Free Republic

I wonder if the people who run and work in these companies have any children serving in Afghanistan or Iraq or have served in either AOs themselves?

The immigration issue is complex, but the solution is simple.

Step 1 is to effectively close the borders to keep criminal trespassers out of the country.

Step 2 is, as Mr. Tancredo has said, "Enforce the law." But enforce it equally among both the illegals and the people that hire and harbor them. Arrest and prosecution for those that hire (and take advantage of) illegal aliens and deportation for those illegals that are found, regardless of circumstance.

Step 3 is to put new people into Congress who will listen to the electorate and who will draft a simple plan that enables legal immigration for greater numbers based not on family affiliations, but on employment needs, and employment skills.

My feelings on illegal immigration are based on the fact that I am the grandson of legal immigrants and the husband of a legal immigrant, all of whom had to go through all of the steps in the immigration visa and naturalization process. Even my wife had to endure it, despite the fact that I was on active duty military service at the time I got married.

And the saddest part of all of this is the Bush still thinks it was a good bill and should have passed!

Finally, the will of the people has been heard.

You wrote, "Your expert 'guarantee' is no better than my layman's opinion. What exactly as a Plans, Programs, and Requirements Officer–J6-PR for US CENTCOM before and during Desert Shield, makes your unsupported opinion credible. . ."

First, you evidently have never served our country in the military services, otherwise you would not make such a naive statement as that, nor would you ask such an obtuse question. I am assuming that you know that US CENTCOM was and is responsible for all US military operations in S.W. Asia. Therefore, in response to your statement and your question, there are three things that exactly make me far more credible than you.

First, it was part of my job to know the enemy so that I could be effective in my job as a General Staff officer planning for operations in the SWA ops area.

Next, in addition to having had accessibility to military intelligence prior to my retirement, I was and am also able to read and review the mass of unclassified information from other experts about the psychology and tactics of these Islamic terrorists. This is also available to you on the Internet, were you to take the time to read and research, rather than gloss and guess.

Finally, I have over 25 years of training and experience in the U.S. Army, serving around the world with some of the finest men and women in uniform. Understanding warfare was what we did for a living.

If this explanation does not answer your question, nothing else I can say will, but you really don’t care anyway do you? Your mind is made up, so I will no longer confuse you with the facts.

You wrote, "Perhaps the real answer is that these are one time acts, and the terrorists are actually afraid to repeatedly use the same tactics."

I was the Plans, Programs, and Requirements Officer–J6-PR for US CENTCOM before and during Desert Shield, so I do have some limited knowledge of what I am talking about. Terrorists are not afraid to repeatedly use the same tactics as evidenced by the widespread use of rocket attacks, IEDs, car bombs, and suicide bombers. They use what works, and if they were able to shoot down TWA Flight 800, I guarantee you, they would have shouted it to the entire world and would have kept using that method of terror until they were either caught or it stopped working.

Here is a question I would like answered. If it was, indeed, a missile shootdown by terrorists, why has it not happened again in the past ten years? Terrorists tend to go with what works until it doesn’t work anymore.

It is not a matter of being able to get surface-to-air missiles; they are available for the right money in the right country. Also, it’s not a matter of not being able to get them into this country, as our borders are porous, especially if they come through Canada.

So if terrorists are able to get the missiles and get them into the US, why has that not happened more often? Perhaps the real answer is that it was not a shootdown, but actually bad wiring.

You wrote, ” Inventions are not the same thing as science. Yes, we have invented lots of things, but that does not have anything to do with science. Most inventions were not done with the scientific method or science.”

I’m sorry, but I must have missed something. Most of the pharmaceuticals that have helped humankind, from aspirin to the drugs that are helping fight cancer, heart disease, and diabetes are not logical improvements like wooden wheels to rubber tires. They are researched using science such as chemistry and bio-chemistry. Your statement shows either your naiveté or your unwillingness to accept science as a part of our life.

And yes, the theory of evolution has flaws, as does every theory where data to support the entire theory is not available, however the premise of evolution is not flawed. It is written all across the face of the planet, it is just that you don’t want to see it.

Two things that do not mix: religion and politics. For most Americans, both are belief-based with no room for tolerance or compromise with other beliefs.

The other two things that do not mix are religion and science for opposite reasons. In religion, one believes in what one cannot see; in science, one does not believe in what one cannot see.

However, intelligent design is not science, it is religion and should be approached from that viewpoint. That does not make its beliefs and concepts any less valid, but it does not make them any more valid than science. Therefore, in my opinion, because it is based on religious belief, its place is in a parochial school, not a public school.

Perhaps better questions to ask are where did they get the grenade in the first place and what did they plan on doing with it?

I am amazed at you, as a Southerner, to forget the issues we have had with states’ rights, especially as a Texan. Certainly if it becomes an amendment, a majority of the states must ratify it, but that will not happen because, I believe, so many states have their own constitutional amendments or state laws on this topic, that they will not enable the federal government to dictate to the states what should be done against the wishes of the voters of the individual states.

Unless I am mistaken 38 or 39 states have already passed legislation against same-sex marriage, which represents the will of the people of those states. Additionally the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress provides for a legal definition of marriage and allows each state to deny Constitutional marital rights between persons of the same sex which have been recognized in another state. Therefore, why should we amend the Constitution ? This is no longer a social issue, but a political issue for both parties.

And I thought conservatism mean laissez faire attitudes towards the states and the rights of each state to develop laws that met the needs and requirements of the electorate of that state. From what all the respondents here say, it sounds like the Republican Party is moving to the left, and that is not conservatism.

I do not believe that it should be brought up again, as this is not a national issue, but a local issue.

This is another example of the federal government trying to usurp the rights of the individual states. I live in Florida, which has political clout, but if I lived in Delaware, or Rhode Island, or another state that has no large representative delegation in Congress, I would not like a group of other states mandating what my state should do, which is what would happen if Congress passes a law and it is upheld by the Supreme Court.

Would you want California dictating how farmers in your states should grow their crops, or curb bovine emissions? It is the same thing.

Calling all Southerners,

Why is it that Northerners and Californians use a (fake) Southern accent when they want to sound like they are dullards or like they are a bit slow? Do people who speak with, like you know, a California accent, like, you know, like realize how, like really, really dumb it sounds? Especially since, like, you know, like they end like all of their sentences with, like, you know, a question sound?

What about New Yoakehs and thems from Baaahstuhn? Do they really think it is reflects well on their use of English for a visitor to have to hire a translator to understand what they are saying? Seriously, does anyone think that the phrase, “Yo, kuhmeah. Wahyou tink you doo’n? Hah? Geattahere” is intelligible in common English?

And besides, even Yankees that have lived in the South know that when one is addressing a group of folks, its “all y’all” not “yall.” ;^)

Depending on where you live, you can pay more in taxes and insurance (if you can get it) than you do in a mortgage payment. Other places are just way, way out of reach of Florida teachers. I live in unincorporated Pinellas County, and my taxes are $3800+. Thankfully, I have USAA as my insurer and pay about $1800 a year in insurance, but because I live on a “mountain” (58 feet above sea level), I am not in a flood zone and therefore do not need flood insurance. If I lived in a city and needed flood insurance, it could cost an additional $2500 - 3000.

People like to think Florida is just for retirees, but we are getting much younger each year. New jobs, new opportunities, new families moving down here to get away from the cold, and to get away from the rust belt.

I strongly endorse your sentiments. When my people arrived here from the Russian Empire, the first thing that was forbidden was speaking Russian with the children, regardless if they were born there or here and English became, as best as possible, the household language. Only the “Mustache Joes” spoke together in Russian, Polish, or Turkic when they played cards and the Babuski (grandmothers) when they played Mah Zhong.

My people, like yours and everyone else who immigrated to this wonderful country came here to enjoy the liberties that are guaranteed under the Constitution and to be able to achieve whatever they could achieve as Americans. Never have I ever heard any foreign-born relative call himself or herself a Russian-American, for to do so meant to them that they were second-class citizens, not real Americans.

My wife and mother-in-law are naturalized Americans who had to go through years of waiting and strenuous testing to get both their “green card” and citizenship, but they too do not consider themselves German-Americans and they react unkindly to anyone who calls them that.

What I think is the real issue in this case of a “national language” is not immigration, it is assimilation. Regardless if the immigrants are Latino, Haitian, German, Swiss, Vietnamese, or Russian, they came here to become Americans, so American (English) should be the language we all speak when we are in a business or governmental environment.

You have posed an interesting question. Let me answer it by asking a question in return. Until who no longer considers them a Jew? Their family? their congregation? Reformed Jews? Conservative Jews? Orthodox Jews? Hasidic Jews? Christians? Muslims? G-d?

I’m not poking fun at your question, only showing you the openness of it. You are asking a question not only about religion, but about cultural and ethnic values as well. If a man is born in Zimbabwe, but moves to Ireland because he associates himself with Irish culture, listens to Celtic music, dances Celtic dances, and thoroughly enjoys a pint of Guinness, does where he was born make him less Irish? Perhaps in the eyes of some Irish, but it does not diminish what he believes he is. So too it is with religion.

If I was born Jewish and found that Buddhism brought me greater spiritual harmony and happiness, would the religion of my parents make me less of a Buddhist? Would my family no longer consider me a Jew? Quite possibly. Would my synagogue consider me a Jew? Probably not. Would Orthodox Jews consider me a Jew? Absolutely not. However I think the more important questions are these: Would I consider myself a Jew and would G-d care if I spent my life living by the creed that I should treat another as I wishes to be treated in turn? Only the individual can answer the first question, the second must wait until judgement. . .

You wrote, "I mean, an ethnic Jew is always a Jew, but obviously not so with a convert."

There is no such thing as an "ethnic" Jew any more than there is an “ethnic” Baptist or an “ethnic” Lutheran. Judaism is a religion, not an ethnicity. Although Judaism began with the Semitic tribes (they are an ethnicity), it spread to other ethnicities as well, such as the Khazars of Kazakhstan through conversion in the ninth century.

And a Semitic Jew is not always a Jew. They may convert to Christianity or Islam as well and believe as deeply and totally in their new religion as a devout Jew does in Judaism.

TexConfederate1861 wrote, “War was really the only honorable choice left to them.”
I have been a participant in two different wars and can tell you, unequivocally, that there is nothing honorable about war. As a Virginian, and as a retired Army officer, I understand how Lee felt about the impending conflict when he said, ”With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army, and save in defense of my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword...”

One other point I feel should be made is that the term “Civil War” is a federal term. Southerners referred to the conflict as either “The War of the Northern Aggression” or “The War of the Great Rebellion.”

4CJ wrote, “Actually secession is not prohibited - it's a reserved right (see the 10th). The states were the arbiters of federal power, not the federal government. “
You are correct that secession was a right, but as Restorer correctly pointed out, the southern states fired upon a federal military installation before the issue of secession was resolved by Congress. Since the military action preceded the legislative action, the states were in insurrection, not legal secession. Everything else fell apart from that act. Who knows how history would have been changed had the Confederate forces allowed the legitimate process to succeed?

There are a few elements missing in this discussion. First, Congress (and the President) did have the right to stop the secession. It is covered in the Constitution under two sections:
Section 8 – The Powers of Congress: “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;”
Section 10 - Powers prohibited of States“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” The states that seceded had their own troops and their own navy. And, before you start to speculate outside of your ken, I am a native Virginian.

Additionally, Lincoln did have the right to suspend Habeas Corpus under Section 9 of the Constitution:“The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

Finally, y'all seem to have left out one overriding concept for the Southern States throughout this entire discussion, and it is a concept that is still being forgotten by the current president: states rights. The 10th Amendment specifically states: ”Powers of the States and People. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Chew on that for a while. . .

You wrote, "Casey Sheehan’s memory as a warrior is besmirched by her words and actions, the world of his comrades-in-arms is weakened by her words and actions. . ."

As a two-tour combat veteran, I have to disagree with you. Casey Sheehan's memory as a soldier will always be held high in the hearts and minds of his fellow soldiers and they will remember him for his actions. The “world of his comrades-in-arms” you mentioned is a world that is composed every combat veteran, regardless of which conflict we were in, and that world is based on duty, honor, and service.

The words and actions of those who are not combat veterans and who do not, or cannot understand the meaning of duty, honor, and service can never tarnish that world, nor can they take away from any of us who we are or that which we have accomplished.

That world has been forged in the fires of hell, laid on the anvil of truth, pounded true with the hammer of adversity, and cooled with the blood and the tears of our comrades. No, his warrior spirit will still abide with his comrades, unblemished, undaunted, and undefeated.