Tancredo won't initiate Bush impeachment

Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism: The Future of the Ideological Civil War Within the West.

The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be described as follows:

(1) The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born. This emphasis on race, ethnicity, and gender leads to group consciousness and a deemphasis of the individual's capacity for choice and for transcendence of ascriptive categories, joining with others beyond the confines of social class, tribe, and gender to create a cohesive nation. ^{Immigration & The American Future}

(2) A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as victims. Influenced (however indirectly) by the Hegelian Marxist thinking associated with the Italian writer Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) and the Central European theorists known as the Frankfurt School, global progressives posit that throughout human history there are essentially two types of groups: the oppressor and the oppressed, the privileged and the marginalized. In the United States, oppressor groups would variously include white males, heterosexuals, and Anglos, whereas victim groups would include blacks, gays, Latinos (including obviously many immigrants), and women. ^{The Gramsci Factor by Chuck Morse - Sierra Times.com}^&^{Welcome to the Anti-Communitarian League homepage!}^&^{Why There is a Culture War- Policy Review, No. 104}^&^{Gramsci: A Method to the Madness}^&^{Gramsci And The US Body Politic}^&^{Gramsci's Grand Plan}^&^{Frankfurt School}^&^{Rigoberta Menchú: Liar}^&^Treason^&

Multicultural ideologists have incorporated this essentially Hegelian Marxist "privileged vs. marginalized" dichotomy into their theoretical framework. As political philosopher James Ceaser puts it, multiculturalism is not "multi" or concerned with many groups, but "binary," concerned with two groups, the hegemon (bad) and "the Other" (good) or the oppressor and the oppressed. Thus, in global progressive ideology, "equity" and "social justice" mean strengthening the position of the victim groups and weakening the position of oppressors-hence preferences for certain groups are justified. Accordingly, equality under law is replaced by legal preferences for traditionally victimized groups. In 1999, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission extended antidiscrimination protection under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to illegal immigrants. ^{City Journal Winter 2004 | The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave by Heather ...}^&^{City Journal Summer 2004 | The Immigrant Gang Plague by Heather ...}^&^{Race and Revolution}^&^{Rewarding Lawlessness} ^&^{Racism is Not the Problem: Why Martin Luther King Got It Half ...}^&^{Issues & Views: Increasing "Hate Crime" Punishment Violates ...} ^& ^{Harvard University Fellow Advocates "Abolishing the White Race"}^&^{Issues & Views: Using Racism as a Device}

(3) Group proportionalism as the goal of "fairness." Transnational progressivism assumes that "victim" groups should be represented in all professions roughly proportionate to their percentage of the population or, at least, of the local work force. Thus, if women make up 52 percent and Latinos make up 10 percent of the population, then 52 percent of all corporate executives, physicians, and insurance salesmen should be women and 10 percent should be Latinos. If not, there is a problem of "underrepresentation" or imbalance that must be rectified by government and civil society. Thomas Sowell recently wrote-as he has for several decades-that many Western intellectuals perpetually promote some version of "cosmic justice" or form of equality of result.8 The "group proportionalism" paradigm is pervasive in Western society: even the U.S. Park Service is concerned because 85 percent of all visitors to the nation's parks are white, although whites make up only 74 percent of the population. Therefore, the Park Service announced in 1998 that it was working on this "problem."9 ^{An FTAA Sneak Preview} ^&^{FTAA: Forced To Accept Aliens}^&^{What is Sensitivity Training}^&^{Psychic Iron Cage}

(4) The values of all dominant institutions to be changed to reflect the perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational progressives in the United States (and elsewhere) insist that it is not enough to have proportional representation of minorities (including immigrants, legal and illegal) at all levels in major institutions of society (corporations, places of worship, universities, armed forces) if these institutions continue to reflect a "white Anglo male culture and world view." Ethnic and linguistic minorities have different ways of viewing the world, they say, and these minorities' values and cultures must be respected and represented within these institutions. At a 1998 U.S. Department of Education conference promoting bilingual education, SUNY professor Joel Spring declared, "We must use multiculturalism and multilingualism to change the dominant culture of the United States." He noted, for example, that unlike Anglo culture, Latino culture is "warm" and would not promote harsh disciplinary measures in the schools.10 ^{Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular ...}^&^{Multiculturalism and Marxism}

(5) The Demographic Imperative. The demographic imperative tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the United States as millions of new immigrants from non- Western cultures and their children enter American life in record numbers. At the same time, the global interdependence of the world's peoples and the transnational connections among them will increase. All of these changes render the traditional paradigm of American nationhood obsolete. That traditional paradigm based on individual rights, majority rule, national sovereignty, citizenship, and the assimilation of immigrants into an existing American civic culture is too narrow and must be changed into a system that promotes "diversity," defined, in the end, as group proportionalism. ^{Western Civilization Against Itself}^&^{New Mexico Professor Advocates Secession for Southwest}

(6) The redefinition of democracy and "democratic ideals." Since Fukayama's treatise, transnational progressives have been altering the definition of "democracy," from that of a system of majority rule among equal citizens to one of power sharing among ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. For example, Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in July 1995 that it is "undemocratic" for California to exclude noncitizens, specifically illegal aliens, from voting. Former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) general counsel Alexander Aleinikoff, declaring that "[we] live in a post-assimilationist age," asserted that majority preferences simply "reflect the norms and cultures of dominant groups" (as opposed to the norms and cultures of "feminists and people of color").11 James Banks, one of American education's leading textbook writers, noted in 1994 that "to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority and perceived legitimacy the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate and share power."12 In effect, Banks said, existing American liberal democracy is not quite authentic; real democracy is yet to be created. It will come when the different "peoples" or groups that live within America "share power" as groups.

(7) Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols. Transnational progressives have focused on traditional narratives and national symbols of Western democratic nation-states, questioning union and nationhood itself. In October 2000, the British governmentsponsored Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain issued a report that denounced the concept of "Britishness" as having "systemic . . . racist connotations." The Commission, chaired by Labour life peer Lord Parekh, declared that instead of defining itself as a nation, the UK should be considered a "community of communities." One member of the Commission explained that the members found the concepts of "Britain" and "nation" troubling. The purpose of the Commission's report, according to the chairman Professor Parekh, was to "shape and restructure the consciousness of our citizens." The report declared that Britain should be formally "recognized as a multi-cultural society" whose history needed to be "revised, rethought, or jettisoned."13

^{The Claremont Institute: The Cost of Ignorance}^&^{Historical illiteracy abounds}^&^{National Constitution Center: New Survey Shows Wide Gap Between ...}^&^{Senate Panel Hears that Ignorance of U.S. History Poses Major Security Threat}^&^{Only half would vote for Constitution} ^& ^{Albert Burns -- Historical Illiteracy & Antonio Gramsci}^&^{the deliberate dumbing down of america}^&^{Frivolous Courses Pervasive at Top American Colleges}^&^{Terrorists Find Allies on Campus}^&^{Marine Shouted Down at UNLV} ^& ^{American Flag Banned on Campuses Across the Nation}^&^{ACTA: American Council of Trustees and Alumni}^&^{The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing by Lee Harris - Policy ...}^&^{FrontPage magazine.com :: Battling Bias in Academia by Joseph ...}^&^{Book Review: Why the Left Hates America}^&^{Who Will Defend American Values?}^&^{How Textbooks Distort American History}

In the United States in the mid-1990s, the proposed "National History Standards," reflecting the marked influence of multiculturalism among historians in the nation's universities, recommended altering the traditional narrative of the United States. Instead of emphasizing the story of European settlers, American civilization would be redefined as a "convergence" of three civilizations-Amerindian, West African, and European-the bases of a hybrid American multiculture. Even though the National History Standards were ultimately rejected, this core multicultural concept that that United States is not primarily the creation of Western civilization, but the result of a "Great Convergence" of "three worlds" has become the dominant paradigm in American public schools. ^{The Multicultural Theocracy: An Interview With Paul Gottfried}^&^{The Relentless Assault of 'Multiculturalism'}

In Israel, adversary intellectuals have attacked the Zionist narrative. A "post-Zionist" intelligentsia has proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its identity as a Jewish state. Tom Bethell has pointed out that in the mid-1990s the official appointed to revise Israel's history curriculum used media interviews to compare the Israeli armed forces to the SS and Orthodox Jewish youth to the Hitler Youth. A new code of ethics for the Israel Defense Forces eliminated all references to the "land of Israel," the "Jewish state," and the "Jewish people," and, instead, referred only to "democracy." Even Israeli foreign minister Simon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993 book, The New Middle East, where he wrote that "we do not need to reinforce sovereignty, but rather to strengthen the position of humankind." He called for an "ultranational identity," saying that "particularist nationalism is fading and the idea of a 'citizen of the world' is taking hold. . . . Our ultimate goal is the creation of a regional community of nations, with a common market and elected centralized bodies," a type of Middle Eastern EU.14

(8) Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship. "Can advocates of postnational citizenship ultimately succeed in decoupling the concept of citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing political thought?" asks Rutgers Law Professor Linda Bosniak.15 An increasing number of international law professors throughout the West are arguing that citizenship should be denationalized. Invoking concepts such as inclusion, social justice, democratic engagement, and human rights, they argue for transnational citizenship, postnational citizenship, or sometimes global citizenship embedded in international human rights accords and "evolving" forms of transnational arrangements. These theorists insist that national citizenship should not be "privileged" at the expense of postnational, multiple, and pluralized forms of citizenship identities. For example, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, under the leadership of its president, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, has published a series of books in the past few years "challenging traditional understandings of belonging and membership" in nation-states and "rethinking the meaning of citizenship."16 Although couched in the ostensibly neutral language of social science, these essays from scholars from Germany, Britain, Canada, and France, as well as the United States, argue for new, transnational forms of citizenship as a normative good. ^{"America's Border: Who Left the Door Open?"}

(9) The idea of transnationalism as a major conceptual tool. The theory of transnationalism promises to be for the first decade of the twenty-first century what multiculturalism was for the last decade of the twentieth century. In a certain sense, transnationalism is the next stage of multicultural ideology-it is multiculturalism with a global face. Like multiculturalism, transnationalism is a concept that provides elites with both an empirical tool (a plausible analysis of what is) and an ideological framework (a vision of what should be). Transnational advocates argue that globalization requires some form of transnational "global governance" because they believe that the nation-state and the idea of national citizenship are ill suited to deal with the global problems of the future. Academic and public policy conferences today are filled with discussions of "transnational organizations," "transnational actors," "transnational migrants," "transnational jurisprudence," and "transnational citizenship," just as in the 1990s they were replete with references to multiculturalism in education, citizenship, literature, and law. ^{Can Globalism Amend Our Constitution? -- Phyllis Schlafly Aug. 13 ...}^&^{Bipartisan Border Betrayal}^&^{The & Immigration Conspiracy}^&^{Socialist Scholars Call for Dismantling of US Constitution in NYC}^&^{Lawyer Indicted for Aiding Terrorists Becomes Stanford Law 'Mentor ...}

Many of the same scholars who touted multiculturalism now herald the coming transnational age. Thus, at its August 1999 annual conference, "Transitions in World Societies," the same American Sociological Association (ASA) that promoted multiculturalism from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s featured transnationalism. Indeed, the ASA's then-president, Professor Alejandro Portes of Princeton University, argued that transnationalism is the wave of the future. He insisted that transnationalism, combined with large-scale immigration, would redefine the meaning of American citizenship. University of Chicago anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has suggested that the United States is in transition from being a "land of immigrants" to "one node in a postnational network of diasporas."17 ^{City Journal Spring 2002 | Do We Want Mexifornia? by Victor Davis ...}^&^{Abolishing Our Borders}

It is clear that arguments over globalization will dominate much of early twenty-first century public debate. The promotion of transnationalism as both an empirical and normative concept is an attempt to shape this crucial intellectual struggle over globalization. The adherents of transnationalism create a dichotomy. They imply that one is either in step with globalization, and thus with transnationalism and forward-looking thinking, or one is a backward antiglobalist.

Liberal democrats (who are internationalists and support free trade and market economics) must reply that this is a false dichotomy-that the critical argument is not between globalists and antiglobalists, but instead over the form Western global engagement should take in the coming decades: will it be transnationalist or internationalist?

Vindicating the Founders

Well, it appears tht Rep. Tancredo isn't crazy.

I'm broadcast live in front of a pre-recorded studio audience.

prominent columnists to introduce a bill of impeachment "

HAAAAA! They take Buchannan and Farah far more seriously then any thinking American does.

I will need exactly 7 months to read all this.

Thanks to Katrina, for the next couple of years the immigration issue is going to fall completely off the radar.

And I'm greatful for that - we don't need the few leaders who get the seriousness of the border problems to be marginalized by trying to impeach President Bush during wartime.

I don't blame Tancredo for not going along with it. As atrocious as Bush's record on illegal immigration and border security has been, it's not impeachable under the Constitution. He'd actually have to violate the law somehow, and he has not done that.

The only possibe exception I can think of would be his diversion of Border Patrol agents to New Orleans. That might have to be investigated.

...by trying to impeach President Bush during wartime.

I was castigated by several FReeps on another thread when I made that same point.

I'm broadcast live in front of a pre-recorded studio audience.

Pathetic grandstanding.

I will need exactly 7 months to read all this.

Wow. You are quick.

I was thinking more along the lines of the Evlyn Woodhead Sped Redding course.

Anyone have the short version?

LVM

Well I'm too new for my opinion to count much but for the record, I agree with you.

Thanks to Katrina, for the next couple of years the immigration issue is going to fall completely off the radar.

As well it should. I mean, somebody's got to rebuild New Orleans. We already know who won't be helping. They''ll be...

"Doing the jobs welfare recipients don't want to do."

I'd better include this: < /sarc >

Aside from all the inane drivel that follows it I must admit to agreement with Pat Buchanan. He, is one of the few who have the courage to state the obvious. W, at every turn has, by HIS INACTION, failed to fulfill his obligation as Commander-in-Chief and President to secure our borders. He has done as the Prodigal President Clinton, before him did, prostituted his obligation for the sake of 'whoring' for prospective future votes. All this plus having called the sincere Minutemen "vigilantes" when all they tried to do was their collective patriotic duty to alert this Nation. For one who has set himself up as the champion of what is right, and whom I've consistently supported, despite some serious misgivings on policy decisions, he should be ashamed of himself.

To those who would criticize this view I ask...If we suffer another major terrorist incident and it can be traced to an infiltration via our wide open northern/southern land borders...On whose head do we hang the responsibility?

I was castigated by several FReeps on another thread when I made that same point.

Tancredo and Buchanan are not synonymous--despite what the open borders crowd says.

What kind of self-destructive fools even consider impeaching a president in the middle of a war? Like to see national confidence really drop? Do that. It's a good thing that Farah and Buchanan have little to no credibility these days.

Thanks to Katrina, for the next couple of years the immigration issue is going to fall completely off the radar.

If the 2006 elections were held today with gasoline over $3/gallon, nobody would give a rat's ass about either immigration or the war in Iraq; that's the good news.

The bad news is that the republicans would get blown out.

Good grief .. aren't they enough liberals to whine about Bush .. not the independents have to get in the act .. guess they weren't getting any media coverage .. but just say the words Bush and impeachment in the same sentence and vultures will come quickly!

"Aside from all the inane drivel that follows it I must admit to agreement with Pat Buchanan. He, is one of the few who have the courage to state the obvious. W, at every turn has, by HIS INACTION, failed to fulfill his obligation as Commander-in-Chief and President to secure our borders..."

And we know that every president before him did. /sarc

Get real. It is not the President's job to enforce laws which already exist.

To those who seldom go beyond the Headline or the first paragraph...this Headline is biased on its face...

The first question or conclusion one gets out of the headline is that Tancredo was 'Considering' introducing impeachment to congress, and has since changed his mind because of Katrina perhaps.

Once you get to the second paragraph the facts come out. It was Farrah and Buchanan who are hoisting the idea up the flag pole...

I hope for better from Farah's byte rag, but am not surprised at Pat; Buchanan is a bitter has been.

Consider if someone asked you to jump off the bridge?

Which is a more accurate and unbiased Headline: "Sam won't jump from the bridge"?...or "Sam scoffs at suggestion to jump from bridge"?

This week, WND columnists Patrick Buchanan.... called for legislation to begin the impeachment process due to, as Buchanan wrote, Bush's "conscious refusal to uphold his oath and defend the states of the Union against 'invasion.'"

That's not entirely true. Let's tell the truth. Even though many FReepers hate Pat Buchanan, lets tell the truth about what Pat actually said about impeaching PresBush.

"Some courageous Republican, to get the attention of this White House, should drop into the hopper a bill of impeachment, charging Bush with a conscious refusal to uphold his oath and defend the states of the Union against "invasion." "

Pat suggested someone in the GOP majority, take this action to get the attention of the White House. It was political rhetoric and more of a wake up call to the President. However, while Pat's suggestion is pure political theater, on the specific issue of immigration reform, Buchanan is absolutely right. The President and the Congressional GOP have to properly address the serious problems associated with illegal aliens entering the US. These are critical issues that Bush and Republicans have ignored for 4-1/2 years.

Pathetic grandstanding.

Maybe.

But Tom Delay is signaling his support of this bill, so its got a shot to put alot of legislators on the hot seat.

That said, a few pro-illegals folks might see this bill as their ticket to getting a guest worker bill through afterwards.