Again, this is a long installment. I would have liked to have concluded with my findings, as I have collected a great many reports, studies, articles and sets of comments on the sub-topic of immigration as it concerns the effect on the middle class. In order to do that, I will be leaving out my conclusions and some additional material that would fit well here. Instead, I will include it in the book form of this overall topic. No one would publish what I have written, so I plan on doing so myself in order to give those people who haven’t read my words in this format the opportunity to not read my words in another. For a couple of months, I have taken for granted two things- that I have virtually no readers and that any readers I do have should consider each post as a chapter in a proposed book, which certainly will not allay the feeling that reading the number of words I have written is an arduous task.
Anyone who has taken the time to check in on my progress hoping that I would just stop writing, would write something about sports, current events, aggressive bikers, fly-fishing or Beano, state that I am long-winded, and perhaps would say they need to employ a GPS system to arrive at my point, or stubbornly maintain that I have no point. Sure, my writing style is convoluted, intense, sometimes misguided and derivative, redundant and tangential (i.e. rambling). There is no but there- those people are right. Many things occur to me in connection with many other things and it would seem that I deliver a series of sentences like Jackson Pollack (famous drip-paint artist) splattered paint on the canvas. I won't claim that I always know what I toss on the page will look exactly as I had planned, like Pollack, but what I do toss out there is very hard to dismiss.
Before beginning to abandon the sub-topic of immigration, and its effect on the middle class, I thought I would provide yet another link to a vacuous article which summarizes some scientifically obtained, yet useless, data:
“Cultural Differences Found in Pee”: How many times must Charles Q. Choi of Live Science, (April 21, 2008) have busted out laughing trying to construct serious sentences describing some fairly useless scientific results. His lead paragraph is this: “Pee from more than 4,000 volunteers shows that people from different nations often have spectacularly different metabolisms.” You just can't make this stuff up; ok, you could . . . and I have, but this is a real story. Apparently the biological chemist from London who conducted the study didn’t give Choi a more scientific name to refer to stomach chemicals than “gut bacteria.” Seriously- “gut bacteria.” If that is as technical as you are going to get, you might as well, as a serious journalist, slip in a faux quotation from I.P. Freely and adopt the pseudonym- Johann Sebastian Bok Choy. Only weathermen are more worthless to science than the people that put together that study (a biological chemist among them- ooh, big shot) and probably garnered federal budget money in order to do it. Read all of the comedy for yourself at (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24241623). If you are the guy writing about gut bacteria- what is next- writing an article on an 8th-grader, hopeful of becoming a zoologist, talking about the fornication particulars of the armadillo that he swears on his honor, precede their smelly presenting ritual with a series of cackles and clucks that played backward is proof that the shelled weasel actually tells his mate in armadillan that he is about to get some shell. That is some foreplay. Mr. Choi, I wrote better papers in the fourth grade when I copied the contents of my report on Washington state from the Encyclopedia Britannica, before adopting a writing style that would confound George Hegel.
Still: Perhaps there is some merit to the study. If there is any way to combine the utility of the National Identification card (see #7 below) and the EPS pregnancy test we could completely resolve America’s national problem of illegal immigration. The card would contain a strip that suspected terrorists, illegal immigrants, and suspected Chinese businessmen looking to offer American corporations stock buyout packages, would be asked to relieve themselves on in points of entry all over the country. If a plus sign were returned, we would know that they were illegal immigrants, terrorists or diminutive NAFTA supporters, because their gut bacteria would commingle with the chemical compound present on that portion of the card.
List continued: With that- here is the remainder of my list begun last time on the best of the rest articles on immigration I have collected over the course of the last year:
7) The headline- “Security at What Cost?: National ID system is not worth the $23 Billion Price Tag”: Bruce Schneier, Minneapolis Star Tribune’s opinion exchange section February 24, 2008- http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/15891037.html
The story: A hard to forge national/Real ID card which would require “all states to conform to common and more stringent rules for issuing driver’s licenses.” Schneier’s main problem with the national identification card (NIC) is the cost, both financially ($23 billion) and from an inconvenience standpoint. His other issues with the NIC- complexity, (someone will still be able to successfully forge it in time), lost cards, the human element of people being responsible for checking IDs of potential illegals or terrorists who may become bored into a false sense of security. The even bigger problems, Schneier contends, is an instantaneously accessible set of 50 linked databases- “Computer scientists don’t know how to keep a database of this magnitude secure, whether from outside hackers or the thousands of insiders authorized to access it.” The baseline of initially considering that everyone is a criminal and then further being lulled into the sometimes innacurate judgment of profiling based on certain nationalities, ages, or appearance may also be a problem, to summarize Schneier’s concerns. Schneier writes- “as soon as you divide people into two categories—more trusted and less trusted—you create a third, and very dangerous, category: untrustworthy people whom we have no reason to mistrust.”
Further comments: There is a colloquial saying, which I imagine is common to a number of the fifty states that would adopt the NIC- “whole hog.” It could be used as a mantra for someone investing everything they’ve got in an endeavor, in athletics, financial investment, war, the attempt to attract a mate- perhaps of the armadillo persuasion. Whole hog = risk everything. “All in” is the updated version always used when some unsuspecting card player puts all of his money into the pot in Texas Hold ‘em just prior to getting river’d by someone with a full house. Thing is, American problem solvers think big, and consider the best case scenario and manipulate the variables so that the most resources might achieve the most ideal ends. Immigration is an issue where this has never been the case. Why invest $23 billion instituting a nationwide national identification card that has no guarantee of helping the American cause of minimizing the affects on the country of illegal immigration, among other things. Why not conduct a pilot program? Select five states, some with a heavy illegal immigrant burden and some states with relatively little influx by comparison- (California, Texas, Wyoming, Colorado and South Carolina for example).* Instituting this measure may have an affect on other states illegals know are not included in this pilot and so authorities and citizens in those states would need to be further versed on rules of engagement given this likelihood. So, rather than spending $23 billion and finding that REAL ID wouldn’t work, we, as a nation spend $9 billion and those who guarantee that it won’t work and those who guarantee that it will can both tone down their ignorance on the matter. But at least it will have been tried. However, it stands a much better chance of working with a fortified wall and increased border control support. There is not a silver bullet solution to this problem and it is likely that many checks might need to be put in place to curb the scourge of illegal immigration. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, look at what Indiana Jones had to go through just to remove a gold idol from the cave. Now, if this approach could only be tried on the issue of global warming and urinary footprint detection methods (the new carbon footprint), we could put a couple dozen conservative talk-show hosts, nationwide, off the air. Schneier, oh expert of official documentation as it equates to securing this country against the risk of invasion- you have any solutions, or do you just think up reasons of why we shouldn’t do things? We spend billions on ridiculously proposed and passed legislation every year- what’s $9 billion for a National Identification Card pilot program?
Additional further comments: http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd355.htm, Devvy Kidd, April 7, 2008. Kidd writes that Dobbs defends any bill that comes out of congress, including the national ID laws. To be fair, Dobbs does seem reactionary in his assessment of the justice congress seems to sometimes cavalierly mete out. Kidd writes- “For one reason, the [Real ID] law was crammed into a South Asian tsunami relief bill, with no debate in either house of Congress. For another, it's an unfunded mandate that passes around $25 billion in costs to states." People against this measure often sight the 10th Amendment to the Constitution and that REAL ID is an unfunded mandate. I’ll address the former of those complaints in the book. The latter complaint can be dismissed by the federal government funding it. Where is the money going to come from- see part 9- government waste. We stop wasting money on social aid programs and on the wasteful (not all, not even most) military projects, and we would have plenty of funding.
Also see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24351798/ “Supreme Court Upholds Voter ID Law,” Associated Press, May 1, 2008- “There is little history in Indiana of either in-person voter fraud—of the sort the law was designed to thwart—or voters being inconvenienced by the law’s requirements.” So, this decision is neither a loss for the democrats nor a victory for the republicans. Unless liberals were seeking to illegally desire for illegal immigrants to vote secretly, this decision should not be a setback to uncompromised elections.
8) The headline: “Drivers Losing Five Days a Year to Traffic Jams”: Associated Press, September 18, 2007- (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20829879)-
The story: “Drivers waste nearly an entire work week each year sitting in traffic on the way to and from their jobs . . . ‘We’ve used up the capacity that had been bequeathed to us by a previous generation, and we haven’t replaced it’ . . . The study estimates that drivers wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel while sitting in traffic. That’s about 26 gallons a year per driver.” I wonder if we can determine the type of gut bacteria that resides in the average tank of gas to determine if the driver of that vehicle is of Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Irish, Swedish or Italian descent. I wonder if conducting the world-renowned, highly respected “gut bacteria” study twenty years ago would have revealed that the Yugo was actually mass-produced in Mississippi.
Further comments: To be honest, this is just an indulgence and has little to do with immigration compared to the other stories I have commented on, particularly because the census data indicates that “About three-quarters of all commuters drive alone to work,” which I would concede, many illegal and legal immigrants probably wouldn’t do. Immigrants of whatever legality probably live close enough to work not to have to drive at all, but far enough away from the emergency room of the local hospital to have to drive without a license and insurance (see parts 23-26). Will the second and third generation immigrants fit that mold, will they not desire to have and own a car, irregardless of whether they insure it? As we know, there are plenty of American-born people driving without insurance. And that is the point- our AMERICAN problems, all of them, are not resolved by bringing more human variables into the country. The “Atlanta metropolitan area added 890,000 people from 2000 to 2006.” I am positive that number is not due to an increase in the American fertility rate of whites and blacks; this is easily proven by a google search- or see part 26 #6. I have driven in Atlanta- their rush hour is about six hours long. The very formal Charles Q. Choi, as differentiated from all of the other Charles Choi’s writing articles about urine is planning on writing a follow-up article about traffic congestion as it relates to population increases. However, word is he just finished co-writing this article- “Scientists Decode Brain Farts,” also by Live Science, April 21, 2008 (http://www.msnbc.com/id/24245365/wid/11915773?GT1=31037). Choi likely did not want the “credit” associated with such high-profile assignments, for he did not want to be author-typecast as someone who contributed heavily to the always popular Swiftian genre of scatological humor. Next, Choi will be looking into the behavior of wiener dogs with post-nasal drip that spit snot out of their throats and how that relates to their overall disaffected standing in the society of elongated canine.
9) The headline- “2007 National Survey of Latinos: As Illegal Immigration Issue Heats Up, Hispanics Feel a Chill”: Pew Hispanic Center, December 19, 2007- http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?reportID=84
The story: “. . . federal, state and local governments have pressed forward with hundreds of new enforcement bills, regulations and procedures—including stepped up deportations, more workplace raids, and restrictions on access to driver’s licenses and other government services and benefits. The survey finds that Hispanics oppose these enforcement measures, often by lopsided margins. Three quarters (75%) disapprove of workplace raids; some 79% prefer that local police not take an active role in identifying illegal immigrants; and some 55% disapprove of states checking for immigration status before issuing driver’s licenses. By contrast, non-Hispanics are much more supportive of all these policies . . .” Shocking! “Hispanics generally see illegal immigrants as a plus.” (Note: the Pew survey appears to address just the opinions of Latinos and not Americans). “Nearly eight-in-ten respondents . . . say they are very (45%) or somewhat (33%) confident that Hispanic children growing up now will have better jobs and more money than they have.” I wonder what would so encourage them- perhaps the contents of #s 1, 2, 4 and 5 from last time. Really, how long will it be before a Hispanic-exclusive school opens in Minnesota (see #11 below), California, Texas or say . . . in Oregon- www.youtube.com/watch?v=53A2jpDqV3w tells of Oregon crew chief firefighters losing their jobs to those who speak Spanish. If just one firefighter out of 20 speaks only Spanish the crew chief is either laid-off or demoted. The state, the reporter says, has no answer on why it wouldn’t require the Spanish speaking workers/subordinate firefighters to speak English. If just 1 of 20 speaks Spanish, should the 19 other firefighters lose their leader. I don’t know how liberal a state Oregon generally is, but something seems amiss.
Further comments: Given the news that the “nation’s largest minority group (Hispanics) comprising about 15.5% of the U.S. population might have a problem with laws and measures designed to keep, or get them out of our country, is about as predictable as a conservative finding fault with Thorstein Veblen’s theories on “conspicuous leisure.” Sorry . . . it is about as shocking as a zoologist determining that a porcupine with renal lymphoma is best matched with a chemotherapist turtle who likes to hug and would make the best friends among the commonwealth of animals. Latinos disapprove of supposedly increased efforts designed to check illegal immigration almost as much as rival comedians despised the idea that they lost the initial Last Comic Standing title to Dat Phan. Silly, insecure comedians; they’re almost as needy as writers.
10) The headline- “Are Taxpayers Footing Bill for Islamic School in Minnesota?”: Katherine Kersten, Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 9, 2008, Section B, pages 1 and 11.
The story: TIZA is a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights, MN, that addresses the educational needs of about 300 children from mostly low-income Muslim immigrant families. The school opened a second campus in Blaine, MN. The schools are “financed by Minnesota taxpayers. Under the U.S. and state constitutions, a public school can accommodate students’ religious beliefs but cannot encourage or endorse religion.” The school was founded by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN) by two imams (the same type of individuals who were going to sue an airline because of “harsh” treatment) and who issued a “fatwa,” telling Muslim taxi drivers to steer clear of passengers who were carrying alcohol in their baggage because it is a violation of Islamic law. TIZA is an Islamic religious school in business at Minnesota taxpayer expense. This is interesting: “MAS-MN offers on its web site ‘beneficial and enlightening information’ about Islam, which includes statements like ‘Regularly make the intention to go on jihad with the ambition to die as a martyr.’ Look up “jihad” on the internet and determine for yourself how its meaning might be interpreted. At its 2007 convention, MAS-MN featured the notorious Shayk Khalid Yasin, who is well known in Britain and Australia for teaching that husbands can beat disobedient wives, that gays should be executed and that the United States spreads the AIDS virus in Africa through vaccines for tropical diseases.” The topic of the convention: “ ‘Building a Successful Muslim Community in Minnesota.’ ” America, what a country (see part 25). Incidentally, that last charge, about the AIDS virus being spread by the United States has been a topic of discussion of late. Barack Obama recently cut ties with his former religious touchstone, the not so reverened Jeremiah Wright for having exactly the same beliefs. Wright- "God damn America!" Our politicians have not seemed to need a god's help in that endeavor.
Further comments: A school of muslims encouraged to go on jihad, set up by American taxpayers. Liberals- nice job. I was driving home from work last week and drove behind a woman driving an Outback wagon with a bumper sticker that read: “Liberal.” I might get one that reads: “Caucasian” just in case I forget the one term that would most define me. I wondered if she would get out at stoplights and run in back to check to make sure it was still there, if it still applied, to remind her of who she is as a human being. Why not just take the next step and have it branded across your forehead, or have the most predominant synonym- ‘Gullible’ tattooed on your forearm. Liberals are so gullible they probably think that an anti-spam statute is one that is prejudiced against the most famous of the canned meats.
Additional further comments: I know plenty of democrats/liberals and call some of them my friends. They are good people, but have a narrow-minded view of the world- just my opinion. Their good-natured naivete is their badge of honor for other liberals to appreciate, but for everyone else to mock. Perhaps the non-liberals would have a better chance at shaming liberals into recognizing the errors of their ways if liberals would actually engage in a dialogue, and decide not to be so prescient about exactly who the god of their choice will gather into their sanctioned version of heaven. I don’t have to be a union member, teacher, environmentalist or a tree-hugger in order to concede that plenty of immigrants have merit as hard-working human beings, unfortunately, through fate, their soul and their physical form were united together and jointly delivered unto a tract of land south, east, north or west of the United States, where living conditions present more of a challenge. I would probably try to enter the lands where the grass is greener as well, should I have been born into such a predicament, until laws that were enforced were put into place to stop me and likely even after that. Something that might keep me out- a wall and more border patrol agents. And that is something that conservatives don’t get when they make a blanket statement desiring all immigrants to leave the United States- consider your fortune, your upbringing, imagine that no one would take pity on your circumstances, should you have been trapped as a citizen of Honduras, with the personality and soul you were delivered in your current physical form. Many people take their good fortune too much for granted. There is good and bad in immigration; those who ignore ALL that immigrants contribute are ignorant and those that welcome ALL that they, and their proponents claim to provide are pompous.
11) The headline- “To Dream . . . Perchance to Do”: Lori Sturdevant, March 9, 2008- http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/16394626.html-
The story: 1,000 students delivered to the Minnesota state capitol by the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network talking about how much education they would like to have enabling them to become doctors, teachers or engineers given the supposed shortage of skilled workers. “The Dream Act would . . . say that if a student attends a Minnesota high school for at least three years, achieves an academically qualifying record and graduates, he or she is eligible for [resident tuition rates] regardless of the immigration status of his or her parents. These students would be spared nonresident rates that can be more than twice as high.” Consider the brief story of Gov. Tim Pawlenty in part 23 and then consider this: “But Gov. Tim Pawlenty insists on defining the Dream Act in terms of immigration policy, not workforce development. His veto threats have stopped each attempt to pass it.” The DFL isn’t sure whether it will try again in the 2008 legislative session because they “recall how some GOP candidates used the Dream Act to make DFLers sound soft on illegal immigration in the 2006 campaign.” This just in- DFLers ARE soft on immigration.
This is a big one, so I decided to offset it because it is related to immigration advantages, education, future employment, and is relevant to the overall topic on so many levels:
“The Minnesota Private College Research Foundation warns about what's coming: Unless current college-enrollment patterns change, the state will see an 11 percent drop in four-year college graduates by 2017. By the middle of the next decade, there won't be enough new grads per year to fill the jobs left vacant by retirements, let alone new jobs that require four-year degrees.”
Further comments: First, Pawlenty is a fairly progressive conservative. He stated that the majority of citizens believe in more strict immigration controls. Liberals in legislatures all over the country- allow your governors to pass more strict immigration legislation, or quit whining about how “difficult” it has been for you to sponsor the invasion of our country. Enough said there. Second, on the point about allowing immigrants a reduced tuition rate- make all students pay the same rate, giving no breaks to anyone; why should some people just as deserving of an education be penalized for being an American? Third, this is a huge one and the reason I drew the quotation out by itself- with all of the outsourcing of American jobs, (and I could dig up several dozen articles from the last five years proving the issue of outsourcing), we need immigrants to come in and compete with Americans in even more areas, keeping the wage scale down because of the increase in qualified workers the immigrants would represent after having been given tuition breaks Americans don’t even get? Again, liberals- get into heaven some other way, rescue a cat from a tree, drive an environmentally friendly car, rescue a coyote from choking on a hot dog during a competitive eating event at a county fair . . . just not a coyote helping other illegals cross our border that does not have a wall or patrol agents employed to keep them out.
12) The headline- Dobbs (again) “War on the Middle Class” various pages-
The story: “Mexico’s president Vicente Fox [at the time] has blasted the plan to build a seven-hundred-mile fence along the U.S. – Mexico border, which he charges would violate the rights of illegal aliens . . . Fox is exporting his poverty and importing a substantial portion of his economy thanks to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States who send billions of dollars back to Mexico every year.” (pg. 149) I could quote much of the text that appears on the pages between 131-172 relative to immigration and education. On page 168 this can be found- “almost ten million of our students speak a foreign language at home, nearly a fifth of the total student population, which is of concern to numerous school districts trying to teach English proficiency.” How does that information tie into the topic of the future economic dire straits of the middle class- well, those foreign speaking children will be competing with English-speaking middle class kids for jobs in 10-15 years (see part 26). “The Dallas school board voted to force many of its principals to learn and speak Spanish.” (pg. 168) A New York city council man “introduced a proposal to require public schools to translate report cards and other school documents into nine languages.” Actually, I could have used that on a number of occasions when I was in high school. I am pretty sure my dad wouldn’t have been able to read a C on my report card if it appeared in Cantonese, a language without an alphabet.
I also must offset this by itself: an American consulting firm representative said “that his company’s survey of companies showed that ‘84 percent of respondents say that K-to-twelve schools do not do a good job of preparing individuals for the workplace.’ . . . Big business is saying it won’t hire Americans because they aren’t smart enough or aren’t well prepared for the rigors of the job market.” Why might that be? I am not saying we don’t have a liberal education expenditure money-hole of our own making, that if there were no immigrants we wouldn’t have a problem with educational lobbyists throwing money at the problems presented by misguided attempts to fix education, but the problem of immigration only makes everything worse, especially education because of how one’s education is tied to future and career earnings (see part 7). I wouldn’t have any problem agreeing to the idea that American children should learn Spanish, but all other immigrants must first learn English- no exceptions. Our middle class kids are being held back so that immigrant children can be brought up to speed- is it any wonder they are ill-prepared for the “rigors of the job market”? With that, both sets of middle class kids will suffer, the current and subsequent crop of middle class American kids and middle class kids who are currently illegal immigrants whose offspring will climb a rung or two on the social-equality ladder to become middle class. I imagine, if they can both speak English and both speak Spanish, they will then be quarreling about the injustice of economics with the rich. So, ultimately, I see that this is about money more than it is about race. If there is a god, and the economically disadvantaged can organize, it would behoove them to share both languages- one group of people that will then be disadvantaged in the event this becomes a reality . . . the rich. The words- Civil War mean anything? I am just saying this is possible. Yes, let us all dismiss the notion, for nothing that was ever considered impossible has occurred. Anyone labeling me a socialist has a short attention-span and has already been proven wrong (see the first paragraph of part 9). I could go on quoting Dobbs all day long and fill several more columns providing commentary on in-state tuition breaks for illegals which thousands of middle class American kids do not receive, American unions stating that they desire that illegals should gain union rather than green cards, which I would imagine is more of an affront to a lower income wage-earner who feels he or she has derived certain benefits over the course of a couple decades work that should not be afforded to immigrants- “more than 40 percent of the wage losses of low-skilled workers was due to competition from immigrant workers,” etc. Read pages 131-172; that should be all the information one might need to talk down to a liberal on this subject they won’t suffer to engage in because they think the mandate of altruism is synonymous with the cause of liberalism. [Yes, there is an end to this paragraph] I exchanged a few emails with a contributor to an online activist website that supported the cause of illegal immigrants. I wrote of the environmental strain of cumulative, unchecked illegal immigration, (just selecting one of the myriad of issues I have already written about), and he condescended to show me I was in error because of how many people from all over the world might each have just less than an acre of land in a few southwestern states, Texas among them. We could all move to Texas, he maintained. I could go on. Our exchange was actually quite civil, but I guarantee he would have a hard time defending all of the reasons why unchecked illegal immigration is not a good idea, not the least of which is because I think he admitted to not having any children. Seems that if those favoring illegal immigration would empathize with their own progeny, whom they haven't yet named, as much as with those they haven't met, this country would be the better for it.
13) The headline- (Insert headline here concerning the corruption and opacity of the Mexican government and how the United States should funnel money to Mexican president Felipe Calderon and his underlings in order to keep the number of illegals at bay, which would create jobs in Mexico or any Latin American country, reduce crime, thwart the drug trade and all that good stuff.) Or look at this pertinent, prescient link (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97feb/mexico/mexico.htm). The story contained therein was written more than ten years ago- February 1997 by Robert D. Kaplan, “History Moving North.”
The story: Kaplan’s article is quite comprehensive, but I found very little more recent stories concerning the notion that gifting millions to the Mexican government, to keep it solvent, given the rampant political corruption, which is nearly always tied to the drug trade, would do anything to minimize illegal immigrant’s employment prospects in the United States. Seems our current economy has taken care of some of that- (see the second paragraph of footnote * below and this article- “Immigrants Boost Economy—But how Much?” Las Vegas Sun- http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/apr/14/immigrants-boost-economy-how-much/). NAFTA and other free trade agreements which affect the labor force in the U.S. are the primary issues. Assuming that was the panacea (giving tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to a Latin American country so that they would be economically viable) would that be a one-time balloon payment or an annual perpetual financial donation? How would American taxpayers respond to the idea of either? And what makes the United States government feel like it is above reproach from a corruption and transparency standpoint, casting aspersions at other regimes who might not be quite as accomplished from a complicity standpoint as it regards the politicians that control the government? Keep in mind that other Latin American countries are worse off economically than Mexico- would we be paying them off as well? It seems highly likely that Latin American bureaucrats would do more than skim $$ off the top of the funding we might provide, so I have a feeling that the U.S. would be suffering from one massive outlay, without deriving any benefit. And when has that ever happened? I would rather consider the revirgination of an ox so that it might mate with this prairie dog** of an attorney I used to work with who thought terrible penmanship and extreme inquisitiveness were endearing qualities than know we are giving money away to other nations who hate us for the indebtedness they feel toward our obligatory financial or resource assistance. Note: I have had to consider that revirgination thingy quite a bit. Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Bosnia, Haiti, Liberia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Columbia are just a few of the countries who have derived some benefit from our generosity. I do not believe that all of the foreign aid we have provided has been given in vain, but surely not all of it was spent wisely- see "Foreign Aid: An Introductory Overview of U.S. Programs and Policy" April 15, 2004- http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/31987.pdf.
Further comments: I had written the entire previous paragraph before finding this New York Times story- “Bush Asks Congress for $1.4 Billion to Fight Drugs in Mexico,” James C. McKinley Jr., October 23, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/world/americas/23mexico.html. Fortuitous. At the end of the previous article is a link to this story- “Businessman in Mexcio Says Top Officials Hid Millions,” also written by McKinley, July 4,2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/world/americas/04mexico.html?fta=y. “The Mexican government vigorously denied this week the accusations of a Chinese-Mexican businessman who is wanted on drug charges here but who asserts that $150 million found hidden in his mansion came from members of President Felipe Calderón’s party, including the secretary of labor.” Two things are possible, either the businessman is lying, or he is telling the truth. Fighting the drug cartel over there is probably wise, rather than having to fight it over here; perhaps we would do well to deal with the Mexican economic issue over there as well, if we could be guaranteed that Mexican and other Latin American governments were treating their own citizens as well as we would.
14) The headline: “Immigrants, Welfare and Work”: Lauren Mutti, June 4, 2002- (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba400/)- (NCPA= National Center for Policy Analysis)
The story: a) in Mutti’s written words “. . . the United States has been a nation of immigrants . . . foreign-born citizens and residents, legal and illegal, compose only 11.1 percent of the total U.S. population. While this represents an increase of three percentage points in the past decade, it is lower than the 1890 high of 14.8 percent of the population.” b) She further writes- “One widespread myth about recent immigrants is that they take advantage of our welfare state. However, most immigrants are not even eligible for public assistance when they first arrive. Legal immigrants who are not refugees are not allowed to receive public welfare benefits until they have lived here at least three years. Immigrants who are sponsored by a family member - roughly 70 percent of total legal immigrants - cannot receive public assistance until they have been in the U.S. for at least five years.” She then chronicles the amount of retirement, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid money American-born families receive, on average, compared to immigrants. She tackles some issues such as taxation, family reunification and my second favorite issue as it concerns immigration- (the first being education) that is- wages. c) She states- “An ample labor supply keeps labor costs down and leads to lower prices for consumers.”
Further comments: a) Number of immigrants- how many immigrants is a suitable number- should we just let them all in, have them take all of our jobs (mindful of Kant’s categorical imperative); is a United States, 50% of whom are immigrants enough? Give me a report about how many are truly assimilating (learning the language, abiding the laws, not preventing Americans from expressing themselves in their own culture- kids wearing costumes to school on Halloween, immigrants not being needlessly offended, etc.); b) Welfare- some people are just too unaware of how far the bear paw is in the honey pot of America- If immigrants stayed in their country of origin, when might people from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Laos, Haiti, etc. begin receiving money from United States social aid programs? I would like to say- never, but see #13 above. Don’t kid yourself- immigrants, legal now, or provided amnesty five years from now, will gather the same social security benefits as Americans who have paid in all their lives, if social security remains solvent. Why wouldn’t they- greater injustices have been perpetrated upon the American public already; I have spent six columns revealing them on the current sub-topic; c) labor supply- They damn well better keep consumer costs down, because they are either putting some of those consumers out of a job or are drastically affecting what a consumer’s salary might be. True, what is the difference if an employee’s net income is $2,400 a month and pays $3.69 for a gallon of 1% milk or nets $2,950 and pays $5.50. I'll get to taxation in another few columns- it will be the last thing I tackle. Suffice to say, a continued influx of potentially economically needless immigration will reduce the paychecks of poor and middle class workers- as I've demonstrated. Keeping the costs of consumer goods down is the only saving grace of unchecked immigration or overvalued government approval of the number of legal immigrants given citizen status. Mutti also gathers some data from quite an old source, a 1976 Survey of Income and Education (SIE)*** which reveals, up to that time, how little immigrant families collected from the federal government or any of its social aid programs (Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, etc.) I doubt the monetary figures she bases her opinion on from a report that is now more than 30 years old will stack up against what immigrants are currently receiving. There is no reason a well-meaning, reliable, productive, assimilated human being who speaks English, doesn’t infringe on an American’s traditions, pays taxes and follows our laws, should wait 16 years after retirement to gather the same amount of aid, in whatever form, than an American-born retiree. Given how freely we are offering up our country- I would be shocked if the requirements for receiving social aid were the same as 32 years ago, nor should they be. Though I like my chances of getting decent cell phone reception in an elevator more than actually being able to convince a pro illegal immigration rights person of their faulty foresight, I’ll keep trying.
15) The headlines- “American Diversity” and “Is Immigration in the Public Interest”: These appear as broad headings in an American Government textbook published by West Publishing, the last copyright of which is 1994, Fifth Edition. The contributors listed are: Susan Welch, John Gruhl, Michael Steinman, John Comer and Susan M. Rigdon-
The story I: The bold heading “American Diversity” reveals the previous five waves of immigration that populated the United States with all kinds of characters previous to the current wave- 1) Native Americans “crossed a land bridge from Asia about 50,000 years ago”; 2) the early influx of people from Britain, Holland, France and Spain in the early 1600s; 3) Africans started coming to America in 1619 and continued through the early 1800s- many, as we know, did not come here freely; 4) the mid 1800s saw the influx of “millions of people from Ireland fleeing the potato famine and Germans escaping political turmoil”; 5) “Beginning in the 1970s, the latest major wave has included Vietnamese, Cambodians, Russian Jews, and Latin Americans. Most are Asians and Mexicans.” 6) I have provided a suitable amount of information relative to the sixth wave of substantial immigration, which is ongoing and is distinguished from the wave from #5 given the numbers and home region concentration (i.e. Latin America). The remainder of that portion of the textbook merely provides immigrant demographics, native animosity given the various immigrant group’s presence and their contributions put into historical perspective. Asian-Americans were the fastest growing minority, at about 3% of the population, at that time.
The story II: According to the “Is Immigration in the Public Interest?” inset in chapter 1 (pgs. 8-11) “the effect of immigration on wages is small because most legal immigrants, many of whom are highly educated and skilled, do not work in [the] low-wage industries.” Unfortunately, this is true, of legal immigrants, who compete for wages of many members of the middle class, while illegal immigrants compete for wages of members of the lower class. Is there a class of immigrants that will compete for wages with our upper class? Not significantly. It is more likely that I would be able to prove that a preying mantis might seek out copper thieves in order to have sex for pleasure. Immigrant “newcomers have little effect [on blue collar wages] because immigrants take jobs that others do not want.” I’ve already addressed the inherent self-fulfilling prophecy of allowing in massive numbers of illegal immigrants who frequent the businesses for which they are likely to work. “While federal money helps states and localities pay for many services that must be offered to legal and illegal residents alike, this assistance is shrinking as the federal government shifts many of its responsibilities to the states.” And our state income taxes have not gone up because of it. Right, and congressional approval ratings have never been better, consumer optimism is at an all-time high, and fresh strawberries have a long shelf life. See how long it takes us to catch on to immigration trends and ignore the proof that is staring us in the face (see parts 1 & 2) “Race relations—and political tensions—could worsen if the white non-Hispanic population continues to fall in proportion to minority populations.” Ya think? And maybe we’ll get to feeling like the Native American Indians when we colonized their countryside. There are a couple sentences that give numbers and percentages similar to what I reported last time regarding how the U.S. will be overrun by its own lack of an enforceable immigration policy. Race relations and political tensions- see the YouTube video- part 23. I was going to comment on the loss of American customs, holidays, traditions, the loss of our language (see #13 directly above), our national identity and how we will lose touch with each other by not being able to relate because we won’t have much in common with our co-workers or fellow students in twenty years. I decided that is not an economic issue, at least not directly, and falls outside of the parameters of my middle class blog jeremiad- but just barely.
Further comments: No mas.
We must begin to consider the allowing in of more and more immigrants, of any type, into the country and compare that to the fate suffered by this hawk- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24294408/ “Did Eaten Songbird Claw Its Way through Hawk?” Hawks- birds of prey, taking advantage of the less fortunate on the food chain (i.e. American businesses employing millions of illegals and paying them a wage incommensurate with their contributions), swallowing whole those it should not trust to keep it alive. Perhaps the hawk had a brain fart and little considered swallowing a live bird whole. Allowing immigrants into the country carte blanche is counter-productive to our way of life. Who would work at all of the Chipotles all over the country? That is a much smaller problem to solve than overpopulation, Americans paying for education, health care, infrastructure, crimes, and Welfare for immigrants,* dealing with identity theft, a potential compromised voting record, not to mention the apparently probable disintegration of American culture and tradition. Ask a liberal if they will fight as hard to defend an eight-year-old’s right to wear a Batman costume to public school on Halloween as they will an illegal’s right to collect unemployment after five months of working as a roofer.
Americans- I give you the still very relevant Thomas Paine: “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it the superficial appearance of right.” What kind of appearance does not thinking about it at all give? The words negligent and irresponsible come to mind.
* The federal government and the pilot states for the national ID would then spend the money necessary to allow the program to run its course over a year period. Arizona and Oklahoma have essentially done just that, providing for the rest of the states, test cases whereby we might judge how necessary illegal immigrant’s contributions to our country might be by passing the toughest laws as it concerns an employer’s hiring practices. Do a search on “federal judge upholds Arizona illegal immigration law.”
See this very relevant article- “Immigrant Boost Economy-but How Much?” by Timothy Pratt, Las Vegas Sun, April 14, 2008- (http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/apr/14/immigrants-boost-economy-how-much/). This is one of the pieces of information I am withholding comment on in order to move forward, but which will be addressed in the book. Again, not finding someone to deliver a steak burrito bowl at Chipotle in exchange for not having to pay tens of thousands of dollars over one’s lifetime for the medical bills, education, subsidized housing, and for not having to deal with immigration's affect on our environment, natural resources and lifetime earnings . . . I can make my own burrito and pay an American $2,000 more to roof my house. To be clear, we need many immigrants, possibly half of the number already here.
** Think skittish and invasive- like the stars of Animal Planet’s “Meerkat Manor.” Can one person be Draconian and passive-aggressive?
*** Mutti had no other choice but to use these numbers if what she writes is true- that it was the “most recent and comprehensive on the subject,” at least it was, according to her, up to 2002.
For more on the rise in the U.S. population for all of the decades of the 20th century please see- http://www.numbersusa.com/overpopulation/decadegraph.html. If things continue with illegal and LEGAL immigration as they have, it is sure to affect you, or someone you love, or someone who loves you. But if it doesn’t, imagine that it does. Consider the infrastructure costs and deforestation that is likely to take place so that new homes, roads, schools and additional infrastructure can be built to accommodate that number of people. Ironic- that liberals would so adore the idea of additional tens of millions of immigrants crossing the border which can't help but have an effect on the environment. Wait, is that irony or hypocrisy? You decide. I love trees, despite having already decked the apple tree I promised to in part 16, and would rather like the opportunity to not hug a tree than not be able to.
Other articles to digest, on which I will provide commentary when I transfer the words that no one has read here into book form . . . where no one will read them:
“Protestors Nationwide Seek Immigrant Rights” Associated Press http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24409739;
“Crackdown Leads to Drop in Illegal Immigration,” Las Vegas Sun (referenced in #14 above, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24409765;
“National ID Cards Won’t Stop Terrorism or Illegal Immigration,” Ron Paul, http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2005/tst050905.htm.
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