Monumental idiocy and sheer idiocy

By Don Frost

            I must begin with an apology. I promised my next posting would be about how and why politicians perpetuate the alienation of Spanish-speaking immigrants. But three items in the Jan. 24 news cry out for comment. I must deal with them first; they’re incredible.

            THE HEADLINE read, “Four Oath Keepers found guilty of seditious conspiracy.” Like most of the rest of the country I’d been following the House committee investigation of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. So, on reading the headline and then the story, I was taken aback. “What’s this?” I said to myself. “I thought the riot was all Donald Trump’s fault. The House committee said so.”

            As the committee pointed out, and “liberal” pundits kept reminding us over nearly two torturous years of hearings, Trump urged the crowd before they rioted that they should march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” for their rights. Pretty outrageous; you don’t get more incendiary than that, the committee ruled.

            But a jury down the street was taking part in a serious investigation of the riot, not a political circus like the House committee. That jury convicted the hard-Right Oath Keepers of making incendiary comments that make “fight like hell” sound like something high school cheerleaders would urge their football team to do.

            The jury heard and saw these words from Oath Keepers president Elmer Stewart Rhodes, long before Jan. 6:

            “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war.”

            “It will be a bloody fight. . . . That can’t be avoided.”

            “The only chance we/he [Trump] has is if we scare the shit out of them and convince them it will be torches and pitchforks time.”

            The House committee wound up its hearings by urging the Department of Justice to file charges against Trump. Democratic Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland would have to be a drooling idiot to take up that challenge. The case is a born loser. All Trump’s attorneys would have to do is call the witnesses the Jan. 6 committee ignored because they didn’t fit the committee’s predetermined verdict: Oath Keepers, QAnon, and Proud Boys.

            ILLINOIS HAS banned the sale and distribution of semi-automatic rifles (which “liberals” prefer to label more ominously “assault weapons”) and high-capacity magazines. It also requires Illinois residents who own such rifles to register them with the state. That last clause is, obviously, the first step toward confiscation, which, also obviously, “liberals” claim is not its intent. Such gun owners have until Jan. 1, 2024, to register their rifles.

            DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick opposes the ban as do 90 other sheriffs across the state. Mendrick says he would enforce the ban when such rifle owners were involved in other illegal activity, but won’t go out of his way to enforce it:

             “. . . neither myself nor my officers will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state nor will we be arresting or housing law-abiding individuals that have been arrested solely for noncompliance with this act.”

            Democratic supporters of the law and other “liberals” are, of course, outraged, demanding he retract his statement, resign, or face censure. The gist of their fury is that Mendrick’s duty is to enforce laws, not defy them.

            Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker agrees: “You don’t get to choose what laws you enforce . . . You have to enforce the laws whether you like them or not. You take an oath to do that.”

            But it wasn’t so long ago that Pritzker thumbed his nose at America’s immigration laws. He didn’t like them, and so chose not to enforce them, stating unequivocally that he wouldn’t even help federal immigration officials as they tried to enforce those laws. He defiantly said Illinois would always be a “sanctuary state” for illegal immigrants.

            The word “hypocrite,” applied to the governor and other “liberal” critics of Mendrick, springs instantly to mind.

            A NATIONWIDE course on African-American studies, proposed by the College Board, has been rejected from being taught in Florida schools. The board is the organization that administers the SAT college entrance exams. I’ll get to the predictable outrage later.

            But first, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has rejected the proposed course on the grounds that it pushes a political agenda. “It’s indoctrination, not education,” DeSantis says. He also says the course promotes the notion that America oppresses black people, other minorities, women, and really goes off the rails with a chapter on “Black Queer Studies.”

            It also violates Florida’s Stop WOKE Act which bans instruction that people are oppressed or privileged because of their race.

            “What’s one of the lessons about?” DeSantis asks. “Queer theory. Who would say that an important part of black history is queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda.”

            The course includes a segment on “Movement for Black Lives” by a coalition of 50 black groups that alleges there is a “war” on homosexual and transsexual black people. It includes a reading by Leslie Kay Jones, an assistant professor at Rutgers University in which she says, “Black people produce . . .  content for the same social media corporations that reproduce the white supremist superstructure that suppresses us.”

            We haven’t heard such overblown and inflammatory rhetoric since the unlamented Black Panthers shouted them over bullhorns as prelude to riots in the ’60s.

            Florida is right to reject this course. Unfortunately, the Left will choose to hear only, “DeSantis bans African-American studies.” And the obvious conclusion from such selective reading: “DeSantis is a Racist!”

How we encourage ‘Ugly Hispanics”

By Don Frost

            It has been pointed out – correctly – that signage and government documents in Spanish as well as English are a practical matter because the country is awash in Spanish-speaking immigrants, legal and illegal.

            True, but for Pete’s sake, let’s give the poor immigrants a break. Tear down those bilingual signs and get rid of the government’s bilingual documents. Give them a reason to learn English; a motive to become fully integrated into American society by learning and speaking the language (however unofficial) of America: English. That is, after all, why they’ve come here, isn’t it? To become Americans? To leap into the melting pot; to be part of the great American experiment E pluribus unum, out of many one?

            Nonsense, of course; grist for campaign speeches. Many, perhaps even the majority, come here just because America is a nice place to live. Beyond that they don’t give a damn about assimilating, about becoming in any way American. For practical purposes such immigrants are not even Hispanic-Americans. They’re just Hispanics living in America.

            Because it imparts a sense of moral superiority, “liberals” whole-heartedly support America becoming a bilingual (but strictly Spanish-English) country. After all, the cult of diversity has been accepted as the holy grail of American society. Contrary to all evidence, it is assumed that the more vigorously we celebrate our differences, the better for the country as a whole. It is not. Diversity equals divisive.

            In 1958 Eugene Burdick and William Lederer published a book called “The Ugly American.” The title character was a good man; he was just physically homely. But soon after publication the term “Ugly American” came to represent another all-too-common American which the book described.

These types of Ugly Americans, living or visiting abroad, are insensitive to the cultures in which they find themselves. They reject local customs and people; they live, work, and play in American enclaves. They refuse to integrate into their host country’s society; they refuse to assimilate; they refuse to learn the local language and complain about a paucity of English-speakers when they are forced to venture out of their enclave. For these reasons, Ugly Americans are not welcome in foreign lands.

Elena and Esteban Salgado are Mexicans who had been living in America for more than 30 years. But it wasn’t until 2016 that Esteban, 57, and Elena, 51, wanted to become U.S. citizens so they could vote against Donald Trump in the upcoming election.

They explained their reasoning through an interpreter.

For 30 years they didn’t give a damn about being American. They thrived by rejecting everything American, pointedly English-speaking Americans. They didn’t even want to vote.

Both Mexicans arrived in America when they were in their late teens and early 20s. Since they still needed an interpreter, they obviously had rejected local customs and people. They lived in voluntary exile, in a Spanish-speaking ghetto, deliberately isolating themselves from the rest of America. The single reason they were able to do this is because English-speaking America makes is oh-so easy to remain Mexican – divided from the rest of Americans – in every way but geographically. They aren’t even Mexican-Americans. They’re nothing but Mexicans living in America. Their legal or citizenship status doesn’t mean a damn thing.

Francisca Lino had been living in America since immigrating illegally in 1999. When Donald Trump’s immigration policies faced her with deportation, she hid out in a Chicago church until President Biden issued a 100-day moratorium on deportations. After living in an English-speaking country for 21 years, she still needed an interpreter to describe her travail. She was just another Mexican living in America, adding her bit to the divisive nature of diversity.

Ananias Ocampo was another illegal immigrant from Mexico. He lived in a Spanish-speaking enclave in Chicago for 30 years where he, too, had no reason to learn English.

Lino, Ocampo, and the Salgados – just four Spanish-speakers who want nothing to do with Americans; nothing to do with American society. They have rejected all things American in favor of the language, the culture, and the country from which they came. To them, America is just a nice place to live, but only because they can remain separate from the gringos. And this voluntary isolation stems directly from the language barrier, a barrier fostered by the worship of Spanish-English translations.

Immigrants made America great. But only those immigrants who didn’t just want to live here; they wanted to be Americans. Without exception the immigrants who made America great, who achieved their full potential – some of them Hispanic – learned to speak English. The list is long: Madeleine Albright from Czechoslovakia; Desi Arnaz, Cuba; John Audubon, Haiti; Irving Berlin, Russia; Antonio Banderas, Spain; Victor Borge, Denmark; Charles Boyer, France; Yul Brynner, Russia; Albert Einstein, Germany; Enrico Fermi, Italy; Andy Garcia, Cuba; Audrey Hepburn, Belgium; Henry Kissinger, Germany; Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austria; Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Germany.

All, and others like them, leaped into the melting pot called America and became Americans who happened to have been born in another country.

Enjoy that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from helping others. But when you translate for Spanish-speaking immigrants you’re condemning them to a lifetime in self-imposed Spanish-speaking ghettos. Your “help” separates us, it divides us; it does not unite us.

Lino, Ocampo, the Salgados, and millions like them – legal and illegal – need a reason to assimilate, to be Americans. It starts with the language. Until they learn to speak English, they’ll never be anything but Ugly Hispanics, and Ugly Hispanics are no more welcome in America than Ugly Americans are welcome in Spanish-speaking lands.

            Next: Politicians’ role in perpetuating the alienation of Spanish-speaking immigrants from the rest of America; in turning America into a collection of Spanish-speaking ghettos.

Biden’s just gotta love our biased press

By Don Frost

            Just when you think the nation’s 4^th Estate has sunk as low as it can, along comes another example of its utter lack of a moral compass, its descent into blatant bias.

            In a way it’s quite comical. Today’s journalists pat themselves on the back and proclaim their devotion to objective professionalism. Maybe they even believe it themselves. Then they turn around and give full-throated support to all that is “liberal.” It shows, they think we don’t notice, and then they wonder why, despite their protests, the profession of journalism has fallen into such disrepute.

            This time it’s about President Biden’s purloined secret documents from when he was vice president. A simple comparison of the media’s handling of Donald Trump’s filched documents vs. Biden’s filched documents lays bare the news media’s “liberal” bias. Again.

            When the story broke “unbiased” reporters and editors saw the obvious and it struck terror into their “liberal” hearts: People are going to think Biden is just as bad as Trump. What to do, what to do? Simple: Put out stories, editorials, and commentary about how Trump’s purloined documents suggested sinister motives while Biden’s stash of purloined documents was little more than a clerical error that merited nothing more than an embarrassed, “Oops.”

            Then, Biden’s supporters in the press would studiously avoid speculating on what could be in those documents. Also, never refer to them as “stolen.”

            When it was Trump’s stash they were unashamedly referred to as “stolen.” Also, we were treated almost daily to fevered speculation as to what the documents held: “the nation’s secrets,” “national security compromised,” “endangering the lives of our agents abroad,” “damaging our relationships with our allies.” We still don’t know – nor will we ever – what’s in those papers, but that didn’t stop Biden’s troops in the media from postulating the most dire consequences of Trump having made off with them.

            Biden’s stash comprised mere “classified documents.” Trump’s stash was comprised of “Top Secret” documents. Everybody knows “classified” doesn’t mean anything important. My goodness, every newspaper in the land has “classified ads.” But “Top Secret”? Oh, my. That’s serious.

            How a biased press handles this obvious double standard is pretty simple. In a TV news show the talking heads just hammer away at Biden’s “classified documents.” Then, well into the report, make the perfunctory admission that “some” of the documents carried “Top Secret” labels. Then it’s quickly back to “classified documents” for the rest of the report. Ditto print media where it’s “classified” over and over, then a single, dutiful use of the deadly words, “Top Secret,” buried deep in the story before reverting to “classified.”

            Trump’s documents? “Top Secret” over and over and over and . . .

            Biden’s secret documents “may have been inadvertently packed into boxes,” according to the Washington Post. This is the same source that implied Trump personally packed boxes full of sensitive intelligence during a midnight raid in the Oval Office just before the movers arrived to take them away in the morning. Would the Post have speculated that Trump’s stash “may have been inadvertently packed into boxes”? Hell no!

            Eventually Biden and the story of his filched secret documents will die an ignoble death through lack of interest; or more precisely, lack of coverage. After all, good ol’ Uncle Joe is “fully cooperating with the investigation.” He said so himself. As far as the “liberal” press is concerned, that settles it: “Nothing to see here, folks. Just keep moving.”

            Look for the press to be similarly indifferent to the upcoming GOP-led investigations of the Biden family’s foreign involvements, Joe’s quid pro quo in Ukraine when he was vice president, and Hunter’s laptop.

            It should be fascinating to see how the “liberal” press spins the quid pro quo moment. I have faith in the media’s duplicity, but it’s hard to imagine how they’re going to suggest it wasn’t quid pro quo when Biden said, “I’m leaving [Ukraine] in six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money [$1 billion].” (Joe Biden Discussing Ultimatum made to Ukraine Burisma – Council on Foreign Relations – Jan 23, 2018 – YouTube)

            It would be too easy to dismiss all this as silly and pointless fussing over words. But that’s how the best propaganda works, with subtlety. For example, “Biden’s relationship with Russia.” Or, “Trump’s cozy relationship with Russia.” Whose relationship with Russia appears suspect? Trump took Top Secret documents. Biden took classified documents. Which theft is cause for greater concern?

            Every journalist worth his paycheck knows the impact such subtleties can have. It’s one thing to use them in editorials or clearly labeled commentary where the legitimate object is to influence, but to slip them into news stories – where the legitimate object is to just report facts – is despicable, unconscionable, unethical.

‘Bilingual’ means Italian immigrants go to the back of the bus

By Don Frost

            It never fails. If you say or write something “liberals” don’t like, they’ll immediately go to their fallback position: “You’re just a racist!” It beats the hell out of thinking.

            That’s what happens when you suggest it’s rude when a guest enters your home and refuses to speak your language and, instead, insists you learn his.

            That’s pretty much what I suggested in a recent post and “liberals” consider it racist. In their mania to achieve “diversity,” they think it’s just swell that there is no official language in America. And, by golly, it’s our duty as hosts to accommodate anyone’s language difficulties by learning their’s. If I can’t learn to speak theirs, I should at least cheer when all publications – especially government publications, even election ballots – are bilingual.

            Do let’s be honest; when a “liberal” says “bilingual” he does not mean English/Polish, English/Japanese, English/Vietnamese, English/French, English/German, or English/Italian. Bilingual to a “liberal” means only one thing: English/Spanish. Other non-English speakers can make themselves comfortable in the back of the bus.

            That’s a pretty suspect view. It suggests that when Japanese, Vietnamese, French, and other non-English speakers immigrate to America they’re clever enough to learn English. But Spanish-speaking immigrants aren’t smart enough to learn a different language. That’s just plain wrong; it’s racist.

            Besides, why should Spanish-speaking immigrants learn English? “Liberals” are all too happy to remove any need to, even to the point of demanding Spanish-only schools for Spanish-speakers’ children. This, too, looks like presuming these are a people who are so dull-witted they can’t learn English.

Vote for speaker could be the Republican’s proudest moment

By Don Frost

            Democrats are having a right jolly time scoffing at Republicans for their inability to elect a Speaker of the House. The poor party is in such disarray, they chuckle, they can’t even pick a leader.

            Every Republican in the land should hold his head up proudly as we watch real democracy at work. This campaign for Speaker of the House just might be the party’s proudest moment.

            We Democrats never have such problems, they boast. We elect our leaders lickity-split. Well of course they do. They’re Democrats. They do what they’re told to do. Every Democratic representative in the House is told, when he and she is a naïve waif newly elected, if they want to get re-elected, they’ll need the party’s support and if they want the party’s support, they’ll vote as the party tells them to vote. And that includes voting for the Speaker of the House as selected in secret session by senior Democrats.

            They portray such unanimity, however slyly achieved, as good government.

            But, as Sir Winston Churchill is believed to have said, “Democracy is messy.” That’s what Republicans in the House of Representatives are about. However it turns out Republicans can be proud that they can vote their conscience, their hearts, what they believe, and to hell with what the party leadership says. And so it gets messy.

            Right now the vote is being held up by hard Right GOP members. They have every right to speak their piece, express their views, and vote the way they believe is right.

            Democrats have hard Left members in the House. Even they, avowed Socialists, do not dispute the party’s leaders. The party has warned them: Vote as you’re told or there will be consequences when you seek re-election. So they vote as they’re told to vote. It’s shameful.

America is just fine despite our diversity

By Don Frost

            Ours is a great nation; a great country; a great people, not because of our diversity, but despite our diversity.

            Yet everywhere you go, everything you hear on the radio, on television, and read in the newspapers, the refrain is the same: Our company needs to be more diverse; we need to elect a more diverse board, a more diverse Congress, a more diverse teaching staff, a more diverse neighborhood.

In heaven’s name why?

“Diversity” has become an unquestioned article of faith in today’s America; a lofty goal to be devoutly cultivated. The more diverse the nation, the faithful claim, the closer we, as a people, will be to universal peace, harmony, and happiness.

        But “Can you cite one speck of hard evidence of the benefits of ‘diversity’ that we have heard gushed about for years?” writes Thomas Sowell. “Evidence of its harm can be seen – written in blood – from Iraq to India, from Serbia to Sudan, from Fiji to the Philippines. It is scary how easily so many people can be brainwashed by sheer repetition of a word.”

            These are not the ravings of some Right-wing crackpot. Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and author of 45 books. Lest his contempt for “diversity” be dismissed as the rantings of a xenophobic racist, it is instructive to point out that Sowell is black.

            “Is diversity our strength?” Sowell writes. “Or anybody’s strength, anywhere in the world? Does Japan’s homogeneous population cause the Japanese to suffer? Have the Balkans been blessed by their heterogeneity – or does the very word ‘Balkanization’ remind us of centuries of strife, bloodshed, and unspeakable atrocities, extending into our own times? Has Europe become a safer place after importing vast numbers of people from the Middle East, with cultures hostile to the fundamental values of Western civilization?”

            None of this is to say people who are different by reason of race, culture, or language should be shunned, ridiculed, or persecuted in any way. But nor are they automatically deserving of special praise or special considerations – nor are we specially blessed by their presence among us – simply because they are of a different race, culture, or because they speak a different language.

            For reasons that defy reason, those who worship the cult of diversity encourage all Americans to celebrate our differences, not what we have in common. It’s all so in-your-face. What kind of American are you? What’s your heritage? How are we different? I want to live among people who are as unlike me as possible.

            Early in the 20^th Century those who were part of the great migration from Europe to America took pride in their eagerness to be American. “We’re Americans,” they said with pride. “We talk like Americans now.”

            For reasons that defy reason assimilation has become a dirty word. It has become somehow evil, even racist, to expect new arrivals, legal or illegal, to want to speak the language of their host country. Now English-speaking people are urged to accommodate those who don’t speak English. I have a mailing from my medical provider directing me to a website for assistance, should I need it. The same instructions appear in 16 languages. It is as though we are ashamed of our nationality, our culture, even the language we speak.

             Sowell writes, “‘Diversity’ is a notion often defended with fervor, but seldom with facts. If there is ever a contest for words that substitute for thought, ‘diversity’ should be recognized as the undisputed world champion. . . . The very idea of testing this wonderful, magical word against something as ugly as reality seems sordid. . . . diversity of ideas gets no such respect.

            “Nothing so epitomizes the politically correct gullibility of our times as the magic word ‘diversity.’ The wonders of diversity are proclaimed from the media, extolled in the academy, and confirmed in the august chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States.

            “‘Diversity’ has become one of the most often used words of our time; a word almost never defined. ‘Diversity’ is invoked in discussions of everything from employment policy to curriculum reform and from entertainment to politics. [It has] became an insistent part of our vocabulary, an invocation, an imperative, or a bludgeon in ideological conflicts.”

            E Pluribus Unum – out of many, one. This, our traditional Latin motto, means that when the many choose to live in America, they join with those already here and become one people. But the cult of diversity celebrates differences rather than the unity implicit in the “melting pot” ideal. Perhaps we need a new motto. What is Latin for “Out of many, well, nothing special”?