Last night on X I did something I very rarely do: got into an argument with a priest. I’m always wary of such out of respect. But this was a bridge too far and I felt I had to speak. The issue was illegal immigration and the Catholic Church’s efforts to instruct illegals on how to avoid deportation. I objected to such efforts on grounds that it amounts to helping people evade the law. The rejoinder was that we have a moral obligation to follow the laws and so illegals must know their rights, especially as regards to ICE needing a warrant to enter a house. It went back and forth a bit from there but it ended (that is, no further response), with me pointing out that this was the assertion being made:
Congrats, illegal! You’ve jumped the fence! Jackpot! You broke the law but now the Americans must scrupulously follow every possible law and pay for you to stay while they go through a lengthy and expensive process to get you to leave!
How is this just? It simply isn’t. And here’s the real crux of the matter: obeying our laws is not a big ask. It is not an onerous burden to demand that everyone trying to enter the USA do so at a legal point of entry. In fact, crossing illegally is vastly more dangerous and expensive for the migrants than crossing legally. Our asylum laws are very generous. It isn’t difficult for anyone who is under any real threat back home to obtain refugee status. There is a fully developed legal process to determine if a person is a refugee and the dice are loaded in favor of the foreigner. To not avail yourself of this and to instead try the highly dangerous and expensive illegal crossing can only mean one thing: you have no case to make.
And do keep something in mind here: the advocates for these people illegally in the country are not asking for us to provide for an even more generous asylum law combined with strict border security. They’d probably get that out of Trump who is not opposed to immigration: he has said again and again – to some dismay of the hard core MAGA voters – that he’s ok with H1B visas and legal immigration as such. His whole thing is merely that we stop the illegal invasion. That we secure our border and find out who is coming in. That our most law-abiding President since at least Coolidge just wants us to obey the laws.
Entering legally is not a big ask. Neither is getting your visa renewed (advocates for the illegals always claim that half or more illegals are visa overstays…as if that somehow makes it ok). I get the Church on migration: the Church is supranational and has always advocated for the free movement of people. I also understand that one of our charges against the old USSR was their denial of the right to move. But here’s the thing: an insistence that the laws be followed is not anti-immigrant. It is, in fact, the most pro-immigrant stance one can take. It protects the rights of the migrants – whereas the illegal immigration system is routinely and grossly abusive.
This is another thing we don’t pay nearly enough attention to. The real breaking point for me was a couple years ago when this 17 year old boy was found wandering the desert in Arizona (I believe). He had been abandoned by his traffickers because he couldn’t keep up. He was left to die. He would have died if he hadn’t been very fortunately found. When found he was literally crying for his mother…it ripped at my heart to read the story. And then I thought further about it.
The story said that the boy was traveling north to join his father – an illegal immigrant working in (as I recall) Minnesota. In other words, he was being sent to work alongside his illegal father doing work neither of them were legally permitted to do. Then you consider: who lets their child take a difficult, dangerous, several thousand mile journey with strangers? No parent does that – unless the alternative was very much worse. What alternative could be worse? After all, dad was already in the USA – sure, being paid substandard wages by ruthlessly exploitive rat bastards…but still making far more than he could make in Mexico. In other words, was there a crying need so desperate that you’d essentially bet your son’s life on it?
Nope. Can’t be. Then it dawned on me – the kid was from an area of Mexico where the Cartels are all-powerful. The Cartels that transport the illegals. He wasn’t sent north by his mother…he was sent north by the Cartels who provide the slave labor for the USA. And you just know take a cut of the wages (after all, the Cartels don’t transport you for free; its actually a pretty stiff price and most of the migrants don’t have that much cash…but you know the Cartels are getting paid). You can easily see the Cartels telling mom that the boy is going north…and what can she do? She just a woman against ruthless men armed with machine guns…they own the police. And she’s got her other kids to think of. Off the boy goes…almost to his death.
In my reading of the relevant US statutes, ICE almost never needs a judicial warrant. It is a bit debatable whether they need one to enter a private home or whether probable cause is sufficient to enter – but even if they do need a judicial warrant to enter a private home such entry can only be objected to by the home’s owner or agent…and, guys, illegals living ten to a room do not have a valid rental agreement and the owner isn’t going to object because doing so just proves the violation of multiple immigration and zoning laws. But in addition to this, it is absurd to demand that we Americans adhere to the highest jot and tittle of the law while the illegals are free to break our laws at will. It can’t work like that – the law isn’t a suicide pact. Sure, everyone has inalienable rights and I’ll die to defend such rights…but this doesn’t mean I’m going to let someone screw me via the law.
The illegals didn’t forget that its illegal to enter. They didn’t forget that there are legal points of entry. They didn’t forget their visa was going to expire. They didn’t forget that illegals cannot be legally employed in the USA. They knew all up and down the line and again and again that they were breaking laws – and that they were giving a gigantic middle finger to the United States of America…showing utter contempt for this nation and her people. Its a stranger walking into your house, taking a sandwich out of your fridge, settling on the couch and then demanding you go through a legal eviction process to remove him. Even if the law says you must, justice says you can grab him by the hair and toss him out.
And before anyone out there goes on about the multiple Biblical injunctions to welcome the stranger in both Old and New Testaments: I am the most welcoming guy you can imagine. I’m also helpful to those in distress. If I did find the man beaten by robbers I would do everything I could to take care of him. Anyone coming into my country is going to get a hearty “hello”. If you are a foreigner and your life depends on escape from your homeland, not only will I accept you into the USA, I’ll even agree to our government helping you to escape the clutches of the tyrants trying to kill you. For instance, I’m totally ok right now with every Druze, Alawite and Christian in Syria getting the heck out of Dodge – I know what is happening to them and what is likely to keep happening to them.
Knock on the door. That’s all I’m asking. Let me know who you are as you come in. Cross at a legal point of entry. Once again: not a big ask.
And nobody can have any rational, moral objection to this stance. Just as nobody would let a stranger come in through the window unannounced, so nobody can rationally object to a nation hanging a sign at the legal point of entry and saying that everyone has to come through that door. It is the only possible way to do it morally…because having a legal point of entry where people present themselves for legal entry cuts out all of the criminals – in and outside the USA – harming these poor people. You’re safe. Come here. I’ll look after you as if you’re one of my own. If you can’t ever go home again I’ll place you on a path to citizenship. I’m not cruel. The traffickers and their enablers are.
And I’m terribly sorry but being poor is not being oppressed. Almost everyone is poorer than Americans. Heck, the UK’s income is on par with Alabama, America’s poorest State. If being poor is a valid reason to enter the USA then we’re going to have to take 9 out of 10 people in the world and that is obviously not physically possible. I understand that if you are a poor foreigner you might want to come to America and live the American dream – I favor that. But not everyone all at once. Maybe we can increase the annual numbers but we also can’t just take in millions willy nilly. We’re 37 trillion dollars in debt. We have massive homeless and drug addict problems. Our infrastructure needs lots of work. Our mining, manufacturing and farming sectors have to be revived. We can’t do everything for everyone all at once and that means we have to prioritize our resources…and, sure, people wanting to come in are in the mix, but they aren’t everything. Some people will just have to wait a bit.
In the end, I refuse to be insane on this issue. Or any other, for that matter. It isn’t a big ask, you know, to demand that people be clean and respectful in public spaces, either. I could go on quite a long list of things the Left has tolerated which are actually intolerable. But that’s for another time: today I talk immigration and I refuse to be insane. I refuse to be suckered into essentially providing back up for traffickers. I won’t be guilt tripped into the ruthless exploitation of foreigners. I will insist upon the easiest possible way: just obey the law. It isn’t difficult. If everyone does that regarding immigration, then the issue is solved. Forever. At little long term cost.
Time for everyone to get on board with this. Not a big ask.
Blogs For Victory 
OT, but there seems to be some confusion by a couple of our unwanted guests as to what constitutes discourse. So as to not get accused of using a right-wing source, I’m quoting one of the most well-known Progressive women of the last century. Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
So to Rocks and Lynne, you can continue to come here and discuss people, just don’t whine when your comments get deleted. Better yet, find another blog to use as a verbal litterbox.
In all these years of dealing with Rocks, in all his various personas and disguises, I can’t remember a single time he came here for any reason other than to trash-talk a prominent conservative. It started with GW Bush, and never ended. It has never risen above the level of intellect or actual discourse represented by entities like The View—it’s just petty mindless gossip and personal attacks, sometimes thinly (but never effectively) disguised as political commentary. As I said, the goal is clearly not to engage in the exchange of ideas, but just to make himself the center of attention in a bickerfest, which is where he is most comfortable.
It’s a mental illness, much like the gender dysphoria we see celebrated on the Left, and depends on enabling from others. We are not responsible for validating it by participating.
Over on X I’m having a fairly nice discussion with a Canadian person about the immigration issue. I’m right! But the argument is respectful and is an exchange of ideas. Our Lefties here never want that…as if they’re afraid that conceding we’re human and might have a point destroys their entire worldview.
“Their” constant whining about Trump is just a small example of the kind of truly insane focus a certain mentality has on him, and on people instead of policy.
“Swatting” is becoming more common, as these profoundly malignant lunatics are not just harassing conservatives and Trump supporters with juvenile antics like sending COD pizza deliveries to their houses, they are actively trying to get someone killed by convincing police departments to go to houses armed and anticipating violence. In one example the police were told there was a violent man inside the house determined to commit “suicide by cop”, pretty much guaranteeing that responding police would shoot anyone who appeared to be a possible threat.
Journalist Nick Sortor posted:
If you bother to read the swill posted by our blog troll(s) you see that the motivation for the determination to continue dumping garbage Leftist narratives here is not just to attack Trump—it is to attack US for supporting him. This is how this pathology works.
Blind impotent rage can be annoying, as it is here, or it can be dangerous, as we see when armed police kick down a door in the middle of the night. But it is always indicative of mental illness.
They not only hate Trump, they hate anyone who doesn’t hate Trump, and they feel entitled to express that irrational hatred any way they choose.
Is This Why Trump’s Pick to Lead the CDC Had His Nomination Withdrawn?
Its behind a paywall! But I did read Weldon’s statement and he’s claiming that Big Pharma got to Collins…which is something definitely within the realm of possibility.
I’m neutral on the vax-causes-autism debate. I am certain, however, that we are massively over-diagnosing autism because there are huge benefits provided to families and people with autism (not kidding: step daughter when she ran her local PTA had parents lobbying to have their kids declared special needs because of the extra resources provided to such families). What we do know for certain is that all standards have been lowered over the past few decades. All of them. And that means that the standards for scientific research on vaccines have also been lowered. I don’t trust anyone who has been in official position on this matter – if they aren’t bought by Big Pharma then I don’t know if they’re even competent to make a ruling. Having Bobby and his team look into this matter is the only way we’re going to find out what’s going on – doubters and actual experts are the path forward here. Of course, Big Pharma doesn’t want that – they’re raking it in and anything that casts doubt on their products will be a huge financial hit.
I am certain, however, that we are massively over-diagnosing autism because there are huge benefits provided to families and people with autism (not kidding: step daughter when she ran her local PTA had parents lobbying to have their kids declared special needs because of the extra resources provided to such families).
I had not thought of that aspect. In the last few decades the reported incidence of autism has gone up exponentially, so, even discounting over-diagnosing it, there is something that’s causing it; might even be a combination of factors. We need to find out and do whatever is necessary to reverse the trend. That said, I have never had anyone in my family in 6 generations who was ever diagnosed with autism, and in my entire life, I’ve only known two people who were autistic, so the current number being thrown about that 1 in 34 children born today are autistic doesn’t ring true for me.
For me as well. One of my older brothers is autistic. As he was born 3 years before me, my entire growing up was around an autistic person. I know precisely what autistic people are like. A lot of people I see claiming autism don’t exhibit the least things my brother has (side note, Dustin Hoffman in Rain Main absolutely nailed the autistic adult – he might have been trying to play my brother). I realize its a spectrum but if you’re not far enough along on the spectrum for it to be a problem, then it ain’t really autism.
The vax/autism issue is cluttered with several different elements.
One, that I have mentioned, is the trend to give multiple vaccinations at the same time. Parents like this because it is cheaper and more convenient—fewer visits to the doctor, fewer doctor bills. Here I interject my own parallel personal experience with multiple vaccinations.
With horses, it has also become common to combine vaccination drugs, so we started with “three-way” and moved on to “four-way’ and so on up to “seven-way”. And I found my horses having strong negative reactions, ranging from high fevers and lethargy to muscle aches and swelling and sores at the injection sites. When you have horses you learn to read signs of distress and pain, like creases between the eyes, and I saw these as well. They were miserable, for days. They looked like zombies. So I stopped doing the multiple vaccines. Sure, it cost me a lot more to buy separate vaccines, and there was a lot more labor involved. But I also stopped hurting my horses in the name of protecting them.
I apply this lesson to the question of vaccines injuring children. There are too many stories of happy, healthy, energetic babies who interact with their parents becoming sluggish and lethargic and disconnected within hours of multi-vaxxes, some of them never getting back to normal. Yet I never hear of anyone advocating for giving one drug at a time and letting those little bodies adapt and recover before giving the next one.
Then there is the fact that not all vaccines are equal. A vaccine for a specific disease, such as measles, might have different chemical compositions from one time to another, and with different preservatives. And then there is this, which is only one example: From the linked article:
“The parents made two different assertions. One was the fact that FDA, CDC, and Pharma had allowed a tremendous amount of a neurotoxic preservative called thimerosal into the infant schedule and that the thimerosal was the cause of the problem. Under pressure from me and many other members of the House, both Democrat and Republican, the CDC and Pharma removed the neurotoxic thimerosal, but it took them years to do it. One of the things that seemed to unite us in The House who engaged on this was
CDC ended up publishing a research study claiming the mercury had done no harm, but there were credible accusations that CDC had incorrectly manipulated the data to exonerate themselves.” (The author speculates that objections to his nomination were based on fears that he would reopen investigations into this.)
There are other additives in vaccines:
“Aluminum salts are incorporated into some vaccine formulations as an adjuvant. An adjuvant is a substance added to some vaccines to enhance the immune response of vaccinated individuals. The aluminum salts in some FDA-approved vaccines are aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, alum (potassium aluminum sulfate), or mixed aluminum salts.” There can be formaldehyde, or stabilizers: “Stabilizers added to vaccines include: sugars such as sucrose and lactose, amino acids such as glycine or the monosodium salt of glutamic acid and proteins such as human serum albumin or gelatin.”
There is no guarantee that these additional ingredients in vaccines are the same, or in the same concentrations, from one batch to another. We have recently read of the Covid “vaccine” ( which does not act like a true vaccine) producing different reactions due to differences from one batch to another. And I haven’t heard of research into the possibility of a safe ingredient in one vaccine possibly interacting with an otherwise benign ingredient in another. If the vaccines are separately tested and approved, are they then tested for interactions with each other?
So while we can agree that it is a good thing to vaccinate children against certain diseases, we should avoid lumping all vaccines together, either figuratively or literally. It only makes sense to study each element of concern and address it.
See? Here you come with real world experience of vaccines (in horses, to be sure so its not a 1:1 comparison but its still a valid concern) along with an article that cites possible problems at the CDC and you know what our Left would do: call you a Vaccine Denier! You did no such thing – you just have some experiences and some resulting concerns. Can we look? No!!! You dratted Vaccine Denier!!!!
You might have heard of the Canadian Indian Residential School Gravesites – this was something that popped up in Canada back in 2021. The story was that tens of thousands of Native kids were killed in Residential Schools, mostly run by Catholics…because you know those darned priests and nuns: always killing kids by the bushel! The government went flat out into it. The Pope was induced to apologize for it. A Truth and Reconciliation Committee was created. Gigantic amounts of taxpayer dollars were appropriated to investigate it – to find those graves and finally bring belated justice to the tribes of Canada who were so horribly oppressed!
And after all that the investigation was quietly terminated late last year because NOT ONE BIT OF EVIDENCE WAS FOUND. The whole thing was made up. A myth. Created out of whole cloth. Now, how did the Canadian Left respond to this? By demanding that Residential School Grave Denial be made a hate crime. Think about that – they were absolutely proved to be lying and they want to make their lie legally obligatory in Canada. That is how you shut down debate…and so, too, with “Vaccine Denier” here in the USA. It isn’t that they have solid proof there’s no problem with the vaccines…it is that they don’t want anyone to look into vaccines.
I am and always have been adamantly against the concept of a “hate crime”. It is a version of a Thought Crime, and it establishes different levels of the value of human lives.
The example I have given is that if my white brother is paying for something at a convenience store and the clerk is black, and a robber comes in and shoots both men, if the robber is then wearing a swastika t-shirt or there is some other thing that lets the authorities link him to a racist group at that point the death of the black clerk would be considered to have more value than the death of my white brother, based on the assignment of a motive that fits the “hate crime” template. The robber would not have to purposely kill the clerk. My brother could have pulled a gun of his own and the clerk got caught in crossfire. The t-shirt could be borrowed, the clerk could be light-skinned and not obviously black, etc.
But the very existence of the Thought Crime aspect, where an assumed hostile motive toward a protected class sets up a multi-tiered system of justice, is simply wrong.
I wonder how many illegal immigrants the Vatican has welcomed inside their walls and tended to their needs. Any guesses?
Those of us in little parishes around the country see the Church much more as it was intended, and is. But there is no doubt that the hierarchy of the Church is at least as political as it is religious, maybe even more so, and somewhat arrogant and removed from ordinary people.
And the Church, drawing from the human gene pool as it must for its members, also has its share of mental illnesses, personality disorders and so on. Its timidity in addressing non-PC issues such as heresy means it tolerates clergy who openly advocate for things forbidden by strict Catholic dogma, such as nuns who advocate for abortion, and its hesitancy in standing up for separation from politics has allowed it to try to use its authority to shape political agendas and policies.
It’s a failing common to all religions.
OT, but I think this is just the initial tug on a thread that will continue to unravel.
While all of the autopen “signatures” are suspect, certainly those that took place while Biden was out of the country are easy to identify as fraudulent. And I suspect that once the “aide” is identified and questioned, he or she will admit to what is being claimed. I don’t know if it is possible to undo a bill once it has been accepted as signed, but surely every other thing with an autopen “signature” should be negated.
Though that means we can no longer refer to Liz Cheney as “presumed felon Liz Cheney”.
The American Criminal Liberty Union and the laughably misnamed “Democracy” Forward have filed a suit to protect members of Tren de Aragua from deportation with language including this: It is based on a complaint about Trump possibly invoking the “Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a rarely used law allowing for quick deportation of foreigners during times of war or invasion.”
So now the ACLU, et al, are claiming that illegal aliens who have also committed criminal acts while in the country illegally have “basic constitutional rights”.
The Left is so shameless in its defense of, protection of and advocacy for criminals that they seem quite confident in their support from the public. And, of course, of the ignorance of their base when it comes to understanding the Constitution. It’s pretty bold to complain that violent criminals might feel a “chill” when it comes to their “their day-to-day activities” (which appear to be violent crime in many forms). Their victims have certainly felt a “chill” when faced with armed thugs threatening them and taking over their homes, but they are evidently not in the current most-protected class of criminals.
Heaven forbid that violent criminals might feel “fear and uncertainty” as they go about “their day-to-day activities” which are, by definition, marked by day-by-day violation of our immigration and asylum laws as well as their other random criminal acts.