Illegal Immigration

As to immigration - my position:

(A) The U.S. should control its southern border.

(B) Recent illegal immigrants (up to last five years) should be returned to their country of origin.

(C) Illegal immigrants who can prove they have been in the U.S. for over five years, have no criminal record, are fluent in English, and show they are supporting themselves and their family may go through a process that will eventually give them citizenship.

(D) Employers of more than 10 illegals should get jail time.

My reasoning is three fold:

(1) - There is no practical solution I know of that would accomplish a 100% expulsion of illegals.

(2) - We have a legal tradition in America of eminent domain and statute of limitations which suggests to me that if we do not take action in response to a transgression within some reasonable time, then the opportunity to take action expires.

(3) - We do have a long tradition of being a nation of immigrants and most of us are descendants of immigrants.

Regardless of my position, I am incensed that my government has twiddled and shuffled and ignored this festering problem year after year after year -- they are all bums and all of them should be thrown out of office.

Would you hire an illegal?

I once owned a small company that made pre-cast concrete basement panels that I marketed to residential builders in four states. Before the business failed, largely in part to the 1987 stock market crash and the resultant sudden rise in mortgage interest rates, followed by a crashing halt in new home starts, I had as many as 13 employees. That’s history, but I had an experience from that period that I want to pass on.

We were located in an industrial park just off the Philadelphia airport that had once been a shinning and massive Westinghouse turbine plant. We occupied one small corridor in the giant building and I had seen the huge lathes and milling machines just before they were shipped abroad along with the American jobs this surrounding community had banked on for generations.

As I said, at our height we had 13 employees and it was the quality of the employee pool I drew on, that was the second reason my business failed. I was paying well for that time and area, yet I had real difficulty in finding employees who had a work ethic, were dependable, were mature, were able to manage small tasks or small groups of workers.

Looking back, Perhaps one out of 10 employees were someone I would ever wish to hire again. I would have loved to be able to hire the low paid, hard working, dependable, flexible, Hispanics I see working on construction sites across the country. And I would not have hesitated a moment in hiring them – if hiring illegal aliens carried as little serious consequences to an employer as it does today. Hell, I would have sold my first born to save that company, which was to be the domino, that falling, would in turn strip me of everything I had worked for and built my whole life.

Had I the chance, I would have been compelled to hire illegal aliens. And it is unenlightened thinking today that would suggest that small competitive independent businesses or contractors would not make the decision to hire illegals when the difference in labor costs may be the difference between the business surviving another year and bankruptcy. I’ve had my baptism in this industry – when a subdivision is begun and the contracts are let, there is the expectation that some number of contractors, especially the newer and smaller, will fall by the way side during the project. It’s raw supply and demand - in an industry where timing in a business cycle can be critical, one mistake can be critical, one code violation, one customer who doesn’t pay.

Now if cheating on income tax were so flagrant, so wide spread, so without risk or prosecution, then one would feel increasingly pressured to put his and his family’s interest ahead of strict law abidance. The minute that risk approaches my risk tolerance, then I am much more law abiding.

Low interest rates alone didn’t propel the recent real estate boom. It was accompanied by and dependent on available hard working, dependable, low wage illegals.

I have a solution that I will post next. And if I, a lowly layman, can in minutes craft a broad, and I’m sure naïve in some ways, solution – then why has our country’s best effort allowed this crisis to continue growing in plain sight?

World War V Premise

"World War I (1914-1918) involved more countries and caused greater destruction than any other war except World War II (1939-1945). An assassin's bullets set off the war, and a system of military alliances (agreements) plunged the main European powers into the fight. Each side expected quick victory. But the war lasted four years and took the lives of nearly 10 million troops."

From 'World War I' by Edward M. Coffman, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia 2006.

"World War II (1939-1945) killed more people, destroyed more property, disrupted more lives, and probably had more far-reaching consequences than any other war in history. It brought about the downfall of Western Europe as the center of world power and led to the rise of the Soviet Union. The development of the atomic bomb during the war opened the nuclear age."

From 'World War II' by James L. Stokesbury, Ph.D., Author, Navy and Empire and A Short History of Air Power.
World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia 2006.

World War III – “Cold War is the term used to describe the intense rivalry that developed after World War II between groups of Communist and non-Communist nations. On one side were the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) and its Communist allies, often referred to as the Eastern bloc. On the other side were the United States and its democratic allies, usually referred to as the Western bloc. The struggle was called the Cold War because it did not actually lead to fighting, or "hot" war, on a wide scale.
The"

From 'Cold War' by Burton I. Kaufman, Ph.D., Professor of History, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia 2006.

World War IV - Crusade/Jihad Wars is the term I choose to apply to the continuing conflicts between east and west beginning when the "The Holocaust left the Jewish people wounded in spirit and greatly reduced in numbers. But out of the tragedy came a new determination to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The Arabs there continued to oppose this plan, and violence often broke out between Arabs and Jews. In 1947, the United Nations recommended that Palestine be divided into Arab and Jewish states. The Jewish state, which called itself Israel, declared its independence on May 14, 1948. The next day, neighboring Arab countries invaded Israel. Israel defeated the invaders, and hundreds of thousands of Jews flocked to the Jewish state."

From 'Jews' by Elliot B. Lefkovitz, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of History, Loyola University and Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.
World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia 2006.

This series of conflicts extend through the Gulf War, 9/11, and the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the broader war against extremist Muslim terrorist zealots.

World War V - East vs. West Economic Wars is the term I choose to apply to the rapidly growing consequences of globalization, technology, history, politics and . . . outsourcing, American debt, energy crises, our broken borders, and environmental catastrophes. A scenario can more and more easily be made for a near future that is unpleasant for middle class Americans.

I don’t think of myself as an overly pessimistic person, but I do think that taking notice of the building of ominous storm clouds is prudent. In the interest of the nation, of the middle class, of our communities, of our families – or just in our own selfish self interest.

China and India are coming into their own and with their massive populations, overwhelming production of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians - technology allowing the normal arduous developmental stages of a society be leapfrogged in a single generation - and with $100 green laptops, hand cranked and wirelessly connected with the Internet – and with the advantage China has of a powerful non-democratic central government.

China with its centralized government can, in the context of rapid and phenomenally successful adoption of free market entrepreneurial models, affect social control via police power, censorship, travel control, population control, and massive public works. And with a growing military parity.

American middle class may see a reduction of quality of life, a sense of becoming a tier two county, and social upheavals as the pressure builds on one social group after another.


This blog is my effort to call attention to this issue – World War V

Initial Thesis

Conflict - the balance of opposing forces - seems intrinsic to our experience of evolving nature - whether that is the most elementary of particles and energy or the most complex thing known to man - life on Earth.

What would the most detached, most distant, most unbiased viewpoint on the omnipresent conflicts between individuals, families, communities, tribes, nations, religions, industries, teams - what would such a observation suggest? Is conflict and competition necessary and healthy? Is it inevitable?

The red flags are all around us as even now we are engrossed in the Iraq War and the war against Muslim extremism. And while we are involved as a nation on this World War IV, World War V is taking shape under our noses. By sheer population, numbers of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, and the ability to manage these resources centrally, has China not already thrown down the gauntlet? And if so - are we prepared for World War V?

Here will be a modest attempt to come to terms with this possible future. To anticipate it, understand it, prepare for it