Imagine that! A federal judge ruling in favor of the federal government in a case against a State! But that’s what you can expect when there is no impartial arbiter to determine matters of constitutionality.

The League of the South, the premier Southern nationalist organization, encourages the sovereign State of Arizona to either 1) nullify the decision of U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton that removed the teeth from Arizona’s immigration law, or 2) begin immediately to prepare the State for secession from a union in which the compact has been broken by the general (federal) government. Anything less will not be sufficient to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the citizens of Arizona.

The League also encourages Southern Patriots (and those elsewhere of goodwill) to give aid and comfort to the beleaguered citizens of Arizona and their elected representatives and conversely to oppose the federal government and its minions by refusing the same.

For too long the federal government has shown itself to be an organized, criminal enterprise that defines the extent of it own power and rules for the benefit of the elite. This is but the latest example. Such criminal behavior must be stopped by the citizens of the sovereign States acting in concert with each other. We have the legal and moral authority to do so; but do we have the will?

While it might seem meet and right for supporters of Arizona to make the trek to that State to provide aid and comfort, we in the League suggest you focus your efforts against the feds at home. It is more difficult to extinguish a thousand brushfires than one larger conflagration. Be bold and creative in your dissent.

As a longtime partner with me in the battle to secure our nation’s borders and stop the scourge of illegal immigration, I want you to be among the first to know that this week I filed my papers as a candidate for governor of Colorado.

I am running for governor in part because the leading Republican candidates for governor are both enmeshed in serious ethical and financial scandals that not only reflect badly on their character, but that are so bad they also guarantee the election of the Democratic candidate, liberal Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.

And John Hickenlooper, just like Barack Obama, is committed to the “sanctuary” and open-border policies that have made Colorado a front-line state in the illegal immigration wars!

As a Coloradan, I can’t stand by and let the ethical failings of the leading Republican candidates just hand the governorship over to a Democrat who is wrong on every single issue of importance to our state…not just illegal immigration, but also taxes and government spending.

Today, as a patriot who shares my commitment to the cause of reclaiming our nation for our people and our values, I am asking you to join my campaign.

Will you help me by making an online contribution to “Tancredo for Governor 2010?” With just three months to go until the election, time is of the essence!

The maximum contribution you can make under Colorado law is $525. If you can make a contribution for $525 today, I would be so grateful because that would really kick off our campaign dramatically!

But I also would be grateful for your contribution of $400, $250, $100 or even $50 today. John Hickenlooper has been running for governor for months and I need to hit the ground running this week!

Colorado is facing many challenges today, just like most states. I served in the Colorado Legislature for ten years before going to Congress, and I know how to make state government work for the people by applying solid conservative principles of governance.

And as the battle over illegal immigration has moved from Washington DC to the states, it is going to be critically important to our cause to elect men and women as governors who are committed to standing up against Barack Obama and enforcing our laws against illegal immigration.

We are seeing a great example of that commitment to the rule of law in Arizona, and I can pledge to you that I will fight that same battle in Colorado!

I deeply appreciate your friendship and your commitment to our cause. I hope that you will stand with me once again.

Many Thanks,
Tom Tancredo

Yes, the bill gives Treasury the power to liquidate banks that pose a threat to financial stability. But it essentially exempts minority-owned banks and those approved by Acorn-style urban organizers.

“The orderly liquidation plan shall take into account actions to avoid or mitigate potential adverse effects on low-income, minority or underserved communities affected by the failure of the covered financial company,” it says.

{snip}

Sen. Richard Shelby and other GOP conferees moved to strike the language, arguing that making an exception for minority neighborhoods defeats the whole purpose of reform, which is to protect all consumers against systemic risk.

But Sen. Chris Dodd, who’s running the conference committee with his fellow Democrat, Rep. Barney Frank, shot them down by suggesting that they wanted to deny minorities access to credit.

{snip}

Studies show that CRA home loans have much higher failure rates. {snip}

Another section of the bill requires the proposed Financial Stability Oversight Council (headed by the Treasury secretary) to consider a zombie institution’s “importance as a source of credit for low-income, minority or underserved communities” before winding it down. {snip}

{snip}

The bill mandates placement of a diversity czar in each federal financial agency—including the Fed and its 12 regional banks.

Establishing a so-called Office of Minority and Women Inclusion within each agency is the idea of Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, a Congressional Black Caucus leader and conferee.

According to her amendment to the bill, “Each agency shall take affirmative steps to seek diversity in the workplace of the agency, at all levels of the agency,” including:

* Recruiting at “historically black colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions.”

* Recruiting in urban communities.

* Placing ads in African-American and Spanish newspapers.

* “Partnering with organizations that are focused on developing opportunities for minorities.”

{snip}

Each agency, in turn, is required to report to Congress detailed information describing the actions it took to diversify its staff and contract with minority-owned firms. Which means they’ll do what their diversity officers advise. No official—particularly no regional Fed bank president—wants to be dragged before Barney Frank’s panel and accused of racism.

Still, as insurance, the bill also calls for an audit of Fed “governance” to examine, among other things, “the extent to which the current system of appointing Federal Reserve bank directors effectively represents the public without discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, sex or national origin.”

From a chain email:

The widsespread discrimination against European Americans should be unsurprising.

All other racial groups have powers lobbying on their behalf. Blacks have the NAACP, mestizos have La Raza, Asians have the 80-20 Initiative, Indians have USINPAC, etc. What do European Americans have?

When groups E, D, C & B lobby on behalf of their ethnic interests, and group A does nothing, group A is bound to be shafted.  And all the while this is taking place, many whites pursue the “ostrich strategy”. They stick their heads in the sand and wish it were otherwise.

Federalism implies states’ rights, and states’ rights imply a right of secession. The cause of states’ rights is the cause of liberty; they rise or fall together. If we had been able to maintain the real union of sovereign states founded by our forefathers, then there would not be, could not be, the imperial central state that we suffer under today. The loss of states’ rights is mirrored by the rise of the American empire, where a vast proportion of the citizens’ wealth is engrossed by bureaucracy; where our personal and local affairs are ever more minutely and inflexibly managed by a remote power; where our resources are squandered meddling in the affairs of distant peoples.

That happy old Union was a friendly contract—the states managing their own affairs, joining together in matters of defense, and enjoying free trade among themselves, and indeed, enjoying free trade with all the world, because the Constitution, as it sometimes forgotten, required all taxes to be uniform throughout the Union and absolutely forbade taxation of the exports of any state. The federal government was empowered to lay a modest customs duty to raise revenue for its limited tasks, but otherwise had no power to restrict or assist enterprises.

That is what the States United meant to our Founders—a happy Union of mutual consent and support. It did mean a government that dictated the arrangement of every parking lot in every public and private building in every town, and the kind of grass that a citizen must plant around his boat dock. It did not mean the incineration of women and children who might have aroused the ire of a rogue federal police force, unknown to the Constitution and armed as for a foreign enemy. It did not mean that billions would be spent (as in Kuwait) restoring an oriental despot to his throne; or that a hero would be made out of the successful general who killed more women, children, soldiers trying to surrender, and his own men than he did armed enemies. Had George Washington been confronted with these things, he would have reached for his sword.
The American Founders knew that republican societies were fragile—that they tended to degenerate into empires if extended beyond a small state, though they hoped the federal principle would block this tendency in America. Their definition of self-government was the superiority of the community to its rulers. In a reversal of the age-old pattern of mankind, the rulers (a necessary evil) became delegates of the community temporarily assigned to take care of some part of the public business. In an empire, like the one from which they had seceded, the public business. In an empire, like the one from which they had seceded, the community existed for the support and gratification of the rulers. A republican America was to be governed in interest of the communities that made it up; its rulers were ‘responsible.’ An empire, to the contrary, was governed by the needs, ideas, interests, even whims, of the rulers. A republic passes over into empire when political activity is no longer directed toward the well-being of the people but for the benefit of their rulers. That is to say, an empire’s government reflects management needs, and reflects the desires and will of those who control the machinery, rather than the interests and will of those being governed. Who can doubt that we are now an empire? The American people no longer think of the government as theirs, but as a hostile, manipulative, unjust, and unresponsive distant ruler.

A republic goes to war to defend itself and its vital interests, including possibly its honour. Empires go to war because going to war is one of things irresponsible rulers do. The point of reference for a republic is its own well-being. An empire has no point of reference except expansion of its authority. Its foreign policy will be abstract, and will reflect on the vagaries of mind of the rulers, who might, for instance, proclaim that it is their subjects’ duty to establish a New World Order, whatever the cost to their own blood and treasure. Who can doubt that once-proud republican Union of the states is now an empire?

An empire contains not free citizens, but subjects, interchangeable persons having no intrinsic value except as taxpayers and cannon fodder. So, if the governors of an empire should feel it easier for them to placate criminals that to punish them, they will turn over the neighborhoods and schools of their subjects to criminals, and even punish officers of the law for acting too zealously against the criminal class, thus violating the first rule of good government, which is the preservation of order. A people’s culture may be changed by imperial edict to reflect a trumped-up multiculturalism (a sure sign of an empire), or their religion persecuted. And, of course, violating one of the essential rules of republicanism, that the laws be equal to all, the imperialists exempt themselves from the commands they lay down for the rest of us. The republican right of self-government and the right of self-determination both necessarily incorporate the right of secession—that a people may withdraw from an imperial power to defend its liberty, property, culture, and faith.

We know the problems. Where should we look for solutions? Changing the personnel of the White House, the Congress, and the Supreme Court has been of little avail. Thomas Jefferson gives the answer: our most ancient and best tradition, states’ rights. In his first inaugural address, Jefferson remarked that in most ways American were happily situated, and then asked:

What more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits… and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
But to preserve this form of government? What should we do, or not do? Jefferson answered: preserve elections (not the party system), maintain equal justice under the law, rely on the militia, avoid the debt, maintain the freedoms of speech, religion, and trial by jury, and avoid entangling alliances. And most important: ‘the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies.

There is a large sophistical literature which tells us that states’ rights was for Jefferson just a temporary expedient for other goals. This is false. For his own generation and following several following, it was understood that state sovereignty of the Kentucky resolutions was Jefferson’s primary platform as an American leader.

John C. Calhoun, speaking in exactly the same tradition a generation later, said:

The question is truth between the people and the Supreme Court. We contend that the great conservative principle of our system is in the people of the States, as parties to the Constitutional compact, and our opponents that it is in the Supreme Court… Without a full practical recognition of the rights and sovereignty of the States, our union and liberty must perish. States’ rights would be found… in all cases of difficulty and danger [to be] the only conservative principle in the system, the only one that could interpose an effectual check to the danger.

By conservative principle he means not a political position of right as opposed to left—he means that which conserves and preserves the Constitution, as it was intended. Contrast that with our present position. Forrest McDonald, our greatest living Constitutional scholar, writes:
Political scientists and historians are in agreement that federalism is the greatest contribution of the Founding Fathers to the science of government. It is also the only feature of the Constitution that has been successfully exported, that can be employed to protect liberty elsewhere in the world. Yet what we invented, and others imitate, no longer exists on its native shores.

Why are states’ rights the last best bulwark of our liberties? It is a question of the sovereignty of the people—in which we all profess to believe. Every political community has a sovereign, an ultimate authority. The sovereign may delegate functions (as the states did to the federal government) though it may not alienate authority. It may not always rule from day to day, but it is that place to the society that has the last word when all else is said and done.

All agree that in America the people are sovereign—we are republicans, not monarchists or aristocrats. But what people? The term is not self-defining, any more than is the term liberty. What do we mean by the people? How do we know when the people have spoken? A simple electoral majority, which can shift the next day, is insufficient in bottom-line questions of sovereignty. By people, do we mean that if a million Chinese wade ashore in California and out vote everybody else, than they are sovereign? I think not.

In American terms, the government of the people can only mean the people of the states as living, historical, corporate, indestructible, political communities. The whole of the Constitution rests upon its acceptance by the people acting through the states. The whole of the government reflects this by the representation of the states in every legitimate proceeding. There is no place in the Constitution as originally understood where a mere numerical majority in some of the federal government can do as it pleases. The sovereign power resides, ultimately, in the people of the states. Even today, three-fourths of the states can amend the Constitution—that is, they can abolish the Supreme Court or the income tax, or even dissolve the Union. In no other way can we say the sovereign people have spoken their word. States’ rights is the American government, however much in abeyance its practice may have become.

The alternative to state sovereignty, as Calhoun pointed out, is to give the final say to the black-robed deities of the Court, who go into their closets, commune with the gods, and tell us what our Constitution means and what orders we must obey, no matter how absurd their interpretation may be. But this is to abandon the sovereignty of the people, that is, to abandon democracy or republicanism and to abandon constitutional government for oligarchy—and for an oligarchy based upon mystification rather than reason. James Madison, thought to be the Constitution’s father, tells us that the meaning of the Constitution is to be sought ‘not in the opinions or intentions of the body which planned and proposed it, but in those of the state conventions where it received all the authority which it possesses.’ All the authority which it possesses!
The sovereignty of the people, in which we all believe, can mean nothing except, purely and simply, the people of each state acting in their sovereign constitution-making capacity—as they did in the American Revolution when they threw off their king and assumed their own sovereignty, making their constitutions. This was a revolution in the sense of a transfer of the locus of sovereignty, not in the sense of social upheaval. The people of each state ratified the Constitution as freely consenting sovereigns, agreeing to make an instrument, limited and precise, for some of their common business.

The case of South Carolina is illustrative but not unusual. The people of South Carolina were sovereign and independent before the Declaration of Independence. Through their own governor, legislature, courts, and armed forces they were exercising every sovereign power—taxation, war, treaty-making, and the execution of felons. The week before the Declaration of Independence, Colonel Moultrie and the South Carolina forces, from their palmetto log fort on Sullivan’s Island, repulsed and defeated a British fleet that threatened to suppress their sovereign self-government.

The question is not altered by the fact that the Union has been expanded to fifty states. The founding fathers wisely made the Union expansible. The Congress may admit new states (or not), but the federal government does not create new states. States create themselves. The federal government may administer the territory, the land, before statehood, but only the sovereign people can adopt a constitution and incorporate themselves into a political society. Only by a sovereign act of free consent can a state ratify the U.S. Constitution—if we believe in government of the people. This is as true of the new states as of the old, of Montana as of South Carolina—if we believe the people are sovereign.

Americans are natural republicans, not monarchists or aristocrats. That is, we believe government rests upon consent of the governed—that is the key phrase of the Declaration of Independence. Government is legitimate in just so far as it rests upon consent, that is, the people accede to the government. The opposite of accede is to secede—the withdrawal of consent from an oppressive government. That is the only really effective restriction on power, in the final analysis.

The American Revolution was not seen by our Fathers as a one-time event after which we were bound forever by government. Of course, they did not wish to encourage so decisive a proceeding as secession for ‘light and transient causes,’ but it remained, in final analysis, an option. Jefferson referred specifically to the ‘secession’ of the colonies from Britain, and he was willing to entertain the idea that in the future there might be two or more confederacies among the Americans (just as there had been many states and confederacies among the freedom-loving Greeks.) The point was to preserve the right of self-government. What was sacred was not the Union but the consent of the governed, to which the Union or might not be of assistance. Jefferson and the other Founders were patriots, not nationalists.

Anyone who has studied, with any degree of depth and honesty, the founding years and the period that follows, understands that states’ rights principles were considered obvious by our forefathers, however wildly irrelevant it might seem today. Centralisers were always on the defensive, and always compelled to conceal their intent. The United States were universally spoken of in the plural. It was clearly understood that the Bill of rights meant the states binding the federal government to stay out of certain areas. (‘Congress shall make no law…’) To most people at the time, and for several generations thereafter, the electoral victory of Jefferson and his friends in 1800 meant primarily the putting to rest of a too-assertive idea of national power, General Hamilton was sent home and his schemes of centralization were put to rest, and so it remained until the War Between the States. But even that, though it fatally compromised the idea of states’ rights, did not destroy it.

The states’ rights interpretation of the Constitution was not, as its enemies have alleged, a mere theoretical rationalization made up for the defense of slavery. It is, rather, a living heritage of great power, absolutely central to the understanding of American liberty. It was among the fundamental issues of the most bloody war in which Americans have been involved. Lost and stolen as the idea may be, American history cannot be understood without it.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the French historian thought by many to be the most profound foreign observer of America, wrote this in the 1830’s:
The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people, if one of the states chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right to do so. Tocqueville was merely expressing what everyone already knew.

Lord Acton, the great British historian who devoted his life to the study of liberty and to what was conducive to and inimical to the establishment and preservation of liberty, wrote shortly after the war that the defeat of Appomattox was a greater setback for genuine liberty than Waterloo had been a victory. Waterloo ended an empire; Appomattox established one. Acton wrote also:
The theory which gave to the people of the states the same right of last resort as against Great Britain possessed an independent force of its own, northern statesmen of great authority maintained it, its treatment by Calhoun and Stephens forms as essential a constituent in the progress of democratic thinking as Rousseau or Jefferson.

Here is a very simple proposition that our forefathers understood—that indeed governed everything they did. The only way to preserve civil liberty is to check government power. The only way to check power is to disperse and divide it. Some of the Founders hoped that a federal system would allow growth without centralization (or ‘consolidation’ as they called it). This, the main check, has failed. It was also hoped that the division of the legislative, executive, and judicial power in the general government would help. Let us be clear—these checks and balances. They ceased to work a long time ago. The Supreme Court does not check the Congress, or the President—it checks us. There is no serious conflict of power among the federal branches. The acts of all of them are directed toward checking the people of the states.
The federal government will never check itself—that is the raison d’être of federalism. It must be checked by the states. And this is ultimately is of no avail unless it is backed by the right of secession. Curiously, recognition of the right of secession often obviates its use, because where it is a real possibility, power is motivated, has incentive, to check itself and be responsible.

Federalism is one of the least understood, both theoretically and practically of all political forms. The habit of not even thinking about, as in the Constitution bicentennial, provides a great obstacle, which there are signs today of a tendency to overcome. We must beware of phony forms of top-down federalism that will be invented by cornered politicians. Federalism is not when the central government graciously allows the states to do this or that; that is just another form of administration. True federalism is when the people of the states set limits to the central government.
States’ rights has fallen into disuse not because it is unsound in history, in constitutional law, or in democratic theory. It remains highly persuasive on all these grounds to any honest mind. It has fallen into disuse because it presented the most powerful obstacle to the consolidation of irresponsible power—that consolidation which our forefathers decried as the greatest single threat to liberty. For that reason, states’ rights had to be covered under a blanket of lies and usurpations by those who thought they could rule better than we can rule ourselves. At the most critical time, the War Between the States, states’ rights was suppressed by force, and the American idea of consent of the governed by the European idea of obedience. But force can only settle questions of power, not of right.

States’ rights are historically sound, constitutionally sound, ethically sound, and sound from the point of view of democracy. Where they fall short is simply in the realm of political will and agenda—the practical effort to implement them. That can change.

The people of the states have a right to protect themselves against an out-of-bounds federal government, and to determine when the proper bounds have been passed—or to interpose their sovereignty, as Jefferson said, as Madison said, as Calhoun said. Proclaiming a right, of course, does not make it prevail. For a long time now, a century at least, the course of history has been moving in the direction of consolidation, the gathering of concentrated power in one central, irresponsible, imperial government.

But there is hope. We now see, all over the Western world, a ferment of people against consolidation, in favour of regionalism, devolution, secession, breakup of unnatural states, and the return to historic identities in preference to universal bureaucracies. You know the signs in the break-up of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, and you can see the sign in the secessionist movements in Britain, Italy, Canada, and many other countries.

There is reason to believe that the consolidation phase of history may be coming to an end. We may be ready for a new flowering of freedom for families and communities. We know that the great periods of Western history have been not those of powerful states but of multiple and dispersed sovereignty—flourishing liberty for small communities. We know such freedom equals creativity in wealth, art, intellect, and every other good thing. All over the Western world, once again people are thinking of liberty—the most characteristic and unique of Western values—and are doubting the central state that has been worshiped since the French Revolution.

I know there are many moral and social problems that are not solved by political arrangements, and that the level of statesmanship in the states is not much higher, if at all, than in the federal government. But if we are to speak of curbing the central power, the states are what we have got. They exist. They are historical, political, cultural realities, the indestructible bottom line of the American system.
It would be a shame if, in this world-historical time of devolution, Americans did not look back to an ancient and honorable tradition that lies readily at hand. To check power, to return the American empire to republicanism, we do not need to resort to the drastic right of revolution nor to the destructive goal of an anarchic individualism. We have the states ready-made instruments. All that is lacking is the will. Our goal should be the restoration of the real American Union of sovereign states in place of an upstart empire under which we live.?
________________________________________
Dr. Clyde Norman Wilson is Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. He is the editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun and The Writings of John Taylor of Caroline. Wilson is the author of several books including From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition.

(1) following the Tenth Amendment,  ignore the federal court and implement their law regardless

or

(2) following Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution,  pass an emergency resolution removing any jurisdiction from the federal courts on state laws involving immigration.  Although Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution reserves this right for the U.S. Congress, seen through the lens of the Tenth Amendment and given the tyranny of the federal courts, states could presume this authority e re nauta.

Other states then should pass similar immigration-enforcement laws, attaching to them language that removes  judicial review from the federal courts.

Addendum:  What particularly is disturbing about the Obama Regime’s refusal to allow Arizona law authorities to check the immigration status of suspects is that it’s contrary to general law-enforcement practice.  In nearly every country in the world, the local police have the authority to check the immigration status of those detained.  By not allowing the police to verify immigration status of suspects, the Obama Regime is not concerned about the “constitutionality” of such measures but simply does not want immigration laws enforced.  In short, the Obama regime has failed to protect the citizens of Arizona and can no longer be viewed as interested in the wellbeing of American citizens.

I’ve long maintained that it’s not a quest for “racial justice,” whatever that means, that motivates white multicults. Instead, it’s the same personality disorder that defines all fanatics, from John Brown to Jim Jones, and that’s the burning desire to prove one’s moral superiority to others. What fuels that desire? Self-hatred.

Stephen Lemons, the pro-open borders “Feathered Bastard,” makes it pretty explicit in this invocation urging fellow multicults to “raise freakin’ hell” in Phoenix on July 29th, when SB 1070 goes into effect:

There will be plenty of opportunities to get your activism on over the next few days, and even be arrested, which, with the right kind of crowd, will get you treated like a Medal of Valor recipient.

Seriously, how do you treat people who got arrested during the Civil Rights Movement? One day, you too could be able to tell your youngins about how you put your body on the line to stop a racist law that was backed by an army of ignorant rednecks led by neo-Nazi-huggin’ state Senator Russell Pearce.

So here’s a run-down of some of the activism that will ensue. Get off your duff, be a part of history, and go growl at some toothless pro-SB 1070 hillbillies, because you know they’ll be out there.

That’s the real point: Get out there and show off your superiority to those “ignorant rednecks” and “toothless hillbillies.” You’ll feel soooo much better about yourself. And that’s who it’s really about — you.

Bully for him I guess. But once again Weigel cannot help himself. He simply has to remind everyone why there’s  feeling out there that he’s a self-gratuitous little prick. His opus in the latest American Prospect online is way of saying there’s nothing wrong with trying to be everyone’s pal even you are only pretending to be everyone’s pal and use them for fodder for your next article. Reading this, you realize it’s no wonder someone leaked his emails from JournoList. They were probably beginning to feel the same way.

But apparently Weigel does feel strongly about supporting the war. He said so in a tweet to Glen Greenwald. It just goes to figure that if one wishes to advance onself in Cosmoland, there are stands that must be taken and compromises that cannot be made (until Cosmoland declares the war a failure and everyone declares they knew all along, which is what happened in official Washington after Vietnam). Luckily Antiwar.com Matt Bargainer does a good job of putting Weigel in his proper context of Cosmo social climbers.

The sad thing is, Weigel probably isn’t aware of how much in contempt he’s held in by the people who he thinks are his friends.

Daniel Larison is skeptical.

Jim Antle responds.

Larison replies.

Larison is largely right on the facts, but I question the wisdom of publicly slapping down movement in our direction. This seems counter-productive. Who is going to want to join us if they think they will be chastised if they do? They are more likely to just keep their new found reservations to themselves. Farah’s change of heart took courage. It seems to me more helpful to cheer on such public movement our way.

My reason for some optimism on foreign policy is that all the movement, whether great or slight, has been in our direction. Are there any former non-interventionists being won to uber-hawkish militarism these days? It is a shrinking faction that only speaks to itself. There is no audience, except the choir, for fear peddling militarism these days. Not that all its former audience has become principled non-interventionists. They haven’t. They have just moved on to other concerns and priorities.

I also agree with Larison that Iran remains a kind of litmus test. Second thoughts on Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t particularly helpful if the person still wants to plunge us into a much more potentially disastrous war with Iran. But I also believe that a lot of the current discussion about Iran is just rhetorical posturing. Wiser heads realize that we can’t attack Iran even if we wanted to. We are overextend militarily, economically and politically and an attack on Iran would be utterly disastrous, so they saber-rattle as a substitute for action. Kind of like the guy at the bar who talks trash because he knows his friends will “hold him back.” Later he can say, “If it wasn’t for my friends holding me back I would have clobbered that guy. Really, I would have.”

- A recent study confirms that poor whites are the most discriminated against group in college admissions.
- A recent report shows that the Obama Regime deliberately targeted white-owned auto dealerships (for closure) during the auto bailouts.
- The Obama Regime, in an Orwellian twist of logic, attempts to keep Arizona from enforcing the law, thus siding with Mexican invaders against Americans, and is contemplating a stealth amnesty either via executive order or during the lame-duck session of Congress.

What is the liberal establishment’s response to these injustices? Some think that European Americans should be censored, so these inconvenient truths cannot be reported. Others have moved their spotlights to the Sherrod story, trying to resuscitate the dead horse that the real injustice in the U.S. is white-against-black (yea, right).  Although the Sherrod story is legitimate (Andrew Breitbart edited the video to take the quote out of context), it is being used by the liberal media to distract from the above issues.

Regardless, as the media bend over backward to excuse Sherrod and castigate “racist whites,”  this video by Charles Sherrod (husband of Shirley) comes along:

Text: “Firmly, we must stop the White man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections. We must not be afraid to vote black. We must not be afraid to turn a black out who votes against our interests. . . . And tell white folk, all over, wherever we are running somebody for an office … that blacks are going to TAKE that office over. And thousands are coming to the polls. And you gotta get it.”

What will be the anti-Western left’s next move? Who knows, but as Put Buchanan recently noted, “white racial consciousness has visibly begun to rise.”  Still, I don’t yet see any European American equivalents to the NAACP, La Raza, the 80-20 Initiative, or USINPAC.

HT:  YfWC

And judging by the background of the author of the NAACP’s response, you can pretty much guess what the content is going to be:

“Khalfani has been the head of the state NAACP since 1998. On his official biography page, Khalfani writes, “My greatest accomplishment is that I am by choice a revolutionary Afrikan Man. I am a Pan-Afrikanist. I am one who speaks truth to power unashamedly on behalf of Afrikan people. I have not cringed or cowered when faced with criticism, ostracism or bodily harm.”

The bottom line to NAACP and others whom everyday is Selma, 1965:  All whites are rich! You cannot dissent from this!

Me thinks a few people need to see the documentary “Harlan County USA”

Well I’m happy to report I’ve done exactly that. I have no TV for the summer (and we may go longer) and this past weekend I volunteers in the Pepin County, Wis. Fair.

I’m on the Pepin County Board of Supervisors and revitalizing our fair has been a project of mine and other board members, county and UW Extension employees and countywide 4-H volunteers and their families. Our efforts were successful in making for a wonderful event that we hope to continue to get better year after year. 

As one of the smallest counties in Wisconsin, our viablity depends upon community events like a fair. I also think that’s true throughout rural America. If you get the chance and the time, you should do the same. It’s quite rewarding.

I would love your comments here, but I would also ask that if you are supportive of this make a comment at IPR as well. The website is for all third party and independent news, but it seems to be primarily frequented by libertarians and there is a strong PC element there so I am sure they will be out in force calling Tancrado a xenophobe and otherwise PC grandstanding as is their MO.

Also, some background. The two Republican candidates have both been hit with scandals and appear to be seriously damaged goods. McInnis was hit with a plagiarism scandal and Maes was hit with a campaign finance disclosure problem and may have been over reimbursing himself for mileage. Tancredo asked them to step down, but both refused. Absent the scandal I don’t think Tom would have necessarily made the move to the CP.

Patrick Cleburne notes that the Obama Regime and its cronies may try to ram all sorts of unpleasant legislation (amnesty, taxes, wealth redistribution, etc.) through Congress this fall in a lame duck session.

Having written about recent adventures in evolution, Steve Sailer writes that the NY Times science section is actually “getting it” on race – just wait until the PC left finds out.

Patrick J. Buchanan argues that white racial consciousness is on the rise.

William Tate describes how the Obama Regime, during the auto bailouts, deliberately targeted white-owned dealerships for closure.

Rob Sanchez  notes that the Obama Regime fails to make legal case to stop Arizona immigration law.

Derek Turner discusses what Othello can still tell us today.

James Fulford writes that immigrants from the Third World bring all sorts of diseases to the U.S.

Steve Sailer notes that when Vicente Fox is asked what great accomplishments mestizos have produced, the first thing he thinks of is tacos.

Donald Collins notes that a black journalist is censored at Huffington Post for opposing mass immigration.

Edwin S. Rubenstein writes that the Obama Regime is suppressing numbers on immigration.

Elizabeth Wright discusses the bogus “racism” of the tea parties.  And speaking of racism, it seems that Dick Morris is now using Peter Brimelow’s definition of “racist.”

Daily Finance reports that the real unemployment rate of the U.S. is 22%.

In a french round of race riots in France, blacks and Arabs loot Grenoble.

Classics Corner:

Mel Bradford, “Dividing The House: The Gnosticism of Lincoln’s Political Rhetoric”

Updates:

Rush Limbaugh maintains that  ”this [Obama] regime is tribalizing this country. They are dividing this country. It’s not just enough to say that they are dividing us. They are tribalizing this country. We aren’t Americans anymore. We’re all members of different racial tribes, and we are to be pitted against each other: Black Americans, White Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans. We’re all being divided up racially, by tribes.”

Thursday, World Net Daily’s Joseph Farrah, who once seemed to think any sacrifice was worth it to counter the fearsome threat of “Islamo-Fascism,” confessed this in his regular column:

For the life of me, I cannot begin to understand our objectives in either Iraq or Afghanistan any more.

Because I appreciate the sacrifice our men and women are making over there, it is with a heavy heart that I make this proclamation. But enough is enough. We have spent over $1 trillion on these two wars and spilled far too much American blood.

Today, the heel-clicking Day by Day cartoon, which once cheered on anything the government did in the name of anti-terrorism, denounced Obama for using the domestic spying powers that Bush and Cheney bequeathed to the office of Temporary Dictator.

We’ve been sounding that alarm for some time. The ultimate threat to our liberty is not big-government Democrats or big-government Republicans — it’s big government.

Elite schools can congratulate themselves thinking they’ve recreated study bodies that reflect a post-racial, managerial based society. But also may very well have created large pockets of resentment in the rural ghettos of our nation. In past they may not have been a huge problem because a white person could work at a  factory or own a farm and make a decent living without having to go to Harvard. Such options hardly exist anymore. He or she would have to take on mountains of debt and have own 2,000 head of livestock to make any kind of living on the land. What factories their are may very well employ illegal immigrants working willing to have their hands sliced off for $1.25 an hour just so they can experience the joys of indoor plumbing. Its hard to see what job skills community colleges are supposed to teach since glass towers are rarely found outside big cities that thousands of poor whites flee to every year looking for work.

Some enlightened college administrator may look at this study and ask themselves  “Do we really want to create more Tim McVeighs”? The “fire next time” for whites may very well come with demobilized vets from “Global War on Terror” finding themselves working McJobs after leading whole squads, companies and platoons in Iraq. Given that they may be no majority race by 2042, the call for white quotas may become stronger and stronger. Sarah Palin may very well be to underclass whites was Jesse Jackson was to underclass blacks. The question is for conservatives, are these the paths we want to follow down? Because if they are, then years of rehtoric about meritocracy, affirmative action and identity politics along with snide remarks about elitism at Harvard might as well be chucked out the window right now.

This brings up an interesting point in a recent article Patrick Deenan just wrote. We can point out the Ivy League’s bigotry against poor whites as we should. But is encouraging the young and the ambitious to join the “creative class” in a blue state when they graduate really what we want to encourage?

“Members of the meritocracy are well aware of whom they have left behind, and rather than assuming the personal obligation of old to those less fortunate, they elect instead to pay an impersonal middleman—government—to deal with the aftereffects of what Wendell Berry has called the “strip-mining” of talent from every town and hamlet in the world. At the same time, they demand that everyone else pay up as well—what would have been personal forms of responsibility have instead been spread to the entire population, including those they purport to succor. As Christopher Lasch wrote, “obligation, like everything else, has been depersonalized; exercised through the agency of the state, the burden of supporting it falls not on the professional and managerial class but, disproportionately, on the lower-middle and working class.”

Elite education is basically what the elites want you to know and it has been from time immemorial. Encouraging the “best and brightest” to shake off their “little town blues” has been what Cosmos have been encouraging also since time immemorial. Sending kids to the elite diploma mill may serve our sense of justice but it may not be in the best long-term interests of rural America. Perhaps it may be best to encourage those who wish to seek higher education to seek it at their local colleges and universities close to home, enter into the education field instead of leaving it to the Left, and encourage more autodidactism among adults  to continue the process of learning and self-discovery (the way a country doctor named Ron Paul taught himself Austrian economics). Because the last thing whites on the lower end of the economic scale need is a culture that thrives on vulgarity, drugs (meth, heroin) violence and “keeping it real” and frowns on education (in some places this has already begun). Because at that point, to be poor and white in America will only become self-perpetuating.

A lot of conservatives and Christians have been saying for a long time that we should bypass Hollywood and make our own stuff. I agree. This is a start.

Hat tip to Bill Green of RightMarch who can be seen in the trailer. He’s the fat cat banker who utters “All we have to do is make sure the credit remains tight. We’ll be buying the wealth of the world at half-price.”

Dear Friends,

I wanted to make sure you are aware that our Co-Chair, Tom Tancredo, is considering running for Governor of the State of Colorado.

It appears that due to circumstances that have developed in the last few weeks that neither of the two GOP candidates running in the August primary are any longer viable general election candidates. To make matters worse, the Democrat in this race is the big spending, open border, sanctuary city Mayor of Denver, John Hickenlooper.

Tom finds this situation so unacceptable that he has announced that he may seek the nomination of the American Constitution Party so as to give the people of Colorado a conservative alternative who will battle illegal immigration as hard as he battles the deficit spending.

As we have told you before–Tom and I will fight this battle of open borders wherever we can and Tom is certainly not going to let his home state fall into the hands of a pro-amnesty, sanctuary city mayor–NOT IF HE CAN STOP IT!

Be assured Team America will continue to support our great conservative, anti-amnesty candidates every possible way we can and, of course we will keep you up-to-date on this exciting development.

Thanks for always standing with us,

Bay Buchanan

This is significant on two counts. First that Tancredo might run for Governor, and second that he would do so as the candidate of the Constitution Party.

Lately, however, he’s dropped his former pretense that the Neocon Wars were aimed at keeping the West Western. Today, he’s claiming Pam Geller’s “Stop the Islamization of America” is guilty of “increasingly open bigotry.” He ends his post with this show-stopper:

Now that high profile conservative figures like Sarah Palin are also endorsing hatred of Muslims and not-so-veiled calls for violence, decent Americans need to make their voices heard. The so-called “anti-jihad” movement has metastasized into something ugly and hateful.

Violence. Right. What do you call it when you cheer on the invasion of nations that had not threatened us that wipes out a million innocent people?

Apparently, invading Muslim nations is okey-dokey, but trying to defend one’s civilization is bad, bad, bad. Got it.

Note to conservatives who supported the Neocon Wars: You were used. You were fooled into thinking these illegal wars were about protecting America, including its traditional culture of liberty. They weren’t; they were about expanding the Empire’s reach and power at home and abroad. Out liberty is significantly diminished, and the Neocons are using their power to complete the globalization of America.

Some other articles:

Here’s two submissions from J.J. Jackson at Liberty Reborn: one on acceleration problems with Toyotas and the other “Liberals Ask: Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

From Chuck Baldwin: “Assembly Line Medicine”

Pat Buchanan discusses the Obama Regime’s war on Arizona.

Allan Wall notes why Evangelicals are wrong to join the pro-amnesty treason lobby.

Richard Spencer puts into perspective Mel Gibson’s alleged “racism.”

Paul Gottfried discusses the anti-Western musings of Martin Luther King Jr. and why neocons are ridiculous to praise him.

James Fulford writes about small-scale race riots breaking out in California and a larger race riot breaking out in Grenoble, France.

Steve Sailer reminds us that poor whites are the most discriminated against group in college admissions, and Kevin MacDonald looks at the real elite at universities.

George McDaniel discusses Madison Grant and his championing of European Americans.

Classics Corner:

Jean Raspail, “The Fatherland Betrayed by the Republic”

Updates:

Daniel McCarthy notes that Joseph Farah admits he was wrong on Iraq and Afghanistan.

A.W. Morgan argues that tea-party activists are wasting their time trying to prove their “anti-racist” bona fides.

- [Saddam] “had the ability to quickly produce weapons of mass destruction, and the will to use both against its enemies.”

- The Duelfer Report, the final assessment of the Iraq Survey Group, states that a former Iraqi intelligence officer testified that the M16 Directorate “had a plan to produce and weaponize nitrogen mustard in rifle grenades and a plan to bottle sarin and sulfur mustard in perfume sprayer and medicine bottles which they would ship to the United States and Europe.” The plot was not launched because of an inability to get the ingredients for the weapons. [Oh, really, killer perfume sprayers? Using cutting-edge weaponry from World War I?]

- The ISG confirmed that dual-use facilities had “assets that could be converted for BW [biological weapons] agent production within 4 to 5 weeks after the decision to do so.” One site had the ability to “provide the core of an alternative break-out capability…perhaps within 2 to 3 weeks.” Furthermore, Iraqi intelligence operated “a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations” and Iraq “intended to develop smallpox and possibly other viral pathogens.”

- The first director of the ISG, David Kay, also raised the point that corruption was extremely high in the Iraqi government, leading to a strong possibility that terrorists could purchase weapons from officials.

That’s right — Saddam could’ve done this and he might’ve done that. It reminds me of an old joke about a pacifist reporter grilling a three-star general who’s training Boy Scouts how to use guns:

Interviewer: “Don’t you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?”
LTG Reinwald: “I don’t see how, we will be teaching them proper range discipline before they even touch a firearm.”
Interviewer: “But you’re equipping them to become violent killers.”
LTG Reinwald: “Well, you’re equipped to be a prostitute, but you’re not one, are you?”

But the last justification for invading Iraq is my favorite:

- These facts bolster the case for removing Saddam Hussein without even mentioning the possibility that WMDs went to Syria.

That’s so mind-numbingly moronic it hurts my head to consider that people actually believed it at the time. Imagine you’re a power-mad dictator who “continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.” So what do you do when an army of 466,985 foreign troops sits within firing range in next-door Kuwait ready to invade your country with the expressed aim of deposing you? Why, naturally, you get rid of your only means of stopping them. Of course. Are we supposed to believe Saddam was saving his super-weapons for some special occasion?

How stupid are we?

Stupid enough to believe the same people who now want the overstretched and plain flat broke US to invade Iran. One of the commenters on the Front Page article made this perfectly clear:

“In a post-9/11 world, the threat that Saddam Hussein posed could not be tolerated—and the world should know why.”

Then how could an Iran with nuclear weapons be tolerated in a post 9/11 world?

The answer is it can’t! Iran must be stopped at all cost, and the USA and not Israel must lead the charge. If Saddam represented a threat that couldn’t be tolerated, then Iran represents a far greater threat than Saddam ever could.

Heaven help us.

Are they so warped by a globalist ideology that they would sell out their own compatriots “to fill the pews”? As happened with Roger Mahony, if these mestizos do become Evangelicals, won’t they eventually oust the white leadership to support their own co-ethnics?  Mestizo Evangelism may live, but Western Evangelism will be dead.

Send emails to these leaders demanding that they cease their lunacy (be polite):

Leith Anderson:  president at nae.net

Richard Land

Southern Baptist Convention

Other Leaders

Pastors Council (here and here)

And read these articles:

Allan Wall: “Evangelical Leadership’s Betrayal Of Grassroots On Immigration Increasing”

Allan Wall: “Southern Baptist Richard Land Campaigns for Amnesty on Capitol Hill”

Roy Beck: “Religious Leaders Say Amnesty Morally Necessary”

Mark Krikorian: “Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform?“

That said, the reaction by ordinary conservatives to the link, like their reaction to the charge of racism, is often less than helpful. Can’t they see that “How dare she suggest that Sharon Angle is one of those awful Christian Reconstructionists!” both empowers the enemy and harms your co-belligerents? 

Below is my post on the matter at AmSpec. The first part clears up some imprecision in the Hemingway reaction. The rest gets at the heart of the matter. 

For the record, most Southern Baptists are not Arminian in the strict sense of that term. What most Southern Baptists believe is something of a middle ground between doctrinaire Calvinism and Arminianism. This is debatable, but arguably modern Baptist can more directly trace their lineage to Calvinist origins, and there is a sizable and active effort within the Southern Baptists Convention to return it to what they see as its Calvinist roots. Hemingway is right that Southern Baptists are by and large pre-mil, although that is changing somewhat as well. 

That said, liberals and journalists (sorry I repeat myself) are appallingly ignorant of Christian theology. If Sharon Angle is a practicing Southern Baptist it is almost certain that she is not a Reconstructionist. 

But also, I don’t think Christians running screaming from the Reconstructionist label as if it is some sort of slur is helpful either. It is often inaccurately applied, and if it is this should be pointed out. But Reconstructionism is a precise theological term indicating a precise set of theological beliefs. As such it rises and falls solely on whether or not it is a sound interpretation and application of Scripture. It is not wrong because it has a high PC ick factor or because it is somehow inconsistent with the “American way.” It is either a sound interpretation of the Word of God, or it is not. 

Also, Christian Reconstructionism is not a matter of “hyper-Calvinism” per se, although all Reconstructionist are Calvinists. Reconstructionists do not necessarily hold to the “five points” more strongly than non-Reconstructionist Calvinists. It is a matter of a difference over a particular application of doctrine. 

For the record also, I am neither a Southern Baptist (I am a Baptist), a doctrinaire Calvinist, nor a Reconstructionist. I just hate imprecision, and I hate it when conservatives and Christians dance to the PC tune. “Ewww… I’m not one of those icky kinds of conservatives/Christians.” For Christians, the claims of the Reconstructionists should be supported or countered on the basis of theology alone, not its conformity or lack there of with modernism, the American way, the Constitution or whatever. 

Note also that I have made similar arguments with non-interventionist conservatives about dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is not wrong because we don’t like where its proponents have run with it regarding foreign policy and the support of Israel. If it is wrong, it is wrong because it is an inaccurate interpretation and application of Scripture, and it should be countered on a theological basis.

Evangelical groups in recent weeks have become key players in the Obama administration’s efforts to get immigration reform moving in Congress. And while they have largely couched their arguments in moral terms or with references to biblical teachings, top leaders acknowledge another important reason:

Latino immigrants, legal and illegal, represent fertile prospects for proselytizing.

Buried deep in the article is this little land mine:

Another area of potential tension involves the religious conservatives’ steadfast opposition to recognition of same-sex relationships in any immigration reform bill.

What if Obama promises not to touch the (unconstitutional) Defense of Marriage Act in exchange for evangelical support for amnesty? Illegal aliens get citizenship, Obama gets 20 million new Democratic voters, the Federal government gets an endorsement of its political supremacy over the once-sovereign States, evangelicals get new members, and America gets Latinized.

Everybody wins!

See the DailyCaller.

See BigJournalism.

HT: Errol Phillips (no relation)

A new study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade and his colleague Alexandria Radford is a real eye-opener in revealing just what sorts of students highly competitive colleges want — or don’t want — on their campuses and how they structure their admissions policies to get the kind of “diversity” they seek. The Espenshade/Radford study draws from a new data set, the National Study of College Experience (NSCE), which was gathered from eight highly competitive public and private colleges and universities (entering freshmen SAT scores: 1360). Data was collected on over 245,000 applicants from three separate application years, and over 9,000 enrolled students filled out extensive questionnaires….

The box students checked off on the racial question on their application was thus shown to have an extraordinary effect on a student’s chances of gaining admission to the highly competitive private schools in the NSCE database. To have the same chances of gaining admission as a black student with an SAT score of 1100, an Hispanic student otherwise equally matched in background characteristics would have to have a 1230, a white student a 1410, and an Asian student a 1550. …

Espenshade and Radford also take up very thoroughly the question of “class based preferences” and what they find clearly shows a general disregard for improving the admission chances of poor and otherwise disadvantaged whites. Other studies, including a 2005 analysis of nineteen highly selective public and private universities by William Bowen, Martin Kurzweil, and Eugene Tobin, in their 2003 book, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, found very little if any advantage in the admissions process accorded to whites from economically or educationally disadvantaged families compared to whites from wealthier or better educated homes. …

At the private institutions in their study whites from lower-class backgrounds incurred a huge admissions disadvantage not only in comparison to lower-class minority students, but compared to whites from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds as well. The lower-class whites proved to be all-around losers. When equally matched for background factors (including SAT scores and high school GPAs), the better-off whites were more than three times as likely to be accepted as the poorest whites (.28 vs. .08 admissions probability).

Having money in the family greatly improved a white applicant’s admissions chances, lack of money greatly reduced it. The opposite class trend was seen among non-whites, where the poorer the applicant the greater the probability of acceptance when all other factors are taken into account. Class-based affirmative action does exist within the three non-white ethno-racial groupings, but among the whites the groups advanced are those with money.

When lower-class whites are matched with lower-class blacks and other non-whites the degree of the non-white advantage becomes astronomical: lower-class Asian applicants are seven times as likely to be accepted to the competitive private institutions as similarly qualified whites, lower-class Hispanic applicants eight times as likely, and lower-class blacks ten times as likely. These are enormous differences and reflect the fact that lower-class whites were rarely accepted to the private institutions Espenshade and Radford surveyed. Their diversity-enhancement value was obviously rated very low.

Poor Non-White Students: “Counting Twice”

The enormous disadvantage incurred by lower-class whites in comparison to non-whites and wealthier whites is partially explained by Espenshade and Radford as a result of the fact that, except for the very wealthiest institutions like Harvard and Princeton, private colleges and universities are reluctant to admit students who cannot afford their high tuitions. And since they have a limited amount of money to give out for scholarship aid, they reserve this money to lure those who can be counted in their enrollment statistics as diversity-enhancing “racial minorities.” Poor whites are apparently given little weight as enhancers of campus diversity, while poor non-whites count twice in the diversity tally, once as racial minorities and a second time as socio-economically deprived….

There are problems, however, with this explanation. …

Besides the bias against lower-class whites, the private colleges in the Espenshade/Radford study seem to display what might be called an urban/Blue State bias against rural and Red State occupations and values. This is most clearly shown in a little remarked statistic in the study’s treatment of the admissions advantage of participation in various high school extra-curricular activities. In the competitive private schools surveyed participation in many types of extra-curricular activities — including community service activities, performing arts activities, and “cultural diversity” activities — conferred a substantial improvement in an applicant’s chances of admission. The admissions advantage was usually greatest for those who held leadership positions or who received awards or honors associated with their activities. No surprise here — every student applying to competitive colleges knows about the importance of extracurriculars.

But what Espenshade and Radford found in regard to what they call “career-oriented activities” was truly shocking even to this hardened veteran of the campus ideological and cultural wars. Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student’s chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. “Being an officer or winning awards” for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, “has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions.” Excelling in these activities “is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission.”

Espenshade and Radford don’t have much of an explanation for this find, which seems to place the private colleges even more at variance with their stated commitment to broadly based campus diversity. In his Bakke ruling Lewis Powell was impressed by the argument Harvard College offered defending the educational value of a demographically diverse student body: “A farm boy from Idaho can bring something to Harvard College that a Bostonian cannot offer. Similarly, a black student can usually bring something that a white person cannot offer.” The Espenshade/Radford study suggests that those farm boys from Idaho would do well to stay out of their local 4-H clubs or FFA organizations — or if they do join, they had better not list their membership on their college application forms. This is especially true if they were officers in any of these organizations.

HT:  Steve Sailer

Addendum:  For more discrimination against whites, check out the Bill Gates scholarships.

Besides dealing with a crucial issue of public policy, the controversy over Arizona’s recently adopted law concerning aliens within its borders illustrates a disturbing lack of familiarity with relevant constitutional law and precedent. The controversy offers a striking example of the deterioration of American constitutionalism.

The state law in question, enacted in April, requires police in Arizona to check the legal status of persons whom they reasonably suspect of being in the country illegally while forbidding racial profiling. The purpose is to “discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens” within the state’s borders.

The Justice Department in Washington has asked a federal district court to block Arizona’s enforcement of the law, arguing that “the power to regulate immigration is exclusively vested in the federal government.” In support of its position, the department cites the clauses in article I that give Congress authority to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” and to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations” as well as the clause in article II authorizing the President to “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

For its part, Arizona does not deny the preeminent authority of the federal government to regulate immigration. Rather, it contends that its law is meant only to enforce already existing federal immigration laws that are not being adequately enforced by the federal government. “The truth is the Arizona law is both reasonable and constitutional,” according to the state’s governor, Janice Brewer. “It mirrors substantially what has been federal law in the United States for many decades. Arizona’s law is designed to complement, not supplant, enforcement of federal immigration laws.”

Yet it is a measure of how much constitutional interpretation has changed over time that at an earlier period of American history it was generally accepted that the regulation of immigration was primarily a state function, and the big question waiting to be settled was whether the federal government had any share in this power. [Continue Reading...]

Addendum: My intention in posting this piece was to support Arizona’s enforcement of immigration laws, not to argue, as some naive libertarians have, that the federal government has no business enforcing immigration law, as this type of reasoning is usually a Trojan Horse proxy for open borders. The Obama Regime’s line that it is unusual or unprecedented for local law authorities to enforce immigration laws is disengenous at best, considering that local law authorities have the authority to enforce immigration law in nearly every country in the world.

He has now proven my faith in him was justified. Here he disses Jaffa and takes the side of M. E. Bradford in their famous (well famous in our geeky circles) debate on equality. His post gets at the heart of the issue and demonstrates that RSM clearly gets it.

Harrison, how long before Charles Johnson goes after RSM about this?

David Frum, who accused paleoconservatives of being “unpatriotic conservatives” because of their opposition to the Neocon Wars, has been guest-blogging for Sullivan this week. While there, he decided to help Sullivan re-define conservatism. Here’s his first draft:

A reality-based, culturally modern, socially inclusive and environmentally responsible politics that supports free markets, limited government and a peaceful American-led world order.

We can guess what Frum means by “socially inclusive.” And that last part, by the way, endorses empire — as big as big government can get. Now we can see just how alien, un-American, and anti-conservative these people really are.