To understand many Mexican attitudes toward the United States and immigration, you have to go back to the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, of which most Americans have never heard. The United States attacked Mexico in a war of territorial acquisition, occupied Texas, California, New Mexico, and Arizona, and drove south to conquer Mexico City. It...
Thoughts from Below the Rio Bravo, by Fred Reed
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DACA Dies, Sort of, by Fred Reed
OK, immigration, the ongoing soap opera. Let’s start with the week’s logical disaster: The Dreamers, 800,000 artfully named Latinos who were brought over as children, sometimes as children of thirty-five. Under something called DACA, a sort of almost amnesty, they had work permits. They were working. Yes, doing their part as Americans: paying taxes to...
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Fred Takes Month Off: Earth Wobbles in Orbit, Kingdoms Fall, by Fred Reed
This sublime column will be on vacation until about October 15 from sheer exhaustion. The wells of libel and sedition are not without limits and, having run dry, must replenish themselves from the slow flow of bile’s aquifers. At the end of this respite, FOE will take Weighty Decisions, but for the moment there are...
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A Vet Remembers, by Fred Reed
Harper’s, December, 1980 I begin to weary of the stories about veterans that are now in vogue with the newspapers, the stories that dissect the veteran’s psyche as if prying apart a laboratory frog — patronizing stories written by style-section reporters who know all there is to know about chocolate mousse, ladies’ fashions, and the...
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From Tex Mex to Mex Tech, by Fred Reed
In America two narratives about Mexico dominate. The first, chiefly emanating from anti-immigrant ideologues who usually have never been here, holds that Mexicans have low IQs and cannot function at other than a primitive level. Breitbart News and something called Vdare are chief among these. They don’t quite expect to find all Mexicans either robbing...
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The Military Instinct, by Fred Reed
As Washington bombs Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria, militarily threatens Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, and China, sanctions Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Iran..one may wonder: Why? Are wars about anything, or just wars? In modern times, a reason of sorts is thought decorous, yes: Ruritania is threatening us, or might, or does something wrong,...
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Anti-Togetherness, by Fred Reed
A Truth Not Welcome: People do not like being with those different from themselves. Sometimes, briefly, we find it interesting, as in traveling, but for extended periods, no. This distaste pervades society, often unnoticed, with consequences. Instances of untogetherness: People cluster by intelligence. With high consistency, we choose mates of intelligence close to our own....
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Diving Days: No Vast Political Importance, by Fred Reed
The Atlantic waters off Snead’s Ferry in North Carolina are shallow, maybe 125 feet to the continental shelf. Several wrecks lie on the bottom, mostly in advanced stages of disintegration, sunk by U-boats in the early years of the war. I know them well as for years I was a member of Capital Divers, out...
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Kidporn, and a Suggestion, by Fred Reed
The other night we watched a documentary, The Dark Net, on Netflix on child pornography. Dim as I am, I didn’t realize that there was such a huge amount of it, mostly on the Darknet. This refers to transmission of material by layered encryption and quickly becomes technical: TOR, asymmetric encryption, IP packets, session keys,...
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Mexico, as It Is and Wasn’t, by Fred Reed
For Americans concerned about Mexico and Mexicans, and what sort of wights they be, a little history may help. We seem to know almost nothing about a bordering nation of 130 million. It is not what most of us think it is. It is certainly not what the Loon Right would have us believe. For...
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Fun with IQ, by Fred Reed
Once upon a time in America the ruling dwarves, mostly psychologists, sociologists, academics, and suchlike riffraff, held that all people were equal in everything, that men and women were identical, as were all races, ethnic groups, and cultures. Criticizing any of this could, and did, lead to firing, ostracism, and having to suffer crowds of...
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Absolute, Obvious, Unacknowledged Disaster, by Fred Reed
Let us look into the abyss. It will do no good. First, another page in the sordid comic book of American race relations. In Beijing, three black basketball players from UCLA were arrested for shoplifting. They faced jail time. Ten years, actually. The theft was so stupid that it demands explanation. It was too stupid...
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Average Night in DC: The Cop Diaries, by Fred Reed
In the dog hours after two a.m., the empty time when the streets are dark and lifeless, a police car is an alien bubble, a small moving world unconnected with the streets, not part of the neighborhood. Yet it has to be there. The city is dead. Blank windows, alley mouths leading into nowhere. Parked...
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Firing the Pre-Pubertal Arquebus, by Fred Reed
Today we will ponder America, a country, even a civilization, that existed long ago where the United States is today, but bore little resemblance to it. It will be like studying cave drawings, or Sargon of Akkad. Pay attention. The is original source material of historical importance. I was there, in America: Athens, Alabama, at...
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Absolute, Obvious, Unacknowledged Disaster, by Fred Reed
Let us look into the abyss. It will do no good. First, another page in the sordid comic book of American race relations. In Beijing, three black basketball players from UCLA were arrested for shoplifting. They faced jail time. Ten years, actually. The theft was so stupid that it demands explanation. It was too stupid...
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The Wall, the Sound and the Fury: And Not Much Else, by Fred Reed
With regard to Mr. Trump’s Border Wall, I am skeptical. Now, I freely concede that I am not an authority on Border Walls. In fact, I have never built a Border Wall. This may surprise readers. Yet it is true. So all that follows is in the nature of speculation. Be warned. Still, though I...
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A Dubious Patriotism, by Fred Reed
Methinks that, for the good of the country, it is time that the “Alt-Right,” those bitterly hostile to our Latin-America population, stop and think. There is a difference between opposing further immigration, a good idea, and constantly attacking American citizens. Many good reasons existed for preventing massive immigration from the south. But it happened. Some...
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Mr. Trump on the Apertures, by Fred Reed
Mr. Trump’s comment regarding his preference for immigrants from Norway instead of “shithole countries” such as Haiti engendered among the commentariat a great squealing. I cannot fathom this. Are they geographic virgins, and just don’t know anything of the world? Is it only the usual schadenfreudian gotcha pile-on? The if-A-then-B response to stimulus of a...
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A Sort of Remorse, by Fred Reed
Today I must ask the reader’s pardon. I do not usually write about the intimate details of my life. They would embarrass me and bore everyone else. But in this case I am obligated, as will shortly be apparent. We have all heard of Twelve-Step Programs. Alcoholics Anonymous was the first and remains the best...
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God’s Knights of the Pen and Bottle, by Fred Reed
Everything goes to hell. It warms a curmudgeon’s heart. I remember when, as God intended, reporters were bright and profane drunks with no respect for anything. This philosophical end-point was natural for men steeped daily in the lying, thieving, corruption, bribes, shysterism, misery, and unrelenting stupidity that are public life. Ashen-souled, cynical, with a wonderful...
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