A Propaganda-Proof People

The blowback from last Friday's Forum hit earlier this week in the form of an e-mail from a friend:

Hi Bryan,

How are you doing?

Just wondering, a friend of mine at work was pretty ticked off at you for a show of yours she listened to this weekend. She said that you were saying that Fox [N]ews fans are delusional, and that you didn't reference what people should be watching or listening to instead.  Just curious if you have time, could you further explain??

Uh-oh.  Looks like I might have some 'splainin' to do.  All right, let's get to it.

Yep.  I said that people who rely SOLELY on Fox News for their information, thinking that they're no longer being propagandized are, in fact, deluding themselves.  Of course the same is also true for those who depend entirely upon CNN or NPR or any other single source of information.  The problem is that there is no unbiased source of mass communication and the single greatest challenge for anyone who wishes to be informed today is to be capable of sifting through all the spin and propaganda to clearly comprehend the way things really are.

It's not so much a matter of which information source we use as a matter of developing our ability to use critical thinking skills in order to correctly interpret that information.  As citizens, our greatest responsibility during times of crisis is to think clearly and independently.

My biggest beef with Fox News is that too many people think they're getting all the information they need when, in fact, the information is just as spun and the debate is just as controlled as anything they'd get from the mainstream media.  Too often we forget that information isn't always the same thing as truth.

Talk radio listeners exacerbate the problem when they become content to simply repeat whatever talking points they hear Beck, Rush or Hannity saying.  Parroting someone else's words creates a dependency that tends to make a person dogmatic in their viewpoints.  Dogma coupled with an inability to articulate one's own thoughts is a perfect recipe for defensiveness when one encounters a differing viewpoint.

Before retiring a few years ago, Charley Reese was a writer of unusual clarity.  Here's what he had to say about thinking we know it all:

But since our means of learning are limited so that we can never learn everything about anything, we should avoid being dogmatic. I don't mean living in a constant state of uncertainty, but we should at least always concede the possibility that what we think is so isn't so. I have trouble understanding people who get emotionally upset when they bump into an opinion they disagree with.  

Does that last sentence not describe the scorched earth approach taken by many of the top names in talk radio who feel they must shout down, marginalize or hang up on anyone whose opinion differs from their own?

If you dare deviate from what the talking heads of ANY of the mass media sources consider the acceptable parameters of debate on a given issue, prepare to have disapproval heaped upon your head.  And the rancor won't just be from the commentators, but also from those faithful viewers or listeners who have hitched their ideological wagon to a particular star.  Whether it's the person who just knows that "our news media" would never lie or the one bearing their testimony of "Brother Beck" to you, your dissent, however mild, represents a threat to their worldview.  

Charley Reese

Charley Reese made a recommendation years ago that I took to heart and I offer it now to you:

Take this little test: Pick out any national issue or any national political figure and ask yourself, What do I really know about this issue or this person? The honest answer in most cases will be not much that hasn't been spoon-fed to you by liars and propagandists.  

Once this realization occurs a person can begin to actually study the issues for themselves and take responsibility for their own viewpoint.  The beauty of this approach is that it is much more based in reality than simply taking talking points from a professional propagandist.  There is real effort involved in thinking for yourself, but the payoff is that you will never be at the mercy of another in knowing what to think about a given issue.

One last quote from Charley Reese to drive the point home:

Remembering and imagining are not thinking. Emotional reactions or ideological reactions are not thinking. Belief in the "word magic" of labels is not thinking. Faith is not thinking.

Thinking is the use of reason to determine the truth as best we can. To do that, we have to shuck emotions, desires and wishes and look at the world in its nakedness as it is, not as we wish it were or as someone else has told us it is.

Reality is not affected by our desires or by our comprehension. We glean data from our senses of that world outside our bodies and use our brains to draw inferences from the data. We have to conform to it; reality will not conform to us.

My point on Friday was that we need a propaganda-proof citizenry now more than ever but few Fox News viewers or talk radio listeners would ever admit they were being bamboozled.

Sorry, folks, that includes Fox News too

This is where there is simply no substitute for a true blue liberal arts education.

It’s been nearly 60 years since Mortimer Adler and then-president of the University of Chicago Robert Hutchins set about publishing the Great Book series containing the greatest works of Western thought spanning a period of nearly three millennia.  The published collection is a remarkable achievement in and of itself, but the purpose for which Adler & Hutchins set about compiling the Great Books of the Western World is as timely today as it was in 1952.

The Great Books series

The first volume of the 54 book set is titled The Great Conversation and in it the editors make a powerful case that the disappearance of the great canon of Western Thought from education portends a calamity rather than progress.  They clearly saw that while America’s standards of living were continually rising in terms of material comforts, a majority of adults were becoming impoverished morally, intellectually and spiritually.  The predictable result of this type of educational malnutrition is a trend where each successive generation is further impaired in its ability to think for itself.

In Hutchins’s words:

We believe that the reduction of the citizen to an object of propaganda, private and public, is one of the greatest dangers to democracy. A prevalent notion is that the great mass of the people cannot understand and cannot form an independent judgment upon any matter; they cannot be educated, in the sense of developing their intellectual powers, but they can be bamboozled. The reiteration of slogans, the distortion of the news, the great storm of propaganda that beats upon the citizen twenty-four hours a day all his life long mean either that democracy must fall a prey to the loudest and most persistent propagandists or that the people must save themselves by strengthening their minds so that they can appraise the issues for themselves. 

Hutchins understood that study of the great books provides one with a more well-rounded grasp of humanity, history, politics, morals and economics that enable the reader to effectively exercise their own mental abilities rather than waiting for experts to tell them what to think.

It's been nearly 60 years since Hutchins made the following prescient observation:

 “The trials of the citizen now surpass anything that previous generations ever knew.  Private and public propaganda beats upon him from morning till night all his life long.  If independent judgment is the sine qua non of effective citizenship in a democracy, then it must be admitted that such judgment is harder to maintain now than it ever has been before.  It is too much to hope that a strong dose of education in childhood and youth can inoculate a man to withstand the onslaughts of his independent judgment that society conducts, or allows to be conducted, against him every day.  For this, constant mental alertness and mental growth are required.”  

The editors of the Great Books in no way pretended that the series was a panacea by which all of our problems could be answered.  Instead they recommended them as tools to further one’s self-education by allowing the reader to come face to face with what the greatest thinkers of the past 3,000 years had to offer.  Only those who have actively put in the effort of studying great thinkers like Herodotus, Plato, Descartes, Machiavelli, or the many others whose works comprise the Great Books can accurately attest to the insight such study provides to better understanding the current issues and crises of our own time.

It was once considered self evident that a liberal education (meaning a well-rounded one) was how a person gained the necessary thinking skills to be capable of perpetuating liberty.  Today, in ideological circles, the very word “liberal” causes some to have palpitations and others to reflexively genuflect to the state as their master and savior.

The Great Books won't teach a person what to think, but by studying the great ideas (even the ones that were wrong) our minds become trained in how to think and how to ask the right questions.  This type of education doesn't even require a formal classroom setting.  Most liberally educated people got that way by diligently spending a bit of time reading and studying daily in the privacy of their own study or bedroom.  There are no shortcuts to self education and that's why the concept is such a tough sell to generations that prefer to plop down in front of the TV or computer and be entertained.

Mortimer Adler said it best:

Anyone who has done any thinking, even a little bit, knows that it is painful. It is hard work-in fact the very hardest that human beings are ever called upon to do. It is fatiguing, not refreshing. If allowed to follow the path of least resistance, no one would ever think...Whoever passes by what is over his head condemns his head to its present low altitude; for nothing can elevate a mind except what is over its head; and that elevation is not accomplished by capillary attraction, but only by the hard work of climbing up the ropes, with sore hands and aching muscles.

What real learning feels like

Instead of waiting for someone to tell us what sources to tap for information, we need to develop our thinking skills to the point that we can avail ourselves of many sources and accurately sift truth from error.  This type of independent thought is what inoculates a citizenry against the effects of propaganda from any side of the political spectrum.

Parallels

The practice of invoking a comparison between your opponent's argument and Nazi ideology is such a common occurrence in internet discussions that, years ago, an author and attorney named Mike Godwin coined a tongue-in-cheek adage known as "Godwin's Law."

This is you when you disagree with me

Strictly speaking, this tactic constitutes an informal fallacy in that it relies upon hyperbole in an attempt to derail a person's arguments via guilt by association.  I'll be the first to admit that it is overused.  A case in point is how the president of any nation that refuses to submit to the demands of our own national policy makers is invariably labeled as "the next Hitler."  As the political ramp up to a war with Iran continues, we'll all have plenty of opportunity to see this practice in action.

The sad thing about Godwin's Law is that legitimate comparisons can be drawn between 1930's Germany and the American populace today.  That's not the same thing as saying that our government is led by Nazis or that our leaders are rounding up the undesirables to be systematically exterminated.

It simply means that the same types of trends that blinded Germans to the potential of Adolf Hitler can be found within our society today.  Too many Americans believe that Germans as a whole were arrogant and evil and knew what Hitler was capable of from the very beginning.  But that's not the case at all.

We forget that Germany in the 1930's was a turbulent place economically and politically.  With hyper-inflation ravaging the value of the German mark, a wheelbarrow full of money was required to purchase a mere loaf of bread.  On top of the financial unrest was the fear of takeover by the Bolsheviks who had recently succeeded in turning Russia into a giant Soviet prison camp.  In 1933, a terrorist firebombing of the German Reichstag building added another dimension to the panic felt by many German citizens.

Burning of the Reichstag

On top of all this fear of economic distress, communism and terrorism, were the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles which was still punishing the Germans for their part in the First World War.  With their dignity in tatters and encompassed by trouble on every side, it is understandable that a charismatic leader might come forward, especially if that leader offered strong solutions to the problems vexing Germany.  But in order to accomplish the monumental task of fixing the problems and leading Germany to what many Germans considered its proper status among the nations, that leader would require that the German people trust him with absolute power.

By playing upon their fears, Hitler persuaded the German people to grant him unprecedented power and the long downhill slide to their well documented destruction began.

So where are the parallels in our society?

Our economy is--to put it mildly--on shaky ground thanks to a dollar that has lost over 95% of its purchasing power since 1913 and mounting public and private debts have our markets as twitchy as a tightrope walker juggling hornet nests.  The solution pursued by those who make our nation's monetary policy is to sell more bonds (go further in debt) to the Federal Reserve and have it print more money which will, in turn, further reduce the buying power of the dollar through inflation.  Those industries that have stronger political connections than others (read fascism) are treated to taxpayer-funded bailouts for being "too big to fail."

Since September 11th of 2001, the American people have lived in an unending cycle of fear and a corresponding expansion of government powers to address terrorism abroad while building a garrison state here at home.  Consider that in 2001, we lost just under 3,000 U.S. citizens in the 9/11 attacks, but during that same year homegrown American criminals murdered FOUR TIMES that number.  Statistically your likelihood of dying in a terrorist attack is about the same as that of dying of a spider bite.

A blank check for expanding government power

But when our leaders tell us that they need to spy on our phone calls, e-mails, bank accounts and library transactions, a surprising number of modern Americans fall into line just as their German counterparts did during the ascendency of the Third Reich.  When our government claims power to kidnap, torture, detain indefinitely or even murder American citizens without due process--in the name of fighting terror--many consider it their patriotic duty to support these actions just as the Germans of the 1930's did.

Just as Hitler justified his aggression against other nations as acting in Germany's self defense, too many Americans view any use of military force as automatically righteous and justified without measuring such actions against the standards of Just War.  And just as patriotic Germans shouted down those who questioned Hitler's aggression, self-styled "great Americans" consider it their patriotic duty to silence those who question our leaders' actions.

One of the most telling similarities between Nazi Germany and modern America is a growing acceptance of the practice of marginalizing and dehumanizing a targeted group of people who are blamed for the ills of our nation.  In Germany it was the Jews who bore the brunt of this treatment as German society methodically marked them for destruction, first by innuendo, next by legal sanction and finally by the direct action of rounding them up and exterminating them.  Other groups including gypsies, communists, homosexuals and those with permanent disabilities were labeled as being a danger to the Fatherland and likewise targeted for elimination.

We must remember that the process by which the Final Solution was implemented was as gradual as it was deliberate.  Had Hitler started rounding up the Jews in the spring of 1933 the German people could have quickly discerned what he was doing and withheld their support.  By first carefully sowing seeds of distrust for the Jews and then implementing laws that forbade them to be a legitimate part of German society, the Nazis were able to convince enough Germans that Jews were somehow not really people at all.

From The Boy In the Striped Pajamas

It's easy to picture a majority of German people as possessing a fanatical hatred for the Jews, but in reality it was primarily their calloused indifference that allowed the atrocities of the Third Reich to move forward virtually unopposed.  Too few Germans took the time to give serious thought to the official propaganda they'd been fed regarding the Jews and Hitler's efforts to "defend" the Fatherland.  By the time some Germans realized what was being done in their names, it was too dangerous to speak out.

The current hysteria in America over Muslims in general is disturbingly familiar to those who have studied the methods used to dehumanize the so-called undesirables in 1930's Germany.  The propaganda flows daily from various media sources who are vigorously trying to inflame public opinion against Muslims everywhere, not just those in America.  Thus far the propaganda campaign to convince Americans that Muslims are an existential threat to our nation has succeeded in rousing the right wing through its highly contrived tale of a so-called "Victory Mosque to be built at Ground Zero" of the 9/11 attacks.

If only there were some way to check the facts

Given the vast amounts of information that are readily available to most of us in a matter of milliseconds via our computers or even our cell phones, it's astonishing that so few Americans are willing to challenge the outrageous claims and do even the most rudimentary fact-checking.  Never has information been so easy to come by, and yet the tried and true methods of sowing seeds of distrust, and the urging of legal disenfranchisement are being employed at this moment.


Britt Combs is one of the few who is willing to speak out against the rising tide of anti-Muslim sentiment that is becoming the acid test of who supports liberty and who does not:

I shudder for my country. We're a hair's breadth from a new national socialist republic of America. It sounds absurd, but what can you say when the majority of Americans are absolutely zealous about depriving the basic human rights of their fellow Americans?

You can object; you can say that denying them the right to build mosques on their private property is not the same as rounding them up into camps and gassing them. But how far removed is it? The majority of Germans in the late 1930s had no problem seeing Jews barred from commerce and run out of their homes. They probably wouldn't have approved of the camps and the gassings, but once government learned that the people approved stripping the Jews of their rights, the camps and the killings were a natural progression. All it took was a general contempt among the masses for the Jews' humanity, and government handles the rest. There is a general disregard for the humanity of Muslims in America today.

That's an extreme scenario, granted, but I submit that you cannot use the dehumanizing, exclusionary rhetoric these Republicans have been invoking recently, whipping the uncivilized, unschooled and unsophisticated masses into a vengeful frenzy, without inviting bloodshed.

Surely there were some Germans who, in the early 1930's, refused to fall for the propaganda and the demagoguery and sought to warn their fellow citizens of the long term ramifications of the path their nation was taking.  But too many failed to recognize the emotional manipulation being practiced on them until it was too late for them and for their nation.

When you hear someone opine that Islam is a violent religion bent on overthrowing the world and converting it by the sword, be prepared to ask some follow up questions; even if only to yourself.  Ask yourself, "Who has killed more people in the last 100 years, governments or Islamic terrorists?"  Before you answer, check the numbers provided by political scientist R.J. Rummel in his studies on Democide-or death by government.  I don't want to spoil the surprise, but it's surprisingly lopsided with the winner out in front by nearly a quarter of a billion people.

When someone breathlessly informs you that by allowing any mosque to be built in America we are hastening the day that we are all placed under Sharia Law and our Constitution is destroyed.  Be sure to ask "How is a group that comprises less than 1% of the U.S. population is going to pull that off without us realizing it until it's too late?"

If there was ever a time in our nation's history where a propaganda-proof citizenry was needed, this is it.

The greatest danger of making the same mistakes that loyal Germans did during the rise of the Third Reich stems from our arrogant insistence that "it could never happen here."

It is happening here.  And it will happen to us if we don't start thinking instead of looking for an enemy to blame.

Conditioning Us For the Next War

Just this morning I received an e-mail from a friend breathlessly warning of the dangers of impending Sharia law in America.  The e-mail contained a series of photos of an Iranian boy whose arm was being crushed beneath a car's tire for the crime of stealing.

This is one of them:

Why aren't we bombing them already?

Wow.  I guess everything we've heard about Islam and the Iranians is true.  They are nothing more than barbarians that must be bombed into submission by our brave...[cue the Toby Keith song].  But just a minute.  This looks like the exact same photographs that were circulated around the time of the invasion of Iraq that were supposed to whip us into a frenzy of loathing for the cruel, implacable Iraqis who would break a boy's arm for stealing.

The problem is that the photos are actually of a young street performer who along with his father stage this stunt for money.  The boy's arm is not broken and subsequent photos show the boy sitting amidst the crowd afterward with no physical harm whatsoever.  But an alarmingly small percentage of people are willing to look beyond the initial emotional reaction to do some fact-checking.  And this is how wars are sold to a gullible populace.

Snopes.com is your friend

Just as a certain amount of shameless propaganda and conditioning was necessary to get Americans to believe the fiction that the invasion of Iraq was necessary, it increasingly appears that the stage is being set for a military confrontation with Iran.  With tough sanctions already in place, our leaders are disingenuously claiming that all other options have been exhausted and (as with Iraq) that war is the only recourse that remains. What this means in plain English is that every time Iran has met the demands of the U.S. or the U.N., we've simply issued more demands.  The prime reasons being given for our nation's supposedly inevitable collision course with Iran have centered on two emotion-laden talking points:

• Iran is working on a nuclear weapon to use against Israel
• Iran has said that they'll "wipe Israel off the map."

Let's take a closer look at each of these claims to see--like in the above photographs--if the reality matches the emotional hype.

Conventional wisdom, by which I mean whatever our modern day Ministry of Truth is telling us, holds that Iran's burgeoning nuclear program cannot possibly be what Iran has claimed it is; namely for peaceful purposes including nuclear power and medicine.  Over and over we are told that Iran is pursuing its nuclear program for the purpose of creating a nuclear bomb to use against Israel or the United States.  "They could have a bomb within the next 6 months!" read the headlines for the past few years.  And every time another 6 months go by without this dire prediction coming to pass, another breathless headline is issued to stir our fears anew.

Please take a few minutes to listen to Scott Horton of Antiwar radio as he thoroughly and calmly debunks the most prevalent myths:

Strange how the details that Scott Horton shares somehow don't make it into our media coverage of the alleged Iranian nuclear "crisis."  Almost as if our media serves more as a parrot than a watchdog to our government's activities.

As to the second assertion that Iran is planning to "wipe Israel off the map", we're going to have to use our noggins for a few minutes.  

The first brutal reality we must face is that the statement in question never happened.  It is an example of how a lie can be repeated often enough that it takes on the appearance of truth and, in this case, how governments will attempt to con their people into supporting unwarranted and unjust wars.  

In October of 2005, Iranian president Ahmadinejad made a speech titled "The World Without Zionism" where he is purported to have threatened to wipe Israel off the map.  Ahmadinejad, though clearly no graduate of Dale Carnegie, was actually quoting the former Ayatollah Khomeini when he made a statement about the Israeli regime vanishing from the pages of time.  Like most statements, it must be examined in context for one to discern what Ahmadinejad was actually saying. 

Here is a detailed explanation of the Rumor of the Century from Arash Norouzi:

The Actual Quote:

So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in Farsi:

"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."

That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "regime." pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).

So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh" is not contained anywhere in his original Farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's president threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." despite never having uttered the words "map." "wipe out" or even "Israel."

The Proof:

The full quote translated directly to English:

"The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

Word by word translation:

Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).

Rather a different story when one takes the time to look beyond the hype, isn't it?

Ahmadinejad clearly has a bone to pick with the current Israeli government which he sees as as the West's tool for politically oppressing Muslims in the Middle East.  But when his speech is examined in context, he is pointing out that other firmly entrenched regimes in the region have vanished from their former positions of dominance including the former Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein's regime, and the former Soviet Union.  They are now relegated to the pages of history books.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad

Taken in proper context, Ahmadinejad is calling for regime change and not war against Israel though as Norouzi points out, the first distortion of the Iranian president's comments was by Iran's own news agency.  Numerous other world news agencies picked up on the misquote and without verifying or checking it against its original source began to spread the misquote which has become a key slogan for those who wish to wage war against the Persians.

I'm not suggesting that Iran's leadership is as pure as the driven snow, but having an unlikeable leader or having leaders with a bad attitude is simply not proper justification for launching yet another pre-emptive war against a nation that has neither harmed us nor possesses the material capability to do so.  And a nuclear-armed Israel is fully capable of defending itself against any nation or coalition of nations who would be foolish enough to actually threaten it.

A just war is one that is fought as a necessary, though regrettable, last resort--after all other means have been exhausted.  It was never intended to be a method of hammering recalcitrant nations into submission.

Iran doesn't pose an imminent, unavoidable threat to the U.S. or to Israel, but our policy makers are doing all they can to convince the American public that military force is the only solution.  Of course, like we're learning in Afghanistan and Iraq, what starts out as a proverbial "cakewalk" seldom turns out as projected.  Hence the importance of exhausting all other options before loosing the "dogs of war."

The invasion of Iraq was sold to an unsuspecting American public still under the emotional influence of the 9/11 attacks.   The rationale for that war has changed many times over the past 7 years, from non-existent WMD's to false allegations of Saddam's ties to Al Qeda, to the patently false concept of bringing stability to the Middle East.  Too many good Americans swallowed the lies hook, line and sinker when our leaders and their ministers of propaganda beat the war drums to justify aggression against a nation that had never harmed us.

Fool me once, shame on you

Hopefully some of those who were fooled last time will have learned enough wisdom from their mistake to recognize that we are being played for fools into supporting another undeclared, unconstitutional war--albeit this time against Iran.  The first step to resisting the current conditioning for war with Iran is to recognize it for the manipulation that it is.

It's Everyone Else's Fault

Last night's (ahem) debate on Southern Utah Forum started out as a discussion on the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"--a textbook example of Joseph Goebbel's "repeat a lie often enough" dictum--but quickly deteriorated into what amounted to a trial of the Islamic faith.

I claim no expertise on the subject of Islam, but I've encountered enough anti-religious screeds in my life to recognize that far too many of those who claim "expertise" on this particular faith simply have an axe to grind and are looking for an audience.  A few cherry-picked passages from a particular faith's scriptures, a handful of questioned motives or minds read, generous hints without providing actual substance, and a vocabulary of emotionally-laden words are all that's needed to create a blanket condemnation of a worldwide faith shared by over a billion adherents.

Apparently the concept of enquiring of someone who is a living, breathing, current practitioner of a particular faith regarding what they actually believe is considered a loser's game.

An "expert" on Jews, Blacks & Catholics

I strongly encourage intellectually honest individuals to visit Hugh Nibley's rules for How to Write an Anti-Mormon Book and substitute the word "Muslim" for the word "Mormon" to illustrate how these techniques can be used to denigrate any religion.

On last night's forum, one self-appointed watchdog went so far as to suggest that the root problem was found in the teachings of Islam and that Muslims needed to kneel before the world and disavow any aspects of violence that may be found in their scriptures.  There are a couple of major problems with this solution:

• Islam is not a monolithic faith.  Unlike Catholics for whom the Pope is their world leader or Mormons for whom Thomas S. Monson is their prophet, Muslims rely primarily upon their local Imams to set the tone for the faithful.  They have no central authority other than the Koran and even with that there are still Sunnis, Shia and Sufi sects among whom there is disagreement.
• Even if all Muslims were on the same page doctrinally, why should all Islamic people be equated with a tiny handful of marginalized radicals who have hidden behind their faith to commit atrocities?  Do we hold all Catholics responsible for child sex abuse or all Mormons to blame for the Mountain Meadow Massacre?

Furthermore, the prospect of telling a worldwide religion that it must literally bow to the demands of those who themselves have had atrocities committed in their names sounds a lot like the pot calling the kettle black.  Especially when that same self-appointed watchdog is accusing Islam of seeking to convert the world by force.  The tortured logic runs something along the lines of "the only way to prevent Muslims from discriminating against other religions is for the rest of us to discriminate against Muslims."

Is it safe to persecute those who haven't actually harmed anyone?

The vast majority of Muslims have given no offense to anyone; in fact, the Imam behind the effort to build the Islamic community center several blocks from ground zero has openly condemned the 9/11 terror attacks.  As have numerous other Muslim leaders.  To the Islamaphobic religion-baiter, however, no amount of condemnation of terrorism seems sufficient to quiet their irrational fears about people who use terror to achieve their objectives.

Speaking of which, is it possible that some of the Muslim people in the two nations our military is currently occupying without benefit of a declared war or even provocation (especially in the case of Iraq), might feel something other than breathless gratitude toward the United States?  I understand that our military goes to great lengths to spare the lives of noncombatants.  But when a nation chooses to engage in warfare to achieve its stated goals, there is a 100% likelihood that innocent lives will be lost in the process.  We refer to such unfortunates as "collateral damage"in the sterile language that seeks to keep such things in abstract form without actual details that could provide a more complete picture.

"But we got some bad guys too"

Far too many Americans have a dangerous blind spot that renders them largely incapable of putting themselves in the other guy's shoes.  Things that would generate years of howling outrage if they happened to innocent Americans seem remarkably excusable when they happen to someone else--especially someone from a Muslim country.  Such cavalier attitudes coupled with a tendency to confuse respect for the military for the idolatrous worship of the arm of the flesh have created something resembling hard feelings in much of the rest of the world, no matter how pure our stated intentions.  

Of course the typical belligerent answer to this problem usually sounds something like, "Good.  It's better to be feared than respected."  Or "Fear is the only thing these people (meaning Muslims in particular) understand."  Worse still, is the absolutely sociopathic tendency to blame the victims for their bad fortune of being "collateral damage" by claiming that "It's their own fault for not rooting out the bad apples among them themselves."  Like the drunken man who tells his beaten wife, "You made me do this", there is never a shred of consideration about whether those who have less than warm fuzzy feelings about what America has been doing abroad might actually have a point.  Meanwhile those who dare to point out any actual wrongs that have occurred through our nation's increasingly imperial foreign policy are informed that they "Hate America" or simply don't understand the "real threat" facing our nation.

John Quincy Adams

President John Quincy Adams in 1821 warned those who were willing to listen, that America's greatness was not found in naked force alone:

[S]he goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty

Let those last few words sink in.  There are those out there who would wish harm upon our nation.  Some may even possess a small degree of capability to inflict harm.  But a greater threat still is found in our own desires to exercise domination over others.  Freedom cannot survive in a state of perpetual warfare; a fact recognized and echoed by James Madison when he said:

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. 

I urge you to read his remarks in full context.

Nowhere did he or John Quincy Adams suggest that our only alternatives in regards to the rest of the world were either passive submission or all out aggression.  But that is the false dichotomy under which many Americans labor today.  "If we don't do unto [insert name of enemy du jour here] before they do unto us, we're doomed!"  Such fearful thinking has paved the way for some of humanity's most inhumane deeds and has led to the deaths and sufferings of untold millions.

When wisdom fails & emotion prevails

But not everyone has succumbed to this particular siren song with its two part harmony of fear and nationalism.  There is a growing remnant of those who have sought a better way that relies upon wisdom--meaning knowledge properly applied--rather than fear as its dynamic.  One such example is The Fearless Path blog.  The Center for Social Leadership is another.  Revalue America is a third.  These are the tip of a growing iceberg.  The common thread they all share is a principle-based approach to the issues and challenges facing our nation and our world.  Political slogans and knee-jerk reactions work great for the unthinking mob, but do little to bring about real solutions.

The sooner a majority of Americans is capable of understanding this difference, the more peaceful all of our lives will become.   

 

 

Making Muslims Into the New Negroes

Talk radio is to nuance what an atomic bomb is to a fly swatter.  I state this from a position of mild authority, having been a talk radio host for the past 15 years.  

Any host who throws large quantities of red meat to his audience will quickly find that it is very simple to generate an emotional feeding frenzy that lights up the telephone lines.  As commentator Joseph Sobran noted some years ago, one curious quality of many talk radio listeners is that they tend to adore the person who gives them demons to wrestle with.  This mindset coupled with imbuing the audience with a false sense of being a part of the only group that "really understands what's going on" creates a fertile environment for Identity Politics (where one's rights depend upon one's group identity) at its worst.

I are a "great American"

There is a definite formula for generating an approving and loyal audience in this medium and I speak from first-hand experience when I say that it works like a charm.

The formula itself is fairly straightforward:

•  Identify a particular group or people.  
•  Ascribe only the most evil intentions and near superhuman powers to them.  
•  Claim that they seek to destroy our way of life.  
•  Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

This phenomenon, of course, predates talk radio by many millennia but it's an interesting quirk of human nature that we tend to embrace those who make us most comfortable with our fears.

Hannitized

A current example of this tactic is found in the wild-eyed hysteria over the so-called "Ground Zero Victory Mosque" that has been proposed to be built in New York City.  For days now, talk radio has been ablaze with righteous indignation over the construction of an Islamic community center known as the Cordoba House.  Those who are "really in the know" are fanning the flames of outrage among their listeners that Muslims are building a shrine to celebrate success of the 9/11 attacks and are naming it after a city in Spain that was once conquered by a Muslim army 1300 years ago.

Can't you see?

"They're sticking their finger in our eye and laughing at us!"


"Next thing you know, they'll install Sharia Law in the place of our Constitution and force us to either convert or die."


"They're  turning the whole planet into a worldwide caliphate!"


"It's impossible to be a good Muslim and a good American!"

Lest the reader think I'm simply resorting to hyperbole to make a point, I plucked each of the above lines from e-mails I've received in the past week.

The sad thing is that all that hysteria is being stirred up over a non-issue.

The Cordoba House would be the equivalent of a Muslim YMCA located 4 (New York City) blocks from ground zero.   The property has been legally purchased and the developers are jumping through all the necessary bureaucratic hoops to make the project a reality.  But these facts haven't stopped the angry mob from demanding that the project be deep-sixed even if it requires the City of New York to exercise eminent domain to seize the property.  Ironically, this is from the same self-identified conservatives who regularly decry the abuse of government power but are more than willing to make an exception if that power is being directed at someone else.

In fact, let's politicize it

The imperative for government to deny the Muslim community center is supposedly out of sensitivity for what happened on 9/11.  But hold on a second. Was it Muslims in general that attacked the World Trade Center?

As Justin Raimondo from antiwar.com points out:

...it wasn’t Islam that attacked and demolished the World Trade Center, but a marginal group of fanatics who used religion as a cover for their blood lust...    

Raimondo points out that it would have been equally outrageous to seek a ban on synagogues near Arlington National Cemetery following the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty out of sensitivity for the U.S. servicemen who lost their lives in that attack.  Reasonable people would call such a reaction ridiculous and rightly so.  So why the disconnect when Muslims are being painted with collective guilt?

Should we blame all Jews?

This is where talk radio has proven remarkably successful in persuading its audience that Muslims are murderous, deceptive religious fanatics with worldwide conquest in mind.  Fear is the prime mover in promoting this concept; fear of what may happen, fear of the unknown, fear of those who are different.  Let's face it, fear works when it comes to shaping public perceptions and it is the coin of the realm in talk radio.  It's worth considering a quote on fear from George Gerbner of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania:

"Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures . . . . They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities."

The global war on terror has served as proof for many talk radio listeners that our own government's attempts to project imperial power globally is the only thing currently preventing Islam from ruling the world.  Islam is viewed as a monolithic religion with a singular purpose of reducing the world to either converts or slaves.

Another dangerous fanatic?

Well, not to be dramatic, but years ago when I wore the uniform of God's Army, we had the tacit understanding that our mission was, in fact, to overthrow the world and replace it with the kingdom of God.  Believe me, we encountered plenty of opposition that was fueled by lies and misinformation repeated without benefit of fact-checking.  In fact, much of the anti-Islamic information we hear today bears a striking resemblance to the out-of-context scriptural quotes, distortion of beliefs, and broad-brush tarring of all Mormons that was the hallmark of our anti-Mormon crusaders.

There was a time when my Mormon forebears were disenfranchised due to fear and hysteria on the part of their fellow Americans.  It's happened to other groups including, but not limited to, Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and Blacks, just to name a few.

I'm not real keen on the idea of it happening to Muslims either.  Because what we're willing to allow government to do to others can just as easily be done to us when someone else is calling the shots.

[In interest of full disclosure I must confess that I currently have a Saudi Arabian Muslim living under my roof.  Saleh hasn't tried to convert me at sword point or to reduce me to dhimmitude, but he is a very devout young man whom my family loves dearly.  Please understand that this may have swayed my view of Muslims somewhat.]

Truth or Treason?

In addition to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it appears that the Pentagon is launching yet another offensive; this one aimed at Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and his whistleblower website.

Julian Assange

For the sake of those who may have spent the last few months in a cave with their eyes tightly shut and their hands over their ears, Wikileaks has become an international phenomenon of late for its willingness to publish documents leaked by whistleblowers around the world.  Since its first appearance on the internet in 2007, the website claims to have received over a million documents from government and corporate whistleblowers.

The site's founders claim that it was a collaborative effort between "Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa"  Though the creators of Wikileaks have chosen to remain unidentified, an Australian internet activist and journalist named Julian Assange has been the official (unpaid) spokesman of the site.

Over the past 3 years, the site has shone the light of day on everything from Guantanamo Bay operational procedures to Climategate to internet censorship lists.

So long as those documents were exposing exposing the plight of Chinese dissidents or extra-judicial police killings in Kenya--you know, what other countries are doing wrong--U.S. officials seemed less than concerned about what Wikileaks was doing.  But that all changed earlier this year with the release of a video titled "Collateral Murder".

The video consisted of 39 minutes of unedited gun camera footage from U.S. helicopter gunships that showed the killing of two Reuters journalists along with a number of Iraqi civilians (some of whom were armed though clearly not attacking U.S. forces) as they walked along a Baghdad street.  The video also showed what appeared to be the indiscriminate killing of individuals who tried to come the aid of the wounded including two small children who were severely wounded as they sat in a minivan that was targeted by the pilots.

As unsettling as the video is in its graphic record of an unprovoked attack on mostly unarmed men, an even more disturbing aspect is found in the calloused commentary and laughter of the two pilots who are annihilating the Iraqis from a safe distance.  The video had previously been kept out of the view of the public by Pentagon officials who feared that it might cast American forces in a bad light.

Traitor or Hero?

Earlier this year a 22 year old Army Intelligence Specialist named Bradley Manning leaked the video along with a large number of classified diplomatic cables that provided insight into a side of the Afghanistan War that Pentagon officials preferred not see the light of day.  Among the inconvenient truths that emerged were documentation of incidents of a July 2008 U.S. air raid on an Afghan bridal party near the Pakistan border that killed at least 70 women and an August 2008 air strike on a memorial service that killed at least 90 civilians.  These and other incidents are the tip of an iceberg that make the Collateral Murder video body count seem tame by comparison.

Even more damaging to the Pentagon were the revelations that our supposed ally Pakistan was actually providing material support to the Taliban forces our troops are fighting in Afghanistan.  This and other revelations in the 90,000 pages of leaked documents are threatening to clear away the official Pentagon smokescreen that invariably paints the Afghan war in only the most complimentary terms.

Britain's Guardian newspaper sums up the leak like this:

a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency.       

In an act of hypocrisy that would rival Larry Flynt lecturing the clergy about the dangers of pornography, the Pentagon has admonished Julian Assange that he and his source "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."  After all, it's not like Pentagon officials have any innocent blood to account for, right?  In the words of Tom Englehardt:

[we] might reasonably weigh actual blood (those hundreds of unreported civilian casualties of the American war the Guardian highlighted, for example) against prospective blood (possible Afghan informers killed by the Taliban via names combed from the Wikileaks documents) and arrive at quite a different conclusion from [Joint Chiefs] Chairman Mullen

Now the Pentagon has also issued a not so veiled threat to Assange and his support team that they want back whatever data he has and that they'd like to know his whereabouts and that they'd "like his cooperation."

Is this what they have in mind?

This much is clear:  The Pentagon doesn't fear the combined armies of the world.  It fears something far more powerful: The approval of the American public.  No war can hope to continue in the face of a public that has withdrawn its (even tacit) support.  For this reason, a certain amount of propaganda  and covering up is required to keep the flags waving and the lip service flowing.  Seeing too much of the stark reality of what is actually happening--to our troops and those whom we refer to as "collateral damage"--causes the public to start asking dangerous questions like,"Why are our troops over there, again?"

To this end, Julian Assange and Wikileaks have performed a valuable, if not heroic, service to truth-seekers everywhere.  The information contained in the leaked documents doesn't imperil our armed forces, but it certainly imperils those policy makers who require a degree of darkness and secrecy in order protect their own interests.  Things like even unintended atrocities and suffering that cause the public to think are considered "dangerous" and "irresponsible" by those whose power depends upon keeping them hidden.

What frightens the power brokers most of all is the prospect of enough people becoming informed and subsequently withholding their approval through the power of the word "No!"

Underlying Principles in the Immigration Debate

In my last post, I shared an exchange between myself and a friend who took me to task on my talk show over my stance on the illegal immigration issue.  I received a reply from him last night and I'm posting it along with my responses.  Craig's responses are in BLUE and mine are in GREEN.

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 9:08 PM, Craig S------- wrote:

Bryan,

Thank You for the reply.

I have added some thoughts and questions...

..., I and others are scared to death, that we are allowing America to be destroyed.  You contend that we, the over-reacting, are falling prey to the conservative hate mongers...  The Sarah Palins, the Rush Limbaughs, the Glen Becks.... people who talk with America every day...I do believe there is a great deal of over-reaction to illegal immigration, Muslims, and other "enemies-at-the-gate" that are used to keep us fearful and our attention focused on something other than the underlying principles.  Please note that I never named names or called the above listed individuals hate-mongers, those are your words.  It is interesting that you would name the people you did.  (These are the people the elite and media tell us to shun like the plague.  I am suspicious of the elite's every action, suggestion and motive.  ...But I use their terms as a badge of achievement, like the LDS use the term "Mormon" which was intended as a slight.)  Craig, the people you name as being shunned by the media and the "elite" are themselves a part of the the media elite. They serve the purpose of loyal populist opposition to the political left, all the while helping to artificially define the "acceptable" parameters of debate for any given issue.  This fact is lost on too many conservatives who honestly, if not naively, choose to believe that the struggle for freedom is a battle of Left vs. Right.  But it's not.  The real battle is the State vs. the People.

These people do talk to America every day and on some matters they speak truth, on others they lack sound principles.  (Limbaugh and Hannity shoot from the hip, because they were schooled to not have principle, but it is amazing how much they have figured out...  You would have them silent????)  Please show me exactly where I, in any way shape or form, have advocated censoring anyone.  Trying to put words in my mouth by throwing out a red herring is entirely unacceptable.  You need to re-read my earlier comments about how these individuals occasionally promote sound principles, but often they do not.  The real question that remains is how does a national audience of people who largely don't understand principles of proper government discern the difference between what is sound and what is not?

How many Americans know the difference and how many just parrot what is being said?  (I respect men like Thomas Jefferson and Cleon Skousen who figured out much of it... some by parroting what they learned and some on their own.  I doubt there is anyone who really understands it all, but God.  Yet you and I haven't done much of the figuring out.      We too parrot the things we have learned from greater men than ourselves.  And along the way we may get some of our own inspiration.  

Speak for yourself, Craig.  I don't have all the answers, but I've paid a very real price to learn to think critically and to understand what I do.  Yet I'm still very much a work in progress.  

My education will be a lifelong experience and as I encounter new truth, I will change my point of view accordingly.  There's a world of difference between simply parroting someone else and actually applying acquired truth and light in our lives.  Thank God for greater men than ourselves who took the time to learn, live and teach these principles rather than simply live on borrowed light from someone else.

But where would we be today without the the lesser lights like the Palins (well intentioned, but perhaps somewhat principle-weak politicians), the Limbaugh's (outspoken gadflies, that just happen to have acquired some wisdom and influence for good), and the tin-foil-hatted crazies like Glenn Beck (people who have come back from the abyss and are trying to help their neighbors piece the puzzle together, before it eats them for lunch.)  Without them, we would already be wearing the chains!  An error of as little as one degree in navigation can result in an airliner missing its destination entirely.  How do you suppose the cumulative effect of little errors of principle-weak politicians and public figures might affect the ultimate destination of an populace that is almost completely disconnected from its heritage?  Take the good that people have to offer, but remember that ultimately your mind is your own and don't become enslaved to a particular flavor of populism.

 Thesis:  Illegal aliens: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

Rush, Is That You?

The present administration acts like there is absolutely no threat from illegal aliens.  You too talk like you agree with that stance. (Is that what you wished to convey?)  Hmmm, are you going to try the guilt by association fallacy now?  If I don't endorse your point of view wholeheartedly then I must be in lockstep with the Obama administration?  Again, I'm going to challenge you to back up this assertion with any proof that I have ever stated that illegal immigration is no threat whatsoever.  What I've said is that it's simply not the greatest threat we face and I stand by that statement.  Likewise, where has the Obama administration ever  opined that the State poses a threat to our freedoms?  No comparison whatsoever, so let's stick to the subject at hand. 


OK, so you say there is no victim to such immigration so why penalize them?  Then why didn't they apply for entry through valid means?  It takes too long?   (This is our morality problem to solve, not theirs.)  But, you argue,  they must cross our border, without permission,  Once again you're attempting to put words in my mouth, Craig.  I'm not arguing that anybody MUST cross our border either with or without permission.  They choose to cross the border because there is opportunity here that is not available in their homeland and no amount of posturing on our part is going to convince everyone that has chosen to vote with their feet.  That we have erected an expensive, complicated bureaucratic jungle of red tape in order for one to gain permission to be here shouldn't be enough to discourage people from availing themselves of it, right?


 ...because we owe them sanctuary?  Do we??? Do we owe them a vote too?  Do we owe them an education?  Do we owe them a job?  Do we owe them medical services?   Do we owe them deference to their customs?  Do we owe them their land again?  When they outnumber us, do we owe them the right to change America to Mexico again?  Where does it stop?   How's your Spanish? ...and would you care for some Napoleonic law? Now we enter the realm of the slippery slope fallacy where if we don't treat all those who lack official permission as dangerous criminals then we will become Mexican territory again.  Again, Craig, I urge you to return to the principles that are at stake.  Under the proper role of government, no one would have claim to what rightfully belongs to another through entitlement programs and coercive redistribution.  But the collectivist entitlement systems we have in our nation were put there by US, not the Mexicans.  


How about we get that beam out of our own eye before getting so worked up over the mote in theirs?

Mixed Messages Much?

...and those were the harmless immigrants that we allowed to flood our nation because of our sense of guilt...  I don't feel any guilt, do you?  (I do feel pity, and would like to do something for them, but not to the point of devastating my own house.)  It may not be right that we are saddled with the demands of growing socialism, but until we solve that problem, adding more burdens to the systems, is courting disaster!  No guilt here, but plenty of shame that my fellow Americans are more interested in fixing blame for our nation's troubles on anyone but themselves.

Anti-Thesis:  (Every stimulus tends to evoke a response, good or bad.)

Now, how about the truly criminals?  Are you advocating that we allow criminals and terrorists to take refuge in the US without the slightest effort to keep them out?  Again, Craig, I challenge you to back up this assertion with anything I've stated that in anyway advocates open arms for terrorists and criminals.  This is plain old lazy argumentation to keep throwing out red herrings.  Please stick to the issue at hand. 

Not The Issue at Hand

My home is my castle!  None shall pass but by my permission.  (How quaint of me.)  My state is my free land to roam in safety and tranquility.  I pay taxes and delegate authority in concert with my fellow citizens so that safety and tranquility will reign in that land. (Obama notwithstanding!)  Anyone who would enter that land and hurt or make afraid is to be admonished, corrected, incarcerated, expelled, or otherwise eliminated.  (How like Satan, that I expect to be surrounded by order?)  You seem to strain at the suggestion that we would exercise the prerogative to screen visitors at the door.  I don't understand how you can say that...???   (Is it that we travel freely between states that hold similar standards?  Does Mexico share our standards?)  How exactly do you propose that the State screen every person who sets foot on American soil?  For those who enter through the approved portals that's fine and dandy, but we have many thousands of miles of borders and coastlines that offer access to those who do not wish to go through official channels.  The bottom line is that not everyone who enters this country will be screened to your satisfaction.  So what do we do?  Fences, drones and hundreds of thousands of troops on our borders will make us more like North Korea, but will not stop those who are determined to sneak in.  Which brings us back to the proper role of government; instead of treating everyone as a potential criminal and terrorist, focus on those whose behavior is criminal and hold them accountable.  Freedom is preferable to the "safety' of an all-powerful government. 

All In The Name of Safety

That we are so adamant (over-reactive) about this is because people (like you?) and the administration act like this is the last thing that should ever be considered! (sigh) guilt by association fallacy

Synthesis:  (We're off to the new world order.)

I see the current administration trying to dilute the average American's influence, by making this country awash with balkanized, ignorant, poor.  In so doing, they will likewise relegate the legitimate citizens to a state of  balkanized, ignorant poverty.   Do I seem too paranoid?  (I'm not planning to wait for the chains and shackles.) You are correct, but the Balkanization of America didn't start nor will it end with this administration.  Our reduction to economic slaves has been in the making for many generations and it has nothing to do with the illegal immigration problems that are currently keeping far too many good Americans hyper-fixated on a symptom rather than the problem.

Is There Something We're Missing?

Tutorial Time:

I'm in a quandary as to what freedoms we are sacrificing...   Loss of Anonymity?  (We have sacrificed that already, for the sake of commerce.)  Loss of  the freedom to run away across the border?  (The country on the other side is less forgiving, both to the north and south.)  Have we made ourselves crass knaves, like the other nations that protect their borders?  What is this horrible price we would pay to protect our tranquility, as you see it? It always comes back to the proper role of government, Craig.  Freedom and free markets are preferable to the central planning and economic intervention that are part and parcel of strict immigration controls.   Are you really willing to submit to socialist intervention in the area of immigration while decrying it in other areas of our lives?  Are you ready to discard your remaining freedom of privacy in order to have the illusion of safety from a government that promises security even as it's fitting you for a straitjacket?  What you and others are demanding is an expansion of the state's power, not just over immigration, but generally.  Such expansion always comes with an accompanying decrease of liberty.  Bastiat's essay "That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen" provides great insight to this concept.

More Is Not Necessarily Better

I will summon the greatest authority I know; that of God:  His kingdom is by invitation only!!!   He invites all, who would be righteous, and none else can come to corrupt.  Are you seriously comparing our fallible and increasingly corrupted government to the all-knowing and all-powerful God of the universe?

==========================================================

There is something deeper, I suspect, that bothers you, about the proposition that we would defend a border...  You seem to be so highly reactive against something that seems so obvious to me and many others.  It's not simply a matter of defending the border, Craig.  The implications go far beyond simply keeping Mexicans out of our nation.  The underlying principle which you don't appear too eager to acknowledge is whether the solution you're calling for falls within the scope of the proper role of government.  

Expanded police powers and more central planning are better suited to growing socialism than they are to protecting the God-given rights of the governed.  Heads they win-tails you lose.  What may seem highly obvious to you and others may not be as based in principle as you believe.

My Cell-Love It or Leave It

God in his wisdom employs a cell wall at the outer margin of that bastion of life that we call a living cell.  Without that wall, the cell would lose form and coherence of function.  Its resources would quickly dissipate.  Foreign substances could freely interfere in the internal processes.  Yet that Wall is highly permeable to the comings and goings of substances that pertain to life, as directed from within.  Specifically, without a wall, life would not be conceivable!  Let me see if I understand this correctly: the cell's life actually depends upon its ability to facilitate a two-way flow of essential materials through a permeable cell membrane?  

Without that two-way flow, the cell would quickly die, correct?  

It sounds to me like you've just disproved your own argument unless you're suggesting that American citizens are like those substances that pertain to life and Mexicans are like antibodies.  I always thought they were God's children just like us.  Perhaps we should differentiate between those who come to be life-sustaining and those who come with harmful intent?

 Since you brought God into it, please consider a scripture from the Book of Mormon.  

Helaman Chapter 6 verses 7-9: 

 And behold, there was peace in all the land, insomuch that the Nephites did go into whatsoever part of the land they would, whether among the Nephites or the Lamanites.

And it came to pass that the Lamanites did also go whithersoever they would, whether it were among the Lamanites or among the Nephites; and thus they did have free intercourse one with another, to buy and to sell, and to get gain, according to their desire.

And it came to pass that they became exceedingly rich, both the Lamanites and the Nephites; and they did have an exceeding plenty of gold, and of silver, and of all manner of precious metals, both in the land south and in the land north.  

So, Craig, were the Nephites and Lamanites better off when they emphasized their differences and erected barriers between them or when they facilitated greater freedom and free markets between them?  Note the lack of fear and hysteria in the above verses of scripture.  What do you suppose motivated them in their attitudes toward one another?  The Golden Rule perhaps? 

Was This Guy Pro-Freedom or Not?

Ben Franklin observed that walls make good neighbors....  Think about it.   Trust me when I tell you that I've done a lot of thinking about that concept.  Walls also make fine prisons depending upon who sits atop them.

Illegal immigration is to what is actually destroying America as a nosebleed is to a heart attack.  It's a messy problem to be sure, but if all of your attention is focused on stopping the nosebleed, how does that fundamentally help improve the patient's condition? 

Tell me what I'm missing.  It's simply a matter of priorities, Craig.