This past week our nation commemorated the 70th anniversary of the attack at Pearl Harbor that compelled our nation to go to war. The Second World War was an extremely violent war that resulted in the death of many millions of people. The successful conclusion of that war was, in large measure, directly attributable to the ingenuity and perseverance of the citizens of the United States of America!
We achieved greatness because we believed in ourselves.
“Can Do!” was America’s unofficial national slogan!
Today our “leaders” insist that without importing talented foreign students and talented and conscientious foreign workers our nation will not be able to succeed. Rather than attack the failures of our educational system to make certain that our nation has the best educated students on the planet, our leaders tell us to import aliens.
Rather than import foreign students and foreign workers, our nation must provide economic opportunities for the growing number of poor American students to attend colleges to embark in an education in Science, Technology, Engineering or Math.
Today with college tuitions continually rising, more and more American students are finding it difficult if not impossible to attend college. Those who secure student loans are finding that those loans create a financial burden that is comparable to a monthly mortgage payment when they do graduate from college. This is further exacerbated by the fact that jobs are scarce and competition for those scarce jobs from foreign workers is increasing!
Not long ago I compared this situation to a game of musical chairs where periodically the doors are thrust open and more people enter the room to compete for the dwindling supply of chairs but that no additional chairs are provided!
The trajectory our nation is now on is hammering America’s Middle Class. The Middle Class is the heart and soul of this country. The large and upwardly mobile Middle Class was the engine that powered America’s successes! The destruction of the Middle Class must be equated with the destruction of the “American Dream!”
I recently noted that the House of Representatives had passed, by a near unanimous vote the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011, H.R. 3012. This bill, if enacted, would make it easier for foreign high-tech workers, especially from India and China to enter the United States.
Fortunately, that bill is now stalled in the Senate thanks, in large measure to the efforts of Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa.
Here is what Senator Grassley had to say:
Mr. President, I rise to inform my colleagues that I am placing a hold on H.R. 3012, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. This bill would eliminate the per-country numerical limitations for employment-based visas and increase the numerical cap for family-based immigrants. I have concerns about the impact of this bill on future immigration flows, and am concerned that it does nothing to better protect Americans at home who seek high-skilled jobs during this time of record high unemployment.
This is certainly not the time for our nation to seek to import more competition for America’s high tech workers!
Wow!
I could not have said it better myself!
That last sentence is worth repeating:
This is certainly not the time for our nation to seek to import more competition for America’s high tech workers!
The citizens of America should be thankful for Senator Grassley’s leadership and integrity!
This is the time for our nation to provide more opportunities for American workers at all levels of our nation’s economy! This is the time for Americans to support and vote for leaders who will stand with American workers and America’s endangered Middle Class!
By words and deeds it is crystal clear that corporations are being represented in the “Halls of Power” but it is equally clear that the needs and the concerns of our citizens are being ignored by both political parties!
Benjamin Franklin, in discussing our then fledgeling nation. said that they had given us a republic *if we could keep it!*
What he was making clear was that this democratic republic required that its citizens take their citizenship seriously and keep the political leaders accountable.
It is time for the citizens of our nation to make certain that our nation’s leaders, on all levels, to come to terms with the fundamental fact that the purpose of our immigration laws is to protect our nation and our citizens from aliens whose presence has the potential to have a serious adverse impact. Ignoring those laws exposes our nation and our citizens to a variety of serious threats and challenges ranging from national security and criminal justice and public safety to the economy, the environment, healthcare and education!
A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!
If our country is to survive and if our children and their children are to get their share of the “American Dream” the citizens of this nation must take their citizenship seriously!
We the People must be the best citizens we can be, citizens who are worthy of the gallantry demonstrated by our valiant men and women in the military, law enforcement and firefighters, who routinely go in harm’s way in defense of this nation and our citizens.
My goal in writing this and other commentaries is to point out our nations many failings before more victims pay the ultimate price for the incompetence and ineptitude of our government.
The first step in problem-solving is to first identify the problems and vulnerabilities and then devise strategies to overcome them.
If you find yourself to be in agreement with this commentary, I ask that you forward it to as many of your friends and family members as possible and encourage them to do the same. We need to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”
The practice of good citizenship does not end in the voting booth, it only begins there.
For far too long our citizens demonstrated apathy which emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups.
It is therefore understandable that the politicians of both parties, are greatly concerned about the demonstrations currently sweeping our nation just as did the creation of the Tea Party. Clearly more and more of our fellow Americans are demonstrating that they are not as dumb as the politicians from both parties had expected us to be!
I am encouraged that more and more of us, We the People, are not willing to simply sit on the sidelines anymore!
I believe our nation’s is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world. However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels or members of other transnational gangs or members of al-Qaeda!
I also believe that the original purpose of our nation’s immigration laws need to be be brought “front and center” to make certain that our nation does not permit the entry of aliens into our country whose presence in our country is problematic for the citizens of our nation and that if such aliens do succeed in entering our country that our nation have the resources, integrity and dedication to do everything possible to make it impossible for such aliens to function within our country so that even if they are not apprehended, they will find it pointless to remain in the United States.
As I have noted on a number of occasions, “No one would break into the amusement park if they could not get to go on the rides and no one remains in the amusement park at the end of the day when they turn shut down the rides and turn off the lights!”
If our government’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!
All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!
We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.
This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!
You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
“Can do!”
