I Passed Skeptical in 1986

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Allen's Blog

I have no idea what is in the minds of those doing “talk story” about illegal immigration but I don’t think they have a clue about the facts on the ground.

You can see “on the ground’ by driving through Escondido at 2 pm – hundreds of Latino children being chaperoned home by Latino mothers pushing perambulators.

The political class speaks of “illegal aliens” as bright young Latino overachievers who graduated at the top of their high school class and want to be Pediatricians, and that is what the media focuses on – but here in Escondido, on the ground, it is a bit different.

For each overachiever who graduates at the top of his class, 100 will join a gang, 500 will engage in a hit and run, thousands will get in a wreck while driving without a license or having insurance. And tens of thousands will use the Emergency Room on the taxpayers’ dime. This does not even count all of them will get AT LEAST their entire K-12 education on the taxpayer’s dime.

Now, having said that, I do not support the deportation of 11 million illegal aliens – I just want to note that there is no way that those who remain will ever pay a sufficient fine to offset the amount that they have taken from the system. I still believe that the best way to handle the problem is to base the offer of a Green Card on having their FAMILY go back to the “Country of Origin.”

It is the family of the workers that join gangs, use the schools and the Emergency Rooms.

Nevertheless, no one wants to use the lure of a long-term Green Card to get the benefits of workers without some of the major costs.

The best we can hope for is to PARTIALLY staunch the CONTINUING flood of still more people flooding over the border. The 1986 Amnesty promised to seal the border, but that has been a MASSIVE failure that we apparently intend to repeat – you can bet that the Democrats do not intend to end the flow of low-information voters now that they have identified them.

The 11 million here will want to bring their “immediate family” which is NOT, as you might expect, limited to the previous generation and siblings – no, it includes Aunts, Uncles, Nephews, etc.

We are NOT going to solve this problem. We will NOT stop the flow across the Border because it does not suit the voting future of the Democratic Party. We will not assimilate the 11 million already here, because some – perhaps most – will NEVER attain Citizenship.

I respect Marco Rubio. I believe he really wants to solve the problem – but even his position that he will not vote for anything that does not seal the border is dependent upon the administration appointed board ruling that the Border is sealed. Heck, it could rule that today, because crossings have been so low as a result of our puny economy.

Let’s just say I am cynical – I passed skeptical back in 1986.

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A Flawed Process

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Allen's Blog

Let me put this in the beginning, so I don’t step on the lead as they say in journalism — I like illegal aliens, but I hate illegal immigration. (I was bi-lingual and bi-cultural — a Spanish Interpreter in the Navy.)

I view the people separately from the process — I know the illegal workers to be mostly hard-working folks looking to feed their children, and taking advantage of a flawed process as I would in their shoes. Life is different when you have hungry children begging for food.

It will not come is in a surprise to those of you who have been reading this blog for some time, that I was involved in the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens. At that time I employed illegal aliens and I sponsored two of those illegal aliens when the time came for the Ronald Reagan amnesty period.

Unfortunately that particular amnesty which was supposed to be “the amnesty to end all amnesties” but it was a flawed process. Although my people who went through the amnesty process were supposed to get citizenship classes, English classes, and background checks, what actually happened was that they were sprinkled with Holy Water and made citizens without any further activity on the part of the federal government.

This was because instead of the 2 million people who were supposed to apply, actually there were 4 million people who applied and they overwhelmed the federal system.

What ever system is passed, it is my opinion that the 11 million people who could apply will overwhelm any federal system they design.

As it happens I don’t think 11 million people will even apply for the final citizenship.

Many of the people who are here are illiterate. On average the border-crossers have a Third Grade education by our standards. They have no intention of being US citizens.

Yes they want to get their children educated in US school. Yes they would love to get medical care here they cannot get in Mexico. But they do not want to be United States citizens. They are Mexicans, they are proud of being Mexicans, and they don’t intend to become US citizens, so I’m not sure that is eventually going to help.

The House and Senate committee are proposing that there be a green card system, and with the green card system there will be further checks enforced by having the green cardholders held to a higher standard through verification of jobholders.

This is a really good idea except that what I suspect is going to happen is the most of these people will go through the Green Card system, right up to the point where it comes time for them to pay back taxes/penalties and have some sort of citizenship classes in English classes. At that point they will stop.

What will happen next is that they will use their children that Have been born in the United States as Anchor babies, and instead of getting their US citizenship they will simply use their children as pawns to get to apply for and get still more opportunity to remain within the United States by claiming that we should not break up families.

That way they get to remain first to work, and then to be retired on government assistance if possible, or just supported by their Anchor Babies because they are heavily family oriented – and, after all the Anchor Babies will owe their families a LOT!.

You can make book on it.

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Service Suicides

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Allen's Blog

The number of service suicides are alarming.

Yes, the Rules of Engagement are a problem, and one not faced by Marines on Pacific Islands. That was a more simple time. The enemy wore uniforms, and it was similar to my instructions the first day at Annapolis Lacrosse: “If you see a guy with a different colored jersey than your own, and he is within 5 yards of the ball, take him out.”

That’s pretty simple. The Japanese were all uniformed, all armed and all wanting to win. The Marines simply(sic) advanced and killed everyone in sight,

It got less defined in Vietnam, because most of the enemy did not wear black pajamas. Women and children could carry hand grenades. Innocents were killed simply because of mistakes – understandable mistakes to be certain.

 Then, In Iraq — no one wore uniforms at all. Some dressed in women’s clothes – which easily disguised an AK-47! If you weren’t trigger happy, you should be – but the rules of engagement became onerous to a dangerous point.

Add to that, the pace of action has gone from pre-WWII when ships were given enough fuel for sailing one day a month. Post-WWII everyone has been on heel-to-toe, round-the-clock war footing – Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan…people and machinery all wear out. Some guys are on their fifth, sixth deployment to Iraq/Afghanistan.

Worn out. Suicides are just the results of taking on more than we can rationally chew, and tying the hands of those we send. Frustrations leads to anger, unresolved anger to despair, and despair to suicide.  

 

 

 

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“…awaiting the arrival and training of African troops.”

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Allen's Blog

There is a kerfuffle brewing in Europe, and it impacts us in the colonies. The European Union has great internal strife, and now Britain is about to offer their citizens a 2015 Referendum about continuing to be members of the EU.

Churchill said that Britain should be “with Europe, but not of it” and British Prime Minister is using the British  membership to pressure the sclerotic Union you become leaner, and less intrusive into labor issues.

Meanwhile, France, if you can believe it is trying to fill the worldwide military vacuum caused by the US withdrawing as the world’s policeman, but, as usual, they don’t know how to play the game. They ran out of bombs and ammunition in Libya, and have had to request air transport for their troops in Mali, which the US has provided, and air to air refueling, which for some reason Obama has refused.

Meanwhile France is bogged down in Mali, awaiting the arrival and training of African troops. Good luck with that.

Following European politics is actually more interesting than following ours. They have more interesting players, although I must admit to being fascinated by Harry Reid, and Congressman Rangel.

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Women in combat?

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Allen's Blog

Women in combat?

I have no problem — other nations, including Israel — have tried this, and have failed. Perhaps our women are stronger than Israeli women

I was listening to a person on Fox say that hr daughter at Annapolis was up in the morning doing the same 5 mile run as the men, and I an certain that is true. I also know that the obstacle course that plagued my Annapolis life was removed because women did not have the upper body strength to handle it.

Yes, Annapolis, and I suspect West Point have changed their physical requirements.

Women are still forbidden to serve where I spent a decade — Fast Attack Submarines — and a few other places.

Our modern Soldiers and Marines are fighting a different kind of front line action than did the Marines in the Pacific, but that day may well come again when modern warfare is stymied by cyber attacks on our technological infrastructure and we must resort to close-in, hand to hand warfare of “old.

I suggest that all of those who favor women in combat read With The Old Breed.

Let’s see if they then support women in combat.

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It IS a Political Statement

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Allen's Blog

Phil Mickelson has apologized, not for planning to leave California but for mentioning it in public.

As he says, it is insensitive to complain about paying a new $1.8 million a year in California taxes each year because of Prop. 30, while millions of people go unemployed.

Yes, but politics is always insensitive. Someone is always being hurt, or at least feeling hurt.

Would I change my residence to save $1.8 million a year? In a New York second!

It is rational, and I expect he will do so, quietly, but he doesn’t want to raise a ruckus by making it a political statement.

(Clue: It is a political statement.)

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Musing On Our Political Situation

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Allen's Blog

There was a mini debate last several nights ago between Charles Krauthammer and Bill O’Reily about what happened in the two years between 2008 and 2010, and how that influenced the most recent presidential election.

My take is that there were two factors — one was a “clean and articulate” Black man, whose very existence as a candidate let people try to get the race issue behind us, and a wave, absolutely a wave of young voters who put a period on that issue. I admit to having written after the first election, that I had some positive feelings about the election of our first Black president.

I hate to say it, but in this culture, looks count, youth counts, and, to a lesser degree, race counts. Now it is controversial to say that race counts — but it does,  and not in a discriminatory way but in an anti-discriminatory way. Young people want to provide non-governmental “equality.”

Why? Because they have been brainwashed, and I use that term knowing all of its baggage, by a public education system steeped in 60’s professors. We are raising our own generation of “Red Diaper Babies” — sort of pale red, to be sure. Perhaps Pink Diaper Babies is closer.

Yes, they eventually grow up and some discover reality, but many of them are forever insulated from reality by becoming government workers, or drones in business where they do not discover what we who have been entrepreneurs know. It makes a difference when you have to pay the bills, make payroll, compete with the guy down the street.

We have generations of people who did not cut lawns, did not deliver newspapers at 5 am in the rain — instead we have grown generations in  familial socialism and our kids get BMWs in high school! (Check the Poway, Rancho Bernardo, Torrey Pines, La Jolla High schools)

There are several generations schooled in “social justice” and entitlements. Because I read heavily and often, I know that we are nowhere near the left-right division of the US of the thirties, where Socialism, Fascism, Communism were rampant in US society. Our youth tend toward the pale side of those — “European Socialism” — actually, technically, Fascism.

Fascism has this terrible connotation of Hitler, but Hitler aside because he was a Dictator after first being elected, Fascism is an economic system, where instead of government owning the  means of production as in Socialism, in Fascism, government just controls the means of production.

That is what European Socialism does through regulation and taxes, it controls what is still left, technically, in the ownership of private individuals. China is using both a Fascist and a Socialist system simultaneously, but their Fascist system is very loose — almost corporate Capitalism: They let the reins loose where there is profit to be made, but closely control other industries. They also, in some cases, own industries in the Socialist model. They are flexible depending on what works best for the state.

The Capitalist system is the most beneficial for the individual — all individuals, but it is not best, necessarily, for the state. That is why those who are managers of the state do not like Capitalism. They denigrate it where possible, and try to tax and regulate it as much as possible.

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