We Dreamed We Saw FDR Last Night, As Alive As You and Me

During the President’s press conference last night we had what can only be described as a psychic experience mixed with a strange sense of déjà vu. While our attention was fixed on the major network reporters’ sweaty, pompous faces, an alternate consciousness invaded our faculties. We tried to swat the unwanted intrusion away, but found ourselves in thrall to an unbidden vision. Was it the two drinks we had had, the two belts of the local favorite here in the Near Abroad, seemingly a devilish mixture of the worst features of ouzo, Sambuca and diesel fuel? Was it a buried memory of some past life awakened by circumstance? Was it bad pizza?

We do not know.

All we do know is that while we tried mightily to focus on the visage of Terry Moran, our mind’s eye wavered and fluttered. A slight feeling of nausea waved over us. And, then, before us, clear as day, but with our eyes shut tightly, we saw an image of a muscular man standing before a podium. The seal of the President of the United States was on the front. There were microphones on top of it, but only a few, and they seemed large and clunky-looking to us. The President was a different man, a good looking man, patrician and smiling. And he was smoking!

To our right, a man in a suit stood up, identified himself as being from NBC. A reporter, no doubt. The President looked at him and called his name. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt! FDR himself!

The reporter spoke:

“Sir, a report released today by the Department of War notes that last year, 1943, was a record year for deaths of Americans at the hands of both the Germans and the Japanese. If the “war on fascism” is a success as you say, why is it that more acts of fatal aggression are now being committed by the Germans and the Japanese than ever before, after more than two years of war? Why do you think we are winning? How do we measure success?”

The President began to respond. We tried to hold on to the vision, no longer fighting it now. We heard that strong, reassuring voice we only know through old radio and film recordings. We thought we heard something about “being on the offensive” and “engaging the enemy” and fighting “relentlessly until victory,” but it was too late.

The vision was gone and had passed.

Canada and "Hate Speech" Codes

Regular readers of this blog no doubt know that we are lawyers. During our time in law school we saw close up the push by the liberal establishment, the American Bar Association, and the professoriate at large for so-called "hate speech" laws. Such laws aim, in theory, to protect persons from assault, verbal or physical, based on their gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, nation of origin, sexual orientation and other identity-based factors.

This push must be, and will be, resisted by all who care deeply about freedom of speech because, at the end of the day, "hate speech" is really a very subjective judgment that very much depends on the eye of the beholder, or, if you will, the ear of the listener. Extreme examples are easy to identify, but most liberal experts in this field neglect to point out that obscene and so-called "fighting words" that invoke extreme emotion are already not protected as speech under current Constitutional jurisprudence. That being the case, the "extra" protection afforded by "hate speech" codes really are illusory. What is really going on here is an attempt to declare beyond debate certain subjects that the Left finds offensive.

More mundane examples, however, are likely not to produce such unanimity of judgment. Is Little Green Footballs and invaluable political forum that focuses on the plans and deeds of Islamic Fascists? Or is it a racist hate-site that the government should shut down? We suspect the answer to that question very much depends on one's political views.

The result of such codes, as we have seen in our universities--the last redoubt of liberal orthodoxy--is an unacceptable government intrusion into deciding what constitutes political speech. Any such judgment is highly likely to be politically charged. A quick glance at the common law jurisdictions who have passed such high-sounding laws serves to illustrate the general point.

The result in the U.K. has been to criminalize extreme right wing groups like the BNP on the basis of their "hate speech" while ignoring calls for the murder of Jews emitting weekly from British mosques. This both allows the fascists of the right to pose as martyrs while encouraging Islamic Fascists in their not-unreasonable belief that the Western fetish on race will protect them from any adverse effects under the self-same law.

Canada also provides an excellent example of the dangers of "hate speech" laws. David Frum reports the following incident:

Last month, the Canadian Jewish Congress publicized a disturbing incident at an Ottawa-area Islamic school:

A student at the school handed in an eight-page Arabic-language essay illustrated with a burning Star of David and a machine gun. In one passage, he wrote: "Without thinking, Ahmed took his M-16 machine gun and threw the bombs and he showered the Jews, this resulted in the killing of the soldiers." The teacher to whom the paper was submitted it returned it with the comment, "God bless you, your efforts are good."

After the incident was publicized, the Ontario Ministry of Education was investigated and two teachers were suspended.

Canadian Islamic groups are now protesting the inequity of the Ministry's actions. They are demanding that the Ministry investigate hate speech at Jewish schools. And as an example of what they are concerned about, the Canadian Islamic Congress issued a press release on Friday calling for the investigation of a Kingston-area Hebrew school. The reason? A nine-year-old student at the school published a letter in the Kingston newspaper, the Whig-Standard, charging that Palestinians wished "to push the Israelis into the sea."

According to the Islamic Congress, the views expressed in the child's letter are views "damaging to healthy relationships among many Canadians in our multicultural and pluralist society."

Maybe you remember that famous jibe of Anatole France's about the law with majestic impartiality forbidding both the rich and poor to sleep under bridges? In the same way, the Canadian Islamic Congress seems to believe that healthy multiculturalism should treat exactly equally an Islamic school that encourages young Muslims to fantasize about murdering Jews - and a Jewish school that teaches its students to object to being murdered.

This story illustrates a number of important points, but for our purposes here, note especially how both competing civic organizations are now pressuring for government action to declare the speech of their enemies illegal.

Therein lies the danger. As Jefferson so aptly wrote centuries ago, the best cure for such speech is more free speech and the clear light of day. To involve the government in such matters can only result in direct government involvement in private political debate. In Canada, if the government objects to what one says, one is simply declared illegal. One must shut up or face the full sanction of the law.

No doubt this would please our liberal friends to no end, having thoroughly lost every public policy debate since around 1979.

We understand that freedom of speech is painful to liberals. We know what you're going through, having had to live through the era when you controlled the public debate and no dissenting voices to liberal orthodoxy were allowed into the hallowed halls of CBS News or the New York Times.

Hate speech codes are nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to criminalize one's political opponents and should be resisted by all who care for liberty, be they right or left.

CAIR Loses Another One: The Department of Justice Rolls On

Somebody better tell the folks at CAIR that all their talk about “scapegoating” and “McCarthyism” and “Islamophobia” can’t change the fact that the United States Department of Justice has, again and again, successfully prosecuted for terrorism-related offenses those that CAIR declared innocent persons simply practicing their peaceful religion. From Portland, Oregon to Arlington, Virginia, the USDOJ has strung together an impressive array of legal victories that reduce to hollow whining the obviously political complaints of CAIR and its new ally, the ACLU.

Latest example: Ali al-Timimi, a so-called “prominent Islamic scholar” has been found guilty after a jury trial of encouraging his followers to join the Taliban and fight American armed forces in Afghanistan in the days following 9/11. Al-Timimi faces life in prison, and here’s to hoping that is what he gets.

Al-Timimi has performed work on CAIR’s behalf, having delivered lectures for it (on "woman's rights", meaning the complete lack thereof under his fascist ideology) and also has participated in foreign delegations for its affiliated organization, the Islamic Association of North America. At the time of his arrest, CAIR screamed for weeks about the bigotry and racism of the American people and its Administration. Now, after a dispassionate review of the facts, it turns out that CAIR's man is just another damn terrorist and not, say, a free speech martyr.

Each month brings new Bush Administration victories against our enemies, foreign and domestic. It simply boggles one’s mind when one fully comprehends the measure of resolute fortitude and stern resolve our good USDOJ prosecutors, the Attorney General and President Bush have shown in the face of unprecedented and unparalled attacks upon them by the MSM and the mass culture at large.

We thank God above that our leadership has such courage in these times, which so greatly require them.

Message to Muslim Fascists: We are not France, not Spain and not Europe. Nor are we Finland, Norway or the Netherlands. Break the law here, encourage your precious jihad here, and we will follow you, watch you, arrest you and lock you away for life.

We’re Americans. We fight.

And we fight to win.

Visas! Visas! Get Your Red-Hot Visas!

Last week, our friends and colleagues over at Daily Demarche published their thoughts and notes about our current visa and immigration system and the Department of State’s role in the process. We generally found ourselves in total and complete agreement with the analysis, but wanted to add a few more points.

First, as Smiley correctly pointed out, the real sword in the Department’s arsenal is INA § 214(b). This section gives consular officers wide discretion and judgment in determining whether any given applicant overcomes the rebuttable presumption that the applicant is an intending illegal immigrant.

Some officers (and more than a few applicants) chafe over the seeming randomness in result, since officers apply the section according to a necessarily subjective standard, i.e. their individual judgment. However, such complaints miss the mark. The President has plenary power to exclude aliens from the United States and the FSOs who use 214(b) are doing no more than exercising that power, which has been delegated to FSOs through their direct Presidential commission (and Senate confirmation) and, specifically, in the consular commission, which is distinct and different.

Since, in any case, someone’s judgment is going to be exercised, it makes no sense to complain that one person’s judgment is different than another person’s. Of course they are. But, in general, the judgments we consular officers make daily do follow a general pattern which tracks the letter of the law closely. Good cases are obvious, and are generally approved; bad cases are obvious, and are generally denied. It’s in those tough middle-ground cases where officers and applicants find differing results. Let's look at a few cases to give you a flavor of what we deal with daily.

For example, say an applicant from New Pomeria (our favorite fictitious country) presents himself at the window. He works for IBM, graduated from the local version of Harvard, makes a salary much above the average, is married, with 3 children, and has 5 instances of prior travel, 2 with the family to Miami and 3 alone to IBM headquarters in NYC.

Any FSO will approve this guy under 214(b) barring other issues, such as a criminal record (you’d be surprised how many of these foreign elites drink and drive!) or other possibly adverse information. But, chances are, you approve this guy be he Romanian, Peruvian or Indonesian.

Now, let’s say the next applicant works at a hair salon cutting hair and also sells candy and drinks out of his home for extra income. He is single, low income, with no children. He has no prior travel.

This guy has weak economic ties and weak family ties to his country. It well may be that the guy honestly and truly wants to go visit his cousin for a few weeks and come home. As Americans, who experience the reality of illegal immigration at home daily, it is often hard to forget just how darn hard it is to move to a different country, learn a new language and make a new life, even if it is the richest country in the world. But, the sad fact here is that this applicant is unable to overcome the presumption inherent in 214(b) and, as a result, will not get a visa.

The next folks at the window are a family of four. Dad, Mom, Son and Daughter. Dad works for a large local retailer, makes an average salary which translates to only around $500 a month in dollars, and has worked there for 15 years. Mom works as a secretary, earns about half of what Dad does, and has worked there for 7 years. Son is in the most prominent public university, studying law. Daughter is still in the local equivalent of high school. The family has no prior travel except for a weekend to a neighboring country.

Here is where it gets interesting. What does one highlight? The fact that they are low income by US standards and would have no family ties if they all travel together? Or the fact that, by local standards, they are a solid middle-class family with good jobs and have shown great social stability?

You make the call: let’s see what you come up with in the Comments section.

That issue aside, the most critical matter that Congress needs to address in the realm of immigration law are the visas for which 214(b) does not apply: Hs, Rs, and most importantly, Ls.

Hs are for foreign workers. An employer petitions DHS for the foreign worker and DHS allegedly investigates whether or not the petition should be granted. In fact, as any FSO on the Line will tell you, DHS rubber-stamps these and gets them off their backs. Under the law, however, FSOs have no authority whatsoever to reject these applicants. The only tool we have with these is if we find something the applicant left out of their original petition to DHS. At that point, we can return it for re-adjudication. However, since specialized lawyers draft the bulk of H petitions, there usually isn’t any wiggle room for the FSO to use to reject. As a result, this whole class of applicants pass to the U.S. with very little scrutiny.

Rs are for religious workers. Congress wrote this very applicant-favorable law to enable churches to utilize foreign workers to help their cause; for example, the Irish parish priest. FSOs have very narrow grounds on which to reject such cases. The result has been the entrance to the United States of hoards of little-investigated imams and other Muslim “religious persons” who are actually shills for Wahabbi Islamic Fascism working at, among other places, the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles. This visa class reflects the danger of our traditional love for religion; we are unable to recognize enemies in that guise, it seems.

Ls are for inter-company transfers. This was apparently intended by Congress to help giants like Microsoft or Nike to transfer their global executives from post to post. However, this sloppily-written law enables any old person to start a company in their host country, start a company in the United States and “transfer” oneself to the States. Again, FSOs have only very narrow grounds upon which to refuse such cases. This is the section the very savvy and knowledgeable use and it is not uncommon to see a person get an L visa who has been rejected for a tourist visa four or five times.

214(b) is a very important tool. Unfortunately, the Congress keeps adding visa classes for which it does not apply. Without the right legal tools, FSOs cannot properly do their jobs.

Mark -- Please Call Us, It's Urgent

We are sorry to burden our readers with a personal message, but a good friend of ours is currently in transit and we're hoping he gets this message at some Internet cafe somewhere or, at least, when he arrives at his destination.

Mark, please call; we had an awful meltdown of email at work and we lost the cell phone number we were supposed to call you and Mike at. We need both urgently.