Update: CIS has published a backgrounder on this agreement. 

Whatever adjectives can be used to describe our new President, ‘diplomatic’ is not one which springs readily to mind. His phone conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull merely serves to reinforce a reputation for bluntness that was already solidified within the public imagination. In this case, however, I think his impolitic speech is actually beneficial for American citizens. For the refugee resettlement swap cooked up by his predecessor, which involves the exchange of non-Muslim Central American refugees for Muslim boat people currently being detained at the behest of the Australian government, is another disastrous scheme to further erase our borders.

The ordinary refugee resettlement process is almost completely insulated from the democratic process. Seemingly benefiting everyone from United Nations functionaries, to bureaucrats in the federal government, but especially VOLAGs whose survival depends upon a constant stream of clients, refugee resettlement takes no account of the feelings of ordinary American citizens. The people whose lives could be ruined by the decisions made hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away by unelected officials.

The last-minute decision of President Obama to craft a backroom deal with his Australian counterpart, in large part as a means of papering over his own catastrophic failure to enforce this nation’s immigration laws, merely highlights the lack of accountability and fundamentally anti-democratic nature of this entire process. Naturally, open borders fanatics are using this incident to parade their virtue before the benighted American public, condemning the philistinism of the Australian and American governments, as well as the people who insist that their representatives protect the internal security of their nations.

Nevertheless, this is a reminder that who lives in our country is not a matter for international plebiscites or social justice campaigns. Thousands of Muslim foreigners being transferred to the heart of this country as part of a sleazy quid pro quo is not what what Americans voted for in November, and simply because it has the stamp of approval from our outgoing President and Australia’s current Prime Minister-the sixth in less than a decade-doesn’t mean the American public should sit back and accept it. It is the current year, and the powers that be should get used to it.

In a depressingly familiar scene, scores of innocent bystanders-including children-were mowed down in downtown Melbourne.

For those of you who had been laboring under the impression that the only Western leaders committed to stamping out problematic free expression reside in Europe-exemplified by Frau Merkel’s Stasi-directed campaign against anti-Islamic thoughtcrime-I have some troubling news. Australia, a country once known for its insouciant attitude towards political correctness and multiculturalism, has become the latest nation to embrace dhimmitude.

I don’t know what part of this video-as an aside, do visit Computing Forever’s Youtube channel, you’ll find many more distressing, fascinating stories there-is most disturbing. Is it the fact that in the 21st century Western nations are imposing what are essentially blasphemy laws? That these laws are being done at the behest of a violent, intolerant minority which has no historical connection to the countries they are now leading by the nose? Or is it simply the Orwellian euphemism, anti-discrimination, which is being used to rip the guts out of our  civilization?

I’ll let our readers decide, but until then, it’s worth pondering what attacks on our political and civil rights our rancid political class has in the hopper.

Nigel Farage sets the record straight. As usual, we are being fed a steady diet of lies about this 21st century invasion of Europe, and there are only a few courageous voices willing to speak the truth. Congratulations to Mr. Farage for standing up to the calculated deception and emotional manipulation of the Beeb, one of the most powerful institutions encouraging the destruction of the continent under the auspices of humanitarianism.

We at American Rattlesnake would like to wish our followers, Irish and non-Irish alike, a happy St. Patrick’s Day. Despite the possibility of inclement weather here in the City-a perennial threat on this day-I’m sure that New Yorkers will celebrate boisterously, as is our custom. In honor of this holiday, please enjoy a beautiful ballad about emigration from Ireland sung by the iconic Irish folk band The Wolfe Tones. Focusing on the deep economic recession of the 1980s, The Flight of the Earls exquisitely expresses the profound melancholy-as well as hope for the future-felt by Irish immigrants who left their homeland during an era of political and economic tumult.

One teacher was allegedly immolated in front of his students. Sadly, this is not the largest loss of a life in a jihadist assault against schoolchildren. I can’t say that I disagree with those who feel Islamed out at the moment.

Update: The passenger from Lagos who died on an Arik Air flight to New York recently suffered from cardiac arrest, and is not believed to have contracted Ebola, according to the CDC. 

The public face of the Ebola epidemic, now that Thomas Eric Duncan has expired, is unquestionably Thomas Frieden, the current head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the media regularly tout his role in stemming a tuberculosis outbreak in India-and addressing a similar proliferation of the disease in New York City-there is little discussion of his actions as this city’s Health Commissioner, particularly the more controversial aspects of his tenure.

I only raise this because of the perplexing behavior and words of Dr. Frieden in recent days, which, if anything, have only increased Americans’ suspicions that the government doesn’t know what it is doing. Perhaps the most bizarre statement to be issued by him thus far is the assertion that preventing foreign nationals from the three African nations decimated by the Ebola crisis from entering the United States would actually cause the virus to spread. Over a hundred people from West Africa land in this country every day, and as the Daily Signal points out, the State Department is still processing visas from non-American nationals in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, to the consternation of the current Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. This, despite the fact that those with Ebola presumably continue to board flights seeking medical treatment in the United States.

Only after a sustained public outcry has this administration even considered a possible travel ban, which might or might not be enacted. Keep in mind, this is a federal government that exhausts its seemingly illimitable resources trying to prevent the importation of perilous pumpkin seeds, deadly Steinways, and contraband queso. Yet people who might transmit one of the deadliest infectious diseases known to mankind are still being cavalierly waived through Customs.

It’s hard to believe that this laissez-faire attitude is born of any genuine conviction that freedom of travel and commerce is paramount, considering the actions described above. It’s even harder to believe that Mr. Frieden is concerned about the civil liberties-however broadly that phrase might be applied to non-Americans trying to enter this country illegally-of those from Ebola-infected nations. As Health Commissioner for New York City, he exhibited no such qualms about encroaching upon the privacy and circumscribing the rights of ordinary New Yorkers, so long as these crusades served the greater good. From an involuntary diabetes registry from which patients could not opt out, to an effort which did away with written consent for H.I.V. tests, to his tireless campaigns to extirpate the scourges of tobacco smoke and trans fats-heedless of any concern that these crusades might impinge upon people’s freedoms-there was no chapter of Thomas Frieden’s career as a public health czar in this city which could be even charitably characterized as civil liberties-friendly.

Why then is he exhibiting such concern for the theoretical travel freedom of those in West Africa who might infect thousands of unsuspecting Americans with a lethal disease? The only conclusion reasonable people can draw-as Ilana Mercer already has-is that our government’s suicidal devotion to open borders has occluded its vision of what poses a legitimate public health risk. What other rational explanation is there for a policy that consciously endangers the health and lives of American citizens while offering no countervailing public health or economic benefits? We’ve reached the point where radio and television personalities call for a prohibition upon the importation of bushmeat-which is already illegal-but don’t question the wisdom of an immigration policy which encourages the importation of people for whom bushmeat is a regional delicacy.

Like every other response of the White House to the growing threat posed by the Ebola outbreak, from the decision to appoint a Democratic fixer as the new Ebola czar-a choice in keeping with this administration’s subservience to political donors and party apparatchiks-the reluctance to confront the danger posed by migration from those nations devastated by Ebola is a purely political reaction. It’s bad enough that pre-20th century plagues which had been eradicated in the United States have returned-and expanded because of immigration from third world nations-but to invite individuals into this country who might be infected with a disease whose mortality rate ranges between sixty and eighty percent is the very definition of insanity.

If the recent Ebola crisis, and our government’s tragicomic response to it, teaches us anything, it is that the demise of this country will not come at the hands of Al Qaeda, ISIS, Russia, Iran, or any of our well-publicized enemies. It will come from a slavish obeisance to political correctness.

The past few weeks have been filled with news of dramatic happenings throughout the globe, not the least of which is the rapidly metastasizing ebola epidemic. In order to put things into proper perspective, it’s always useful to have an intelligent, rational guide who’s not captive to multiculturalist dogma and elitist groupthink. Thankfully, the latest edition of Radio Derb has just arrived! 

From the latest political turmoil engulfing Hong Kong-including the Chinese Communist Party’s ham-fisted attempts to crush the Occupy Central democracy movement-to the dubious hiring practices of this city’s Marxist mayor, John Derbyshire covers it all. Definitely worth checking out for those of you who have been enjoying a news sabbatical.

Diversity is our strength, even when it’s our greatest weakness. The experience of Australia isn’t unique, something the ostracized  Frenchman, Swede, and Norwegian can attest to, when they’re given the opportunity. Contrary to popular, i.e. elite consensus, mass immigration has not been an economic boon to ordinary Australians, despite an emphasis upon skilled immigrants which doesn’t currently exist in American immigration policy, and would not be the norm even with the cosmetic reforms of the Gang of Eight bill.

Prime Minister Gillard was right to oppose the Big Australia policy, and her dramatic policy reversal will only spell more misery for the people who voted her party into power, as well as everyone else who doesn’t get to externalize the costs of open borders or depress the wages they would otherwise have to pay their employees. Multiculturalism might be a strength for those who get to use it as a cudgel against competitors and political opponents, but for the rest of us it amounts to a raw deal.

The global jihad against speech-aided and abetted by our enemedia-was the primary subject of discussion at the SION conference this past Tuesday, and the panels assembled represented the full spectrum of thought and action that is being suppressed as a result of the collaboration between government officials-both elected and unelected-intent on “managing” our ever-diminishing pool of  liberty, the custodians of the fifth estate, and the presumptive caliphate which is using them as its ideological cat’s paw. The mobs overwhelming embassies in North Africa and the Middle East and slaughtering American citizens represent the physical violence that most associate with the term jihad, yet there is another more potent element of jihadist doctrine which involves employing coercive means more subtle than car bombs, rocket propelled-grenades, and Kalashnikovs.

The most powerful and efficacious weapon against jihadist ideology is, in fact, the truth. Which is why the vanguards of Islam and their accomplices go to such great lengths in order to suppress the means through which the truth is disseminated. That was the main theme of the second panel of the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress, which comprised men and women from England-until recently, one of the most resilient bastions of free expression on the planet-and Australia, a much younger parliamentary democracy whose citizens find themselves caught beneath a resurgent Islamic tidal wave facilitated by its leaders abandonment of sound immigration policy.

Debbie Robinson, of the Q Society, gave us a detailed overview of the parlous situation Australians find themselves in due to the proliferation of Muslim immigrants faithful to the Koran now living on a continent built upon British common law. The most recent  manifestation of this danger can be found in Muslim Brotherhood acolytes calling for the summary execution of the filmmaker who, in their eyes, committed blasphemy, exploiting the very freedom which they could never hope to enjoy in one of the many despotic Muslim nations from which they emigrated.

However, the question of sharia law’s application in Australia is not one of recent vintage, despite the befuddled media coverage of jihadi demonstrations in that nation’s capital this week. In fact, it is a question which has become so embedded within national discourse that a former Chief Justice of Australia has publicly rejected the notion that sharia law can coexist with the laws of his country. You need look no further than the scourging  a convert to Wahabbism received at the hands of his masked attackers to realize that this isn’t a theoretical debate for Australians. Is it really that far-fetched to conceive of a day when the punishment meted out to a member of the Burns’ Gang in the drama The Proposition might befall the unfortunate recipient of justice from a sharia court?

That question is even more pertinent to the men who came to New York City from England, which some would characterize as Ground Zero in the war between Islamic supremacism and Western societal norms.

Kevin Carroll of the English Defense League-seen above-described some of the battles in this titanic struggle. Currently running for sheriff in a newly created constituency, Mr. Carroll and other members of the EDL have been subjected not only to physical attacks-some so violent as to require hospitalization-by crypto-fascist, Marxist goon squads and their Islamist accomplices, but have been persecuted by the English authorities, which view those exercising their rights to assemble lawfully and express support for the United Kingdom as posing more of an exigent threat than those organizing terror plots in what is now the hub of pan-Islamic nationalism and jihad within Europe.

The extent to which the inherent rights exercised by Englishmen and women have been curtailed in the name of insulating Islam and its practitioners from any substantive criticism was brought home by Tommy Robinson, the founder and leader of the English Defense League. A life-long resident of town of Luton in the county of Bedfordshire, England,  Robinson embodies the selfless patriotism and commitment to family that were once hallmarks of the English working class. Unfortunately, today he represents a besieged minority under attack on the streets, in the courtroom, and in the yellow press for defending what the intelligentsia consider antiquated notions of Englishness. Instead of resisting the Islamists and their leftist shock troops who are threatening the lives of Robinson and his family, the British police have instructed him to remove himself from Luton-his childhood home-lest he antagonize the Muslim supremacists behind  one of England’s numerous, unofficial Sharia law zones.

The skewed priorities of UK law enforcement-which view the EDL as posing a more exigent threat than the intellectual progeny of Bin Laden did not come as a surprise. What did strike me though was Tommy Robinson’s almost apologetic defense of the gifts he brings to bear in this struggle against Islamic nationalism and its infection of contemporary Europe. He made the inexorable point that, unlike the rest of the continent, Great Britain-with a few notable exceptions-does not have any towering intellectuals or courageous political leaders to rally public opinion on behalf of the Enlightenment values which are now imperiled. The political class within the UK is effectively neutered, spinelessness being virtually a prerequisite for public office, as Tommy and his cousin Kevin Carroll pointed out during their speeches.

The same can be said of most British pseudo-intellectuals, who are equally culpable for the disastrous cultural and spiritual degradation of contemporary Great Britain. The political extermination Northern Irish classicist, poet and parliamentarian Enoch Powell experienced at the hands of England’s opinion-shapers for daring to question the status quo is one of the main reasons why the fight against Islamist ideology is being led by men like Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, although I don’t believe either man has to qualify the vitally important elements of courage and honesty in identifying the problems facing Britain they both bring to this task. After all, the battle over whether sharia law and Islamic doctrine should prevail over the values of the Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution will be decided in the streets and the homes of ordinary Britons, not intellectual salons in London.

That said, the address delivered by George Igler, the creator of the Discourse Institute, outlined the intellectual argument against the UK’s increasingly restrictive view of individual liberty. At least, that liberty not enjoyed by Islamic ideologues. The son of parents who experienced the absence of liberty firsthand behind the Iron Curtain of Communist Hungary, Igler recognizes the inherent tenuousness of liberties that most Westerners have taken for granted for centuries. His speech focused upon the ways in which British bureaucrats and politicians had distorted the relationship between man and state, pointing out that our sufferance of government is tied exclusively to the protection of inalienable-and non government-derived-rights. This compact has been abrogated by a state that now views its function as maintaining stability in inter-communal relations, which means that some groups, e.g. Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-as well as their offspring-are given protection from the critical speech of groups like the EDL. This fundamental negation of rights illustrates why conferences like the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress are so urgent at this moment in time.

They, along with the Discourse Institute, wouldn’t be necessary if the “free” press exercised its right to dissent from political and religious orthodoxy, rather than attempting to hunt down individuals who blasphemed Islam or to blacken the name of patriotic citizens who want to ensure that their children enjoy the same freedoms they once did. But the fact remains that we are not only facing an aggressive, resurgent political Islam, but a much greater threat posed by those who would do away with our patrimony from England, and ultimately, Greece, in order to placate the sensitivities of an ideology with whom no mutual reciprocity exists and which, according to its holy book-none can be achieved.

In Part III of our report, we’ll be examining how the threat of Islamic jihad is experienced by those in the continent from which the armies of Mohammed first emerged.