Is the United States Becoming a Nazi Replica?

-Doctor Ben Carson: ‘We should have a database on everybody’

-Donald Trump told NBC News there should be a database of all Muslims.

-Senator Ted Cruz agrees with Donald Trump. He would winnow the field of acceptable refugees down to only Christian Syrians, similar to what Jeb Bush proposes.

-Kasich on Syrian Refugees: ‘We Don’t Know Who They Are, Where They Come From’

-There’s nothing outrageous about barring Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. unless they pass background checks, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said on “The Kelly File.”

As reported on CNN
Shockingly, Trump told Yahoo News that he would consider requiring Muslim-Americans to register with a government database, or worse, mandating that they carry special identification cards that note their faith.

The reaction to this idea, fairly or unfairly, by many on social media, was to accuse Trump of wanting to mimic laws that Nazis had imposed on Jews, including requiring them to wear a gold Star of David on their clothes.

After Trump confirmed that he would set up a database for Muslim-Americans, an NBC reporter asked him point blank: “Is there a difference between requiring Muslims to register and Jews in Nazi Germany?” A clearly annoyed Trump at first refused to respond, but then told the reporter, “You tell me,” and walked away.

The likelihood is that a Republican will be the next president of the United States.

Trump is now reported to have “backed away” from tracking people. Still, the fear factor has taken over this nation.

With the rise of radical Islam and the non-stop reports on television we are all observing a frightening rise in those wanting the government to monitor every person’s movement. It is a form of fascism.

I wonder if any of these politicians have read George Orwell’s 1984. In that story the government spies on everyone’s personal life. Televisions are everywhere an each has a camera that watches what you are doing.

The data base idea is the most worrisome idea I have heard. Perhaps we could have the Muslims wear arm bands so they can be easily identified. Does this idea remind you of a past event? Yes! It reminds me of Hitler and the arm bands worn by Jews in Germany and all the places invaded by the Nazis.

The reaction of governors and the Speaker of the House to the situation in Europe is reminiscent of American reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

My reaction is what about other minorities in the United States? Will all of us be subject to data bases?

The only official definition of Fascism comes from Benito Mussolini, the founder of fascism, in which he outlines three principles of a fascist philosophy. 1.”Everything in the state”. The Government is supreme and the country is all-encompasing, and all within it must conform to the ruling body, often a dictator. 2.”Nothing outside the state”. The country must grow and the implied goal of any fascist nation is to rule the world, and have every human submit to the government. 3.”Nothing against the state”. Any type of questioning the government is not to be tolerated. If you do not see things our way, you are wrong. If you do not agree with the government, you cannot be allowed to live and taint the minds of the rest of the good citizens.

The use of militarism was implied only as a means to accomplish one of the three above principles, mainly to keep the people and rest of the world in line. Fascist countries are known for their harmony and lack of internal strife. There are no conflicting parties or elections in fascist countries.

Nazi Germany was extreme Fascism, better examples of fascist countries were Mussolini’s Italy, Iraq, Iran, and many middle eastern countries.

America Has Not Been and is Not Now Friendly to Immigrants

The reality is that the United States has not been the welcoming nation that is portrayed by many of America’s leaders. The verse on the Statue of Liberty was more likely a wish than a fact.

The reality is immigrants have been welcomed in the United States when there has been a labor need. The outstanding situations were building the railroads that brought thousands of Chinese in the 1800s, the flourishing factories of the early 20^th century, and today the need for farm workers, gardeners, hotel workers, and restaurant workers-the jobs Americans don’t want to do.

Look at America’s history starting with the second administration of the United States. John Adams, our second president signed four bills into law referred to as The Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien Friends Act allowed the president to imprison or deport aliens considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States” at any time, while the Alien Enemies Act authorized the president to do the same to any male citizen of a hostile nation, above the age of 14, during times of war. Clearly, the Federalists saw foreigners as a deep threat to American security. As one Federalist in Congress declared, there was no need to “invite hordes of Wild Irishmen, nor the turbulent and disorderly of all the world, to come here with a basic view to distract our tranquillity.” Not coincidentally, non-English ethnic groups had been among the core supporters of the Democratic-Republicans in 1796. Those Democratic-Republicans were the party opposing the Federalists.

Then in 1875 came the Page Act. The law was named after its sponsor, Representative Horace F. Page, a Republican who introduced it to “end the danger of cheap Chinese labor and immoral Chinese women.” It was the first federal immigration law and prohibited the entry of immigrants considered as “undesirable.” The law classified as “undesirable” any individual from Asia who was coming to America to be a contract laborer.

In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act restricted immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years and prohibited Chinese naturalization.

Then in 1891 the First comprehensive immigration laws for the US. The Immigration Bureau, created by the law, was directed to deport unlawful aliens.

The 1898 the Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the decision resulted in the recognition of the 14^th amendment as taking priority and the ruling that all Chinese children born in the United States are citizens of the United States.

The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 limited the number of immigrants from any country to 3% of those already in the US from that country as per the 1910 census.

The 1924 Immigration Act imposed first permanent numerical limit on immigration and thus began a national-origin quota system.

In 1954 under the direction of President Eisenhower, Operation Wet Back sent about 1 million Mexicans back to Mexico. Many of the deportations probably included many legal residents of the United States.

I have not covered all of the history of immigration into the United States but you certainly get the message that this country has not been friendly to immigrants. They have been used when there was a labor shortage of people willing to do the work that most Americans won’t do.

So why would the United States be willing to grant entry to Syrians, Iraqis, and other Middle Easterners? It’s not likely. There is no current need for more people in the United States. There is little evidence of sympathy. Read this article in the Washington Post on American opinion about permitting the migration of Jews in the late 1930s. The article shows a Gallup poll that indicated 61% of Americans at that time opposed allowing 10,000 Jewish refugee children into the United States.

Unless you bring a technical skill or money that will create jobs we really don’t want you to immigrate to our country. Those people from the Middle East don’t follow our religion, don’t understand our culture, and don’t speak our language. We really don’t want you!

David Bancroft

What Makes America Great?

First read this.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

That is the inscription on the Statue of Liberty written by Emma Lazarus.

It’s been there since 1903. The statue itself was erected in 1886. It was a prefect poem (sonnet) to place on Lady Liberty.

We all take it seriously in America until we are confronted with people trying to obtain entry into this country. Some GOP candidates for president need to read that poem and remember their roots. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are the outstanding leaders of the group that do not want to devise a path to citizenship for the people who prepare their meals, wash their dishes, make their beds, and cut their lawns.

By late Monday, states refusing Syrian refugees included Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

Have we lost our collective mind? America was built on refugees. They are the people who made this country great. Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase is the grandson of a Greek immigrant. Similarly millions of Americans are the children or grandchildren of immigrants.

So your next door neighbors and the people you see on the streets don’t look like you and maybe they have different religious beliefs but they all – we all – have one thing in common – our families all agree the United States is a country where everyone can work and live at our full potential. Somehow we seem to have forgotten that idea.

It’s time we all started acting like Americans.

Buy-Outs, Forced Retirement and Age Discrimination

Your employer is in financial difficulty and needs to find a way of saving cash until there is a recovery.

If you work for a newspaper or magazine you are in an industry that is in serious decline then recovery is in doubt. The Washington Post seems to have recovered thanks to a purchase by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. BusinessWeek magazine was bought by Michael Bloomberg and is thriving. Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report are gone. Tribune Publishing Company that owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers is in dire straits. The Los Angeles Times is currently attempting to offer buy-outs to their staff. Sports writer Bill Dwyre, a gray-haired man with years of experience and probably high pay just announced his retirement. Other outstanding columnists with that paper are probably also going to take their leave.

General Motors and Ford Motor Company both went through some very difficult economic times as have many other companies.

In every instance they all followed the same path. Cut the high cost employees and reduce the pay to the remaining employees. I know people who were part of the buy-out, those who faced the reduced pay, and those who were simply laid-off. I was party to that situation more than once.

The issue for those losing their jobs is their age. Once you are older, 55 or older, obtaining another job at the same pay as was previously received is difficult and in most cases impossible.

Age discrimination is rampant and impossible to prove. “Age discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) less favorably because of his or her age. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) only forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older.” That is the statement posted on the EEOC on their web site.

From Forbes magazine dated January 31, 2014

The Ugly Truth About Age Discrimination (abridged)

“So then the headhunter said something that took my breath away,” said my caller, Philip.

“He told me that his client looked at my resume and said it looked great, but then he found my LinkedIn profile and decided I’m a little long in the tooth for the job.”

I was silent. That took my breath away, too.

“Long in the tooth?” I asked. “As in old?”

“Exactly,” said Philip. “The headhunter actually told me that the client said I was too old for the job. I asked him if that was illegal – I’m pretty sure it is – and he said that the client’s view is that if they don’t interview me, I’m not a candidate, so it’s not discrimination.”

“That’s false,” I said, but even as I said it, I knew that it doesn’t make any difference.

What is Philip going to do – sue the employer he never met because a third-party recruiter told him that one hiring manager made an inappropriate comment? So-called Failure to Hire cases are notoriously hard to bring and even harder to prove. As long as the organization ends up hiring someone who is qualified for the job, how could Phil ever prove that he was rejected because of his age? It’s not as though the organization is going to publish the new hire’s age for all the other candidates to see.

Age discrimination is everywhere. I hear more examples of age discrimination than I hear about sex discrimination, racial discrimination and every other kind put together. I expect that’s because some employers believe that older workers aren’t as nimble or perhaps aren’t as easy to train. Some of them undoubtedly worry that an older person is necessarily overqualified, and thus likely to bolt the minute a better job comes along.

I was there too. At the age of 60 in an interview the president of the company, he asked me if I was a grandfather. My answer was no and that was accurate. The thought running through my head was I would not be obtaining this job. To my surprise I did receive the job offer. I went on to two promotions proving that older employees can thrive. Could I have brought a successful suit against that employer? There was no proof that the question was asked.

I know of no solution. Businesses thrive, businesses shrivel, life goes on. As the population ages the issue of age discrimination will fade away.

End of Life Act is NOT Assisted Suicide

We all watched with horror on 9-11 when so many people threw themselves out of the windows of the World Trade Center. They were people of all faiths and no faith. They were people of many national origins and ethnicities. And even though most faiths and traditions disapprove of suicide none of those who jumped were denied burial rites by any of their faiths.

All who wished, or whose families wished, received appropriate sacraments and were buried in sanctified ground. But how could this be with the strong prohibition against suicide? Simple. We all understand that human beings cannot be expected to stay in a burning room. It is primal–one of the two inborn fears that humans have.

We fear fire, and we fear falling. It’s ironic and tragic that those were the choices for many on 9-11. As far as we know all who had a choice chose falling and bringing a certain and quick end to their suffering.

Governor Brown just signed a controversial bill called “The End of Life Option Act” that is unfortunately and misleadingly referred to as the “Right-to-Die Bill” or “Assisted Suicide Bill.”

Remember the 9-11 jumpers were not suicides; they were escapees. They were escaping the anticipated pain of being burned alive. We understood. We all understood.

How is it we have such difficulties in understanding that some people today are living with real pain, right now pain and not anticipated pain? How can we not have the same understanding and compassion for those suffering from intractable, chronic and acute agony?

For some their very bodies are burning rooms in which they should not be required to stay. There are conditions that even our strongest painkillers can barely touch. There is pain so severe that the cost of knocking out is to be so narcotized as to have no quality of life.

The great question–and it doesn’t have an easy or glib answer–is when medical treatment prolongs living and when it prolongs dying? Most of us don’t want our lives cut short or our deaths prolonged. And it is not a fine line between the two but a big fat blurry line. This makes it a hard call; and it should be.

We certainly don’t want people to choose death for a transient condition or from treatable depression. We need some standards and processes. But we also need to understand that bills like California’s are not about the “right to die,” but the Right to Stop Dying. It’s not about ending living but ending dying.

Our wonderful modern medicine has worked miracles at keeping us alive, at fixing once untreatable conditions and curing once incurable diseases. But it has also made it sometimes too hard to die. It has fought diseases and conditions on the battlefield of the patient’s body. It is alright to hate the disease or condition, but we must also remember to love the patient.

Suicide is the wrong word to be associated with this issue. Suicide is about taking one’s own life or acting against one’s own interests. Sometimes, however, our interests are not to be in a burning room, and leaving the room is taking not a life, as in throwing it away, but taking control of one’s fate and asserting a rational, if painful, choice.

Ironically the fear of loss of control over our own life and death can lead to a premature exit. Most of us don’t want to be powerless over our fate and at the mercy of even the benignly motivated ministrations of others. I have seen people save pills and begin to prepare an exit because they feared losing their power and dignity. However, often when assured of the love and support, and yes, help of loved ones, they were, with a lovingly supported escape plan in place, able to go on living.

“Right to Die” is Now Legal in California

Since 1997, four states in the US have recognized the right to die with dignity. Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and California in 1997, 2009, 2013, and 2015, respectively, have laws that provide a protocol for the practice of physician assisted suicide.

Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Province of Québec, Canada have legalized voluntary euthanasia. On February 6, 2015 the supreme court of Canada officially declared that denying the right to assisted suicide is unconstitutional.

Jack Kevorkian is best known for publicly championing a terminal patient’s right to die via physician-assisted suicide; he claimed to have assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He was often portrayed in the media as “Dr. Death“; however, many consider him a hero as he helped set the platform for reform. He famously said, “Dying is not a crime.”

Should the state pass laws that decide if it’s legal to commit suicide? I believe it should be your choice no matter what the reason.

The California law seems reasonable to me. Here is how its is explained in a Los Angeles Times article.

Modeled after a landmark law in Oregon, California’s law would allow terminally ill Californians to end their lives with drugs prescribed by physicians.

The legislation includes safeguards against abuse, supporters say. It would require two physicians to confirm a patient’s prognosis of six months or less to live, as well as the patient’s mental competence to make healthcare decisions.

The patient would have to make two oral requests to a physician for help in dying, at least 15 days apart, with witnesses to the requests. The medication would have to be self-administered. In addition, the bill would create felony penalties for coercing a patient into making a request or for forging a request.

Coverings Worn by Muslim Women

The final debate prior to a national election in Canada for the prime minister’s position was partially focused on the right of Muslim women to wear a niqab. The number of Muslims in Canada is about 1 million people. According to Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey about 3.2% of the Canadian population, making them the second largest religion after Christianity. Muslims are not likely to influence the outcome of the election. The dilemma for western nations is the question of acceptance of Muslims. If their growing numbers results in sharia law taking priority over national laws then there will be a problem.

So what is a niqab? The BBC offered the following explanation and drawings of the various head covering used by Muslim women.

Hijab, niqab, burka – there are lots of different kinds of coverings worn by Muslim women all over the world.

Some wear a headscarf to cover their head and hair, while others wear a burka or niqab, which also covers up their face.

Headscarves are seen as a sign of modesty, and a symbol of religious faith.

But how can you tell which one is which? Check out our guide to the various different types.

The word Hijab describes the act of covering up generally but is often used to describe the headscarves worn by Muslim women. These scarves come in many styles and colours. The type most commonly worn in the West covers the head and neck but leaves the face clear.

The Niqab is a veil for the face that leaves the area around the eyes clear. However, it may be worn with a separate eye veil. It is worn with an accompanying headscarf.

The Burka is the most concealing of all Islamic veils. It is a one-piece veil that covers the face and body, often leaving just a mesh screen to see through.

The Al-Amira is a two-piece veil. It consists of a close fitting cap, usually made from cotton or polyester, and a tube-like scarf.

The Shayla is a long, rectangular scarf popular in the Gulf region. It is wrapped around the head and tucked or pinned in place at the shoulders.

The Khimar is a long, cape-like veil that hangs down to just above the waist. It covers the hair, neck and shoulders completely, but leaves the face clear.

The Chador, worn by many Iranian women when outside the house, is a full-body cloak. It is often accompanied by a smaller headscarf underneath.