As a LEGAL immigrant and naturalized American citizen who has filled every form, met every deadline and abided by every rule in order to comply with American immigration laws, I resent the implication from the open borders crowd that I am a racist for wanting the laws to be enforced. When trying to detract from the term "illegal," open border types often point out to what they consider the inconsistency between Canadian and Mexican border enforcement. The implication is that America discriminates against "brown people." Liberals do so love to play the race card. However, the Canadian government is not publishing literature to both encourage and help their native population cross the border into the United States "safely," Mexico is. Canada is not threatening to sue the American government in OUR courts if we send the National Guard to our own borders in order to stem the tide of ILLEGAL immigration, Mexico is. Canada is not outsourcing its jobs and social services to the United States, Mexico is. Liberals are obviously ignorant of how strict Mexico's immigration laws are. The Mexican government apparently does not understand the absolute poverty some of the Honduran and Guatemalan immigrants crossing its southern border face in their own country. Doesn't the Mexican government care where their illegal immigrants' next meal is coming from or how they will get medical care for their sick children? Why is the southern border of Mexico so tightly controlled when the northern one is a sieve? Mexico should be more tolerant of "undocumented" immigrants but they can't get past the word.
Eight out of twelve letters to the editor and three out of four Rochester Post-Bulletin editorials discussing First District Congressman Gil Gutknecht's performance, positions and statements over the last 60 days have had a negative tone. The letters to the editor are patently orchestrated. The editorials are more disturbing. Perhaps the Post-Bulletin should register as a 527.
Jay Johnson has found God.Sort of.
The Rochester Post-Bulletin editorial writer believes that the Creator has endowed islamofascist terrorists in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere with certain unalienable rights ("God-given rights for all?," Wednesday, July 19, 2006).
It's funny how God is often sidelined in political discussions, unless the Good Lord can somehow be shown to favor the liberal side of an argument.
Whereas Americans and other free peoples pursue happiness through hard work, self-sacrifice, involvement in and support of their duly formed governments, uncivilized and murderous peoples such as the terrorists incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay get their jollies from broadcasting decapitations, blowing up car bombs at street markets and committing other innumerable senseless acts of slaughter.
But Mr. Johnson argues that we "must" protect "the God-given rights of people who might have sought to do us harm." Might? "Harm?" He makes it sound like terrorists have been plotting to toilet paper our homes, place whoopee cushions on our chairs just as we are about to sit down or give Americans a collective wedgie. That bin Laden. What a prankster! The awful truth Mr. Johnson and most liberals refuse to face is that, given a chance, Gitmo detainees would murder our families and us where we stand.
Conferring constitutional rights on fanatical mass murderers, as Mr. Johnson argues we "must," will do nothing but embolden America's enemies in their pursuit of democracy's demise. They will plot, attempt and execute acts of unthinkable carnage secure in the knowledge that, whether their plans are foiled or they are apprehended after the fact, they will be afforded every protection and right guaranteed by the principles, documents and institutions they have sworn to eradicate in the bloodiest possible manner. If liberals like Mr. Johnson have their way, the very rights and freedoms terrorists loath would be showered upon the ones now imprisoned and others we are sure to capture in the future.
The United States Supreme Court has given Congress a unique opportunity to "limit" the so-called rights of sworn enemies of the United States of America. It concerns me that the likes of Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Dick Durbin (D-ILL) will have a say in the matter. Preserving our system of government requires defending it from real threats posed by the likes of Guantanamo Bay terrorist detainees.
In his Gettysburg Address, one of the most brilliant speeches ever written, Abraham Lincoln states that America's Founding Fathers established a nation "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Mr. Johnson's Guantanamo Bay friends, on the other hand, have dedicated themselves to the proposition that such a nation and form of government SHALL "perish from the earth."
The Declaration of Independence states, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Terrorists do not believe they are equal to "infidels." And they certainly reject the idea that power requires consent of the governed - the major tenet of a democratic government. The Preamble of our, not the terrorists', Constitution reads,
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.
When has al-Qaida, or Hamas and Hezbollah for that matter, ever committed to unity, justice or tranquility? What document have terrorists produced that binds them to the promotion of the good of their people and promises to perpetuate freedom?
I welcome Mr. Johnson's desire to make this an election issue. The referendum question to be answered is as follows. Whose rights are we to preserve, our truly God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness or the terrorists' "rights" to take them away?
