Emigration, insurrection, and filibusters

            HAVE YOU EVER wondered why Mexico has such a cavalier attitude toward its citizens crossing illegally into the United States?

            The reason is really quite simple. It’s about money. Mexicans living in the U.S., legally and illegally, routinely send money back to their families in Mexico. So it behooves the Mexican government to encourage emigration – again, legal or illegal – so U.S. dollars will continue to flow into the Mexican economy.

            The Associated Press reports that Mexico’s central bank says money sent home by Mexicans living in the U.S. rose 11.4%, a new high, in 2020. That represents a total of $40.6 billion, the equivalent of the combined budgets of the Mexican government’s education, health, welfare, and culture departments.

            This money, called remittances, earns Mexico more income than oil exports or tourism.

            ADOLF HITLER’S propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, is notorious for saying (accurately, it turns out), “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

            Case in point: The Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol by Right-wing kooks is being described repeatedly by the inflammatory term an insurrection.

            “Webster’s New World Dictionary” defines insurrection as, “A rising up against established authority; rebellion; revolt.” If we’re going to accept what happened Jan. 6 as an insurrection, we must accept the summer riots as an insurrection as well, not mere protests. Those mobs, too, were “rising up against established authority,” as witness the federal and municipal buildings damaged and police cars set on fire in cities across America.

            But the dictionary definition doesn’t go far enough. In common usage “insurrection” carries a very specific connotation; a shade of meaning that what happened Jan. 6 is what happens in banana republics when a military junta overthrows, or attempts to overthrow, the established government.

            Jan. 6 most certainly was not an attempt to overthrow the government despite the grandiose statements of some of the participants and the repeated barking from the Left. In fact, neither the Jan. 6 mob nor the multiple summer mobs sought to overthrow the government. All those mobs were made up of people simply venting. They were angry and it made them feel better to scream and destroy. And in the case of the summer riots, for many it was a case of “to hell with principles, let’s loot some stores.”

            A proper insurrection requires two things. The first thing insurgents do is seize control of radio and television stations and use them to announce that the previous government no longer exists and that they are the new government. Those clowns rampaging through the Capitol never even tried to take over the media. The second consideration is weapons: Proper insurgents come fully armed. Some of the ding-a-lings in the Jan. 6 mob were armed, but to a pitiful degree. One man who was arrested had a veritable armory in his car, but it was parked two blocks away. Even the most addled revolutionary knows if you’re going to have an insurrection, you bring your weapons to the site of the insurrection.

            The Left-leaning media eagerly points out that some of the Jan. 6 rioters were decked out in “military gear,” suggesting they were serious about taking over the government. That doesn’t make it an insurrection either. But the Left will insist until there are ice cream parlors in hell that it was an attempt to overthrow the government. Adhering to Herr Goebbels’ advice, “liberals” will repeat the lie again, and again, and again, and . . .

            Despite the rioters’ boast about lynching Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, it was bravado, nothing more. It was ugly talk, to be sure, but still just juvenile boasting. The rioters were akin to dogs that chase cars: What would they ever do if they caught one? No, to call this an insurrection is a lie and repeating it endlessly will not make it truth.

            THE FILIBUSTER is a handy tool that has been used by the minority party in Congress for decades. They use it to stifle the agenda of the majority party. When the Democrats were the minority party they thought the filibuster was a fine rule. Now that they’re the majority party they want to change the rule so – surprise – minority Republicans can’t use the filibuster to put a check on their agenda.

            Adam Jentleson of the New York Times complains that the filibuster is used today “as a weapon of mass obstruction” on almost every bill that comes before the Senate. He points out that in the 1969-70 Congress the filibuster was used a total of 6 times. In the 2019-20 Congress (Trump’s last year in office) Democrats used it 298 times.