Part-Time Pundit

Two Columns up

First:

The Daily Illini has my column Unions: Relics of the Past, Taxpayer Frustration up on there website.

Second:

MercatorNet has published my first paid freelance column, Who Needs Drugs? I Have a Blog a humorous look at blogger addiction. Enjoy!

Update:

I don’t think people realize the blogging article was part tounge-in-cheek… particularly because… hey! you’re at my blog. There’s a fair amount of self-deprecation in there. Bloggers need to stop taking themselves so seriously.  Really.

August 31st, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Blogging, DailyIllini, Politics, Unions, University of Illinois | 3 comments

ACLU Earns Money on the Backs of Immigrants

The ACLU is upset that New Jersey schools are asking students for Social Security Numbers when they enroll for school. As usual they are upset for the wrong reasons and deceiving the public in the process.

First, the ACLU is at the forefront of litigation and lobbying to prevent the United States from having a national identification card (the kind of thing the 9/11 Commission suggested we do to prevent terrorism). The problem is that we already have a national identification; we call it a Social Security Number. If someone steals that number, they own your identity, it’s just that simple.

Instead of adopting some form of strong identification for citizens, we are stuck with the easy to steal SSNs which have greatly contributed to over $24 billion in compromised assets belonging to US citizens that is available to be stolen at any moment by malicious hackers.

With SSNs being so valuable, schools have no business having them. They simply shouldn’t be spending their money on data protection when our schools are rivaling the third world for the gutter. If we are going to continue to waste money on public schools, at least they should try to spend it on students.

However, the key point of contention of the ACLU isn’t privacy; it is that immigrants will be scared off from sending their students to public schools “both documented and undocumented.” The problem is that all documented students can get Social Security Numbers. If you are in this country legally, you have no problem with the Social Security Administration. They are simply throwing that up there to make the policy sound xenophobic.

The only people who would potentially have problems with this policy is illegal immigrants, or more specifically, the illegal immigrants who don’t bother to steal an SSN for their kid. The sticky part here is that despite both the government of Mexico and the government of the United States refusing to actually enforce their own laws, there is still a group of people who don’t strictly speaking have a legal right to be here.

No politician has suggested we just dissolve the border, or for that matter, abolish immigration law, but they continue to act as if the law doesn’t exist. Amazingly enough, failure to enforce the law has lead to lawlessness and confusion. This case wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the US government deciding certain laws aren’t really laws without bothering with what some of us like to call “the democratic process”.

The ACLU, for its part, is at least open that it believes the United States really isn’t a nation but just a spot on the map where everyone who can manage the trip is entitled the full privileges of citizenship. Despite everything to the contrary in the Constitution and US Code, the ACLU believes every foreign citizen has the full rights to be in this country, regardless of what the law says.

If the ACLU was truly intellectually honest, however, they’d be suing to have the entire body of immigration law thrown out. That seems to be what they really want, no regulations on immigration whatsoever. It’s a rather startling departure from a pro-regulation group.

Instead, they keep the laws on the books and the dyslexic approach to immigration this nation takes so they can continue to file lawsuits. Immigration lawsuits have become an income stream and the ACLU doesn’t want to see that go away because the problem was “solved”. Much of the lawyer industry has adopting tactics that ensure litigation and maximum possible lawyering, why should the ACLU be any different? After all, they are the beneficiaries while the common man picks up the tab.

The biggest deception of the ACLU is thus leveled right on the shoulders of the undocumented workers they claim to support. They don’t try to solve their problems; they simply try to prolong them so they can keep racking up legal fees. Protectors of the Bill of Rights?  Hardly.

August 30th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Law / Legal Issues, Politics, StoptheACLU | no comments

Democracy will Fail in Lebanon

(The following is an adaptation of part of a radio show I co-hosted with Kit Jarrel of Euphoric Reality, the podcast should be available below.)

While the provocation of hostilities falls squarely on the shoulders of Hezbollah (and in the case of Gaza, Hamas), Israel misprosecuted the war. That was bad enough. Worse is the “diplomatic” efforts to achieve peace that apparently the world isn’t really behind. The United Nations comes in, promises peace and then doesn’t meet the basic troop levels it commits to. The result is that Hezbollah wins.

There was much discussion about the Hezbollah declaration of victory against Israel. While on its face it appears absurd, on deeper inspection they are absolutely correct. Hezbollah did win.

If one’s definition of victory is simply hammering an adversary into submission, neither side could claim victory. If the definition is inflicting damage, surely Israel won. Hezbollah, using dumb-fire rockets, couldn’t manage to inflict any real discernible damage on Israel (well except they did hit a few cemeteries). However, if you define victory as achieving military objectives Israel certainly failed and Hezbollah certainly was victorious.

Israel’s objective was to crush Hezbollah or at least move them far enough north to be no real military threat. By any assessment, Israel inflicted little lasting damage on Hezbollah except to make them waste a bunch of rockets that Iran will replenish at their earliest convenience. Israel certainly did not respond in any meaningful way to the actual sources of Hezbollah aggression, namely Syria and Iran.

Hezbollah, on the other hand, didn’t appear to have any illusions of defeating Israel militarily. They seem to know full well that Israel will not be wiped off the map with tanks and bombs. They wage their war in the media and the chambers of the United Nations and yield the weapon of diplomacy with great success. Their objective was to not be defeated and gain political clout. They wanted to project an image that they could not be defeated militarily and need to be negotiated with. They achieved these objectives with resounding success.

Despite the media being fully aware and fully informed that most of the information coming from Hezbollah was doctored for effect, the media willingly complied. The embedded reporters with Hezbollah and produced puff piece after puff piece about Hezbollah social workers. One can whine about media bias all they want. When it comes to war, one needs to deal effectively with the tools of the enemy. Bitching never won a battle.

Hezbollah mounted an army of public relations specialists that were more powerful than any weapon in their arsenal. Put simply, they won the hearts and minds in Lebanon, in the Arab World, and much of the West (particular those left-leaning). Hezbollah’s clout increased dramatically as a result.

Now, theoretically, if the UN managed to deliver what is promised, if they could get 15,000 additional troops on the southern border with Lebanon, if they can deal with the Syrian border, if they can halt arms transfers from Iran, if they can effectively displace Hezbollah, then Israel and Lebanon will both be better off and democracy will thrive in Lebanon. If… if… if…

From the looks of the international community, it doesn’t appear likely that the UN will even be able to muster those troops needed which certainly calls into question whether they will succeed. Independent of troop levels, UNIFIL in Lebanon has never been successful and it is questionable that simply more warm bodies will do anything to help. As usual, the United Nations and the international community’s bloviation on peace never quite matches up to what they actually end up doing. In a perfect world the United Nations might be able to do something, however, in this world the United Nations is more talk and no walk. That’s when they aren’t being generally corrupt.

The result? If the UN fails, and it appears eminent that they will, Hezbollah will not only be more powerful on the foreign scene, they will be more powerful domestically. Lebanon recently threw off the shackles of Syrian oppression and was rightly high-lighted as a beacon of democratic hope in the Middle East.

Hezbollah is nothing more than Syrian power projection in Lebanon. If Lebanon could have dealt with them they would have long before rockets started falling on Israel. Increasing Hezbollah’s domestic power will result in the democratic advances made in Lebanon being turned back. In short, Lebanon will go the route of Palestine and put Hezbollah in power. Syria will be back in control of Lebanon and Lebanon will descend firmly into anti-Semitic fascism.

This descent was put into motion by Israel not fighting the war the way it should have been fought and it was solidified by the United Nations promising what it never could deliver. Israel had good cause to act militarily, however, by not engaging their enemy as they should have they leave Lebanon on the road to democratic collapse.

The following is the podcast of GM’s Corner that I co-hosted on Aug 17th, 2006.

August 30th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Military / War, Politics, Wide Awakes Radio | one comment

Katrina One Year Later: Myths Still Prevail

It has been one year after the largely ineffectual response to the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. Despite the failures on all levels of government, it seems that history shows that Bush bears the full brunt of the blame for the failures. While Bush and FEMA do bear some blame for the aftermath, there are many failures that most go noticed if they are to be rectified. It may be politically helpful to pick a favorite scapegoat for political gain, however, lives are lost if all the lessons aren’t learned. After action reports have been discarded for political talking points.

First, the United States is a grouping of 50 sovereign states. The president has no authority, absolutely none, to tell a governor what to do with their own resources. Governors cannot be selected by the President, they are not accountable to the President, and most importantly, they cannot be removed by the President. It may be simple to say “The buck stops at the top” but it reflects a sad lack of understanding of the US governmental system. Bush is responsible for some aspects of the aftermath, but Louisiana Governor Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin bear a good chunk of the blame themselves. They were elected to be sole stewards of their governmental assets and they utterly failed their constituents.

Second, it is important to note that the disaster plan was written by the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans alone. It was their plan. They are responsible with what their governments do leading up to a disaster, it was their responsibility to be prepared to deal with a disaster as much as possible, and it was their responsibility alone to deal with evacuation. FEMA responds after a disaster strikes; it is the local and state governments which must take action to mitigate the potential damage.

Third, the failure to call for an evacuation until virtually the last effective moment only maximized the number of people in harms way. Mississippi managed to handle the disaster effectively with minimal loss of life. Florida did as well. All the tales of horror came from Louisiana, and in particular, New Orleans. This was largely because those officials did not call for an evacuation. In fact, the President got on the phone to ask them to evacuate when it was clear they weren’t doing so. An extra 24 to 48 hours would have been more than enough to evacuate every man, woman, and child from the New Orleans area.

Fourth, the decision to leave fleets of unattended school buses in parking lots to get destroyed was a critical failure of Mayor Nagin. There were enough buses to evacuate every single person without their own transportation from New Orleans. The fact the buses went unused and the images of buses floating in the Mayor Ray Nagin memorial parking lots should serve as a testament of local government failure spearheaded by Mayor Ray “School Bus” Nagin.

Fifth, when disaster struck, Governor Blanco simply could not lead. Not only did she get on national TV and cry, she simply was unable to make decisions. The state government and disaster planners looked to her for leadership as the head executive of the state of Louisiana and she failed them. When 9/11 struck, there was no doubt that Rudy Giuliani was firmly in charge. When Katrina struck, no one knew who was in charge because the local and state government fell apart.

Sixth, when Katrina struck from one to two-thirds of the New Orleans Police Department simply walked off the job. For their efforts, they were given free family vacations to Vegas and are portrayed on billboards as symbols of courage. In the military, of a soldier walks off the job during war in a forward area, they can be summarily executed. In New Orleans, they get rewarded.

Seventh, patients were summarily executed by medical professionals. This was called “euthanasia” by the press and the medical community, however, they were not killed for being terminal, they were killed because the conditions of the storm made them “too difficult” to care for. They were killed because they were too high maintenance.

Eighth, everyone remembers the stories of carnage and rioting in New Orleans that permeated the media. When those stories turned out to be, at best, exaggerations, the organ most responsible for spreading the deceptions, the media, has not taken accountability. It is unknown how many lives were lost simply because the media’s stories of Armageddon had scared off people from helping. The media needs to thoroughly examine how it gets news and how it presents news. The media is known for sensationalizing stories to produce fear or anger in their audiences. This needs to be addressed.

Ninth, Louisiana and New Orleans have a long and “distinguished” history of corruption and embezzling funds. In fact, before Katrina federal officials were trying to find out were millions of dollars “disappeared” to when sent to Louisiana for homeland security and disaster preparedness. Since Katrina, $77 billion has been spent or is available, yet only one-third of hospitals and one-half of schools are actually open. How much of the money the government and aid organizations spent on New Orleans “disappearing”? The population of Louisiana is 4.5 million and New Orleans is 500,000 of that. Should it really cost hundreds of millions to build a city for that few people?

A year has passed after Katrina; if we truly want to prevent such an event from happening again we need to take a look at the failures. All of them.

August 28th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Hurricane Katrina, Politics | one comment

Overlooked Blog Review: American Future

Good foreign affairs blogs are hard to find. Most are simply random people bloviating on what they thing really goes on in the world. However, American Future is different. Of the three contributors, two are Foreign Service Officers with the State Department. The main author is also well versed and trained in the subject. Far from armchair generals, they know what they are talking about. They bring crisp and informed commentary to the foreign and national security headlines.

Generally focusing on commentary in the media, they dissect opposing opinions point by point and convincingly show their point of view. It is free of the vile and inflammatory attacks that characterize most attempts to engage other points of view. Most conservatives would feel at home at this site (though I disagree with them about whether Hezbollah won or not).

The design is clean and puts a clear emphasis on the posts, not all the “widgets” that have proliferated in the blogosphere. It’s down-to-earth and straight to the point.

American Future is a must-read for anyone who wants to keep up with foreign policy and national security issues.

If you would like to suggest a blog for the Overlooked Blog Review, please contact John Bambenek at jcb.blog {at} gmail [dot] com.  You can read the guidelines for nominating here.  Blogs profiled are given a free month membership to Blog Soldiers.

August 25th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Military / War, Overlooked Blog Review, Politics | no comments

Art Imitates Life: Survivor and Racism

Amid all the furor about the show Survivor beginning next season with teams organized on racial lines, one thing has been lost. While Survivor is just a TV show (a.k.a. not real life), in reality society in the United States is divided along these same lines without as much of a peep of criticism. New York City officials want to extend their power over what other people watch on TV, but refuse to police their own boroughs for racial equity. As examples, there are Black radio stations, White radio stations and Latino radio stations. The same applies for television. Communities are very frequently divided along racial lines. When the communities aren’t geographically, the groups will divide themselves socially. Here at the University of Illinois we have “white” homecoming and “black” homecoming. There are black culture houses, Latino culture houses, and Asian culture houses. Even the dorms have managed to segregate themselves more-or-less on racial lines. Is it a sign of American racism? Hardly. It is proof-positive that the race-based policies of the left have brought out the exact opposite of what they intended. These policies have enshrined that there are in fact, different groups of Americans that get different sets of rights. You have African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Caucasians, yet no one seems to view themselves as simply “American”. Because the lines of division are so clear, the competition between the various groups for a better package of rights is intense. The rivalry between the black lobbyists and the Latino lobbyists is well known. Anyone who dares criticize a policy presented by one of these groups is immediately labeled a racist, bigot, or xenophobe. The politics of hate are most present here, by the people supposedly trying to bring about “unity”. The fact is, unity is inherently destroyed unless people view themselves as part of something bigger. If African-Americans view themselves as primarily African-Americans, or whites as whites, or Latinos as Latinos, then there can be no unified America. It is simply a fact of life when there is an “us” and a “them”, there exists tension between them. Highlighting the division and granting rights based on it has only entrenched it that division, not eliminated it. So why not have a race-based Survivor series? It’s basically just a reflection of American society where instead of trying to be a unified people, the races compete against each other for more cookies. Art, in this case, really does imitate life.

August 25th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Politics, The MSM | no comments

Part-Time Pundit Gets a New Look

That’s right, I’ve finally moved over to WordPress and redid the site to look a little better. I’ll be tweaking the look over the next few days but this should load a whole lot faster now. I’ve also changed my comment policy to reflect that I’m using WordPress which is more conducive to control and less “spammy” than Movable Type.

Like the change? Hate it? Let me know.

August 24th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Blogging, Uncategorized | one comment