The American ruling class, Republicans and Democrats alike, embrace the PC version of multiculturalism to the nth degree. To talk about limiting immigration, whether legal or illegal, is bad, bad, bad. It is evil. On the other hand, hurrying along changing America into a white-minority country is good, good, good. The New York Times this past week reports on the progress so far as a result of post-1960s US immigration policies:

Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census Bureau projections, a transformation that is occurring faster than anticipated just a few years ago.

The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four years ago, officials had projected the shift would come in 2050.

But you would think that our ruling elite would at least go and see how those countries are doing that have market-dominant minorities, for example an affluent white minority. Take Brazil, a country with a large white minority. Economic inequality is extreme, corruption is rampant, and crime rates are outrageously high. The US federal government provides a warning to Americans visiting Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil:

The Department of State rates the crime rate for São Paulo as CRITICAL. … Violent crimes such as murder, rape, kidnappings, armed assaults and burglaries have become a part of normal everyday life. Every São Paulo neighborhood is susceptible to high crime rates.

In Sao Paulo, the people that can afford it pay for their cars to be made bulletproof. Kidnappings are so frequent, that it is hard to see how any affluent person would live there. Famous soccer players are having their mother’s kidnapped. A common practice is to cut off an ear of the kidnapped person and send it to the family to motivate them to pay the ransom.

In these societies whites become more corrupt, and both whites and the non-whites become more prone to crime. Non-whites tend toward street crimes and whites tend toward organized crimes. For example, the kidnappings in Sao Paulo appear to be largely organized by whites.

For an analogy, think of creating a culture that is the combination of the American black inner city underclass culture PLUS American white mafia culture.

Yale Law School professor Amy Chua wrote a book, World on Fire, where she describes what can happen in societies with market-dominant minorities:

In the Philippines, Chua explains, the ethnic-Chinese minority has far greater wealth than the indigenous majority, with the result being envy and bitterness on the part of the majority against the Chinese minority — in other words, an ethnic conflict. She believes that democratization can increase ethnic conflicts when an ethnic minority is disproportionately wealthy. “When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is backlash. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant minority’s wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the market-dominant minority itself.”.

Societies with a market-dominant white minority, like in Latin America, tend to be dog eat dog. The non-whites turn to demands for socialism in an effort to grab what the whites have. Whites fight back, but being a minority and less politically powerful, they more often turn to unsavory means to protect what they have. Thus, white corruption becomes a problem.

And this is what we want for America? Apparently so. Multicultural life in Brazil is so great - we just have got to convert the USA into Brazil sooner!

Texas school district to let teachers carry guns

71% of the world’s poor come from just three countries.

Things the US is good at:

Infrastructure for Business - take that Switzerland

Techonological Achievement - watch out Finland

Business Efficeincy - Hong Kong gets smoked

Productivity - make way Luxembourg

Defense Spending - more than the rest combined (well, invading Iran could get expensive)

Does your dog look like it has some bulldog of some type in it? Well, if you live in Ohio, and someone claims that your dog has some pit bull in him or her, the police may be coming to take your dog. And then the dog warden is required to quickly kill your dog. Is there a test to say how much pit bull your dog has? No. The police will just, you know, be able to tell if your dog is mostly pit bull. You have no way to appeal this decision. They just take your dog and kill it. Don’t believe me? Here is the proposed legislation:

Sec. 955.111. (A) Beginning ninety days after the effective date of this section, no person shall own, keep, or harbor a dog that belongs to a breed that is commonly known as a pit bull dog.

(B) Not later than ninety days after the effective date of this section, a person who owns, keeps, or harbors a pit bull dog on the effective date of this section shall surrender the dog to the dog warden. Not later than ten days after receiving the dog, the dog warden shall euthanize the dog.

(C) (1) Beginning ninety days after the effective date of this section, if an officer has probable cause to believe that a dog is a pit bull dog, the officer may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction for a search warrant. The court shall issue a search warrant for the purposes requested if there is probable cause to believe that a dog is a pit bull dog.

(2) After obtaining a search warrant, an officer shall seize the pit bull dog and surrender the dog to the dog warden. Not later than ten days after receiving the dog, the dog warden shall euthanize the dog.

Imagine getting convicted for murder and sentenced to death because a police officer had probable cause to believe that you might someday be a murderer.

There are around 17 different breeds of dogs commonly referred to as pit bulls in the news media. So are all 17 breeds going to be killed off in Ohio? And are the police qualified to identify all 17 of these breeds? And again, what if a dog is not a pure bred of one of these 17 types? What if a dog is say half lab, half pit bull? Just kill it, I guess.

This is personal with me. My dog is an American Pit Bull Terrier. I doubt if he is a pure bred, he has no papers. But he appears to be mostly American Pit Bull Terrier. It is the best pet that I have ever had. Pit bulls are the best companions. Pit bull owners will immediately know what I am talking about.

The dog ended up with us by chance (here is the story). I started off saying “there is no way in hell that I will ever own a pit bull”. But I came to completely change my mind about these dogs.

I am not saying that pit bulls cannot be dangerous. Any large and powerful dogs can be dangerous - especially if abused, if the males are not neutered (85% of pit bull fatal attacks are by unneutered males), or if they are raised to be viscous.

There are many other large breed dogs, that are less popular, that kill people too. Why not round them all up and kill them? Rottweilers have killed many people in recent years. And I bet there are 30 times more pit bulls than Rottweilers in the US. So on a per capita basis, Rottweilers are much more dangerous. So I guess that they should be killed off first!

A problem regarding pit bulls is that they are immensely popular with lower class Americans. They often don’t get the males neutered. Some mistreat the dogs, leaving them on chains all day - or they just neglect them for days on end. They sometimes beat them and treat them cruelly for fun. And they encourage aggression in the dogs. On a previous post about dog attacks, commenter Eva wrote, “any dog just like people will grow to become their surrounding”.

On the other hand, most pit bull owners place the blame 100% on the dog owners for dog attacks. But let’s be honest here. A problem with powerful dogs is, just like there are some humans that will turn out aggressive and violent regardless of the best efforts of their parents, some dogs just turn out to be bad. If you get an aggressive dog, if it is say a small poodle, if he bites someone it is not too big of a deal. But if a pit bull (or Rottweiler, Doberman, German Sheppard, etc.) attacks someone, there may be a tragic outcome.

A dog owner with an aggressive and dangerous dog should have it put to sleep. And owners should be held fully accountable for having a viscous dog that hurts or kills someone, like these idiot dog owners.

Large breed dogs can be dangerous, it is true. But allowing people to drive 70 miles per hour on highways is dangerous too. If you don’t pay attention, you can easily kill someone. But do we force people to drive at 40 miles per hour on highways to save lives?

In a free society, we accept a certain amount of risk by letting others freely do things that might put us at some risk. We legalize alcohol even though we know that drunk drivers will kill thousands every year. We allow cigarette companies to sell tobacco products knowing that thousands will become addicts and die young. But we like our freedom, so we tolerate people drinking and smoking. Allowing people to own large breed dogs - including pit bulls - falls into this same category.

Fatal dog attacks need to be put into perspective. Yes, every fatal attack on an innocent person is a great tragedy. But there are only about 25 fatal dog attacks in the U.S. per year - while there are tens of thousands killed each year by allowing alcohol and tobacco products to be legally sold.

So should state governments begin banning many large breed dogs, such as the 17 breeds of pit bulls, because some will turn out to be dangerous due to being poorly raised or just bad for some reason? I say no, freedom is more important!

Whatever solution is pursued to reduce the number of attacks by dangerous dogs - genocide of certain breeds is surely not the solution. U.S. states should not begin making Nazi-like laws and ordering the police to enter homes and round up certain breeds of dogs that are declared to be dangerous. Seriously, this is scary.

Update: BTW, contrary to a common misconception, it is not just the lower classes that have pit bulls. For example, some in Hollywood have learned what great pets they can be. Jessica Alba, Michael J. Fox, and Alicia Silverstone all have pit bulls. Jon Stewart has two pit bulls and Jessica Biel owns three.

My father has said to me that he is afraid that Barack Obama will be another Jimmy Carter. He means that Obama is inexperienced as Jimmy Carter was, and it will show in his presidency. Well, this week Obama has sure left himself open to the criticism that he is still an amateur:

Barack Obama’s continued call for a troop withdrawal timetable in Iraq has critics complaining that he’s set on that policy before even taking his highly anticipated trip to the Middle East. …

“He’s going to Iraq but he’s already decided his position,” Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a top John McCain supporter, told FOX News on Wednesday. “He’s not going to listen to (David) Petraeus. He’s not going to listen to our troops. He’s not going to listen to his own eyes with what he sees there.”

The McCain campaign seized on an editorial Wednesday in The Washington Post that criticized Obama for sticking with his 16-month troop withdrawal timeline, even after hinting that he would “refine” his policy after visiting Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Mr. Obama appears to have decided that sticking to his arbitrary, 16-month timeline is more important than adjusting to the dramatic changes in Iraq,” the editorial said. “American commanders will probably tell Mr. Obama that from a logistical standpoint, a 16-month withdrawal timetable will be difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill. … If Mr. Obama really intends to listen to such advisers, why would he lock in his position in advance?”

Good question.

I wrote a post yesterday raising the question: Afghanistan, the New Iraq? Instapundit links to Michael Yon today who writes:

The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What’s left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it’s time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.

I wish I could say the same for Afghanistan. But that war we clearly are losing: I am preparing to go there and see the situation for myself. My friends and contacts who have a good understanding of Afghanistan are, to a man, pessimistic about the current situation.

Regarding the Iraq War, I am not quite ready to say we won. Things could turn bad again - especially if Obama hurriedly pulls all of the troops out within 16 months as he says he will do.

Also, to say we won should mean more than Iraq being stable enough to be ruled. It should also mean that Iraq is reasonably free and democratic - at least by the very low standards of the Middle East. If we leave and another authoritarian regime takes root, then how much did we really accomplish there? Did we just boot out an unfriendly dictatorship to enable a friendly one to replace it? I sure hope it doesn’t come to that. I am actually fairly optimistic that it won’t come to that. I think at least a crude form of democracy will stay in place. Let’s hope.

Update: But Iran has a “crude form of democracy”, and look how that has worked out. I guess Iraq needs a secular crude form of democracy, rather than one that is window-dressing for a theocracy.

All of the emotional political demands over the past few years, largely from the left (but also from the anti-neocons on the right), to quickly pull out of Iraq now seem obsolete. Iraq is stabilizing. It appears that the surge and other US operations, along with the years of training of Iraq’s security forces, may leave the country intact as our efforts there start winding down:

Overall attacks across Iraq were down 85 percent in June from a year ago, the Iraqi military said last week.

… Iraqi security forces were taking the lead in more than 75 percent of security operations, national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told CNN television.

“We can see in a very short period of time, the Iraqi security forces will reach … self reliance … We can relax the requirements for foreign troops in this country,” he said.

Okay, but what about that other war - the one in Afghanistan? Anti-war activists have largely ignored this war, partly because they agreed with the need for some military action in that country after 9/11. But if today you want to keep the Vietnam quagmire argument going, Afghanistan seems to be the place to talk about. With great numbers of Taliban camped just over the border in Pakistan to fuel never-ending attacks, it is hard to see the end game in Afghanistan - unlike in Iraq. Today nine US troops were killed in Afghanistan and violence is up:

Sunday’s attack came during a period of rising violence in Afghanistan. Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June. Last Monday, a suicide bomber attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing 58 people in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since 2001.

Iraq has the oil money to fund an effective military and police force to fight back the terrorists and militias after we leave. Afghanistan does not. It is much easier now to envision a self-sufficient state in Iraq than it is in Afghanistan.

So will Barack Obama start calling for a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan? If Afghanistan is the new military occupation quagmire, shouldn’t we just leave? I disagree with that, but for the anti-war types to be consistent, if it was so important to leave Iraq quickly, isn’t that true in Afghanistan now too?

Many libertarians argue that drugs should be legalized. They think that it is a matter of personal freedom - but also this is supposed to reduce the problems with crime related to drug trafficking. For example, this would cause the violent crime among the black underclass to decline dramatically, gangs to fade away, and so on. But when one starts to think about a USA with legalized drugs, it becomes a strange place indeed …

Say someone in the family, say the Johnson family, is headed to the liquor store to pick up some things for the weekend. Say it is the 21 year old daughter in this family of three. She asks what the others in the family want for the weekend. Now, with drugs legalized, the liquor stores have expanded their line of retail products to include recreational drugs.

The mother tells the daughter some items. Mom has been feeling a little blue and she is wanting to just relax this weekend. She deserves a break, so she tells her daughter she wants 2 grams of coke. “It will be like my college weekends again,” she jokes. It will be great. She loved coke then. And this legal stuff now is of better quality, much easier to snort too.

Mom asks, “What are you getting for yourself, sweetie?” Her daughter shrugs and says just her usual bag of weed. You know how she loves her weed. But of course she will cut back on Sunday, she says, so that she can study for some exams on Monday.

Then mom remembered what dad wants. “Oh, dad finally completed his big project at work. He says that this is a major celebration weekend for him - smack down time. So he said he wants 5 grams of heroin.” Dad loves heroin, of course, his daughter remembers. Everyone loves heroin. It makes you feel like a god! That stuff can be hard to stay away from though after you do it a few times. Her friend Ashley has really been struggling with that lately …

So there you have it. An all-American weekend with the Johnson family. Ah, legalized drugs - you got to love them.

As gasoline prices surge above $4 per gallon, we need many more efforts to reduce energy costs in the future. We also need to work harder at reducing our dependence on oil. So then this seems pretty ridiculous:

DENVER — Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.”

I am fine with doing a big study to check for the environmental impact of these solar plants. But let the plants continue to be built at the same time. After the two-year study is complete, then decide what the new rules may be for building solar plants on public lands. I mean, how damaging can these solar plants be? It would surely be minor compared to strip mining for coal or many other things done to pursue fossil fuels.

It seems that environmentalism is beginning to trump all other values.

A great day for freedom in America:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Individual Americans have a right to own guns, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday for the first time in the country’s history, striking down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital.

The landmark 5-4 ruling marked the first time in nearly 70 years the high court has addressed the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It rejected the argument the right to keep and bear arms was tied to service in a state militia.

Of course the four liberal judges voted against this ruling. They believe the Second Amendment means guns are only for militias. But today, they simply lost.

This points out the best reason to vote for McCain over Obama. Replacing even a single Supreme Court Justice with a liberal could flip many outcomes and bring back major judicial activism.

I own a pistol and I go out and shoot it sometimes. It is fun. I also keep it in the house in case some criminal breaks in. I found that buying and owning a gun makes you more pro-gun.

It is funny that the liberal gun control crowd seems to focus on cities where low-income blacks live. Though they would never admit it, isn’t the goal to take guns away from underclass blacks so that violent crime will drop? But then hardworking black grandmothers can’t have guns in the house to protect themselves from the thugs trying to break in. Fortunately the Supreme Court has rectified that.

Okay, I may have not yet found 199 reasons not to vote for Obama, but give me time.

It is so easy to find issues that I disagree with Obama on. Every time I look at a stance he has on an issue - I disagree. I mean this guy is a true-blue left-winger. Regarding labor laws, Will Franklin points this out:

Barack Obama has promised the unions a profoundly reactionary agenda if they can get him elected in November. We’re talking, let’s go back to the 1930s type of an agenda.

He has promised them that he’ll end the secret ballot in union elections, with the card check legislation union bosses have been pushing so hard for in recent years. He has promised them that he’ll work to essentially nullify the concept of Right To Work states.

Union bosses are declaring that they will spare no expense to get a Democrat in the White House in 2009. Much is at stake for them, as they have seen steady declines in their membership for decades now. The vast majority of new union members are government employees; few new private jobs are union jobs.

Unions exist to corner a slice of the labor market and force companies to pay above-market wages and benefits. If the companies resist, unions rely on government coercion to demand that the companies “negotiate in good faith”. In other words - the companies had better reach a contract and sign it, or else. Spare us the government heavy-handedness. This 1930s-type thinking is so last century.