Posted on 06/09/2007 11:39:27 PM PDT by World_Events
They are using a clever strategy. They are equating illegal immigrants with immigrants. We’re a nation built on, by and for immigrants.
So their message is simple - they say we hate immigrants. Our message is more complex -that we don’t want immigrants from a small part of the world to squeeze out all the other immigrants and over-run the country in an unlawful manner.
Our message doesn’t fit as well in a sound bite so we have to persevere.
Hear! Hear! I’m not a Catholic either (just a Catholic wannabe).
Never did hear from the flamees. Guess they were a little embarassed. It's encouraging, though that they didn't rise up to defend their preconceptions.
That’s quite hilarious.
Thanks for a dose of humor!
We now have citizens of foreign countries telling our government what they can and cannot do. That’s because our politically correct politicians have taught them that is OK. There is NO other government in the world that would tolerate foreigners coming in and meddling in their affairs.
I attack nothing, but I won't hesitate to point out emotional extremism that is passed off as logic.
For example, somewhere in the labyrinth of the conservative public mind, being in favor of immigration is equated with being in favor of illegal immigration.
The presumption is not just ridiculous, it's disgusting.
And further, in that labyrinth, self-annointed "conservatives" have thinly transformed their palpable hatred of anything unlike themselves into a rabid political fury that makes them look rather...unhinged.
Meanwhile, your arch enemy, Hillary Clinton, maintains a calm and builds a coalition of intellectual and influential Latinos whom she intends to use to soundly sweep the 2008 election.
http://www.numbersusa.org/faxcenter
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=leg_legislationmain
Just say NO to Amnesty!! Keep calling!! It’s NOT OVER!!
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep
Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
What a goofball! Immigrants is a euphemism for illegal immigrants, which is the ultimate euphemism for invaders.
What part of those prindiples spells out that the Catholic Church supports illegal immigration?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Catholicism
Uh, really? These men were hated and enslaved in their own land, left for the promise of a new land, were treated with the same disrespect as hatreds imported from anti-Catholic England and Europe, and then presented with an opportunity to resist where they couldn’t before.
Perhaps they should have grown a third cheek, but as history shows, the last cheeks to get slapped were their butts getting kicked by US soldiers. They died as soldiers of their own cause and not exactly martyrs (because they resorted to armed struggle), but that was their choice.
Just curious, but how would you have done it? What if Wallace were enslaved by an imperial nation whose masters hated his religion? What then if Wallace up and moved to a new homeland just to be ridiculed all the same...but this time he has a gun and training? The temptation for resisting is quite high, isn’t it? Not everyone can take the scourge. Those in St. Patrick’s Battalion (who were not all Irish, BTW) did not take the path of Christian martyrdom. But that’s also a reason why I won’t kill for the American government. Sooner or later, Americans will vote for another Clinton, Kennedy, FDR, Wilson, or similar war democrat.
I wouldn’t give to the amnesty-loving Catholic Church if they personally washed my feet!
There were prejudices against Catholics to be sure, but they were not institutionalized as they had been under the British Crown. The Federal and state governments were neutral with regard to religion, and had been so from the foundation of the republic, although a few states in New England had an established church to around 1830. No religious restrictions existed on the voting franchise, land ownership, entry into the trades or professions, or holding public office, as there had been in Ireland under the penal laws. During the War for Independence, the small Catholic population, located mostly in Maryland and Pennsylvania, was overwhelmingly Whig/patriot, as exemplified by the Carrolls of Maryland. To be sure, America was no paradise for the Catholics from Ireland, but they were freer and far better off than their counterparts in Ireland, Britain, or other parts of the British Empire.
Blacks had it far worse, not only because of slavery in the South, but because of legal segregation, lack of voting rights, and other restrictions on liberty that were the law in most Northern states. In fact, some Northern states actually forbade the settlement of African-Americans within their boundaries. There were anti-Catholic riots in several Northern cities, but nothing like the intensity of persecutions the Mormons suffered. Additionally, the Irish Catholics characteristically did more damage to their Know-Nothing enemies than the latter inflicted.
The Saint Patrick Brigade were the 19th Century equivalent of La Raza Unida, ungrateful, whining immigrants who turned their backs on this land of freedom and actually took arms against it. They were traitors, plain and simple.
And if they didn’t take up arms, they might have died as venerated saints or at least suffered imprisonment and scourging for refusing orders. But you’re right, they took an oath. They should never have sworn loyalty and remained free. Jesus warns us of oaths for just such a reason. Too bad those off the boat didn’t have our information access warning them what they were getting into. “Streets paved in gold” was too much to ignore as a poor European. “Join the Army and become an American” is an easy sell. Perhaps they’d have forsaken US Army recruiters in hindsight.
Let’s say you’re right, though. Perhaps their intent was always criminal and they were parasites all the way. But why would a criminal, whose nature is always cowardly, choose to stand and fight his ground over and over again...and against obvious superior numbers? I mean, they knew both sides of the fight. They had American training and then became what Mexico had for resistance.
They could have run away like Poncho Villa, or like they did when they originally left Ireland. So, why did the executed stand and fight like soldiers? A criminal’s instinct is to survive. A criminal in a soldier’s uniform would have deserted all forces, American and Mexican, and ravaged the country side instead of standing their ground. All armies have had problems with criminals in the ranks, but the accusations that the entire St Patrick’s Brigade were in it for the land and the lust just doesn’t make sense.
I think that these former American soldiers were abused in a way that they weren’t going to take abuse any more. I’ll bet it started with an anti-Catholic click in an American unit that broke the better nature of several Catholic soldiers. And until you’ve experienced underground worship the way an oppressed British subject was forced to remain a secret Catholic, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell a free Irishman would skip a Sunday Mass even if it were held by a Mexican Catholic priest.
Some Catholics took it personally, and there was nothing that the US Army could do to reconcile the few offended soldiers with the rest of the American nation. I think the media perpetuated the problem because problems sell newspapers. I think the Mexican Army took advantage of the situation and recruited more American-trained Catholics to their Mexican side. I think that the Mexicans made promises they couldn’t keep. I think that once a movement within the Irish and other European Catholic transplants started to get word out to other Catholics in the US Army, the US Army had a very bad knee-jerk reaction that catalyzed more Catholic recruits for the Mexican Army. I think that once the US Army figured out what exactly happened, it was too late for those who were legitimately outraged and the US Army cut its losses with “extreme prejudice”. Furthermore, the US Army probably made peace offerings within their own ranks to avoid more catastrophic desertions, and many Americans learned from these mistakes. I’ll bet that more than several battle worthy, yet anti-Catholic and ungentlemanly to Mexicans, American soldiers escaped American justice for the problems they caused. The anti-Catholic American soldiers’ abuse were mocks "turned into gun stones for which their souls will stand sorely charged". I have no doubt that the devil is behind this spiteful influence of turning the hearts of men against their brother.
In the end, another horrible injustice left another blot on American history. But to accuse the St. Patrick’s Brigade as one motivated by greed and lust? Hell, if these Irish transplants wanted to be drunk, greedy, and whoring, they could have remained in the British Empire and enrolled in the Royal Army as Protestants and had all of these desires served in all manner of outposts or even in England’s capital. Why would they get on a boat to America if it weren’t for the promise of success and living out their Faith without persecution? It’s elementary my dear Wallace. Sherlock Holmes’ deduction dictates that the majority of the St. Patrick’s Brigade actually believed in what they fought for. They risked losing their reputation and their lives and indeed most of them lost both.
Do you think Americans are wiser than playing the anti-Catholic now? I think most are. Most have recognized a real Catholic from a fake “Catholic” who is motivated by greed, debauchery, and lust. I mean, America would have voted for one in the 2004 election if the nation didn’t learn the difference.
But don’t get me wrong. Human leadership to be righteous must not cater to Catholics. Mankind must seek and serve Jesus and Divine Will. And the very Word of God, Jesus Christ, God made Flesh Who places Himself in the Sacraments, is what the Universal Church seeks and gives.
However, the members of the St. Patrick's Brigade were wearing the blue coats of the U.S. Army and fighting under the Stars and Stripes. If some native-born Protestants sneered at them or discriminated against them, that was unjust on their part. However, nothing that may have inflicted on them compared even remotely with what the British did. Whatever was done to the Irish Catholics pales in comparison to the miserable treatment blacks were afforded in the U.S. military until the armed services were integrated, such as lower pay, inferior equipment, and assignment to the most miserable details. In the early 1900s, a large portion of the U.S. officer corps was decidedly anti-Semitic, having bought the story that the Jews were responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution, and the loyalty and patriotism of the few Jews in the military was questioned.
Granted, the St. Patrick's Brigade fought bravely. However, the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS, made up of Frenchmen who deserted to the Nazis, were perhaps the most stalwart defenders of Berlin during the final major battle of the European theater of World War II. The soldiers of the division probably believed Nazi ideology sincerely. The same could be said of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, made up of Americans who were true believers of Communist ideology, which fought bravely to secure a Marxist hell in Spain. Che Guevara was no doubt a fearless man who faced his execution with dignity, but he was nonetheless a Communist butcher responsible for the deaths of thousands and torture of many others in the prisons and concentration camps Castro's Cuba. No one questioned Benedict Arnold's bravery, or that of Vidkun Quisling, but both names have become synonymous with treason.
If the soldiers were denied access to the Mass or the sacraments while in enemy territory, that was justified by wartime rules of not fraternizing with the enemy. No doubt such rules were enforced in Germany and Austria during and immediately after World War II.
As for the underlying justice of the American cause in the Mexican War, remember that Santa Anna had aggressive designs in his plans to recapture Texas and extend Mexican rule along the U.S. Gulf Coast as far east as Mobile. Both nations had designs on each other's territories. However, as an American, I would have to side with my own country in such a matter. In any case, the territory captured by the United States was only thinly settled by Spaniards and Mexicans in just a few places in southern California and northern New Mexico. For all practical purposes, these territories were ruled by the Indian nations that preceded the Europeans on this continent by several millennia. If any American aggression was not justified, it was not in the seizure of territory under nominal Mexican rule, but in the dispossession of the original inhabitants during the Indian Wars. In any case, there is no comparison of Mexico during the Mexican War to Ireland under the British. There was no justification even for disobedience, much less desertion or treason.
Treason must be punished, and the St. Patrick's Brigade members were traitors. Poor treatment by officers or enlisted men in the U.S. Army did not justify their treason. If they had had issues with that treatment, they should have left the service at the termination of their voluntary enlistment. In any real war in which the United States was engaged, deserters were punished and often executed. Traitors characteristically received the death penalty. The French executed Petain; the Norwegians executed Quisling; the British executed Lord Haw-Haw. Our own country imprisoned Tokyo Rose and Ezra Pound for their noncombatant services to enemy powers.
War is hell. That armies would prohibit souls from visiting Jesus as common ground makes the fighting more infuriating as reconciliation is barred from hearts.
I agree with most of the history you stated. Not to be disrespectful, though, I disagree with the thought process. Heaven is a place of loving service. Hell demands rank and file disobedience to Authority. Though there is greater and lesser in Heaven, the Greatest serves the least even in the capacity of washing the lowest’s of feet.
The US Army is not so “all-volunteer” when it demands loyalty to the uniform over Obedience to the Sacraments. That is an unlawful order to Authority. It’s also blasphemy to demand an oath of disobedience and swear such an oath to God, Himself, whom the slave must disobey (this is one of the reasons why Catholicism rejects the Humanism of Freemasonry; and if Freemasons choose to say “but we’re not like that”, then it’s for pure obedience that Catholics must not eat the fruit of that tree “Freemason”. Similarly, Communist Chinese Party members who want to become Catholic MUST renounce their allegiance to the Communist Party. I think it's because the author of such blasphemy cannot be reconciled to the other offspiring of the Holy Trinity--i.e. Satan cannot reconcile with God; thus, Satan cannot reconcile with man. Obedience to God means abandoment of all distractions and temptations (the world and Satan)).
There are anti-Catholic institutions that were long in existence before the US was a colony. Anti-Catholic institutions tried to inflict their agenda upon American society, but they were more successful in Mexico. Mexico has a worse history than America of Catholic persecution. But none should feel encouraged that there are less violent persecutions in "freer" forums. The false piety of using Catholic symbolism to promote sin is far worse an offense against Christ than the murder of clergy. At least with martyrdom, more souls are won for Heaven because of the Holy Spirit’s display of courage through the obedient heart. Where violent persecution can only murder the body, false piety murders souls (for example, a naked pop-singer wearing only a rosary around her neck and promoting promiscuity and abortion).
How does this relate to those captured and executed from the St Patrick’s Brigade? Only as a warning to future boys and men who think that a uniform will help them advance. I don’t condemn or agree with the Irishmen’s actions for rejecting their newly adopted country. I think that their young hearts were duped into loyalty to America and then Mexico. They paid the price for making an oath. I don’t agree that they got what they deserved, but I’m also one that disagrees capital punishment (but I understand why it happens).
As far as history goes, I’m more favorable to American history than Mexican. Though I wonder if the trinitarian American system will fail like the Roman Triumvirate (essentially thugs trying to keep each other in check), the US Constitution and legacy might last a bit longer because it recognizes more Truth than those wills of ancient ambitious and worldly men. A temporal government would have more success then our American trinity if society recognizes the Truth of Jesus Christ and His Presence in the Sacraments. Thus, there'd be nothing shameful or wrong to say, "We, temporal governement, can only be concerned with your existance pre-cradle to grave; but, the rest is up to Jesus--and we will not obstruct His Way!"
I like what you mention about the shifting winds in the American officer corps. I was shocked to learn that most US Marine officers deserted the Union during our Civil War. It was such a scandal that Congress considered disbanding the USMC. That's one of the reasons why "Semper Fidelis" became the Marine Motto when the Corps had to be renewed b those who remained loyal to the Union. I learned this in TBS.
“Inside the basilica, 9-year-old Manuela Baez read an essay she wrote in Spanish called “It’s Not Fair.”
Ah yes, the usual tactic, bring the cute little moppets into the discussion/picture to cloud the issue and tug at the heartstrings.
“If he gets a Catholic majority in this country,......”
That will not happen, but the church is very supportive of amnesty for illegals mainly because they really need to get thier numbers up. Since most south of the border illegals are Catholic they naturally take the stand that they do.
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