Presidential Candidates With Nothing To Say

Today’s appearance of Fred Thompson on This Week with George Stephanopoulos does make me wonder why presidential candidates are so unprepared to talk about issues and why they even bother to appear on morning talk shows.  It’s not just Fred Thompson that has come on to these shows unprepared.  Tim Russert of Meet the Press is a master of interviewing. He invariably surfaces some really embarrassing contradictions in the previous campaign events (e.g. John Edwards’ interview on Feb. 4, 2007, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16903253/) or other events that fly in the face of the candidates current positions.        

Fred appears to be a nice man who has had the benefit of small appearances on the TV series “Law and Order” and has filled in for Paul Harvey on ABC radio.  His views or positions are not well thought out for a man running for president.  Today’s interview brought out the following:

  1. He is in favor of state laws helping to determine the maintenance of life when someone is seriously ill or may be brain dead.
  2. We should address the coming social security funding issue now rather than later but offers no solution.
  3. The fight against radical Islam is primarily a military fight.

Fred offered no vision for America and no road map for the 21st century.

 Candidates who have no message or vision are wasting our time.  “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama was at least a vision of the future.  It’s too bad Mr. Obama has not followed up on his book when appearing on television.

Presidential Debates Have Been Disappointing

How boring!  Most of the candidates in each party’s debates (they are really forums) mimic each other.  The contenders of each party try to catch their opponents in an error.  The one exception is Ron Paul.  He is a Republican who actually brings his own thought to those utterly uninspiring debates.  He has raised enough money to actually become a contender. 

The Democrats are particularly unanimous in their views.  Each of them tries his/her very best to avoid taking a stand on any issue.  Actually they try to avoid all issues.  The best example is providing a commitment to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.  Hilary Clinton flipped on this issue for two weeks and then said no.  At the November 15 debate Barack Obama used 192 words before finally saying “yes”. 

The Republicans also take the same views with the exception of Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani.  Unlike Ron Paul the other Republicans subscribe to the idea of not telling voters anything about their views.  Rudy Giuliani’s social liberalism and Mitt Romney’s religion have become talk show fodder.  I find it utterly dismaying that Mitt Romney’s religious belief have become an issue.  That Romney’s Mormon religion is being discussed is an indicator that bigotry still exists in the United States or that it is at least important in the Republican party.  No wonder I have become an Independent.  I personally dis-associated myself from a friend who showed himself to be a bigot and I would not be part of any group that stood for any bigotry.  

I like Rudy Giuliani.  His social liberalism makes him an excellent candidate for president against any Democrat.  He could win next November.  He and Hillary will have to take firm stands on real issues to win.

We Really Want Your Illegal Aliens

Yes it is true, we really want your poor and down trodden population here in the USA.  However, there is little chance we will recognize their rights to live here any time soon.  We won’t force them to return to your country but we won’t give them any legal status.  That means we will not issue them a license to operate a car nor any other legal identification. 

Basically we need those people to take the menial jobs that even our teenage children won’t do.  You know the jobs I am referring to like cutting lawns, taking care of our elderly parents, watching our children, washing our cars, and other boring and disgusting jobs.  After all those jobs only pay minimum wage or a few dollars above minimum wage.

You may wonder how I know this is true.  Just listen to our candidates for president and our congress.  The best example most recently is Hillary Clinton who now opposes giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.   She decided on that view after realizing that a majority of Americans oppose the idea.  She does not advocate forcing illegal aliens to return to their home countries.

 Mrs. Clinton is not alone in this view.  The predicament is that issuing any legal documents for any purpose to illegal aliens seems to be tantamount to granting amnesty for many politicians.  Many people do not want to grant amnesty to those here illegally and as a result we have reached a stand off that puts those poor immigrants in a limbo that creates a two level economy.  I suggest that we are creating a sub-culture that could rise up against our laws and cause considerably more harm than we are prepared to face.  There could be an American version of an Intifada.

How many of us are prepared for an uprising of the down trodden?  

Political Junky

I am a political junky.  Some people love sports so much that they stay home to watch every game no matter what the sport.  I would watch political show all the time if it wasn’t for my lovely wife.  Even as I am watching This Week on ABC, I am recording Meet The Press on NBC.  The DVR is a wonderful thing!  I listen to talk radio all the time, even when I do not agree with the hosts.  Know thine enemy would be my reasoning.  I admit I have been watching all the Dancing with the Stars programs but that’s because of Julieanne Hough.  This only proves that there are some things that will distract me (please don’t tell my wife, she never reads these blogs). 

I do not have access to any of the politicians so everything I write is based upon all of those columnists that I admire.  I put together the pieces by reading their commentaries and adding the news reports. 

I read blog writers become recognized by writing almost daily.  That is now my objective.  Yes I am envious of the columnists in Newsweek, Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post.  I am not earning a dime but I am having fun doing these postings.

If Illegal Aliens Are not Deported They Must Be Given Legal Status

Americans are really a generous people.  Despite our stated objective of keeping illegal immigrants from entering this country, the borders have not yet been closed to their continuing entry.  Even more surprising is that we are not sending most of them back to their native countries.  Is the reason we are not sending them back because these people, that everyone says are mostly Mexican, are doing jobs that most Americans won’t do or is this a corporate conspiracy to lower corporate labor costs?  The answer is not clear. 

Just enter the words “illegal aliens” into your internet browser and it becomes evident that opinions about these people are primarily against any legalization of their status.  Starting with http://www.illegalaliens.us/ that claims “AMNESTY means never having immigration enforcement!”, to CRIME VICTIMS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS http://www.immigrationshumancost.org/text/crimevictims.html  to World Net Daily’s claim that illegal aliens threaten the U.S. medical system. Most talk radio hosts are rabidly opposed to giving any harbor to anyone who has entered the country illegally.  Most of them stand with a crowd who do not want to grant any privileges to illegal aliens.  Still, those same people usually acknowledge that we are not likely or able to deport those aliens.

 However, enter the words “undocumented workers” into your internet browser and the first site listed is the “American Immigration Law Foundation” site that features “The Value of Undocumented Workers”, followed by many other sites that defend illegal aliens including one that states “About two-thirds of undocumented workers earn less than twice the minimum”.  Twice the minimum wage is $11.70 per hour. It is obvious to me that we are not going to arrest all the illegal aliens in the U.S. and deport them.  If we are going to permit those aliens to remain here we will have to provide them with documentation.  This does not mean we immediately put them into the pool of those now here legally who have made application for citizenship.  Here is my plan.

  1. Close the border to more illegal aliens effective December 31, 2007.  This should be done with walls, barbed wire, and monitoring towers.
  2. Provide identification documents to every illegal alien who can prove he/she was here prior to that date.  The identification would include social security cards that are similar to credit cards. 
  3. Issue every legal resident in the country with new credit card style social security cards.  If VISA and Master Card can manage their enrolled card holders then the holders of social security cards can be managed.
  4. The new social security card must be used by all employers to confirm the legal status of all current employees and new employees.
  5. Enforce high fines on all employers who defy the new regulations.
  6. All newly documented residents must learn English and apply for citizenship which will be granted after a ten year waiting period. Within a five year period all newly documented residents must be able to demonstrate their English proficiency.

English Should be the Official Language of the United States

As I went to my creative writing class today I knew that all 15 people attending would be speaking and writing in English.  The class is being conducted at a community college (Pierce College in Woodland Hills, California).  The background of the people attending is varied. 

The one thing we all have in common is language.  Perhaps some do speak another language.  One Caucasian lady told us that she accompanied her husband to Taiwan for a one year job.  She probably learned some Standard Mandarin as that is the language common to most people living there.   However, she has spoken to all of us in English.  Two Asians are in the class.  Based upon their appearance they are most likely from China.  They only speak English in the class and for all I know that may be the only language they speak. 

English is not the official language of our country.  We have no official language.  That is a problem for our nation.  Recently this country has become divided by language.  By not having English language competency many people do not consider they are part of this country.  Those immigrants who retain their native language are continuing to consider themselves part of their homeland. More than 10% of Californians speak little or no English. 

Both government and business are to blame for this situation.  Some Bank web sites are in both English and Spanish.  When you telephone most businesses they give you a Spanish option.  Election ballots are now in Spanish everywhere in the United States.  Los Angeles County now offers ballots in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish.  The argument for this is that many citizens do not understand English sufficiently enough to understand ballot measures.  “Thousands of Americans are voting in foreign languages, even though naturalized citizens are required to know English.”  How did they pass the test to become citizens?  The Hoover Institution documents this issue (http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3574512.html) in an article dated in 1996.  Federal law required California’s Yuba County to spend $12,000 printing voting information in Spanish even though there was no request for the documents.  Oddly, the State of California has an amendment to its constitution making English the official language. CALIFORNIA STATE CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE III, SECTION 6. 

I am sorry to note that my position is not popular with Democrats.  Newsmax.com reported on this issue (http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/6/28/230903.shtml?s=us).To my dismay the Speaker of the House supports the idea of ballots in multiple languages.  What could Nancy Pelosi have been thinking when she supported this idea? 

Debates for President are in English, laws are written in English, our primary TV stations are broadcast in English, English is the language used for all communication between towers and commercial aircraft in all countries in the world, many countries print their postage stamps with both their native language and English. 

Wolf Blitzer of CNN has asked all the candidates, in the debates of both political parties, if they favored making English the official language.  All the Republicans support the idea but all the Democrats except former Alaska Governor Mike Gravel oppose it. 

There is hope for a change.  Representative Peter King of New York, has introduced HR 769, a bill to make English the official language of the United States of America. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has introduced a companion bill, S 1335 in the Senate.  Pro-English  (http://www.proenglish.org/issues/offeng/769.html) is an organization dedicated to “working to educate the public about the need to protect English as our common language and to make it the official language of the United States.” 

The principles of Pro-English are a list I whole heartedly support and so should all Americans:

  • In a pluralistic nation such as ours, the function of government should be to foster and support the similarities that unite us, rather than institutionalize the differences that divide us.

    • Our nation’s public schools have the clear responsibility to help students who don’t know English to learn that language as quickly as possible. To do otherwise is to sentence the child to a lifetime of political and economic isolation. Quality teaching of English and America’s civic culture should be a part of every student’s curriculum. The study of foreign languages, as an academic discipline, should be strongly encouraged.

      • All candidates for U.S. citizenship should be required to demonstrate knowledge of English and an understanding of our system of government, at a level sufficient to vote in the language of our country English.
      • Naturalization ceremonies, including the Oath of Citizenship, must be conducted in English.
      • The right to use other languages must be respected.  

 

It’s True, The U.S. is a Christian Nation

“I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles ….”  This statement by John McCain is reality.  http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071001/D8S0MO881.html. 

My wife and I vacationed to the East Coast a few years ago.  Our destination was colonial and U.S. revolutionary sites.  One of the facts that came to our attention was that only Christian land owners could hold office in colonial times.  Those Christians did not even include Catholics.  So while it is accurate to say that there is no reference to any specific religion in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution the nation was controlled by Christians. 

Today this country recognizes Christmas Day, Easter, and Palm Sunday as national holidays.  There are no national holidays in honor of any other religion. The American Jewish Committee (http://www.ajc.org/) may be deeply troubled by Senator McCain’s remarks but he was truthful.

What is a Jew, Muslin, Buddhist, or Hindu to do?  Nothing.  There is no persecution of any group because they are not Christians.  The founding fathers were not particularly religious and perhaps they understood that the nation might change over time.

Religion does play a significant role in this country as it does in most countries of the world.  If this country’s majority population did become something other than Christian the national holidays would change.  Primarily we are a secular nation that does recognize reality.

The American Empire, Is It Manifest Destiny?

John O’Sullivan wrote the article titled “Manifest Destiny” in 1839.  The article can be found at (http://www.civics-online.org/library/formatted/texts/manifest_destiny.html).  Mr. O’Sullivan contends that it’s just meant to be that the U.S.A. is “governed by God’s natural and moral law of equality, the law of brotherhood — of “peace and good will amongst men.”. . .”

I believe that President George W. Bush honors that theory.  The context of that article by Mr. O’Sullivan is remarkably similar to the words of this president.

 

What constitutes an empire? The U.S.A.has nearly 1.4 million active military personnel according to Wikipedia, and over 369,000 of those are deployed outside the United States and its territories. They are located in Germany, Japan, South Korea, The Philippines, Diego Garcia, Cuba, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Djibouti, Italy, Portugal, Qatar, and many other countries.  Try searching for that kind of information elsewhere is futile.

 

Now the president wants an “enduring relationship” with Iraq.  Does that mean we will have our troops there indefinitely?  We still have more than 35,000 troops stationed in South Korea.  The Korean War ended in 1953.

It was said that the sun never sets on the British Empire.  Can that statement now apply to the U.S.A?  I believe the answer is yes. 

 

What is our objective in building this empire?  It is part of our manifest destiny.

Why are most Mexicans in Mexico so poor?

The fonts on this posting were revised on November 23, 2008 to enable easier reading.  The words and text were not revised.

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“Why is Mexico so poor?” is the common search question.

The Los Angeles Daily News reporting on President Felipe Calderon of Mexico on Sunday, September 3, 2007,  “Criticizing the United States for its treatment of illegal Mexican immigrants has become routine for most Mexican politicians, including Calderon. Because the immigrants send home about $20 billion a year and because the yearly emigration of more than 400,000 people from Mexico relieves that country of masses of the poor, the government in Mexico City has little incentive either to stem the emigration northward or to support stricter measures making it harder for Mexicans to cross the border.”

 So I wondered why are most Mexicans in Mexico so poor?  I looked at Wikipedia ,ask.com and Google.  The answers I found were very limited.  Those that I found echoed my suspicions.  The web sites are http://www.funqa.com/economics/4400-1-Economics.html

 

http://www.city-data.com/forum/illegal-immigration/134888-why-mexican-economy-so-poor-their.html

 

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081107091500AAt44RQ

 

http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2003/Mexico-Poor-NAFTA22mar03.htm

Additional web sites located June 13, 2012

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110611210236AAtOGz1

http://www.knowswhy.com/why-is-mexico-so-poor/

 

The message from all of these web sites is clear.  The wealthy of Mexico have the power to keep most of the country’s population very poor and they like it that way.  It’s all about cheap labor.  Their attitude is if the poor don’t like it they can sneak into the U.S.A.  They have gotten away with this because too many American companies like the cheap labor force and the American government is complicit in this situation.  It’s not a Democrat or Republican thing.  It is a U.S. government thing.

                              

The American public uproar is the best thing Mexicans have going for them to change the Mexican government.  So President Calderon’s statements are just part of that government’s public stance to convince Mexicans that their government really is concerned about the well being of its population.  As to the marches in the U.S. about illegal alien rights, those are the words and actions of do-gooders who have played into the hands of the wealthy Mexicans.

 

A very inadequate educational system and major government corruption are the two issues most commonly identified as destroying the Mexican economy.  Many Mexicans can not read or write.  Bribery is a way of life in almost every part of the government including the police.  These two problems discourage foreign investment.

 

Notice that Carlos Slim, the wealthiest man in Mexico, is now listed as the third wealthiest man in the world according to Forbes magazine.  He along with other wealthy Mexicans couldn’t be happier with this situation.  Carlos Slim alone is reported to control 20% of the Mexican economy.  Can you imagine what would happen to Mexico if the wealthiest in that nation were forced to surrender and share what they have with the average Mexican?  I am not a communist but I believe that the wealthy families of Mexico are one significant cause of that country’s problems.  The U.S. could force this situation to change.  The U.S. won’t do that because the situation benefits American corporations.

I Don’t Like Gay People

This commentary is all Idaho Sen. Larry Craig’s fault. This is not a topic I am really interested in discussing. I don’t like gay people. I find their behavior disturbing on two counts.  I do recognize their right to perform revolting acts. If they want to do those things it’s their business. If they would just keep it private. That’s all I ask. Instead some do their thing in public places. (Associated Press item: A defiant Sen. Larry Craig denied any wrongdoing Tuesday despite his guilty plea this summer in a men’s room police sting, emphatically adding, “I am not gay. I never have been gay.”)

If that isn’t enough, many of these people parade and announce their behavior to the whole world. Gay parades seem to have become a fad in many big cities. Three that come to mind are the parades in West Hollywood, San Diego and Toronto.  Many also seem to take specific pride in announcing to others that they are gay. The announcements are of course more prominent within the entertainment community.  I even had an individual call for an appointment for a job interview.  He advised me that he lived “a different life style.” Do I care what his sexual proclivities are?  Of course not but since he advised me, I concluded that he would be making that fact part of his behavior at work.  I did not interview him.

I have actually known men who I suspected were gay. Since they kept their sexual preferences to themselves it did not bother me.  Apparently they are the exception. Gay men want to make their sexual behavior known. I never told anyone about my sexual behavior. It’s all about women. How dull?  Well not to me.