Thoughts for the season

Ben Stein, writing in The American Spectator:

A few respectful thoughts here at Passover and Easter:

1.) I notice that the liberals within the Catholic Church are a big part of the organizing brains and muscle behind the huge illegal immigrant rallies in cities across the U.S. They are arguing that it is unkind and un-Christian to want to arrest people who have entered America illegally. They also fear prosecution if aiders and abettors are criminalized since they aid and abet illegal immigrants.

This is fine, and obviously a man does not sign away his First Amendment rights if he takes orders. But isn't this obviously Church interference in legal and political matters? How come this church involvement with the huge political issue of illegal immigration is fine and dandy -- but involvement by conservative members of the Catholic faith in trying to save the lives of the unborn, the sick, and the deformed is a dangerous intrusion over the "wall" between church and state? How can illegal immigration be considered a bigger moral issue than the killing of tens of millions of the unborn who are totally innocent of any crime? The hypocrisy of the left on this issue is staggering.

2.) In this same area, I see demonstrators marching in the illegal immigrant demonstrations carrying Mexican flags. I think they have this right under the Constitution. But it is sickening, literally nauseating. They leave Mexico to work and build a better life here -- then they want Mexico to do a conquista of this country and turn it back into the same poor, confused nation Mexico is.

The fact that we are taking in millions of people, some of whom obviously want to take large parts of America back into Mexico, is terrifying. It is a far bigger threat than Iraq. I hope Mr. Bush has a plan about how to deal with it aside from endless appeasement of a movement which has many fine people but some extremely dangerous ones as well.

3.) As everyone has seen, Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government has published a scathing anti-Semitic attack on Israel and its friends in the U.S. -- Jews, Evangelicals, anyone who believes the most persecuted minority in history deserves a home. Naturally, this article has drawn criticism for factual errors and for its crude anti-Semitism.

Harvard's response is that at a university, all points of view should be heard. But what about Larry Summers, outgoing President of Harvard? Why was he not allowed even to question why women are not well represented among top scientists? Why was he not allowed to even question grade inflation at Harvard, where the average grade is an A? Why was he not allowed to even discuss with black Professor Cornel West the bizarre fact that West spent a large part of his time at Harvard producing a rap disc? Why was Summers not allowed to even question the anti-Israel bias of some of the faculty at Harvard and the insane idea of punishing Israel by selling stock in companies that do business with Israel...because Israel wants to defend itself?

Free speech for the haters and the Ivy League Klansmen with degrees, censure and humiliation for the real friends of free speech. Veritas -- the Harvard motto -- indeed. Veritas, and a hearty chorus of the Horst Wessel Song.

4.) I have a wonderful sister who is a health fanatic. She is older than I am but looks much younger. She exercises all day and sometimes she asks me what exercise I do. Well, my silly exercise is to swim for about an hour a day. But my real exercise, that truly keeps me fit, is to get on my knees each morning and each night and thank God for waking up in America, and to thank God for the men and women who wear the uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else they serve, the veterans, and their families, who offer up their lives for me and my wife -- total strangers to them. Or maybe not strangers at all. Maybe brothers and sisters in a love deeper than those of us in the luxury of civilian life can ever understand. They are the salt of the earth, and we need them, because if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? Each one of them at every camp and base everywhere is precious.