A rerun of the previous day’s Larry King Live is shown every morning here on CNN International at 11am. It’s now 1pm and I’m still angry and dismayed by last night’s show [click here for transcript].
Last night’s show involved two liberal talk show hosts debating two conservative talk show hosts about today’s hot topics. After being a conservative most of my life, I am CLEARLY now a liberal.
Topic 1: IMMIGRATION
I don’t get how so many Americans can be against opening up immigration when I’d say 99% of us are immigrants. I don’t remember reading anything about the native American peoples getting any say in whether all these white people could show up. In fact, many welcomed the new immigrants. And what did the white people do? Took their land and exterminated them. The immigrants coming in now just want to get a job that no American would do for pay that no American would bother getting out of bed for.
BEN FERGUSON, HOST, “THE BEN FERGUSON SHOW”: And most Americans are going, “Look, you fly the Mexican flag. You change our national anthem. You sing it in Spanish, not English, and now you want us to give you citizenship?” I don’t think it’s going to fly.
Most Americans think this? Is flying the flag of your nation of birth threatening this country? I mean, they are living in the US now. Should immigrants not hold on to a little of their culture? I know quite a few people who are extremely proud of being 4th generation Irish immigrants. You’re in America… you’re an American… why the heck should other Americans be forced to wear green on St. Patty’s Day or face being pinched?
Well, we better get rid of all those Little Italys, Greektowns, Chinatowns, Little Koreas, etc… you know, those places that are fun to go to because you can get a little taste of a different culture.
DENNIS PRAGER, “THE DENNIS PRAGER SHOW”: I think most Americans even liberals believe it’s time to build a fence.
Exactly, that definitely would have stopped the 9-11 bombers. Oops, wait, they got in on student visas didn’t they? Well, it’ll stop most illegal immigration. What? You mean most illegal immigrants overstay their tourist visas. Oh…
You know, instead of spending money on a big giant wall, maybe we could properly outfit the troops in Iraq instead. Just an idea.
Topic 2: War on Terrorism and the NSA
PRAGER: If I were president, I would have made the case virtually every day of my administration that we are fighting the greatest evil since World War II… That this is this generation’s form of Nazism. The president, however, felt that it was so obvious that we’re fighting extremely evil people that he didn’t have to make it, and he can go on to things like responsible Social Security reform. He made a mistake. He made a political mistake. He should have been making the case for this war… It can still be made. It is an evil. It’s interesting. I’d like to ask my two liberal colleagues there one question. And I’m not asking you to support the war or anything. I just want to know if you’re prepared to say — I swear it’s not a trick question. It’s just to understand your view. Would you say that by and large the people that we are fighting in Iraq are evil? RHODES: No. They’re Iraqis, and we occupy their country. PRAGER: OK. OK. There you go, folks. RHODES: There’s a civil war going on. PRAGER: That is what the left believes. We are not fighting evil.
Oh no, not again with the evil-do-ers. Let’s get our bibles and throw them at the insurgents.
These are the same stupid arguments that people were making for the eradication of the American Indians when those savages were standing up against Americans for taking their land and not giving them anything good in return.
And in the end…
Finally, here are some excerpts from the chapter that I’ve just read in Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, describing the behavior of General Hancock. After Hancock ordered the Indian chiefs and warriors to immediately bring their wives and children to his fort, which they refused to do, saying (with good reason) that their families were afraid of his soldiers, he ordered all their belongings (clothes, utensils, weapons, buffalo skins, and lodgings) burned:
“General Hancock’s expedition, I regret to say, has resulted in no good, but, on the contrary, has been productive of much evil,” wrote Superintendent of Indian Affairs Thomas Murphy to Commissioner Taylor in Washington.
“The operations of General Hancock,” Black Whiskers Sanborn informed the Secretary of the Interior, “have been so disastrous to the public interests, and at the same time seem to me to be so inhuman, that I deem it proper to communicate my views to you on the subject… For a mighty nation like us to be carrying on a war with a few straggling nomads, under such circumstances, is a spectacle most humiliating, an injustice unparalleled, a national crime most revolting, that must, sooner or later, bring down upon us or our posterity the judgment of Heaven.”
The Great Warrior Sherman took a different view in his report to Secretary of War Stanton: “My opinion is, if fifty Indians are allowed to remain between the Arkansas and the Platte we will have to guard every stage station, every train, and all railroad working parties. In other words, fifty hostile Indians will checkmate three thousand soldiers. Rather get them out as soon as possible, and it makes little difference whether they be coaxed out by Indian commissioners or killed.”
