Let it never be said that El President Vicente Fox prefers to live in the past (except for his government’s rampant corruption).

Naturally, he went ballistic over the weekend after the House passed wide-ranging border security and illegal immigration legislation that included a new fence along the border with “our friend” to the south. (And, as we knew it would, the bill has generated non-stop whining and wailing among the various “immigrant rights” advocates nationwide.

“It’s a very bad sign, which does not speak well of a country that is proud of being democratic, proud of being a country of immigrants,” Fox said in a speech to relatives of Mexican migrants.

“Walls belong in the last century. They were knocked down by people in the search of liberty and democracy.” (Huh? There is no liberty and democracy in Mexico?)

Nota bene to you guys in Guatamela: You must be just beside yourselves at the news. I mean, no more hassle as you trek across Mexican soil enroute to a better life, right?

This article (a transcribed speech by former Australian Police Detective Tim Priest) gives an important look at why there was “white riot“ on the Cronulla beaches. It was because the police had given up fighting back.

In the early 1980s, as a young detective I was attached to the Drug Squad at the old CIB. I remember executing a search warrant at Croydon, where we found nearly a pound of heroin. I know that now sounds very familiar; however, what set this heroin apart was that it was Beaker Valley Heroin, markedly different from any heroin I had seen. Number Four heroin from the golden triangle of South-East Asia is nearly always off-white, almost pure diamorphine. This heroin was almost brown.

But more remarkable were the occupants of the house. They were very recent arrivals from Lebanon, and from the moment we entered the premises, we wrestled and fought with the male occupants, were abused and spat at by the women and children, and our search took five times longer because of the impediments placed before us by the occupants, including the women hiding heroin in baby nappies and on themselves and refusing to be searched by policewomen because of religious beliefs. We had never encountered these problems before.The Rise of Middle Eastern Crime in Australia, Quadrant Magazine, by Tim Priest.

He goes on to describe how the Lebanese criminals came to rule the streets, not hindered by the police, or by politicians. The only streets they didn’t rule were those ruled by Asian gangs, who, unlike the police, were willing to fight back.

Here’s the worst example:

AN EXAMPLE of the confrontations police nearly always experienced in Muslim-dominated areas when confronting even the most minor of crimes is an incident that occurred in 2001 in Auburn. Two uniformed officers stopped a motor vehicle containing three well known male offenders of Middle Eastern origin, on credible information via the police radio that indicated that the occupants of the vehicle had been involved in a series of break-and-enters. What occurred during the next few hours can only be described as frightening.

When searching the vehicle and finding stolen property from the break-and-enter, the police were physically threatened by the three occupants of the car, including references to tracking down where the officers lived, killing them and “f—ing your girlfriends”. The two officers were intimidated to the point of retreating to their police car and calling for urgent assistance. When police back-up arrived, the three occupants called their associates via their mobile phones, which incidentally is the Middle Eastern radio network used to communicate amongst gangs. Within minutes as many as twenty associates arrived as well as another forty or so from the street where they had been stopped. As further police cars arrived, the Middle Eastern males became even more aggressive, throwing punches at police, pushing police over onto the ground, threatening them with violence and damaging police vehicles.

When the duty officer arrived, he immediately ordered all police back into their vehicles and they retreated from the scene. The stolen property was not recovered. No offender was arrested for assaulting police or damaging police vehicles.

But the humiliation did not end there. The group of Middle Eastern males then drove to the police station, where they intimidated the station staff, damaged property and virtually held a suburban police station hostage. The police were powerless. The duty officer ordered police not to confront the offenders but to call for back-up from nearby stations. Eventually the offenders left of their own volition. No action was taken against them.

In the minds of the local population, the police were cowards and the message was, Lebs rule the streets. For a number of days, nothing was done to rectify this total breakdown of law and order. To the senior police in the area, it was more important to give the impression that local ethnic relations were never better. It was also important to [former Commissioner Of Police] Peter Ryan that no bad news stories appeared that may have given the impression that crime in any area was out of control. Had these hoodlums been arrested they would have filed IA complaints immediately via their Legal Aid lawyers and community leaders. To senior police, this was a cause for concern at the next Op Crime Review.

So the incident was covered up until a few local veteran detectives found out about it and decided to act. They went quietly to the addresses of the three main offenders early one morning and took them away with a minimum of fuss and charged them. Some order was restored, but not nearly enough.

By avoiding confrontations with these thugs, the police gave away the streets in many of these areas in south-western Sydney.

So if you’re wondering why the Australian surfers who were fighting with the Lebanese on the beaches didn’t simply call the police to lay charges, it was because there was no one home in the police station, and hadn’t been for years.

The thing for police to do in riots is arrest the rioters, which leads to fewer riots; most riots are started by people who are usually committing crimes on an individual basis, and only accelerate when the police run away.

But if you’re wondering why people “take the law into their own hands,” look at what happens when they leave it up to the “authorities.”

[Linguistic note: When Priest refers in his speech to Beaker Valley Heroin, that's a transcription error; this is roughly how an Australian copper pronounces Bekaa Valley Heroin.]

In his list of The 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes For 2005 rightwing blogger John Hawkins(send him mail) includes things we can all agree are obnoxious, and has quotations not only from liberals, but from conservatives he disapproves of.

He includes one from Steve Sailer, at number 12:

“In contrast to New Orleans, there was only minimal looting after the horrendous 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan—because, when you get down to it, Japanese aren’t blacks.” — Steve Sailer

Somewhat annoyingly, he links, not to the actual column, so people can get the context, but to an earlier laundry list, which links to a still earlier post, so by the time you finally get a link to Steve’s column, you may have given up. You can read Steve’s reply to his critics here: More On The New Orleans Nightmare: Why We Have To Talk About Racial Reality Even If John Podhoretz Says We Can’t.

My pick for most obnoxious quote from Hawkins’s list is this:

21) “We want our Border Patrol agents chasing, you know, crooks and thieves and drug-runners and terrorists, not good-hearted people who are coming here to work. And therefore, it makes sense to allow the good-hearted people who are coming here to do jobs that Americans won’t do a legal way to do so. And providing that legal avenue, it takes the pressure off the border.” — George Bush explains that we don’t want the Border Patrol to actually stop illegal aliens

You see, it won’t matter in a hundred years if Steve says something aboutNew Orleans that’s offensive to neoconservatives, or if John Hawkins says something that must be offensive to the Japanese, who, whatever their natural advantages, work very hard not to be like the former population of New Orleans.

But if the President, the Commander in Chief, and ex officio head of the Border Patrol, refuses to enforce the law, or guard the borders, that will matter in a hundred years. Assuming America is still here for it to matter to.

There were many memorable statements made during the House immigration enforcement debate Dec. 15-16, but the speech of Rep John Culberson (R-TX) spotlighted a topic that many in Washington prefer to ignore.

Rep. Culberson has been a strong voice warning that the open Mexican border is a welcome mat for al Qaeda terrorists. He has also been paying attention to the worsening encroachment of Mexican drug cartels as part of the border meltdown, particularly in Nuevo Laredo where brutal gangs are battling for control of the American market.

Here is part of a speech he made on Friday:

These narcoterrorists are so bold, Mr. Chairman, and the lawlessness is so pervasive on the border that the narcoterrorists have set up, according to the FBI, at least one narcoterrorist training camp outside of Matamoros operating in the open, run by the Zetas to train gun runners, human smugglers, smugglers who pay cash, who keep their mouths shut. They can go to this training camp outside of Matamoros and they will be carried into the United States. There may be three others operating just across the river from the United States in the open.

After 9/11, the President was shocked that terrorist training camps were operating in Afghanistan, so he sent in the U.S. military to take out the Taliban.

But when Mexican narcoterrorists are openly running a chain of terror-training establishments just next door, the White House can’t be bothered with even noticing. El Presidente Fox complains often about belated American attempts to regain sovereignty, but he should thank his lucky stars that President Bush loves Mexico without reservation.