Mexico’s Request of American Settlers to Texas Began With Surprising Caution

1835-texas

– 31 July 2015 –

Barzillai “19th Century” Bozarth:

19th-century-barzillaiThe following is quoted from the Reverend C. Newell’s History of the Revolution in Texas, published in 1838, only two years after Texas won her independence.

With an unabashed bias in favor of the Texan position, Newell describes the goals of the Mexican government in opening up Texas to American settlement:

The leading object of the Mexican Government in allowing the Colonization of Texas, was undoubtedly the protection of her frontiers from the hostile incursions of the Indians. The Camanches and other tribes had waged a constant and ruinous warfare against the Spanish settlements at Bexar and Goliad, on the Western limits of Texas, and had extended their ravages also beyond the Rio Grande. Mexico, even under the government of Old Spain, had been unable to subdue or restrain them, and she would have had to abandon Texas altogether, if not other parts of her territory, had she not found a hard people, willing, for the sake of a small portion of her soil, to go in and subdue them.

Another object which Mexico had in view, in opening Texas to Colonization, was evidently the increase of her national wealth and strength by the settlement of a rich portion of her territory by industrious and enterprising foreigners, which she knew could never be subdued and settled by her own people.

In addition to this, Mexico was probably stimulated somewhat by the example of the liberal and successful plan adopted by the United States of the North, in respect to the emigration of foreigners into her territory, as she had previously been, by the successful revolution of those States, excited to throw off the Spanish yoke.

The conditions of the grant of the Colonization of Texas were, on the part of Mexico, that the families introduced should be limited in number—at first to 300; that they should be families from Louisiana, and Catholics, being hence of Spanish and French descent; that they should build churches, support schools and the Catholic religion and particularly have their children taught the Spanish language. These conditions are especially worthy of notice, as affording evidence that the Government of Mexico contemplated the ultimate amalgamation of her foreign emigrants with her own people, and thus securing the integrity of her territory and dominion.

Modern history books would suggest that Mexico foolishly and myopically allowed the mass settlement of Anglo-Americans into Texas.  Such a description leads one to the conclude that the government of Mexico was so incompetent and corrupt that it could not foresee that the settlement of vast numbers of Americans, in territory bordering the expansionist United States, could only lead that section of their country to attempt to break from Mexico in the future, possibly to join the U.S.A., or to the latter invading Mexico with the intent to annex an Anglo-American Texas.

But it didn’t start out that way.  A sensible policy for the limited settlement of compatible Americans to Texas led almost immediately to a flood of immigrants so large that the Mexican government found itself, within a single decade, struggling to control the situation.

The caution that Mexico showed in allowing even such a small and targeted population to immigrate demonstrates how a nation’s immigration policies can unintentionally grow out of control if not strictly regulated.  It is historically ironic that the United States is poised to lose the American Southwest through the same process by which she won it.

Newell, C., History of the Revolution in Texas Particularly of the War of 1835 & ’36 Together With the Latest Geographical, Topographical, and Statistical Accounts of the Country, 14-15. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1838.

Hispanic Voters, Trump, and Caudillo Politics

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– 30 July 2015 –

C. F. van Niekerk:

150708-van-NiekirkDonald Trump has predicted that he will win the Hispanic vote, and the oh-so-serious journalists seem incredulous as they barely conceal their sneers.  “Impossible!” they think while they inwardly squirm, insecure behind their hubris.

But contrary to P. C. convention, a few recent polls, (for example: here, and here) indicate that Trump, despite his blunt opposition to illegal immigration, might appeal to Hispanics more than Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, or Ted Cruz do in the primaries, if not the general election.

Rubio and Cruz are of Hispanic descent. Jeb Bush, who believes that his marriage to a Mexican wife brings automatic Hispanic credentials, (hopefully that’s not why he married her) takes the Hispanic vote for granted.  But somehow Trump competes with them, even beats them, with Hispanic voters.

The Hispanic vote is very important for Republicans, you know.  It’s true because, as we know, white people are dying off and the Hispanics will inevitably become the majority one day.  Like a force of nature.  And Hispanics, you know, are natural-born conservatives.  Only they don’t know that yet.  Republicans have to convince them with inspirational—and festive—speeches over and over, you see.

festive-fox-news-latino-logo

What a festive, spicy logo! Just like the festive and spicy Latino, right? (Where’s my free chips?)

The FOX Latino logo, if you’ve never noticed, is so very hot and spicy.  Just like Hispanics are, of course.  And this depicts in a nut-shell how American political parties see Latinos.  Imagine if FOX African-American used Jamaica-mon style letters for its readers, green-yellow-and-red. There is the idea that Hispanics like hot and spicy things, immigration, Univision, and, hmm… not much else.  There was a very Anglo-sounding Hispanic woman on Limbaugh today who said that she was tired of being a targeted demographic, that Trump speaks to her like she’s an American, and she liked that! Imagine that.

fox-news-african-american

Fox News African-American logo for the stereotypical black American demographic.

Columnist and Hispanic-ologist Ruben Navarrette Jr. at USA Today says that Donald Trump could win more Hispanic votes in the Republican primary than any other candidate:

There are at least three reasons that Trump is likely to make a decent showing with Hispanic voters:

  • What’s the Republican alternative? Will Hispanics flock in droves to Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, or much of the rest of the GOP presidential field? Not likely. Only two of the other 15 “also rans” could get in Trump’s way with Hispanics in the GOP primaries: Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. And instead of speaking forthrightly about issues such as immigration, the Floridians often seem cautious and reserved in their comments as if they’re afraid of alienating white people. Here’s a warning to them, and politicians everywhere: When you flinch, Hispanics notice.
  • Trump’s immigration hard line is not a deal killer with all Hispanics, many of whom want stricter border security. More than half of all Border Patrol agents  — about 52% — are Hispanic. Moreover, the closer you get to the border, the more likely you are to find Hispanics who worry about the issue that Trump brought to light: the alleged criminal element coming across the border. That was true in Arizona, where a controversial immigration law requiring police to check the legal status of anyone with whom they came in contact found pockets of support among those who lived on the front lines.
  • Hispanics are just like other Americans. And why not? In New Mexico and Arizona, some trace their family histories back seven or eight generations. Thus what appeals to many other people about Trump also appeals to them. Hispanics have been deceived and manipulated by both parties. And they’re hungry for a candidate who says what he thinks, doesn’t back down, hammers the news media, and doesn’t sugarcoat differences with opponents. Apart from substance, Trump will get points for his style which — during a hot summer — seems as refreshing as a cool breeze.

Historically Hispanics have rallied behind strong leaders. The 19th Century in Latin America was the age of caudillos, military strongmen who ruled with an iron fist. Local caudillos would rally their people into armies and clash with other caudillo armies for power, so usually a caudillo wouldn’t stay king of the mountain for very long. While politics in Latin America has somewhat moved beyond those rough and tumble days, the tendency to support the strongman remains very much a part of the Latino DNA.

But if the tendency to support the strong man is particularly powerful with Hispanics, it isn’t unique to them.

People in general are drawn to the magnetism of strong leaders. The alpha males, men who say what they mean and mean what they say, men who get things done. Our dainty, feminized society wants to paper over this part of human nature, so primal and basic as it is, but the force is there nonetheless.  This is the secret to Trump’s appeal, especially compared to the pre-staged, teleprompter-reading, finger-to-the-wind cookie-cutter candidates he is competing against.

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The time for BS is over: John Wayne just showed up. People are drawn to the strongman, men and women both, whether they want to admit it or not!

Women say that they cannot stand assertive, dominant men, the winners of life, but they surely don’t mind sleeping with them, evidence shows.  Likewise women surely cringe in disgust from the advances of the weak and always-helpful doormat.  They can’t help it.  It’s hard-wired.

Men cannot help to be drawn to the service of the strongman, the winner, the Napoleon and the Hitler.  They will throw their whole lives away to serve these narcissists.  This is hard-wired, cave man behavior also. It’s natural, and to some extent it’s even good.

Hitler described the phenomenon of the strongman, comparing electorates to swooning women:

The psyche of the great masses is not receptive to half measures or weakness.

Like a woman, whose psychic feeling is influenced less by abstract reasoning than by an undefinable, sentimental longing for complementary strength, who will submit to the strong man rather than dominate the weakling, thus the masses love the ruler rather than the suppliant, and inwardly they are far more satisfied by a doctrine which tolerates no rival than by the grant of liberal freedom…

Hitler seemed to know what he was talking about, successfully seducing a nation to match their will to his own.

Do I compare Trump to Hitler, therefore automatically losing my argument? Trump does not equal Hitler. I don’t expect Trump, should he win, to round up minorities into camps, to talk about the master race, or to prance around in a military uniform while he watches columns of tanks and troops parading past.

But the campaigns are very similar. The media of the 1930’s considered Hitler a buffoon, not to be taken seriously. The electorate, fed up with the degenerate excesses of the liberal Weimar Republic and the humiliations imposed by France and the UK, hardly cared what Hitler stood for as long as he stood up for the German people.  Hitler said the things that needed to be said.

hitler-the-buffoon

People in the 1930’s thought Hitler was a buffoon. The common Germans were fed up with the degenerate Weimar Republic and the burdens of French and British reparations.

Today the media scorn and laugh at Trump but rarely take him seriously, and conservatives are really, really pissed off at the last six or seven years!  I’m one of them!  Many will vote for Trump if they believe he will stand by his words.

I myself kind of somewhat support Donald Trump despite knowing that he really hasn’t described any of his specific stances on a variety of issues, that his history doesn’t line up with who he says he is now, that there is no telling what he would do once attaining office.  Part of me doesn’t care so long as the enemies of the country are put in their place. I admit that this is foolish, but I’m not in the mood to care.

As far as the Hispanic vote, Trump could certainly win a larger share of their vote in the primaries than the other chumps.  And in the general election, he would win just about the same low percentage of Hispanic votes that any other Republican candidate would win.  There might be more turnout by Hispanics who oppose him, but the turnout could be high from those who support him, too.  In the end, two-thirds of the Latinos will vote for the Democrat and it won’t make any difference to the Republicans at all!  It all comes down to who can turn out more of their base!  (Or how many illegals and felons Obama pardons before the election!)

As time passes, it looks more and more like Trump might stick with this campaign to the very end.  At first I thought he was an election ploy, maybe designed to run interference for Jeb, or to force a convention vote to determine the candidate, or to spoil the election with a third-party run.  Now I’m not so sure.  It seems possible that Trump could even win.  Or maybe they’ll shoot him down like they shot down Huey Long.

We’ve got a long, drawn-out fifteen months to see how this madness plays out. We all ought to be drunks on anti-depressants by then.

NC Congressman Files Measure to Remove Boehner as Speaker

– 28 July 2015 –

Patulcius:

Patulcius-sqVia Fox News:

In a move unprecedented in the history of the House of Representatives, a Republican lawmaker filed a motion Tuesday to remove House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, from his post, in another sign of dissatisfaction with Boehner’s leadership by a number of House conservatives.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., filed the resolution — a “motion to vacate the chair” — late Tuesday, claiming that he “has endeavored to consolidate power and centralize decision-making, bypassing the majority of the 435 Members of Congress and the people they represent.”

The proposal was referred to a committee stocked with leadership loyalists, and therefore unlikely to emerge.

The motion says that Boehner has caused the power of Congress to atrophy, “thereby making Congress subservient to the Executive and Judicial branches, diminishing the voice of the American People.”

Symbolic or not, this is a refreshing move from a junior congressman.

In 2012, Mark Meadows was elected to North Carolina’s redrawn 11th Congressional district.  Previously the district had included the homosexual-Wiccan bastion of Asheville, a sad case of degenerate outsiders taking over a formerly decent Southern town. Because Asheville is surrounded by very conservative, old-fashioned Southerners, the former 11th district toggled between Republican and Democratic representatives.

After the 2010 Census, however, the Republican state leaders fixed this problem with Asheville by transferring that Sodom of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the 10th district, where it is overwhelmed by the conservative western Charlotte suburbs, causing predictable howls of hypocritical outrage from the Left.  The new 11th district includes some of the most conservative territory in the country, the western tip of North Carolina’s Appalachian mountains, a land of independent Scots-Irish-descended hillbillies who hate the establishment.

north-carolina-11th-district

South Carolina’s 11th district, one of the most conservative in the country now that Asheville has been removed.

Thus Mark Meadows is safe to propose a measure, however futile, to revoke Boehner’s speakership. Meadows’ conservative constituents, like most of the rest of the country’s, have surely berated their representative to take a stand against the “cuckservatives” who lead the Republican party.  But unlike the other representatives, Meadows has actually stuck out his neck in the face of a hostile Republican elite.

And even though Meadows probably doesn’t have to worry about losing his seat to a Republican-funded opponent or to the redrawing of his district (yet), he hasn’t made any friends in Washington because of this:

Speaking on background to scrums of reporters lingering near the Speaker’s Lobby, some lawmakers dismissed the attention-grabbing move as a gambit by Meadows to gin up fundraising. They also accused the North Carolina congressman of needlessly creating a distraction that could overshadow what many Republicans would prefer to focus for the next several weeks: Bashing President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Mark Meadows has shown some much-needed fortitude in the face of a mostly impotent Republican cuckold Congress, led in the House by the greatest crocodile-teared political adulterer of the lot, John Blunder.  Perhaps Meadows’ proposal will inspire others to find their spines.

I hope this move pays off for him.

Obama: Something Amiss With Visits to Kenya and Ethiopia

 

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– 27 July 2015 –

Clusivius:

Clusivius-sqOn Friday, Barrack Obama arrived in Kenya, supposedly to attend the 6th Annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit.

The Summit, started by the United States in order to “deepen ties between business leaders, foundations, and entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.”  Previous locations for the event were Washington, D.C. in 2010, Istanbul in 2011, Dubai in 2012, Kuala Lumpur in 2013, and Marrakech, Morocco in 2014. Gradually, and without saying so, the focus on Muslim communities seems to have broadened to the rest of the developing world, thus the 2015 meeting in Nairobi.

The people of Kenya love their native son. People crowded the streets to hopefully catch a glimpse of him. The Kenyan government rushed to have grass planted along the roads and the curbs painted to make Nairobi presentable to the celebrity president.

Obama, seemingly not much in love with the country of his biological father, criticized Kenya’s centuries-old traditions, its corruption, and its treatment of women and homosexuals, delivered while standing next to Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. To his credit, Kenyatta immediately replied to Obama’s criticism:

“We share so many values, our common love for democracy, entrepreneurship, value for families. But there are some things we must admit we don’t share, our culture, our societies don’t accept,” he told a frowning Mr Obama.

“It’s very difficult to impose that on people that which they themselves do not accept. For Kenyans today the issue of gay rights is really a non-issue. We want to focus on other areas that are day-to-day living for people.”

It sounds like Mr. Kenyatta is a better president than ours.

There is something a little off about Obama’s visit to Kenya and Ethiopia. Why would the Entrepreneurship Summit, created as it was to foster ties between the US and Muslim-majority nations, choose Kenya, 83% Christian, to host the 2015 summit?

In 2013, Somali terrorists killed 67 people at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi.  They claimed that they were retaliating against Kenya’s involvement with Ethiopia in a war against insurgents in Somalia.  Both Ethiopia and Kenya, Christian countries, have battled Muslim, Somali minorities along their borders with that country.

Somali_map

Areas inhabited by the Somali people. Note that they bleed into significant portions of Ethiopia and Kenya.

Obama is being criticized by human rights activists for his visits to Kenya and Ethiopia.

International Leftists dislike Kenya’s President Kenyatta because he supposedly participated in election fraud in 2007, his government opposes homosexuality, and because of

…rampant corruption, repressive measures against civil society groups and the media, and police brutality and persecution of minorities in the name of his own “war on terror”.

Kenya is much like any other country in Sub-Saharan Africa, rich in natural resources, its people split among several native ethnic groups. The country is prone to inter-tribal warfare, as most of its recent violence-ridden elections attest. And similar to most other African nations, its economic growth is directed by, and owned by, non-native and international elites.  Kenya, like so many other countries, suffers from the erosion of its sovereignty and social cohesion in favor of globalist cosmopolitanism, a new form of colonialism.

The city of Nairobi is home to a significant minority of wealthy whites, Jews, and Indians who own the country’s major businesses and manipulate its government behind the scenes.  Without these forces, the country would likely split apart, as its borders remain an artificial creation of colonial powers.

The natives do benefit from this wealth and relative stability, some of them. A small but growing middle class is forming in the larger cities. The people do have some say in who represents them in the government, even though government policy is often co-opted by foreign interests. Maybe this is generally good for the people there.

As far as Ethiopia:

Having become the first sitting US president to visit Kenya, on Sunday Obama will achieve the same distinction in Ethiopia, which receives about $800m (£512m) a year in US military assistance and is seen as a bulwark against the spread of Islamist militancy in Africa. [Emphasis mine – Clusivius] It is also widely regarded as an authoritarian regime that locks up more journalists than almost any other country in Africa. Critics question why Obama would allow it to bask in the glow of the world’s most powerful democrat.

Still economically poor, Ethiopia’s economy has grown from 7 to 15% each year, with palpable and much-needed benefits for most of the country’s people.  Since overthrowing its failed communist regime in 1991, the country has been more or less ruled by the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a secular and authoritarian coalition of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic groups.  The EPRDF has manipulated elections to maintain its power, and the government has gradually suppressed its internal opposition. Ethiopia is imitating China’s economic model for growth, with great success.

Ethiopia is comprised of a multitude of ethnic groups, with none forming a majority.  Christians account for 63% of the population, with Muslims at 34%.  Much of the eastern portion of Ethiopia, comprised of the Afar and Somali regions, have an overwhelming Muslim majority.  In the case of Afar, there is an active independence movement. In the Somali region, Ogadan (Somali) separatists have fought to join Somalia since 1994.  Without an authoritarian regime to hold it together, Ethiopia would tear itself apart.

Ethiopia-Religion-Map1

Map of religions in Ethiopia’s ethnic-based regions. Both the Afar and Somali have ongoing separatist movements, and much of the center of the country has no majority religion at all, a recipe for internal strife.

Somalia, neighboring both Kenya and Ethiopia, might be the most lawless country in the world. Its civil war, begun in 1994, has never really ended. Occasionally both Ethiopia and Kenya have suffered violence that spilled over from Somalia, and both countries have made attempts to intervene there, most notably with Operation Linda Nchi in 2011-2012.

Obama’s visit to Kenya was met with widespread excitement and acclaim, and surely a good many of Kenya’s people have taken Obama’s words to heart. This weakens the authority of Christians and traditionalists there, and potentially undermines Kenya’s anti-terrorist measures.  Likely the same thing will happen in Ethiopia. Any weakness in the two governments will only benefit the Muslim terrorists in their midst.

Obama has a history of coddling Muslim terrorists, as we see with US inaction against ISIS and the absurd nuclear treaty with Iran.  And Obama’s lack of reactions to Muslim attacks within the US—such as the Fort Hood shootings or the recent recruiter murders in Chattanooga—compares negatively to his overreactions to other mass shootings or black deaths by police.

Could Obama’s visit to Kenya and Ethiopia form some sort of effort to destabilize the governments of Kenya and Ethiopia in favor of Somali Muslim radicals?


 

CDC Report Shows Drop in Teenaged Sex

cdc-sex-decline-among-teenagers

– 24 July 2015 –

Janus:

Janus-smallAt irregular intervals since 1988, the CDC has published a report on the sexual behavior of teenagers aged 15 to 19. The report generates news headlines each time, and in this case, just as in 2011, the headlines sensationalize the falling rates of sexual intercourse among the youth. The report, in the present instance, also generates headlines about the rising use of the morning-after pill.

Key findings from the report include:

  • In 2011–2013, 44% of female teenagers and 47% of male teenagers aged 15–19 had experienced sexual intercourse; the percentage has declined significantly, by 14% for female and 22% for male teenagers, over the past 25 years.

  • In the early teen years males were more likely than females to have had sexual intercourse. But the percentage of older teenagers who had sexual intercourse was similar for female and male teenagers.

  • In 2011–2013, 79% of female teenagers and 84% of male teenagers used a contraceptive method at first sexual intercourse.

  • The condom remained the most common contraceptive method used among teenagers.

  • Young women who did not use a method of contraception at first sexual intercourse were twice as likely to become teen mothers as those who used a method.

While I’m pleased to see the decline in sexual intercourse among the youth, I am somewhat disturbed at what is likely the underlying cause.

At first I assumed that the decline in coital sexual intercourse was caused by a corresponding rise in non-coital forms of sex.  While there is little historical data to compare for trending, this doesn’t seem to be the case today:

Teens who had already engaged in vaginal intercourse (non-virgins) were much more likely to have also engaged in oral or anal sex: 87% of non-virgins had engaged in oral sex compared to only 26% of virgins, and 21% of non-virgins had engaged in anal sex compared to only 1% of virgins.

It’s difficult to say for certain without historical data.  Let us say that only 15% of virgins engaged in oral sex back in 1988 versus the 26% now, a figure that is probably much lower than was really the case.  With sexually active virgins at 15% in 1988, the total sex rate would increase to 66% for males and 58% for females in 1988. Adding the 26% to today’s totals for overall sexual activity among teenagers and we have 61% for males and 59% for girls.

In that hypothetical case, boys still decline by 8% but girls increase sexual activity by 1%. But that figure arises only if the rate of non-coital sex was 15% in 1988.  I would guess that the rate was probably higher than 15%.  Higher rates of sexual activity (more than 15%) among teenagers in 1988 would still mean an overall decline in sexual activity among the youth of today.

There must be some other reason why sexual activity is declining, at least among boys.

I suspect that a growing share of society’s youth has become socially disconnected from one another, especially in their dealings with the opposite gender.

For one thing, our society has drummed into the childrens’ heads the total equality, even equivalency, of the genders.  In practice this means the suppression of masculinity in boys and the promotion of that trait in girls.  This has caused teenagers of both genders to take on roles that are contrary to their natures.  This confuses the romantic interactions between the sexes.

Combine this with the revolution in mobile communication and portable computing (taking the place of real communication and real work) along with the prevalence of online pornography, and we have a growing number of young people who don’t know how to engage in, nor have they any interest in, romantic relations with the opposite sex.  This affects boys more than it does girls, thus the greater reduction of sexual activity among boys.

This situation seems to be even worse in the East Asian countries.  Several articles have described a phenomenon where young Oriental men have no interest at all in sex.  They would rather die playing video games.

It is possible that today’s Millennial youth have become more sexually moral than the crime-prone, rowdy Gen-X youth of 1988, but I suspect that some of them have simply embraced the message of the Left-wing propagandists: have more “safe sex”, while a large number of disaffected boys have simply dropped out of the sexual market.  In either case, society continues its bizarre descent into sexual and social incoherence.