The Aforementioned Tired, Poor and Huddled Masses

I am a proud American of 100% Irish extraction. I fly the Irish Republic Tri-Color from the ramparts of my deck. I wear a kilt on St. Patrick's Day, and whenever else I can justify it. My ancestors arrived on these shores at various times. On one side my great, great, great-grandparents made it to New York, nearly starved to death from the after effects of The Famine. On the other side, my great-grandmother, who was sixteen and pregnant, nearly died on the ocean voyage. We have, without a pause in any generation, been soldiers in every conflict since The War of Northern Aggression, which some of you may know as The Civil War. We have worked at hard, thankless jobs, both before and after serving in the military. We have picked cotton and scrubbed floors. We have been victims of scurrilous discrimination, and hurtful, taunting speech. To this day, various members of my family, me included, struggle to provide for our offspring. We band together in times of need, and weather the storms apart. Through all these trials and tribulations one thing has remained constant: We have never wanted to be anything more than we wanted to be Americans. To prove that, all my ancestors shared one thing in common as they alit on these shores: they signed in. They acknowledged that they were here, and asked to become citizens.

Apparently though, times have changed. This past weekend saw demonstrations in the hundreds of thousands of, presumably, illegal aliens. They are not immigrants, no matter what the PC climate. Nor are they undocumented aliens. They are exactly what they appeared to be: illegal inhabitants of the United States of America. Many covered their faces and waved Mexican flags as they demonstrated for, demanded even, rights they have not earned and do not deserve. They are thieves in the night who have sneaked in under the cover of darkness, refusing to acknowledge our laws, and spitting on our proud combined heritage and tradition. They want to set up as Mexicans, here in the United States, while absorbing every social service imaginable. They want all the rights they can grab, while accepting none of the responsibilities. They do not, in many cases, even try to learn English, relying instead on the ACLU to sue for the right to have all manner of services provided in Spanish.

Do not get me wrong. A great many Hispanics have been a wonderful boon to this nation. I recently witnessed several hundred service men and women sworn in as citizens after completing tours of duty on the frontlines in the War on Terror. I have seen Cuban-born American men and women march in the streets for various causes, and those self same patriots have helped countless thousands of legal immigrants to register to vote. I have collaborated with an Hispanic outreach program to teach underserved members of the community; bringing literature classes to adults with elementary school reading levels. I know that there are hard-working latinos and latinas who want nothing more than to be Americans, and raise their children to have more than they had. I recognize these groups and I applaud them. These are not the people I would stuff into Greyhounds and send home.

You see that's because those I would send back to Mexico, and El Salvador and Honduras, still see those places as home. They have no desire to be citizens here; not if it takes any effort or sacrifice. Sure, a great many would take advantage of an amnesty program if it guaranteed them citizenship at the end. Few, however, would draw breath at the notion of contributing to the common good unless they were sure to be let in. Need proof? Why would they sneak across the border if their intentions were pure? Is Mexico a hostile nation? Are they on the short list of allowances? No, Mexico is an ally and a friend, and her citizens have more legal means of emigrating to the United States than do most countries. A large number, as many as TEN MILLION, have therefore decided that the laws of the United States are not worth the effort, or cannot meet the scant guidelines involved in becoming citizens. They simply do not deserve the blessings that my, and, presumably, your ancestors have afforded immigrants from every country on the planet.

What to do then? Pennsylvania's senior senator Arlen Specter has said that the problem is too big. We can't send them all back; not anymore. Yeah? Well maybe not, but we could start trying. We could also construct a fence along the entire length of the southern border for a fraction of the cost of providing the aforementioned social services collected by millions of illegal aliens. We could station more Border Patrol agents, and, in limited instances, the National Guard along the southern frontier. That would stem the tide while we started throwing back the refuse who have deemed our laws unworthy of acknowledgement. The argument to these ideas is always the same: What message does this send to the rest of the world? I'll tell you what message it sends: The United States is a nation of laws, and of kind and generous men and women who will gladly offer you a hand, provided you sign in.

Why then won't the honorable men and women in congress do something more substantial to stop this ongoing invasion? Because both see Hispanics as the new base in their voting blocks, and a politician's job is, first and foremost, to get reelected. So, will anything truly happen? Probably not. Legislation will get enacted, with much posturing and gnashing of teeth from both sides of the aisle. Speeches will get made. The flag, the American flag, will be waved, and in the end nothing much will change. In the end, the naturalized Jamaican-American with whom I work, and whom I adore, will tell her niece that unfortunately she did not make the cut and must now return to the Caribbean. The Indians who pump my gas, while proudly flying the US flag, will sadly inform their wives that they cannot come over here, not yet. The Pakistanis who run the bodega where I buy The Washington Post, will call the old country and tell their friends and families to keep trying. These good, honest, hard-working Americans will suffer for doing the right thing, but hey, you and I will have cheap lettuce, and Barbara Striesand will have inexpensive domestic help. Sounds like a case of, I've got the pistols, so I'll keep the pesos. Yeah, that seems fair.

Wanna Bet?

Resplendent in County Limerick kilt and sporran, I spent the evening hours of St. Patrick's Day, and a goodly portion of the wee hours of Saturday, in and about several casinos in Atlantic City. I am Irish 365 days a year and had no desire to surround myself with the green beer drinkers, or worse, the 'yearly Irish.' So, although my only venture into gambling is a few dollars here and there for lottery tickets, or a friendly game of Texas Hold'Em at someone's house, I spent an enjoyable time amidst the bells, whistles, lights and sirens of A.C.'s finest. The kilt generated some interesting, and some not so interesting, conversations. I saw a couple bands, drank a few non-alcoholic beverages and, fully sated, came home. I adore casinos, in limited doses. That is why it may come as quite a shock to hear me say that the slots parlors soon to dot the Philadelphia landscape are an abomination and an evil incarnate. Organized 'gaming,' outside of areas created for it, like Atlantic City, Las Vegas and maybe a few of the Native American-run resorts such as Foxwoods, are a scourge on the population from which no good can come.

I grew up in New Orleans. As a high schooler I skipped class to go to the man-made, powder white beaches of Mississippi. Summer evenings I made the hour and a half drive, with a friend or two and our scantily clad teenage consorts, to frolic in the phosphorescent surf. Long Beach, Biloxi and Gulfport were then sleepy little towns, wholly dependent on the beaches for tourist dollars. Cheesy storefronts, selling sharks teeth and tie dyed t-shirts, competed with beautiful, antebellum style homes along the beachfront. It was somewhat backward, slow, and perfect as a respite from the city; at least for me. Now though those same beaches are littered with casinos. Huge monolithic, monstrosities proliferate up and down the coast. Originally, the law was written to say that only floating "river-boat style" casinos would be allowed. Nine zeroes in a corporate bank account cured that malady though. Of course, the ususal promises were made: property taxes will be lowered, schools will benefit and seniors will reap rewards. Property taxes have not gone down, student scores are still nearly last in the nation and, last time I checked, seniors were not rushing to embrace the Gulf Coast; except for when their assisted living communities organize bus trips that is.

The same thing was promised in New Orleans when Harrah's came to town. The blueprint was the same. A few "riverboats" would be allowed to dock for a while before they would be forced to set sail for a given amount of time. The result was predictable. The corporations realized they were losing money everytime they set sail, so the nine zeroes in the bank accounts once again made their presence known. Before you knew it, a landmark in New Orleans, The Rivergate, was being demolished for a giant casino, which would forever alter the city's brief skyline. The same promises of community assistance were made, and the same outcome was had. No relief was given to anyone. Well, that's not quite true. The most popular governor in recent Louisiana history, Edwin Edwards, received bundles of cash. A practice which, when $500,000 was discovered in his freezer, eventually sent him to federal prison, from where he is scheduled to be released in 2011. One of the principle owners of a profitable water-side casino, Edward DeBartolo, is said to have paid the governor hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure a gaming license. Mr. DeBartolo escaped jail by testifying, but was forced to divest himself of his controlling interest in the San Franciso 49ers.

What the casinos do not ever promise, but always deliver, is trouble. The crime rate immediately around the properties escalates. The local police become defacto security guards for the cash cows, but the price of their overtime still comes from the same place: you and me. Our taxes pay for cops to watch over the properties at the expense of other areas of town. Infrastructure has to be improved; roads widened, fences erected, and we foot that bill too. The promised tax relief never materializes because the new costs outweigh the old notices. Taxes go up, crime goes up, public assistance goes up and the city wonders how it got there. It is a fact of life that those least able to afford it are the biggest bettors. When the end of the month comes and there isn't enough money to pay the bills, no worries we'll go the casino and win the rent. The lower levels of society plug away hour after hour, and day after day, hoping against hope to win their way out of the hole they are ever deepening.

It is not all bad though. A handful of men will become obscenely wealthy. Usually a high-profile community leader is drafted to lend credibility to the endeavor. Here it is former 76ers President Pat Croce. He is a rock solid member of the community, and, by all accounts, a good guy. He is teamed with "The Donald" and no doubt believes that good will be done with the proceeds. Nothing could be further from thr truth. The money men's pockets, and a few of their politician friend's too, will be lined, both legally and illicitly. Some will walk away wealthy and some will walk away in cuffs, but in the end they will all walk away richer than they came. Don't get me wrong. I don't pity the poor and I don't hate the rich. Nor do I think it is the government's job to protect us from ourselves. What I do believe though, is that it is the government's job to promote the general welfare, while securing the blessings of liberty, neither of which is possible when you are shackled to the overwhelming monument of greed.

Can You Define That?

"Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid," so said Sgt. John Stryker, as portrayed by John Wayne in The Sands of Iwo Jima. Apparently that sentiment is in short supply everywhere in the good ole US of A, but nowhere is that more obvious than in the rarefied air of our college campi. The institutes of higher education, from the ever liberal Ivy League, to the supposed mainstream of the genteel South, have seemingly lost their dictionaries. They can no longer define simple words, much less impart any true knowledge without the prerequisite dose of indoctrination. Three events, which together generated less coverage than Vice President Cheney's hunting accident, prove that point in sobering, saddening, maddening detail.

According to the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, terrorism is defined as: The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons. Pretty straightforward, at least to my decidedly simplistic ego. Yale, the bastion of waspish scions and Jodie Foster, has evidently concluded otherwise. I say that because they have accepted Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, for admission into a non-degree program for special students. Let's forget for the moment that his formal fourth grade education and high-school equivalency degree preclude him from entry into one of the world's top universities. Let us remember instead that he was the public face of the Taliban, the regime that dynamited the 1,000 year old Buddhas of Bamiyan, allowed female school-children to burn to death inside a elementary school because no male relatives were present to escort them away, and, oh yeah, harbored those directly responsible for destroying the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Why would he travel thousands of miles to audit a class titled "Terrorism: Past, Present and Future?" Could it be because he needs a primer, or did he hope to continue his recruiting amongst the intelligentsia?

Discrimination is what Yale, and a coalition of law schools, stated they were against when they filed suit to keep the United States military from recruiting on campus. They affirmed that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was just too onerous for their refined sensibilities. Banning recruiters from campus was the colleges' way of protesting this policy, and nothing more. Yeah, the fact that nearly all these hotbeds of liberalism are in opposition to any war in general, and the one we are currently engaged in, in particular, never entered into the equation. Ironic that this furor was never directed at the President who signed the policy into law. And yet we are supposed to see this as proof that the modern university is striving for an open, inviting, diverse experience; just not one that encourages pride in country, duty or honor, or the hayseeds who cherish such things. One wonders what the position of Yale will be when Ambassador Hashemi begins recruiting in the Quad. I doubt very sincerely that they will object so strenuously that the case will wind up before the justices of the US Supreme Court. Luckily for us all, even the esteemed Court's most liberal members voted against the nonsense the universities sought to avow. The Court decided that the universities could, indeed, bar military recruiters, but they must forfeit all federal funds if they do. In the case of the University of Pennsylvania this amounts to $600,000,000. Yes, you read that right. It remains to be seen if they have the strength of their convictions.

Finally, on Friday a University of North Carolina graduate was arrested for running down nine students with an SUV. Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who, it will come as a huge surprise no doubt, is a Muslim originally from Iran, told investigators, numerous times, that he intentionally hit people to "avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world." In a 9-1-1 call immediately after the event he said he wanted "to punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world." Funny how he never attempted to protest the actions of the Taliban as they tortured and killed Muslims, by running down Ambassador Hashemi. Funny how he never attempted to ram the gates of any Iraqi diplomatic station, to protest the gassing of the Kurds. More surprising still, is the fact that a student organization had to stage a rally to protest this overt act of terror, while the university was oddly silent. I can only wonder what the university response would have been had the Chapel Hill basketball team been mowed down on the eve of "March Madness." Would that hypothetical act have risen to the level of terrorism?

I love this country, warts and all. I recognize, that as Winston Churchill once opined, "Democracy is the worse form of government; except for all the others." I cannot for the life of me though, understand what it takes for the cultural elite to understand that there are people out there who intend to destroy us, and our entire way of life. Do they not remember that their darlings of armed struggle, from Che Gueverra to Hamas, execute the teachers and poets as soon as they take over? Have they forgotten the lessons of history so soon? I can only conclude that in their rush to purge the ivied towers of academia, of all manner of white, European male oppression and discrimination, that all the books, not just the dictionaries, have been removed. I can only conclude that when the Islamic hordes once again descend upon our shores that they will accept their fates and go peacefully to the slaughter. One thing is certain, 9/11 proved that ideas have consequences, and I can only hope that the country I love awakes before the ideas of radical Islam burn us down. I can only hope that the cultural elite recognizes, before it is too late, that dissent is patriotic, but aiding and abetting the forces aligned against us is not. I can only hope that somewhere amidst the Ward Churchill's and the John Bellamy Foster's there still exists a professor or two that became teachers because they want to open minds, not close them to any ideas but their own.

the beads

Three days before my last day of school as a senior in high school I was hauled into the principal's office for an infraction involving orange wine coolers, Bacardi Dark Rum and two teenage girls, who shall remain nameless. The principal, Mr. Bordelon, scolded me for a full ten minutes before saying, "The only reason I am not expelling you right now is because I don't want you back here next year." Fast forward nearly ten years. I walk into a high school Civics class at a girl's Catholic high school where I am the teacher. The third person on my roll sheet is, you guessed it, Mr. Bordelon's daughter. Now, it should be said that I was definitely involved in more than my fair share of expellable offenses while in high school, but that does not prevent me from feeling, to this day, unreasonable vitriol for Principal Bordelon. Obviously my position of authority presented all manner of opportunity to settle the score, as it were, with Principal B. I could, well within the rules if not the spirit of the position, have made his daughter's time in my class uncomfortable, at the very least. I opted not to. I did that not out of any altruism, or even maturity, but because I took my position as a teacher seriously. To me, it meant that I would present my course materials as objectively as possible, with no proselytizing, and no bias. Apparently high school teachers are no longer constrained by such ethical chains, as is evidenced by the case of Sean Allen, and Jay Bennish's high school geography class.

By now you have no doubt heard the tape Sean made. The day after the State of the Union Address Jay Bennish subjected his 1oth grade geography class to a twenty minute screed on the evils of the Bush administration. According to my dictionary, geography is defined as: the physical characteristics, especially the surface features, of an area. I seem to recall, from my college geography class, that some attention was paid to the effects of human activity on the planet, but even that discussion did not rise to the level meted out by Mr. Bennish. He, in succession, compared coca farmers in South America to tobacco farmers in North Carolina, framed capitalism as a system at odds with human compassion and caring, argued that the war in Iraq would have been for profit even if weapons of mass destruction had been found, characterized the United States as the "most violent nation on planet Earth," compared the country of Israel, as a whole, to Hamas, and, in one meorable quote, suggested that President Bush and Adolf Hitler possess "eerie similarities."

Knowing as I do that a great many of the people who read these postings are inclined to favor these views I will not seek to argue the veracity of Bennish's positions. Do not bother to send me what would, in a different technological age, be letters written in crayon. The point of this column is not to refight these particular battles. The point is that high school geography class is not the venue for this rant, for a number of reasons. The main reason is that teachers hold a position of authority. Just as it would have been wrong for me to make the daughter of Mr. Bordelon suffer for his perceived and/or real transgressions. It was wrong for Mr. Bennish to direct his anti-American bombast to, what is in effect, a captive audience.

Tustin Amole, a spokeswoman for the Cherry Creek school district said, "After listening to the tape, it's evident the comments in the class were inappropriate. There were not adequate opportunities for opposing points of view." That is the issue with which I, personally, take umbrage. I served, proudly, in the 7th Infantry Division (Light), in part, so that Mr. Bennish could bluster any bone-headed, outrageous point of view he wishes. The First Amendment specifically protects outrageous speech because mainstream speech needs no such protection. The error here is that suggesting Mr. Bennish's actions constitute free speech. What he did was wrong, partially because he offered no counterpoint, but mainly because he interjected his own opinions into a venue where they have no business. Education is about us finding ourselves through exposure to the facts of the world. Mr. Bennish violated the trust that comes along with the position by offering his viewpoints as the only facts. In a college setting these comments would have been odious, but in a high school setting they become indoctrinal. He became the thing he pretends to decry: a tyrant.

Sadly, all too many people will argue that the things Jay Bennish said are accurate and worthy of public debate. That may have weight, and, in a coffee shop that sells hemp products, he is welcomed to posit any dimwitted, misguided, communistic rhetoric he can cull from the Democratic Party talking points. What he should not do though, is use his position of trust to expound on these themes. What he should not do is violate the sanctity of the teacher-student relationship by offering personal opinion as classroom content. In one portion of his philippic he paused to allow note taking. Any excuse thereafter that this was all to stimulate discussion becomes nothing more than sophistry, and anyone who truly cherishes the right of free speech should recognize the difference.

I truly hope that the Cherry Creek school district fires Mr. Bennish. I do not believe, in these politically charged times, that they will, but I hope they do. He has hired the same attorney who currently defends Ward Churchill, so this will, no doubt, become an issue of political expression, and they will seek to represent Bennish as the victim. Nothing could be further from the truth. Children, and 10th graders are children, deserve the opportunity to develop their own positions and views about the world. Mr. Bennish would, no doubt, disagree because, seemingly, to him, and to all too many like him, free speech means freedom to say whatever you want, provided you agree with him. I wonder what Mr. Bordelon would think about his daughter hearing, in my classroom, twenty minutes of my thoughts on him. Shame on you Jay Bennish, and to you Mr. Bordelon I can only say, wherever you are, that I am grateful for the lesson I learned the day your daughter walked into my class.