If I were President, I would represent and protect all Americans, but wouldn't do too much for those who are not.
Yes, I know. We are a nation of immigrants. The strength upon which America's greatness is built is the diversity of it's peoples. There are only about 3 million Native Americans out of our national population of over 300 million who did not descend from relatives who emigrated to America at one time or another. Personally I am only a third-generation American, descending from Grandparents who came to this country from Russia and Hungary. My wife's mother was born in Germany and came to America at the age of 17. That doesn't make us less American than those who came over on the Mayflower; If anything, it makes us more thoroughly American, another fiber in the fabric of America.
I have no problem with the current generation of immigrants to our country. I understand their desire to find a better life like my mother-in-law, or to flee persecution and find safety like my grandfather. I understand the great lure of the promise of America, where wages are higher, living conditions are better, and freedoms are broader than the countries from which they travel.
I do have a problem, though, with those who come here and stay here unlawfully. My grandfather came to America in 1906 on a steamer ship and was processed with the throngs at Ellis Island. My mother-in-law obtained a visa to work in the U.S. as an au pair for a family in California, and when she met her future husband and decided to stay in the country she followed the steps to obtain permanent residency status and be issued her green card. My issue is with those who enter the country illegally and stay here illegally.
I'm not necessarily one of those who believes that illegals take more from the economy than they add to it. That's not the basis of my argument with them, and to be honest, the book is still open on that question. I don't believe that they drive down the price of labor and steal jobs from legal Americans either. I think you would be hard-pressed to find any white or black citizen willing to work in the produce fields at any price, or who would be satisified to work for years at a restaurant as a dishwasher.
My problem with them is that by entering the country illegally they are de facto criminals. They knowingly broke the law to get here. Their very existence here is an affront to those of us here legally. And what's worse, after they establish themselves, they think that they have rights here. A right to work, a right to collect social services, a right to seek medical care they cannot pay for, a right to be represented, and a right to stay here.
In May 2006 immigrant's rights groups staged "The Great American Boycott, A Day Without An Immigrant", urging all immigrants to not work that day, not buy anything or sell anything. It was to show the extent to which the American economy benefits from the contributions from illegal immigrants, and to demand legislation for amnesty for those illegals and a way to formalize their status here.
Are you kidding me! That's like crack dealers withholding their drugs for a day, forcing hundreds of thousands of addicts to emergency rooms with withdrawal symptoms to prove the drug dealer's value to society and then demanding the legalization of their crack dealing. The police and immigrations enforcement should have cordoned off the streets and funneled them onto buses bound for the nearest border.
They thought that by showing their numbers that politicians would be forced to consider their demands. Well, the politicians don't represent them, they represent their constituents, those who are citizens here legally. I hope the immigrant's rights groups didn't mean to imply that all those millions of illegal aliens would somehow register to vote illegally and demand their rights at the ballot box. I hope that politicians are smart enough to not be influenced by the tactics of people who are already acting criminally just by their presence here.
So, how do you solve the problem of illegal immigration? By taking away what they came here for. Many states, including California where I live, have legislation in place that requires you show proof of your right to work in this country. The problem is that there is no meaningful enforcement mechanism for these laws. Business complains that the burden of enforcing immigration laws falls on them. Likewise, schools, hospitals and public service departments have all complained that they don't want to be placed on the front-lines of the immigration battle by being tasked with proving residency before providing services. Stemming the tide of illegal immigration is a huge job, and everyone will have to do some of the work whether they want to or not. If illegals cannot find a job here, if they are turned away from schools and public government services, if we take away the very things that they came here unlawfully to obtain, they will stop coming. They will go back.
If I were President I would enforce the immigration laws of this country and insist that everyone else does, too. And oh, yeah, I would change that stupid provision of the law that says that any baby born in America is a citizen. I would change it to say that any baby born here to a mother here legally is entitled to citizenship. No more 'anchor babies'.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Prisons
If I were President, I'd make the prison system a for-profit enterprise.
Here are the sad facts:
There are a lot of factors that go into making up these shocking numbers. Yes, we have a lot of laws. Yes, the same freedoms that we enjoy as Americans make it easier to comtemplate "bending the rules", in the name of equality for all and free speech. Stricter sentencing guidelines require those sent to prison to stay there for longer periods of time. Poor rehabilitation techniques result in a high recidivism rate.
This is too big a subject for me to cover in this brief blog entry, but I'll tell you what I would do if I were President: I'd put them to work. I could write entire essays on why so many Americans go to prison, and write other essays on why so many go back again and again, and maybe some day I will write those essays, but today I'll ignore all the causes and talk about the reality of the present.
As more and more Americans go to prison, more and more prisons must be built to accomodate them. More guards must be employed and more and more dollars are spent on this unproductive part of our country's economy. It costs $88 per day for each prisoner, over $60 Billion a year! I say, lease them out and make them pay for their keep.
These prisoners mostly spend their days locked in their cells or exercising in the prison yard. Some of them work within the prison in the kitchen or the laundry, or even making license plates. They are paid between $0.25 and $1.25 and hour for their work, money which they can spend at the prison canteen to buy small luxuries.
What's wrong with leasing prisoners out to American business and forcing them to contribute something positive to our economy? Factory owners could staff their production lines with prison labor, and the wages would go to the prison to pay for the cost of the prisoner's incarceration. It's a win-win-win situation, where the factory owners pay lower wages for labor, taxpayers are relieved of the cost of supporting the prison system, and criminals earn job skills and experience in the workplace.
This might even be a solution to our illegal immigration problem, too. If cheap prison labor is readily available it might drive immigrants out of the jobs for which they come to America. Why not let rapists and murderers pick our lettuce? Why not let drug pushers wash dishes and mop the floors at Dennys? Why not have embezzling CEOs working the sewing machines in the fashion district, turning out High School Musical 3 fashion tees?
Of course, not all jobs are appropriate for all classes of prisoners, and not all prisoners will want to do all types of jobs. There would need to be guidelines about which types of criminals would be allowed to work which types of jobs. Dangerous criminals would need to stay in a controlled environment, so perhaps some factories might build their plants adjacent to maximum-security prisons to take advantage of the ready labor pool.
This system could be the basis for completely revamping our criminal justice system. Instead of criminals being sentenced to "do their time" and wait out a period of years and months before being released, criminals would be forced to "pay their debt to society" and be sentenced in dollars and would not be released until they had done the work to "pay their sentence." There would be different pay rates for different jobs, with the more undesireable jobs paying higher rates than the easy ones. A low-risk prisoner could hold a road-work sign for $3 per hour, or he could be the one working the jack-hammer, breaking up the roadway for $7 per hour. It's up to him how hard he wants to work and how quickly he wants to be released. Prisoners could be rewarded for good behavior (and a strong work ethic) by getting a raise or being promoted to a better-paying position, effectively shortening their time behind bars. Those who refuse to work, or who don't work hard enough can have their pay docked or be demoted to a truly undesirable job, like digging ditches or doing brush clearance.
The companies who benefit from this arrangement would have responsibilities, too. They would be required to bear the cost of security to prevent escapes and protect the public. Companies would be required to hire any prisoner who had completed his sentence working for that company, and to pay him 150% of his last wage as his new pay rate. This assures that the criminals will have jobs waiting for them when they leave prison, and have a place to apply the job skills they learned while inside.
If I were President, criminals would truly pay their debt to society.
Here are the sad facts:
- 1 out of every 133 Americans is behind bars.
- The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's incarcerated population.
- On a percentage basis, England imprisons 1/6th the percentage of its citizens compared to the U.S.
- Only China approaches the U.S. in terms of the percentage of its population imprisoned, and most of those are political prisoners.
There are a lot of factors that go into making up these shocking numbers. Yes, we have a lot of laws. Yes, the same freedoms that we enjoy as Americans make it easier to comtemplate "bending the rules", in the name of equality for all and free speech. Stricter sentencing guidelines require those sent to prison to stay there for longer periods of time. Poor rehabilitation techniques result in a high recidivism rate.
This is too big a subject for me to cover in this brief blog entry, but I'll tell you what I would do if I were President: I'd put them to work. I could write entire essays on why so many Americans go to prison, and write other essays on why so many go back again and again, and maybe some day I will write those essays, but today I'll ignore all the causes and talk about the reality of the present.
As more and more Americans go to prison, more and more prisons must be built to accomodate them. More guards must be employed and more and more dollars are spent on this unproductive part of our country's economy. It costs $88 per day for each prisoner, over $60 Billion a year! I say, lease them out and make them pay for their keep.
These prisoners mostly spend their days locked in their cells or exercising in the prison yard. Some of them work within the prison in the kitchen or the laundry, or even making license plates. They are paid between $0.25 and $1.25 and hour for their work, money which they can spend at the prison canteen to buy small luxuries.
What's wrong with leasing prisoners out to American business and forcing them to contribute something positive to our economy? Factory owners could staff their production lines with prison labor, and the wages would go to the prison to pay for the cost of the prisoner's incarceration. It's a win-win-win situation, where the factory owners pay lower wages for labor, taxpayers are relieved of the cost of supporting the prison system, and criminals earn job skills and experience in the workplace.
This might even be a solution to our illegal immigration problem, too. If cheap prison labor is readily available it might drive immigrants out of the jobs for which they come to America. Why not let rapists and murderers pick our lettuce? Why not let drug pushers wash dishes and mop the floors at Dennys? Why not have embezzling CEOs working the sewing machines in the fashion district, turning out High School Musical 3 fashion tees?
Of course, not all jobs are appropriate for all classes of prisoners, and not all prisoners will want to do all types of jobs. There would need to be guidelines about which types of criminals would be allowed to work which types of jobs. Dangerous criminals would need to stay in a controlled environment, so perhaps some factories might build their plants adjacent to maximum-security prisons to take advantage of the ready labor pool.
This system could be the basis for completely revamping our criminal justice system. Instead of criminals being sentenced to "do their time" and wait out a period of years and months before being released, criminals would be forced to "pay their debt to society" and be sentenced in dollars and would not be released until they had done the work to "pay their sentence." There would be different pay rates for different jobs, with the more undesireable jobs paying higher rates than the easy ones. A low-risk prisoner could hold a road-work sign for $3 per hour, or he could be the one working the jack-hammer, breaking up the roadway for $7 per hour. It's up to him how hard he wants to work and how quickly he wants to be released. Prisoners could be rewarded for good behavior (and a strong work ethic) by getting a raise or being promoted to a better-paying position, effectively shortening their time behind bars. Those who refuse to work, or who don't work hard enough can have their pay docked or be demoted to a truly undesirable job, like digging ditches or doing brush clearance.
The companies who benefit from this arrangement would have responsibilities, too. They would be required to bear the cost of security to prevent escapes and protect the public. Companies would be required to hire any prisoner who had completed his sentence working for that company, and to pay him 150% of his last wage as his new pay rate. This assures that the criminals will have jobs waiting for them when they leave prison, and have a place to apply the job skills they learned while inside.
If I were President, criminals would truly pay their debt to society.
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