Conservative Rumblings

Hypocrisy always amazes me. It makes me shake my head when people who consider themselves intelligent say things that are just so absurd and hypocritical that I can barely debate the topic without having this insane urge to shove a pair of rusty nails in my ears to stop the pain.

My newest issue? Darfur. Oh yes, we all know about Darfur. Genocide, slaughter, time to donate money, blah blah, whine, whine. We know the facts (well, I shouldn’t say that; I know the facts, for sure, but I think a lot of the pro-Darfur crowd are sorely misinformed): the Janjaweed militia is killing a lot of people, and the Sudanese government is supporting them.

Now, the part I don’t get is why are the lives of those victims in Darfur more important than those same kind of victims in Iraq? Apparently, they are, at least according to the liberal activists of this country.

Saddam Hussein gassed 100,000s of Kurds in the ’90s, and his Baath party persecuted and ethnically cleansed anyone that he felt like pointing a finger at. That’s the same kind of thing that’s happening in Sudan, but the same people who are screaming for us to go into Darfur are the same ones demanding we pull out of Iraq. What gives?

Faster than Ted Kennedy can down a bottle of scotch (and that’s pretty damn fast), liberals usually come back at me when I say this with the argument of, “It was none of our business to go to Iraq.”

Why, then, is it our business to go to Darfur? It’s a simple question, but the answer isn’t nearly as simple. If you want to say that nothing is our business, than we should go back to pre-WWII isolationism, and we can pull our foreign aid from the hundreds of countries we are supporting and just bury our heads in the sand. Or, we can continue to stick our noses into situations that need to be fixed, such as Iraq and Darfur.

The problem is that a lot of the people who are clamoring for us to invade Darfur (and yes, it would be an invasion) don’t understand that by doing so, we are obligating ourselves to go fight every human rights violation in the world.
It’s terrible what’s happening in Sudan, I agree, but what was happening in Iraq was terrible, what’s happening in North Korea is terrible, and what’s happening in China is terrible.

If we are going to be the world’s police, than we must take care of the other human rights violations on the planet. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You cannot be selective here; just because it’s vogue to bash one and support the other doesn’t mean that that course of action is right. In my experience, what’s vogue is usually the polar opposite of what’s right, but that’s just my personal cynicism.
People who think that we can make any sort of difference in Sudan by just dropping humanitarian aid are kidding themselves. Does anyone remember how badly we screwed up Somalia by doing just that? If we give the defenseless villagers supplies, the second we leave (or sooner), the army will run out of the jungle, slaughter the people and pick up the supplies.

What would end up happening is we would have to fight off these militants in order to protect the populace, and it would turn into a bloody fight through the jungles and harsh terrain of Sudan as our troops tried to fight insurgents who know the area far better. Sound familiar? You bet it does; we would be in a similar situation to Iraq, and within a few months, the people who staged hunger strikes to get us to go to Darfur would be gorging themselves to make us come back.

I guess I’m just tired of the double standards. If you slap a “Save Darfur” sticker on your car, you are a hero, but if you put one saying “Win in Iraq,” you would probably get run off the road by a ravenous pack of Prius-driving activists. It’s vogue to walk around ’supporting’ Darfur, or to donate a dollar here and there to some random Darfur charity, but in reality, all that kind of stuff does is bump up the self-esteem of those who are doing it. No one should actually believe that wearing a sticker is going to help those people over there.

Darfur is not strictly a poverty situation that can be fixed by throwing money at it; Darfur will need a military response to have any sort of positive resolution, and the anti-war activists protesting Iraq and demanding action in Darfur need to realize this.

Note: This article was written as part of a 2vs2 HeadtoHead set of opinion articles (two pro and two con, answering the question of “Should There be Limits on Capitalism?”) I wrote on the “con” side.

Setting any sort of artificial “cap” on capitalism completely takes away the very foundation of what America is. Capitalism is freedom; if you restrict capitalism, you are restricting freedom. People and businesses should have the right to own property, invest their money and expand their livelihood.
When you are talking about setting some sort of monetary cap, who would decide this cap?

Who is the one that can say, well, you’re making too much money, but you’re not making enough? You wouldn’t be able to just set some sort of arbitrary number, because different businesses and different people have different costs and needs, and what is an acceptable income for person or business may result in a catastrophically low income for someone else.

We are killing our country already by squashing the free market (which, to be honest, would regulate itself a lot better than most people give it credit for). Our country grew to where it is today by utilizing the massive industrial base and tremendous national resources that a country as big as the U.S. has at its disposal, but now we are losing ground in the worldwide market. Why? Because the restrictions being put on business are making it cost prohibitive to operate in this country. Now, we’re supposed to limit capitalism even more? While we’re at it, let’s just drop the ‘A’ from U.S.A. and add a S.R. on the end. We all know how successful THAT country was.

Right now, we are forcing businesses (well, at least businesses that want to make a profit) to either outsource or start breaking themselves apart with layoffs or by closing down parts of the company. That is hideously wrong, and terribly damaging to our country.

There’s no reason that a business or person who is successful should be stopped in their tracks and made to conform to a standard that some socialist activist came up with. The only, and I mean only, restrictions on capitalism I can tolerate are ones that protect the health and safety of the workers. After all, hurt workers don’t produce much product, do they?

Besides, regardless of that business part of the equation, without free capitalism, where is the drive to do better? In a more socialist scheme, no matter how hard you work, you’re going to get your “fair share.” There’s no point in working harder or doing something outside the box if you are going to be shut down for exceeding your lot in life, as decided by the good old government. Innovation will be crushed, and the country would never rise above U.S.S.R.-style mediocrity.

Capitalism means that the country and the economy are ruled by money, and thus, by the individual. Socialism means a state-imposed rule, and personally, I already think the government is too nosy. Now we want to let them dictate our money and livelihood as well? Please.

I’m sorry if this comes as some sort of synapse collapsing shock to anyone, but a capitalist system is actually more fair than a socialist system.
Do you know why? Because in a capitalist economy, you get what you put in. If you sit on your butt watching T.V. collecting welfare, that’s your problem, and you’re not going to get as far as someone that is out working hard.

None of the supposed “crooks” and “evil” people in this country, such as Donald Trump or Bill Gates, got there with government handouts. They got there by working hard, in a capitalist economy that did not restrict their freedom.

Capitalism obviously works; America would not have risen to be the most powerful country in the history of the world in just over 230 years if we had a flaw as huge as using capitalism over socialism, and right now, capitalism is widely considered the dominant form of economic system in the world.

Businesses and individuals will just stop trying to improve themselves if capitalism is restricted too much. After all, if they know that once they reach a certain level the government will reach in and shut them down, why even bother? Hello socialism, and good-bye prosperity.

Section: Opinion/Editorial
Published: Waubonsee Insight, March 2007 Issue

In my oh-so-humble opinion, the prison system in America needs a significant overhaul.

Annually, the state prison system alone expends $30 billion on its prisons and prisoners, and the Bureau of Prisons blew $5 billion in 2006 on just 182,000 federal inmates.

With the United States sitting on the title of “highest incarceration rate in the world” (in December 2006, 1 out of every 32 adults was either behind bars, on probation or on parole), these exorbitant amounts of money are only bound to increase.

I am not a big fan of giving free money to anyone, but honestly, if our welfare state of a government is going to throw money at a certain group of people, why should the criminals be getting it?

We could just lower taxes and let the people who earned the money keep it, or we could use it to do things like, say, defend our borders or crack down on terrorists or gangs.

But that’s beside the point; I really don’t care where the money goes right now, except that I don’t believe it should go to a bunch of convicts.

We spend so much money feeding, clothing and entertaining the worst denizens of society that people who don’t understand our convoluted style of prisoner management would probably think that those angry fellas locked up behind bars are our version of royalty. After all, in this country, being a convict gets you better treatment than being jobless and/or homeless. Free food , free lodging, free entertainment…pretty comfy for a criminal.

Therefore, I have decided that it’s time for a change. What follows is my grand plan for prisoners. Be warned: even though I did (regretfully) scrap my plan for staging gladiatorial-style matches between prisoners, human rights activists may still be offended.

Give me credit, though; I DID remove the script notes for the first episode of my prisoner reality show: Five Inmates, One Parachute: Survivor at 15,000 Feet.
Now, on to the plan: first, living conditions.

Instead of sitting inside, in air-conditioned rooms, convicts should be outside slaving away like it’s a Georgia chain gang.

Now, originally, my plan was for these prisoners to break rocks (a nod back to the glory days of 1930s prisons), however, nothing is really accomplished here, other than tiring out the criminals.

And, what do you do when a prisoner flat out won’t work? You can throw him in solitary for a month, but in the end, you can’t force them to break rocks without resorting to things like cattle prods and Britney Spears music.

In order to combat this eventuality, my new plan has the prisoners doing something else with their precious time: agriculture work.

But not just any agriculture work; the prisoners will cultivate crops, grow trees and harvest fruits…and then they’ll eat the fruits of their labor.

If they don’t work hard, they don’t eat. It’s that simple. We stop draining the taxpayer’s resources to feed their sorry butts, and the criminals learn the value of a hard day’s work.

Also, the prisoners will be put in groups. That way, if one con begins to slack, mob justice will slap him into line; after all, if one member of a group slows down, everyone gets less food, and no one will be happy with that.

With regard to heat and electricity and all those sorts of things, prisoners can (and will) contribute in that regard as well. Each group will have to use stationary bicycles to store up energy in their cellblock’s batteries, and this energy can be used for heating, cooling or entertainment.

Seeing the advantages of this? Prisoners have to sweat a bit to get their amenities, instead of all of us working our tails off so that the government can take our money to pay for said amenities; it’s almost as good as the prison system in Mexico, where cons have to pay the jail for food, rent and clothing.

Criminals should also not be allowed access to uncensored news. News should be filtered through an agency and then transmitted to the prisoners. Prisons should have a television network like the Armed Forces Network. Censored news, G-rated movies and educational programs are what the criminals need to be watching. After all, this is prison, not the “Happy-happy-joy-joy-let’s-watch-movies-while-we-shank-Vinny” Resort.

A perfect example of why this is needed is the situation that arose with Agent Ramos, the former Border Patrol agent who is now behind bars for doing his job (he shot a drug smuggler in the butt, however, he then made the rookie mistake of cleaning up the scene before investigators showed up, and our victim-friendly justice system promptly threw him in the slammer faster than Barack Obama can say, “Look at me, I’ve been in politics only 18 months but somehow I’m qualified to be president!”).

Anyway, a few weeks ago, Agent Ramos was assaulted in his prison cell after fellow inmates, who he suspected were illegal immigrants, saw his photo on television, identifying him as a BP agent who shot a Mexican smuggler. The assault would have been completely avoided by censoring the news before the criminals saw it.
Now, in a stunningly left-wing statement for me to make, I’m also abolishing the death penalty.

Yes, yes, I know; believe me, it pains me to say that I agree with something that emanates from the gaping abyss of liberalism, but honestly, it costs a heck of a lot more money to execute someone than it does to have them break rocks or plant trees.
Sorry to get your hopes up, but I’m not going to dance through the halls of Waubonsee with daisies in-hand and a Che Guevara beret on my head; I’m just a heartless Republican that wants to save some money.

Besides, it’s a lot easier on the cons to get an arm full of chemicals than it is to spend the next fifty years in hard labor.

And I don’t think criminals deserve anything ‘easy.’

Section: Opinion
Published: Waubonsee Insight, February 2007 Issue

Every semester, Kathy Westman’s Sociology class creates a new left-wing board to put up on the second floor of Bodie, and thus, I am presented with a source of entertainment. There’s a lot of funny stuff that ends up taped or stapled to the wall. I’m not disrespecting her teaching style, of course; her and I know that we don’t see eye to eye on political issues.

Regardless of those views, however, I do commend her for having her students complete an involved project. I think having the board be right-wing would be much more appealing, but it’s nice to see a teacher who requires more out of her students.

However, this newest board gave me something beyond a chuckle and a smile: the inspiration for this article! The week before classes started, I was on campus working on this newspaper, and since I wasn’t in that much of a hurry, I spent a little time studying this latest incarnation, which seems to be bashing big business in America.

A Monopoly board parody casts President Bush as Rich Uncle Penny Bags and is surrounded by photos of other successful people such as Donald Trump and Bill Gates. A paper hanging to the left grammatically incorrectly admonished me to “read me if you gotta a sec” [sic], but I was able to resist. I digress; the point of this column is not to attack the board or the student who wrote that.

This display got me thinking, however, which is why I mention it. The board poked at certain individual people, and that reminded me that it was time to update my list of the worst people in existence.

It only seems fair, after all. You see, my list has been stable for a while, but now that the Butcher of Baghdad has been relieved of his position among the living, there’s a vacancy!

Obviously, we have to start with the Three Prime Evils. We have Diablo, the Lord of Terror (otherwise known as Osama Bin Laden), Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) and Baal, Lord of Destruction (Kim Jong Il). Kudos to anyone who gets those references.

Saddam Hussein occupied slot number four, which we will get back to in a minute. With four murdering maniacs already present, I really had to be careful with who else I included. I finally decided on including a public personality, and thus, rounding out the top-5 is Rosie O’Donnell, the vile love child of Satan and Medusa. If you’re not certain that she belongs with the previous three devils, just listen to her speak for a few minutes.

Now, back to Saddam. You see, I have to replace him, since obviously he can’t be a member of the top-five worst people in existence if he’s dead.

But who else could I bestow the honor on? Since celebrities are already represented, there’s no need for another. Warlords and mass murderers have their champions, which only leaves one last class of people that could spawn someone terrible enough to fit the moniker of “Worst Person in The World:” politicians!

Now here’s the hard part. Which one makes the cut? Obvious choices appear immediately, of course, but for a number of reasons, we have to blow right by them.

Hillary Clinton? Too vogue, and besides, she’d probably try to bring along that village that she’s always talking about (you know, the one that she says we need to be able to raise our children) and I certainly don’t have room in this list for a whole village. Barack Obama? He doesn’t deserve the publicity he’s already getting, much less to be included in this list.

AlGore [sic] is a bellowing, harmless tree-hugger these days, and Michael Moore is too busy eating tacos to cause us any more harm. Now, old Slick Willy might be a good addition, but honestly, putting him in the list with Rosie O’Donnell is just asking for an incident that neither you nor I want to see or even think about.

John Kerry, Joe Biden and Harry Reid, the Three Musketeers of Cut and Run, would probably do just that at the very mention of this list, so again, not very exciting additions.

But fear not! I finally trashed my way through the churning depths of liberalism and came down with two finalists: Nancy Pelosi, our favorite little friend from the Great State of Immorality, and Ted Kennedy, Scotch bottles and all.

Both have done their part to destroy the fabric of normal American society. Both speak, often, without having any clue what they are talking about. But while Kennedy’s favorite medium is a bawling, drunken rage, Pelosi is a big fan of the “smile to their faces, trash ‘em to their backs,” sort of attack.

When it all comes down to it, I can only include one of them. Despite the fact that they are both terrible excuses for politicians and even worse excuses for humans, I am afraid that since, to the best of my knowledge, Nancy Pelosi has never murdered a hooker, Mister Ted Kennedy, who has, will receive the honor of becoming the latest member of the “Top-5 Worst People In The World.” Congrats, Teddy! The Scotch is on me!

11. Practicing capitalism and using the word “God” are declared Federal crimes.

10. Ted Kennedy legalizes the murder of hookers and adds “365 Bottles of Scotch” to his yearly salary.

9. Michael Moore is appointed head of the US Department of Health. Within six weeks, average life expectancy of an American citizen drops to 30.

8. Nancy Pelosi bans all video games and movies rated higher than “E.” Anyone caught watching a forbidden movie will be forced to discuss the meaning of the word “plan” with John Kerry.

7. The national anthem is changed from “The Star Spangled Banner” to “Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows.”

6. Democrats pass a law abolishing national borders. Crime rises by 320% as illegal immigration reaches an all-time high. Mexico also gains veto power over all U.S. actions.

5. Al Qaeda establishes a firebase on the Capitol steps; Capitol Hill apologizes for existing.

4. Kim Jong Il nukes China, Japan, Taiwan and Russia, but the U.S. does not intervene because the United Nations has determined that a military retaliation is too “provocative.” Canada is then taken over by militant forces from Honduras when the Democrats refuse to come to their aid without U.N. permission.

3. After pulling troops out of Iraq and watching the government of the country crumble, Congress is surprised when Iraq changes its name to “Terrorists ‘R Us: No Group is Too Radical.”

2. Al Gore tries to install “An Inconvenient Truth” as the new constitution of the country. When he fails, he tears his suit to ribbons, eats it, and runs out the door alternately yelling “in-her-net” and making some sort of bestial roar.

1. Osama Bin Laden comes out of hiding, proclaiming, “Finally! I no longer have to worry about being killed by the U.S.!”

Americans love fast results. The quicker we can get something, the better. Our culture has become so obsessed with speed that it is often the deciding factor when making a decision. Who cares how shoddy a product is if we can get it fast?

After the 2006 midterm election, it appears that Americans have let their obsession with fast results cloud their judgment. Voters all over the country abandoned reason and fact and fell for false promises and insults.

Democrats used the campaign strategy of “we’re not the Republicans” to take over the House and Senate; however, it’s no secret that the Republican seats were mostly lost due to the Iraq war.

Most voters agreed that the Iraq war was a primary concern for them at the polls, but the problem is, most voters also don’t understand the facts and implications of pulling out of the Iraq war.

They don’t realize that a long-term engagement against terrorism is not going to be over tomorrow.

Anyone that thought we were going to go into Iraq, knock Saddam off his Kurd-slaughtering pedestal and then leave within a couple of days is in need of a serious reality check.

Fighting terrorism is an ongoing process; Iraq is only a front in the war.
Most of the insurgents we are fighting in Iraq are not even Iraqi. They’re Syrian, Iranian, and yes, members of Al Qaeda.

Abandoning Iraq, as the Party of Cut and Run has promised to do, will lead to the collapse of society in that country, and the subsequent takeover of that country by radical Islamifascists.

Iraq is a microcosm of the entire war on terror. If we lose Iraq, terrorism will be allowed to flourish and our country will be in far more danger than it is now.

Many months ago, I penned a piece that detailed the plight my band of wayward scribes was facing.

As you may know, we were forcefully moved from our home within the castle walls into the inhospitable environment from which we now publish our monthly musings and prattlings.

Since then, the make-up of our band has changed dramatically; gone are some legendary figures, and gone are some troublesome malcontents. I now speak as the leader of this group, and despite the horrific conditions imposed on us by the rulers of this nation; our band has grown into a huge force of talented scribes, artists and anthologists.

So large, in fact, that we have vastly outgrown the cave that we are confined to. I am proud to say that our troop now boasts some of the most talented wordsmiths in the land, but we are often limited by our surroundings.

What has not changed, however, is the deplorable and inhuman existence we were forced into by the rulers of the kingdom.

As I wrote about last season, our band had once been members of the nation; embraced by the rulers of the kingdom, the subjects and scholars alike. Soon, though, our spot in the castle was taken from us and we were exiled into the mountains, to live in poverty in whatever caves and shelters we could find.

We were promised a spot in the kingdom if we went along with the kingdom’s plans and did not cause a commotion; “endure a few seasons” we were told, “wait until the kingdom has a space for you.”

We were supplicated by these claims; lured in by the sweet words of the Queen of the Court who sits on the throne, we believed that after a few rough seasons in our cave, we would be allowed back into the kingdom.

As you can see, three hundred and thirty-one days later, we still sit in our cave. We continue to provide our services to the citizens of the kingdom, but we no longer believe that we will be allowed back, or that it was ever in the plan to let us back.
We offered the rulers of the kingdom many choices for our re-entry into the kingdom, only to have members of the court scream in our ears that we would, “never, never,” get the residence we requested.

This leads me to my point. The Queen rules from her throne, much like the Egyptian god she takes her name from, but she does not care anymore about her subjects. Other members of her royal court share the same thoughts.
Yes, there are those that would like to see the subjects treated fairly, but for the rest, the number of gold coins you contribute to the kingdom has become the deciding factor to your importance among the elite.

To be sure, there are still nobles who care. Believe me, I draw a sharp line between the nobles and the throne-sitter’s court.

These nobles are brave and true artisans who teach their craft to willing pupils; whether it is the written word, theatre or pottery skills, these wise men and women share their vast knowledge with a populace forgotten by the rulers.

They are among the ordinary citizens, and unlike the castle’s rulers, they are still in touch with the common folk.

These individuals teach and instruct with a passion and a fire that the rulers of the land are no longer able or willing to exert. In fact, the rulers of the kingdom are sometimes just as meddlesome and conniving when dealing with the nobles as they are with us.

I tip my cap to the nobles for their service, and they should be commended for succeeding where the rulers have failed.

The question my band must ask now is why? Have our fiery thoughts and words, often contradictory to the socially acceptable opinion, relegated us to this existence? Or have we simply been forgotten in our uninhabitable cave, while the rulers calmly sit in their spacious throne rooms making their plans?

Or, as I suspect, is the kingdom now more concerned with fame and fortune: the accolades of other rulers, the gifts brought by visitors of far off lands, and the coin piling up within the castle walls far outweigh the importance of the kingdom’s subjects.

Every year it gets worse. It started off as a bunch of crack-addicted malcontents who were too stupid and too lazy to get real jobs making a bunch of ludicrous claims about what happened on September 11th.

These sad people were still upset about Al Gore losing the 2000 Election, still wishing for Bill “I Lie Under Oath” Clinton to be back in office, and too hung up on how “evil” Americans are to ever even consider that Islamic Jihadists killing 3000 Americans because we are not their same religion is an extremely viable and plausible scenario.

These people decided to get back at god knows who by creating some far fetched dreamscapes that they could play out in their sick, twisted minds.

It’s been five years now, and unfortunately, the conspiracy theories have not evaporated; instead, these fringe radicals are starting to filter into our daily lives. People who consider themselves “mainstream” are now grabbing a hold of these twisted theories and claiming them to be truth.

I, for one, am quite sick of it. Conspiracy theories are nothing new; alien cover-ups in Roswell comes to my mind as one of the longest living and most popular conspiracy theories in existence.

It is my sincere hope that the disgusting 9/11 conspiracy theories never attain such notoriety. Due to a bunch of shrill Leftists, however, that hope is fading as fast as the Democrat’s chance to win the House and Senate next month.

Public personalities such as David Ray Griffin and Cynthia McKinney have been hailing certain 9/11 theories as fact, which aside from being depraved, is also hideously ignorant and self-absorbed.

One of the things that makes these conspiracy theories so stupid is the fact that most of them use such sketchy data and such broad assumptions that you really have to be grasping at straws to consider them real.

One of the dumbest (and thus most popular) of these things is the “controlled demolition,” theory, the twisted and half-baked conglomeration of random facts that supposedly explains how the “Zionist” Bush Administration murdered 3000 American citizens as a pre-text and justification for going to war. The preposterousness of this grand theory becomes easily discernable by anyone who takes the time and makes an honest effort to conduct research, and not just take what they hear on the evening news as gospel.

I could argue all day long that the Bush Administration would never do such a thing on legal and moral grounds, however, that line of reasoning is not the most solid (not because I think that they would do it, but because morals are subjective, and there apparently ARE many people who think they would); I tend to prefer facts and numbers as backup for my arguments, so that is where I will head.

What I just love about conspiracy theorists is the “facts” that they use. You see, these fringe radicals are masters of taking things out of context.

Take controlled demolition theory for example. One of the cornerstones of this thing is the “fact” that jet fuel would not burn hot enough to melt the steel girders in the WTC, and thus could not have brought down the building.

Conspiracy theorists like to point out two numbers: 2750 and 2012. The first is the temperature that steel generally melts at, and the second is the temperature that commercial airline jet fuel burns at, both in Fahrenheit.

Anyone can see that the jet fuel could not have been burning hot enough to melt the steel. This is the point where radicals stop. They take those two numbers and make entire websites about them. Michael Moore probably has these numbers framed in his kitchen, and Ted Kennedy has them printed on his daily bottle of Scotch.

Much to their horror, however, I am going to go a step further. You see, steel does not have to actually be liquid before it stops bearing weight. At 700 degrees Fahrenheit, steel begins to lose strength. Let me repeat that in case anyone missed it: seven-hundred degrees.

Steel loses half its strength at just over 1100 degrees Fahrenheit, and at 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, it retains less than 10 percent of its strength, this according to Farid Alfawakhiri, a senior engineer of construction codes and standards at the American Iron and Steel Institute, and research conducted by Popular Mechanics.
Now, a NIST (National Institute of Science and Technology) report on the WTC collapse stated that pockets of fuel were burning as hot as 1832 degrees Fahrenheit.

The math isn’t hard; the fires were burning hot enough to bring steel to 10 percent of its strength, making it impossible for the load-bearing columns to support the tremendous weight of the building. At 10 percent strength, we’re talking about massive steel columns that were about as strong as rubber.

The puffs of smoke and dust that came out of the buildings as they collapsed? The untrained eye may view those puffs as explosions, but they are actually due to a process called ‘pancaking’ that happens when floors of a building fall onto one another and the air has nowhere else to go, according to FEMA and NIST reports, as well as a NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder, who detailed the entire process for Popular Mechanics’ book on the 9/11 myths.

What is my point here? Well, I could sit at my desk all day and refute claim after claim that these conspiracy theorists have published, but that’s not what I’m here to do. If you want that, check out Popular Mechanics’ study, which takes apart pretty much every popular theory.

The above facts are simply an example of how insanely stupid these theories are and why their perversion of the 9/11 Anniversary is so disgusting.

September 11th was a terrible day for our country. Thousands of innocent people died, and our nation will never be the same. What we must do is everything in our power to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and we must honor those that died that day. Regardless of your politics, you know deep down that those people jumping out of a burning 110 story building did not deserve the fate that was dealt to them.

The sad and deranged people that continue to spout hate and misinformation in an attempt to sway public opinion on the current administration should be ashamed of themselves. The information I used in this article is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to downing conspiracy theories. For every crazed madman who publishes some ridiculous claim about 9/11, there are ten facts to refute that claim.

These crazed people are stomping on the deaths of everyone who died that day; using other people’s suffering as a cudgel to be wielded for political agendas is something that I have come to expect from the left, but enough is enough.

It’s not a big surprise that most people have not heard about this story; in this day and age, the sensationalist mainstream news would normally pounce on a story about terrorism on American soil, if it involved any group of people other than the group that it actually did.

No, the media gave this story essentially no coverage, because this attack did not involve Al Qaida. Nor did it involve Hezbollah, the IRA, Hamas or one of those crazy “liberation front” groups.

Instead, a sect of society that we meet in our everyday travels mounted this attack; the terribly unlawful and disrespectful actions that took place on August 26th were the workings of illegal immigrants and their supporters; specifically, Mexican illegal immigrants.

You know, one of the reasons I like to be a journalist is because I love to spark discussion. I love to bring up issues for debate, and I love to bring to light issues that are hiding in darkness. I think it’s insane that so many people have not heard about this issue; the media has done a good job covering the butts of the racists attacking the very fabric of our nation.

Of course, I consider it my duty to inform the readers of this paper of said issues, so here I am, bringing to light one of the most despicable incidents of racism in recent memory.

On August 26th, Minutemen, the citizen project for legal immigration, staged a peaceful rally against the City of Maywood for the latter’s choice to become an illegal alien stronghold.

Not to be outdone, illegal aliens and their allies poured onto the streets to “protest the racists.”

The illegals and citizens were kept apart by a number of barriers, but often, videos caught illegals running out into the no man’s land to scream explicatives at American citizens before retreating back behind their signs. The criminals, not satisfied with simply yelling back and forth, decided to attack a Federal post office, and removed the American flag from the flagpole. If that wasn’t bad enough, they then raised a Mexican flag in its place.

Last I checked, foreign nationals removing the symbol of our country from a Federal installation was something pretty bad. Let me see if I can remember, oh right, it’s an act of war!

Who do these people think they are? I mean, honestly, if I marched my white butt down to Mexico and tore the Mexican flag of a government building and put the Stars and Stripes up there, how do you think THAT would go over?

Pretty badly, I think; about as well as if I went down there and demanded that English be the official language of the country.

I should point out, however, that not all of the people who participated in this attack were illegals. Some were legal immigrants who, for some reason or another, decided to throw in their lot with a bunch of criminals.

I have watched a number of home videos taken of the attack, and I was disgusted at what I saw.

After tearing down the American flag and hoisting the Mexican flag, the terrorists chanted and shouted and swore at the Americans who were out there to protest the city’s decision to make itself a haven for illegals.

Now, I’m no expert on Spanish, unless I’m being sworn at in it, so I can’t understand most of the chants that these criminals are saying. However, they helpfully wrote a number of their slogans on giant poster boards, and savvy photographers captured the blatant racism quite nicely.

Actually, I thought it was pretty funny that they were chanting their “death to U.S. citizens” malarkey in Spanish. Cause I have this crazy idea that they were about the only people in the area that understood what they were saying, so what exactly does that accomplish? I know I would have been laughing my butt off when they were doing that, had I been there. I mean, if you’re trying to make a point, wouldn’t you want your opposition to understand what you are saying?

Anyway, I am getting off topic; back to the depraved insults these criminals were hurling. Video at the scene captured a number of illegals saying that they were going to “kill Americans,” and also caught them calling Americans “blue eyed devils.” Ain’t that nice and neighborly.

Other signs proclaimed intelligent phrases such as “Illegal European invaders go back to Europe,” “Deport white supremacists,” and “Minuteklan Go Home.”

Wow, quite original, aren’t they? And this is coming from people who claim to want to join our country? Become citizens? Wear baseball caps and eat apple pie?
Uh huh…well, they could have fooled me. I would think, but maybe I’m way off base here, that if your goal is to meld into a country, you would probably not want to run around calling the current citizens of the country “devils” and telling them to evict the continent. I mean, maybe that’s just me, but it sure seems like a big no-no.

I also saw video and read eyewitness accounts of manhandling at the hands of the illegals. American citizens, trying to get around the barricades placed in the street, were shoved, heckled and struck; one women had her shirt ripped and her hair pulled, while an elderly man was literally knocked to the ground by the rowdy illegals.

As I was watching some of this video, I was screaming, ‘where are the police?’ and maybe you are too.

Oh, the police were there; unfortunately, the police were protecting the criminals instead of the citizens.

After repeated calls by the citizens protesters, police eventually tried to pull down the shameful Mexican flag, but the flag ended up tangled in the rope, and the cops were hassled by illegals at the base of the flag pole, turning the matter into a long, drawn out process.

Now, I know that someone, somewhere is going to take offense at me calling these people terrorists. I understand that me calling illegal immigrants terrorists might sound a little shocking, so, since I am a reasonable person, and also a fair debater, I will explain my use of that terminology.

The U.S. State Department defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”

So let’s get this straight; premeditated (check), politically motivated (double check), violence (check), against noncombatant targets (check), by subnational groups (say, illegals?).

It also says it is to influence an audience. Well, heck, that was quite the goal of this little stunt, wouldn’t you think? These criminals are out here to say, ‘hey, citizens of America, we hate your guts, we hate your flag, we hate your laws, and we hate how you are trying to make us obey said laws.’

So apparently, the solution is simple; you break a law, the way to fix it is to break more laws.

Makes sense, right? Yes? No? Ok, forget about it, it’s never going to make sense. Moving on.

After watching a number of the videos of this event, and reading some of the disgusting literature posted on websites such as “The Mexican Movement,” “Aztlan Separatist Movement,” and the Communistic “Answer LA,” I am more convinced then ever that if most Americans do not see the depth and scope of the illegal immigration problem, something must be done very quickly to insure that every American citizen knows the facts. If these sites are a representation of illegal immigrants policies and modes of operations, then this attack was only the beginning.

These sites are filled with hate; pure, unadulterated hate. It seeps from every pixel on the screen.

People can discuss why illegals come to the U.S. until they are blue in the face, and they can defend these criminals’ “right” to better jobs until the sun goes down, but while these disillusioned people are living in their dream world, the rest of us need to realize that this is a serious issue this country is facing.

This latest stunt is evidence that illegals are not the teddy bears the media would like us to think they are; while I do not think every illegal immigrant is like the ones who declared war on our country on August the 26th, there are enough bad ones to cause significant problems for our country.

If it were up to me, I would sit every American down and make them watch every video clip from this attack.

Regardless of your politics, no American can watch illegal immigrants tear the Stars and Stripes off a building and hoist a Mexican flag without feeling angry, upset and betrayed; betrayed by our politicians, who have let this situation run unchecked for so long.

People sometimes forget who has made it possible for us to have the awesome freedoms we have in this country.

Just a hint: the politician you voted for? He didn’t do it. The activist waving a sign or putting tape over their mouth and a bag over their head? They didn’t do it either.

It’s the soldiers, plain and simple. The soldiers that fight for our country, the brave men and women who spend each day protecting our freedoms, they are ones who are to thank for the rights we enjoy.

I have the utmost respect for every person who serves in our armed forces. In fact, I have so much respect for them, that I thank every military man or women I meet for their service. I shake their hand, look them in the eye, and say, “Thank you. Thank you for protecting my right to say or write whatever I want. Thank you for protecting my right to worship whatever religion I wish to worship. Thank you for protecting our way of life.”

Unfortunately, too many people have lost sight of this basic fact. I see protesters cursing our military, and I shake my head in disbelief. Don’t these people realize that the very people they condemn are the ones that made it possible for them to condemn?

I get so frustrated when people take out their anger at politicians on the military. I am a staunch Conservative, and will be until I die, so my support of the Bush Administration and the military is extremely strong and solid.

However, I often see Liberals who attack the soldiers themselves because they dislike the President. I ask how much sense does that make? Regardless of your political affiliation, you should be thanking and respecting the soldiers.

You see, Freedom of Speech is only a right in our country because brave men and women sacrificed their lives to preserve it. And for that, they deserve our lasting and steadfast respect.