John Anderson

Several members of Youth for Western Civilization from the Washington D.C area attended the Tea Party today on 'Tax Day.' The rally was a capstone to a 3 week journey which began March 27^th in Harry Reid's hometown, then continued on to rallies across the country.

The crowd was a diverse mix that spanned generations, with a large number of elderly folks joined by a sizable contingent of high school and college students. In contrast to left wing rallies, it appears that most working age Tea Party supporters were actually at work this Thursday afternoon. Fliers with information on YWC were handed out to young and old alike, receiving an overwhelmingly positive response.

Also in sharp contrast to most left wing rallies, there were no mass-produced 'astroturf' signs and shirts. All the signs were unique, hand made and highly creative. Some of the more complex ones clearly took hours to make. The attendees arrived wearing patriotic shirts and pins and carrying 'Gadsden flags' emphasizing the American spirit of freedom. Several veterans proudly wore their uniforms.

True to their threat, a handful of left wing activists attempted to 'crash' the Tea Party. First, 'amateur hour': a transsexual carrying a giant rainbow umbrella scrawled with slogans ran screaming through the crowd. The stunt failed to draw any sort of 'hateful outburst' which it appeared intended to provoke, with the attendees looking on in confused bemusement before returning their attention to the speakers. Another demonstrator appeared with 'Obama is real' and some other barely literate pro-Obama slogans scrawled over his sweatshirt in white-out.

Then, some middle aged professional 'protesters' showed up with a giant banner claiming that Obama is actually a 'tax cutter'. This is, of course, absurd, as Obama's budget includes nearly one trillion in new taxes over the next ten years. The handful of shouting leftists attempted to force their way into the center of the rally, but found their way blocked by a sea of patriots. Infuriated, they screamed chants at the assembly of retirees and students to “get a job.” After briefly retreating, they settled for circling the outside of the block and some more shouts before leaving the area.

At least one of the liberals who showed up to counter-demonstrate found that she agreed with the Tea Partiers on many issues. Peace activist Medea Benjamin, who was once jailed and deported by Fidel Castro, agreed with the central premise of the Tea Party that bailouts to failed mega-banks and auto corporations were wrong and detrimental to the economy. "We found we were both against the bailout," she said, "against government subsidies to corporations.”

The Tea Party crowd was passionate but peaceful throughout the event. The weather was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky and moderate temperatures. All Youth for Western Civilization members thoroughly enjoyed the event, as did the rest of the crowd. Other YWC members concurrently attended Tea Parties in their locales, and YWC plans to continue and increase activism at Tea Parties and other events.

The Department of Homeland Security last year issued 1,130,818 new Green Cards to foreign nationals, granting them permission to legally take jobs in this country. That number represents the fourth highest number of new permits issued in any single year.  Although job permits for foreign workers in the past have been justified under the premise of ‘jobs Americans aren’t willing to do,’ that is simply no longer the case, if it ever was.

In 2009, 4 million jobs were lost, the most in any year since the times of FDR.  The unemployment rate is expected to stay near 10% at least through the end of 2011.

Additionally, the number of Americans in the workforce is higher than was anticipated due to stock market losses.  Many workers who had expected to be able to retire are remaining in the workforce because their savings have been decimated, according to the AARP.

Young people are especially hit hard by the downturn.  A study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that young workers are overrepresented amongst the unemployed.  A quarter of the unemployed workers in the country are under the age of 25, even though their portion of the workforce was only half that.

Even the young people who have jobs are often forced to take low level jobs well below our level of education.  The EPI study summarized its results "With such little financial security, young workers have less freedom to wait out a downturn and so they frequently take whatever job is available, even if it pays less than a job that matches their skill level."

Nicholas Kristof, a solidly liberal columnist for the New York Times, has an excellent piece out today discussing the situation in Zimbabwe.  Zimbabwe, formerly called Rhodesia, was once a prosperous country known as the ‘breadbasket of Africa.’  The country is now starving and dependent on foreign aid for bare survival.

Nicholas Kristof’s analysis of the situation in Zimbabwe and South Africa breaks that of most liberals (and even many so called ‘conservatives’) because he has actually gone there to see the situation on the ground.  As he reports:

Here’s a measure of how President Robert Mugabe is destroying this once lush nation of Zimbabwe:

In a week of surreptitious reporting here (committing journalism can be a criminal offense in Zimbabwe), ordinary people said time and again that life had been better under the old, racist, white regime of what was then called Rhodesia.

“When the country changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, we were very excited,” one man, Kizita, told me in a village of mud-walled huts near this town in western Zimbabwe. “But we didn’t realize the ones we chased away were better and the ones we put in power would oppress us.”

“It would have been better if whites had continued to rule because the money would have continued to come,” added a neighbor, a 58-year-old farmer named Isaac. “It was better under Rhodesia. Then we could get jobs. Things were cheaper in stores. Now we have no money, no food.”

What happened in Zimbabwe is a nearly literal reproduction of the happenings in Ayn Rand’s masterpiece ‘Atlas Shrugged,' only much quicker and more purposeful.  In this case, Atlas was simply shot rather than waiting for him to shrug.  The excuse for arbitrarily taking property by force and giving it to people who would not make good use of it was the same racial grievance system that is used as an excuse for affirmative action and racial quotas in this country.  If the average member of one race has more than the average member of another race, then supposedly the government must take by force from some and redistribute it to others solely on the basis of race.

Where does this lead?  Kristof continues his report:

An impressive health and education system is in tatters, and life expectancy has tumbled from about 60 years in 1990 to somewhere between 36 and 44, depending on which statistics you believe.

Western countries have made the mistake of focusing their denunciations on the seizures of white farms by Mr. Mugabe’s cronies. That’s tribalism by whites; by far the greatest suffering has been endured by Zimbabwe’s blacks.

In Kizita’s village, for example, I met a 29-year-old woman, seven months pregnant, who had malaria. She and her husband had walked more than four miles to the nearest clinic, where she tested positive for malaria. But the clinic refused to give her some life-saving antimalaria medicine unless she paid $2 — and she had no money at all in her house. So, dizzy and feverish, she stumbled home for another four miles, empty-handed.

As it happened, the clinic that turned her down was one that I had already visited. Nurses there had complained that they were desperately short of bandages, antibiotics and beds. They said that to survive, they impose fees for seeing patients, for family planning, for safe childbirth — and the upshot is that impoverished villagers die because they can’t pay.

I also spent time at an elementary school where the number of students had dropped sharply because so few parents today can afford $36 in annual school fees.

“We don’t have desks. We don’t have chairs. We don’t have books,” explained the principal, who was terrified of being named. The school also lacks electricity and water, and the first grade doesn’t have a classroom and meets under a tree.

This particular school had been founded by Rhodesians more than 70 years ago, and the principal mused that it must have served black pupils far better in Rhodesian days than today.

At another school 100 miles away, the deputy headmaster lamented that students can’t even afford pens. “One child has to finish his work, and then he lends his pen to another child,” he explained.

In the end, attempting to remedy racially grievances by arbitrarily taking with force from one group and giving to the other serves neither group. Lessons from Zimbabwe should be learned by those in South Africa attempting to push through similar ‘land reform’ seizures, and by those playing the ‘racial spoils’ game here in America.

Youth for Western Civilization supports our Constitution, including our 2^nd Amendment right to bear arms.  On many college campuses, liberal school administrators prevent students from carrying guns which they are legally entitled to carry in that state.  In other states, state laws prohibit concealed carry on campuses.

To protest this, students are carrying wearing open holsters to school this week.  According to a press release from Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC):

Colleges have repeatedly ignored or attempted to keep students from discussing the issue. In Pennsylvania, one college banned SCCC member Christine Brashier from handing out fliers about the group, stating, “You may want to discuss this topic but the college does not, and you cannot make us.” Another college in Texas tried to block students from wearing the symbolic empty holsters on campus until a federal judge ruled that their ban violated the First Amendment. And a recent decision at Colorado State University overturned a long-standing policy that allowed concealed carry, despite the fact that crime on campus decreased rapidly since allowing concealed carry on campus, and no problems were reported among permit holders. The ban was opposed by students, Student Government, and local law enforcement.

“Colleges aren’t content to ban the right to self-defense anymore,” said David Burnett, a spokesman for SCCC. “Now they’re trying to suspend the right to freedom of speech. They want to silence us and hope we’ll go away. It’s outrageous and our membership cares too much about self defense to remain silent.”

The group was formed shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting, and advocates that persons with state-issued permits be allowed to carry concealed handguns on college grounds.

“Compulsory defenselessness doesn’t make students safer, it makes them less safe,” said Burnett. “A piece of paper taped to the door saying guns are against the rules has yet to stop a criminal, whether a mass shooter or an armed rapist. It merely assures the criminal that victims are incapable of effective resistance. There are no security checkpoints or metal detectors to pass through in order to enter a college campus and absolutely no way for colleges to control what a criminal brings on campus. Until they can take responsibility for our safety and guarantee our protection, colleges can’t be allowed to deny us the right to self-defense.”

We at Youth for Western Civilization support this campaign to protect our Constitutional rights, and encourage all students to take part in this protest.

Supporters of an amnesty for illegal aliens are desperately scrounging for another Republican backer in addition to liberal Republican Lindsay Graham.  With Republicans holding 41 seats in the Senate, plus several working class Democrats who will vote against an amnesty, another Republican backer is needed to make the amnesty appear ‘bipartisan.’

Even Graham appears to be reluctant to be the lone Republican supporter of the bill.  "I urge the President to write a bill and see if he can get another Republican, see if he can convince the 16 Democrats who voted no the last time," he said during a joint appearance with Democrat sponsor Chuck Schumer on the show ‘Meet the Press’.   Graham added that he wanted Obama to do “some heavy lifting here on immigration."  Schumer confidently predicted that "he will."

Schumer made clear that getting a second Republican Senator to come out in support of an illegal alien amnesty was crucial to the effort.  "If we can get that second Republican, we have business and labor ready to sign on, we have all the religious community, not just the liberals but the evangelicals, we even have Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly saying positive things about our proposal," he declared.  Obama House spokesman Robert Gibbs recently stated “there have to be Republicans that come aboard, too.”

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, agreed to meet with amnesty supporters after a gang of left wing extremists invaded his office and created a disruption on March 22.  After the meeting March 30, which was closed to the press and outside observers, the left wing ‘Center for Community Change’ claimed that the amnesty advocates had “walked away with a commitment from Steele to work with Sen. Lindsey Graham and the party's leadership to enlist another Republican Senator's support for comprehensive and bipartisan immigration reform.”  Amnesty backer Tony Asion of the North Carolina based ‘El Pueblo, Inc.’ claimed that Steele “committed to looking at the Schumer-Graham bill to see how they can move forward with this bill,” a report that was mirrored by those of other attendees.

Michael Steele’s spokesman disputed this as “100 per cent inaccurate,” arguing that “today’s meeting was meant as an opportunity to listen to concerns and discuss the Republican Party’s strong support of legal immigration.”

In the face of opposition by a vast majority of citizens, and no longer able to use ‘jobs Americans aren’t willing to do’ as an excuse, amnesty backers are having a difficult time.  The willingness of GOP Senators to support an amnesty “just doesn't exist anymore," according to Jon Kyl of Arizona, a one time supporter of amnesty proposals.

Amnesty supporter Mel Martinez of Florida has resigned.  George Lemieux, his unelected replacement, has been elusive when questioned about the issue.  "We all have to be open. It's a problem, a multifaceted problem, and that's why we are here: to solve problems" he says.

Border state Republicans who have appeared open to amnesty in the past, John Cornyn, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and John McCain, have also been noncommittal.  "I'm interested in trying to find a middle ground but I don't think we're anywhere near close" says Cornyn, but admitting "I don't know if that exists.”  John McCain, a past sponsor of amnesty bills with Ted Kennedy, is locked in a tight battle in the Republican Primary with amnesty opponent J.D. Hayworth.  He has remained silent on the amnesty issue lately.

Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican who supported immigration bills in 2006 and 2007, was an early focus for Democrats. He said Mr. Schumer approached him last year to ask him if he was interested in joining forces, but Lugar declined.  "I indicated I was not prepared to co-sponsor or work with him on that," Lugar said.