Immigration update

Immigration aspects. 6/13/2010
Rev.10/29/2010

Forbes’ June 28 issue carried a trio of articles on Immigration that caught my attention because of its range of views about this critical subject, from the bizarre to the realistic.

As a former immigrant myself (1953) I have been particularly sensitive to and chagrined by the abuse of our borders together with the slow but steady loosening of our cultural disciplines.

Why? Because the early 20-ieth century United States of America was a country with a deep belief in the lessons of its history going back to Founding Days. We lived within a growing, distinct and unique cultural environment.
A cultural environment that guided, not always successfully, our social, educational, political and economic activities. It molded its citizens into Americans. It was a very powerful national experience and became the envy of the world.
Natural born American citizens as well as new immigrants all wanted the same thing. To work hard, be honorable and generous to those who might need help while improving oneself. Immigrants assimilated within one generation and gained a better economic and social future for themselves and families. Welfare did not exist but charity flourished.

The world had never seen anything like it. For many in the outside world it seemed like paradise and the place to go. Including myself.

Shortly after the end of WW II, this country’s disciplined and unique cultural profile was still operational in America, our land borders were reasonably unmolested while the coasts were well guarded. I went through exhaustive interviews, tests (language, medical, background, education) to just obtain a 1-year visa for study in the USA in 1950-’51. Afterwards, in 1953 when I immigrated, the FBI also got into the act. And justifiably so, since I requested to enter the USA it had every right to determine if it wanted me as a prospective citizen. I have never been offended by this process and still believe every immigrant should be so treated.

Unfortunately, improving economic conditions in the post WW II period slowly began to attract seasonal labor from South of the Border. Those borders were essentially wide open and certainly Mexico made little effort to keep its citizens inside its own territory. As an aside and apart from very recent activities, actual border control was attempted systematically for the last time during the Eisenhower administration as far as I remember. The rest is history.

In a recent Forbes (6/28/’10) article a commentator failed to mention the fact that what made America so successful and attractive was its very special 200 year culture. Today, it is easy to ridicule its fundamental beliefs and social practices but they were essential in melding its immigrant population into a cohesive national whole. America’s recognized generosity of spirit and action, its pride in improving itself through hard work and decent behavior became legendary and a magnet for more and more foreigners intent on finding a way to participate in this opportunity. This was a winning situation for both sides, the country and its immigrants but only as long as the immigrants were desirous to assimilate in this culture as soon as possible, by learning the language and working hard at any job, just to be here and improve oneself and the country.

Two developments spoiled this critical condition.
The 1930-ies Depression followed by WW II and our unique post war economic growth.
After WW II, this country’s admirable culture, compared to most others, started a slow and fundamental change. Exactly those aspects of it that might be considered most critical in molding millions of immigrants into a body of principled and dedicated citizens gave way to increased permissiveness and a loss of personal accountability. For instance, improving economic conditions slowly removed the need for children to earn money in support of the family’s needs or just for personal spending purposes thus diminishing the appreciation for hard work and sociability. Newspaper routes and mowing lawns went out of style among a variety of changes, and many parents increasingly could afford for their children to have a good time, do sports and have “fun”, allowing personal “hard work” to become unpopular.

In my old country there is a well known saying that goes like this: “it takes strong legs to support any wealth”. We did not heed this truth and the results are all around us.

Meanwhile, in the USA our shifting economic and social conditions encouraged immigration, particularly from south of the border, because that’s where cheap labor was plentiful and willing to pick fruit, mow lawns and do all kinds of other stoop labor. Most of it was illegal, because no one was watching the border and the immigrants became essential to several industries.

Eventually, well meaning people started programs to help these “immigrants” because they were “poor” in our eyes and particularly the children became objects of concern. As long as the total numbers of immigrants were small and seasonal, this condition, from a national security point of view, was essentially ignored. But by the time many of those immigrants turned into permanent “visitors” and second and third generation offspring invaded our traditional social, educational and business landscape, it became clear that their own political demands and social preferences were creating national political, economic and social conflicts.

Today, many people decry the fact that we did not control our borders when we should have. And I agree that as a country we were too busy with other priorities for many years to realize the problem we were growing in our midst as a consequence thereof.

From where I sit, as a former immigrant who went through all the necessary checks to qualify for a green-card, this whole “illegal” immigration problem is in fact a self-made dilemma. While it could have been prevented, possibly with harsh means in the beginning together with tough, bi-lateral agreements later, we failed to do anything effective.

But for a long time, post WW II, if I had been one of those poor and hungry people living so close to the accessible American Garden of Eden I would have gone for it too. And why not? Again, from a potential immigrant’s point of view it seemed that the people running the place did not to worry about it too much that foreigners were waltzing in and out of the place at any time.

But now that we have tens of millions of Hispanic immigrants, a large percentage of which never learned to speak decent English, including some 12 million “illegals”, there is a hue and a cry to turn back the clock. But that’s never possible and we better realize it.

If our American culture is to survive in the best tradition of its basic objectives we need to admit to having lost sight of some fundamentals and therefore make ourselves use the next election to choose representatives who have spine, understand economic fundamentals and together with honoring traditional American values are prepared to admit our own fault.

We need to admit that we made a very bad mistake years ago by neglecting our borders but now, in order to re-establish “control” of the current and future situation, we will have to make amends to most of the immigrants here now and willing to work. Although it bothers me to recommend that “law-breakers” will get away with it we really have no choice. To begin with we must ask ourselves: “are these people really “law-breakers or merely opportunists”??

Who wouldn’t have done the same thing given the prevailing circumstances. We left the door open and they came through. Can you blame them?? Maybe not! Maybe we should blame ourselves and get on with it.

So what do we do now.??

1 To make amends, we must provide a path to amnesty and potential citizenship for “illegals”, as of a certain date, but:
2 We demand that everyone who is here, legally or illegally, learns to speak and read decent English within 3 years or else will be repatriated without a second chance.
3 Kids will be required to go to school, all the way through high-school. Dropping out will be reason for repatriation permanently.
4 Offspring of legal marriages of immigrants will not be granted US citizenship even after parents have successfully become citizens. They will have to apply themselves later on at age 18. Only military service might make a difference. Only children born from US citizens will automatically become US citizens upon birth.
5 Spanish will be eliminated from all school texts and as a requirement of government and businesses to “facilitate” communication. Schools may continue courses in Spanish, but only for native Americans as a second language requirement. Immigrant children will learn English and nothing but until they are fluent. Government will do away with all Spanish in government operations, including all forms and rules requiring Spanish as a second official language.
6 English will be formally adopted as the national language of the USA.
7 We need to make immigrants understand that a path to citizenship must be earned and will not be “given”.
8 Immigrants who develop a criminal record will automatically forfeit any chance to become citizens and will be repatriated permanently.

The same commentator mentioned above suggested that all USA borders should be open at all times. But this is not a serious thought. Just opening the door to everybody who wants to come here? In other words, opening te door would significantly change the dynamics of new immigrants arrival here because all restraints would be off. We would be inundated and back to the days of the early 19th century when neither passports, nor health certificates were required te enter here.

We would be overwhelmed and in relatively short order lose our American identity. The new arrivals, from heaven knows where, would coalesce into “tribal” configurations just for reasons of survival. Becoming Americans would be the last thing on their minds. But government help, à la Europe, would be expected and bankrupt us financially, politically and culturally.

There are billions of very poor people out there who would find ways to come here. Remember the Vietnam boat people. America is a desirable place to emigrate to because for a long time we enjoyed more personal freedom and the best opportunities for education and personal accomplishments. Although we are currently in the process of destroying some of these fundamentals, that may just be a temporary issue.

Given the options, let's resolve this issue in a common sense way and accept the fact that we must owe up to our own failure to prevent it from happening in the first place. We need to right this terrible immigration wrong, once and for all and we know how to do it if the will is there. Woe to us if we fail!!

Bully Pulpit

5/3/2010

Bully Pulpit?

The President of the United States probably has the best and also loudest "Bully Pulpit" in the country. When he says something it is guaranteed to hit the media, the blogosphere and all of its off-spring. His messages come through loud if not always clear. Even so, it's a great way to get your thoughts across. Of course there are multiple occasions, practically every day, a President needs to communicate his views or his decisions to the public or to more specific venues. All of these communications are just part of the job.

Naturally, it is expected that the President never loses his cool, in public. He is also expected to set a high standard of comity when dealing with others, foreign as well as domestic because his public behavior sets the tone for the way people communicate with each other, it reflects the media's manner of getting its stories across and for many of us also sets the tone for civil discourse.

But, during the past 16 months we have learned a few things about this President that were not obvious before, neither during the campaign nor in the early months of his Administration.

With the exception of the impact of natural disasters this President very much sets his own priorities, virtually ignoring issues considered by many to warrant his serious attention. And when he picks what motivates him he tells his staff to get things done. He doesn't really like to have to get into the hurly burly of a legislative controversy, he really expects his staff to handle it. But when actually necessary he is not afraid to get into the fight and use whatever methods to get his way. He brooks no contradiction and surely becomes more than testy during the process. "Obama Care" is the prime example.

Yes, the Obama Care process was a live demonstration of a President with 2 tin ears, neither really listening to opposite political views nor willing to pay the opposition the respect our political system has always accorded it. Whenever the opposition talked he ignored them. Similar approaches are to be expected with the coming Cap & Trade legislation, Green Energy, Immigration, Middle East conflicts, Nuclear proliferation or Free Markets.

In each case our country is or will be told what he wants and the executive system he has created in Washington is expected to do what he tells them to do. Never mind the confusion of legislative involvement or other contrary activities by opponents.

Mr. Obama doesn't really appear to be committed to our, albeit imperfect, political system, nor does he seem to care very much for its underlying historic uniqueness, nor our traditional tolerant, give and take approach to many national issues demanding attention and resolution.

He has a personal political agenda and his priorities stem directly from how he believes he will be able to change our political system as fast as possible into what he considers a more desirable one. A system with highly centralized political power, dictatorship?, a system that will be transformed economically to support his own political priorities and do away with fuzzy, self-serving things like "free markets". Control is the secret code.

To me, enough evidence is now available to understand why Mr. Obama has become testy, exhortatory, confrontational and abusive and with a growing tendency to demonize those who disagree with him. This is not the mark of a President of the United States. May be this plays well in Chicago but it should not be exercised nor tolerated in Washington D.C. or anywhere else for that matter.

It also tells me that Mr. Obama is not in fact a real leader. He is just a "party boss" with tough talk, impatience, if not intolerance and where different views and civil niceties have no place. His nature and attitude is to operate alone, above the fray, by making his unquestioning staff members do what has to be done to accomplish his objectives and never mind civil, legal, organizational or traditional objections, resistance or disagreement. What he wants is the only thing that counts. America be damned.

So without putting too fine a point on it, this is the first time in the history of the USA that the principal pulpit in this country is indeed occupied by a dangerous "bully".





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What's Mr. Obama up to?

WHAT'S MR.OBAMA UP TO? 1/16/'10

As you can see I wrote this piece last January, mostly to vent my spleen. Now it seems that much of what I feared has been happening and we haven't seen the end yet. Woe on those who voted for Mr. Obama. 1/16/10

Al-Queda is in the business of killing Christians, apostates, westerners and particularly Americans. Everybody knows that by now.

By reluctantly sending fewer troops to Afghanistan than his own generals asked for many months earlier, the President might sacrifice additional soldier's lives unnecessarily because we will be undermanned for a variety of missions. Will anyone remember?
Every day we read about more car bombs exploding and military personnel killed or wounded in random, yet planned, attacks on the local political system for the purpose of wearing us out and persuading us to leave the territory so the Taliban and al-Queda can again dispense some more of their own mercy.

But when you think about it, how many of us draw the conclusion that if and when we surrender the Middle East to the terrorists it will make it that much easier for them to repeat their special guerilla warfare right here at home. So under-manning the Afghanistan effort is really irresponsible. Yet, the prospect doesn't seem to bother the current Government?

And maybe it doesn't bother our current Administration either that Muslim friendly organizations in the USA, and there are many now, have been preparing the
" USA battlefield" for years already. They are getting brasher and more intimidating if not threatening by the day. There are any number of instances on the record about Muslim leadership complaining about our school menus, bathroom facilities, overt references to Christianity etc. that "must" be removed or remodeled so Muslim pupils can function the way they want. It is outrageous but true. Sharia financial rules are available at many banks today.

But the question should be, why do we allow this to happen? We have our own very good rules and everyone must abide by them. If that bothers somebody, he or she should be advised to leave again. Because immigrants take an oath that they are desirous to adopt our whole country and its laws, rules and culture, or, otherwise no visa or citizenship.

Strangely, it seems our Government believes that it is better for us to acquiesce maybe.?

But wouldn't that create a conflict with our Constitution, which the Government must at all times uphold and defend. Since we were and still are, although somewhat less maybe today, a Christian nation it is one thing to be tolerant of other "religions", but not if those are clearly focused on a confrontation with our national culture and religion.
The longer term consequences of this constant radical Muslim agitation on our own society and its cultural and religious conduct is putting us on the defensive. Which is just what the Muslims radicals want. What is even more astounding, they are now getting a helping hand from our own government doling out money, via-via, to a variety of Muslim friendly organizations.

Broadly speaking, I am afraid this government is on a tear to ruin our culture, our healthcare system, our national currency, our economy and our position in the world as the best policeman this globe has seen for over 60 years. It is an "abomination".

We are being abominated constantly now and if you do not believe it, you haven't been paying attention.

(The latest is the President's frantic gamble to go to Massachusetts on Sunday to see if that might prevent his Party losing a crucial Senate seat. )

What most people appear to believe is that the previous government of George W. Bush was the cause of the recent financial disaster. But that is not quite true. What is true is that the many repeated warnings made by President Bush in most of his State of the Union addresses to the Congress about inadequate financial regulation of credit issuers would lead to high inflation or worse. The Congress, particularly Messrs. Barney Frank, Schumer and Dodd would have nothing of it. Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac were doing just fine. As Mr Barney Frank famously said at one point: " I want to roll the dice once more". Well he did, and the whole house of cards came tumbling down. It was the Congress collectively that refused to accept the responsibility for curtailing the home mortgage credit markets. The one major mistake of Mr. Bush was his decision to maintain Mr. Greenspan as Chairman of the FED or at least to not have told him to start tightening up on the cost of money.
A second and virtually unmanageable problem for Mr. Bush, at the time, was that he needed the Congress to support his Iraqi war issue which cost him most of the leverage he otherwise might have had to force the Congress to curb the financial bubble from exploding eventually.

So what does Mr. Obama do, having the Congress in his pocket? He starts throwing money out the window to create jobs??? Well, that doesn't work and we know it. A government cannot spend money unless it taxes free people's earnings sooner or later.
Remember George Washington begging the fledgling government of the brand-new fighting USA in 1777 that he really needed some money to buy ammunition and blankets for his freezing troops!!. At least all the sacrifices then were made for a very good cause.
Which obviously is not the case today.

In stark contrast, our modern new Government throws money out the window that they don't have!! Don't they know that jobs are created only by the free market as it produces value! That’s what creates additional wealth and makes the economy in all its many facets grow and become more competitive. Then the government can take its share.
But, government money thrown at uneconomical wind mill farms, bio-fuel operations, solar power projects or carbon trading schemes is wasted in the grand manner. The government shouldn't be competing with business in the first place. The free market exists because people take risks with their own money to pursue ideas that may or may not pay off over time. If they do, excellent and nobody has to pay more taxes if they fail.

But whenever the government throws money, our money, at risky, and probably questionable operations, often promoted by "quick buck artists", it is the citizenry that in the end pays the bills when the project collapses. The government after all can only use taxpayer's money. It's the only money they have that's legit and any other government financing scheme is ipso facto based on the taxpayer's collective credit.

All this "free" money that is now being thrown around is bound to grow our national debt at an incredible rate and as a result we will have to pay much higher taxes for years to come to pay off all those people and countries holding this debt, like China. It will also make our industry less competitive, our military less robust and ready, our schools and hospitals less able to grow and improve their respective national functions of defense, education and medical care.

In its totality and with the dogmatic fervor of a fanatic, Mr. Obama is trying to force the Congress to bend to his Will. It is an unseemly performance, not just by the way the President operates but by the illegal arm-twisting that's going on to force Senators to vote "Aye" instead of using their own judgment of the moment. This is a far and unacceptable cry from rational, democratic political gamesmanship.

What it proves is that there are many people in high and powerful places in the government today who are willing to follow the leader believing that any infractions of the applicable rules of law and honor will be overlooked as long as they get the results wanted by the Boss-Man. This is no longer democracy as we knew it, this smacks of the way Adolf Hitler used the Reichstag after he became Chancellor
in 1933. Never mind the rules, HE made the rules. And we know where that ended.

It certainly seems to me as if Mr. Obama is trying to ruin the country in short order just so al-Queda doesn't have to do it later!! What else to conclude?

All kidding aside, we have embarked on a perilous path, it seems to me, with a government that borders on the incompetent, coupled with a philosophy that will literally wreck our country. Its flouting of proven and Constitution driven standards of governmental conduct, together with its obvious lack of a patriotic approach to our country's future and position in the world and with its contempt for free market principles this Government should give all of us pause before this show gets completely out of hand.

We are warned!



We are warned!