CHRISTMAS CHEER
Re: Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder’s Christmas, Let It Be:

I just want to really thank both Jackie and Raoul for a beautiful article that reflects true American vision. Congratulations,
— John Kingston

ENFORCE THE LAW
Re: John Tabin’s Minutemen at the Polls:

The credibility of both political parties on illegal immigration is absolute zero. I still remember Bush’s sneering remark calling the Minutemen vigilantes — just the sort of contempt one might expect a rich limousine liberal to make. I have to admit I have never quite looked at him the same way since — quite apart from selling out on social-program pork-barreling, quotas, filibustering, and just about everything else. You can always depend on the Stupid Party to slap its supporters in the face.

Some of us also remember Bush’s earlier proposal to add a grand total of 200 members to the Border Patrol. Now he makes a big speech and we are supposed to believe he is against illegal immigration. The Democrats are no different. We also remember the amnesty for illegals in 1986 — we were solemnly told this would solve the problem, that it would be the first and last amnesty ever, and that our borders would be secured — yeah, right.

No other nation in the world treats its borders this way. And yes, if I were living in some corrupt, murderous, incompetent Third-World despotism, I would do my best to get into the United States first, or some other First-World country second.
— John Lockwood

Legal immigration is a very good thing, but doing ANYTHING that will give illegals a chance to stay in this country is wrong. If they want to work here they should follow our laws and before anything is done for them they should have to go home and apply for a green card to work here legally. Even my county government is hiring illegals. If the government turns a blind eye to lawbreakers, and I don’t care if they are here to just earn a living they are still lawbreakers, then the rule of law is on a downhill slide. What next bank robbers that are just trying to feed their families. Just think if we were not having to pay for health care, schooling and welfare for illegals, just maybe our taxes could go down.
— Elaine Kyle

…Another element that goes unmentioned is a “fix immigration” group in Southern California which has been actively working on this problem for over twenty years, CCIR, which is led by Barbara Coe. Congressman Tancredo is very late to the issue as far as Californians are concerned. At one time, probably in the ’60s, California did have a very effective guest worker program, the Bracero program. It was designed by Western Growers to address the needs of the hundreds of seasonal crops produced in the state. Perhaps the writer could address this plan that worked. The unions that seem to think that every worker bee in the U.S. of A. is fodder for their dues and benefits, how sad. My daughter is currently involved with a “growing” industry, horticulture, a very big business here. It is time to do something other than bandy the slogans both pro and con. It is fixable.
— Edda Gahm
Diamond Bar, California

It is refreshing to hear someone who finally “gets it” on illegal aliens. Americans are still old fashioned enough to expect people, regardless of where they come from, to play by the rules. Which in our case means, is take a visa number and wait in line.

Ottaviano/Peri miss three rather important points:

1. The use of capital in many ways has a disjointed relationship to labor, but it certainly does not follow that more labor causes capital formation. For most businesses that are expanding the accumulation of capital causes a demand for more labor as more product require more hands to produce it. But adding more workers to the production line does not do the reverse.

2. They totally discount the maxim of “bad money driving out good money” or in the labor market “bad labor driving out good.” The canard of course is immigrants doing jobs other Americans won’t is just that. If a shortage was to develop in a labor pool, the rates would rise and segments of Americans would be attracted to the positions. By continuing with our current open borders policy, we suppress the market forces for labor that have till recently been a means for most people to move up the economic ladder.

3. The example cited of semi-skilled labor misses the point that most of the illegal aliens flowing over the border lack skills period. In that vein they are a labor commodity with any illegal replaceable with any other.

It seems odd to me that the Democrats, always with their heart on their sleeves seem quite complacent about the plight of exploitation of the illegal. They view the opportunity to turn them into voters. But where is the outrage to protect them? And what better way to prevent exploitation than to prevent them from coming in the first place? Or at least do it legally so that they may avail themselves of the laws that protect other citizens.
— John McGinnis
Arlington, Texas

FRESH EYES
Re: Shawn Macomber’s The Beagle Has Landed:

Shawn Macomber’s eye for the perfect detail and his easy relationship with our language have me really looking forward to more.

Something big is happening. We’re beginning to get the truth about what it’s like over there, from people like Shawn. And now Fox News is broadcasting it too. It does indeed make you feel proud and good.

And angry. With each new revelation of the true facts about Iraq and surrounding areas, we also learn how coherent and massive has been the effort by the mainstream media to poison us with slant, bias, distortion and misinformation. All to ruin a president and to save their political party. To have us betray our friends once again and to pitch the Middle East into a roiling wind that will inevitably bring a nuclear explosion somewhere, probably here. All to ruin a president.

How, over the next few years, as Iraq is sorted out and the mainstream media’s role in it comes more and more to light, can it survive the truth about itself?
— Allen Hurt

SPOILER ALERT
Re: Reid Collins’s Pryor Restraint?:

As I am sure many have pointed out, Nixon barely defeated Humphrey. George Wallace’s independent run served as a spoiler for Nixon. Four years later, Nixon trounced McGovern.
— Michael Bergsma

LAVENDER BLUES
Re: Vincent Chiarello’s letter (“Vatican Barks, Sans Bite”)
in Reader Mail’s Paper Trails:

Please allow a follow up to my earlier letter of December 6 regarding the recent papal announcement regarding homosexuals in the priesthood. Events have since occurred which, despite biting my tongue harder and counting to 20, compel me to write.

On December 10, the Washington Post‘s “Letter to the Editor” section carried a contribution by Thomas J. Brennan of Philadelphia which included the following: “As a gay priest, I welcome my orientation as a gift. I hope that one day the church will share this perspective.” I must first ask why, after describing himself as a Catholic priest, did Mr. Brennan chose not to include his “sacerdos in eternum” title in his name? Does he welcome his secular, sexual orientation above his priestly vocation? Did the Archdiocese of Philadelphia think it perfectly acceptable for one of its priests to describe the Church’s positions vis-a-vis homosexuals as “grim”? Is Philadelphia’s Justin Cardinal Rigali aware of this priest’s concerns? Will the priest be called in for counseling? Held accountable? I doubt it, but not to worry: Mr. Brennan also writes, “…Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington and Bishop William S. Skylstadt, president (sic) of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, may not completely agree with the Vatican document on the ordination of gay seminarians.” Well, that settles that. But the situation is, if possible, worse north of the border.

On December 4, the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s (CBC) “The Sunday Edition” program featured an appearance by Rev. Richard Reshaw, CSC (Congregation of the Sacred Cross). Reshaw, who served as Interim Executive Director of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, was categorical in stating that he was “…supportive of gay culture.” Why Reshaw appeared on this particular program is puzzling because the host of the program, Michael Enright, has stated that “the Catholic Church is the greatest criminal organization outside the Mafia.” Ah! To be damned with such faint praise! Reshaw, a product of a Roman theological formation, questioned not only the Church’s position that homosexual acts are sinful, but also rejected the Church’s position that homosexuality is “objectively disorder(ed).” I understand that he lives in “a gay community” in Montreal. What ever did happen to religious houses? Two months earlier, on a CBC Univision television program, 63-year-old Father Karl Clemens stated, “I’m a Roman Catholic priest and I’m gay.” Another example of the eagerness of homosexual priests to announce publicly their sexual orientation, without, I am sure, any clerical sanction whatsoever.

What we are seeing here is the opening salvo of the “lavender mafia’s” public efforts to exert media and public pressure against the Vatican decree about homosexuality and the training of seminarians. It should be profoundly troubling to any Catholic that Vatican decrees are subtly, and not so subtly, undermined by the men who are supposed to carry them out. I am not particularly sanguine about the future of the decree, about which I’ve already written. The feminization of the Roman Catholic clergy continues apace.

Pax tecum.
— Vincent Chiarello
Reston, Virginia

CHEESEHEADS
Re: Paul Beston’s The Democrats’ Deadly Surrender Chorus:

We should all be hopeful for the Democrats. We should look to the positive outcomes too. For example, all the government surplus cheese will no doubt be consumed so we have that going for us. And I hold out hope that they will sooner or later start to emulate the leadership of our President. Monkey see, monkey do…
— Diamon Sforza
San Diego, California