See # 8 below for the reason why I would spend nearly half the space this time talking about things that it would appear have nothing to do with immigration . . . or just wait until you get to #8- it’s a free country.
Chute: Proving the government and business are unethically in bed together would be impossible given that the average conservative would dismiss all of the following things exhibited in a typical criminal trial: DNA evidence, the murder weapon, five impeccable witnesses with corroborating stories, paper trails, audio recordings, handwriting experts, an impartial jury, and motive. My 3 year old is better at understanding the complicated offensive schemes that will help him win a game of Chutes and Ladders than will a typical conservative willingly acknowledge “truth” that a hand-selected eminent representative or their collective genius did not concoct in the laboratories of their own souls.
Very convincing: Fortunately for me, most conservatives would be satisfied with a simple sentence that stated that the affects of immigration have on this country are crippling without me having to trot out a series of book quotations, citations, columns, statistics, articles (i.e. evidence) that would support that theory. Unfortunately for anyone who has an obsessive-compulsive disorder and must finish what they start, I am going to go ahead and dig up as much of that stuff as I find suitable anyway. Largely, this time, it is not the conservatives I must attempt to convince- it is the liberals.
Two definitions:
1) government by the people; rule of the majority. A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections; the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges.
2) government by the few; a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes. A form of government where political power effectively rests with a small, elite segment of society (whether distinguished by wealth, family or military prowess).
Note: the element of the first definition that addresses the idea of the rule of the majority, means the rule of the majority of citizens not the rule of the majority of representatives.
Democracy or not: The type of government under which business in the United States is currently conducted falls more under the heading of which definition? Sure, we elect representatives to conduct the political business of the country, but how often do they represent our best interests? Effectively, far fewer individuals than you might tend to believe govern us, and not to our benefit. There is no reason to deny this- think of the recently passed MN transportation bill, which will earmark millions and millions to a light rail system that is already over-funded considering its actual utility to the public. I cannot imagine that people with a pulse could contend that the representative style of government currently employed in this country is working. Anyone who disagrees with that can certainly feel free to maintain a level of surprise that only Jeffrey Birnbaum would be proud of (see part 21). Business in this country is not now, and perhaps has not ever been conducted, based on the epitomizing democratic tenet. This tenet is to be found in paraphrased form in every state Constitution I reviewed and is contained in the Declaration of Independence, in paragraph two to be exact: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The elite: I would rather be governed by the educated, objective, altruistic elite, and not necessarily the economic elite. Lou Dobbs in his book, “War on the Middle Class” page 14 describes the various walks of life those who signed the Constitution actually originated from- some were doctors but some were farmers, some attended Yale and some were schooled at home or “were entirely self-taught.” Today, “Those making the rules, and often breaking them, are less representative of our country than at any time in our history.” (pg. 15) I cannot quote all of the pertinent material from Dobbs’ book, but anyone interested in some information relative to how little representative of the public our elected officials actually are, should check the book out from the library and open it to pages 71-75.
The Babe: Babe Ruth, after being asked by a reporter what he thought of being paid $5,000 more in salary than was president Herbert Hoover in 1930, replied: “I know, but I had a better year than Hoover.” There are plenty of politicians who would be paid less per year based on their performance, objectively judged, compared to athletes, assembly line workers, food sanitation inspectors, or even the annoying red-headed kid from that “Problem Child” movie if he delivered newspapers and had never been the antagonist in a major motion picture. Members of congress are in session an average of 153 days a year and were paid $168,500 per year in 2006. (pgs. 71 and 73 of Dobbs’ WMC).
The name’s the same: Thinking of the two definitions above, are we not governed by a few who exercise control, too often, if you pay any attention to the news, “for corrupt and selfish purposes,” going to war, allegedly, against Iraq because that nation threatened his daddy (hereditary). Admittedly, the reasons for attacking Iraq are more far-reaching and profound (weapons of mass destruction, oil interests, desire for middle-east stability, etc.), but that is one of them. Going back, historically, over 60 years ago, to draw a democratic example- Franklin Roosevelt, wanted to pack the Supreme Court with democrats in order to override the conservative court that was stalling the progress of his New Deal domestic programs. Even further, despite Jefferson’s best intentions for a small federal government, a nation of farmers, one had to own land and not be a slave, or be a woman in order to vote. One of the major drawbacks to voting for, and electing, Hillary Clinton, many experts, cynics, and laymen agree, is because we would have had an uninterrupted flow of at least 24 years where either a Bush or a Clinton sat in the White House.
Oligarchy: Which definition seems more accurate for an adequate description of how the United States government is run? The first definition is for democracy and the second is oligarchy. After being made aware of which style of government matches which definition above, does the assertion that American political business is being conducted under an oligarchy or a democracy? Make the decision based on an informed opinion, not on what we were taught to believe about how excellent it is to live in America in history, civics, or political science classes we attended back in fifth grade or as college freshmen. You do not need to spend all of your gullibility points to begin to believe that we are living under a government that is an oligarchy. Learning this truth is not too good to be true. Haven’t we all found a pair of pants in our size, color, and style and found them on sale? I buy those pants. I’m no democrat and no republican. The standing of the marionette-like middle class is economically at stake, and behind all fiscally motivated decisions stands one political party or another that we keep legitimizing with our vote, that is pulling the strings.
Oligarchy II: Oligarchy is a long, scary, unfamiliar word and the fact that some may never have heard of it shouldn’t be an indictment of your intelligence, nor a sign of my fanaticism- but rather that we are all capable of learning new things- that are more up to snuff, more real, more factual, more useful, than things we have been led to believe our entire lives. Imagine how you felt after finding out that Jackelopes weren’t real, or that New Coke was being pulled off the shelves- you were devastated- weren’t you? I’ll admit- .001 % of the people would bother writing this subject matter and many of those that would should double-up on their depression medication, or stop using Chapstick if they think that it is an anti-paranoia balm which is actually making them more paranoid. All I can do is present what I think to be true and see if it resonates with others- to the extent that there are others- hellooooooo. Nothing too frenzied, strange, dishonest or unfruitful about that- is there? I leave the propoganda to the government. The only thing that is unfruitful is the reality that I am not that computer savvy, and people cannot hit upon my blog with key words they might type in for a google search. Also, I am not economically well off enough to purchase a website or domain name that might surround my brooding with more beautiful electronic architecture.
That darn immigration sub topic: I began this overall topic about ten months ago indicating that two topics, taxation and immigration were at the head of the issue. I have since discovered that I was wrong. Shocking! Campaign finance is the lead sled dog of this governmental Iditarod, but immigration and taxation, two issues that I haven’t even completely explored, are right behind. If the subjection of the middle class economically were a family tree of issues, campaign finance would be the trunk and immigration and taxation would be the first two, rather large offshoots. These limbs are deeply connected to all of the other issues. I will have to get to taxation later. It is time for the immigration portion of the program.
Open up: Those are two words that dentists can use when they are going to scrape, floss and brush the patient’s teeth with any of a variety of distasteful toothpastes. Not a pleasurable experience, so too with the vaguely frustrating feeling we now have that our country is being overrun by all kinds of illegal dentists. The two things- the manner of U.S. immigration and dentistry have one more thing in common- the concern over cavities. Where are the immigrants getting in and just how much candy is a twelve-year-old consuming are major concerns. I paid a guy $20 for fifty metaphors and went back to him one too many times. I wonder what the return policy is on a crappy metaphor pack and if there is a patch that might help me be weaned from relying upon them. Anyway, what is the most concerning aspect of the issue of immigration?
1) the illegality of hundreds of thousands emigrating here each year;
2) the notion that 12+ million of illegals are already here;
3) the government’s lawful allowance of legal immigrants (in total number falling under all types of parameters/Visas). What I mean here is, we should not just be concerned about illegal immigrants, because the politicians might alter the parameters of illegality, adjust the definition, and the legitimate concern about total numbers would instantly have lost its merit from a political argument standpoint;
4) the political power that proponents of illegal or legal immigration already wield;
5) the devastating effects of any kind of immigration on natural resources, health care costs, welfare costs, education costs, free-trade agreements, redistricting of congressional districts based on population which sooner or later will have an effect on who is elected to political office on the local, state and national levels;
6) a number of tunnels beneath American soil in Arizona and California linking Mexico with the U.S.* 21 tunnels linking Mexico with the United States, have been found since September 2001, (through 2006) a month and year everyone should equate with our nation being attacked using our own commercial airplanes. Seems if the terrorists could work with the Mexicans, we would really be in trouble;
7) heartless racist Americans who can’t ever imagine being downtrodden enough to seek refuge in a land that provides a foreigner with some opportunities. (This is a real issue centered around compassion and not sarcasm, at least not now);
8) politicians constant bickering about what type of immigration legislation to pass is cripling this country, particularly the middle class. The percentage of tax paying AMERICANS want stiffer immigration laws? Who the hell knows. Let's just go with the word- PLENTY. I consider Rousseau’s line from The Social Contract- “Good laws lead men to make better ones; bad laws lead to worse.” He wrote- ‘good,’ not perfect. Just about any law at this point that does not treat the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans each year as if it were one giant game of Red Rover is a step in the right direction. Are republicans who will not favor any immigration law that includes amnesty for those already here, plausibly denying their complicity with the democratic party, so that republicans can gain votes and further protect some big manufacturing businesses from losing low-wage earning immigrants whom the businesses will not need to pay medical benefits to? Isn't that what democrats are for? Is the immigration policy about profit margins? McCain, Obama, Clinton, even Nader have weak immigration stances from an Independent’s standpoint, but that barely matters. What matters is what congress can do or what state legislatures can do, for even if they pass something of merit, the aforementioned presidential candidates can veto it, but a 2/3 vote in congress can overturn that veto.
9) how about all of the above?
#s 1 and 2 from directly above: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0516/p01s02-ussc.html It is impossible to find any website at all that accurately states how many illegals are here. I have seen articles from the last two years that put the number anywhere between five and twenty million or more. This is a problem. As I have established, the government cannot even keep track of the money it spends on things of a ridiculously wasteful nature, tax money that the people who have earned it could use to pay a heating bill, but that certain governmental departments (see part 9) spend on unredeemed airline tickets. Liberals, you are ok with a revolving door border? To what end? So that you can feel good about yourself for fifty years until your own death, passing the burdens contained in #5 above onto your own children, and their children? There is no altruism, goodness, or foresight in subjecting the rest of the future of this country to the whim of a poorly considered immigration influx stratagem. There is no place reserved for you in heaven, as a good Samaritan, for your opinion that all should be blessed with the chance of living in a country that boasts such opportunities, when that country’s merits (space, natural resources, etc.) are minimized as more excessive numbers of people are ushered into it. Think of the United States as a glass. An alcoholic, who can only drink one drink at a time, gains nothing physiologically or psychologically feeding their dependence, after the bartender has filled their glass of Crown Royal and Seven-Up to the rim. The portion of the beverage that trickles and then oozes over the top of the glass and spills all over the counter, becomes a puddle on the floor, and then floods the bar is of little use to an alcoholic with standards, even if they are equipped with a straw or can cup their hands seamlessly. In short, when the glass is full, stop pouring in. The idea of the metaphor is the indirect way of saying we are reaching a critical mass era in this country, and the invasion has to stop. We are reaching a critical mass stage on all types of fronts- government waste, national debt, college tuition prices, health care spending, taxation, etc.
The horse is out of the barn/fence- # 6 above: The problems in this country are not getting any easier to solve and they are not decreasing in number. The problems do not improve if more potential problems are let into the country. Imagine a farmyard surrounded by a fence designed to keep four horses penned in, or everything else out. A young boy unwittingly leaves the gate open and one horse wanders out into the world of opportunity. Shortly after its departure you discover the open gate. Initially, would you spend your time trying to run down the horse on foot, or close the gate first so that the other three horses don’t flee the pen? If you don’t close the gate, then the potential for problems is three times more real, whereas, if you close the gate and concentrate on the one horse, the one problem to be solved, that of a wild steed or a somewhat tamed but unpredictable nag running lose, then your chances of correcting the problem improve dramatically.
Kids with cartoon standards and Raisin Bran: A real-life example for those that can't imagine the horse analogy- your son is done eating his breakfast cereal and has no interest in watching Clifford because it is vastly inferior as a cartoon to the just concluded Curious George. His method of letting you know that he is done is to make it rain like Pacman Jones, but instead of using dollar bills, he uses his Raisin Bran, sans all of the raisins that he picked out. Parental quiz: do you first pick up the five or six flakes already on the floor, or do you take away the tray containing hundreds of other flakes so that they too do not fall through the air, cascading onto the floor?
The broadminded and # 7 above: I want to be clear, many, many legal and illegal immigrants are useful, law-abiding, important members of this society. I would gladly exchange plenty of rap music artists, members of the white-trash community, and cash considerations to the country of origin of any number of legal immigrants, for the welcome inclusion into this country of helpful Indians, Mexicans, Haitians, Laotians, etc. Many of them pay taxes and plenty of them value this country’s gifts while being disgusted by its flaws. In addition, the people that come here should be paid higher wages and derive health benefits, because it is highly likely they will have earned it. If you do not build a fence and/or employ more border security agents, we will have hundreds of thousands of unpredictable horses running free. (Note: if a reader objects to the use of an animal as a symbol for an immigrant in the metaphor above, then go register as a democrat, but before causing that type of problem go close the gate before three more nags gallop along with you). Robert Frost said- “A ‘liberal’ is someone so broadminded he won't take his own side in an argument.” Maybe that was true once upon a time, but it certainly is not true on the topic of immigration. Calling someone a racist and a xenophobe while it is an easy (ad hominem) way to deflect attention away from the issue, is just the bleating-heart’s way of becoming empowered. (And I mean 'bleating,' and not 'bleeding' for liberals are sheep first and only secondarily exhibit the contrived empathy that has made them famous); Oh, and liberals:
Horse escapes from barn and drives van into bus: A woman, using a false identity, without a driver’s license of any kind, failed to stop at a stop sign, crashed into a bus with the van she was driving, and killed four children. She lied to authorities about her name and where she was from. She “used an interpreter to tell police that she stopped at the stop sign (http://wcco.com/local/school.bus.crash.2.660427.html) and that she was grief stricken. Customs Enforcement agents were attempting to determine the woman’s identity, which is usually a task that is usually only difficult if a person was burned to death and a person needs to be identified by their dental records. To be fair, thousands and thousands of Americans have also been charged with vehicular homicides since the advent of the automobile, and that is a problem. Knowing that illegals are driving vehicles without licenses, or being able to speak English or read road signs written in English is a bigger problem. Those who focus just on the nature of the accident and ignore the fact that an illegal alien was the cause of it, probably think that Rambo was a documentary on how to rescue P.O.W.s from Vietnam. Morons! Hm, this horse escaped from the pen and killed four kids. I hope all the hoops that republicans and democrats jump through, trying to maintain the balance of power in elected office, trying to gather and keep the Mexican and Latino vote is worth the pain caused to the families of those children. They must think- Latin Americans- close enough.
Hardly an isolated incident: from Dobbs' WMC pg. 146- "in 2005, some twenty-four hundred cars were driven across the border illegally into Yuma County, Arizona. Half of those resulted in law enforcement pursuits. More than one hundred officers were assaulted. Yuma's sherriff estimates 75 percent of the crime in Yuma is related to illegal immigration." And racist immigrants have the nerve to attempt to justify their right to be here. Shame on them!
Dobbs on immigration and # 7 above: “Why do the national media conveniently and routinely neglect to report that the United States brings in more lawful immigrants than the countries of the rest of the world combined? Each year, we accept 2 million immigrants legally. We give a million legal immigrants permanent residency every year. We bestow citizenship on 700,000 people a year and provide almost half a million work-related visas a year." [http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/24/Dobbs.April25/index.html] (FYI- the Dobbs article also touches on the problem of more congressional seats going to states with a massive influx of immigration, Texas, Florida, and California and that “plans calling for eventual legalization would include family members . . . the legislation would open our borders to tens of millions of people . . . the 2006 version of the McCain-Kennedy bill would have added an additional 66 million immigrants over the next 20 years.” McCain giveth (campaign finance reform- see parts 19-21), and he taketh away).
Get ‘er done: So, proving that the American population that doesn’t want even more immigrants into this country are racists would be more difficult than proving a South Beach diet would do wonders for the figure of a water buffalo. See, no one could prove that, because buffalo do not eat meat. Consider this- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23056355 an Associated Press column from February 7, 2008, “Jobless After War: Veterans Find Tough Going.” I would be willing to wager that plenty of the 18% of jobless veterans who were found to be unemployed 1-3 years after discharge, and that the 1 of 4 with jobs who earned less than $21,840 a year, were required to own and learn how to operate a firearm, and plenty had the mental capacity, and devotion to country necessary to be employed as border control agents. The article refers to a Labor Department report showing the number of formal job complaints by reservists about being “denied jobs or benefits after they tried to return to their old jobs after extended tours in Iraq . . . 1,357 complaints with the Department of Labor in 2006 alone.” Yes, these people would have to move to Texas, but they would be fairly compensated, employed, and serving their country in a more meaningful endeavor than they were when fighting a war that congress never declared. But perhaps the Iraq war that the democrats do not favor is a necessary foreign policy evil that keeps the country from focusing on domestic concerns like immigration. Those who have served their country deserve a better fate and the country they served demands it. The unemployment rate of veterans from 1991-2003 was more than double that of non-veterans. In the immortal words of Larry The Cable Guy- “get ‘er done.”
Amnesty: The word ‘amnesty’ is the dirtiest word for any republican grammarian this side of the word liberal or even any of the words that once put together comprise the phrase- ‘redistribution of wealth.’ I agree with them. Unfortunately, conservatives should begin to wake to the fact that the illegals already here should be given amnesty, just as we are employing more border security agents and building a wall. The reality of hunting down 5, or 7, or 12 or 20+ million illegals, checking their documentation, their state ID, their social security number and shipping them out before more agents are hired or before a wall is built is not economically feasible in the least. We would have a better chance of teaching a camel how to start up a clamchowder.org website dedicated to the non-profit proliferation of information relative to cream-based soups which contain potatoes and near clams.
Amnesty II: Many of the illegals that are here are doing some hard work. Unfortunately this gives them a sense of entitlement well beyond their contributions, considering they are here illegally. Those that are already here illegally, but not working hard, let us say 10-20%, are much easier to find, and there is a better reason for finding them. Why? Because those are the ones committing crimes. The ones committing crimes must feel even more empowered or they wouldn't be so brazen as to commit crimes in the first place. If republicans, ignoring this reasoning, still want to get a massive number of illegals shipped out of the country while a wall is being built and guards are employed, then visit the biggest industrial plants in the country and raid them. The odds of catching criminals increase when you know where they are. If you want to buy a guppy, you do not go to the parakeet cage at PetSmart. So, they are criminals either way, whether they are violent offenders or hard working family men. However, hunting them down one or ten at a time is a waste of time, money, resources and energy and it kills me to say that. But it is true.
*- from Dobbs’ War on the Middle Class (pg. 147):
“In January 2006, the United States shut down the border, a passage linking Otay Mesa, California, with an industrial neighborhood near the airport in Tijuana, Mexico. This tunnel is almost a half mile in length, seventy-five feet deep, has electricity and a ventilation system, and is lined with concrete. Inside, officials found an estimated two tons of marijuana. Police were first tipped off to its existence in 2004, and finally found it after a two-year search, using ground-penetrating radar. Since September 2001, law enforcement officials have discovered some twenty-one tunnels beneath the Arizona and California borders with Mexico. Officials are not ruling out the possibility that the Otay Mesa tunnel may have—surprise—also been used to smuggle illegal aliens into the United States.” Do ya think?
Don’t believe Dobbs?: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/11/california.tunnel/index.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-29-drug-tunnel_n.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012601963.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/systems/mexico-wall.htm
Next time: Be careful about focusing too much angst on the word “illegal” as it precedes the word immigration.
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