Immigration Bill Shot Down; President smeared by the Right.

The immigration bill was shot down yesterday. I supported the bill even though much of it was questionable. Something needs to be done and though the bill was imperfect, it had some good things in there. Now, nothing will be done for the rest of President's Bush's term in office (the senate will not introduce immigration legislation in 2008 because it is an election year). So the demagogues on the right got there way. They demonized the president, lied about the bill (it wasn't amnesty) and today they're very happy with themselves. But because the bill was defeated, the hysterical on the right have given illegals de facto amnesty. Thanks.

It is times like this when President Bush is seemingly on the wrong side of an issue and conservatives are dragging him through the mud that I remember a quote by Fred Barnes:

Bush, of course, is a conservative, but a different kind of conservative. His tax cuts, support for social issues, hawkish position on national security and terrorism, and rejection of the Kyoto protocols make him so. He's also killed the ABM and Comprehensive Test Ban treaties, kept the United States out of the international criminal court, defied the United Nations, and advocated a shift in power from Washington to individuals through an "ownership society." On some issues--partial privatization of Social Security is the best example--he is a bolder conservative than Ronald Reagan, the epitome of a conventional conservative.

And his biggest legacy: He appointed Justices Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court. As conservatives, we shouldn't let one issue--in this case immigration--make us bitter and make us enemies of President Bush. He's done a lot of good. Versus perfection, he hasn't done well. Versus what a Democrat in the Oval Office would've done these last six years, he has been a smashing success. Perspective, folks. Don't forget all the good President Bush has done. I admire and love the man . . . you know, in a brotherly way.

Moral idiots.

I don't know why I read journals and blogs by authors whose work I admire. But I do. I guess I'm hoping that maybe one of these days I'll actually read something valuable and insightful with regards to current world problems or controversies. But, as good (or as great) as some of these contemporary authors may be, when it comes to political insight, they are morons. I don't like name-calling as it is something I consider a last resort of the intolerant, but if the shoe fits, right? Besides, it is their ideas--not them personally--that are moronic.


A good case is a certain lite fantasy author (I will not use his name in the interest of fairness) who in his journal entries rails against folks like Gerald Ford and Jerry Falwell but claims he does so (I'm paraphrasing) "not to demonize them but to protect people from bastards like them in the future." But he's not demonizing by calling them bastards? That's a personal attack that has no basis. A bastard is a term currently used for someone who is a jerk. Whatever one thinks of Jerry Falwell and President Ford, they were kind, decent guys in person. The author ascribes to the idea that people like Falwell are too judgemental yet Jerry Falwell never went after anyone with simplistic, hate-filled, shallow attacks like the author does.

The author worships Karl Marx and has the hubris to claim that President Ford and Jerry Falwell killed millions with their policies and practices, a statement which is so demonstrably untrue one wonders which reality the author hails from. In what kind of perverse mind are Marx's ideas not damaging to humanity (literally ten of millions of people were slaughtered in the name of socialism and it's sister, communism) yet President Ford's inconsequential presidency and Jerry Falwell's aid to literally millions of poor and suffering people throughout the world hurtful?

The author is a moral fool. He may be a nice guy personally (evidence from science fiction and fantasy conventions show this to be probably true) but when it comes to the macro issues, he is a moral idiot. He must have attended university to be this dumb.

The point of this blog entry is that I should stop reading blogs and public journals by writers whose work I love. It's simply depressing to know that people can be brilliant writers yet be moral morons at the same time.

Quote of the Day: Walter Williams.

"Maybe your college professor taught that the legacy of colonialism explains Third World poverty. That's nonsense as well. Canada was a colony. So were Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. In fact, the richest country in the world, the United States, was once a colony. By contrast, Ethiopia, Liberia, Tibet, Sikkim, Nepal and Bhutan were never colonies, but they are home to the world's poorest people." -- Walter Williams, economist and political commentator.

Quote of the Day: Walter Williams.

"During the first Reagan administration, I participated in a number of press conferences on either a book or article I'd written or as a panelist in a discussion of White House public policy. On occasion, when the question-and-answer session began, I'd tell the press, "You can treat me like a white person. Ask hard, penetrating questions." The remark often brought uncomfortable laughter, but I was dead serious. If there is one general characteristic of white liberals, it's their condescending and demeaning attitude toward blacks." -- Walter Williams, economist and political commentator.