Miscellaneous Musings

It's a stormy afternoon in Colorado Springs, and my wife is away, volunteering at the Cheyenne Canyon City Park. Therefore, I have time for a few random thoughts on current and not so current events.

President Obama signed an act yesterday aimed at strengthening law enforcement on tribal lands around the country. Under the new law tribal police will have increased enforcement powers and presumably will be able better to protect people on tribal lands. The story claimed that one third of all Indian women are raped during their lives and until now the perpetrators were seldom caught or prosecuted successfully.

My congressman, Doug Lamborn, voted against the act. The newspaper story says he claimed it had not been considered under regular House procedures and he objected to the cost of enforcement, estimated at a billion dollars. I guess when it's not your own loved one who is being attacked or murdered the cost factor is of paramount importance.

Mr. Lamborn will easily be re-elected this fall by the good people of the seventh congressional district of Colorado.

British Petroleum certainly is spending a lot of advertising money these days. The ads feature Louisianans who say they love the Gulf coast and insist BP will pay all bills for cleanup of the oil spill disaster. Meanwhile, the company is dragging its feet about paying lost wages and income to thousands of local people who have been harmed by their negligence, which was a deliberate flaunting of safety and environmental laws. Moreover, they announced the other day that they will claim a $10 billion tax credit for cleanup costs. That means we taxpayers will get stuck with a significant part of the cleanup costs.

And maybe we should get the bill. We voted the oilmen into office who leased those oil deposits and deliberately allowed safety and environmental laws to be ignored. In a democracy we get the government we deserve. (Or so it's said.)

Maybe they could take a billion bucks from their advertising budget and pay for tribal law enforcement!

Speaking of advertising that tries to persuade people on an issue rather than to sell a product, the petroleum industry pulled their ads pretty quickly when the spill happened. I almost miss that 40ish slender woman in the pants suits who told us over and over again how wonderful off shore drilling is. Now the ads just feature people telling us how awful it would be if taxes were raised (or deductions eliminated) on the oil companies.

And it's a political year again, dammit, and we are deluged with attack ads. This year all the Republicans seem to want to publicize how unreasonable they can be. "I oppose everything the Obama administration wants to do, whether I know what is or not!" is their mantra. The candidate who is farthest to the right will win.

Here in Colorado one senatorial candidate tries to lump Jane Norton, a Reaganite Republican if ever there was one, with Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Whatever it takes to win a nomination I guess, but I wonder what that nomination will be worth come November if the aspirant had to pander to a lunatic fringe to win it. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi has become the favorite whipping girl of these radicals. Somehow they think all they have to do is say Pelosi and San Francisco and they'll win election. I have enough faith in the people to doubt it will work.

Finally, Ayn Rand books continue to fly off library shelves. It amuses me to see people flock to a government run facility to read books that decry government services.

On Immigration

I pity the poor immigrant, who wishes he'd stayed at home

--Bob Dylan

The immigration issue has been heating up in recent months, especially here in the west. Arizona has passed draconian measures to control illegal entry to their state and similar proposals are before other state legislatures. Hispanic residents of these states are indignant, feeling they are being subject to police harassment and are being used as a political football.

The number of people living in the US illegally is estimated as somewhere between four and twenty million. They came for numerous reasons, but economic opportunity certainly is the most often cited enticement for people to enter the US. In this, they are no different from generations of people who came to America in the last four hundred years.

Current immigration law favors people who have a skill or profession that will (allegedly) be of benefit to our country, or who have money to invest here. So, if you're a doctor, or can hit a breaking pitch, or have a large wad of cash in your pocket, you can go to the front of the immigration line. Such folks are not exactly your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Other applicants are admitted by quotas among the nations on a lottery basis.

Naturally, the numbers of people in foreign lands who want to reside in America vary widely. People in nations where there is a huge demand for legal emigration might wait all their lives for a chance to come here legally. Is it any wonder that desperate people are not willing to wait patiently for legal status?

Since illegal immigrants risk deportation to the place they risked their lives to leave, we can hardly expect them to come forward and meekly accept expulsion. Even if all immigrants did volunteer for repatriation, however, the logistics of removing them are daunting. If we use the commonly cited total of twelve million illegals and an average capacity per airplane of two hundred (a generous average) then it would require sixty thousand flights to carry all of them out of the country. The country's bus lines could help take deportees to adjacent lands, but this would not diminish the number of flights very much. I'm not saying it couldn't be done or shouldn't be done, but lets not kid ourselves into thinking it would be quick, easy or inexpensive.

This also gives rise to another question. Can we ethically just dump deportees in the country they left at a border town or their capital? It might be argued that what happens to them once they're across the line is not our business, but the problems of one country often become the problem of other nations. Economic stress in other countries is the reason we have this situation in the first place.

The Obama administration has proposed that illegal immigrants will be obliged to pay a fine for entering the country and back taxes and then can be placed at the back of the line for those awaiting citizenship. Much as I like and respect President Obama, I think this is ludicrous. Illegal residents of the US are paid in the underground economy and records of their earnings will be spotty at best. Would you tell the truth about your earnings if doing so would cost you money you worked hard to get, and the government couldn't check your statement? I suspect this proposal is just a sop to conservative critics.

So here's my immodest proposal. The quota of legal immigrants from high demand countries like Mexico should be raised drastically. Three million legal permits per year is reasonable to me. Applications for legal entry could only be received and processed in the individual's home country. A criminal check would be made on prospective immigrants, confined to felony warrants or convictions or outstanding judgments against the person. No fees or taxes would be collected.

What would we get by doing this? Well, start with regaining control of the border. Once there is a real chance of coming to America legally, I suspect the incentive to enter by breaking our law will diminish. In addition, once immigrants have legal status they can take jobs in the above ground economy, pay taxes and contribute to social security. Five million additional contributors to social security would not solve all the problems of the fund, but would certainly help.

And why would anyone who is here already return to his native land to re-enter legally? They could demand at least minimum wage for their work. They would not have to fear the police, and if victimized by crime could seek justice in the legal system. They would have the same chance to advance and prosper as any American citizen.

There is one exception to this policy. The parents and siblings of so-called "anchor children" must be given legal status immediately. I realize this is not fair to other immigrants, but there is no other workable solution. Kicking the family of such a child out of the country effectively means deporting an American from our country, or leaving the child behind. Neither of these constitutes a family value in my opinion.

For those who want to expel illegal immigrants from the US, I ask that you examine your motives. If you're outraged because our laws have been broken, I'm with you, but if your objection to illegals is cultural, or you think they drain the economy, we part company.

I welcome comments on my plan.

The United States and Cuba

Fidel Castro is gone and Raul Castro soon will be gone. What the successor government will be like is a matter of opinion, but now is the time for the US to position itself to influence it.

There's no need to begin big. What could help begin a rapprochement between the two countries is exploration of mutual interests. A few examples of places where cooperative activities can be launched are preservation of animal species, emergency services coordination, historical preservation, and the end of travel restrictions imposed on Americans.

Ivory-billed woodpeckers and Atlantic crocodiles are just two endangered species that would benefit from coordinated preservation efforts. Endangered turtles use the Gulf of Mexico and also would be better able to thrive if scientists in both countries coordinated their research and recovery efforts.

Each summer and autumn hurricanes boil up in the waters of the Atlantic basin. In addition to sharing weather forecasting services, greater mutual emergency services in the aftermath of a storm could save lives and resources in both nations. Just in case anyone feels a little snobbish about accepting relief from Cubans, they might consider whether the residents of New Orleans would have accepted Cuban help after Hurricane Katrina battered their city.

Cuba and Florida share a history dating from Spanish colonial times. Many of the records of the Spanish experience in Florida are thought to be in Havana. Surely sharing these documents would provide a fuller portrait of that time. More recently, Americans resided in Cuba and it is important to tell their story and that of the Cubans they knew. Ernest Hemingway is the prime example, but by no means the only one. I don't know if anyone wants to be reminded of Meyer Lansky, but American abuse of the Cubans is still a true story.

Last, but certainly not least, the travel restrictions still imposed on Americans who want to visit Cuba should be ended immediately. It's fundamentally undemocratic for the government to tell us where we can or cannot travel. Any opposition to allowing this because Cuba still clings to Marxism-Leninism can be countered easily by use of the old adage, "We'll sell them the rope to hang themselves."

Welcome to My Blog

I'm Pete from Colorado Springs, deep in Republican country here at the western end of the Great Plains. My intention in this blog is to provide some insights into life after living on this old planet for 61 years.

I work in a library. The other day a woman came in to borrow Ayn Rand's book "The Fountainhead." When the librarian who helped her mentioned that there is suddenly a big call for Ayn Rand's books, the woman answered, "Well, Glenn Beck recommends them."

I had to bite my tongue. Something inside me was saying, "You're in a public library, a socialized institution, borrowing a book that's provided at taxpayers' expense, written by the patron saint of the radical right and extolled by a man who thinks all government services are poorly run, too expensive and should be turned over to private enterprise. What's wrong with this picture?

From time to time I'll comment on the political scene, ethics, religion and history, so please watch this spot.