COMMENCEMENT 2007
[This commencement address was originally published two years ago. We will rerun it annually at college graduation time. Feel quite free to send this to any recent college graduate you may know.] Mr. Chancellor, Members of the Board of Regents, Members of the Faculty, Honored Graduates, Families and Friends: It's funny that they call this ceremony a Commencement, for you've all reached the finish line: college, goodbye, we're outta here. Yet of course, "commencement" means a beginning, not an end. But one is supposed to at least start - commence - a talk such as this by saying funny things. So I'll start by talking about Clark Gable movies. If you've heard of Clark Gable at all, you know he was the biggest movie star in Hollywood a long time ago. His most famous movie was of course Gone With The Wind. He made a movie in 1955 called The Tall Men with Jane Russell as his girlfriend and Robert Ryan as the heavy. It's a pretty ordinary Western flick with outlaws and cowboys and Indians - and at the end, Ryan, the bad guy, and his henchmen get the drop on Gable, the good guy, and all seems lost. Suddenly, surprise, Gable outfoxes Ryan and triumphs. Gable makes his exit, and after he does, Ryan delivers a line that I want you to never forget. Serendipity is funny, a very funny thing, finding something where you least expect it. Out of the blue, out of a movie awash with pedestrian dialogue, comes a line so profound it detonates inside your brain. Ryan turns to his men and says:
THIS IS MADNESS
Here's an example of the false advertising for the Senate immigration bill. Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher asked an immigration lawyer friend what he thought of the bill. This was his reply: "This bill has no enforcement at all. It says, in effect, that no Y (guest worker) or Z (amnesty) visas will be issued to anybody until the following steps are taken. But in the meantime, provisional Y and Z visas will be issued, with exactly the same effects and benefits except they can't be turned into green card status." This is madness. To grant an amnesty before the border is secure is to invite another massive influx of illegals. It gets worse.
JOHN WAYNE’S FAVORITE JOHN WAYNE JOKE
To tell this joke properly requires a physical demonstration. I'll describe it, then hopefully, you'll know how to act it out. This really was the Duke's all-time favorite on himself. It takes place in what was his favorite restaurant, Ambrosia, on Balboa Island, Newport Beach, California where he lived. As he was having dinner, a distinguished gentleman approached, introducing himself as Dr. William Thompson. "Mr. Wayne," said the doctor, "you have been a hero to me for so many years. It is such a privilege to shake your hand." "Thanks, Doc," Wayne responded with his famous grin. The doctor then bent over and said quietly into Wayne's ear...
CONCORDIA 2007
Are you ready for the greatest one week adventure in the world? So here it is: a Helicopter Expedition to the base of K2, the second highest mountain in the world, in an inaccessible (except by high-altitude helicopter!) region where Pakistan, China, and India come together. At the base of K2, there is a confluence of gigantic glaciers known to mountaineers as Concordia. It is considered to be the single spot of the most magnificent scenery on earth. You are surrounded by dozens of peaks over 22,000 feet, five over 26,000, one (K2) over 28,000. Our planet doesn't get more spectacular than this. Last summer, as you may recall, I led the first ever helicopter expedition to Concordia. This September I can take you. All the details are at http://wheelerexpeditions.com/concordia/. Please let me know if you'd like to stand at Concordia with me. Here's what that (and K2) looks like: 
I hope you can join me. And remember, only Conservatives are allowed on a Wheeler Expedition!
DUMB AND DUMBER ON CAPITOL HILL
Do you think the Republicans or the Democrats are winning the race to prove they are the dumbest and most incompetent political party? The Republicans were clearly winning the race until January 2007. They threw away their majorities in both houses of Congress, by not only failing to have a realistic postwar strategy in Iraq but by such things as greatly expanding government spending when they had promised the voters the opposite. The Democrats won the congressional elections by promising they would have a clear and coherent plan to end the stalemate in Iraq and to be "fiscally responsible" by holding down the growth in government spending and not increasing taxes. So, what have they done since they have been in power? Having fulfilled virtually none of their campaign pledges, the Democrats' obvious incompetence and incoherence have managed to give the Congress an approval rate of only 29 percent, even lower than the president's. That's quite an achievement.
ILLEGALS AND IMMORALITY
A guest on Neil Cavuto's Fox News TV program this week, claiming that every illegal immigrant will eventually impose a $2.2 million burden on US taxpayers, said that it is "immoral to make American taxpayers shoulder this burden." True or not, it is important to understand that the immorality here is not putting illegal immigrants on the welfare rolls or transferring to them costly services at the expense of American citizens. The immorality lies in the welfare state itself, in the government's policy of coercive wealth redistribution. In fact, if there were any moral justification to such wealth redistribution, having the wealth go to illegal immigrants could be considered far more morally defensible than having it go to American citizens or legal immigrants.
LOOK WHAT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION DID FOR ROME
Many believe that illegal immigration is reaching such levels that it threatens our national security, and perhaps even our national survival. Others believe that we should give legal status to those who already illegally in our country. We have already done this once, in 1986, and the result was that millions more, seeing that there was hope for eventual legal status, came here illegally, hoping for amnesty. We now have two and one half times more illegals in the country than we did in 1986. If we continue to do this eventually we will reach a point, if we haven't already, where there are so many aliens in the country that they will not adopt our culture, they will not learn our customs, and they will never become Americans. It has happened before. Just ask the Romans.
ASIA MINOR (Part Two)
Comfortable? Frosty mug of Midas Touch Golden Elixir at hand? (After all, you've had a week to find where you can get it.) Okay, here we go, off again to the "Crossroads of history" that is Asia Minor and has become modern-day Turkey. We left off at the Ottoman Turks' defeat at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. That year saw the greatest extent of the Ottoman Empire. Let's recapitulate its expansion since 1300 and gasp at its enormity: [See map in the main article] The first thing that startles Westerners is the giant piece of Europe the Ottomans seized and Moslemized, all of the present-day countries of: Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, and parts of southern Ukraine and Russia. What a tribute it is to the peoples of these countries that, with the exception of Albania, the majority of all of them refused to submit and retained their Christianity. The same applies to Armenia and Georgia (south of the Caucasus, they are in Asia.) Look again at the map and you see how much of the entire Arab world of the time was ruled by the Ottoman Turks: present day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, eastern and western Saudi Arabia, western Yemen, Egypt, northern Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. Recall that the Arabs had lost their capital of Baghdad to the Seljuks in 1055, and their Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina to the Ottomans in 1500. The inventors of Islam had been treated as subservient üntermenschen by the Turks for centuries and would continue to be for centuries more. Store that away, for we'll return to these folks later in our story. Now let's get back to Europe and the aftermath of 1683.
THE BLUE DOG HOPE
White House spokesman Tony Snow and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff both were at a meeting I attended this week, attempting to allay fear and anger over the immigration reform bill. I have to tell you they were very persuasive. I am convinced they are both honest, that they are genuinely trying to solve a seemingly intractable problem with good patriotic intentions, that they believe this bill is an unprecedented ("Underline that word three times," said Tony) commitment to secure our southern border, to effect employer enforcement, and replace chain migration with a merit system. Chertoff and Snow are two decent men arguing from principle and integrity. Both are smart - Chertoff is very smart. And both are, with innocent naiveté, being taken to the Destruction of America Cleaners by Teddy Kennedy. You can't make a deal with the devil. You'll always get screwed, no matter how many amendments and marvelous provisions you stick into the deal.
JOHN MCCAIN AS THE PERFECT LIBERAL
My friend and Marine ‘Nam vet Bill Gregory is just blown away by the User Forum comments regarding Thompson Bummer. "What an intelligent, insightful group of people you have as subscribers!" he effuses, and I can only agree. He was especially impressed with a new commentator with the wonderful forum name of "melliefluous," and those of such regulars as John Nehring (johnwss), Chris Baldi (cephran), Marco, "gary," and "prosenberg," among many others. "Great thought-provoking exchanges," notes Bill. Our TTP Salon is turning out to be a terrific place to discuss the pros and cons of the 2008 presidential candidates (mostly the Republicans, for what, really, is there to say about the goofy folks the Dems are serving up?). I have to say my disappointment with Fred Thompson at his speech last Saturday (5/12) was tempered a bit with his devastating quick put-down of Michael Moore on YouTube. I would still love to see him declare and participate in the GOP candidate debates. The debate last Tuesday (5/15) in South Carolina (here is the transcript) was intensely revealing. Folks saw that Duncan Hunter would be A President to Watch America's Six, and that Ron Paul, like all libertarians, is not. But what the debate most clearly exposed is John McCain as the Perfect Liberal.