Tag: Immigration

A Short Word: Coming to America

America is just as much about what you bring to her as what she brings to you.

The damp chill of the long and rainy night had worked its way deep into the ship. Young children clung to their parents for warmth, who in turn slept on bags filled with their family’s earthly belongings. Outside, the thick fog that clung to the ocean waves all night loosened its icy grip in the morning hours in the last of the drizzling rain. Escaping the cramped and dark spaces below deck, three figures walked onto the deck wrapped in layers of worn clothes and long coats.

The father stooped and picked up his young daughter in his arms then fell into step beside his elderly father. They picked their way along the length of the ship, talking quietly about home, their journey, and what’s to become of them. At the bow of the ship, the three joined the growing press of people peering westward through the misty distance toward a hazy and irregular horizon. The city skyline rose out of the sea, a dark and ominous shape.

The young girl pointed at the glint of gold in the middle of the harbor and watched in thoughtful silence as the statue of a crowned woman holding a golden torch high in the air grew steadily on the horizon. She looked up at her grandfather and the tears streaming down his cheeks. She whispered to her father, “Pa-pa, who is that lady?”

He smiled and replied, “She is America, my angel.”

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to.
This is the last stand on earth.”
-Ronald Reagan-

America’s relationship with the rest of the world will always be as much a product of our often tumultuous political climate as it is the practical realities of the chaotic world beyond our borders. The Founding Fathers understood that the forms and customs of their young nation were changing, even as they were being founded, and hoped the future generations would keep the virtues (liberalism, rationalism, and faith) of the old world while abandoning its vices (tyranny, prejudice, and superstition).

While our track record in this regard has been spotty, especially recently, the experiment and evolution of Americanism continues. The fundamental truth of our national identity is as true today as it was one and two hundred years ago: America is just as much about what you bring to her as what she brings to you. As Americans, we must embrace this even as we try to maintain a cultural homeostasis that continues to pursue a better more liberal, rational, and faithful society.

Tyranny, whether it pretend to be benevolent welfare state or openly malevolent dictatorship, remains the greatest threat to our experiment in self government. Prejudice, whether it be in the name of nationalism or openly ethnocentric nativism, is the greatest threat to our experiment in rationalism. And superstition, whether it ape a justified defensiveness or devolves into open religious bigotry, is the greatest threat to our experiment in philosophical pluralism.

America must remain free.

Liberty is For The Win!

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A Short Word: You Are Here

American voters have put a gun to the head of America’s future in an ultimate game of Russian Roulette.

I’m a natural born cynic, so I have to at least acknowledge the clouds that surround the silver lining that everyone else seems to be focused on. So while a lot of Republicans seem to be under the impression that things are going to go swimmingly over the next few years and the party is in a great position, I must look at the bigger picture. The Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, which is obviously better than a lot of other options, but the Republicans came two elections shy of losing control of the Senate.

The Republicans went from a 54 to 44 Senator advantage to a 51 to 46 advantage, retaining control of the Senate by their fingertips, which means they need every Republican vote, which invites an absolute mess in compromises and backroom dealing. Even the House of Representatives lost 6 seats, going from 246 majority to a 239 majority. This doesn’t change the game as much as many other obviously much worse possibilities, but it’s still a weakening of the Republican position.

This was the cost of Donald Trump deciding to run for office, just so he could win only after alienating millions of Republican voters then immediately backtrack on practically every campaign promise months before he even gets sworn in. His success will depend on keeping corporate interests happy, with his tax cut program, subsidies, and brute force protectionism, while also keeping working class whites happy, by coming through on his campaign promises to bring back American manufacturing jobs that have all but vanished since the 1970’s.

If he fails to solve illegal immigration, fails to repeal ObamaCare, fails to prosecute Hillary Clinton, and fails to restore the American economy in 4 years, he’s very likely going to lose reelection in 2020 and set the stage for the gutting of what remains of the Republican Party. That’s a tall order, even with the backing of a Republican Congress. He’s already put fixing the deficit and doing anything about the run away US debt on the back burner, betting the nation’s future on his economic vision.

Cutting corporate tax rates is the correct solution to a big part of the equation, but he’s already rolled back on his opposition to increasing the minimum wage, and his promises to working class whites that defected from the Democratic Party is going to hinge on increasing wages and salaries, which are the main reason American manufacturing has been leaving the United States in the first place. It still costs twenty times as much to manufacture anything in the United States, and protectionist tariffs fly in the face of the last 30 years of Republican policy.

American voters have put a gun to the head of America’s future in an ultimate game of Russian Roulette. There’s no turning back now. America rises or falls on the good behavior and business foresight of a man who tried (and failed) to sell $1000.00 meat beside electric nose hair clippers. God help us.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

Breaking Through the Wall

As the Chinese discovered thousands of years ago, the building of a wall, or hundreds of walls, as the case may be, does not actually prevent people from entering the country if that’s what they want to do.

We are in the midst of October, with the revelations of misdeeds and incompetence coming thick and fast. As the opposing political factions pull out all the stops in a last ditch effort to destroy their political rivals, it’s become a race to see which candidate can be least reviled. This is what our elections have become, not to say that political ugliness is new to politics, but more time and energy has been spent on the ugliness than actual policy this year than ever before.

So dominating has been the political sideshow of who grabbed who and when did they grab them, the actual political issues driving the angst of the nation have been lost in the maelstrom. These political issues are supposed to be what this whole painful process is about, after all, but now, as the election comes to a close, we remain distracted away from Donald Trump’s unrealistic campaign promises by his own flagrant moral failings. Moral failings, by the way, that should have been obvious to everyone long before now.

Putting aside his repulsive statements about women and his numerous transgressions in dealing with the opposite sex, as well as his numerous ugly outbursts on Twitter and in interviews, and his frequent outlandish accusations about other Republican candidates and let’s look at the meat of Donald Trump’s claim to political fame: his immigration policy. Avoiding talking further about the pure politics of the matter, let’s focus instead on the economic and logistical realities.

“Establish new immigration controls to boost wages and to
ensure that open jobs are offered to American workers first.”
-Donald J. Trump Website-

At just shy of 2000 miles long, the US-Mexico border presents a distinct logistical challenge. The shared border with Mexico is rough terrain of desert, river basin, hills, and mountains. Assuming he actually intends to go through with this campaign promise, geographical sections of the wall would have to be the largest contiguous structure in the United States other than roads or highways. It would dwarf the Berlin Wall by every conceivable measure, and that is saying quite a bit.

Additionally, there are the problems with private and public ownership of the land through which Donald plans to build his wall, because, naturally, there are literally thousands of properties and principalities through which the wall would pass, requiring a significant amount of legal hassle that has, until today, not been worth the effort. And then there is just the problems associated with having the wall itself, from an operational standpoint.

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As the Chinese discovered thousands of years ago, the building of a wall, or hundreds of walls, as the case may be, does not actually prevent people from entering the country if that’s what they want to do. In addition to just going around the wall, like most illegal immigrants already do, there are such things as ladders, ropes, tunnels, and simply just climbing over the thing. Donald Trump has stated the wall will be 25 feet tall, though he’s also indicated the wall could be 35 feet high (about a two and a half story building).

There’s also the problem with paying for the wall in the first place. Donald claims that he will make Mexico pay for it, but we’ve already dealt with why that would be ridiculous. There’s simply no way that Mexico, already struggling with massive unemployment, and with a GDP per capita a fourth of the United States, could afford to pay for it. On top of all of this, under Donald’s plan, Mexico gets an extremely raw deal, and, in reality, Donald wants to punish Mexico for playing by the rules that the United States and Mexico agreed to under NAFTA.

“It’s to defend this very same nation that is hosting you.
This nation is going to fail if it goes into the hands of a crazy guy.”
-Vicente Fox, Former President of Mexico-

In the end, this is Donald Trump’s core campaign promise, and, just weeks away from the election, there remain many unanswered specifics. Throughout this hectic political season, Donald has managed to dodge serious scrutiny of any of his political promises, including this one that has carried him past numerous political missteps. Despite all of this, however, it remains a highly dubious campaign promise, because it is simply beyond the authority of the office of President.

Worse still is that the wall will do very little to address the trade problems that Donald promises to solve. Even if Donald does manage to build the wall and kick out all of the illegal immigrants, the fact remains that the jobs these ambitious young men and women were working were not premium market jobs. Contrary to what many believe, illegal workers were not and are not pushing a significant number of American workers out of the job.

In many cases, these jobs wouldn’t exist at all were it not for these immigrants, because, due to current regulation of health benefits and wages, they cost far more than they could possibly produce. For all of his bluster about how much he knows about business, Donald doesn’t seem to understand even rudimentary economics or policy. He just doesn’t get that to repatriate these jobs, all that is necessary is to reduce the cost of hiring an American worker below that of hiring an illegal immigrant.

Instead, Donald and his supporters focus on trying to raise the cost of hiring an illegal immigrant above that of hiring an American worker, which requires more taxes, more regulations, and more government. This is exactly the opposite of the Conservative solution, of less taxes, less regulation, and less government. While his plan will undoubtedly reduce illegal immigration, it will do so only so much as brute force protectionism can.

There are much better options, but they require reasserting capitalist Conservative principles that have long been abandoned by Americans indoctrinated in socialist collectivist dogma for over a century. Donald’s political career may finally be coming off of the rails, but that he got this far only proves how un-American America has become. We are no longer the land of the free or the home of the brave, having traded our economic Liberty for false security long ago.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW