Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Interesting to read the comments made to that column. One question is the use of the word “worst”; as in John Kerry’s “worst economy we’ve had in years or since the Great Depression”, “worst President in history” etc.
The unreasoned use of extreme descriptors is typical of a three year old’s mind. Since the little varmint has had little life experience, everything that happens to him is either the “best” or the “worst” thing that ever happened. In a three year old, it can be forgiven, since it’s understandable. However the continuation of an essentially infantile state of mind into one’s middle years is less forgivable. Did I just say that Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid (“worst President ever”) essentially have the mind of a not particularly bright three year old? Why yes, I think I did.
everything that happens to him is either the “best” or the “worst” thing that ever happened.
Mike, this parallel is brilliant.
knee-jerk loathing of the American and European elites.
I’m not sure I would include the European elites…
While history probably will be somewhat more positive, Bush will always have a very serious black mark against him – immigration and the insecure borders on the south.
Bush drew a picture of himself as very insincere when it came to national security by pandering to Mexico, and intentionally neglecting the security of the borders. History will not be at all positive about this, and he richly deserves the opprobrium history will deliver.
QM,
Concur, and something that I just will never understand. WE cannot claim to be a sovereign nation if we willingly refuse to secure our own borders. It is essentially no different than a corporation failing to protect it’s trademarks or IP and copyrighted materials.
I am at a loss to understand what is happening with border security.
OM, AW1Tim
My take is that Bush never found a good way in his own mind to finess the need for border security with the demands of the farm/business lobby for cheap labor. In the case of the businesses I feel it was the campaign contributions angle–with the farmers it was the very real need for temp labor to bring in the crops before they rotted in the fields.
I had an Aunt who taught 2nd grade for 32 yrs in Dinuba, Calif in the heart of the central valley just south of Fresno in Tulare county. She and her husband also owned some orange groves there. I spent some time out there as a youth and from what I saw and learned from her, I’m somewhat sympathetic to the needs of the farmers for temp labor. I also saw part of that picture in the Rio Grande Valley when my Father was a temp head tennis coach at Pan-American U. in Edinburg, Texas, while on sabbatical for a year in the late 60s.
Also, I feel that, like most white conservatives, his “white guilt”–especially for a born-again Christian–made him especially sensitive to the charges of racism–charges which were wielded by the opposition at the drop of a hat. Then too, as Governor of Texas he had successfully appealed to the Hispanic vote, and probably thought he could do so again somehow without compromising the security issue. One of those MOTR/ “deer in the headlights”/trying to “walk the tight-rope” deals he was unable to pull off.
PS: One day in 1960 as a 16yr-old visiting my Aunt Elsie for the summer in Dinuba, I accidently bumped (literally) into a 17 yr-old Burt Rutan (he’s from there, my aunt taught him in 2nd grade) on the sidewalk. You just never know, as in “who knew?”
Kinda like Truman.
It’ll likely be kinder to him than current news, but not nearly as kind as his supporters would like. History will, by and large, care more about the facts than about partisan emotions.
Yep, One of the things that will pop right up in the correct true history is how all the 9/11 terrorists entered this country LEGALLY through the US State Department and Consular Services and how they all obtained driver’s licenses.
Not even a massive police state like the USSR can secure a country this large without surrendering every aspect of freedom to the Ministry of Internal Defense, the Army, the Navy, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry for the Preservation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and all the rest. The border issue as a security issue is a chimera. If we want to get rid of illegal aliens in vast numbers we could just round up and deport every living soul in the US that cannot speak English and be done with it.
If you want to see the power of the state and control, look at the powers reserved to the state, feds and bureaucrats in the 1930s. Hell, look at what a bounty hunter can legally get away with viz home invasion and general mayhem
The state doesn’t have to go around deporting everybody. The state needs to concern itself with dealing with the dangerous criminal elements. I live in Texas, and have been unable to find a teaching job in the area where I live. I am sure that if I checked with those school districts down on the border, I could likely land a job. Problem is, those border communities have a reputation for high crime and problems with illegal aliens. Gangs are involved with illegal drug trade and illegal alien smuggling. We lived in El Paso in the mid-80s when my dad was stationed at Biggs Army Air Field/Fort Bliss. Juarez wasn’t really safe then, but it is magnitudes worse today – my dad mentioned he heard a news report about the THOUSANDS of murders occurring there.
As for those illegal aliens who are otherwise law-abiding residents, they will self-deport if they are denied access to the US public welfare system. We also need to end anchor babies. If you are born here to people who are here illegally, you should not automatically receive the priceless gift of American citizenship…