Paul Welch

"You owe it to your philosophy to learn how to win."- Morton C. Blackwell, President of the Leadership Institute

Today, three Auburn YWC members participated in the Leadership Institute's Campus Election Workshop. They were taught how to run a successful campaign, as well as how to win student government elections. As all three are considering running for positions in student government, the training was very well received. Adam Clay, the chapter's Executive Chairman, felt the training was vital to his future efforts in student government. He stated that

"The Leadership Institutes Campus Election Workshop provided me with the essential skills and tactics I need to secure a position in student government. After this valuable training, I feel confident that I can easily do so."

On behalf of Auburn YWC, I would like to thank the Leadership Institute for providing this valuable workshop, and I encourage all aspiring conservatives across the nation to utilize the highly effective programs thats the Leadership Institute offers. With the knowledge gained today, we hope to place as many members of YWC as possible in the student government here at Auburn.

LewRockwell.com's blogger Thomas DiLorenzo, a senior faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, is dead-on concerning the true nature of Obamacare. In his article on the LRC blog, he states that:

The Obammunist’s socialized health care legislation promises to cut Medicare spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while increasing Medicaid spending by hundreds of billions.  At least half of all Medicare enrollees vote Republican; almost all Medicaid enrollees vote Democrat.  This is why the Obammunists are so euphoric today.

Wicked Witch Pelosi (D-Botox) says this law is reminiscent of the Civil Rights legislation of the ’60s.  Not really.  It’s more like Ted Kennedy’s 1965 immigration law that drastically reduced the number of Europeans who could immigrate to the U.S., more than half of which voted Republican, while vastly expanding Third World immigration quotas, almost all of whom vote Democrat.

Are the health insurance companies really upset over the fact that the Obammunists have mandated that every last adult in America must purchase their products or face fines (or possibly imprisonment)?  Does anyone deny that this government-mandated explosion in demand will lead to an equally explosive increase in costs?

DiLorenzo raises some very serious points and implications about the billl. It seems that very many leftists are disillusioned to the exact implications of Obamacare; and that not only does it mandate that millions of people must purchase insurance from private companies, it also leaves 24 million people uninsured. 

In alluding to Ted Kennedy's immigration bill, DiLorenzo indirectly asks the question on many peoples' mind: Because of the fact that most Hispanics vote Democrat, Will Obama make the final push for Amnesty, perhaps preventing the uproot that the Obammunists are expected to take in the November elections?

Lilburn, Georgia, located inside Gwinnett County, is a small town with a population of around eleven thousand. It was founded in 1890, and has a rich history. The residents take pride in their city, which includes an “Old Town district” which is in an original historic area of Lilburn; its residents like to call it a “Slice of History." Every year, the city enjoys community activities like Lilburn Daze – an annual arts and crafts fair – and a Christmas parade. Lilburn is everything you would expect from a town deep in Dixie – quaint, quiet, friendly, and a great place to raise a family. Southern culture and hospitality are benchmarks of this little town, and the residents wouldn’t have it any other way.

However, this normally quiet town has erupted over a Muslim congregation's (Dar-E-Abbas) plans to rezone and expand their mosque to include a 20,000-square-foot mosque, gymnasium and cemetery on about 8 acres. Lilburn residents have hit the streets, passing out flyers urging citizens to “Save Lilburn.” Many Residents have voiced their opposition to the mosque. Resident Steve Wilson angrily stated that "I just don't see what it does for our community; you have opened the floodgates to what could possibly happen to Lilburn." Many have echoed Mr. Wilson's sentiment, stating that they want to keep their beloved town “quiet, and quaint” because that is the way they like it. The mosque would create parking, traffic, drainage, and overflow problems for this old-fashioned city.

In response to residents' concerns, the city council of Lilburn voted to deny the mosque’s rezoning request. It was a unanimous decision, and met with applause from more than 500 Lilburn citizens who gathered to hear the decision and had fought to preserve their town’s culture and heritage. They all wore red shirts to symbolize their solidarity against the rezoning. The citizens felt so strongly about the issue that the first meeting was cancelled due to too much overflow. However, the Muslim congregation has stated that they will fight this decision to the end. Upset with the defeat, some members of Dar-E-Abbas turned to violence against Lilburn residents.

Janie Hood, a mother whose family has lived in Lilburn for generations, called 9-1-1 after a few men who appeared to be members of the congregation boxed her daughters car in, stopping them from exiting the highway to the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center in Lawrenceville, where the meeting was held. Her red shirt gave her away opponents of the expansion. She stated the men shouted violent threats at her as she tried to escape. “It put me, it put my two grandchildren and it put my daughter in danger,” she said. “They were trying to hurt us.”

Despite the intolerant and violent Islamic opposition, the inhabitants of Lilburn have united to defend their way of life, against a force that opposes much of what their community stands for. They should be commended for their strong unity in defense of what threatens their culture and values.

On Monday, the state senate of New Jersey will vote on a bill which would provide in-state tuition benefits for illegal aliens at public colleges in New Jersey. This bill has been hotly debated for the last 8 years in New Jersey, with a sizable amount of support from the very liberal state population. If passed, New Jersey will become the 12th state to provide this incentive for non-citizens. Out-of-state, legal immigrants and American citizens would still be required to pay out-of-state fees, but those whose families blatantly disobeyed our country's laws would only need to attend a New Jersey high school for three years and file an affidavit with the college pledging to apply to legitimize their citizenship status as soon as possible.

The states which grant such benefits, as well as the proposed bill in New Jersey, are in clear violation of Federal Law Title 8, Chapter 14, Sec. 1623 which states:

"an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State... for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit."

Besides that fact, providing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants would only make immigration issues worse. Why would someone seeking to live in America go through the process to become legal, when they could simply cross the border and receive not only in-state tuition but preferential treatment? It seems that every year, liberal elites classify American citizens more and more as second-class citizens in their own country, while fighting for the "rights" of people who have no legitimate claim to be here in the first place.

Taxpayers in New Jersey are already overburdened by the state's budget, which reached $1 billion this fiscal year and will result in "cut funding for schools, municipalities, higher education, hospitals and pension plans to help close the gap." But even while New Jersey citizens are facing reductions in their basic institutions, the state is opting to extend financial benefits to those here illegally.

Aside from the fact that in-state tuition for illegals would place an extra burden on taxpayers, it would also open American citizens to a larger pool of competition for spots at state universities, many of which are at capacity as it stands. The fact is that illegal aliens will be taking spots that normally would be held by American citizens.

Supporters of in-state tuition for illegal aliens argue that the children of immigrants who came here illegally should not be penalized for the actions of their families. Under the same logic, should I be responsible if my family chose to reside in Georgia as opposed to Alabama? Since, because of the action of my family, as a current resident of Georgia, I have to pay out-of-state tuition where I go to school in Alabama. After I graduate, I will be joining the service to pay for the loans I have had to take out to pay for out-of-state tuition. Someone tell me why I am responsible for the actions of my family, but illegal aliens are held to a separate standard?

The United States should put its own citizens first. The movement to grant illegal immigrants in-state tuition undermines American standards of justice and fairness, along with the basic rights of citizenship.

Avatar, the latest sci-fi adventure by world-famous director James Cameron, has achieved the ninth-largest opening weekend gross of all time. At the current gross sum of $745,078,889 worldwide, the movie has obviously been wildly successful. Much of this success can be attributed to the stunning visual effects and sizable budget, reputed to be nearly half a billion dollars between production and marketing.  While I must admit the film was aesthetically impressive, the feature that struck me the most was its blatant anti-Western, anti-American bias.

The story takes place in the year 2154 on a distant moon called Pandora, where an American corporation has established a base in order to mine the moon's rare and valuable ore. Pandora's indigenous are the Na’vi, a primitive, pagan people who greet the human explorers with mistrust and hatred.

The film's plot focuses on the main character Jake Sully, a former U.S. Marine who travels to Pandora to replace his twin brother in a quasi-military operation to protect the base and the field researchers. To do so, Jake periodically becomes an avatar – a remotely controlled, human-Na’vi hybrid. Jake enters the world of the Na'vi with the original intent of negotiating terms of relocation with the indigenous, but ends up assimilating to their culture and beliefs, culminating in the eventual betrayal of his own country and people.

Throughout the movie, James Cameron’s obvious hatred of American history is portrayed. He displays Americans as evil, war-mongering imperialists who are motivated by greed and are ready and eager to commit the genocide of the native people to achieve their ultimate goal of making a profit. Predictably, all of the oppressors are white. The exception is a female, Hispanic helicopter pilot (Michelle Rodriguez) whose conscience comes around as she too turns against the American forces. The only redeemed whites are those who "go native" à la Dances with Wolves and are considered "race-traitors."

When Jake Sully completes his training to become a warrior of the Na’vi, he ritualistically sheds his culture and civilization by participating in a pagan rite dedicated to the natives' mother goddess, Eywa. His new loyalty to the natives eventually leads him to turn on his own country and people, as he coordinates an attack on the American colonists, slaughtering a great number of them. The twisted part of this movie is that Jake Sully and his band of America-hating murderers are portrayed as heroes, while the Americans are presented as evil, capitalist exploiters who attack the traditionalist, cultured tribesmen with complete disregard for their belief systems and cultural symbols.

Clearly, the film is a not-so-subtle critique of America's founding (and European colonialism in general) and the War in Iraq. Here, however, Cameron seems to contradict himself. In one of the more notable scenes, the film's chief antagonist, Colonel Miles Quaritch, leads an attack on the Na'vi's dwelling place, Hometree.  The scene is a mix between the helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now (I half expected "Ride of the Valkyries" to start playing) and the footage of the attacks from September 11.  In an interview, Cameron said he was "surprised at how much it did look like September 11." Problematic to his critique, however, Cameron portrays the Na'vi reacting to the assault by mounting an attack of their own and decimating the forces of the "terrorists."

Of course, this all fits in with the liberal narrative that non-white, indigenous peoples alone have the right and privilege to be "xenophobic" defenders of their own culture and heritage. Before Jake can become one of the Na'vi, he must learn their ways and fully assimilate into their culture.  Peoples such as the Na'vi achieve their highest purpose in defending their civilization, while whites are only redeemed by abandoning and actively fighting against their own civilization in defense of primitive, pre-industrial societies.

While I believe the critique of excessive industrialism and unfettered capitalism is somewhat valid, it need not be presented in the context of an anti-American, anti-Western plot.  Many intellectuals such as the Southern Agrarians and J.R.R. Tolkien have managed to achieve just that. Mr. Cameron, however, couldn't help but express his deep-seated hatred of the West.