The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

A Small Business Owner Explains U.S. Economic Reality

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A friend forwarded this to me today in an email.  I don’t know who wrote it, but I think the author could be any one of the millions of small business owners in the United States today.  I do know if it were me, I’d be telling my employees the same thing.

This, not the dangerously idealistic, entitlement-lobbied cesspool of “Ivy-League elite” progressive thinking in Washington, is the reality of the the Obamanation.

 

To All My Valued Employees,
 
There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job. however, is the changing political landscape in this country.
 
However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.
 
First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You’ve seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I’m sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.
 
However, what you don’t see is the back story.
 
I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.
 
My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn’t have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business – hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.
 
Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70’s. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.
 
So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden – the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations … you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I’ve made.
 
Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.
 
Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds.
 
Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:
 
I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.
 
The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.
 
The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree, which is why your job is in jeopardy.
 
Here is what many of you don’t understand … to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what?  Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.
 
When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you?  Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of CHANGE you can keep.
 
So where am I going with all this?
 
It’s quite simple.
 
If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child’s future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem any more.
 
Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.
 
So, if you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about ….
 
Signed,
Your boss

Smile, Tea Party Participants, You’re On FBI Surveillance Camera?

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If this is true, it’s certainly disconcerting.  The Northeast Intelligence Network recently posted an editorial claiming that the FBI was very interested in attendees at the April 15th Tea Parties.

Of course, it had conveniently become common knowledge the day before the Tea Parties that the Department of Homeland Security was very concerned about right-wing extremists.  You know, those folks, including American veterans, who were growing more and more upset about the economy and such.  So I wouldn’t be the least surprised that many FBI field agents spent April 15th like many of the rest of us; but instead of protesting the tyranny of taxation with representation, they walked around taking pictures and documenting the names of organizers.  Just in case one of the participants just happened to be an everyday, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety wack job looking for any excuse to self-destruct while doing their best to take a few fellow citizens along with them. 

Because we all know that any time a large number of people raise their voices in disagreement with something, there’s bound to trouble.

Methinks they ought to look closer to home.  Like maybe investigating exactly who in the Obama administration decided to lie to the American people this time?  The latest example being a misleading redaction of the Director of National Intelligence’s memo to the President concerning “enhanced interrogation techniques”.  Certain points made by Dennis Blair about the benefits of the information gained shortly after 9/11 were cut from the version published by the administration in order that it appear to support the hue and cry for a witch hunt of Bush administration advisers.

Oops?

Placing Blame Where Blame Is Due

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It has now been 10 years since the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.  Since then, there have been more than two dozen such shootings in schools around the United States and the inevitable fallout discussions about a lack of God in people’s lives.  There have been many who are quick to blame the inherent separation of church and state embedded in the Constitution for things done by those who don’t play with a full deck but the truth is that living is, itself, more an act of faith than anything else and whether even avowed athiests realize it, hoping is the same as praying, worrying is a form of negative prayer, and we all do it.  A lot.

All of this, then, reminded me of this piece.

 

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
that word is love.”
(Sophocles)

Dear God,

Why do you let children die in their schools?

Signed,
a Concerned Student

——

Dear Concerned Student,

There are some who will say it is because I am not allowed in your schools any more. But the truth is that this is the hard-lesson result of the diseases of apathy, greed, and lack of personal responsibility that pervade your society.

I surely love you and I always will, but I gave your parents the job of caring for you properly and teaching you right from wrong and the coping skills needed to get along with others and to succeed in life. And I am afraid that most of them are just not doing their job. They are handing you over to underpaid and overworked teachers who love you, too, but are not allowed to even speak out when you treat them with the same disrespect you show your parents. Your parents allow you to spend far too many hours in front of the television, whose programmers don’t love you; they only love the companies who buy their advertising time so as to encourage your parents to neglect you further in the quest to have even more…”stuff”.

Hardly anyone exercises their right to vote so your elected officials just follow the whims of their supporting lobbies, and I can assure you that those special interest groups don’t love you at all.

Now understand, my dear child, I am always, now and forever, everywhere and as long as schools have tests, there will be prayer in schools. But you would do well to take the time to sit down with your parents and ask them why some parents fail to love their children enough to give them what they really need – love, respect, and discipline – instead of the inadequate substitute of material things.

Blessings,
God

P.S. One more word about my gift to you of Free Will. There are some souls who, no matter how hard their parents try, turn away from the light, turn away from goodness, and choose to do bad things. Their parents weep, as do I, but we do not stop loving them.

 

Copyright 2007 PJ. Garner, used with permission.

The Bitter Fruits Of Handshakes & Dialogue

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“It was a nice gesture to give me a book; I’m a reader.”

So says President Obama about Hugo Chavez creating a stereotypical Chavez-serving photo op by giving Obama a copy of “The Open Veins of Latin America:  Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent,” a book by Eduardo Galeano.  Like Chavez’s ties to Hamas and drug cartels, the title speaks for itself, don’t you think?  Little surprise coming from the man who only a month ago went on record calling Obama “ignorant” and is well-known for his sentiments towards “the most murderous American empire.”

Maybe it simply came as a relief after Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega thrashed the United States for 50 minutes during the opening ceremonies of the 5th Summit of the Americas.  “I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old,” he said.  A dangerously flippant remark that speaks volumes to this American patriot about where Obama’s loyalties really lay.  As the elected leader of this Republic, he represents America and her history; it horrifies me that the man lacks such basic knowledge.  But then again, this is the man who considers the Constitution to be a “flawed document” so perhaps it is understandable after all that he would want to be seen as divorced from it.

But this kind of disrespect for his country hasn’t gone unnoticed by those Obama would most wish to impress.  No sooner did he speak to Iran about engaging in some kind of peaceful dialogue, behind closed doors they convicted American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi of “spying” and sentenced her to 8 years in prison.  And French President Nicolas Sarkozy has become less-than-complimentary of late, calling Obama “inexperienced” and wisely noting that despite “a “subtle mind” and being “very intelligent, very charismatic,” intelligence doesn’t necessarily guarantee political success.

I fear that this kind of foreign policy is going to do only one thing:  get the United States engaged in another great war.  Obama can dismiss Venezuela’s military size but he cannot dismiss its Communist and other anti-American ties.  He has already thrown Israel under the proverbial bus by his inaction at the U.N. and Israel now stands poised to attack Iran alone.  Or is that attack Iran for us?  I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find this is all a machination of those of George Soros’ ilk, Obama a perfect foil to finally take control when the economy gears up once again to support a war machine.  It’s not really a far stretch when we get wind that the administration is considering converting its preferred shares in the banks into common stock.  In lockstep with not allowing banks to repay TARP loans, can you say “nationalize the banking system”?

The President may think he’s a reader, but it’s becoming more and more obvious that the books he’s chosen to read are doing us all far more harm than good.

How Congress Intends To Sidestep An Outright Repeal Of The 2nd Amendment

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It is rumored that HR 45 is about to undergo hearings on Capitol Hill.  And the more I read about this piece of legislation, the more angry I become.

HR 45 is titled, “Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009”.  This is an embarrassing nod to the courage of high school junior Blair Holt, who died shielding another student from gang-related gunfire on a Chicago city bus; titled solely to distract from the fact that both criminals and wack jobs walk amongst us.  Nowhere is it mentioned, of course, that the gun used to kill Blair Holt was itself illegal and there are already laws on the books to address this.

The purpose of this bill is ostensibly to legislate some kind of bassackwards morality as cover for the progressive liberals’ wish to destroy our 2nd Amendment rights.  Because people use guns to kill other people, whether for all the wrong or right reasons, it is now being presumed that it is the government’s job to insure that only those it deems qualified may own “any handgun” or “any semiautomatic firearm that can accept any detachable ammunition feeding device” (not “antique”).    The thinking goes that it is only by restricting private gun ownership to only those approved by only the government that the number of guns getting into the hands of criminals or secretly taken by screw-loose, unsupervised youngsters will be reduced.

It’s bullshit.  The truth is that both laws and locks keep only honest people honest.  The criminal element is by big, fat “DUH!” definition “criminal” because it never has and never will have any regard whatsoever for laws or locks or anything else that would stand in their way of going about their bad business.  The real protections of we, the people, provided by the 2nd Amendment comes from criminals’ uncertainty about what they might face should they attempt to steal or otherwise harm us.  Not to mention that when citizens have the right to bear arms, it is no longer such an easy task for the government to overstep its bounds and (illegally) seize anything from them by force.  In both cases, the 2nd Amendment creates a truce-type of situation; exactly as was intended by the Founding Fathers the bulk of control, the power, remains with the people.

The gist of this wicked bill is that no one may possess a “qualifying firearm” without a license.  And in order to get a license, you must give the Attorney General $25 and all of the following:

  1. A current, passport-sized photograph
  2. Your name, address, and date and place of birth
  3. Any other name you ever used or by which you have ever been known
  4. A clear thumb print (yours, of course)
  5. A statement that you are not a person prohibited from obtaining a firearm
  6. Certification you will keep any firearm safely stored and out of the possession anyone under 18 years of age
  7. Proof of having taken a written firearms examination intended to test your knowledge about
    1. The safe storage of firearms, particularly in the vicinity of persons who have not attained 18 years of age
    2. The safe handling of firearms
    3. The use of firearms in the home and the risks associated with using them in the home
    4. The legal responsibilities of firearms owners, including Federal, State, and local laws relating to requirements for the possession and storage of firearms, and relating to reporting requirements with respect to firearms
    5. Any other subjects, as the Attorney General determines to be appropriate
  8. An authorization to release any of your mental health records to the Attorney General or their authorized representative (if there are any)
  9. Date the application was submitted
  10. Your signature

If you are then deemed worthy, you will get your very own firearms license (it will say so, in bold letters centered right at the very top, “FIREARM LICENSE–NOT VALID FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE”).  Each one will have a unique number and include your photograph, address, date of birth, the license’s expiration date, and your signature.  Though if you move, you’d better tell the Attorney General or you’ll be in trouble!

You won’t be able to buy a “qualifying firearm” from anyone except a “licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector” and they will be given a special number to note on the bill of sale that they’ve verified with the Attorney General’s office you have a valid license.  Oh, you can’t sell a gun to anyone except a  “licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector” either, though they kindly made provision to allow inheriting guns.

Of course, there are always exceptions and the ones in this bill should be even more cause for concern.  It won’t apply  to “any department or agency of the United States, of a State, or of a political subdivision of a State, or to any official conduct of any officer or employee of such a department or agency”, or to “a peace officer, a member of the Armed Forces, or a member of the National Guard”.

What this bill does is to effectively negate the 2nd Amendment by automatically making all private citizens a criminal until they prove themselves otherwise.

Not only is that the real crime, it is also unconstitutional.

Media Bias Is Merely Commentary, Not Reporting

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I have always believed that it is the reporter’s job to report and the commentator’s job to opine.  I want to read the facts and then I want to read what people think about them.

There has been a dangerous and disturbing fall from grace in the field of journalism.  The line between reporting and commentary has become so blurred and bias has come to be considered so normal that mainstream news outlets, whether in print or television, have become little more than political propaganda machines.  It used to be that newspapers or television stations were labeled “liberal” or “conservative” based on their editorial content, but now those labels extend straight to the heart of their news pieces.

It’s a form of hypocrisy even more frightening than what we see coming from Washington itself.  I wrote last week that despite the mainstream media’s ugly, crude disparaging of the April 15th Tea Parties, they were soundly trounced in the ratings by FOX News.  Their demonizing of self-proclaimed, unashamed conservative commentators backfired, and I would hope that those who changed their channels to watch the Tea Party coverage on FOX have started to see that “conservative is a mindset, not a political party” and that it does not preclude simply reporting facts as they occur.

No better example of the  liberal bias of mainstream media can be found than when news reporter-cum-commentator-wannabe-hack, Chicago-based Susan Roesgen brought CNN’s liberal bias out of the closet.  Turned down twice for a job with FOX, her bitterness was pathetically evident, and apparently CNN had to close down her email account in response to viewer outrage over her behavior, caught by the cameras of both CNN and Tea Party attendees.

An excellent commentary on the dangerous hypocrisy in reporting may be seen here.  I would suggest that while we still have the right to do so, anyone who finds their news reporters crossing the line into hack commentary call them out on it.  Because without fairness and unbiased honesty, without truth in reporting from a free media, we really are doomed.

Ignorant Confusion Is Dangerous

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Like it or not, at least at first glance we are judged by the company we keep since birds of a feather and all that.  If we’re lucky, we get a chance to prove ourselves through our individual actions, which may then validate or negate that initial opinion, for better or for worse.

Adjust your thinking cap and read this little piece posted at The Volokh Conspiracy blog.  Though originally aimed at President Bush, if you are a regular reader of Smoke Break, the parallels to President Obama and his administration will be painfully obvious.

Then, more importantly, check out the list of signers.

Don’t Breathe On Me?

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Hang onto your wallet.  Odds are that if it’s not empty now it will be even sooner than your grandchildren’s paychecks are being spent by President Obama and Congress. 

The Supreme Court has previously ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, requiring regulation if they pose a danger.  I can’t help but think of Captain Picard on Star Trek saying, “Make it so” as the EPA releases their report stating that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare.  Like when stars align, it illuminates President Obama’s push for cap & trade and the Democrats in Congress are positively salivating over the prospects of further control over private industry; hearings begin next week on the American Clean Energy and Security Act which was introduced last month. 

Among other, less obvious effects than that of significantly increasing the cost of everything from heating and cooling to food and other goods and transportation, this bill contains provisions to help people buy a new manufactured home if they live in one made before 1976, it will fund “training and funding assistance” to states that “adopt advanced building efficiency codes” and fund retrofitting existing commercial and residential buildings to improve energy efficiency.  Efficiency ratings that have yet to be determined, of course.

All that more expensive heating and cooling will eventually be controlled by a “smart grid”, run by graduates of colleges funded by government grants to develop “curriculum and training programs that prepare students for careers in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other forms of climate change mitigation.”   Meaning that the government will decide when giving you electricity just isn’t in everyone’s best interests.  And the utility companies will be on the hook to make sure that you and I are saving energy.

And let’s not forget about taking the “program” international.  You got it, it includes working (read:  funding) with the U.N., too.

All of this will be paid for, of course, by our hard-earned tax dollars.

And yet, reports are now coming out of Australia that the Antarctic ice cap is growing, providing another obvious contradiction to the popular myth that the Earth is getting warmer.  About as obvious a contradiction as the snowfall shutting down Denver as I write this piece, eh?  Curiously, the House bill states those dangerous gases “may not be regulated as criteria pollutants or hazardous air pollutants on the basis of their effect on global warming”.  But take heart, global warming devotees and those alleged environmental protection groups so utterly dependent upon the donations of those global warming devotees!  Despite this administration’s continuing negative impact on the United States economy and therefore the lives of its hard-working citizens, there is one wee light glimmering at the end of the tunnel.  And I’m not talking about the House bill that was introduced on April 2, 2009 that intends to use our hard-earned tax money so that the government can “educate” everyone about the dangers of global warming.  No, indeed.  What I’m here to tell you is that you, too, can get rich from global warming!  There’s a little-discussed provision to amend Section 304 of the Clean Air Act that was tossed into the House’s draft climate regulation bill that will allow ordinary citizens to sue the federal government if they feel they have suffered – or simply “expect” to suffer – from those EPA-declared-as-dangerous greenhouse gases or even negative effects from “climate change”.

Just wait until your spouse rolls over in the middle of the night and snores in your face, thereby showering you with all that evil carbon dioxide.  Forget all that nonsense about second-hand smoke, don’t you realize that just the fact that someone breathes makes them dangerous?  Now if you don’t like the fact that large numbers of people gather together, you can claim you are in harm’s way because they are  increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in that area.  All you have to do is file a lawsuit and Pater Obama will come to the rescue and pay you damages.   Of course, there’s only enough funding being requested to give 20 people that $75,000 damages award each year.

Little surprise leftover, then, when the latest Obama appointee, a confirmed left-wing radical with direct ties to George Soros and now working in the Defense Department (can you say “dangerous oxymoron”?), is suggesting a plan to bail out newspapers that will only server to accelerate their inability to perform honest and fair reporting by putting them directly under the control of the federal government.

The Hypocrisy Behind Terrorist Interrogation

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She can’t deny it any more.  Nancy Pelosi knew.  So did a few others.  But unlike Jane Harmon, at the time she voiced no objection.

For no other reason than because it was in her own best interests, she managed to keep her mouth shut.  Until it became a convenient tool by which to rally those progressive liberals who hide beneath her skirts to go on a witch hunt against the Bush administration.

Now the Obama administration has released details about what our hypocritical Speaker and the others were told in confidence.  This is transparency of the most unfortunate sort.  It is a spiteful move by a mean man in yet another attempt to divert attention from his profligate ways by attempting to discredit his predecessor.  But unlike the simple shame of his bowing and his endless apologies to foreign friend and foe alike, this time he puts the country at real and present risk.

I’m no fan of torture.  But the truth is the world ain’t a Disney flick and it ain’t gonna be one any time soon, no matter how many flowery phrases roll across Obama’s teleprompter, and no matter how much the far-left wingnuts moan and wring their own blood-stained hands about it.  There are people in this world beyond the Chicago congregation of Reverend Wright who not only damn America but desperately hate America and her freedoms even more than those greedy souls who saunter the corridors in Washington.  They will not hesitate to come at us, seething in their righteous, fundamental anger, willing to take their own lives if it means taking out a few or more of ours.  And if that can be accomplished on American soil, so much the better their perceived victory.

I have learned that you can’t argue with either stupidity or insanity.  Bullies don’t lay claim to power by being nice guys and don’t understand much besides a brute force more powerful than their own.  There will be occasion that the requisite toughness of survival goes beyond the average American’s softened sensibilities, but when the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, well, all I can say is that ends sometimes DO justify means.  Yes, it sucks.  And I don’t like it one bit.  But if not for America’s willingness to be tougher than those who will gladly risk everything to destroy us, there would, in fact, be no America.  President Obama has just told those who hate us there will be no real reason to fear us should they again attempt what was thought unthinkable before September 11, 2001.

The world has always been a dangerous place.  The hypocrisy of this administration would be cause for laughter if it hadn’t just made it even more so.

 

 

Selling Out the 14th Amendment For Criminal Votes

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“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Penned by Emma Lazarus in 1883, this is perhaps the most famous part of her small sonnet, originally simply a donation read at the opening of a fundraiser for construction of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and then quickly forgotten.  Through the efforts of a friend, in 1903 it was inscribed on a plaque and mounted inside the Statue of Liberty.  It was these words that then turned the original symbol of the Republic into a beacon of hope for countless immigrants when they passed by Lady Liberty as they sailed through New York Harbor.

Legal immigrants.  Those like my grandfathers, and maybe even yours, who came here hoping to create a better life; knowing no one and unable to speak the language yet determined to become one with their adopted country.  Who worked hard and with pride, fought for the United States during the Great Wars; they took no handouts from anyone and were grateful right ’til the day they died for the opportunity provided to them by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, for they had seen with their own eyes the evil that walks upright, the evil that lures with progressive dreams designed only to hide its real intent – the enslaving of the people in a fascist regime.

As I write this piece there are some 22+ million illegal immigrants in the United States.  Ninety-eight percent of them from Mexico.  Yes, 98% of them.  And some 11+ million of them are working in skilled trades, thereby displacing American citizens.  Some 1 million of them are either incarcerated or considered fugitives – ironic when you consider that their illegal status already made them criminals.

The Democrats, now even more encouraged by President Obama and his administration, are looking once again at amnesty for illegal immigrants.  They are looking at how to grant citizenship to criminals who are growing more and more bold in their organizing and seeking out the bleeding hearts with sympathetic ears – not to ask, mind you, but to demand health care, welfare and other services, all the while waving the Mexican flag.

What is wrong with this picture?

They broke the law the moment they crossed the border.  Simply being here doesn’t make them American citizens, even if they choose to pay taxes (using someone else’s Social Security number).  Nor are their children American citizens, even if they are born on U.S. soil.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the intent of the 14th Amendment:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

An illegal immigrant is NOT subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to any extent beyond humane treatment as provided by the Geneva Conventions while being ushered out of the country. They remain citizens of their native country and therefore under the legal jurisdiction of their native country.  Their children, too, remain under the legal jurisdiction of their native country.

In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), the Supreme Court addressed the 14th Amended as it applied to someone born in the United States – but what most are not aware of or do not want to know is that his parents were considered to be here legally.  It is only those who see an opportunity to expand their base of possible votes by giving away the hard-earned tax dollars of America’s legal citizens who could think any child born on American soil is automatically a United States citizen and encourage this misconception within our society.  Yet for the same reason – potential votes – they would be the first to argue that the children of Americans born abroad inherit their parents’ citizenship, but the truth is that you can’t have it both ways.

It can also be argued that granting amnesty to illegals both abridges and deprives legal Americans the fruits (property) of their labors since the  tax dollars of legal Americans go to support those who pay nothing towards those things that were intended to benefit the collective.

If we can send men to the Moon, we can send illegal immigrants back home.  Especially those entering from Mexico, so round ’em all up now.  If they have come here legally and overstayed their welcome, consider amnesty ONLY if they have proof of having paid taxes during their time here, are currently employed, and have no criminal record.  Otherwise, all of them – including the children – go back over the border.  If they don’t like what is going on in their own country, then let them take their outrage over their “victim” status and unite against the mistreatments and inequalities there.  Their flag can fly equally well in protest in their own country, and they won’t have to press any extra buttons on their telephones to speak to someone in Spanish.