves from becoming Greece, to make sure the worst we feel is the best the rest of the world will ever feel during these times, is to make the radical choice to CHOOSE the harder path. We can change things, we just have to choose to do so.

I hope we do. And I guess that's what makes me different from Vox or John or the others, I've got hope, even if its naïve hope. And sometimes, well... rarely ever, hope pushes us to do what is right. Let it be this generation, this nation, right now, that does it.

Or so I hope.

Is Nationality Racist?

I don't know the context of the detention and beating of this Hispanic man in Seattle, so I won't pass judgment, but what did catch my eye was this:

A Seattle police officer offered a tearful apology after being caught on camera kicking an innocent man and using a racial epithet.

The video shows a group of officers standing around three men who are lying on the ground. Seattle Police Detective Shandy Cobane shouts, "I'm going to beat the [expletive] Mexican [expletive] out of you homey! You feel me?"

So what's the racial part? "Mexican"? That's a nationality. "Homey"? That's usually attributed to "black culture" and is also used as a label for both friend and foe. An interloper in MS-13 territory could be called "homey" for intimidation.

Is the definition of racism becoming so diluted that mentioning a nationality associated with Hispanics is now banned? So he called him a Mexican. If he called him by his proper nationality (whatever that may be, the guy could actually be of Mexican ancestry), would it be okay in the eyes of the race classifiers and officer haters?

Probably not.

***

For the record, innocent or guilty, rightly or wrongly detained, if the man resisted the police physically he brought it on himself. You simply do not, at any time, physically resist law enforcement. You comply and you let their superiors, your lawyer and the courts handle the lawful or unlawfulness of your detention. Being a big gangsta man or whatever your fantasy icon will only get you beaten or tased, and it will be totally justified.

If it was unjustified, if he was beaten for no reason at all, those involved should be punished severely. No mercy for those who abuse the power they are entrusted with as police officers.

Target: 401(k)s

Human Events

In February, the White House released its “Annual Report on the Middle Class” containing new regulations favored by Big Labor including a bailout of critically underfunded union pension plans through “retirement security” options.

The radical solution most favored by Big Labor is the seizure of private 401(k) plans for government disbursement -- which lets them off the hook for their collapsing retirement scheme. And, of course, the Obama administration is eager to accommodate their buddies.

Vice President Joe Biden floated the idea, called “Guaranteed Retirement Accounts” (GRAs), in the February “Middle Class” report.

In conjunction with the report’s release, the Obama administration jointly issued through the Departments of Labor and Treasury a “Request for Information” regarding the “annuitization” of 401(k) plans through “Lifetime Income Options” in the form of a notice to the public of proposed issuance of rules and regulations. (pdf)

No Sheeples

As you can see, the cover of Time magazine, dated December 18, 2009 began propagandizing 401(K) plans as untenable as a prelude the White House “Annual Report on the Middle Class”.

From an article published at Human Events, we are now learning that the Obama regime is seeking to drag Americans down into poverty via economic tinkering with a plan to seize private 401(K) plans.

Individual retirement accounts, whether private or corporate, have been accumulating money which is tax free. The Triumvirate of Fearless Reader, Pelosi and Reid see this as you getting “free” money and they are slobbering to get their hands on accounts that total hundreds of billions of dollars.

In February of this year, the White House released its “Annual Report on the Middle Class” containing new regulations favored by Big Labor including a bailout of critically underfunded union pension plans through “retirement security” options. (See the embedded document below.) The idea seems to be that the government would "guarantee" some sort of retirement for all, unions and non-union workers alike, with the funds collected from the once-private retirement plans.

[...]

An executive for a large Midwestern company has said, “I would pull every dime out of my 401(K), pay the taxes and penalties and stick the cash in my mattress before I would let those (expletive deleted) have it!”

Imagine how much windfall revenue would accrue to the federal government if the American people all did that. Could that be the plan?

Slouching towards November, they are.

On the Brink of a Financial Storm…

It is too much to hope that world leaders, especially in the United States, realize that Greece’s current predicament will not only spread to other parts of Europe, but the same circumstance will happen in the United States if the current economic policies remain the status quo. It is indeed possible for the United States to go bankrupt. I don’t enjoy writing attention getting “gloom and doom” columns, but I haven’t sharply criticized and warned about absurd economic policy for the past decade and a half to get attention. It is a harsh reality that people had better wake up and recognize.

First, one must ask how Greece found itself in the current situation. It’s no secret that Greece’s economic policies mirror the socialist Western European policies. Politicians are elected, and they promise the world to people…healthcare for everyone, generous retirement benefits and lavish salaries/retirement plans for public sector workers. Top that off with a strong pro-union environment, and we have the perfect recipe for disaster. There are no policies that encourage business to grow and expand, which would yield the production necessary to sustain robust economic growth. If that were the case, then people wouldn’t need the politicians to survive. There’s no better way to sew up votes than to have everyone work for the government and depend on government programs!

Years go by and the anti-growth, high tax policies have brought Greece to its knees. Rather than pursue growth policies, nations seem to think that borrowing money to pay for all of the promised entitlement programs is the way to go. Now, the problem is that Greece is out of money and cannot meet its financial obligations. The PRODUCING nations, such as Germany, are expected to help out. What does this say about the future of Europe and the Euro? Are producing nations going to be expected to bail out irresponsible nations? Are Spain, Italy and Iceland next in line? Moves of this nature will be devastating to the Euro, and inflation will rear its ugly head.

For those applauding the recent appreciation of the U.S. dollar, please don’t be so naïve. The short-term shelter seeking will not last. The dollar is still falling against REAL money – gold. The only thing that is happening now is that the Euro has a bleaker near-term outlook. It certainly doesn’t mean that the medicine that the United States will eventually have to swallow will taste any better.

The United States has been following Greece’s footsteps. Economic policies in the United States have been of a statist nature since the New Deal. Bailouts for irresponsible companies; quasi-public companies that encouraged and guaranteed reckless lending practices; heavy regulation that creates barriers to entry and impedes competition; the creation of new entitlement programs when the existing ones cannot be paid for; and a printing press that runs 24/7 are very anti-capitalist in nature. Greece’s debt as a percentage of GDP is projected to be 149 percent by 2013. The United States current debt to GDP is nearing 90 percent. Government spending over the last decade has increased more than 80 percent. Our very large budget deficit is currently 9.9 percent of GDP (compared to Greece’s 13.6 percent) and continues to grow. If the status quo is kept, debt as a percent of GDP will easily surpass 100 percent during President Obama’s term and will exceed 200 percent within the next 20 years.

There are some who make the argument that since the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, it is impossible for the United States to go bankrupt. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Federal Reserve could just continue to print money, and even if there are no buyers, monetization is always an option. However, what will the state of the economy be if the currency has no worth?! The only key here is that the United States has the back-door, less obvious path to bankruptcy as it gets to create hyperinflation.

The longer the world’s borrow and spend spree continues, the more severe the correction will be. It is comical that news reports state that Greece’s situation threatens the global financial recovery. There was no recovery. The only thing that has grown since the 2008 crash is GOVERNMENT. Stimulus plans that focus on politically connected industries in which money is borrowed to generate growth is not real growth. If you borrow money on your line of credit or credit card, is that money income to you? Has your net wealth increased? Of course not. Once government induced growth is backed out of the recent positive GDP numbers, it winds up negative.

Iceland is bankrupt and Spain, Italy and Portugal are not far behind. America is headed towards the same political paralysis. Regardless of which party is in power, government continues to grow. The ties between lobbyists and government strengthen, which creates impossible obstacles for new investors. The recent healthcare bill will destroy many small businesses, which means the larger, connected corporate competitors will not have any challenge. Statism is alive and well. As far as entitlement programs are concerned, no one will dare touch them. George W. Bush’s pathetic attempt to “reform” social security was over before it began because it’s political suicide.

There is going to come a time, which will be sooner than later, when investors investing in America are going to demand a higher return. Inevitable inflation will demand it. Then, the Federal Reserve will either be forced to raise interest rates or buy the bonds. The latter will create an inflationary environment that will make the 1970’s look mild. If the status quo is kept, the United States will feel the effects of the ugly truth within the next five years. The crash in 2008 was simply a preview of coming attractions, as the real financial storm has yet to strike.

The Marbury Myth

A must read.

Thus, Marbury-style judicial review is very limited in scope. It is restricted to cases in which Congress has unconstitutionally meddled with the Court’s functions. This is surely why the case was largely ignored by courts and legal commentators as a precedent for judicial review until the late 19th century. The Court itself didn’t notice that Marbury had anything to do with judicial review until 1887, and even then it misread the case as authorizing judicial review of state law — which Marbury had nothing to do with. It was not until 1895 that the Court first cited Marbury as a precedent for judicial review of national law, despite having invalidated some 20 congressional acts by that time. Stop and think for a moment about what this means: The case that is used as the leading precedent for modern judicial supremacy was not even regarded as an instance of judicial review until 92 years after it was decided!

Matt Yglesias and Authenticity

Apparently, being an authentic Jewish comes with a political condition...

Along with Jonah Goldberg, one of the main guys who gets my goat is Eric Cantor. There’s something unseemly about seeing fellow Jews turn into rightwingers.

Kudos NRO.

Avatar, the Authenticity Fetish and Illegal Immigration

Avatar is a good movie. The action is crisp, the acting par, the visuals stunning and most of the science fiction believable. What bothered me about it, other than the sledgehammer style of message deliverance, was the Na'vi, the pure and innocent native race on moon Pandora. While Dances with Wolves and other Indian-perspective movies portray human tribes with varying degrees of accuracy, they're still human beings. In Avatar, the Na'vi had a real psychic connection to nature, not the religiously implied connection that various real indigenous cultures have. While I can imagine giant space ships, floating minerals and even the Avatar-mind transferring program, what I could not digest was that the Na'vi had their own Avatar program through their psychic connection with their moon. This demolishes the very message that Cameron thinks he's giving to the world. Humanity doesn't have the collective mind. It doesn't have psychic powers. There is no coincidental organic equivalent to the electrical technology we have. I bring this up because Avatar's director, James Cameron, had a very narrow and very ideological reason for creating Avatar, to push the message of radical environmentalism and its promiscuous mother called authenticity.

Base environmentalism isn't a bad thing. I'm an environmentalist in that I love being out in nature, I think we should keep our national parks and we should do our best to not pollute the air, sea and land. I think global warming is mostly a natural cycle (our last mini-ice age was only 500 years ago), I don't think the impact of our industrial world has been zero. We've done some carbon “damage”, but nowhere near the amount to create giant floods that'll kill only the poor and brown, as Matthew Ygelisis likes to bray.

The thing is about radical environmentalism, the environmentalism of the far left, of Al Gore, of the eco-terrorists, and of James Cameron, is that it isn't a science based or even a Romanticism based ideology. Today's radical environmentalism is based on the fetish of authenticity, an idea that's born Marxist schools of ethnic, religious and psychological idiocy. One can't simply create better technology for fuel or heating, or TVs that use less energy than they did 5 years ago; the entire nation must change to a more “authentic” (aka, a more indigenous) style civilization. While energy corporations and university scientists work making coal cleaner, drilling safer and hydrogen the next gasoline, the radicals want cars off the road, trucks in garages and bikes mandatory. While most of the country and Western civilization wants greener products and cleaner air within the capitalist system, people like James Cameron (who can afford to make his giant house entirely green) are pushing for a environmental revolution that excises capitalism, individualism and technology from civilization. Instead of a movie where human civilization is saved by new technology, innovation and hard work, Cameron made a movie that doomed humanity (Western civilization) to its (perceived) self-induced misery. Instead of saving our race (civilization), Cameron wants us to abandon it for a more authentically environmental one. Yet, the one he gives us in Avatar, is physically impossible to have. Such is the far-left ideology in all things: impossible.

This relates to immigration in that the authenticity drive that makes sane middle-class people buy inauthentic and expensive yuppie-weaved dreamcatchers is the same authenticity that convinces them that every illegal immigrant that crosses the border is the authentic salt of the earth, unlike the pudgy American. Ask an open borders advocate and you'll get a bookshelf of explanations of how America and capitalism pushes these people to come to America for work, but we shouldn't ask them to assimilate to American culture, values or even language. That would de-autheniticize them and then they'd lose their roots (aka, ideological and psychological usefulness to the Left) to the soulless system. America doesn't have a culture, just consumerism, that's why its inauthentic! Really, how can you slap a guilt trip on the country when the people you say you're fighting for are happier buying McDonalds and sipping a Pasbt than participating in a round table on the Latino-American situation in the Southwest spoken entirely in Aztec?

There's nothing wrong with having a multitude of cultures in America, as long as those cultures assimilate to the few things all Americans assimilate to: individual rights and English. It's not that hard. First, you must respect, not believe in, but respect that in a free country people will not agree with you. That means agreeing to disagree, not shouting down, pieing or any other kind of violence against your political rivals. College students seem to have a hard time learning something many of their “protected” understand. Second, you must be able to communicate. Millions of ex-pats in dozens of countries have learned this. You don't have to be Muslim when living in the UAE, but it sure as hell helps to learn Arabic and not break the social taboos. In many nations, that's the norm, but not in the West. In England you can call for the death of Jews, but don't put up the Union Jack, it may offend someone. In America, at least in some places, being for a border wall is racism (who cares if it stops human trafficing, drug smuggling and tens of thousands of deaths a year), but promoting a racial purge of whites (which includes a few dozen or more ethnicities) in the Southwest is authentic tribal pride.

American culture may not be as glamorous as the Sioux (don't tell that to the Pawnee) or the Na'vi. We may not have religious connections to the soil (well, none that don't involve that evil faith of Christianity) or dances we can show off to other cultures (well, we did, but body grinding, head banging and jazzercise kind of drowned them out), but we do have a real culture. We have a mindset (individualism), a rich history (all the way back to England and the Netherlands, and that's just the WASPs) and customs (WAZZZZZUP! Fo' shizzle! Hello!). Our culture is just as authentic as any other, but supporting the dominant culture, no matter how little it asks you to give to join with it, doesn't fit with the underdog obsession of the Left. There must be an opposite to us, if only to shove in the face of the ignorant fools (whites, males, Southerners, white male Southerners... their wives too!) that someone thinks differently. There's a reason straight parades or white pride parades (as in cultural past, not racial/biological hate) are looked down upon, but gay pride parades (both the simple and the sexually explicit) and anti-American, far-left Aztlan parades are encouraged by almost every level of government to show their "understanding" of the "authenticity" of whatever Marxist claptrap they've been teaching at UCLA.

Authenticity is a psychological fantasy. Authenticity is rebellious dominant culture children, like James Cameron, playing make believe to sate some hole in their psyche that could be plugged by the Bible or Kant or some other, less superficial philosophy. Most of all, authenticity isn't reality. In reality, the Sioux conquered the Pawnee, the Na'vi apparently hate gays and humans (you find neither in Avatar at the end) and the MS-13 members dragging along their drug mules (aka, people) aren't exactly the best example of Mexican culture. That would be the legal immigrants. In reality, the safest way to import people into the country isn't by the death trap called the Mexican border, but through legal channels, which absolutely need to be fixed. The best way of stopping illegal immigration, drug trafficking and cross-border gang violence isn't "understanding", but building the damn border wall. We will save more lives, help more Latinos and promote a "better world" if we do everything we can to stop the lucrative criminal enterprises that exploit our unattended border.

When you watch a movie about natives or think that how much more fun it would be to be in another culture, read a bit. You'll realize that the Last Samurai was about a deranged soldier supporting the last gasp of a violent caste system, or that the bad guys in Roots are not only the white slave trader, but the native and Arab ones that sold to the Europeans. In my own case, the Spartans, a culture I have affinity for, murdered their babies if they were sick or deformed, and were one of the most xenophobic of Greek peoples. I know it may not fit one's daydreaming, but that's how the world is and we have to recognize it.

Reality bites. Sorry, James.