I have a lot of respect for the poor, Mexican, dirt farmer who packs up his wife and kids and braves the treacherous desert, border patrols and minutemen, in an effort to create a better life for his family. A person who takes these chances with the hope of working to build a better life for his children is one who deserves our admiration, not condemnation. I’d like to think given the same circumstances that I too would choose to brave the uncertainty.
That I would do nearly anything I had to do in order to preserve and protect the well-being of my family is certain. Knowing this, how can I condemn people who seek the greener grass, the opportunity to work north of the border? Our nation must benefit when people with such character cross the border, particularly when one considers over 30% of our own home-grown children fail to muster enough character to graduate from high school.
The problem we face today is not that we have too many people coming to live and work in the United States. The problem is that too many are coming into this country illegally. The question for me is: How can we make it easier for good people to come to United States to live and to work legally?
To stop the tide of illegals flowing into this country one can build fences of both the virtual and actual variety, but these fences will not be enough. The Atlantic Ocean didn’t stop Christopher Columbus. 300,000 miles of empty space didn’t stop the Apollo missions. To stop determined humans you have to change their minds. If you want to reduce the number of people willing to break the law to get here, you have to remove their incentives for taking the risk. Employment, public education, social welfare dollars, drivers’ licenses, and hospitalization must all require a social security number [or at least a valid visa or green card] to access. Social welfare dollars shouldn’t even exist! The fact that billions of these extorted dollars are going to prop up people who are not even here legally is beyond reason.
Any non-citizen convicted of a crime must be deported…one strike. Any non-citizen with a contagious disease must be deported…no exceptions.
The hate and xenophobia spread by the far right in this country is most unproductive and un-American. The hate does nothing but create collectives of persecuted illegals waving the flags of their countries of origin, marching down Main Street USA, demanding their rights as humans be recognized. The hate creates the nationalistic feeling these expatriates wouldn’t feel if they were left alone to work and care for their families. They left their native countries, like my grandparents, for reasons: they wish to be Americans. Fantasy rhetoric about how we’re going to round up all of the illegals [all ten million of them, by some estimates], load them onto buses, and caravan them out of the country, is just ridiculous. These people need to want to leave. If they can’t find work, can’t enroll their kids in public schools, and can’t access health care, they will leave.
Disincentives for illegals must be accompanied by incentives for legals. There should be no quotas. We should perform background checks and process as many applications as is humanly possible each year from the four corners of the Earth. We should welcome with open arms all individuals who wish to be Americans. We should have a guest-worker program in place. We should wave fees for individuals who have advanced degrees. We should educate all new arrivals so that they know what it means to be an American. We should encourage new arrivals to learn English, but without force or fear. Whether or not the first generation speaks English really doesn’t matter. Their children and grandchildren will be raised in our public schools. They will speak English. They will choose to assimilate.
Like Alexander Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and me, many of them will come to understand American values better than most of the indigenous population.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Holocaust
Genocide is made possible by the collectivist-altruist philosophy. Collectivism lumps people of a particular race, ethnicity, or religion into groups, pitting one group against another. Altruism is the code of self-sacrifice. Individuals sacrifice their own thinking to the collective. Their submission creates the un-thinking monolith easily moved by a passionate leader who secures his power by declaring a common enemy, propagating irrational fear of the enemy, justifying any atrocity committed against the enemy. Any imagined self-esteem one may experience is the product of their membership in the group. If the group is powerful, the individuals who have given themselves over to the collective feel that they are powerful.
Often, the leaders of these groups are erroneously classified “egoists.” They are greedy, ruthless, megalomaniacs to be sure. But an egoist is none of those things. Egoists do not lust for the unearned. Egoists recognize the right of each individual to think for themselves. Force is banned from all human relationships. Egoists do not make sacrifices for others nor do they demand others make sacrifices to them. The leader of any collective, on the other hand, is a collector of sacrifices: He collects the brain matter of his followers, the blood of his enemies. He is made possible by the blind, wide-spread acceptance of the altruist moral code.
The Holocaust, the mass murder of Jews and other minorities living outside the circle of the Nazi collective during World War II, is the result of the collectivist-altruist philosophy and moral code, the very same code revered by Christians and Muslim alike. Nazi Germany was a Christian nation. Darfur’s Janjaweed is a force of the Muslim variety. Genocide may be the result of the other side of the collectivist-altruist coin…but it is the same coin that propagates unconditional love and prayer five times a day. Members of a collective are denied the freedom to exercise their own judgment. Members do their duty, follow orders…they don’t make choices.
Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, and all of the other Holocaust survivors who got on with their lives after the war, remained sane in the face of the pure evil done to him because he never failed to imagine tomorrow. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl describes the physical and psychological torture he endured as an inmate in World War II, Nazi concentration camps and, in conclusion, attributes his survival to luck [and more importantly] the fact that he wasn’t finished living. He knew that regardless of how hopeless he was made to feel, that his life was waiting for him on the other side. He had books to write, books that only he could write. He knew that if he allowed himself to die the books in his head would never be written. The ability to imagine a future, one driven by personal ambition, individualism, meaning, enabled Frankl to endure unspeakable agony over a prolonged period of time.
Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist with degrees in neurology and psychology, used his textbooks and his experience to develop therapies for individuals suffering from despair [and countless other psychoses and neuroses]. He calls the treatment logotherapy. It’s all actually very easy to understand. It is what the “declaration of independence” would be had it been written by a scientist for an individual, rather than by a politician for a nation. A logotherapist is not a passive listener who after years of psychoanalysis and thousands of your dollars concludes that all of your problems are the result of your subconscious loathing of your father. A logotherapist would be more inclined to grab you by the shoulders, shake you, and whisper “get a life you miserable whiner!” I exaggerate [for laughs], but there is some truth here. Frankl insists man is not made by his environment, the conditions in which he lives or the cruelties he is subject to; but rather, man is made by the choices he makes. For example, the fact that a child molester was molested as a child does not excuse the abomination he has become. He could have chosen to live a moral life.
While Frankl does not use Objectivist terms like, “collectivism, altruism, egoism,” his meaning is clear to me. Through his experience, Frankl discovered that the cure for the victims of the collectivist-altruist world order is individualism. There is nothing greater than your life: the purpose of your life is to live it.
“Happiness is a man’s right to set his own goals, choose his values, and to achieve them…” AR
There is no greater good.
Often, the leaders of these groups are erroneously classified “egoists.” They are greedy, ruthless, megalomaniacs to be sure. But an egoist is none of those things. Egoists do not lust for the unearned. Egoists recognize the right of each individual to think for themselves. Force is banned from all human relationships. Egoists do not make sacrifices for others nor do they demand others make sacrifices to them. The leader of any collective, on the other hand, is a collector of sacrifices: He collects the brain matter of his followers, the blood of his enemies. He is made possible by the blind, wide-spread acceptance of the altruist moral code.
The Holocaust, the mass murder of Jews and other minorities living outside the circle of the Nazi collective during World War II, is the result of the collectivist-altruist philosophy and moral code, the very same code revered by Christians and Muslim alike. Nazi Germany was a Christian nation. Darfur’s Janjaweed is a force of the Muslim variety. Genocide may be the result of the other side of the collectivist-altruist coin…but it is the same coin that propagates unconditional love and prayer five times a day. Members of a collective are denied the freedom to exercise their own judgment. Members do their duty, follow orders…they don’t make choices.
Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, and all of the other Holocaust survivors who got on with their lives after the war, remained sane in the face of the pure evil done to him because he never failed to imagine tomorrow. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl describes the physical and psychological torture he endured as an inmate in World War II, Nazi concentration camps and, in conclusion, attributes his survival to luck [and more importantly] the fact that he wasn’t finished living. He knew that regardless of how hopeless he was made to feel, that his life was waiting for him on the other side. He had books to write, books that only he could write. He knew that if he allowed himself to die the books in his head would never be written. The ability to imagine a future, one driven by personal ambition, individualism, meaning, enabled Frankl to endure unspeakable agony over a prolonged period of time.
Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist with degrees in neurology and psychology, used his textbooks and his experience to develop therapies for individuals suffering from despair [and countless other psychoses and neuroses]. He calls the treatment logotherapy. It’s all actually very easy to understand. It is what the “declaration of independence” would be had it been written by a scientist for an individual, rather than by a politician for a nation. A logotherapist is not a passive listener who after years of psychoanalysis and thousands of your dollars concludes that all of your problems are the result of your subconscious loathing of your father. A logotherapist would be more inclined to grab you by the shoulders, shake you, and whisper “get a life you miserable whiner!” I exaggerate [for laughs], but there is some truth here. Frankl insists man is not made by his environment, the conditions in which he lives or the cruelties he is subject to; but rather, man is made by the choices he makes. For example, the fact that a child molester was molested as a child does not excuse the abomination he has become. He could have chosen to live a moral life.
While Frankl does not use Objectivist terms like, “collectivism, altruism, egoism,” his meaning is clear to me. Through his experience, Frankl discovered that the cure for the victims of the collectivist-altruist world order is individualism. There is nothing greater than your life: the purpose of your life is to live it.
“Happiness is a man’s right to set his own goals, choose his values, and to achieve them…” AR
There is no greater good.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Hate Crimes?
Hate crimes…as opposed to what…love crimes? Anybody who harms any individual has violated their victim’s rights and should be punished accordingly.
Are there any “good” reasons for the murder of any innocent? It’s wrong to kill your neighbor because he is a Jew. It is as wrong to kill your neighbor because his dog won’t stop barking. It’s wrong to kill a woman because she is a lesbian. It is as wrong to kill your ex-wife because she left you.
People should be punished for the crimes they commit, not the motive for the crime.
Hate crimes legislation is an emotional response to the worst kind of stupidity: racism, xenophobia. Like the crimes themselves the legislation is devoid of any rational thought whatsoever. I understand the disgust reasonable people experience witnessing senseless crimes committed against innocent people who were targeted because they are black, gay, Jewish or Muslim. But, by declaring these individuals different and subject to special treatment under law, the advocates of hate-crime legislation are reinforcing the perpetrator’s feeling that these people are in fact “different.”
Presently, federal hate-crimes laws address crimes motivated by race and religion, while other minorities, including, gays and people with disabilities, continue to lobby Congress for recognition in the law. The Matthew Shepard bill, named after a gay man beaten to death in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998, failed to make it to President Bush’s desk last year after passing both houses of Congress. The president had promised to veto the bill, and for whatever reason, the Democratic leadership in Congress decided not to send the bill up the road. If Democrats maintain their control of Congress after the November ’08 election, the Matthew Shepard bill will be made law soon enough.
Regardless of what Congress does, this sad chapter in American jurisprudence may soon be over. Laws that usurp the authority of judges to pass sentence in any criminal case may already be mute.
In recent years, the Supreme Court has struck down several state hate-crime laws. A New Jersey statute was declared unconstitutional because the law authorized judges to make a factual determination about the motive of the defendant. In a criminal trial that’s the jury’s responsibility. In another case decided this year, the Supreme Court took a look at laws that mandate minimum and maximum sentences for specific crimes. In this case the Supreme Court defined mandatory sentencing guidelines as “a starting point” or “initial benchmark.” As reported in the New York Times, “Justice Stevens went on to say that the guidelines were just one factor in the “individualized assessment” that a judge must make in every case. The judge may not presume that the guidelines’ range is reasonable.”
This is a good thing. This means that no matter what hate-crimes legislation comes down the pike, whether federal or state, criminal sentences will once again be rendered by judges, not legislatures responding to the emotional appeals of the mob, their constituents.
Murderers will be punished for “murder,” regardless of the nature of the devil that made them do it.
Are there any “good” reasons for the murder of any innocent? It’s wrong to kill your neighbor because he is a Jew. It is as wrong to kill your neighbor because his dog won’t stop barking. It’s wrong to kill a woman because she is a lesbian. It is as wrong to kill your ex-wife because she left you.
People should be punished for the crimes they commit, not the motive for the crime.
Hate crimes legislation is an emotional response to the worst kind of stupidity: racism, xenophobia. Like the crimes themselves the legislation is devoid of any rational thought whatsoever. I understand the disgust reasonable people experience witnessing senseless crimes committed against innocent people who were targeted because they are black, gay, Jewish or Muslim. But, by declaring these individuals different and subject to special treatment under law, the advocates of hate-crime legislation are reinforcing the perpetrator’s feeling that these people are in fact “different.”
Presently, federal hate-crimes laws address crimes motivated by race and religion, while other minorities, including, gays and people with disabilities, continue to lobby Congress for recognition in the law. The Matthew Shepard bill, named after a gay man beaten to death in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998, failed to make it to President Bush’s desk last year after passing both houses of Congress. The president had promised to veto the bill, and for whatever reason, the Democratic leadership in Congress decided not to send the bill up the road. If Democrats maintain their control of Congress after the November ’08 election, the Matthew Shepard bill will be made law soon enough.
Regardless of what Congress does, this sad chapter in American jurisprudence may soon be over. Laws that usurp the authority of judges to pass sentence in any criminal case may already be mute.
In recent years, the Supreme Court has struck down several state hate-crime laws. A New Jersey statute was declared unconstitutional because the law authorized judges to make a factual determination about the motive of the defendant. In a criminal trial that’s the jury’s responsibility. In another case decided this year, the Supreme Court took a look at laws that mandate minimum and maximum sentences for specific crimes. In this case the Supreme Court defined mandatory sentencing guidelines as “a starting point” or “initial benchmark.” As reported in the New York Times, “Justice Stevens went on to say that the guidelines were just one factor in the “individualized assessment” that a judge must make in every case. The judge may not presume that the guidelines’ range is reasonable.”
This is a good thing. This means that no matter what hate-crimes legislation comes down the pike, whether federal or state, criminal sentences will once again be rendered by judges, not legislatures responding to the emotional appeals of the mob, their constituents.
Murderers will be punished for “murder,” regardless of the nature of the devil that made them do it.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Gun Control: The Solution
The first thing dictators do when they march their armies into the capital is disarm the population. An unarmed population is much easier to control. Next, they take over the newspapers, radio and television stations…controlling the message makes it much easier to control the people. Then they restrict travel. Authoritarian governments keep close tabs on their people…local yokels are easier to control than men and women of the world. Finally, people lose their rights to speech, assembly, due process…And the list goes on.
Access to guns is the first line of defense for a free people who hope to remain free. 100 million or more armed Americans is a force no Republican Guard, KGB, or even Navy SEALS could ever control. We never have to worry about some Julius Ceasar declaring a dictatorship here in America. 100 million armed Americans is a most formidable army. If we hope to remain a free people, Americans can never give up our right to be armed. The right to revolution against an unjust government IS America.
These things having been said—the Second Amendment safe from the feelers, the O’Donnells and the Moores—is there any way to reasonably regulate the manufacture, sale, and ownership of fire arms? Of course. But, like the abortion debate, the problem is extreme and irrational positions taken by both sides in the current debate.
To ban guns of all kinds, like they tried to do in San Fransico [Proposition H] and in Washington D.C., must be unconstitutional. [The Supreme Court published their decision on the DC case a couple of weeks ago, and I was relieved to see that I am right.] But, regardless of the decision, gun bans are not a good idea. When San Francisco passed its gun ban back in 2005, every thug in California packed their bags and moved to San Francisco. It became the one place in California that the armed robber didn’t have to worry about getting capped by a convenient store clerk. Store clerks obey the law: armed robbers don’t. Here in Tennessee, “armed robber” is still a very dangerous job.
For the same reason a “Gun-free safe zone” sign outside of schools is a bad idea. The sign announces to any would-be assailant “if you want to do some random violence, come here! You’ll be the only person with a gun!”
Reasonable restrictions on the right to bear arms regulate who can sell and who can buy fire arms. Without referencing current law [which varies from state to state], I will list objective regulation that should be in place across the country.
1. The following individuals have no right to purchase, own, or even use a fire arm: felons and people with a history of mental illness.
2. People under the age of 21 may not purchase, but may use fire arms under the supervision of a licensed adult.
3. Because some individuals can not legally purchase, own, or even use a fire arm, licensing individual gun owners is reasonable and necessary.
4. It is reasonable to restrict fire arm sales to licensed fire arms dealers accredited to perform background checks on individuals seeking to purchase a fire arm.
5. For law enforcement purposes all fire arms must be registered.
It's just that simple.
Access to guns is the first line of defense for a free people who hope to remain free. 100 million or more armed Americans is a force no Republican Guard, KGB, or even Navy SEALS could ever control. We never have to worry about some Julius Ceasar declaring a dictatorship here in America. 100 million armed Americans is a most formidable army. If we hope to remain a free people, Americans can never give up our right to be armed. The right to revolution against an unjust government IS America.
These things having been said—the Second Amendment safe from the feelers, the O’Donnells and the Moores—is there any way to reasonably regulate the manufacture, sale, and ownership of fire arms? Of course. But, like the abortion debate, the problem is extreme and irrational positions taken by both sides in the current debate.
To ban guns of all kinds, like they tried to do in San Fransico [Proposition H] and in Washington D.C., must be unconstitutional. [The Supreme Court published their decision on the DC case a couple of weeks ago, and I was relieved to see that I am right.] But, regardless of the decision, gun bans are not a good idea. When San Francisco passed its gun ban back in 2005, every thug in California packed their bags and moved to San Francisco. It became the one place in California that the armed robber didn’t have to worry about getting capped by a convenient store clerk. Store clerks obey the law: armed robbers don’t. Here in Tennessee, “armed robber” is still a very dangerous job.
For the same reason a “Gun-free safe zone” sign outside of schools is a bad idea. The sign announces to any would-be assailant “if you want to do some random violence, come here! You’ll be the only person with a gun!”
Reasonable restrictions on the right to bear arms regulate who can sell and who can buy fire arms. Without referencing current law [which varies from state to state], I will list objective regulation that should be in place across the country.
1. The following individuals have no right to purchase, own, or even use a fire arm: felons and people with a history of mental illness.
2. People under the age of 21 may not purchase, but may use fire arms under the supervision of a licensed adult.
3. Because some individuals can not legally purchase, own, or even use a fire arm, licensing individual gun owners is reasonable and necessary.
4. It is reasonable to restrict fire arm sales to licensed fire arms dealers accredited to perform background checks on individuals seeking to purchase a fire arm.
5. For law enforcement purposes all fire arms must be registered.
It's just that simple.
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