The American Standard Bearer

Desecrate: to treat disrespectfully, irreverently, or outrageously. – Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

The long-awaited vote in the U.S. Senate on the constitutional amendment to protect the American flag is scheduled for June. The House handily passed the measure last year. If the amendment is approved by the Senate, it will still face ratification by the states. It’s intentionally not easy to amend the Constitution.

A key component for the argument against protection of the flag is this: how do we define desecration? So many common items from beach towels and baseball caps to postage stamps feature the image of the American flag. Does wearing a pair of boxer shorts with the likeness of the flag constitute desecration?

According to at least one respected source, however, the definition is cut-and-dried. Black’s Law Dictionary defines desecration of the flag as: “The Act of mutilating, defacing, burning or flagrantly misusing a flag.” The implication is that there must be intent.

Sensing that the desecration argument is ultimately a dead end, the ever-inventive ACLU is steering the issue in a new direction in an attempt to salvage something from it. ACLU lobbyist Terri Schroeder has injected the left-wing group’s famous aversion to religion into the mix. According to Schroeder, the very word “desecration” has a repugnant religious connotation and therefore, has no standing to be included in serious discussions of law.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary along with every other dictionary you can name would disagree with Schroeder’s paranoid definition of “desecration,” but concepts such as “truth” have never interferred with the judgement of the ACLU.

In a telling exchange, Whitehouse Press Secretary Tony Snow yesterday compared the amnesty granted illegals in the Senate bill to a traffic ticket, “If you had a traffic ticket and you paid it, you’re not forever a speeder, are you? So the fact is, you have paid your debt to society, and we have come up with a way to make sure that the debt to society gets paid. Then you move forward.”

Snow has long been regarded as a moderate conservative with a high level of inside access but a guy, nevertheless, who maintains down-to-earth middle-America sensibilities. The above statement, coupled with another statement Snow made on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program Thursday paint quite a different portrait however.

Snow told Limbaugh, and I’m paraphrasing, “Listen Rush, you and I are both optimists, and I have to believe that after these folks have been here a while, they’re going to look around and say, ‘America is really a great country.’” I may have gotten a few of the words wrong, but that is an accurate representation of Snow’s comment.

That leaves us with two probable conclusions. Either Snow is not paying attention to the millions of illegals who have already been here for a while, yet are out there waving Mexican flags or upside-down American flags in defiance of U.S. law or he’s become a true Washington insider who cynically holds a low view of the average American and is whitewashing the seriousness of the situation.

In any case, the rosy picture of millions of illegals yearning for U.S. citizenship may appeal to idealists, but it just isn’t the truth. Judging by the messages that gushed forth at the recent rallies, most illegals would be just as happy to remain Mexican citizens while living, working, and taking as much of our generosity as they can get within our borders.

A Democrat strategist was on TV this A.M. insinuating that supporters of tough immigration reform are motivated by an aversion to folks with brown skin. In other words, if you oppose wide open borders, you’re a racist.

She is unfortunately not alone in leveling that charge. It seems to be high on the list of the-pro-illegal immigration talking points to take the low road and dismiss the other side as a pack of racists. But the truth is something quite different.

What has the majority of Americans up in arms was not the sight of thousands of marching Mexicans, but thousands of marching Mexicans waving Mexican flags. The flash point was not race, but culture.

Americans by and large don’t care what color your skin is and they don’t care what cultural environment you came from and they don’t care if you want to hang on to your cultural traditions. But it ain’t nice to dis American culture by blantantly waving any flag other than an American flag, especially while abundantly partaking in all that American culture has to offer.

Park City, Utah, is a quiet community with a low crime rate and a fast growing population of illegal Mexicans who come here to work at the many resort properties and related businesses. The Mexican kids have brought gang culture with them but outside of some gang-related knife fights, there hasn’t been much trouble until now.

A few days ago, a few 15-year-old illegals robbed an employee of a Cold Stone Creamery at gun point as he left the store with the day’s receipts. They didn’t put a half mile between themselves and the ice cream shop before they were apprehended.

The point is this – these are kids who, at an early age, are demonstrating that they have little regard for our laws and no wonder. Their parents, by the act of illegally entering our country, have demonstrated to their children that laws in the United States are not to be respected.

When Americans witness the defiance displayed by the illegals as they march, they instinctively sense that we are about to inherit a collosal clash of cultures. A culture that wantonly ignores the laws and customs of the culture that is their host will produce an abundance of the type of violent crime that we here in Park City got a taste of this week.

The Revolutionary Communist Party U.S.A. website produced a piece earlier this week comparing the “Red Flag” of Communism with the American flag. As you might expect, the Red Flag was portrayed in glowing terms while the American flag was dragged through the gutter.

The piece contains all the usual hyperbole and B.S. that characterizes the Communist menagerie but it also contains some important, and if you are not a Communist, disturbing clues to the forces moving our country towards open borders.

One passage refering to the Paris Commune, a 19th century attempt at Communism alludes to a world without borders, “…the Red Flag soared for the first time as a symbol of not just rebellion and revolution, but of a new proletarian state—a radically different kind of state, one to serve a transition to a society without classes and, eventually, without states.”

Of course, the full realization of Communism in the 20th century led not to the liberation of the proletariat, but to the bloodiest and most repressive dictatorships the world has ever known and the butcher of perhaps more than 100 million proletarians.

The Communists among us conveniently ignore the utter failure of Communism to produce a society even remotely resembling the predictions of Marx and Engels and instead, attribute all sorts of evil to the very rock of freedom, namely America, “The American flag is a flag of empire. It has its roots in the enslavement of African people, the seizure of land from Mexico through war, and the systematic genocide of Native Americans. This flag has drawn its nourishment from the blood and bones of the uncounted millions…”

The fact that the Globalists, a loose and sometimes shadowy group that crosses party lines and includes our own President, are on the same wavelength with the Communists, should be a cause for alarm for all Americans who treasure our republic.

“I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.” – Mae West

There is a change underway in American politics that if allowed to continue, will spell the end of our republic. That’s the bad news. The rest of the bad news is that there is little standing in the way to stop it.

The temptation of a nearly endless supply of fresh new voters who have zero education and limited skills has proved too much for the United States Senate, the President, dozens of our state governors, well – you get the picture. These are the kind of voters who are always looking for more free stuff and are willing to vote for whoever promises the most.

The Senate has bravely breached the threshold and found that there was no outcry, no threats of retribution from constituents. Now emboldened, I predict that we will see our elected leaders unashamedly pursue whatever avenues will net them the greatest personal benefit regardless of the consequences for the country.

The events following the nationwide rallies featuring illegals waving Mexican flags prove the point. Rather than hammer out legislation that would quickly secure our border and revamp the immigration process in a measured way, the Senate is throwing bones like a 370 mile fence on a 2000 mile border while conspiring with Vincente Fox to open the floodgates.

And the President skirts his obligation to enforce our existing laws by staging faked demonstrations of enforcement. The INS raids a business, arrests hundreds of illegals, loads them on buses, drives them out of view of the cameras and then lets them go. Bush announces that 6000 National Guard troops will be sent to the border. Sounds great until you consider that at any given time, there will only be a fraction of that number actually on duty and they are forbidden from taking any direct action to stop people from crosssing into the U.S.

Vicente Fox showed up in Utah yesterday as the first stop in a tour to meet with politicians and give encouragement to the millions of Mexicans who live and work here but still look to Fox as their Presidente. Mexicans, no longer afraid of deportation, came out for a chance to glimpse Fox defiantly clutching Mexican flags.

You had better believe that the Mexican President’s visit was part of a plan by our President and all the other like-minded elitist politicians to force their notion of immigration reform on the American people. That the governors of Utah, Oregon, and California as well as the U.S. Senate and our President would indicate that the interests of Fox and Mexico are one and the same as U.S. interests is nothing if not an utter dereliction of duty.

Does anybody with at least a high school education believe Al Gore to be a credible spokesman for any cause whatsoever? This is a guy who while visiting Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home, pointed to a number of busts of easily recognizable Americans like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington and asked “Who are these guys?”

Now, he’s trying to resurect himself by pounding the drum of environmental doom in his own hyperbolic style. And of course, the dour faced academics and the hand-wringers of the left are riveted – they always get a rush from the prospect of any type of bad fortune.

But Gore and the rest of the rabid nutjobs that worship at the alter of environmental meltdown scenarios should take a self-examination break and start walking the talk.

The Drudge Report today published the approximate amount of fuel that then Vice President Gore and his entourage burned in traveling to the 1997 U.N. Global Warming Conference in Kyoto, Japan. While Al relaxed aboard his flight, the jet was busy spewing the highly dangerous combustion by-products from 65,597 gallons of jet fuel into the pristine atmosphere.

The average person drives a car approximately 12,000 miles per year. A gas-guzzling SUV gets maybe 12 miles to the gallon, which would leave the average gas-guzzling SUV driver with an annual total of 1000 gallons consumed.

In one extended weekend, Al Gore saw fit to pour as much polution into the delicate ecosystem as the average American would take 65 years to do, just so that he could preach to us about saving the planet! What a collossal schmuck!

Take a look at the mugs on these Boston College Profs! If the face reflects the soul, these sullen academics couldn’t cobble just one soul together between the three of them.

And why are they sooo unhappy? Because Condoleezza Rice is giving the commencement address, and we can’t have that, can we.

The incredible thing is that some of the protesters had unfurled a huge Cuban flag for all the assembled crowd to see, yet nary a peep from this bunch. In fact, not only did the media ignore it, they’ve 86’d the image from public viewing. The media, along with the sour, dour faculty at BC are showing the ill effects of a lifetime of ingesting illegal drugs.

What other explanation could there be for celebrating a repressive dictatorship, where the average person lives in hopeless poverty, while at the same time condemning Rice as a war criminal in such a pathetic manor? Fortunately for all concerned, the overwhelming majority of participants gave her a standing ovation.

Democrat attack dog and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid blasted an amendment to the immigration reform bill making English our official language by calling it racist.

This is pandering at it’s most despicable. Reid is not stupid and he knows that most Americans (84% in the latest Zogby poll with 77% of Hispanics in agreement) think that English should be the one official language of the United States. And he also knows that the reasons for legally making English our official language are sound.

However, one more thing Reid knows is that illegal Mexicans who have no illusions of assimilation and no desire to speak English are flooding into his home state of Nevada in record numbers. The way things are going, these illegals will soon become legal and Reid will be damned if he’s going to alienate all those new voters in search of the government subsidies that Reid stands ready to provide.

Andrew Glick is the owner of Flea Market Thrift in Hollywood, Florida, and he is being ordered to remove the American flag he installed to adorn an otherwise ramshackle store front. The owner of the building, Sterling Stores, Inc., maintains that Glick is in violation of the lease because they claim he made a structural change to the building.

Glick counters that the flagpole is bolted to a concrete slab and is not attached to the building. Judging by the condition of the roof, two obvious observations can be made. First, Glick’s American flag has improved the curb appeal of his store, and second, Sterling ought to fix the roof before spouting off about the flag.

Sterling’s motivation seems suspect. Possibly they are that breed of America-hater whose disdain for the American flag is so strong that they won’t condone flag displays on their property, or maybe they want Glick gone and they’re trying to harass him to the point where he leaves voluntarily. In any case, it appears that Sterling most likely has a hidden agenda for wanting the American flag removed.

It’s interesting to note that the owner of an adjacent business has jumped on board with Sterling in condemning Glick’s flag. Bruce Wheatley owns Public Pawn and Jewelry and himself has not one, but at least four American flags flying from poles attached to the roof of his building. Yet he claims that Glick’s lone flag constitutes a safety hazard. Nice try, Bruce.

Perhaps there is no clearer example of the divide over immigration in the U.S. Senate than yesterday’s vote to table the Ensign Ammendment. The amendment was designed to prevent illegals from collecting Social Security benefits as a result of illegal employment:

“To reduce document fraud, prevent identity theft, and preserve the integrity of the Social Security system, by ensuring that persons who receive an adjustment of status under this bill are not able to receive Social Security benefits as a result of unlawful activity.”

Worth noting is that Arizona Republican John McCain voted to table the amendment. Now, I appreciate as much as anyone, McCain’s Vietnam prison camp story about the home-made American flag, a story he has told innumerable times to bolster his image as war hero, but his lame defense of his vote marks him as just another low-life politician pandering for votes.

McCain says, “We all know that millions of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for years and sometimes decades while they work to contribute to our economy.” They may be paying the employers, but are the employers passing it along to the IRS? With what, stolen Social Security numbers? Illegal workers benefit the Mexican economy, not the American economy, by sending millions of dollars back to relatives in Mexico.

McCain also made this shameless statement, “The Ensign amendment would undermine the work of these people by preventing lawfully present immigrant workers from claiming Social Security benefits that they earned before they were authorized to work in our community.” A better way to say “before they were authorized” might be to say “when they unlawfully broke into our country and stole jobs from American workers by working for below minimum wage.”

You may have garnered the Mexican vote in Arizona, Mr. McCain, but you just lost a shot at the Presidency. Here’s a full list of the traitorous Senators who are paying for votes with the Social Security benefits of the Baby Boomers.