Rant #8 - Illegal Benefits

Apparently millions of young, thriving, hard-working illegal immigrants are helping to shore up a system they don't understand, and apparently neither do we. Furthermore, we do not understand how to handle this illegal blessing. And it continues to grow by roughly 60% a year.

There are an estimated 16-22 million illegal immigrants in the United States, out of a total population of 290 million, roughly one out of every 14 people in America. 3 million or more made it across the borders this last year alone. It is estimated that each illegal worker contributes an average of $1600 a year to the solvency of the Social Security system past politicians believed in so strongly. What an awkward position to be in today, as an elected official. Without the nearly $8 billion a year in approximate subsidies, the program would most likely go broke much sooner than is anticipated. In fact, the subsidy stands to grow larger because according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average Hispanic family is nearly 70% larger than the typical American clan. More kids equals more future workers, more workers have more children, etc. The exponential growth means that in less than 20 years, the current illegal population will have doubled, accounting for approximately 15-20% of the income for the entire Social Security system. Keep in mind that those dollars directly underwrite those receiving benefit checks from the government every month, essentially a free ride.

I call the contributions a "subsidy" because these individuals (the majority of them, anyway) are paying into the system which funds today's payments to seniors and the disabled, yet these same workers will never realize their current contributions when they retire, even if they become legitimate U.S. Citizens.

With My Own Eyes I See the Tragedy of Contradiction

I happened to be in Los Angeles on Saturday, March 25 when 500,000 protesters stormed the streets of downtown and shut down massive sections of the city to declare recent Congressional legislation unfair. It is fascinating to watch so many people come out to display their disgust with a system that is both broken and unfair, unafraid in a nation that both gives them the right to protest and simultaneously calls them criminal.

I do believe that there is a serious immigration problem that exists in America, and it begins with the bureaucracy that makes an émigré wait up to 9 years to process paperwork and be given either a yes or a no answer. I also believe there is a problem with our system when it denies local authorities the ability, funds or even jurisdiction to confront and arrest those that are here illegally.

What I find missing in this debate is a proposal to create an Ellis Island sort of assimilation program that would greet all those who wish to call America home, calling "Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses". New York used to beam these words of light into the distant hearts of desirous populations that heard and dreamed of the American Ideal. As one comic reasoned, instead of "Give me your huddled masses," Lady Liberty now is holding a bat saying "you want a piece of me?!"

I Truly Sympathize

I have a relative that is married and has a child by a man who immigrated here illegally, then later pursued legal affiliation. He is the hardest working man I know, and sends a huge portion of his paychecks back to his family in Mexico. Amazingly, he still manages to afford a relatively comfortable lifestyle here in suburban Milwaukee, WI.

Conversely, I have another relative that lives in rural Arizona, and faces a regular influx of vandalizing, criminal immigrants that care only for material gain, not familial security or societal benefit. (Sounds a little like Corporate America anyway, doesn't it?)

· I sympathize with the mothers that fear losing their husbands and having no security for their families already established here in America.
· I sympathize with borderline ranchers who fear for vandalism and drug-related crossings on their property.
· I sympathize with those that desire higher-wage jobs to support their families in America by working 70 hour weeks for minimum wage.
· I sympathize with both the local school districts that must educate everyone, despite the lack of proportionate tax base, and with the families that seek a better bi-lingual education for their children knowing that it is key to their future success.
· I sympathize with the medical industry that fears the costs of illegal immigration on its infrastructure, which costs taxpayers and consumers more money each year.
· I sympathize with the millions of individuals fearing a vicious, poverty-stricken cycle back home.
· I sympathize with politicians frustrated with Mexico's proliferate support of illegal immigration, and its effect on local services.
And yet... while I sympathize with each of these concerns, I recognize a need for change... quickly!

Cultural Division is Eminent

Before this gets much more ugly than it already has, we must find a reasonable compromise to halt our hurtling towards cultural discord and racial tension.

While very few of the illegal immigrants are true terrorist threats to national security, I do believe that we have created a problem for ourselves that allows for both those respecting law and order and drug-lords alike to become covert allies in their bid to better their lives through whatever means they possess; harmful or beneficial. And it's about time we do SOMETHING about it.

The Bill to Do Something

What started in July of 2005 as a vision to protect America's borders while preserving the dignity of freedom-loving immigrants has now become a well-hammered out set of push and shove, agreeable upon by both sides of the aisle. Illegal immigrants may file for 6 year green cards, stay here almost indefinitely while paying a $1,000 fine for their trespass, and local businesses and charities will be allowed to provide privacy to those in need while also being held accountable for systemic abuses. Families will not be broken apart, camps full of arrested hungry, half-naked immigrants will not rise out of the deserts, and America's heritage of open arms and upward lives can continue to flourish.

I support Senate Bill 2454, and the efforts of Senators and Representatives across the Border States for answering the call of their constituents to finally do something about a problem we not only created for ourselves, but have exacerbated through our neglect.

Hopefully through this bill we can secure our borders and our cities while still assuring the world that only freedom has open arms that can both embrace your in your need and let you free to pursue your ambitious dreams.

There's no place like home!

BlogBlurb - Liberal Impropriety

Within the last few weeks, a debate has erupted over the allegedly proven comments made by a teacher in a Colorado high school classroom that compared President Bush to Hitler and called America the most violent and hateful culture in the history of mankind. An excerpt of the tape can be found here. Tell me if you think it sounds a.) balanced, and merely "thought-provoking", or b.) having anything to do with GEOGRAPHY.

A recent interview on FoxNews' Hannity & Colmes found Sean Allen, the student that recorded his teacher giving a lecture on geopolitical issues offering an interesting conclusion to the debate that ensued. He said he was confident the school made the right decision in allowing the teacher to resume his duties! He went further to suggest that Mr. Bennish was, in fact a good geography teacher... when he taught geography.

Sean Allen has become a figure head of the teacher-student relationship in class, and what is appropriate for a teacher to say publicly. Fox News and Sean Hannity have driven this story into the forefront of the media from day one and it is clear from the recording that the teacher clearly overstepped his bounds and gave a radicalized personal opinion.

The school responded by suspending the teacher, which many students were given the opportunity to protest. Here is an edited video of some student's reaction to the suspension. As of Friday, March 17th, the teacher was reinstated and allowed to teach his students once again. Sean Allen respectfully agrees with this decision, never wanting his teacher to lose his job in the first place. He transferred out of the class, and THEN went to the media so he could simply bring accountability in, from outside the isolation of the principle's office. However, Sean has still been threatened for his stand against agressive indoctrination. 17 year old Miles Merritt, a junior, said that when he was enrolled in Bennish's human geography class last fall, "it turned into a very political class" with Bennish criticizing Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina. So this is not an isolated incident.

It has always been abundantly clear that liberal-viewing teachers outnumber conservatives by a large margin, but for the most part it has not been overwhelmingly clear whether there has been clear impropriety in the teacher's lectures. I am sure there have been indiscretions on the part of conservative teachers attacking liberal leaders as well, but it is not known how often, and it is not as widely complained about. While both are wrong, this may simply be because there are less conservative teachers existing in the school system through which to abuse this sacred position. Nonetheless, this class was a high school class, which even further implicates the teacher's claim of "stoking and challenging the thoughts and minds of the students"... High school students are still extremely impressionable, and should not be challenged to face the filth without choice that college students have to face by choice.

My biggest concern is that we will end up boxing ourselves into a corner because of a teacher's liberal rant. I don't believe it is right to indoctrinate children from the right or left, in a public place. But the fact that we sentence our children to attend compulsory doctrine-centers, we take the chance that our kids will be exposed to teacher's opinions. We are at fault, and we can change it.

Rave # 5 - The Mythology of Health Care Reform

Feature article by Michael Tanner

For years I have appreciated the research and subsequent input from the studious Cato Institute. Their think tank has produced articles that are cited by some of the nations most powerful leaders in both the public and private sector. As director of Cato's health and welfare studies, Michael Tanner heads research on new, market-based approaches to health, welfare and Social Security. His approach is based on individual responsibility rather than government control. Read the following article with eagerness and forward it to your nationalized health care advocate friends!
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Health care is once again moving to the top of the national political agenda. The early evidence is that this debate will be dominated by misinformation and misconceptions. Advocates of a government-run, national health-care system will do everything they can to frighten Americans and discredit consumer-directed health care. But we would be advised to look at the facts and not the scare tactics.

The Claim:
The U.S. spends too much on health care.

The Facts: It is true that the United States spends more on health care than any other country. Why is that a bad thing? There is no “right” amount to spend on health care or anything else. The United States spends more on athletic shoes than any other country. No one speaks of the athletic shoe crisis.

Economists consider health care a “normal good,” meaning that spending rises or falls with income. As incomes rise, people demand more and better health care. America's wealth determines its spending on healthcare.

The real problem is the fact that the people spending the money are not the people paying the bills. Because those purchasing health care are able to pass the bill onto third parties, the usual market disciplines don’t apply. True health-care reform would focus on giving consumers a greater stake in the decision-making process.

The Claim:
Though we spend more, we get less.

The Facts: America offers the highest quality health care in the world. Most of the world’s top doctors, hospitals and research facilities are located in the United States. Eighteen of the last 25 winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine either are U.S. citizens or work here. U.S. companies have developed half of all the major new medicines introduced worldwide over the past 20 years. And Americans played a key role in 80 percent of the most important medical advances of the past 30 years.

If you are diagnosed with a serious illness, the United States is the place you want to be. Tens of thousands of patients from around the world come to this country every year for treatment.

Critics of American health care often point out that other countries have higher life expectancies or lower infant mortality rates, but those two indicators are bad ways to measure the quality of a nation’s health-care system. In the United States, very low-birth-weight infants have a much greater chance of being brought to term with the latest medical technologies. Some of those low-birth-weight babies die soon after birth, which boosts our infant mortality rate, but in many other Western countries, those high-risk, low-birth-weight infants are not included when infant mortality is calculated.

Life expectancies are also affected by other factors like violent crime, poverty, obesity, tobacco, and drug use, and other issues unrelated to health care. When you compare the outcome for specific diseases like cancer or heart disease, the United States outperforms the rest of the world.

The Claim:
A government-run health-care system would expand access to care.

The Facts: The one common characteristic of all national health care systems is that they ration care. Sometimes they ration it by denying certain types of treatment altogether. More often, they ration indirectly, imposing cost constraints through budgets, waiting lines, or limited technology. One million Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals at any given time, and shortages force the NHS to cancel as many as 100,000 operations each year. Roughly 90,000 New Zealanders are facing similar waits. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks. In Canada more than 800,000 patients are currently on waiting lists for medical procedures.

The Claim:
Health care is too complex for average Americans to make decisions about price and quality.

The Facts: Health care is increasingly high-tech and complex, but so are many other products and services that Americans purchase everyday without specialized expertise. A consumer does not need to know how an internal combustion engine works in order to buy a reliable car, or how silicon chips are manufactured before he selects a computer. When consumers have good information about product prices, quality and safety, they naturally gravitate toward the goods and services that offer the highest value for the lowest price.

There are numerous studies that show health-care consumers make decisions about price and quality. The current problem with the healthcare sector is that there isn’t enough good information available for consumers to make sound decisions about which healthcare provider or facilities offer the best value. But that’s rapidly changing as providers respond to increased consumer empowerment.

At the same time, patient advocacy companies are springing up to help health-care consumers make informed choices. When consumers, rather than insurers or employers, control the money, markets naturally respond.

The U.S. health-care system represents one-seventh of the American economy, and is literally a matter of life and death for millions of Americans. Here's hoping that they'll be able to sort the facts from the fallacies in the coming debate.