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OPINION
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gainesvilletimes.com
^ Thursday, December 27, 2018
Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com
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The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
L^TER
All eyes on
Dems when
they control
House in 2019
Now that there’s a partial federal government
shutdown over border security, ponder these points:
A federal government shutdown impacts only
nonessential agencies. Once the shutdown ends,
these employees get retroactive pay. Thought: Why
do these agencies exist if they’re nonessential?
Prominent Democrats like Barack Obama,
Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Nancy
Pelosi are on record for supporting a border
wall (videos don’t lie). However, with President
Trump in the White House, Democrats refuse to
fund the wall. The hypocrisy is appalling.
Democrats say they’re for border security
but against building a wall. That’s like saying
you want to prevent the river from flooding, but
you’re unwilling to build a dam.
Democrats say a wall is “immoral.” Well,
when illegal immigrants murder innocent Ameri
cans, that’s immoral and criminal. When illegal
immigrants sell drugs that addict and kill Ameri
can citizens, that’s immoral and criminal. The
hypocrisy continues.
Democrats say a wall is “too expensive.” Non
sense! The price of building a wall is a mere frac
tion of what it costs to give tons of free benefits
to illegal immigrants. Considering the size of the
American economy, $25 billion or less to build a
wall is a relatively minor but justifiable outlay.
Moreover, walls work (ask Israel) and flimsy
fences don’t. When a pregnant illegal immigrant
recently scaled a border fence and gave birth
on American soil, it reinforced why real border
security requires a big, impenetrable wall.
Democrats want open borders because they
covet the votes of illegal immigrants in order to
gain political power. How can any logical, patri
otic American defend an open border policy?
Democrats use border security as a political
weapon. If they’re so concerned about illegal
immigrants, why didn’t Democrats accept the
DACA deal that would have allowed these people
to pursue a path to citizenship in exchange for
funding and building a wall? These phony politi
cians prefer pontification over performance.
Democrats object to showing photo IDs at vot
ing sites because they think it suppresses turnout.
Yet, hypocritical Democrats don’t mind if illegal
immigrants show up and vote unlawfully. Photo
IDs don’t eliminate voter fraud, but they cer
tainly minimize it.
Democrats conveniently forget that any legal
citizen can and should possess a free photo ID.
Recently, I used mine to vote, rent a car, board an
airplane, check in to a hotel, cash checks, pick up
orders at stores, retrieve tickets at a will-call win
dow and enter a gated community to visit friends.
Democrats tout their compassion for illegal
immigrants, but that quality vanishes when thou
sands of future Americans are aborted each year
under the guise of women’s health care and pro-
choice. That’s the epitome of hypocrisy.
One of the main reasons President Trump was
elected is because he promised to build a wall
on our southern border. With the Democrats set
to control the House, will they continue to place
so-called compassion for illegal immigrants
above common sense for American citizens?
More importantly, will they continue to put our
national security at even greater risk? We’ll see.
Dick Biggs
Gainesville
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Your government officials
U.S. government
President Donald frump, The White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20500,
202-456-1111,202-456-1414, fax, 202-456-
2461; www.whitehouse.gov
Sen. Johnny Isakson, 131 Russell Senate Office
Building, Washington, DC 20510, 202-224-
3643, fax, 202-228-0724; One Overton Park,
3625 Cumberland Blvd., Suite 970, Atlanta
30339, 770-661-0999, fax, 770-661-0768;
isakson.senate.gov
Sen. David Perdue, 383 Russell Senate Office
Building, Washington, DC 20510, 202-224-
3521, fax 202-228-1031; 3280 Peachtree Road
NE Suite 2640, Atlanta 30303, 404-865-0087,
fax 404-865-0311; perdue.senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, 1504 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-
225-9893; 210 Washington St. NW, Suite 202,
Gainesville 30501,770-297-3388; dougcollins.
house.gov
U.S. Rep Rob Woodall, 1725 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-
225-4272, fax 202-225-4696; 75 Langley Drive,
Lawrenceville 30045, 770-232-3005, fax 770-
232-2909; woodall.house.gov
Trump s character will
be his eventual downfall
For a very long time now,
I have been predicting that
the Trump presidency will
end poorly because charac
ter is destiny. I’ve said it so
often, I occasionally need
to be reminded that I didn’t
coin the phrase. The Greek
philosopher Heraclitus did
when he observed “ethos
anthropoi daimon,” most
often translated as “man’s
character is his fate.”
Character is one of those topics, like
culture or morality, that everyone
strongly supports yet also argues about.
When James Q. Wilson, one of the
greatest social scientists of the last half-
century, turned his scholarly attention to
character, many of his colleagues in aca
demia were repulsed. Even though every
one of them surely believed in some
notion of good character, it was assumed
that to talk of it, let alone seek a defini
tion of it or a plan for how to cultivate it,
would be an exercise in lending aid and
comfort to the moralizers of the right.
But Wilson, a man of both good and
conservative character, had a more
humble and universal definition than
his colleagues might have expected:
decency, politeness, self-restraint, com
mitment, honesty, cooperativeness and
the ability to think of others’ well-being.
Weirdly, it’s gotten to the point that
when I say President Trump is not a man
of good character, I feel like I should
preface it with a trigger warning for
many of my fellow conservatives.
Most of the angry responses are
clearly rooted in the fact that they do
not wish to be reminded of
this obvious truth. But others
seem to have convinced them
selves that Trump is a man of
good character, and they take
personal offense at the insult,
even though I usually offer it
as little more than an observa
tion. They rush to rebut the
claim, citing banal or debat
able propositions: He loves his
children! He’s loyal to a fault!
He’s authentic! Never mind
that many bad men love their children,
that loyalty to people or causes unwor
thy of loyalty is not admirable, and that
authentic caddishness is not admirable.
Moreover, he is not remotely loyal to his
wives or the people who work for him.
What’s most worrisome is that these
defenders are redefining good character
in Trump’s image, and they end up mod
eling it.
Others assume that I am referencing
the president’s style, specifically his
insults and Twitter addiction. What his
defenders overlook is that his insults are
not simply an act; they are the product of
astonishing levels of narcissism, insecu
rity and intellectual incuriosity. Trump’s
Twitter account is simply a window into
his id.
The president who became a celeb
rity by telling reality-show contestants
“you’re fired” has not fired any of his
Cabinet officials face to face or even
on the phone. He relies on others, or on
Twitter, to deliver the news. He loves
controversy because it keeps him in the
center ring, but he hates confrontation.
Nearly all of the controversies that
have bedeviled Trump’s administration
are the direct result of his character, not
his ideology. To be sure, ideology plays
a role, amplifying both the intensity of
anger from his left-wing critics and the
intensity of his transactional defenders.
Many of the liberal critics shrieking
about the betrayal of the Kurds implicit
in Trump’s decision to withdraw from
Syria would be applauding if a President
Clinton had made the same decision.
And many of the conservatives celebrat
ing the move would be condemning it.
But Trump’s refusal to listen to advis
ers; his inability to bite his tongue; his
demonization and belittling of senators
who vote for his agenda but refuse to
keep quiet when he does or says things
they disagree with; his rants against the
First Amendment; his praise for dicta
tors and insults for allies; his need to cre
ate new controversies to eclipse old ones;
and his inexhaustible capacity to lie and
fabricate history: All of this springs from
his character.
Last weekend, former New Jersey
Gov. Chris Christie offered an odd
defense of the president. He’s like a
“72-year-old relative,” Christie said on
ABC’s “This Week.” “When people get
older, they become more and more con
vinced of the fact that what they’re doing
is the right thing.”
Christie has a point. But the reason
Trump won’t change has little to do with
age and everything to do with character.
Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of
National Review Online and a visiting
fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute.
JONAH GOLDBERG
goldbergcolumn@
gmail.com
JIM POWELL I For The Times
Protect our nation. Build the wall
Somehow a Grinch
always manages to show
up to ruffle our Christmas
spirit.
This year, the Grinch is in
the form of the Democratic
leadership that is blocking
the Christmas present that
President Donald Trump
wants to deliver to the
nation in the form of a wall
to defend our southwestern
border.
Trump wants $5 billion for the wall
as part of a bill to continue funding the
federal government. The Democrats say,
“No,” so now we’re in another of the all
too familiar standoffs, producing a gov
ernment shutdown.
Why is this wall, which was a key com
ponent of the platform on which Trump
ran and was elected, so important?
I spend a lot of time on airplanes. It
has always struck me that when the
flight crew delivers the message before
takeoff about the possibility of using
an oxygen mask, they note that adults
traveling with children should don their
mask, before helping the child.
It’s counter to the instincts of most
adults to do this. Which is why the
instructions are explicitly given. You
can’t help your child, your neighbor or
anybody else if you are not around to
perform the task.
The first job is look after your own
personal safety. This is true of nations as
well as individuals.
Is building this wall on our southwest
ern border contrary to the message of
the Statue of Liberty, which
stands in New York harbor,
inviting to our shores the
world’s “tired... poor...
huddled masses, yearning to
be free”?
Certainly not. The wall is
about protecting our nation
and making sure that it
continues, strong and free,
so that the distressed of the
world can continue to see
America as a light, a refuge
and a bastion of the world’s greatest
ideals.
It just so happens that there are those
around the world who are not huddled
masses, but terrorists, drug dealers
and others who want to undermine our
national safety and integrity.
Let us recall that those who piloted
the planes on that horrible day, Sept. 11,
2001, leading to the deaths of more than
3,000 Americans, trained in our country
during the presidency of Bill Clinton.
Latin America is a hotbed of unstable,
despotic regimes that produce the hor
rible conditions causing so many to want
to leave. Despotism produces danger
ous bedfellows, and pernicious regimes
around the world see these despotic
regimes in Latin America as an opportu
nity for adventurism in our back yard.
The Wall Street Journal’s Americas
columnist Mary O’Grady has been regu
larly documenting this.
Just last week, she wrote about Rus
sia’s penetration in Latin America,
quoting head of U.S. Southern Com
mand, Adm. Kurt W. Tidd, that “Russia’s
increased role in our hemisphere is par
ticularly concerning... could eventually
transition from a regional spoiler to a
critical threat to the U.S. homeland.”
O’Grady also has written about the
penetration of Iran into Latin America.
“Iran has targeted Latin America since
the mid-1980s by establishing mosques
and cultural centers to spread the revolu
tion,” she writes.
The point is there are real threats.
Would anyone have opposed spending
$50 billion or $100 billion if it could have
stopped 9/11?
The federal budget is now more than
$4 trillion. We are talking here about $5
billion, one-tenth of 1 percent.
For perspective, in 1958,60 percent of
our federal budget went to defense and
25 percent went to social spending. Now
70 percent goes to social spending and
less than 20 percent to defense.
Some very confused people want to
claim this wall is about racism. That
conclusion is only possible if you think
defending our nation and the core prin
ciples that make it free is racist.
The American formula for diversity is
“E Pluribus Unum.” Out of many, one.
Defending this is what this wall is about.
Let’s hope President Trump prevails
over the Democratic Grinch and suc
ceeds in delivering this important Christ
mas present to the American people.
Star Parker is an author and president
of the Center for Urban Renewal and
Education and a columnist for Creators.
STAR PARKER
www.urbancure.org
She Stines
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