People do in fact tend to be attracted to conflict. We stage sporting events, the news media sends reporters into war zones, historians record the history of our conflicts, and story tellers make up yarns that portray imaginative conflicts with aliens, monsters, gods, and whatever.

At his website, Letiecq stages political sporting events and tells political yarns. For example, in addition to settling a personal grudge, Letiecq’s attacks on Faisal Gill provided ample opportunity for imaginative yarns and political conflict (for related posts on this website, see Faisal Gill). Unfortunately, Letiecq’s imaginative personal attacks are not harmless. They cause unwarranted harm to people’s reputations.

Consider Letiecq’s latest personal attacks, his attacks on Will Payne and Senator Ken Stolle (here). I do not know anything about Will Payne and Senator Ken Stolle. I just have sympathy for anyone Letiecq would attack. Why is Letiecq attacking these men? Well, Letiecq considers switching political parties a grave betrayal. Yet as one of his commenters pointed out (here), Letiecq really has nothing on which to base his charges.

I suppose Letiecq thinks nobody should ever switch political parties. Yet people do. I wonder, for example, if Letiecq has ever heard of Ronald Reagan or Winston Churchill. When each of these men switched political parties, were they what Letiecq would consider putzes? Fortunately for Payne, some members of the Democratic Party seem happy with his “abuse of trust” (see here and here). Is it because they want a traitor in their midst?

As I have said before, I would like to see Letiecq removed from participation in the Prince William Republican Committee. If the Republican Party is to maintain high standards and deserve the public’s trust, then we must have some standards for the people we accept into our membership. So in future posts I intend to discuss the case removing Letiecq and the difficulties that would be involved.

Nothing of this sort is ever easy, but I suppose that is just as well. Stay tuned.

The 51st District race, we believe, was determined by race and religion, rather than the issues.

Republican Faisal Gill isn’t fundamentally different in opinion or principle from his Republican counterparts, yet he lost to Democrat Paul Nichols in a district currently represented by Republican Michele McQuigg.

The fact that Gill is of Pakistani descent and a Muslim, plus his history working with Muslim groups and the mischaracterization of his relationship to one of those groups, led to his being beaten by a Democrat. If anybody else with the same political views and beliefs as Gill had run in his place, the Republicans would have kept the seat.

I cannot know why people voted the way they voted, but I have been disgusted by the conduct of some of our local bloggers. We all saw their posts. These bloggers engaged in a smear campaign that included posts that can only rightly be described as discrimination based on race and creed.

One of these bloggers (see here, here, here, and here, for examples) I would like to see barred from participation on the Prince William Republican Committee. As a member, his unseemly conduct reflects badly on those who do participate honorably (see here and here).

Greg Letiecq knew and knows Faisal Gill is not a terrorist (see here). He just ignored facts as inconvenient. However, the Dept. of Homeland Security had to satisfy two senators that Faisal Gill is not a terrorist. That is what you call clearance, and this information was no secret.

The worst of Letiecq’s dirty work took place before this year’s primaries. Because Greg Letiecq is President of Help Save Manassas, I would like to say he has reformed somewhat in recent months. However, his irrational rage against Faisal Gill continues. Consider his last couple of posts. In this post, Letiecq predicts Faisal Gill’s electoral victory. In his next post, Letiecq suggests Paul Nichols should switch parties. Finally, we have a post about the Faisal Gill Effect. The point being to emphasize Gill’s relative unpopularity.

Why does Letiecq so despise Faisal Gill? I cannot read his mind, but the answer may have little to do with race or creed. What I do know is that Gill took the part of Steve Chapman, a young politician attacked by a previous incarnation of Letiecq’s blog (see here).

Whatever Letiecq’s motivation, the PWC GOP’s continued association with Letiecq is at best unwise. Admittedly, Letiecq has obvious talents, but he lacks the requisite scruples the wise require of anyone they would call an ally.

Other Views

Innumerable post have been done on this subject. Here is just a sampling.

The SkepticalObserver reviews the continuing Faisal Gill hatred here.

The Mason Conservative reviewed Faisal Gill’s chances of victory here.

Bearing Drift identified this problem some months back here.

Bacon’s Rebellion found Black Velvet Bruce Li’s beginnings disturbing (here).

This website exists principally because Two Conservatives did so many posts defending Faisal Gill from scurrilous attacks Charles needed a separate website.

Charles at his blog, Two Conservatives, has fact checked the bloggers attacking Faisal Gill (see here and here for a start), and SkepticalObservor has done the same (search both blogs). This blog has a category essentially devoted to refuting the absurd charges against Faisal Gill.

Fans of Faisal, another blog operated by Charles, has focused on comparing Faisal Gill with his opponent. That, ladies and gents, is what an election is about. At this point, the sole accomplishment of all the infernal Gill-hating is to undermine the morale the PWC GOP. If we want to come out ahead this fall, then we need to focus on something positive, getting the candidates we support elected.

The race between Julie Lucas and Faisal Gill is over. Lucas is running for School Board.

If you do not like Faisal Gill, that is your prerogative. You can also spend all your efforts hating Faisal Gill, but that is sick behavior that is not going to buy anyone anything — unless you are a muck-raking Democrat. Serious Republicans need to ask themselves what they want to accomplish. Do you want to sulk and take your toys home, or do you want to be a player?

We live in the great state of Virginia. This is our home, and it has a future. Do you want to spend your time shaping that future, or do you want to listen to people who have nothing better to do than hate to Faisal Gill?

GILL PROPOSES THAT EMPLOYERS BE HELD
CRIMINALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ROLE
IN THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRISIS

Recent events have shown that Prince William County is serious about the problem of illegal immigration. Since the Federal government is not, it is time that the Commonwealth of Virginia demonstrates that it is serious about solving the issue of illegal immigration. We have taken some good early steps, but thus far we have not gone after the heart of the problem: money. We need to attack illegal immigration at the root of the problem. While most legal immigrants come here to better their lives and integrate into American society, illegal immigrants come here for one reason only and that is to make money. We are not a border state; it is our low unemployment rate that makes us a magnet for illegal immigrants crossing our Southern border. We need to take away the economic incentive for illegal immigrants. That is why I am proposing one of the toughest measure thus far suggested anywhere in the United States against employers who employ illegal immigrants: such employers should be held criminally liable and take away their business licenses.

We need to amend the current VA law that only makes it a misdemeanor to employ illegal immigrants. I propose that we make it a Class 3 felony for any employer to hire illegal immigrants. Furthermore, the state police should have a special unit to make sure that all employers are abiding by the law. All businesses operating in the Commonwealth shall be required to verify the legal status of all employees. The employer will be required to keep such proof of legal status. Failure to do so will not only result in loss of business license but would also subject senior managers and owners to jail time. Currently under Federal law most employers simply pay a civil penalty if they knowingly employ illegal immigrants. Under my proposal the State will enforce not federal law but rather state law when they go after employers who make no effort to ascertain that those they employ are in this country legally.

Under the current system, even though under VA law, it is a Class 1 misdemeanor for employers to hire illegal immigrants. However, there is no effort to enforce this law. My proposal not only amends the law to toughen the penalties, but also calls for vigorous enforcement. We need to realize that it is the employer hiring illegal immigrants is largely responsible for this problem. It is the employer who hires illegal immigrants who provides the incentive come here illegally.

Along with removing government benefits for illegal immigrants, such as in-state tuition at Virginia universities, we also need to punish those who make this problem as huge as it is. Some irresponsible employers for far too long have taken advantage of the fact that the Federal government does not have the agents to conduct the investigations at their worksites. Their hiring of illegal workers with no medical benefits have left our hospital emergency rooms so overburdened that those with real emergencies cannot get timely treatment. Their low wages have led to workers crowding into housing in neighborhoods without the infrastructure to handle the load, putting the workers as well as the neighbors at risk for fire.

Along with making employers criminally liable, the business license should also be revoked if it is determined that the employer has been hiring illegal immigrants. It is only after the businesses realize that they will face sever sanctions and will lose money will they stop hiring illegal immigrants. And for the first time, employers will go to will be held responsible for contributing to this illegal immigration crisis.

As an immigrant, the issue of illegal immigration has a very different meaning for me then it does for others. The openness and the promise of the United States have taken this immigrant son of a cab driver to the White House as a lawyer and now during this election to his party’s nomination for the House of Delegates. The United States must remain open and be a beacon for those seeking freedom and opportunity, for those willing to learn our language and serve, when called upon, in our nation’s military. However, we are a nation of laws and everyone coming to the United States or in the United States must obey the law. Immigrants who come here illegally do so not because they want to become citizens of our country, but simply to make money. Once we take away their ability to make money, they will no longer have any reason to come here. The best way to prevent the illegal immigrants from finding Virginia an attractive place to come in search of making money is to make sure that no one hires them. My proposal will make sure that does not happen.

I cannot stand reading Goodbye Ken or BVBL. I hate filling my head with information I have no reason to trust. Unfortunately, some people are gullible enough to believe everything, and someone has to correct the misinformation and show why what is not true is not true. Charles at TwoConservatives does this quite well.

It is mystery to me why people read Goodbye Ken or BVBL. However, people read the National Enquirer too, and the existence of such “news sources” poses a problem. When gossips go unchallenged, many people take what they say as the truth. Fortunately, some people thrive on careful research and correcting misinformation.

So if you must visit Goodbye Ken or BVBL, please stop by TwoConservatives latter. Here are the latest two corrections: for Goodbye Ken (here) and for BVBL (here).

Here is the current situation. As expected, Lucas wants the votes thrown out from the Lake Ridge and Penn precincts where Faisal Gill scored substantial victories. The issue is overvotes.

In the Lake Ridge precinct, 80 votes were cast when only 77 people were registered and in the Penn precinct, 27 votes were cast when only 26 people were registered.

The Potomac News also reported some new details. The vote count after the convention indicated that the Civic Center precinct had one overvote. Lucas asserts that there has been a sort of recount.

Another portion of her appeal would correct a mathematical error made in the Civic Center precinct tallies, where the committee originally reported an overvote, Lucas said.

She said the person counting the number of registered voters made a mistake, which created the appearance that there were more votes than people.

Lucas’ appeal asserts that fixing the clerical error shows that there were less votes than people registered in the Civic Center precinct, where the committee previously reported two overvotes.

If Lucas can retain the votes from Civic Center, which she won handily, her argument to throw out just the overvoted precincts, which Gill won, results her victory.

The appeal, of course, puts Kopko in a quandry. Kopko is an obvious Gill partisan. So as he made the convention, Kopko must make the appeal process as fair as possible. Fortunately, Kopko seems to be quite aware that he must do exactly that.

“There’s many, many potential human errors in here that all have to be looked at,” Kopko said. “Then there’s the intentional errors that could have been introduced.”

So far, he’s hasn’t made a determination because he’s still investigating committee rules and past methods of dealing with overvotes.

“I certainly plan to be thorough,” Kopko said.

He said there is no deadline to make a decision on Lucas’ appeal, but said he will provide one soon.

“So far there doesn’t seem to be any precedent for throwing out an entire precinct,” he said. “So far the most common remedy I’ve seen and have been told about is to make a determination of whether the overvotes, and only the overvotes, if given to the loser, would change the outcome of the election, and it doesn’t change the outcome of the election.”

Assuming Julie Lucas loses her appeal, she may then appeal to the 12-person 11th Congressional District Committee. What is interesting, however, is that Becky Stoeckel, the chair of the 11th Congressional District Committee, seems to have already made up her mind.

Stoeckel attended the June 2 convention and criticized the procedures used to disseminate and count ballots.

“Believe me, if I had anything to do with that convention directly I would have made sure it was run squeaky clean,” she said. “I wouldn’t want an appeal in my lap.”

The controversy surrounding the overvotes in the 51st House of Delegates convention has given the Republicans’ favored process of picking a nominee a black eye.

She said she supports Lucas’ appeal and thinks that the two precincts with inexplicable overvotes should be disqualified.

“If someone can put three extra ballots in, they could easily put in 10,” she said.

There would be no way of knowing if that happened, she said, since the ballots are anonymous.

Fortunately, the SkepticalObservor has already provided a nice write-up describing Stoeckel’s conflict of interest (here).

Please note that I expect Stoeckel will make a reasonable effort to make any review that takes place at the 11th Congressional District Committee as fair as possible. Like Kopko, I think she too is a victim of circumstances. I doubt she expected the results of the convention to be so closely contested.

What I hope all Republicans realize is that we are not going to get answer that satisfies everyone. The best we can hope for is that our leadership makes a reasonable, if not perfect, decision. Then we must compare our candidate with the Democratic Party’s candidate and come to our senses.

BTW – Here is where the PWC GOP has posted the convention results as of June 2, 2007. These results show one Civic Center precinct overvote.

The SkepticalObservor has a post that started with an email from Tom Kopko. It appears that the Lucas campaign now confronts a conflict of interest even more onerous than the one Faisal Gill had with a certain $2,000 payment to Tom Kopko. One would think that if Lucas was going to take the Gill campaign to task for conflict of interest issues, they would take the trouble to avoid these same issues. However, in a small world, conflict of interest issues are not so easily avoided.

As Two Conservatives has noted in its post on this subject, there are people out there with an agenda; they will pursue this agenda by any means available to them. If Lucas wants to be more than someone else’s means to an end, a handy tool with which to hammer nails into Faisal Gill, she may want to take a moment to reflect upon the irony and the ultimate futility of her appeal.

Reading political blogs is like anything else. Even if the information is free, you just got to take the time to shop and compare.

In order to ensure a fair delegate count, Two Conservatives has called the people on the credentials committee and researched the screening process. So far, what is being done by the credentials committee appears to be legitimate. If you are concerned, visit Two Conservatives. Charles may not have a scoop, but he does have the facts.

America’s cultural and legal traditions stem primarily from the British Isles. Most Americans take comfort from our British traditions. When we are comfortable, we don’t like change. We try to prevent change. Yet few of us are so foolish that we do not recognize the inevitably of change. So we try to create change on our own terms. Hence the we have the melting pot theory (for an explanation of the term see here).

The melting pot theory proposes that new immigrants become Americans by melting into our society. That is, each immigrant adds a small portion of their own culture heritage (i.e., pizza and sushi), but each immigrant also willingly takes up the English language and “American” traditions.

While it would be silly to argue that there is not some truth to this theory, it oversimplifies the problem. Consider, for example, the group that has perhaps had the most difficulty becoming Americans, Black Americans.

Most Black Americans descended from slaves. Slave drivers chained people together, forced them onto crowded ships, took them far from their homes, and sold them to the highest bidder. The journey deprived those who survived of their language and heritage. Yet because they were set apart as slaves, the slaves banded together and created their own culture. Even today, over a hundred years since the end of slavery, Blacks often join to together and set themselves apart from the rest of American society. Nonetheless, no serious person regards Black Americans as less American than anyone else.

What sets America apart from other nations is the opportunity to become what you want to be. We set a far higher priority on freedom than we do on conformity. We do not force people into some mold to become Americans.

In the past, most immigrants came to America from Christian nations. Because of the historic conflicts between Christianity and Islam, Islam provides our nation a new challenge. Some worry that Islam teaches values hostile to American values. Nonetheless, if we react to Muslims without kindness and patience, are we being true to our own values?

Since it puts so much emphasis on the fear of God, I doubt most Christians would find the Koran an enjoyable read. Does the Koran teach hostility to unbelievers? Perhaps, but we should keep this in perspective. Much of what Muhammad wrote in the Koran comes from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God gave the Jews license to destroy idol worshipers. These idol worshipers engaged in some rather abominable practices. Thus the Koran provides a feeble excuse to engage in violence or deceit against people who behave as Christians should behave.

Instead of putting a label on Faisal Gill or shrieking in hysterical fear of Muslims, try learning about the man and his cultural background. Two Conservatives has a post on an interview of Faisal Gill. Please take a moment to read it.

Google is about searching, right? When you use Google an expression, you want useful information. Do not count on getting it (see here). Anything can be vindictively abused.  Political operators fight dirty, and they abuse Internet (here), and that includes Google. Thus we have the expression “google bomb”, the very latest in information warfare.

As the SkepticalObservor first observed in this post, certain political blogs google-bombed “Faisal Gill.” Faisal Gill is hardly the first such victim. Here is a short list.

• “more evil than Satan himself” — once brought up the Microsoft home page
• “miserable failure” — once linked to White House’s official biographical page for President Bush.
• “greatest living American” — this silly bomb is still active (for details see here and here)

Thus local operators have arranged it so googling “Faisal Gill” turns up a nasty, old story about him (see here), and gullible people who should know better still buy into it. Such is politics.

If you are a Faisal Gill supporter, help defuse the google-bomb. Link to Faisal Gill‘s web site as often as you can.