More trouble on the Mexican Border

The Washington Times reports:

The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions into the United States by Mexican soldiers "trained to escape, evade and counterambush" if detected -- a scenario Mexico denied yesterday. The warning to Border Patrol agents in Tucson, Ariz., comes after increased sightings of what authorities described as heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border. The warning asks the agents to report the size, activity, location, time and equipment of any units observed.

....Attacks on Border Patrol agents in the past few years have been attributed to current or former Mexican military personnel. U.S. law-enforcement officials have long thought that current and former Mexican soldiers are being paid to protect drug shipments bound for the United States. Several agents said the attacks have escalated in the past two years as U.S. security efforts on the border have increased -- including the July shooting of two agents in an ambush near Nogales, Ariz., by assailants in black commando-type clothing, who fired more than 50 rounds. Authorities said the gunmen used military-style cover-and-concealment tactics to escape back into Mexico. No one has been arrested.

This illustrates the inability of both parties to secure the border with Mexico, on the fear that they may alienate an "emerging voting bloc". If the government does not get serious on securing the border with Mexico, and holding the Mexican government accountable for their part in encouraging this, drugs and illegals coming through to the U.S will be the least of the problems.

Values and governance

Canadianna's Place has a great post titled "Whose values are these anyway?" I wanted to add a bit to this. The notion of a free society is that people are free to govern themselves as much as possible, and the role of government is to provide a framework for them to do so, ensuring that one's freedom does not infringe on the freedom of another, and to protect those from external threats to their freedom. The people allow the state to act on their behalf, by delegating authority to the state so that it can act on these matters.

Alas, Canada has become a state whereby the elected elites usurp the notion of self government and allow its subjects few real rights. Canadian subjects (I will not use the term "citizen" as it implies more autonomy in my definition) are clients of the leviathan state, dependent on its largesse for its survival, grateful for any scraps of money or 'rights' that it deems the populace are worthy for. This is the mindset of the political elites, as embodied by the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto axis that controls the Liberal and New Democratic parties.

The "values" espoused by this group are post-Christian, hedonistic, paternalistic, myopic, and totally at odds with the history of civilization. This vision ignores that a society needs a purpose that is beyond the present, that there is a "messianic" purpose to existence, not living for the here and now. A society that cannot understand its greater purpose is doomed to extinction: Rome is a prime example. The Roman empire lost the values that were greater than itself - it's culture, law, duty, and purpose, and succumbed to a hedonism that made it fall to the barbarians because its populace lost the moral will to fight for its existence.

Canada is slouching towards this faith, losing its purpose and will to confront the enemies. Canada once had a national ethos of freedom, self-reliance, duty, responsibility, and sacrifice - believing these notions to be universal to all mankind, with a duty to spread across all humanity. Now we have an indolent, solipistic, hedonistic, and amoral populace that is too comfortable in the here in now to recognize that actions, not bromides and well wishes, are needed.

There is an opportunity here on January 23, to say "no" to the inevitability of this "progress" as espoused by the elites and their political organizations in this country. Hopefully, a conservative government in Ottawa can do more than slow the rate of descent, but actually start returning Canada to its historic roots and mission. I am not optimistic on whether they can succeed, but I can hope.

Irving Kristol "My Cold War"

I found this article by Irving Kristol, from a great New Criterion article by Roger Kimball, of great interest. Kimball's article is about the suicide of Western Civilization, which is a must read, but Kristol's is even more interesting, as one of the icons of the "neoconservative" movement as it is properly known (along with Norman Poderherz). He wrote this in 1993, but his odyssey from communism to the realization of the rot of what encompasses "liberalism" is striking and prophetic:

For me, then, "neo-conservatism" was an experience of moral, intellectual, and spiritual liberation. I no longer had to pretend to believe--what in my heart I could no longer believe--that liberals were wrong because they subscribe to this or that erroneous opinion on this or that topic. No--liberals were wrong, liberals are wrong, because they are liberals. What is wrong with liberalism is liberalism--a metaphysics and a mythology that is woefully blind to human and political reality. Becoming a neo-conservative, then, was the high point of my cold war.

It is a cold war that, for the last twenty-five years, has engaged my attention and energy, and continues to do so. There is no "after the Cold War" for me. So far from having ended, my cold war has increased in intensity, as sector after sector of American life has been ruthlessly corrupted by the liberal ethos. It is an ethos that aims simultaneously at political and social collectivism on the one hand, and moral anarchy on the other. It cannot win, but it can make us all losers. We have, I do believe, reached a critical turning point in the history of the American democracy. Now that the other "Cold War" is over, the real cold war has begun. We are far less prepared for this cold war, far more vulnerable to our enemy, than was the case with our victorious war against a global communist threat. We are, I sometimes feel, starting from ground zero, and it is a conflict I shall be passing on to my children and grandchildren. But it is a far more interesting cold war--intellectually interesting, spiritually interesting--than the war we have so recently won, and I rather envy those young enough for the opportunities they will have to participate in it.