"DOMESTIC VIOLENCE " AGAINST ARIZONA

Immigration has become a hot issue once again with the introduction of SB1308, SB1309, and SB1611 in Arizona.  The problem is that confusion and distraction has been created as the State of Arizona tries to address the illegal immigration problem by passing legislation to discourage illegal aliens from coming to Arizona or encourage illegal aliens to leave.  The subsequent court battles then surround the constitutional issue of “birth-right citizenship” and the issue surrounding the 14th Amendment.  But this does not allow for a real and substantive discussion about the real issues. 

 The illegal immigration problem is made to be complex but, in fact, is relatively simple.  It can be summed up thusly:  The federal government of the United States has ignored its responsibility under the Constitution to provide for the “common defence.” Interestingly the "common Defence" is one of the primary reasons for establishing the Constitution in the first place.

By ignoring the illegal immigration crisis on the southern border of the US the federal government has put the “common defence” in jeopardy.  There is no logical argument that can be made that this is not the case.  The Federal government knows the territories of the US are threatened by criminals both foreign and domestic, so much so, that it has erected signs in the Arizona desert warning US citizens that the areas may be monitored and patrolled by members of Drug cartels (here), (here), (here).
 
Providing for the “Common Defence” is one of the powers of Congress under Article I Section 8.  It is the duty of the legislature to accomplish this; through statute and appropriations.  This is a major failing of our government and of the officials our nation has sent to Washington to represent us.
 
Under Article IV, section 4 of the Constitution the States are guaranteed that the Republican Form of Government “shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on application of the legislature, or the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”  There is little doubt that Arizona is victim to both an invasion and “domestic Violence” as it relates to illegal immigrants crossing the international sovereign border of the United States and committing violence inside the boundaries of the US.  Border Security should be the priority effort, both at the Federal and State level.  The Federal government is the guarantor from “domestic Violence” against the States, and Arizona and other states should demand that the Federal government make good on that guarantee.

The single most effective method of coming closer to solving the illegal immigration morass and making good on the guarantee to protect the nation from "domestic violence" and ensure the "common Defence" is to build a physical barrier along the border with Mexico. 
 
A physical barrier/fence/moat will greatly decrease the amount of illegal aliens crossing the border.  According to a report by the Congressional Research Service in 2007, data shows that after the construction of a triple-fence in the San Diego sector apprehensions dropped from 480,000 in FY1996 to 100,000 in FY2002.  The US Border Patrol’s “Imperial Beach and Chula Vista stations saw their apprehensions decline from 321,560 in FY1993 to 19,035 in FY 2004 – a reduction of 94% over the 12 year period.”   And the results for the San Diego sector could be even starker but the fence in the sector can’t be completed due to environmental concerns.  

But the average American doesn’t need studies and reports to validate what we all know intuitively.  Physical barriers work.  There is a reason that “Good fences make good neighbors.”  That is why we have doors on our houses, fences around our yards and gates around our neighborhoods.  We use physical barriers every day, in all aspects of our lives.  You need a badge to access some work areas; everyone must pass through security at the court house and the airport; there are vehicle gates at parking garages, parks and businesses.   The argument that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Napolitano made when she said; “show me a 50-foot wall and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder” is specious at best.  Like Secretary Napolitano, many argue that the fences don’t deter illegal border-crossers, that they will just go to where there is no fence.  But that is entirely the point.  Fences work, period.  A continuous fence would work better.  A continuous double or triple fence with concertina wire at the top and all along the back side would work best.
 
The state of Arizona should force the Federal government to uphold the guarantee stipulated in Article IV, section 4 of the Constitution and put forth an “Application of the Legislature” against domestic Violence.   Take this official step and force the Federal Government to directly and explicitly either comply with or ignore the founding document of our Nation and our Republic.

At least, that way Arizonans will know whether the Federal Government and this administration stand with them or with the illegal criminals crossing the borders everyday.

Public Sector Unions and Democrats Show Their True Colors: Green

Teachers and other union members in Wisconsin have decided that it is better to protest at the capitol rather than show up for work.  They have decided to express that it is more important to fight for more benefits and wages than educate the children of Wisconsin.  Union bosses would have you believe that this confrontation is about workers rights and defending the worker.  It is not.  This is about unions maintaining power over the political process.  You don’t think so, just go to Madison and ask a Democrat State Senator; wait, you can’t find a Democrat State Senator in Madison because they all left rather than allow the Wisconsin legislature vote on the issue.  That should tell you something.  The Democrats are beholden to the unions. Democrats are dependent on the unions for campaign funds and resources.  Who do you think walks door to door and mans phone banks during campaigns for Democrat candidates?  And, they probably do it while being paid by the unions. 

The pending legislation would force the unions to have to certify every year.  And not just by a majority of those that vote, but a majority of all their members.  Additionally, the legislation would end the practice of the government collecting union dues.  Currently all costs of collecting union dues are born by the government; from manpower and computers to accountants etc…  All the union does is go to the bank.   ATF Wisconsin represents over 17,000 public employees.   If the average union employee pays between $700 and $1000 a year to the union that’s an amount somewhere between $11.9 and $17 million every year; and since there won’t be any compulsory collection of dues and no requirement to belong to the union in order to teach, the likelihood is that many union members will stop paying the dues, and as a result the Union will no longer have the political clout it has enjoyed for years.

This is about money, plain and simple.  The average Wisconsin teacher’s salary is $77,718. The average Wisconsin worker’s salary is $53,724.  So this isn’t about underpaid teachers.  And bear in mind that their salary isn’t even for a full years work because they usually get a winter and summer break.   If teachers in Wisconsin get two months off a year that comes out to $7771 per month for the ten months that they do work. 

And what about the Wisconsin State legislators are they taking vacation time, sick leave or are they just refusing to come to work?  It has been a week, are they still being paid, even though they are obviously shirking their responsibilities and failing to represent their constituencies?   And who gets stuck with the tab? The people paying for this egregious behavior are the taxpayers of Wisconsin. 

Why does this matter?  Well, Governor Walker was elected on this platform, and Wisconsin, which voted handily for President Obama, suddenly turned red in the 2010 midterms.  This is not a good omen for Democrats.   The American people, state by state, are finally putting a stop to liberal, nanny state policies.  Good for them!   At the end of the day, all of this money and cost is paid for by the Taxpayer, in this case the Wisconsin Taxpayer.  They are the ones on the hook for the teachers pay, the legislators pay, the extra security needed to control the protesters, the extra pay for those that have to clean it up.   Wisconsin taxpayers are also the ones paying for every bit of activism undertaken by the public sector unions since that money ostensibly started as a percentage of the wages paid to public sector employees by the government provided by the Wisconsin taxpayer.  That is the fight in which Governor Walker has decided to engage, the right of the taxpayer versus the right of unions.  It is about time that the taxpayer has someone on their side.   This is the time, and Wisconsin is the place. 

(see also: http://ronaldoreaganblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/public-sector-unions-should-be.html)

ARIZONA REPUBLIC CENSORS USE OF TERM "ANCHOR BABY"

I excerpted my previous blog post in the comments section on an opinion piece in the Arizona Republic Newspaper's website about Anchor Babies. After I submitted my comments I noticed that the AZ Republic redacted my use of the term "anchor baby" which was actually in the headline of this opinion piece. I guess we all have to use the term anchor child.  Below is a note I sent to the editor.

How completely hypocritical can the Arizona Republic be?  Above is the headline of an Opinion written by James Garcia.  As you will note the term, “Anchor Baby,“ is present.  As a matter of fact, the term "anchor baby" is used five more time within the body of the opinion piece.  Why, then, have you redacted the use of the term as inappropriate in your comments section.  Ridiculous!  You have the audacity to print this in garbage and then prohibit your readership from addressing the precise term which your paper is demonizing.  This is the height of hypocrisy.

So much for Free Speech.  This is exactly what was addressed in my previous post and it only took the Arizona Republic one day to prove me right.  Below is a screen capture of comments I submitted in their redacted form.

ANCHOR BABIES AND THE ATTEMPT TO SILENCE CRITICS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

This is a response to an opinion piece in the Arizona Republic by James Garcia.

“Anchor babies” are identified as such because their parents are illegally in the country.  And, these parents are fully aware that once the child is born he/she/they are immediately eligible for government handouts, among these are WIC subsidies, Food Stamps, housing assistance and welfare.  This term is used to quickly refer to the situation of these children while economizing words. This method of creating terms for people is quite common in society.  I don’t recall anyone ever objecting to the term “crack babies”; a term used to describe children who are born to mothers that are addicted to crack cocaine.  Is this a form of racial slur?  Is this a detestable label?  How about “welfare mother” or “soccer mom” or DINK (dual income no kids), or Yuppie (young upwardly mobile), or X-genner, Y-genner?  And what about the use of the term “Tea bagger,” is this also a detestable label?  This term is also meant “to punish, degrade and dehumanize.”  Has Mr. Garcia ever called for the end to its use? 

This indignation is nothing more than an attempt to marginalize and silence anyone who disagrees with his view on illegal immigration: if you use the term you are racist and therefore your ideas are not worth listening to.  

Mr. Garcia takes offense because his parents are Mexican; from what he indicates his parents arrived and spent their time in the US legally.  Kudos to them!  This does not, however, change the dynamics of the phenomenon we know today as anchor babies.   The United States is financially broke and indebted up to its ears; unfettered immigration is steadily increasing that debt as more and more illegal immigrants come across the border with the sole intention of giving birth to their children in the United States in an effort to abuse the system and to take advantage of the American taxpayer. 

Mr. Garcia then claims that birth-right citizenship is a constitutional right, when, in fact, Rule of Naturalization is a power given to the Legislative branch under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution: “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;”  This would make it statutory, not Constitutional.  I’m sure that Mr. Garcia would then point to the 14^th Amendment as his Constitutional proof, but even Senator Howard, who wrote the 14^th Amendment explicitly stated that it was not intended to apply to aliens: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers”…   Senator Lyman Trumbull, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, elaborated: "What do we mean by 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States? Not owing allegiance to anyone else. That is what it means ... It cannot be said of any (one) who owes allegiance ... to some other government that he is 'subject' to the jurisdiction of the United States."  re foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministries."

If Mr. Garcia wants to stop these slurs he should support efforts to eliminate the situation which creates this category of people.  If illegal immigration is the root cause of what society calls “anchor babies” then the logical solution is to eliminate, as much as possible, illegal immigration.  But this is not part of Mr. Garcia’s agenda; he merely wants to squelch people’s right to express their opposition to illegal immigration by feigning indignation instead of talking about a real solution to the illegal immigration problem in the United States. 

Republicans Fail to Start

**This blog entry was written previousely and is being reposted here.  I will post all of my previous articles here in the coming weeks. RRB**

The START treaty has been ratified.  If it is true that it links nuclear arms reduction with missile defense; the Senate and the administration have made a serious mistake.  Missile Defense should never be confused with a nuclear offensive capability.

Have any of these geniuses thought about the long term consequences of what this will mean, as a result of ratification?  Think about this for just one minute.  Venezuela just finished a $5 billion arms deal with Russia and in October 2010, it was reported that Russia had also signed a deal to develop nuclear power plants in Venezuela.  Anyone would have to be naïve to, not at least, acknowledge the possibility that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is not going to immediately start a nuclear weapons program.  Or possibly purchase nuclear weapons outright.  This would be a serious threat to the United States and to all countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Worse now that this treaty has been ratified, it will allow Russia to proliferate nuclear technology to countries which could eventually threaten the United States while at the same time restricting the United States of the ability to develop and deploy a missile defense system to, not only protect the United States but also provide security for our allies both in Europe and Central/South America.
Will this happen tomorrow? No of course not.  But that doesn’t mean that the United States should have been so shortsighted as to believe that it couldn’t eventually happen.  And the United States should not give up its technical advantage in the area of missile defense.

Additionally, as Charles Krauthammer points out, it also restricts the number of delivery systems, and since US delivery systems can also be used to launch conventional weapons, this again puts the US at a disadvantage. 

Are all those in Congress so blind as to not see that there are serious long term consequences of ratification? Obviously they are, because they ratified the treaty despite these concerns.   Republicans in the Senate are particularly disappointing on this issue.  All that was needed here is some common sense and apparently that is what is lacking in Washington.   The START Treaty is a bad deal.  What is worse is that it was taken up for debate during a Lame Duck session, what a travesty.   This Treaty, whether you are for it or against it, should not have been debated in a lame duck session of Congress.  There are six incoming Republican Senators who defeated Democrat incumbents and another six Senators who are replacing other Republicans.  In total there are twelve new Senators, who will be sworn-in in January, 2011 (ten of them requested that this treaty be taken up after they were seated).  It is probably safe to say that if they were allowed to vote it would have been much less likely that the treaty would have been ratified.  They were never given the chance; even though voters in six states repudiated their representatives and their policy decisions.

But alas it’s too late…  And the Republicans in the Senate continue to behave as if the elections of November 2010 never happened.  They continue to capitulate to the whims of Harry Reid and the Democrats.  Republicans have FAILED in their duty to the American people and to the electorate.  They FAILED to understand that their play, politically, was to extend the current tax rates and pass a continuing resolution for the budget. NOTHING MORE!  The Democrats have rolled over them and we still have 12 days before the new Congress is sworn in.

This has gone from disappointing to DISGUSTING!

Arizona SB1070 is not the Problem

Other states may implement similar laws

**This blog entry was written previousely and is being reposted here.  I will post all of my previous articles here in the coming weeks. RRB**

I have been watching the discussions as they relate to Arizona’s new law, SB1070.  There are a lot of misconceptions and misrepresentations with respect to the law passed. But more important than that, all these discussions miss the real and pressing problem that we are dealing with.  Illegal immigration is merely a symptom of a much greater and more serious disease.  Mexican governmental economic policy and the business environment in Mexico are the real issue that we should be confronting and more importantly pressuring Mexico to solve. 

Rome is burning and no one even sees the smoke.  No one wants to recognize the most obvious issue, the reason that millions of illegal immigrants come to the United States is that the economy in Mexico is neither strong enough, vibrant enough or dynamic enough to keep its own citizens employed.  And the reason companies don’t start businesses in Mexico is because they are plagued by onerous regulation and Mexico is perceived to be an insecure and dangerous place to do business.  Additionally, the Mexican government is happy with the status quo, and sees the hemorrhage of immigrants to the United States as a very positive thing.  

In 2003, Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, sent 12 billion dollars from the United States to their families in Mexico. After a meeting with Mexican-American businessmen, former President Fox announced to the press, at the time, that these transfers “are our primary source of foreign revenue, much more than oil, tourism or foreign investment.” [1]

In 2009, the amount sent to Mexico reached 21.1 billion dollars, 15.7% less than was sent in 2008. [2] Mexico’s revenues from tourism reached 11.275 billion, less than the 13.28 billion dollars for 2008. [3]

 
PEMEX, Mexico’s nationalized oil company, announced that “it lost 16.6 billion pesos ($1.3 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2009, pushing the full year loss up to 46.1 billion pesos.”  It was also reported that “The annual result was an improvement from 2008 when the company lost 119.5 billion pesos.” [4]

The problem confronting, not only the citizens of Arizona, but the entire United States, is that Mexico’s economic policy along with its business climate is 8000 pound gorilla sitting in the corner. We have to ask ourselves why?

Why can’t a country like Mexico, with so many natural resources, get out of the economic morass that it has been in for decades?

How is it possible in today’s global economy that an oil company can lose upwards of 12.6 billion dollars?

What is wrong with the Mexican Economy that its citizens don’t see any opportunity or way to get ahead in life?

Why is it so difficult for foreign companies start up in Mexico?

There are many factors but, at the end of the day, the problem comes down to pure economics, and the business climate in Mexico. For example, the total tax rate for companies in Mexico is 51% and the average time for a commercial dispute to work its way through the courts is 415 days. [5]  In a ranking of 183 countries, Mexico is 90^th  for ease of starting a business; 136^th in ease of hiring employees; 99^th in ease of registering property;  and 106^th in paying taxes.  The only ranking in which Mexico breaks the top 25 is in closing a business; it comes in, in 24^th place. [6]  Huge corporations may be willing to absorb these huge start-up costs, but small and medium size companies don’t have the financial resources to overcome such daunting challenges and are unlikely to accept such huge disadvantages when it may be easier, and more cost effective, to do business elsewhere. 

Each and every one of us wants to be successful and leave our kids something better than we had before them; and, so in this sense I can understand why illegal immigrants come from everywhere to the United States.  But no nation can or should permit its laws to be ignored, and allow illegal aliens to come and go as they please with blatant disregard for the law.  It is hypocritical for Mexico, and in particular President Calderon, to criticize Arizona when: a) the laws in Mexico are exponentially more draconian and b) the problem is not the Arizona law but the lack of positive government action to loosen and free up markets for businesses in Mexico.  The problem is not now or ever will be United States immigration law, the problem is Mexico and its socialist markets along with over regulation and lack of property rights for foreigners, investors and businesses.

There is no simple solution, Mexico is currently under tremendous pressure fighting narco-traffickers, and I applaud President Calderon’s efforts.  But, the President and the government of Mexico must start by taking the necessary steps to encourage business and entrepreneurship in Mexico, by rolling back onerous regulations, giving foreign companies and individuals property rights and privatizing national monopolies.  Mexico must take ownership of the illegal immigration problem in the United States, which has been going on for decades.  Unfortunately, the Mexican government continues to take the easy road and is unlikely to do anything to change the status quo.  In part because illegal immigration to the United States by its citizens is a cash cow that it does not want to end.  The Mexican government doesn’t have to invest a thing, and in return it receives billions of dollars of revenue every year.  It is a disgrace that the Mexican government would rather blame the Americans for the problem rather than look in the mirror and take responsibility for its economic and national policies which fail to give their own citizens the opportunity to succeed. 

I am dumbfounded why people don’t want to see the truth, that the illegal immigration problem is purely economic, and the entity responsible to fix it is the Mexican government.  The saddest fact of all is: the number one export from Mexico isn’t oil, agriculture or textiles… it’s its people.  Mexico exports its citizenry in exchange for money sent back to Mexico to keep the economy afloat.

Happy Birthday Mr. President