I was entertained this morning by another one of those “why Jesus wouldn’t deport illegal aliens” rants. This one is by a fellow named Joe Palmer (send him email) writing his “Cup of Joe” column for a little weekly publication called the Fernandina Beach News Leader.
I’ve been to Fernandina Beach quite a few times… nice little town just outside Jacksonville, Florida… kind of insulated from reality… maybe now just starting to get its nostrils full of this invasion. It’s folks like Joe who would go about screwing their children and grandchildren out of an inheritance if their minister found a snippet of Scripture that suggested passing wealth on to future generations was evil. Never mind what contrasting or contrary verses might proffer.
This is probably a bit too easy for me, but I’ll Fisk him anyway… if for nothing but the sport of it. Joe jumps right of the dugout wielding his Mondo Jesus bat:
“When an alien lives with you, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native born.”
He wants us to ignore the illegal alien is here not out of any specific lack, but as a result of coveting the blessings we have…thanks to our American ancestors’ sacrifices. I seem to recall something biblically sinful about covetous behavior. Framing any “love thy neighbor” scriptural edict as a reason for not rejecting and removing illegal aliens is deceitful and narrow.
Who said that? Harry Reid? Nancy Pelosi? Ted Kennedy? A left-leaning, God hating member of the mainstream media? Still guessing? Maybe the next two sentences will provide some illumination. “Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
The aliens in question do not “live with us,” they live in proximity but outside of our society, uninvited. They do not harbor good will for our families. They take. Their reason for being here is thievery based upon want, not need. Not all Illegal aliens practice direct theft, or commit other crimes; but many do. The rest steal indirectly. Because their presence is the result of what they covet, not what they actually need, even their simple use of our infrastructure, such as driving on tax-payer-funded roads, is theft. I think the bible has something to say about theft, unless I’m mistaken.
All illegal aliens come from nations with abundant resources but most come from dysfunctional governments of their own peoples’ making. Our allowing them to remain here without harsh sanction only gives tacit absolution from the corruptions they have brought upon their families in their homelands and the corrupters that lead their nations. The money they send home helps their families little in comparison to what it does to strengthen oligarchs and tyrants.
Yep. Him. The Big Guy. El Queso Grande.The one whose name we always toss around when we’re looking for reasons to do things we clearly oughtn’t do. Or when we don’t want to do things we clearly should do. We talk a lot about thanksgiving and reconciliation and peace this time of year. But that’s mostly all we do. When it gets right down to where the rubber meets the road, our holiday thanks and wish list goes something like this: We’re thankful that we’re not those poor-ass Mexicans who we wish would just go home and let us get back to the business of being America, home of the free and brave. And speaking only English. The Good Book be damned.
On the other hand, are there no prescriptions regarding language we can follow from the story of the Tower of Babel? Joe is a disciple of Nimrod.
I’ll get berated about this by the usual cranks. It’s shameful the way so many of us want to treat our brethren from south of the border. How many Mexicans do you actually know? And what do you know about them, other than what you hear from people who vilify them? We talk a lot about family values in this country. But talk is cheap. How many of your friends, relatives or family members would get up one day and, taking nothing but the clothes on their backs, travel thousands of miles to a strange land and go to work among unwelcoming natives just so they could scrimp and save and send a few bucks home to take care of their families?
Pardon my crankiness. My ancestors subjected themselves to far more harsh living conditions for loving God enough to dare this grand experiment. There is no correlating reason why we should countenance the thievery and covetousness that underlies this supposed “seeking better lives” we’re so often subjected to by advocates of world statism like Joe. The illegal alien does his own people and nation no lasting favors by removing himself from the place in which he might be a better agent of change for God’s purposes.
I heard a well-known angry-sounding right-wing radio host recently complaining about illegal immigration. This guy, who I won’t legitimize by naming him, made the usual and predictable noises about understanding the plight of immigrants because his own grandparents immigrated here from Ireland. Which is tantamount to saying, “Some of my best friends are black” when trying to impress people that you’re hip about racial issues. Anyway, it was clear to me that Angry Sounding Right Wing Radio Host has no clue what it’s like to be underprivileged and desperate. He went on and on about border security - which is code for “No Mexicans Need Apply” - and how many times he’d been “down there on that border reporting on this situation.” As if this country has only one border that needs protecting.
Our nation has its sovereignty to protect, and a duty to be faithful steward of all that Providence has given us, not just the parts that are the most convenient, to secure for our posterity.
I was tempted to call Angry Sounding Right Wing Radio Host’s show and ask him if he would’ve wanted to deport his Irish grandparents had they come here illegally. But I knew I’d never get a response to that question because it’s an honest question and one that requires some actual thought. And then Angry Right Wing Radio Host segued into a long monologue about seeking out the American Dream, which to hear him talk, clearly doesn’t apply to brown people without proper papers. I wanted to call Angry Right Wing Radio Host’s show and ask him if he knew that a very famous American who immigrated here and successfully sought out the Great American Dream was actually an illegal alien. He arrived here as a stowaway on a ship without papers or a penny in his pocket. I wanted to ask Angry Right Wing Radio Host if he’d have demanded the deportation of Adolph Coors, founder of the Coors Brewing Company, because he smuggled himself into this country illegally, or he would’ve been in favor of granting him amnesty so that he could reach for his dreams and go on to provide jobs and prosperity for thousands of his adopted countrymen.
Considering the first Federal legislation regulating immigration was not enacted until seven years after Adolph Coors immigrated, he could not have been an illegal alien. That he was indeed a destitute stowaway is another issue not related to immigration, but to his ship captain’s forgiveness and willingness to work out a repayment plan. It’s a nice story, but it’s false.
Uh…Joe? Doesn’t the bible warn us many times about deceit?
Our border with Canada is 5,522 miles long and is the longest border in the world. By contrast, our border with Mexico is only 1,969 miles long. Angry Right Wing Radio Host talks a lot about building a fence to protect the Mexican border. He never says a word about building a fence on the Canadian border to protect and defend the security of the longest border in the world. Why?
Of course, this could have nothing to do with the fact that the American colonies felt such strong kinship with their Canadian Colonial counterparts that some of our founding fathers tried to enlist them to join its cause. Did American colonial kith and kin fondness for Canada obligate it to make the same overtures to Mexico? No.
That’s why, Joe.
Listen very carefully when the border security crowd starts talking. Words have meanings. The way those words are used quite often have altogether different meanings. I grew up in the South. I remember all the code words that “nice” white people employed when discussing “colored” people. Here we go again.
Yes, words to have meaning. Canard comes to mind as meaningful here.
And we all remember how the words “Affirmative Action” were supposed to free descendants of slaves from discrimination. That’s worked out fine if you don’t even think about how it has been used - most often by the same sorts of liberal whites who demanded it - to make even the most brilliant of our minorities suspect no matter how many times they prove themselves capable…thanks to the wordy phrase “diversity hiring mandates.”
Here we go again, indeed!
American History, Christianity, Conservatism, Culture, Diversity, illegal aliens, illegal immigrant, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, Immigration, leftists
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9 responses so far ↓
1 Aaron // Dec 3, 2007 at 1:54 pm
As always, well fisked…
2 Arizona Resistance // Dec 4, 2007 at 10:55 pm
EXCELLENT! Well said, indeed.
3 Joe Palmer // Dec 6, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Tsk, tsk! Is that all you’ve got, KD?
A friend of mine turned me on to your little screed today. What a gas!
Dude, my face and e-mail address is out there for the whole world to see fifty two weeks a year. I’m an equal opportunity offender. I give everyone, even the wingnuts like you, a chance to confront me face to face or e-mail to e-mail. Hell, I’m even in the phone book in this little town. Unlike you, I don’t hide behind the anonymity of a screen name, from which I can fling nasties and hurl insults in secret. I’ve been challenged by children smarter than you, KD. You are irrelevant. You represent everything that’s wrong with this country today. It can be spelled out in three words: Fear and paranoia.
None of your tiny little following of ditto heads and disciples accepted your exhortation to e-mail me. Gee, I wonder why? You didn’t e-mail me, either. Drop in and read my column anytime, chief. Give me a heads up when you plan to and I’ll have my editor publish the dummy version for you. It has pictures and big print.
Hasta la vista, muchacho,
From a lounge chair on a beach somewhere south of reality,
Joe Palmer
Cup of Joe
Fernandina Beach, FL
PS: You also don’t understand the subtle nuances of satire. A clue. Sometimes that which appears to be sleight of hand and deception is the vehicle by which a message is conveyed. Most folks got it. You didn’t. But that’s no surprise to me, either.
4 Katie's Dad // Dec 7, 2007 at 1:29 am
It’s quite cheerfully noted here that Joe has no specific retort to any point I made in my Fisk of his work. Where are the responses to my points about the various sins of the illegals…and the sins of illegal alien apologists and facilitators like Joe?
Where’s the pithy defense of his journalistic failure regarding Adolph Coors? Publishing such an easy-to-debunk fact error, intentionally or not, would have gotten me quickly flunked out of my college of journalism. The bottom line on this is that Joe believes its OK to lie (subtle nuance my ass) if he can make a misleading point by doing it.
I really hope that Joe went to an inferior school, or is merely a non-journalist stoner who has lucked into a platform for his drivel. But if in some odd coincidence his was an orange and blue experience, the fact that he has access to ink of any grade diminishes my sheepskin. I’ll be ashamed of my college if I learn he’s a Gator.
I’ve read a bit more of him and can assure my readers that Joe’s regular rants are typical product of the left-tipping former (or current?) potheads that often become denizens of little starving-for-copy weeklies like his. It’s indeed sad that the political correctness that infests our culture comes courtesy of people who think like Joe; if we ever need evidence that PC is making us collectively dumber, we need only bookmark the Fernandina Beach Cage Liner.
It obviously would never occur to Joe that there are lots of folks like me out here who put our journalism degrees to good use in other fields with hierarchies infested by PC enforcers. For a long time, we were compelled to keep our mouths shut lest we become targets of this new fascism of the left. But we don’t have to remain silent about loving our heritage and our desire to keep it for our children any more.
Thanks to the new media, we are enabled to do the very same purposeful work as Richard Saunders and Silence Dogood. I suppose Joe would have derided Franklin for his intentional anonymity.
So, Joe, I got it.
And as it stands here, I exposed you. It’s a shame that you only have non-sequitur foolishness in reply. I had hoped (well, a little) that there might actually be some intellectual heft in you. It breaks my heart that you’re not able to meet even my most meager expectations (that’s sardonism, Joe).
5 Joe Palmer // Dec 8, 2007 at 1:14 am
Uh, no, KD. You still don’t get it. Adolphus Coors stowed away on a ship which sailed to the United States. Stowing away is a crime and was then, too. In the days of sailing vessels, it was viewed as a particularly serious crime by most masters and companies. Being caught stowing away could net the stowaway anything from a severe flogging to indentured servitude. Because Mr. Coors’ committed a serious crime (theft), to facilitate his entry into the United States, his entry was therefore illegal and he was, by anyone’s definition, an illegal immigrant. He was an alien for a period of time after having arrived in the the U.S. by illegal entry, thus making him an illegal alien. The naturalization law in effect at the time he entered decreed that one must reside within the U.S. five years before petitioning for citizenship. Of course, I knew all that when I wrote my column, but since it’s not germaine to the point I was making, I elected not to include it.
Had Mr. Coors paid his passage, his entry into this country would’ve been legal and he would’ve been, from the outset, a legal immigrant and alien. Your reference to the captain of the vessel’s forgiveness and willingness to work out a repayment plan is pure fancy on your part. And you accuse me of deception. In reality, Adolphus Coors was deeply regretful of this act of theft in his later years and eventually made restitution to the shipping company. In fact, he was so ashamed of it that he forbade his family to ever speak of it, a wish that was honored for many years thereafter. But don’t take this rube’s word for it. Do some actual research. Read the story of the Coors empire. It’s pretty fascinating. Did you know that the Coors Foundation is a major contributor to conservative think tanks and causes?
Why did I not address every “point” that you made in your little epistle? That’s a no-brainer. You really didn’t make any salient points. You’re quite prideful of the fact that you “fisked” me. But you really didn’t present any overarching cerebral arguments. Your response was just more of your pedantic lecturing and sniffing, so it really amounted to nothing more than what you bloggers like to call flaming and handwaving.
I elected not to go on an on ad nauseam with you because you really don’t have much of interest to say. That’s evidenced by the paucity of reponses from your little circle of acolytes. Where are they now, O Great One? Are you an Army of One?
I don’t believe you have a journalism degree. Certainly not one from UF. And if you do, you must’ve been sleeping through the classes in ethics and law in journalism. There’s the bothersome little matter of libel you should consider if you wish to persist in your hobby. Your little screed suggests or implies that I am a drug user or a past drug user. Nothing could be more removed from the truth. I am, in fact, an honorably discharged U.S. Navy veteran of the Vietnam era and a respected member of my very Republican and conservative community. Tell me, have you ever served your country in uniform? But I digress. You should be aware that the sins of libel include not only the explicit accusation of criminal or wrongful behavior, but the mere suggestion, hinting or implication thereof. In short, my friend, you are perilously close to being bitten deeply in the jugular. I’d be very careful if I were you. You are not insulated by the anonymity of the internet. Your ISP records can be subpoenaed by anyone with a cause of action against you that is related to cyberspace defamation. You really aren’t as smart as you think or you’d know this. Getting cute with remarks about potheads in the same sentence as the target of your derision is shaky ground and it’s just not worth your while to go there. I’d be willing to bet that if I sent your ISP a demand letter from my attorney, they’d not only delete your post but possibly bar you from further activity so as to insulate themselves. Care to “fisk’ me on that one, genius?
You’re mighty proud of yourself for having “exposed” me. Actually, the only thing you exposed was your limited ability to comprehend. And comparing yourself to an luminary like Benjamin Franklin? My God, man. How much hubris can one person have? As I said, you hide behind the cloak of anonymity and your silly screen name. Pure, unvarnished cowardice. Tell me, is B.E. Brockett also a nom de plume?
Let me enlighten you a bit more before I retire to an evening of stargazing on this lovely beach. You obviously aren’t a very diligent researcher. I’m a guest columnist for the little “cage liner” (Bravo, KD. How original!) for which I write a weekly column. My real profession, in addition to being extremely lucrative, has nothing to do with journalism. It has, however, enabled me to hone my powers of observation to a razor sharp edge. I can spot a phony, impotent fool a blogosphere away.
No, KD, I’m not a real newspaper reporter, though I did stay in a Holiday Inn last night. I used to be a newspaper reporter when I was a young man. I didn’t get my degree at UF but another Florida university. In addition to all the other journalism awards I accrued over my years in the business, I was nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize - once on my own and once as part of a team. Needless to say, my creds are sound. I wonder if you ever set foot in a newsroom as a reporter, KD? I think not.
If you have indeed read my other columns, you would know that I’m something of an iconoclast. Nothing and no one is sacred. I go after everybody and everything sooner or later. I had a good bit of fun attacking the PC Police just this week in my latest “rant.” Have you been Hannitized, KD? Methinks you have. You have the same pathetic tendency to take people out of context and mislead your tiny little following of “readers” with slanted, spotty information heavily larded with nonsense and opinion. How many readers do you have, KD? I can assure you, I have regular readers all over the world. I’ve received letters and e-mails from people as far away as Thailand. Judging from the occasional responses to your little ejaculations, I’d venture to say you’re pretty much your own audience.
How boring.
In closing, I’ll say this. My children are quite proud of me for what I do. My youngest, a 22-year-old recent college grad in management with a major corporation told me just yesterday evening that he and his brother would be ashamed of me if I weren’t the kind of man that I am and if I were the kind of father who just agrees with the masses and says, “Mega-dittoes.” My legacy will be my willingness to make unpopular statements from time to time while putting my face and name alongside them for all the world to see, all the while knowing full well that unhappy and perpetually angry men like you will hide in the darkness of anonymity and lob bombs at me as I pass. I thank you for that, KD. It strengthens my resolve, sharpens my wit and keeps me in copy.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from a lounge chair on a beach just this side of reality.
Joe Palmer
Fernandina Beach, FL
PS: You really should go on-line and read my column from last week. It’s another one about them-thar nasty Mes’cans.
6 G. Ryan // Dec 8, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Joe, as I was reading your response to KD’s fisking of you I thought I really needed to visit your site and read some of your material. However, upon completion of reading the dribble you have spewed here, I find the aforementioned thought unnecessary.
In reading you here I gather you to be man suffering from low self-esteem, high insecurity and tragically insufficient in self worth. Righteous, honorable and confident men don’t usually feel the need to justify their opinions.
Joe, you did far more in “exposing” yourself here with your self justifying, self motivating personal affirmations and threatening attacks than KD’s simple fisking of your column ever could have. And, other than a long-winded and STILL inaccurate stroll down the history of Adolph Coors, you have yet to rebut the “meat” of the arguments against your article.
Based on what you said here in your comments I denounce you as a left wing basket case void of any viable ideas or solutions. You are a banner carrier for a failed philosophy and have no recourse left but to attack like a rabid dog anything you deem to be conservative. You have spent so much time in anguish trying your damnedest to battle the neo-con radio actor bucket carriers for Bush, that you can’t tell the real conservatives from the neo-cons who are working towards your shared goal of the destruction of America. Tell us Joe, honestly. How much time have you personally wasted calling the Hannity Hotline spewing venom to an answering machine and feeling better for it? You give these radio show propagandists for the neo-con Republican Party all the credibility they pretend to have. Iconoclast my butt! You are a Liberal who just loves to hate ANYTHING!
I’m glad you have the respect and admiration of your children. Every father should. It shows that no matter what our political affiliations or social philosophies may be that we raised our children with love and respect. You wish to be afforded the honor of being a good father yet you chastise someone who wishes to be known as his daughter’s father?
As I said, I’m glad your children respect you. The rest of us think you’re a scumbag hate monger.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, Joe.
May you spend every night from here to eternity lying on your beautiful stretch of beach staring at the stars to ponder the yonder. For that sir, is where you do America the most good.
P.S. I don’t really need to read any more of you Joe. Especially any thing you might have to dribble about “them-thar nasty Mes’cans”. That reminds me, How well do you know Dee? You sound an awful lot like her.
7 Joe Palmer // Dec 8, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Ryan, I don’t believe I know anyone named Dee. Do you?
Allow me to set the record straight about a few things here. You’ve laid the classic trap but you didn’t do a very good job of concealing it. By stating that “righteous, honorable and confident men don’t usually feel the need to justify their opinions,” you make a feeble attempt to demean me for having responded to KD’s “simple fisking” and any further reply I might make to you. Righteous, honorable and confident men defend their positions every day. Your statement to the contrary is is just another way of saying you really don’t have anything pertinent with which to rebut me so you have to resort to this silly notion of yours as argument. Rubbish.
I didn’t rebut the meat of the “arguments?” KD didn’t have an argument. There wasn’t any meat, only gristle and fat. Not in his first post and certainly not in his second. That’s the one where he had to resort to making his “pothead” insinuations. Given my good standing in this community, that’s libelous and defamatory and indefensible. I know it. I think KD probably knows it and if you didn’t know it before, now you do. The fact that you find it necessary to labeling my warning to him a “threatening attack” proves that you don’t have anything relevant to say about that matter, either. If I’m wrong, prove it. Refute me with the proof. I challenge you to do so. But you know you can’t and I know you can’t. All you can do is stand on the sideline and yell unfair. Tough break.
KD used his bully pulpit to trash me. I responded in kind. Thus far, you’re the only one of his acolytes who rushed to his defense. Perhaps there will be more. I’ll wager there won’t be that many.
So, my feeble minded friend, you’re as wrong as your idol. I’m actually a Ron Paul admirer. Is he a liberal, too? Sure, he and I don’t agree on all the issues but he’s the only horse in the race who hasn’t been neutered. I can happily live with that.
I guess you and I do agree on one thing. The radio show talking heads are just waterboys for the establishment Republicans. That would be the Neo-Cons, Ryan, since they are the base of the party and pretty much dictate how the wind blows for it. The real conservatives sold out a long time ago.
Permit me to address the Adolph Coors matter once again. Maybe you’ll catch it this time around, though I doubt it. He cheated the sailing ship company out of passage. That made him a thief. That made his entry into the country illegal. Hence, he was an illegal alien. Which part of this don’t you understand? It’s no more far-fetched than your idol stating that because illegal aliens use taxpayer funded services and drive on taxpayer funded roads, they are committing theft and that their reason for being here is thievery based upon want, not need.
You say that you and “the rest of us” believe I’m a scumbag hate monger. For which masses do you purport to speak, Ryan? Not that I care. It’s interesting to note that your hero posted his initial screed a week ago and exactly three of his acolytes have responded to what he said and only one of them to what I said in rebuttal. Doesn’t sound to me like your hero has much of a following. As I said, perhaps he’s an Army of One.
I chastise KD not for wishing to be known as his daughter’s father but because he hides behind his anonymity to attack me. As do you. It’s called cowardice, Ryan. Sorry if that stings but that’s just the way it is.
As for your reading my other columns, I really don’t care whether you do or not. But, I’d be willing to bet that your curiosity got the better of you and you already read one or more of them. If if makes you feel better about yourself to stand back and sniff that you wouldn’t dare, be my guest.
You’re pathetic, Ryan. Boring, predicatble and pathetic. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, to you, too. Notice I’ve yet to use the politically correct Seasons Greetings or Happy Holidays in any of my posts? You guys are so blind.
I served my country honorably, Ryan. I wore a uniform and did it when the prevailing attitude in this country was that anyone in a military uniform was a baby killer. I didn’t get drafted. I volunteered. Have you ever served in the military, Ryan? I sort of doubt it. That’s okay if you didn’t. But before you go labeling me as an enemy of my own beloved country, show me that you’ve done more with your patriotism than jabber in cyberspace about lefties and America haters.
Still in a lounge chair on a beach somewhere south of reality,
Joe Palmer
Fernandina Beach, FL
8 Katie's Dad // Dec 8, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Hmmm…golly, I guess I need to make a list from my initial post. Joe doesn’t have the chops to figure it out for himself.
Seriously, respond to those points on point or piss off, Joe. Don’t persist in your diatribe that I didn’t make any points.
9 G. Ryan // Dec 9, 2007 at 1:54 am
Palmer, there you go with yet another rambling volume of the same self-affirmations. You sir, are boring and thus far increasingly predictable.
You appear to be very thin skinned. Not a very good attribute for someone dabbling in journalism. I’ve noticed several things in people’s character traits over the years. Such as a thief is always sure people are stealing from him and, a liar is always sure everyone is lying to him. It’s quite clear in your previous comments that you refuse to lend anyone the credibility that you so fervently demand be afforded to you.
Palmer, as a result of your comments here, I question your credibility, your moral integrity and find you completely deficient of intellectual honesty. In short, and using your own choice of explanative, I find you pathetic.
I have in fact read the article you wrote that KD had linked to. I have no intention of wasting any more of my time reading more of the same.
Best of luck to you in your quest for self-promotion and self worth. I invite you to suit up in your uniform and walk downtown. That and a buck and a half will get you several smiles, a couple of atta boys and a cup of coffee. Whether or not it was requested of you or volunteered is irrelevant. In my book, military service means you did your duty. It does not mean a free pass to credibility and unabashed admiration by others. These things are constantly to be earned by each of us every day in our words and deeds.
G. Ryan
Flagstaff, AZ
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