Immigration Policy
The immigration policy in this country is awful. In part, it can be held accountable for allowing the terrorists in before 9/11. Just as important, I believe it's a major cause of poverty in the United States. According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in January 2000, there were 7 million unauthorized immigrants in the country. California houses 32% of that 7 million and Mexico is the largest source of illegal immigrants with 2.0 million in 1990 increasing to 4.8 million in January 2000. Mexico's population of unauthorized immigrants increased from 58% in 1990 to 69% in 2000. That an increase of a little over 1% a year over ten years. It doesn't seem like a lot on paper, but it's an incredible amount in actuality. And more urgent is the realization that it's been a steady
increase! With illegal aliens in this country the manual labor workforce, i.e. carpenters, painters, etc., are forced to compete for the same jobs with very different salary requirements for their workers. A business owner can pay an illegal alien less than minimum wage. This means that they can make a lower bid for a job because they don't have to pay their salaried workers as much as an owner who hires citizens. This hurts the business owner who, under any other circumstances, would want to hire a legal citizen, but can't because he would go out of business.
Now, think of all the people in this country, who are legally allowed to be here, who don't have jobs who could work for these businesses if the number of illegal aliens were lower. Our immigration policy hinders these people from getting jobs, which effects the rate of poverty and unemployment. The bottom line should be that every foreigner in this country should have to go through the same process in order to work here, get a driver's license, insurance, welfare, and whatever else illegal aliens are getting now. Not only isn't it fair to the people who were born here who need jobs, but it's unfair to the foreigners who go through the legal process to become citizens. The borders have to be tightened, the penalty for being in this country illegally should more severe. Right now the law regarding unauthorized immigrants isn't inforced, most people probably think it doesn't exist. This is a disservice to the citizens of the United States.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hassert has said that his chamber will be putting together an Immigration bill this year. President Bush has been pushing for a bill of this kind for some time now, however, his close ties to Vincente Fox, President of Mexico, has clouded his judgement here. If President Fox had his way there would be open borders between the U.S. and Mexico. His people come here to make money and then send it back to Mexico, which has helped their economy considerably. Fox has said that Mexicans in the United States sent home $12 billion in 2003. Now that a bill is being put together, the House and Congress have to make sure that this bill targets the seriousness of the problems with our current immigration policy and takes an active step to righting them.
9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero
This is a very touchy subject because everyone has strong feelings about what should be done to memorialize that horrific day in September, 2001. There's no doubt that it has to be remembered, and that a very effective way to do that would be to create a place where families of the victims, as well as everyone else, could go to reflect on the event and to remember what this country is facing every day the terrorists are still free. But this is where the controversy and unfortunately, the politicizing, comes in. Do we want a Freedom Center where the tragedies of the world can be displayed and explained? Or should it be soley about 9/11? Personally, I don't think the Freedom Center should be built. It was birthed from a group of politicians and political affiliates trying to do what's "pc" to appease the Left. They want to show all of the instances in US history where the government failed it's people. I'm not even sure that's the way to describe what they want to do. I'm not sure who they want to blame for slavery or segregation, for the Holocaust or genocide, or any other atrocity that has occured since the US was born in 1776. Unfortunately for the lefties, they can't pin that on the Bush administration or President Bush himself. However, they can try to blame America, but their blame is general because they don't know what or who to actually target. They just need to put their hatred of this country somewhere and that place has become the Freedom Center. They want to showcase all of the mistakes this young country has made. Why is that? I can't even begin to understand where that misguided, uninformed, illogical anger comes from. But the families of the victims of 9/11 wouldn't, and shouldn't, stand for this disgrace of a memorial, and neither should the people. 9/11 deserves it's own memorial, solely dedicated to the victims. It should not include any other tragedies. Don't get me wrong, every act of violence of that proportion should have it's own memorial, just not at Ground Zero.
I lost a very close family friend when the twin towers were hit. I don't want to go to Ground Zero and see a Center where it's explained that the US is to blame, that we could have done things differently and it never would have happened. That's BS. The blame lies with the terrorists, and no one else.
Honorable Mentions
1. Lance Armstrong - 7th Consecutive Tour De France win. I'm not a huge fan of the guy, but that's an incredible feat, so I have to have respect for him.
2. Space Shuttle Discovery launched off this morning. It's the first shuttle NASA launched since the Columbia disaster 2 1/2 years ago. I wish them luck and a safe return.
Dishonorable Mention
1. Jane Fonda going on an anti-war bus tour. She f-ed us over in Vietnam, let's hope she doesn't have the same effect for Iraq.
Celebrity Gossip
1. Jude Law is an idiot. Who cheats on Sienna Miller? And with a woman who's average looking at best, and then, to top it off, tell your son to go back to bed after he's had a nightmare so you can keep %$&*$#@!!! Not cool.
2. Cameron Diaz wins in court. No topless photos of her going on the market any time soon. Unless of course, she sells them herself in Europe. They're cool like that.
3. Sandra Bullock and Jesse James got married. I'm at a loss of words for that one.
4. Britney Spears. Still pregnant.
5. TomKat. Still Crazy.
And you wonder why people love to follow this sh%$. It's like an ongoing soap opera, except it's these people's actual lives. Makes you happy you're not a celeb. But hell, there's always a small part of me that would like to be famous and go crazy for a short period of time. Then I'd make it so I could give it all back and get out of the insane asylum that is there lives.
NYC Straphangers get Searched by Police
My routine in the morning is standard. Get up, shower, put gym clothes in bag, pick up my home delivery of The Post and leave for the Subway. The headlines don't always catch my interest. Today's (7/22/05) did. "Halt" it read in big red letters, "Cops Ordered to search subway bags." After the second bombing in London, it seems NYC finally got a clue. I realize that there has been an increase in police officers in the subways and train stations but I didn't see a huge difference. I take the 6 to the Shuttle to the 1/9 everyday, so that means I'm going through Grand Central and Times Square. I would have thought that these two places would see the most cops, but that isn't the case. And neither was it today. I saw maybe 5 cops on my way to work and none of them were checking bags. So, I get on the subway and start reading the articles on bag searches. People "bellyaching" but submitting to searches, people complaining that there might be racial profiling, and Gene Russianoff, who is a lawyer for Straphangers Campaign (
http://www.straphangers.org/) was quoted saying, "Riders being randomly searched is what they do in Communist regimes." Now that one struck me. "Communist Regimes!" I think this is a little extreme and very dramatic. There is a huge difference between protecting citizens by taking action to stop terrorists from blowing up our MassTransit system, and implementing communist, bully tactics on citizens. Subway riders are free to turn around and walk out without having their bag checked. In a communist run country, that person would not have that right. We in the United States of America tend to forget how good we have it. So in my opinion, a small delay in getting to work is better than another terrorist attack anyday.
In another article, regarding the second London bombings, PM Blair said, "The people who are responsible for terrorist attacks are the terrorists." It's sad that this even has to be said. That people in England, and the US as well, could lay blame elsewhere. That excuses are made for the terrorists. If we weren't in the Iraq war we wouldn't be targeted. Well remember this, we weren't at war when the terrorists struck on 9/11. Remember that they started this. How could a person possibly excuse a group who's sole purpose is to destroy the lives of everyone who doesn't adhear to their creed. They don't make excuses for themselves, they are proud of their actions. They would kill a person who makes excuses for them just as easily as they would kill someone trying to defeat them. These sympathizers help the terrorists' cause. We need to remember that we live in the greatest country in the world. We need to remember that freedom of speech, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happinees, was threatened on 9/11 and we need to do everything in our power to protect it.
Welcome
I've always wanted to share my thoughts/ideas/rants and raves. Provoked by world issues, friends' problems, anger/happiness/sadness or simple boredom, I have a need to share my opinion. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I have an outlet for that desire to share through this blog. So I welcome you all to read what I have to say and comment as much as you'd like. I hope you enjoy this blog and I look forward to reading your comments.
