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Charlie Daniels on Illegal Immigration

Well, this is a first: The first time I've ever posted a column written by a country-western singer. In fact, it's one of the few times I've ever posted anything written by someone but me. But despite its plain-folk language, I believe his words are worth considering. It certainly takes some guts to say what he said. Perhaps it's because in January, he had a mild stroke. Facing one's mortality makes many people decide to be more honest, even if it offends some people.

I don't know how everybody else feels about it, but to me I think Hispanic people in this country, legally or illegally, made a huge public relations mistake with their recent demonstrations.

I don't blame anybody in the world for wanting to come to the United States of America, as it is a truly wonderful place.

But when the first thing you do when you set foot on American soil is illegal, it is flat out wrong, and I don't care how many lala land left heads come out of the woodwork and start trying to give me sensitivity lessons.

I don't need sensitivity lessons, in fact I don't have any-thing against Mexicans! I just have something against criminals and anybody who comes into this country illegally is a criminal, and if you don't believe it try coming into America from a foreign country without a passport and see how far you get. What disturbs me about the demonstrations is that it's tantamount to saying, "I am going to come into your country even if it means breaking your laws and there's nothing you can do about it."

It's an "in your face" action and speaking just for me, I don't like it one little bit and if there were a half dozen pairs of gonads in Washington bigger than English peas, it wouldn't be happening.

Where are you, you bunch of lily-livered, pantywaist, forked-tongued, sorry excuses for defenders of The Constitution? Have you been drinking the water out of the Potomac again?

And even if you pass a bill on immigration, it will probably be so pork laden and watered down that it won't mean anything anyway! Besides, what good is another law going to do when you won't enforce the ones on the books now?

And what ever happened to the polls, guys? I thought you folks were the quintessential finger-wetters. Well, you sure ain't paying any attention to the polls this time because somewhere around eighty percent of Americans want something done about this mess, and mess it is, and getting bigger everyday.

This is no longer a problem, it is a dilemma and headed for being a tragedy. Do you honestly think that what happened in France with the Muslims can't happen here when the businesses who hire these people finally run out of jobs and a few million disillusioned Hispanics take to the streets?

If you, Mr. President, Congressmen and Senators, knuckle under on this and refuse to do something meaningful, it means that you care nothing for the kind of country your children and grandchildren will inherit. But I guess that doesn't matter as long as you get re-elected.

Shame on you.

One of the big problems in America today is that if you have the nerve to say anything derogatory about any group of people (except Christians), you are going to be screamed at by the media and called a racist, a bigot and anything else they can think of to call you.

Well, I've been pounded by the media before, and I'm still rockin' and rollin', and when it comes to speaking the truth, I fear not.

And the truth is that the gutless, gonadless, milksop politicians are just about to sell out the United States of America because they don't have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to face reality.

And reality is that we would never allow any other group of people to have 12 million illegals in this country and turn around and say, "Oh it's ok, ya'll can stay here if you'll just allow us to slap your wrist."

And I know that some of you who read this column are saying "Well what's wrong with that?" I'll tell you what's wrong with it. These people could be from Mars as far as we know. We don't know who they are, where they are, or what they're up to, and the way the Congress is going, we're not going to.

Does this make sense? Labor force you say? We already subsidize corporate agriculture as it is, must we subsidize their labor as well?

If these people were from Haiti would we be so fast to turn a blind eye to them or if they were from Somalia or Afghanistan ?

I think not.

All the media shows us are pictures of hard-working Hispanics who have crossed the border just to try to better their life. They don't show you pictures of the Feds rounding up members of MS-13, the violent gang who came across the same way the decent folks did. They don't tell you about the living conditions of the Mexican illegal some fat cat hired to pick his crop.

I want to make two predictions.

No. 1: This situation is going to grow and fester until it erupts in violence on our streets while the wimps in Washington drag their toes in the dirt and try to figure how many tons of political hay they can make to the acre.

No 2: Somebody is going to cross that border with some kind of weapon of mass destruction and set it off in a major American city, after which there will be a backlash such as this country has never experienced, and the Capitol building in Washington will probably tilt as Congressmen and Senators rush to the other side of the issue.

I don't know about you, but I would love to see just one major politician stand up and say, "I don't care who I make mad, and I don't care how many votes I lose, this is a desperate situation and I'm going to lead the fight to get it straightened out."

I don't blame anybody for wanting to come to America , but if you don't respect our immigration laws, why should you respect any others?

And by the way, this is America and our flag has stars and stripes. Please get that other one out of my face.

Charlie Daniels

A Public School Teacher Speaks at UCLA about Illegal Immigration

Little mentioned in the debate about illegal immigration are the many Mexicans and Mexican immigrants to the U.S. who are violently anti-American and believe the 40 million Latinos have the right to immigrate to the United States, legally or not.

That is not merely the view of marginalized people. Here is a five-minute video of a Los Angeles Unified School District teacher, Ron Gochez, speaking at a rally for The National Council of La Raza (America's largest Hispanic Advocacy Organization) at UCLA, where Mr. Gochez received his teacher training and master's degree.

Gochez points to an army of professionals who hold similar views. The first minute is relatively innocuous. The rest isn't and I believe is worth your taking the five minutes to watch.

Would you want Mr. Gochez teaching your child? How do you feel about your tax dollars going to paying his salary so he can teach classful after classful?

My Predictions for the Coming Decade

Tomorrow evening, I'll be giving a talk at the University of California, Berkeley: My Predictions for The Coming Decade.

Here are my notes for that talk. Your comments are welcome--I will see them before my presentation and will revise as appropriate.

The Biotech Breakthrough Decade--including cancer, heart disease, depression, retardation. Global partnerships will create the breakthroughs. Longshot prediction: By 2020, it will be possible to enhance intelligence.

Virtualization Decade: meetings, supervision, companies. Longshot prediction: By 2020: virtual trips will be seen as a vacation alternative.

The Decade of The Incredible Shrinking Job: part-time, temp, automate, offshore. Longshot prediction: A tax will be imposed on a company for each job it offshores.

The End of Conservative Media: Fox News fades, talk radio shrinks. The networks cut news budgets. CNN and NY Times (which may merge) dominates. All of this would impose great cost to society's hearing diverse perspectives. Longshot prediction: By 2020, Fox News dies and then covers only business news. Talk radio becomes predominantly liberal.

The Decade of Thrift: We'll see further housing price decline until a household with $100,000 total income can comfortably afford the mortgage payment. We'll see modular mixed-use housing.

Companies will spend more on collections.

We'll more often repair, not replace. B-to-B biz opp: Buy a successful small commercial/industrial equipment repair business from a retiring boomer.

More of the middle class will be childless. That combined with the continued high birthrate among the poor will not help America's global competitiveness.

We'll see a boom in mini-cars as in Europe (e.g., SmartCar). 2020 longshot prediction: The most popular car will be a plug-in electric Toyota that will get 125 mpg and be fully chargeable in a few hours.

The E-commerce Decade. Despite the slow economy, online spending will continue to rise while and bricks-and-mortar spending will decline. Barcode-enabled smartphones (See this video) will hurt bricks-and-mortar businesses: consumers will shop at stores, bar code their item and buy it cheaper on the Net. Longshot prediction: By 2020, the number of malls will have shrunk by 80% from current levels. Many chains--e.g., Macy's, Cost Plus, Barnes & Noble, will have gone completely online.

The Declining Marriage Decade: The trend was boosted decades ago by Murphy Brown but now, media/school/college-induced disdain for males, decline in the # of women who feel parenthood is a necessary box to check in life, unemployable men, increase in gays/lesbians, increased economic viability of women (unmarried women in their 20s earn 116% of what unmarried men earn) and anti-male divorce and child custody laws will reduce marriage rates. Longshot prediction: Only 50% of people the nation's households are made up of married couples. By 2020, it will be only 33%-including gays, whom I am confident will have the right to marry in all 50 states.

The Decade of Campus Decline/Online is Fine. People won't or be able to pay for fancy campuses. The only reason this trend has been slow to accelerate is that govt. so heavily subsidizes the high tuition with financial aid. The more the govt. gives, the more the campuses raise their tuition and fees. Degree proliferation: the master's is the new bachelor's. Longshot prediction: By 2020, many universities, including major publics, will offer a completely online bachelor's degree.

The SinglePayer Decade: Businesses that, under the Obama Plan, will be required to pay not only for their workers but a share of the poor, will have programs (including cash incentives) for weight loss, blood pressure and diabetes control. But the already overtaxed health care system will collapse resulting in a single-payer approach being adopted. Truly longshot prediction (more of a hope:) a return to fee-for-service + catastrophic insurance + a safety net for the truly needy.

The Pot Decade. The slow economy combined with medical marijuana (Already, there are more legal pot dispensaries in SF than Starbucks.) will bring increased pot abuse. Longshot prediction: By 2020, pot is legalized in California but it's repealed by 2025 when pot use among teens soars.

Capitalism's Decline Decade: Ever more GDP will be transferred from the private to the public sector, and from the haves to have-nots, Higher taxes would generate too much protest from the middle class so the govt will use more subtle ways to increase net taxes received: a recent example: L.A imposing $100 fine for a barking dog. Using environmental benefit as a balming explanation, we will be subject to ever increasing tolls at bridges, tunnels, and roads (that were supposed to expire when those bridges were paid for.) The average American pays 48 cents per gallon in gasoline tax. Municipalities are replacing parking meters with kiosks that issue receipts so you'll never again be able to pull into a meter with time left on it. Cameras at traffic lights are proliferating, with $300-$500 fines for red light runners. Even a stop sign violation, where I live, costs $250. (Alas, I learned that from first-hand experience.) San Francisco has just installed hundreds of additional crosswalks, and if a driver fails to yield to a pedestrian, the fine is $500. The IRS budget and its technology will increase. Jobs should be plentiful for government employees and contractors involved in "revenue enhancement." Longshot prediction: The U.S. elects an officially Socialist president in 2020.

The Decade of War Miniaturization: suitcase nukes, cyberattacks, bioweapons. Longshot prediction: By 2020, a terrorist will have successfully detonated a suitcase nuclear bomb or poured a bioweapon into the a small city's (e.g., Peoria) water supply.

The Nuclear Decade: Nuclear energy will burgeon. Longshot prediction: By 2020, solar and wind energy will have been fads that faded when the delimiting physics will become clearer.

The Islamo-Latinization of America. Both groups have high rates of immigration and births. Increasing numbers of African-Americans are converting to Islam. Despite promises of border enforcement and a high-tech 2,000-mile wall, it will fail: the government admits it can't stop enough trucks. Our prioritization of "civil liberties," our celebration of diversity, and fear of being even unfairly called racist will preclude our seriously enforcing borders. Example: Even the modest Arizona illegal-immigrant law has, in the mainstream media--e.g., Time magazine, been called: "police state, apartheid, racist, Nazi--'Papers!')." There will be amnesty with token fine (no return to Mexico required before legally returning.). Latino USA (the name of an NPR radio program) is apt. Latino but not Islamic immigration is worrisome because it is the first large wave of immigrants that is unscreened for health or criminal records, and to immigrate, may need no more ability to plan or delay gratification than to hide in the bottom of a truck for the brief ride from Tijuana to San Diego. Also different is that many Latino and Islam advocates are insisting their people not assimilate but retain their native culture. So the U.S. will ever less have a unifying culture--Optimists call that a salad bowl in which the total is greater than the sum of its parts; pessimists call it balkanization that will lead to cross-cultural enmity, civil unrest, and terrorism. Longshot 2020 prediction: As with the Indian reservations, the U.S. will cede part of New Mexico to Mexican sovereignty. Longershot prediction: Mexico becomes America's 52nd state. (Puerto Rico will be the 51st.)

The Decade of Asia's Sunrise and America's Sunset. America does retain strengths: women and minorities have opportunity, entrepreneurial culture, freedom of speech, universities while profoundly needing reinvention still attract smart people from around the world, and the U.S. remains for now the centers for finance and for high-tech and biotech innovation. But as society gets ever more tech-centric/knowledge-centric, the majority of Americans will suffer an ever larger achievement gap compared with the average Chinese or Indian national. And our politics of so-called "redistributive justice," while well-intentioned, will make the U.S. ever less able to create a competitive workforce--Example: mixed-ability classes. Another disadvantage: China has a more balanced approach to environmentalism. Here we'll spend enormously to preserve a snail darter or spotted owl, let alone a Louisiana swamp--oops, I mean "wetland." Liberal "kindness," which redistributes from those with the greatest potential to create jobs to those with the least will ever more be fueled by a media more interested in liberal activism than fair reporting--with GoogleSearch and GoogleNews the dominant players, manifested by Obama's election--The National Journal ranked Obama the #1 most liberal senator. Longshot prediction: Over the coming decade, the investment return on China's equivalent of the Dow 30 (stock symbol FXI) will be twice that of the Dow. I've moved much of my savings from Vanguard S&P 500 fund to FXI.

Final point: Humankind has always figured out a way to make progress and will continue to do so. In balance, the world will be better in 2020 than in 2010.

The White Male Working Class Doesn't Have It Easy Either

I received this e-mail letter yesterday. I reproduce it here without comment.

Dear Dr. Nemko,

I appreciate your articles and maybe you'll find my story worth telling.

After working on a job for two years with no problems, a month after my wife's death, the regional manager (a black man) said I was going to be "let go" for breaking some small rules.

I didn't understand why he wanted to get rid of me and why he wouldn't lay me off instead of fire me. I found out why when I went to get unemployment--they denied me because they said I was fired--that way the employer doesn't have to pay.

I didn't have the energy or the money to fight it because I was still trying to catch up on bills from the hospital and funeral. Since then I have been eking by with a very part-time job ($50/month), food stamps, and the help of some very good friends.

Since all this has happened, I have had three lawsuits for unpaid credit cards (most were my wife's), my vehicle was repo'ed (and they are still trying to get me to pay it off!) and have been trying to find a job so I can get back on my feet. In the area I live in, Mexicans are working in plants and sending money by the thousands of dollars back "home". They are willing to work for less than minimum wage and are often paid under the table.

I have paid taxes, voted in elections, been a proper American, yet these situations are causing me to be unemployable. I soon will have to move out of my home of 15 years into a housing project apartment because I can't afford to live here anymore. I deeply believe that reverse discrimination is rampant but I can't do anything about it.

There are times I feel like I have become emasculated by the government. And the people that know me treat me as someone who is deserving of pity. I don't want pity, I want my life back!
(The author of this letter asked that I not use his name but state it as "DLJ from Georgia.")

A Different Take on the Immigration Debate

The New Case Against Immigration: Illegal and Legal by Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, argues:

"What's different about immigration today as opposed to a century ago is not the immigrants but us....(America is now a) mature society and that renders our past experience with immigration irrelevant. We have a post-industrial, knowledge-based economy, a welfare state, advanced communications and transportation technology that complicate the issues of security and sovereignty, etc. We have, in other words, outgrown mass immigration. It was an important phase of our national development, and played an important part in shaping who we are as a nation. But, like other phases we've passed through as a people -- pioneers settling the frontier, for instance -- it's something we need to put behind us."

From where I sit, the implication is that America should do what we've heretofore done:

1. Control immigration so that only non-criminals who've passed a health screening are allowed to become legal residents, with exceptions made for only people who truly are escaping persecution.

2. If a larger number of people apply for legal residence than can be accommodated without unduly taxing our education, health care, or other systems, then the decision as to who should be admitted should be based on their likelihood of contributing to society. For example, college educated people would be given preference.

3. Enforcement should NOT be done by rounding up illegals, but by strict punishment for employers who hire illegals.

4. All the work that employers say can't be done by legal Americans could be done--All that would be required is for employers to raise salaries and improve working conditions, which, in themselves are good things to do.