Mexican President Tells the US That He Does Not Like New Arizona Immigration Law

Just as our own US President, Barack Obama, has done, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has spoken out against the new immigration law in Arizona claiming that the new legislation encourages intolerance, hate and discrimination based on ethnicity. He has asked his Foreign Ministry to take action to defend the rights of Mexicans in the US. As other critics have claimed, Calderon also says that the law will be enforced through racial profiling.

This is an outrageous position for the Mexican government to take when their citizens continually abandon their homeland to seek a better life in another country due to Mexico's poor economic conditions, public corruption and deadly drug wars that threaten Mexicans much more than any Arizona law enforcement officers who are permitted to make inquiries to help keep ILLEGAL immigrants out of our country.

The biggest threat to these illegal immigrants in the US is very likely from their own countrymen, such as drug runners or "coyotes", who follow them across the border to reek havoc or violence on them and their families. What they may be more worried about now in Arizona is that illegal residents may fear calling police when in need of protection because their illegal status in our country may be discovered. However, if they came in legally, they would have no concern.

But the greatest outrage at Calderon's criticism of the possibility that law enforcement officials in Arizona might ask immigrants for identification, if there is a reasonable suspicion regarding a person's immigration status after being stopped for questioning about violating another law, is that his own government allows much worse treatment of immigrants into Mexico from the South. Based on a new report from Amnesty International, it has been reported that:

"Tens of thousands of Central Americans enter Mexico illegally every year, most with the hope of continuing on to the United States. But many stay in Mexico, at least for a time, where they may be beaten, killed, raped, kidnapped by criminal gangs, put in jail or shaken down by corrupt Mexican officials....

The Amnesty [International] report says that up to 60% of female migrants suffer some form of sexual abuse; migrants are routinely forced to pay bribes; detention centers are woefully overcrowded, and victims are too terrorized to make formal complaints, rendering them 'invisible'."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/04/mexicos-treatment-of-immigrants-slammed.html

Clean up your own act, Senor Calderon, before criticizing an American state for just trying to enforce the law and protect our borders!

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Who Demonizes Government?

Last week at a commemoration of the 15th Anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people in a federal building, former President Bill Clinton made the following statement:

"We shouldn't demonize the government or its public employees or its elected officials. We can disagree with them, we can harshly criticize them. But when we turn them into an object of demonization, we increase the number of threats."

The violence committed in Oklahoma City in 1995 was carried out by a homicidal sociopathic anti-government militant named Timothy McVeigh. He was not the type of person who participated in peaceful protests, as those in the current Tea Party movement do. Although Clinton avoided alleging outright that the anti-Democrat policy protest rallies that have occurred throughout the country over the past year under the Tea Party theme are advocating violence, he did state that right-wing talk radio shows that existed in 1995, as they do today, were "the instrument of carrying this [message of demonizing government] forward [since] they understand clearly that emotion was more powerful than reason most of the time. And it happened that they got much bigger listenership and more advertisers and more commercial success if they kept people in the white heat".

Clinton's clear suggestion is that the so-called "white heat" generated by opposition rhetoric on talk radio had as much to do with the Oklahoma tragedy as McVeigh's stated reason for attacking the federal government, which was his outrage over the acts of violence committed by federal agencies at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

With this belief that right-wing talk radio, which he said was "demonizing" government, was a contributing factor in a madman's terrorist act 15 years ago, Clinton went on to warn today's anti-government protesters to be careful not to cross the line from opposition rhetoric to triggering any of society's misfits to commit further acts of violence.


The anti-BIG government protests of the past year have, however, generally been more peaceful than many of the anti-war protests carried out during the administration of George W. Bush. In fact, many of the offensive signs associating President Obama with the Joker or Hitler were originally seen with Bush's image during the prior "regime".

The signs depicting Obama were NOT created by anyone connected with the Tea Party movement or the Republican Party. The Obama-Joker poster was created by a college student, who I believe is not very politically active, and the Obama-Hitler poster was created and made available on the website for Lyndon LaRouche, who has been politically active for decades, most prominently as a Democratic candidate for President in 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992. In fact, the Obama-Hitler image and many comparisons between the current President's policies and Adolf Hitler's policies can still be found on the LaRouche website at http://www.larouchepac.com/obamawatch.

However, there is a long list of websites and blogs that compared George Bush to Adolf Hitler throughout Bush's years as President, which can be found here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4750077

Michelle Malkin covered many of these comparisons and other forms of the Bush Derangement Syndrome for years on her blog. A summary of these political attacks with several links to other such Fascist comparisons to Bush can be found on Malkin's blog here:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/04/how-quickly-they-forget/

In terms of actually advocating radical action, however, the protests against former President Bush were explicit in expressing their desire to eliminate Bush as President, not simply to make political statements in opposition to his policies.

And some of the anti-Bush protest expressions went even further:

Where was Bill Clinton's concern about harsh rhetoric demonizing government officials during the Bush administration? I guess we have to rely on his wife for that answer.

Hillary Clinton shouted out her view of the right to freedom of expression and dissent from the policies of government in 2003:

“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, ‘WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!’”

It would seem that right-wing talk radio, as well as the Tea Party protesters, have the same right to debate and disagree with the current Administration that Mrs. Clinton asserted during the last administration. However, based on the examples shown above, it appears that the disagreements with the Bush Administration took a much more explicit approach to encouraging violent or aggressive action against government officials than those over the past year have. The Clintons seem to be a bit inconsistent in their views on freedom of expression.


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What Washington Can Learn from Richmond: A Better Way to Run Government

Last week, the Richmond Times Dispatch published an editorial by Bob Rayner that compared and contrasted the governing styles of the new Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell (shown above), and President Barack Obama and his Democratic leadership in Congress. The editorial presents a clear picture of the differing governing styles, not just of the present incumbents in the Governor's Mansion in Richmond and the White House in Washington, but also of the difference in political philosophies between the Republican and Democratic Parties when put into action.

Here are some excerpts from Radnor's editorial:

"An extraordinary contrast is emerging between the style and philosophy of governing as practiced in the executive mansion just north of the Potomac River and the Executive Mansion just north of the James River. In Washington, President Obama is borrowing, taxing, and spending with abandon -- with little apparent concern about the long-term consequences of his unprecedented expansion of government control of the economy and the claims it will make on future earnings of the American people. The president's agenda relies on one-party power and minimal attempts at compromise.

In Richmond, on the other hand, Gov. Bob McDonnell has just closed a $4 billion budget deficit without raising taxes. To do so, he made significant cuts in a budget that had expanded by more than 70 percent in a decade* -- better than 28 percent for every citizen in Virginia (in inflation-adjusted dollars).....

McDonnell met the claims of those who insist that government must always grow -- even when growth in the private sector has stalled -- with the obvious but too rare assertion that limiting public spending is not only unavoidable in the wake of a deep recession, but sometimes healthy...

Facing the most challenging state budget gap in at least a generation, McDonnell crafted a bipartisan compromise that allowed the General Assembly to adjourn just one day later than planned.....

The most significant piece of McDonnell's budget -- though not widely noted -- was the decision to trim the pension costs of future state employees. By shifting the model for those hired after July 1 to one that more closely resembles private-sector retirement plans**, McDonnell took an enormous step in ensuring the state's solvency -- which should soon emerge as a distinct competitive advantage for Virginia's economic development -- while keeping faith with past promises made to current state workers.

This essential reform would have been impossible if Virginia politics were dominated by the public-sector unions that seem determined to drive California and New York, to name the most prominent examples, into bankruptcy, crippling tax increases -- or perhaps both. McDonnell has set an important precedent here.....

At the same time, he went out of his way to stress that Virginia wants "to have a good relationship with the federal government. We want to be partners in getting things done."

It's a good bet that McDonnell was aware even then that a federal decision concerning offshore drilling for oil and natural gas was in the pipeline -- if you'll excuse the pun -- and there was nothing to be gained by taking cheap shots at Washington. The governor's strong and early support for drilling off the coast of Virginia during last year's campaign -- derided as wishful thinking by his critics -- seems set to pay off big-time now that the president has started to clear the way.

McDonnell's subtle handling of his comments about the commonwealth's relationship with the feds emphasizes the style of governing he has used with such success in his first months in office. Call it principled pragmatism, based on a philosophy that recognizes the need for limited government -- and spending -- combined with a willingness to strike compromises that lead to action.....

As Washington sinks deeper in red ink and partisan acrimony, it would do well to look south and emulate the Richmond model being built by Virginia's new governor."

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/commentary/article/ED-BOB04_20100402-194806/334776/

Footnotes: * In eight of the ten years during which Virginia's spending increased by 70%, the Governors were Democrats Mark Warner (now a US Senator) and Tim Kaine (now Chairman of the National Democratic Party).

** It's interesting that by shifting public pension plans to a model similar to the private sector that future government spending increases will be reduced. This demonstrates how much government spending is out of control. Recent polls have shown that public sector employees' compensation now exceeds average employee compensation in the private sector. In addition, the only sector of the economy in which there has been job growth over the period of the current recession has been in the public sector.

It is clear that out-of-control government spending that is characterized, not only by the current Democratic government in Washington, but by state governments run by the same party, must be reduced drastically to avert disastrous consequences to our nation. Instead all Democrats seem to be able to propose in order to reduce the government deficits they continue to build ever larger is to raise taxes on the "rich", the very people we must rely on to get the economy back on track and to boost employment in the private sector.

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