Thursday, May 6, 2010

Let's get off the illegal immigration merry-go-round once and for all

Why do illegal immigrants come to the U.S. risking life and limb to be treated like sub-humans? Answer: The majority of them come because they can make ten times the amount of money here in half the time that it would take them in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and as far away as South America. I think any American faced with the same alternatives would be doing the same thing. Higher paying jobs are the main attraction. Who provides these jobs? Answer: American businesses, small and large provide the incentive for them to make the treacherous, but lucrative journey. So how do we stop illegal immigration, or at least reduce the influx to next to nothing? Answer: Stop providing the illegal jobs which are the incentive for their migration north. Another alternative would be to help make Mexico a more vital nation that can provide jobs and salaries comparable to ours, but let's ignore that option as unobtainable for now, and focus on our current problem. After all we are not going to turn Mexico into Canada overnight. Have you ever noticed that we have no walls on our Northern border, which is over twice the length of the border to the South, and the border patrol is a fraction of the size?

So after years of living with the illegal immigrants from the South, they have become a vital part of our economy. If we could just throw all of them out of the country then our problems would be solved, right? Wrong, the problems we are having with our economy would be compounded to such a degree that we might get the full blown depression we barely escaped. The businesses that exist due to the hard work of these illegal laborers would go under, big and small. So we put up more walls, hire more border patrol agents, call out for the National Guard, and kick, scream, and cry for our politicians to do something. For the National Guard to even slow illegal immigration, soldiers would have to stand hand-in-hand along the border, and even that would not stop it.

We blame our federal government for not doing what it takes. Our state government says they are finally going to do something to quiet the angry mob, so they put a band-aid on the problem, like a tourniquet on a severed carotid artery, it will only exasperate the problem, and fix nothing. If SB1070 goes into effect, the lawsuits that will follow will tax our already weak economy along with the loss of revenue from tourism in our state. The only people that will want to come here will be skin-heads, white supremacists, and tea baggers without a clue. We already have enough of them, and their trailers camped out in the desert will hardly replace the millions we get from conventions. Then after numerous racial profiling lawsuits against the state of Arizona, the Supreme Court will strike it down for what it is, un-Constitutional. What a waste of time, energy, and money.

How would real immigration legislation work? I give way to the words and ideas of political analyst, and activist, Robert Creamer, who says, "It would do so through a combination of smart and effective border enforcement, a crackdown on illegal hiring and unfair labor practices, modernizing the legal immigration system, and requiring those here illegally to register with the government, pass background checks, study English, pay taxes, and get in line to work towards citizenship." We already have the border enforcement which will be more effective if we can slow the flood of people down to a trickle. I think most immigrants would stand in line to register and get legal work permits, pay their due taxes for services rendered, and a lot of them would get in line to work towards citizenship.

So where is the sticking point? What is stopping this plan from being implemented and working? There are two major components; the ignorant, racists, and an opportunistic lobby that call this path to citizenship, amnesty, to protect their clients. They are part of it, but the biggest problem lies in the employers of these immigrants. I know some will say we have the toughest employer sanctions in the country in place. What good are these laws when no one enforces them? Besides a well publicized raid by our narcissistic Sheriff Joe Arpaio once every couple of months on an easy target, the vast majority of these employers go unpunished, and the problem continues. Now can you see the merry-go-round we are on, and have been on for a long time?! Business men need this cheap labor to continue to make higher profits, and avoid the cost of documentation, benefits, and the distribution of taxes. They are willing to spend the money to control the legislatures, federal and state, with donations and lobbyists. Meaning it is more profitable. Then the legislatures appropriately extol the virtues, and sanctity of businesses, and how they are the life blood of our country and economy. Then the two get together and tell US we need higher walls, more troops, SB1070, and keep us going around in circles while they profit, and nothing really gets fixed because they really do not want things to change! Do you really think Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain are going to get anything done that fixes the problem? I think it would have happened already. Instead they will bluster and blow rhetoric, while telling the angry masses what they want to hear so they can hold on to their lucrative power, and get re-elected. Then they will go back to Washington and bluster and blow to Congress about how something needs to be done, and after all of that posturing NOTHING will be realized from this show, except the status quo. Jan Brewer is not trying to fix the problem. As a journeyman politician she is catering to the loud, angry mob so she can actually be elected to a post for which she is not worthy. This is desperation politics that does nothing to help us, gets nothing solved, and keeps us chasing our tails.

I endorse Robert Creamer's solution, it is viable, and the key piece to making it all work would be bio-metric identification. This is a card the size of your driver's license that would carry every important piece of information about you from medical records, to citizenship on a micro-chip that is easily read by a scanner. A policeman can see if you are here illegally in a moment. Medical personnel would know your history in an emergency whether you could speak for yourself, or not. Stealing your identity would be next to impossible, protecting your vital financial information, and protecting your assets. Why don't we have these already since the technology has been around for a while? Because there are people afraid of the Big Brother bogey man who claim our rights will be trampled by this invasion into our privacy. A lot are the same people that want immigration "fixed", and are loud enough, and angry enough of a mob, to unknowingly support the people that are really against this technology. The technology that can makes the immigration problem solvable, and the solution possible, is not really acceptable to the people in control.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Americans should be the masters to which the Supreme Court serves

Is our Supreme Court partisan?! I thought they ruled by interpretation of the law, not along political lines. They recently dismantled the McCain-Feingold bill, and upended 100 years of political campaign contribution regulations. They voted 5-4; with the 5 votes awarding corporations and unions to openly contribute to political campaigns with no restrictions on the dollar amounts, coming from the "conservative" justices, Kennedy, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Scalia. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote, "If the First Amendment has any force" while defending his broad interpretation of the right to free speech, in justifying his vote. The loudest dissenter of the 4 justices voting against the ruling was Justice John Paul Stevens, the most conservative of the 4, "liberal" justices which included, Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor; he called it "profoundly misguided." Justice Kennedy also said that there was, "No basis for allowing government to limit corporate independent expenditures." Stevens countered with, "In the context of election to public office the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it."

How does this happen when for the last 100 years, the last 20 years in particular, the law has focused on regulation of corporate campaign contributions? The approving justices argue that the people control the actions of their respective corporate employers and unions with their voices, therefore their word will be heard louder and clearer. I can see this being slightly true when it comes to unions, but thinking the employee of large corporations has any voice heard by the decision makers of the company is naive at best. In the case of unions, yes the member has a vote, but if the union has its own agenda, the member has little choice but to go along, or quit. There are few people these days that can get out of the union without losing their jobs, or can afford to just quit their job because the union did not listen to them. Teddy Roosevelt was the first President to recognize the negative influence corporations could have on our Democratic process, and started the regulation process, he said:

"Limitless corporate spending...is one of the principle sources of political corruption...not one (special interest, corporate) voice is entitled to a vote in Congress, on the bench, or any representation in any public office."

Now after over 100 years of attempting to put a cap on the powerful, and biased influence of corporations, special interest, and unions, 5 of the people appointed to protect our rights, and uphold the law, as interpreted by our Constitution, have chosen to go against decisions made over a long period of time by very intelligent people on both sides of the aisle, and the experts that guide their decisions. President Obama called it, “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

What could these 5 have been thinking? Obviously they had an agenda, and obligation to fill that went against all common sense, and popular thought that served the people and benefited Americans, but was very profitable for the real power they serve, big business. To accomplish this they interpreted the First Amendment to equate financial contributions with free speech. A very Capitalistic interpretation of Democratic law in which to hand the main influence on our future over to the very people that lied, stole, and misrepresented themselves to US all, for direct profit and gain for themselves, and to the detriment of the American people and our Republic. The money these entities contribute to campaigns influences our elected officials, and prove to be a much louder voice, canceling the vote of the American citizen. These funds give special interest a voice in Congress that they are not entitled to by any interpretation of our Constitution. There will be huge, unregulated caches of money used to spread the propaganda of for-profit operations against the fiscally handicapped non-profit operations that work for US and protect our rights against the perpetual assault on America's best interests by these opportunistic, selfish, and greedy enterprises. Large corporations only employ 20% of the work force. Why should they have the lion's share of the influence on the laws meant to protect all of us? This will result in the further devaluation of each Americans vote, and the apathy that follows, resulting in lower voter turnout.

It is a logical and proven fact that the lower the voter turnout during election time, the less the will of the people is served. It also results in a higher number of Republicans taking office over their Democratic opponents. Now you know the masters our Supreme Court really serves.