Dee's Distortions and Lies

Commentary on Dee’s Tirade

1. Economy: They say they support an improved economy, yet they favor tax cuts for the rich. They favor de-regulation for big business. Under their last administration, they came in with the biggest surplus and, due to their programs, left with the largest deficit.
Many democrats agree with the Republicans that any tax increases during a recession are counterproductive. I expect the compromise that will be reached is to postpone ending all tax cuts for two or three years and then eliminate the tax cuts for the rich. Businesses, big (like the Fortune 500) or small, provide the jobs needed to put America back to work. The more our businesses are freed of taxes, the more competitive they can be in the global marketplace and the more jobs they can create.
The deficit is due to at least three things: Bush’s War, Obam's War, and the deficit. No matter what the Administration says Obamacare will add to the defict.
2. Christian Values: They say they support Christian Values, yet they support an agenda of HATE
This of course is hyperbolic nonsense and sensationalism. This is just another example of a leftwing nut misusing the word Hate for every position they disagree with. Dee is getting hysterical and it shows. Over the years she has become increasingly shrill and unreasonable. She is simply wrong about this. No sane person would even say "...they support an agenda of HATE.". She has become the purveyor of Hate. Any reasonable person can see that from her rants and outright lies repeated ad nauseum. She must be off her Lithium again.
3. American People: They say they are for the American People, yet they are against so-called “entitlement programs.” They want to end social security and Medicare. In order to do so, their first plan is to raise the retirement age to 70.
Republicans are not against all entitlement plans but have opposed any new ones in view of the fact that the existing ones are underfunded. It is a matter of fiscal discipline. Everyone knows that entitlements eat up most of the budget leaving the federal government with little discretionary money for other worthwhile projects. Candidates who suggest doing away with either program have little chance of being elected. If Dee, had been paying attention, she would have seen that people from both sides of the aisle fully recognize this problem but in general have been unable to do anything about it for fear of crossing the public that understandably considers Social Security and Medicare as sacred cows If the objective was to end Social Security, that would obviate the need to raise the retirement age to 70. Raising the age is a simple recognition that unless we increase revenues or decrease expense or a combination of both, Social Security will never be able to cover its unfunded obligations. I have long advocated removing the cap on taxable earnings so everyone pays the same percentage of their earnings into the system while freezing the maximum benefit at the present level as adjusted annually for inflation. That would be a balanced approach with more affluent paying much more without a commensurate increase in benefits. Others would just have to work longer if they can to reduce costs. If that doesn't do it, we will have to raise the combined employer/employee tax rate to 15%. Raising the Social Security tax on the rich rather than the income tax would be more palatable to the people because they could see the benefit. I believe there must be a provision to allow those who are unable to work effectively at age 70 to retire earlier with a small reduction in the benefit in accordance with the standards of the current law.
4. Jobs for Americans: They say they are for American Jobs, yet they want to reduce jobs and cut pay for teachers, police and firefighters.
This is a ridiculous statement. Some states are struggling with grave budgetary problems as a result of their profligate spending driven by the public unions who have no regard for the fiscal discipline that would allow their states to live within their means. When the country of Greece was threatened with bankruptcy for the same reasons, the European Union laid down strict rules Greece had to comply with before any loans would be forthcoming. The Republicans were asking nothing more. They want the states to step up and show what actions they have taken to put their budgets on a sustainable basis before any federal funds are provided. There are many state employees who could and should be laid off first before firemen, teachers, and police but their unions are protecting them just as the teachers’ union is trying to protect their jobs And indeed part of the plan must involve pay cuts for some who are clearly overpaid in comparison with what other states pay their employees. The governor has recognized this and attempted to take action but was thwarted by the courts and the Democrat controlled legislature. Again the greedy unions are at fault. When prison guards make six figures, part of the solution is clear.
5. Immigration: They say they support legal immigration and it is not about being “anti-Latino”, yet they support anti Latino racial profiling bills like sb1070, they support a border fence ONLY on the Mexico border, they support a racial profiling sheriff (apricot), his volunteer masked goons, his suppression sweeps, they support future immigration levels being reduced, but only from Latino or Minority countries, they support English Only, they support Mass Deportation and approve of racial profiling of Latinos; they call citizen Latino children “anchor babies” and delivering babies – “dropping them”; etc. etc.
More hyperbole. Most Americans agree that anti-illegal alien SB 1070 was badly needed and similar measures should be adopted by other states burdened with the costs of illegal aliens. Florida and Missouri have already done so.

The investment in border infrastructure and staffing obviously has to be focused where the problem is the greatest and that is clearly the Mexican border where the drug cartels’ smuggling efforts are most rampant and where millions of illegals find their way across the border. Anyone who claims to have worked for a Fortune 500 company, like Dee, certainly should have at least a minimum appreciation for the optimum deployment of resources.

A major reduction in legal immigration levels from all countries is in the best interests of our country. Since Dee favors a CIR that would increase the number of such immigrants, she is not an unbiased judge of Republican proposals. In the past, various immigration laws have focused on establishing quotas that were representative of the existing population. It is not clear what they are based on now but if the United States is being overrun with illegals from the South it would make sense to reduce the legal quota from those countries to bring the total back into balance. Nevertheless, I am not aware of any Republican proposal that would achieve that goal.

As usual Dee distorts the GOP position on a national language which is shared by many democrats by calling it “English Only” instead of “Official English.” This is an old distortion that Dee has repeated innumerable times. The Spanish language is well-preserved in many other countries of the world. Mexico does not conduct any official business in English. It just makes common sense to eliminate the cost of government publications, materials and ballots that are curently being produced in many languages, especially now that the deficit has gotten completely out of control and will go higher under the Obama Administration.

Mass deportation has never been the policy of the GOP and isn’t now. This is another of Dee’s perennial lies or distortions. The GOP recognizes that some level of foreign labor is needed in the U.S. but would like to make sure Americans have first dibs on jobs.
6. Constitution: They say they believe in and abide by the Constitution, yet this is only when it is convenient for them to do so. They advocate changing the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, and want to end birthright citizenship; they support racial profiling which is against the law.

Republicans believe in and abide by the Constitution even more than the Obama Administration. As I have patiently explained to Dee, the Constitution has been amended 27 times. This is the time for a new amendment or action to reinterpret the words “under the jurisdiction of…” to exclude the children of tourists and illegal aliens. Every developed country in the world, except the U.S. and Canada, has abandoned the concept of birthright citizenship. France did in 1993.
The 14th Amendment has been abused by those who violate the border to drop their babies on American soil. She may not like that phrase but it has been in used since time immemorial. Moreover, if it is a pejorative term, that merely reflect the level of anger at the tourists and illegals who enter our country for the sole purpose of delivering an instant citizen. The GOP merely seeks to curb the abuse of the 14th and obviously will continue to abide by the Constitution until it is changed, not just when it is convenient as Dee suggests.

Racial profiling is illegal but it inhibits the optimum deployment of resources. If one is looking for illegal aliens from the South, it is unlikely you will find them anywhere except in the Hispanic communities or among those who share their features. From a practical point of view, there are many things that can be done to avoid any imposition on Hispanic citizens who wish to cooperate with the law in apprehending illegals.
7. Pro-Life/ANTI Women’s' Choice: They say they are Pro-Life and want to end a woman’s right to choose, however they support the Death Penalty, they advocate wars (e.g. Iraq – no WMD), they advocate assault weapons. They also advocate using torture on prisoners, violating the Geneva Convention.
Everyone knows there is a deep division in the United States over the abortion issue. It was only when several anti-abortion democrat members of the House caved in at the very end, that the Health Care Reform bill was passed. Many of them will regret their change of heart in the upcoming election. It is indeed strange for a Catholic to go against the teaching of her church to advocate for Choice. The church has and may again ex-communicate those who do so. It illustrates how easily some people make up their own rules and indulge in mindless distortions.

It is a mistake to think that all members of the NRA are Republicans. The democrats voted along with everyone else to undertake the war in Iraq, after opposing it later when it became convenient to do so. Now they are trying to claim that they were responsible for the success in Iraq, even though, under the Obama Administration, Iraqis still enjoy only five hours of electricity each day and the car bombings continue -- some success!
8. Pro-Marriage/ANTI Gay Marriage: They say they are Pro-Marriage between a man and a woman, and they rally against Gay Marriage, yet they have the highest rate of members who engage in illicit affairs with male pages, interns, prostitutes and strangers. (eg: larry craig; mark foley, ed schrock; Charlie crist, jim mccrery, david dreier, etc )
Gee Dee, for a moment there I thought you were going to come right out and state your approval of gay marriages or would that be another violation of the Catholic church’s beliefs? I won’t bother to list the illicit affairs of the democrats. Everyone knows this aberration has nothing to do with party affiliation. So what is your position on gay marriage? Don’t keep it a secret from us.
9. Intelligent President: They claim they support intelligent candidates for the Presidency, yet they nominated Sarah Palin for VP.
Palin was a pure poltical choice that brought excitement to the ticket but in the end it was a big mistake. Lieberman would have been a better choice. There have been plenty of dunces and tax evaders in democratic administrations as well. Stupidity has no party boundaries.

Smoke and Mirrors

February 22, 2010

Open Letter to Rep. Luis Gutierrez:

In your introductory remarks for H.R. 4321 you made a number of statements that warrant a response. What you call “real immigration reform” in your bill turns out to be a complete emasculation of our immigration system and immigration laws. The kind of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) most Americans will support is a far different thing from what you propose and what was previously proposed in the CIR bills that failed in 2007 and 2008.

The key question is whose or what CIR concept is best for our country? You have chosen to present a bill which you may believe to be best for you and for your illegal ethnic brethren but it is not what is best for our country. Your bill places the interests of foreigners above those of your fellow citizens. If you consider yourself a loyal American, the ethnocentrism evident in H.R. 4321is totally inappropriate.

There are many important and significant facts that you and the Hispanic Caucus have either chosen to ignore or are completely oblivious to. While the negative impacts of illegal aliens and excessive legal immigration on the 10-17% unemployment rate and the rising health care costs play an important role in America’s antithesis to your version of CIR, they are not the only considerations by any means. Nevertheless, in these times of high unemployment it is unconscionable to suggest that we need more rather than fewer legal immigrants and that we should grant amnesty to illegal aliens rather than expediting their removal.

The legal immigration quota should be reduced to the historical level of about 200,000 per year exclusive of tourists, students, and migrant farm workers who are willing to return to their homelands when the harvest is in. What you propose is just the opposite and, if enacted, would surely have an adverse effect on the long term well-being of our country and the future of our descendents.

Illegal aliens flood our emergency rooms and hospitals and soak up Medicare funds that are badly needed by citizens. Certainly this drain must have some bearing on health care costs, the health care crisis, and the billions of dollars that are spent on Medicaid. Are illegal aliens responsible for all health care cost increases and all unemployment? Of course not! Are they important undeniable factors in both Medicaid costs and the number of citizens unemployed? Of course!

The immigrants America is attracting these days are mostly poor and badly educated. They reproduce, fall ill, struggle with school, require hiring of paid interpreters, multi-lingual ballots and other government publications, and create instant citizens who drain the welfare and Medicaid budgets of states like Texas and California. Fifty three percent of immigrant households with children collected welfare from at least one government program in 2008. These programs include food stamps, Medicaid, Aid to Dependent Children, and free school lunches.

These are not people doing "jobs Americans won't do." These are people getting benefits that drain the coffers of states already in deep financial difficulty.

Each day at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, Texas some 32 babies of illegal alien parents, mostly Mexican, are born into instant U.S. citizenship. In fiscal 2006, that was 75 percent of the 16,489 deliveries. Medicaid pays the bill—or at least some of it, some of the time. Do you suppose there is any relationship between this and the need to increase the Medicaid budget every year draining funds from other important programs?

One wonders where all of this Medicaid expense and the emergency room losses are factored into the calculations of those who praise the illegal aliens as a good labor source. Isn’t it time we required all employers to provide full family health care insurance for all of their foreign employees? Is it any wonder that our nation faces a health care crisis, that Medicare is all but bankrupt, and that gazillions have to be paid out in Medicaid? Does anyone believe Gutierrez-brand CIR will solve these problems?

Your sarcasm regarding global warming and traffic congestion is misplaced. Americans produce 20 metric tons of pollutants per capita annually. Adding another 300 million people by the end of this century will produce another 6 billion tons of pollutants annually at the present rate. Even if, by some technological miracle, we were to be able to reduce our per capita output by half, to that of Mexico’s 10 metric tons per year, we would still have made absolutely no progress toward reducing the present unacceptable level as our population doubles. Have the Hispanic Caucus and the immigration lobbies thought about that or are they ignoring this inconvenient truth?

The “limit” of finite natural resources per capita as population grows without bounds is zero. The more there are of us, the less there is for each of us. How much farther down that road does the Caucus think we should go? I hope the answer is, “No más.”

There is a limit to the amount of the water that is available for domestic and agricultural uses, especially here in the Southwest where many Hispanics live. The burgeoning populations of cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Denver are soaking up the water resources needed to grow the food needed to feed the additional people. If you check out an atlas of California, you’ll notice that Owens Lake is filled in with white, not blue. That’s because Los Angeles sucked it dry decades ago. Las Vegas is considering similar plunder of groundwater elsewhere in Nevada. And there are many other cities—Houston and Tampa, to name a couple—that have chosen to push nature’s limits. We continue to plunder the Great Plains’ Ogallala Aquifer, the largest underground reservoir in the United States and one of the largest on the planet. It once held as much water as Lake Huron. It is a treasure that took millennia to accumulate. Remarkably, it could cease to be a water resource within another generation. We are left with yet another illustration of an all too common American mindset: short on vision, mired in denial and unable to comprehend nature’s limits.

Water rights bought up by cities means there will be land that can no longer be productive. This is clearly a losing proposition that needs recognition in any proposed immigration reform bill. With immigration, legal and illegal, adding up to 2 million people a year to a population that is already too large, we are setting ourselves up for a disaster.

Legal immigrants in excess of the historic level of about 200,000 per year, illegal aliens, their progeny, and their higher fertility rates are the main factors in population growth and the depletion of finite natural resources. The fertility rate of American women is near the replacement level of 2.1. It follows that immigration and tax policy reforms are needed to address population growth as an issue of vital importance to the future of our country. Your version of CIR flies in the face of these facts.

You may consider the immigrant blame game to be deplorable but that view ignores the real and significant adverse impacts excessive legal immigration and the presence of illegal aliens have on our country and will have on its future. This is not to deny the many contributions of legal immigrants and even some of the illegals who are willing to do the hardest work our economy requires. Nevertheless, we must limit the amount of foreign labor we import to the demonstrated needs of our economy and make sure employer pay the full cost of foreign workers rather than offloading some of it on unsuspecting taxpayers. With the current high unemployment rate this is the perfect time to enact enlightened tax and immigration policies that achieve the goal of a stable population but I suppose that is too much to expect from a Congress that hasn’t seen a true statesman since the days of the late Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan.

In the immigration debate, some things are indeed constant. They never change but they are regularly ignored by those who have an axe to grind: immigration lawyers, the ethnocentric communities and their leaders, and, of course, employers who want to be absolved of their past sins and be assured of a continuous flow of cheap labor. They are pushing an agenda that does not bode well for the America we know and love. Does any reasonable person really believe we can double or triple our population without affecting our quality of life or standard of living? Population-driven economic growth is not sustainable in the long run? As I stated above, the more there are of us, the less there is for each of us, and that includes Hispanic citizens as well as everyone else. Why is this simple fact not understood by the Hispanic community and the pro-immigration lobby?

There are lots of people out there who give lip service to border security, just as you do, but, in the next breath, would deny us the tools we need to achieve that goal. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. If the truth were known, they would be clearly recognized as open borders advocates. They are the worst of the anti-America, pro-immigration elements in our country.

So what would it take to secure our borders? First and foremost it is clear that the borders can never be absolutely secure. It is also clear that if illegal aliens think they will be home free once they escape the immediate environs of the border, secure borders will always be just a pipe dream. Secure borders requires a many- faceted approach: continuing improvements in border infrastructure and border patrol staffing, improvements in the rules of engagement, penalties for employers and foreign workers who violate the law, and vigorous and continuous internal enforcement. We desperately need mandatory E-Verify across the board for all employers and employees, new and current, public and private. It is the sine qua non of in depth border security. If we deprive illegals of job opportunities, they will have less incentive to come. If we quickly apprehend them and send them on their way, they will stop violating our borders. If we sentence them to six months work on the border infrastructure at minimum wage, they will have some time to think about their transgressions.

Separate immigration courts with judges or justices of the peace in residence at all detention centers with a mandate to make decisions within 24 hours of apprehension would also provide a disincentive for illegal entry. Certainly, appeals must be limited to one week. Contractors who operate detention facilities should be compensated based on throughput rather than detainee-days. Quick decisions could be enabled by the enactment of a rigid set of criteria to be used by these judges and JOPs. These criteria should explicitly exclude family separation as a basis for a favorable immigration decision. Adults under a removal order must take their minor children with them regardless of citizenship. Adult children who are citizens, of course, can make their own choices whether to leave with their parents or remain. This would be no different from the situations of other immigrants who left adult relatives behind when they came to this country. I have many relatives in Germany and Denmark who are perfectly content with the decisions of their ancestors to stay there while their brothers and sisters moved on. Those immigrants made the decision to start a new life here while their adult relatives were content to continue living in their homeland.

The issues of how many legal immigrants to admit each year, whether to end chain immigrations, and to provide yet another amnesty for illegal aliens are too important to allow mere politicians to exercise complete control without accountability to the American voters. Cynical politicians ignore what is best for America and pander to those who they believe can help them to achieve perennial re-election and the power that comes with it to do more damage.

The comments of TV personalities are often closer to the truth than the typical politician’s rants. And the American people generally agree with them except when they indulge in some over-the-top comment that goes too far in an attempt to make a point or simply to be entertaining. For every Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh there is a Chris Mathews or Keith Olbermann. They all play the ratings game. Immigrants are only secondarily to blame for some of the economic, financial, and other woes of our country. The real culprits are the Congress and the Administration who have failed to enact, promote, and enforce immigration policies in the national interest.

The incessant promotion of illegal aliens and excessive legal immigration is the most deplorable element of public debate in our nation. We have failed to deal with the facts of excessive legal immigration, the continued violation of our borders, and their long term adverse impacts on our standard of living and quality of life. We need to look no farther than the teeming masses of China, India, Bangladesh, and Sub-Saharan Africa to know what that would be like.

Something else that has been predictable, constant, and dishonorable is the way that many of our nation’s Hispanic citizens have responded to the illegal presence of so many millions of aliens who are their ethnic brethren. They should know that their fellow non-Hispanic citizens want the immigration laws to be enforced. They want illegals to be removed unless an employer can provide irrefutable evidence that they are unable to fill their jobs with citizen labor, even after extensive advertising offering a living wage and a hiring preference. Instead of behaving as loyal Americans and making common cause with their fellow citizens to achieve real immigration reform, some Hispanics support those who have violated our borders and flaunted the rule of law, the very foundation of all civilized societies. They avoid completely any thoughts about the long term negative consequences to themselves and their descendents. In that respect, they are like most of our shortsighted politicians whose myopic approach to legislation has created many of the problems we face today: a huge national debt; perennial budget deficits; a negative balance of trade; a fading manufacturing capability; wasteful spending on multi-lingual ballots and other government publications and proceedings; the unprecedented Social Security and Medicare unfunded liabilities; the burgeoning costs of Medicaid, the special interest appropriations to organizations like ACORN and La Raza; and immigration and tax policies that do not serve the best interests of this country. The ineptness of Congress in keeping our fiscal house in order is well-known and hopefully will result in the failure of many re-election campaigns.

Does anyone believe that the importation of millions of people from failed countries run by oligarchs will improve America? What is the probability that a Latinized America will be less like the America we know and love and more like the countries the illegals fled to come here?

The Congress has responded to the immigration and illegal alien problems year after year with faulty legislation. While immigrant proponents have come to the table, they have failed repeatedly to craft a workable solution to our urgent crisis. Instead they offer thousand page bills containing the same old loopholes that weaken our immigration laws rather than reform them. The American people have sat patiently waiting for some statesman in the Congress to introduce a bill that meets the fundamental criteria for effective reform and that is based on a careful assessment of the long-term impact of excessive population growth and the abandonment of the rule of law.

In the public debate, some commentators and critics have used harsh language to get the attention of the American people regarding immigration’s unarmed invasion and its deadly consequences. The opposition has responded with charges of nativism, xenophobia, and racism. Then they introduce another CIR bill that they claim will cure all the ills of the immigration system but which instead merely sweeps the illegal alien problem under the carpet by offering yet another amnesty and opens the floodgates for unneeded and unwanted population growth. They try to bully those who oppose their brand of negative reform.

Immigrant citizens marched in the street flying foreign flags and ripping the American flag from counter demonstrators’ hands. They say they are asking for fairness but those who are citizens they are already enjoying all the fairness and benefits of our great country has to offer. What they are really asking for is amnesty for their illegal alien ethnic brethren and open borders for others so that hundreds of thousands more can enter without difficulty to participate in governmental welfare and largess. They are not acting like loyal citizens. They are giving precedence to foreigners who have violated our borders over the wishes of the American people who place the national interest first.

They attend community meetings to plot how to achieve their goals. They often focus on the concept of family unity or reunification. Having created the problem themselves by entering our country illegally, they now want to be absolved so that they can remain here. It is not a question of family unity. It is a question of the rule of law. Families can remain unified by simply returning as a unit to their homeland. Minor children must always accompany their parents if they are ordered to be removed. Adult citizen children can make their own choice. A fair immigration policy is one which does not grant special favors to those who have entered our country illegally and which requires families to take responsibility for their own actions. Chain immigrations obviously should be limited to the spouses and children of those who have already become citizens. There is no need for legislation to stop tearing families apart. Everyone knows they are free to return to their countries of origin or stay there to begin with.

We all have learned something from our religious leaders, who have reminded us of these words from the good book: “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’; but I say unto you, whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Indeed America has done this through a number of immigration bills and amnesties in the past but enough is enough. The bible surely does not expect anyone to continue to turn the other cheek. I believe our country has turned its cheek so many times that our collective head is spinning like a top.

It’s easy to be angry and frustrated about immigration but still America has turned the other cheek with patience and tolerance and dignity. But our good will and humanitarianism is not unlimited. Americans are saying, “No más!”

It is time for the Hispanic caucus to come to the table as Americans not as hyphenated Americans. It’s time to negotiate and compromise until we have determined what is in the best interests of our country, not what is in the best interests of illegal aliens or all those who wish to come here. Let’s break any comprehensive reform bill into a series of shorter bills that everyone can read and understand before any vote is taken. As you point out immigration bills need not be complicated. Neither should they be 1000 pages long.

And let’s put the debate on C-Span for all to see. Let’s begin with the reforms I have listed in the attachment. With patience, tolerance, and dignity and putting country first, we can achieve comprehensive immigration reform.

Our nation’s immigration policy should be pro-jobs, pro-rule of law, pro-secure borders, pro-stable population, pro-enforcement, and pro-security. A number of smaller bills were introduced previously in 2007 and 2008 that placed top priority on securing the borders before any other reforms could be considered. That was the correct approach but the powers that be in Congress scuttled those bills. They would have been a great beginning for immigration reform.

Legal immigrants must indeed learn English just as my grandparents and parents did. And they should not be granted citizenship until they are fully fluent in English. Multi-lingual ballots and other government publications and proceedings should be dispensed with by repealing Executive Order 13166. Those legal residents who are unable to achieve fluency will still be free of any threat of deportation. Their children will be able to achieve citizenship immediately as they progress through American schools learning English and Civics. The current English test for citizenship is a farce.

We’ve waited long enough. Just because America has turned its cheek in the past doesn’t mean we should turn away from what’s right, what is legal, and what is in the national interest. Just because we’ve been patient with illegal aliens, doesn’t mean we can wait forever for them to return to their homelands until they can enter legally.



America has given. America has granted amnesty. America has waited for its Hispanic citizens to act like loyal Americans. And America has compromised. But there are some fundamentals that America simply cannot negotiate away and cannot wait for one minute longer: secure borders, the need for illegal alien families to return to their homelands as a unit to maintain family unity, the opportunity for citizenship based only on the needs of our economy, singular citizenship and allegiance, paying taxes, social integration, and linguistic and cultural assimilation.

We need immigration reform that will secure our borders, identify those who in our country illegally, remove those who are surplus to the needs of our economy, punish employers who exploit immigrant labor or who employ illegal aliens; and reform that absolutely prohibits another amnesty or anything like it. We must assert our values and our principles as a nation of laws. We were once a nation of immigrants but no longer should be. In the early days of our nation, a largely unsettled continent lay before the Founding Fathers. Natural resources like land, water, fish, game, timber, and minerals seemed limitless. Now we know better. We are sending our treasure to despots in the Middle East and South America to buy oil while Congress and the Administration fail to exploit all of the domestic sources available. We have 300 million people in America and some would argue that is already too many. Certainly adding more people compounds the problems we are faced with in the economy, the environment, and in the availability of food, energy, and natural resources.

It is not enough to merely understand that we must secure our borders. We must backup that understanding with action and objective results. We have to agree to buttress infrastructure and staffing improvements at the border with changes in the rules of engagement and continuous and vigorous internal enforcement. We must begin with mandatory E-Verify across the board for all employers, public and private, and all employees, current and new. These are the minimum essentials for CIR beginning with border security are listed in the enclosure. Without internal enforcement it will be impossible to achieve border security. Everyone knows that.

I hope that you will give these remarks the thoughtful consideration they deserve.



cc Senator Bennett

Senator Udall

Rep. Polis



Comprehensive Immigration Reform

The essential elements of real comprehensive immigration reform in priority order are:

1. Secure our borders first before any other immigration reforms are considered.

a. Continue improvements in border infrastructure and staffing.

b. Buttress these improvements with comprehensive internal enforcement using as the primary tool mandatory E-Verify across the board for all employers, public and private, and all employees, new and current.

c. Demonstrate that the borders are secure with objective data collected by the border patrol and ICE regarding the number and trend of apprehensions at the border and internally and a valid estimate of the total number of illegals still present in the U.S.

d. Supplement objective data with secret surveys of all border patrol and ICE agents asking their opinions as to whether the borders are secure.

e. Solicit and implement ideas from the border patrol and ICE on how border security and internal enforcement can be improved.

f. Require all illegal aliens apprehended at the border or internally to spend six months working on border infrastructure at minimum wage before they are fingerprinted, photographed, DNAed, and escorted to the border.

g. Prohibit catch and release at the border and internally.

h. End voluntary self-removal by illegal aliens; all removals, self-removal or otherwise, must be considered involuntary so that if they return without the proper documents they will be considered felons and do a minimum of two years of hard time.

i. Require illegals and their employers identified via E-Verify to pay the cost of repatriation.

j. Revise the rules of engagement to permit hot pursuit of drug runners and the use of lethal force and granting immunity from prosecution for agents in the legitimate performance of their duties.

k. Establish a deadline beyond which the use of fraudulent documents and social security numbers will be considered a felony.

2. Tie legal immigration quotas to the U.S. total unemployment rate by sector, profession, or type of work. (For example, if the unemployment level among computer programmers is above the specified criterion, legal immigration in that sector would be halted.)

a. Limit legal immigration to no more than 200,000 per year. (All successful applicants must be briefed on the desirability of a stable population and the adaptation necessary to facilitate that goal and achieve a soft landing for a sustainable economy.)

b. Design immigration and tax policy to achieve a stable population, the conservation of energy and natural resources, and the reduction of environment-destroying pollution of all kinds.

c. Use “Cap and Trade” as one means for achieving a stable population. (Women who wish to have more than the replacement number of children, about 2.1 on the average per couple, will have to buy credits from those who wish to have fewer.)



2. Grant accelerated citizenship consideration to aliens who enlist in the armed forces for at least 4 years and who serve at least one tour in a combat zone.



3. Make English the official language of the United States to be used for all ballots and other government publications and proceedings at all levels of government. (Repeal Executive Order 13166 but make public interpreters available to those who cannot afford one and who do not have a family member who can serve in that capacity.)

a. Grant legal immigration priority to English speaking applicants who have the skills needed by America to stay competitive in a global environment. Give accelerated consideration to foreign PhD students in math, physical science, engineering, and MDs in medicine who wish to become American citizens and who are prepared to renounce all allegiance to foreign countries or potentates and any claim on dual citizenship.

b. Raise the bar for citizenship to real fluency in reading, writing, and speaking English rather than the current few words and phrases from a study guide. (Failure to achieve fluency would not be cause for deportation of legal residents.)



4. Require that at least one parent be a citizen of the U.S. before birthright citizenship can be granted under the 14th Amendment.

5. End chain immigrations, except for the spouses and children of those who have been granted citizenship.

6. Make Immigration Court decisions within 24 hours of apprehension. Allow only one week allowed for appeals.

7. Establish rigid criteria for successful appeals. (Successful grounds for an appeal of a removal order may include: evidence of social integration, and cultural and linguistic assimilation, testimony of employers and co-workers as well as evidence that their children are in school learning civics, citizenship and English and are willing to declare their sole allegiance to the U.S. and renounce any dual allegiance and citizenship Family unification is excluded as a basis for an appeal. All minor children, regardless of citizenship, must accompany parents under a removal order.)

8. Prohibit the flying of foreign national flags except at foreign embassies and consulates and by permit for parades on ethnic holidays honoring our immigrant past. (For example, Columbus Day, St. Patrick's Day, Bastille Day, and Cinco de Mayo.)

9. Build a string of triage and obstetric hospitals across on the other side of the borders and provide transport to those hospitals for any foreigners who show up at the border crossings who need medical assistance. Share the cost of constructing these hospitals with our neighbors but, in return, expect Mexico and Canada to staff them.

10. Prohibit unwarranted criticism of legal immigrants and violence against anyone based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference.

11. Allow employers to present irrefutable evidence that they have made a good faith effort to hire citizens by offering a living wage and a hiring preference before they can declare a hardship case for hiring foreign workers.

Culture Crisis or Health Care Crisis?

Dear Mr. President:


During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.

While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer.

And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me".

Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.



Respectfully,

STARNER JONES, MD

Extort thy neighbor, or how to ruin a nation

The code words used for so-called "health care reform," single-payer, universal coverage, etc. bring images into the minds of many of "free" health care, something for nothing.


When I was a boy, I was often puzzled why Dad didn't go for the special deals, discounts, etc. when we shopped for something. Now I understand that these were tricks crafted for the consumer looking for something for nothing. Dad knew that if you went after "something for nothing," you would be hooked and reeled in like a fish who took the bait. In the real world there is no "something for nothing." Those promising "something for nothing" have something else in mind. In the case of health care the "something else" is frightening. What would Dad have said about this?


Something for nothing is a trap for suckers.


How many voters in the last election thought they would get something for nothing with the "tax cut for 95%", or, worse, knew they would be mooching off the other 5%? How many votes were cast thinking more "goodies" would be coming from the government?


It didn't used to be like this. My great grandfather John C. was a teenager when his father, John M. died during the Civil War. As the only son, he undoubtedly had to carry the responsibility for the family. John C. later married and raised three sons and a daughter, and then two grandsons after the daughter died in childbirth. He and his wife Ida provided for the family by their own efforts on their small farm in Kentucky. They raised their own food or sold or traded what they produced for what they needed. They never asked the government or their neighbors to give them anything. John didn't go to some government office crying that he now had two orphans to take care of. They were self-reliant. They lived in a time when it was considered less than honorable not to be.


The moral code they lived by, which continued all the way down to my father, was "I refuse to accept what I have not earned." My father and mother held to that code, and would have considered accepting a hand-out (much less asking for one) profoundly immoral and lower than low. If some government agent had come to John C.'s farm demanding he give money to be used to support another or else, he would have been met with a few choice words unsuitable for this article, and probably a shotgun. John C. would have never have voted for a candidate promising to "spread the wealth around."


The Founders never intended to create a Constitution allowing the taking from one to give to another.


James Madison said:


Government is instituted to protect property of every sort.... This being the end of government, that alone is not a just government, ....nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.


And John Adams:


Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.


And Thomas Jefferson:


[A] wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.


Samuel Adams believed the Constitution prohibited spreading the wealth around:


The Utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional.


The Supreme Court agreed with Samuel Adams in a 1795 decision:


The legislature, therefore, had no authority to make an act divesting one citizen of his freehold, and vest in it in another, without just compensation. ..... It is contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.


Later courts strayed from the Constitution, as in the 1936 Butler case, saying that transfer of wealth from one citizen to another was allowed by virtue of the "General Welfare" statement in the Constitution. The judgment in the Butler case contains the remarkable statement:


It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.


This is a blank check and indeed a curious stretch of logic, since harming one citizen to benefit another cannot by definition promote the general welfare. President Obama's statement is equally self-contradictory:


..and I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody


Spreading the wealth will not be voluntary but forced by the power of the federal government. Suppose a fictitious individual (I'll call him Jack) decides he needs some extra funds. After living a life of excess, he finds himself in need of some medical procedures, and, by the way, some Viagra would be nice too. So Jack comes to my door and asks me to help. I tell him no. In a rational, civilized society, that would be the end of it. But Jack is more persistent. The next time he comes to my door there are a couple of burly-looking guys waiting in his car. He points to his "friends" and warns of serious consequences if I don't hand over the dough. Now in my little dictionary, this is called "extortion"


to get (money, etc.) from someone by force or threats


Extortion is, of course, illegal. Not easily intimidated, I refuse again. But Jack tries again, this time sending one of his burly-looking friends. Since I answered the door with a mean looking hammer in my hand, he goes away.


Jack really wants that Viagra, so he calls his Congressman. Later an IRS agent appears at my door. The IRS is not deterred by a hammer. The IRS agent carries the threat of incarceration in his briefcase. If I resist, I may find myself sharing a cell with one of Jack's burly friends. The conversation might go like this:


Me, "What are you in for?"


The burly guy, "Extortion, what about you?"


Me, "Resisting extortion."


Who can tell me why when Jack's friend visits, it is extortion, and when the government agent visits it isn't? No one can, because logically there is no difference. Ayn Rand in fact gives a slight moral edge to Jack's friend (from Collectivized Ethics in The Virtue of Selfishness):


In fact, the private hoodlum has a slight edge of moral superiority: he has no power to devastate an entire nation and his victims are not legally disarmed.


Who are the villains here?


Number one are the voters who choose politicians who will extort money for them from their neighbors. "Fair share of the rich" to these voters means they will be getting some of that money, with visions of free stuff dancing in their heads. As Will Rogers observed:


We say the way the government is run now is all nutty and that it's throwing money away. But anytime any is thrown our way, why we've never dodged it.


"Free" government money is not free, but has been extorted from your neighbors.


The other villain and the master at this extortion game is the modern Democratic Party, which might as well rename itself the Parasite Party. The road to power for the Democratic Party is by creating parasites of different groups, in essence, buying votes from the parasites by extorting from the hosts. By doing so, they pit one group of citizens against another. They manipulate the human emotions of compassion, greed, and envy for political gain. They make the claim to be compassionate, but never to anyone who has worked hard to produce wealth for themselves, instead promote hatred and envy of them.


People are tiring of being forced to pay for someone else. Anger is growing against politicians who have become elitist and tyrannical, with nothing but disdain for us "common folks." The time is rapidly approaching when too many parasites kill the host. As the wise Benjamin Franklin observed about the new Constitution,


Once the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic.


America has not been free, prosperous, and economically strong by magic. No other-worldly force guarantees us a high standard of living. We are economically strong only because our people have been free to pursue their own wealth. This year there are numerous examples of businesses not expanding or hiring because of an anti-business administration. History is full of examples of the failure of collectivized schemes, including the miserable failure of the initial communal structure at Jamestown.


We are well down the road to ruining the nation. We the People need to remember the lesson of Jamestown, and reconsider the values of John C. and our ancestors.

by Gary Horne, The American Thinker

ObamaCare Fuzzy Math

According the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2006 report, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States,” 46.9 million people are uninsured in the U.S. There’s only one problem with this statistic: approximately 31.85 million of them do not actually exist.

The numbers really cannot lie, although the report does. Out of a total population of 297.05 million, the report states on Page 20 that the “number of people covered by private insurance was… 201.7 million in 2006” and the “number of people covered by government health programs was… 80.3 million in 2006.”

Therefore, 282 million had insurance. Which means that out of a total population of 297.05 million, 15.05 million did not have insurance. Right?

Not at the U.S. Census Bureau. There, 297.05 million minus 282 million equals 46.9 million Americans uninsured. How?

Well, call it “fuzzy math.” In the above figure, taken from Page 20 of Census’ report, the fine print reads, “The estimates by type of coverage are not mutually exclusive; people can be covered by more than one type of insurance during the year.” But, nobody can be covered by insurance and not covered by it.

In other words, some 31.85 million people reported as uninsured in 2006 did have some coverage, and the Census included them in both categories. Why? They were probably between jobs at some point during the year, which is not abnormal.

It doesn’t mean they do not have access to health care at all. They were simply temporarily uninsured. Only 15.05 million people fell into the category of being completely uninsured according to the Census’ own data.

Of course, there’s an obvious problem with the use of the Census’ methodology. Nobody told the American people of this critical footnote.

Instead, as recently as July 22nd, they were told by Barack Obama that “This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance. Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage if they become too sick, or lose their job or change their job.”

He said it without any qualification. Without any footnote explaining the complex methodology that grossly overstates the amount of people without any health coverage at all. And certainly without explanation as to why he would propose offering health coverage to over 30 million people who actually have it.

According to the data, 10.1 million of the 46.9 million of Census’ reported uninsured were unemployed for the entire year, and 5.6 million worked part-time, which can safely be said for the most part not to have had access to care. Of the other 31.2 million, 22 million worked full-time, 8.6 million were under 18, and 542 thousand were 65 or older.

So, if we’re to believe Census’ report, every year, over 30 million Americans have coverage, subsequently lose that coverage, and then for most of the year fail to get new coverage.

Only that’s impossible, since 22 million of them were working full-time according to the report. They didn’t lose their jobs. So, how is it possible that they lost their coverage?

It isn’t. But, based upon the data, in the next year, roughly the same amount of people again had access to coverage, lost it, and then for most of the year failed to get new coverage—and yet did not lose their jobs.

Remarkably, the number of individuals without any insurance at all has remained about the same, meaning that folks who did lose insurance regain it in less than a year’s time. In both 2005 and 2006, the number of absolutely uninsured was 15 million. In the more recent 2007 report the number decreased to 13.6 million who had no health coverage at all. 285 million did have coverage out of a total of 298.6 million. So, what gives?

Simply put, the reports are wrong, and they have simply become the bureaucratic means of giving politicians the “proof” they want to fit their hypothesis of a “crisis.”

It therefore makes no sense to screw over the 285 million who already have coverage by completely reorganizing the entire system to offer welfare to some 13.6-15.05 million without it.

Because, it is not necessary for the government to take over the entire health care system, such as is proposed under ObamaCare, in order to offer health coverage to those people. And the politicians know it.

This is why they are making use of gross exaggeration to concoct the crisis of 47 million “uninsured.” It’s not about providing health care at all. It’s about expanding bureaucracy. It’s about a takeover. It’s about control. Only, now you know.

Differences between European and U.S. demographics

The significant difference between the United States and many European countries - as well as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan - is the birth rate. Women in the U.S. average about 2.1 children, while in Europe overall, the figure is about 1.5.

Of course, throughout Europe, it's not all equal. France, where the figure is around two, is one of the exceptions to the rule. So you could compare some countries of Europe not only to the U.S., but also to France. In both of those countries, they made the adjustment many years ago - especially in the case of France - to support two-earner families, support parents with children with various types of child payments, tax credits, or provision for daycare. That has not necessarily been done so well in other countries.

Is policy the only reason why fertility levels are so different? The high birthrate of the U.S. tends to hide a very important point - immigration. In the U.S., about half of population growth today is due to Hispanics, which is quite a significant percentage. The majority population in the U.S., which today we call by a rather complicated term - white non-Hispanics - are around 66 percent of the population, but they contribute a relatively small proportion of population growth today.

Since the Hispanics are so young, they have about nine times the number of births versus deaths. Whereas among the white non-Hispanics, it's quite a bit like Europe in that the deaths now are getting to be almost equal to the number of births. So, to the next mid-century, we're not going to see a great deal of growth in the white non-Hispanic population. But also that the U.S. does support families quite well is borne out by the fact that white non-Hispanic women in the U.S. don't have low fertility. They average about 1.9, which puts them just about at the level of France. But Hispanics average about three children.

Are immigrants having a similar effect on European populations? Spain recently reported a slight rise in the birthrate, but in fact, all of that was due to foreign women. I looked closely at the numbers, and although it doesn't say it exactly in the press release, births among Spanish women actually declined. Also in the UK, there's been a growing proportion of births to non-British women, so there's a lot of that going on in Europe as well, but maybe not as dramatic as in the U.S.

How has policy affected the trajectory of European and U.S. demographics? I certainly think the enlargement of Europe, countries' reaction to the Schengen Agreement, and immigration within Europe has started to change European demography tremendously. There was an article recently in the newspaper describing Ireland as a "rainbow country." So, in some sense, Europe is beginning to look a little more like the U.S. The question is where will that lead ultimately? If immigration and birthrates are focused primarily on Muslims,is Christian Europe doomed? Will the universal religion of the future be Islam?

The U.S. had its own monumental demographic event in 1965, when the new immigration laws were passed. They had the effect of opening up the country to the rest of the world, whereas previously U.S. laws had pretty much favored the traditional sending countries, mainly Europe. At the time, that change was not seen as significant as it really turned out to be. It turned out to be a very serious error, one which seems to be about to be repeated. Without it, the U.S. today would probably not have the level of immigration from those "non-traditional" places like Asia and Latin America. While immigrants from these areas may be as productive and innovative as anyone else, they are more insular and will ultimately change the culture, government, language, and ideals of America.

What will be the geopolitical implications of low fertility in Europe? First of all, it's never happened in history. The only thing that caused such tremendous depopulation over a long period of time was something like the Plague, but that affected all age groups. This is very, very different. If low fertility is sustained, it will take the population pyramid and turn it upside down. You end up with a third of the population above the age of 65, and that's something no country has ever had to deal with before. But it is, nevertheless, a socio-economic problem that can be addressed in one way or another. In Japan, household robots are being developed to serve the elderly. In some European countries subsidies are being offered to have more children. In other countries it will simply be a matter of extending the retirement age.

The implications are so many. It's not just pensions; it's markets. If you retire in Germany in ten years, to whom do you sell your house to if you want to move? And the strain on national budgets would be such that if there was a need, for example, for some concerted military effort, would they be able to do that? Probably not. This, of course, might be a very good thing. Instead of selling one's house, pensions could be extended through reverse mortages saddling the government or the banks with the problem.

Are the U.S. and Europe preparing differently for demographic change? The U.S. definitely has its own problems. We've already raised our retirement age a bit. For me, it's not 65 to get full benefits; it's 66. For younger people, it's going to be higher. And that was done without a lot of complaint, whereas in France, you know what happens when they try to raise the retirement age. And that is the expectation in any country where creeping socialism obligates the government beyond its means.

The other thing is that they talk about immigration as a cure-all for this. I'm not so sure of that. Immigration to Germany has slowed down a bit because there are fewer jobs available for immigrants. Will European countries be able to provide jobs for immigrants if they come? There's a limit to the number of third-tier jobs that people are going to be willing to take. In the U.S., complaints have already been heard about immigrants usurping some of the jobs citizens would do if offered a living wage and a hiring preference. A majority of American citizens would rather see secure borders and an immigration system designed for our needs rather than the demands of those who wish to come here or who are here already illegally and want to stay. There will be troubling times ahead as the clash of culture occur. Some have already resorted to renewed violence against immigrants. This is nothing new in the history of the U.S. or the world at large. Those of German and Japanese descent felt the ire of others during World War II when they were viewed with suspicion.

Where are the demographic problems in Europe that the world can learn from?
The dynamics are quite different from place to place. In Italy, for example, one reason for the low birthrate is that it's not very acceptable to have a child outside of marriage. You have cases of men living with their parents until their late twenties - the so-called "mama's boys." They don't get married until they're in their early thirties. I was told you can't get a lease on an apartment unless you have a full-time job, and many companies only want to hire people on a part-time or consulting basis. It makes it hard for young people to set up a household outside of the family home. They have to get rid of these somewhat artificial constraints.

And when you talk about Europe, you have to talk about eastern Europe. The collapse there has been larger than in the West. Eastern European countries before the breakup of the Soviet Union used to average two children per woman or more. The bottom just fell out, because after years of dependence on Moscow, all of the sudden they were thrown out on their own.

What about Germany? Germany is a good laboratory. What if all of the sudden, overnight, Germany makes full-time daycare available? What if there is a campaign to change attitudes so that everybody wants to help raise children? What would happen?

On a Eurobarometer survey, Germany and Austria are two countries that stand out for their very low figures on the ideal number of children. Most countries of the world, including Japan, always say two children or more. Germany and Austria are low on that score.

Wolfgang Lutz in Vienna calls it the low-fertility trap. The expectations for youth change. When they come out of school, they want to travel, they don't necessarily want to start pushing baby carriages about. Maybe the Elterngeld is helping people who really wanted to have kids all along, but it's not pulling people into the family market who don't really want it anyway.

The Question: Can the world support more people?

Some believe the answer is "yes" because we are actually facing a lifestyle crisis, not a population crisis.

Looking back at the last century, historians and economists find that despite the quadrupling of the world’s population, the health and wealth of the majority has improved dramatically. The rate of population growth is falling, even in the developing world. The real threat to the environment, they say, is not more poor people but the lifestyles of the rich. The problem with that view is that the poor people aspire to the lifestyle of the rich. That is what is meant by the term "developing country". Poor people are moving toward a more affluent lifestyle. So if the lifestyles of the rich is a crisis, then we are in for a deepening crisis as the poor become upward bound.

During the 20th century, the number of people jumped from 1.6 to over 6 billion. Average life expectancy, income available per capita, and other measures of the standard of living, however, also increased significantly. Perhaps so over the entire century but what is it doing now? Billions of people are still living on less than $2.50 a day. Some believe the standard of living of our children and grandchildren will not continue to increase at the previous rate. Did the standard of living follow the S - shaped logistic curve with the 20th century representing the rapid improvement along the back side of the curve, while the future may be better represented at the top of the S as it bends over or begins to curve downward?

“It [20th century population growth] was not because people suddenly started breeding like rabbits – rather, it was because they finally stopped dying like flies,” says U.S. economist Eberstadt. “The ‘population explosion’…was really a ‘health explosion.’” One might add that now we will have to pay the piper either in terms of huge increases in expenditures to rescue Medicaid and Medicare or in terms of a rationing of health care in which the sick and the aged will be expected to die.

The benefits of the demographic dividend are exaggerated, says Matthew Connelly, author of Fatal Misconception, a history of population control programs. Good governance, education, and infrastructure are more effective weapons against poverty than population reduction. We continue to strive for the former but why not a combination of both? Good governance, education, and infrastructure will produce neither more arable land, nore water for irrigation nor more natural resouces for an expanding population. In fact, education and infrastructure are likely to increase the rate of resource consumption per capita and in the process, more environmental damage, encroachment on forests and parklands, and destruction of wildlife habitat.

Nor does Connelly believe that population reduction is necessarily a good thing. By 2050, 140 countries – or four fifths of humanity – will have birth rates below ‘replacement level,’ and these nations will struggle to replace aging workers and fund social security systems. The only reason that developed nations’ populations are not in freefall now is immigration. However, it has already been demonstrated that it is not only possible through innovation to survive with birth rates below the replacement level but, it turns out, this may be an easier task than trying to feed and satisfy the other demands of an ever expanding world and U.S. population.

Connelly is skeptical about population control programs, noting that while these programs accompanied falling birth rates in China and India, in countries that had no such programs, like Brazil and Turkey, birth rates also fell. This is good. There is no reason to be skeptical about this. We can learn from both.

He further argues that reducing population might actually harm the planet because fewer people and greater affluence means more single households and greater per capita consumption. However, because of the finite natural resources already consumed by the preceding larger population, per capita consumption may be constrained by shortages of raw materials. Moreover, per capita consumption is not the only way to look at this. If you halve the world's population and increase the per capita consumption by one third, there would still be a net reduction in total consumption. And if this results in greater affluence, this translates into less poverty and misery.

“China says there are 300 to 600 million fewer people thanks to the one-child policy,” writes Connelly. “But hundreds of millions of Chinese aspiring to middle class lifestyles has far more impact than 300 million more subsistence farmers.” So China will also have to face the demands for finite natural resources of their new middle class and will have to take additional steps to curb that appetite. China will be competing with other world economies for scarce resources. Surely, Connelly is not advocating a new draconian policy to keep all subsistence farmers from moving up to the middle class. In fact, as China's middle class expands, its economy will become more and more dependent on domestic consumption rather than exports.

WWF figures show that between 1992 and 2003, the ecological footprint of people in low- and middle-income countries changed little, while in high-income countries, it increased by 18 percent. This was neatly encapsulated at the July 2008 G8 summit in Japan when UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown scolded the British public for throwing away too much food just before he sat down to an eight-course banquet. And, of course, this is the aspiration of the developing countries -- not only to have enough food to feed their people but to actually graduate to the level where they too can throw some food away. Food production is likely to limited by the available arable land, fertilizers, and fuel for farm equipment.

Perhaps the real question for demographers, environmentalists, and gaffe-prone politicians alike is not how many people the planet can or cannot support, but how many eight-course banquets it can support and how much thinner the finite natural resources of mother earth can or should be spread before we all feel the pinch of shortages of all kinds beginning with food. There can be no doubt that the more of us there are, the less there is for each of us.

Nationalism, Patriotism, and Nativism

A few terms often come up in discussions about citizenship and nationality: nativism (a term used in a derogatory way by open borders advocates), nationalism (a concept carried to extremes in Nazi Germany and WW II Japan), and patriotism (usually seen as a good thing). The similarities and distinctions among these terms, however, aren't always explicitly drawn.

Merriam-Webster provides the following definitions:

Nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially: a sense of national consciousness exalting one [nation] above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.

Nativism: a policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants.[A "native" is generally defined as a person who is born in a particular region or place and who therefore linked to that place. If the archaeologists are to be believed, there was a time when there were no human inhabitants in North America. Therefore, the first arrivals as well as the last can be considered to be immigrants. Thus, natives are only those who were actually born in a particular place or region. Laws enacted by governments further define who is and who is not an immigrant and, implicitly, who is a native.]

Patriotism: love for or devotion to one's country.

According to immigration lawyer, Dave Bennion, "...the dictionary definition of nationalism incorporates the definitions of both nativism and patriotism. Likewise, in the immigration context, neither nativism nor patriotism can be fully understood without reference to nationalism. To properly examine nationalism, it's necessary to step outside the context of a particular country for a moment."

Political scientist Benedict Anderson discusses nations as socially constructed "imagined communities," so-called because "the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion." Although most Americans will never meet or even know the names of 99.99% of their co-nationals, they feel they are a part of a community because they study and read about them in the media and assume that those whom they do know are proxies for or representative of all of the other Americans. Americans are famously patriotic and most feel bound together by common ideals, and a common understanding of history, especially in the face of attack or criticism from outside and perceived internal threats resulting from the deadly consequences of immigrations unarmed invasion.

Patriotism in the U.S. as a positive value is rarely questioned in the public discourse, and when it is, the political damage is swift and quickly quarantined. It is not kosher in the U.S. to too closely examine the ways that nationalism and patriotism are connected. Nationalism in its normal manifestation, like patriotism, is a positive term that reflects national self-esteem, a positive quality.

As noted above,Germany and Japan are two countries where a particularly chauvinistic, aggressive form of patriotic nationalism found full expression during World War II. According to Bennion these countries now have two of the least patriotic societies in the world. "Until recently, Japanese schools were legally limited in the extent to which they could include patriotism in the public school curriculum. Germans still feel uncomfortable with demonstrative patriotism of the kind that is common in France, China, or the U.S." These vestiges of anti-nationalism derive directly from the atrocities committed by Germany and Japan during WWII. They are not likely to be a permanent because patriotism, nationalism, and pride in one's country is the natural state of affairs, a matter of national self-esteem.

Neither Germany nor Japan was a democratic polity during WWII. But lamentably, having a democratic government does not immunize a sovereign state from committing misdeeds abroad when there is no all powerful international governing body in place. Under the anarchic international political system, might makes right, as can be seen with the U.S. invasions of Vietnam and Iraq, Russia in Afghanistan and Georgia, or China in Tibet. In each case, a powerful country, disregarding the sovereign borders, invaded a weak country for reasons it believed to be in the national interest, curbing the spread of Communism in Viet Nam and removing the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a despot in Iraq. Even in the cases Russia and China, the aggressive action was justified as a necessary defensive measure. In each case, as in the case of Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, nothing was or could be done by the international community. In the case of the first Iraq War, some members of the international community saw fit to act as a powerful invasion force to push Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. Middle East oil resources were seen to be in jeopardy and therefore action was considered necessary. If oil had not been an issue, Kuwait might now be a part of Iraq. In each case, nothing much was done or could be done to stop the powerful state or coalitions of states.

Since supranational bodies like the UN are supported in large part by contributions from its largest and most affluent members, undertaking military action against those members would surely destroy the supranational organization as a functioning body. It most cases, military action is not even feasible.

In wartime, domestic appeals to patriotism and the characterization of the enemy as inherently evil are essential to build and sustain public support, especially in the face of escalating costs and casualties. Those patriotic appeals are expressions of nationalism that serve the national interest, which have always been the primary concern of all nation states.

Seen from a global perspective, as in the dictionary definitions, there is little to differentiate nationalism from patriotism. This has important implications for the immigration debate. Patriotism, or loyalty to country, is valuable to citizens of that country. Loyalty permits the government to collect taxes, build a public infrastructure, provide services, and defend itself. It facilitates a sense of common purpose that enables the incorporation into democratic government of existing trust networks based on religion or family or ethno-linguistic ties.

Unreserved loyalty to a democratic state usually has positive effects for citizens. Among other things, it enables elected representatives to deal more effectively and appropriately with non citizens, especially illegal aliens. Patriotism fosters national unity and focuses the citizens' attention on those who threaten national security, sovereignty, or the national interest. This loyalty has enabled effective action against immigrants from enemy nations who represented a potential internal security threat. Neolib-promoted official expressions of regret for episodes of domestic U.S. nationalist fervor triggered by legitimate concerns about national security have followed the Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese-American internment, and the McCarthy hearings. In actuality, no apology was needed or justified for actions taken in the perceived national interest. Some compensation for economic losses property may have been appropriate. Neither the people of Viet Nam, Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor Chinese-Americans (for the Chinese Exclusion Act) should expect an apology any time soon for actions that were deemed in the national interest at the time. The Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited Chinese for 60 years from immigrating to the U.S. or naturalizing here. The "Yellow Peril" seemed real at the time and may have been an actual problem before less discriminatory immigration laws were put in place. Even in more recent times, there have been occasions of Chinese espionage and the betrayal of national secrets.

Americans love cheap labor except when it deprives them of their chance to earn a living, especially in desperate economic times. They also love having someone to do the stoop labor and other hard jobs, except when it threatens a total change in the culture, quality of life, and standard of living Americans expect to enjoy. In the past, the deportation of thousands of non citizens during periodic economic problems and the denial of entry to thousands under immigration laws were fully justified and legal and could not have occurred except pursuant to law.

Charges of disloyalty arise when one's behavior is contrary to the desires of fellow citizens and the national interest. There is something inherently disloyal when precedence is given to the interests of illegal aliens over those of one's fellow citizens. Such charges have also been an effective tactic used against political opponents since the U.S.'s founding, from the Alien and Sedition Acts used by the Federalist Party to target Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans to George W. Bush's politicized War on Terror. Since 9/11, immigration policy has been cast by the federal government as a key component of national security. Emblematic of this shift from the left wing approach that had prevailed from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s was the incorporation in 2003 of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) into the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the domestic agency charged with anti-terrorism efforts. Yet, the INS's efforts to curb illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and potential terrorist activity have been sporadic and ineffective because of the lack of political will and the necessary tools, staffing, infrastructure, and rules of engagement. Illegal immigration has been politicized and paralyzed by immigrant organizations with familial or ethnocentric ties to the illegal alien community and by the immigration lawyers who feed off from them.

Patriotism in the U.S., coming both from the native-born and from immigrants, means that the U.S. embraces a nationalism that transcends traditional allegiances to race, religion, or ethnicity. This is a singularly important and appealing, unifying idea. The universalism of American nationalism applies to both citizens and serious citizen wannabes. But there is and should be very real legal distinctions between citizens and non citizens and loyalty and patriotism demand that those distinctions be recognized and honored.

Like nationalism based on common principles, institutional religion can create a sense of community that transcends other divisions-race, gender, nationality, age, or political opinion. But in doing so, religious affiliation can also create what may be a more lasting, significant division: an ideological distinction of identity. Nationalism in the U.S. is similar to religion in that its adherents sometimes promote it as a unifying universal ideology. Participation in a community of faith and loyalty enriches people's lives in powerful ways, and has brought security and prosperity to its citizens. The legal distinctions between citizen and non citizen represent not just the ability (or inability) to come and go at will; legitimate differences in power and access to taxpayer resources and government services serve as a valid universal unifying ideology.

If patriotism is simply a form of nationalism, then nativists do not need to be forgiven for conflating patriotism and nativism. After all, together, these two concepts together comprise the dictionary definition of positive nationalism above. It is a long standing principle of government that citizens deserve certain rights and benefits that are properly denied to non citizens. Nothing could be more universally recognized than this principle. In an international political system comprised of sovereign states, an immigration policy cannot be based on anything other than national identity. Hence, nationalism, patriotism and nativism are an inevitable consequence of the international political system. All three will continue to be a part of the U.S. policies and the immigration debate.

Adapted from Dr. David Bennion's blog at Change.org,October 06, 2008

14th Amendment Abuse

I have posted at length about the need to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens. Michael Chertoff, former head of Homeland Security, reported there are no two million criminal illegal aliens. These criminals are also in a rush to have babies and to apply for medical and welfare benefits for their instant citizens. Amost 25% of all California's births are to illegal alien women who are about 3% of the population. That one quarter represents 40% of all public funded births. Ten percent of all U.S. births now are to illegal alien women who are less than two percent of the nation's population. In California, it costs $400 million annually, and $1.2 billion nationwide just for the birth deliveries to illegal aliens. CA spent $6 billion in the last 20 years. The U.S. map indicating the highest percentage of medically uninsured shows the highest concentration in the counties all along Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and South Texas. Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas shows a similar pattern of publicly-funded illegal alien deliveries.

Pregnant women hide in car trunks or invade illegally by other methods, then wait outside hospitals, show up in emergency rooms in labor and force the U.S. taxpayer to pay the bill. Joe Riley, CEO of the McAllen Texas Medical Center, said, "Women enter in labor still wet from swimming across the Rio Grande from Mexico."

Insured citizens are forced to wait in line behind uninsured illegal aliens in crammed emergency rooms. Over 80 California hospitals, 65 emergency room, and 70 acute care facilities have closed in the last ten years. In 2007 California had $8.6 billion in unreimbursed emergency room costs. That's why everyone's health insurance costs continue to skyrocket.

And yet the illegal alien fellow travelers, sympathizers and aiders and abetters continue to blythely ignore the costs to all of us of this abuse of the 14th amendment and related laws governing emergency medical treatment for illegal aliens. Why?