In the Name of Patriotism

What is patriotism? What is meant by a love of America? What is America? Do we define America by out longitude and latitude? A country is defined by its character, its ideals, and what it stands for.

We love America because of its ideals even though we often fall short. For example, we tout our guarantee of a free press but are ranked 47^th among nations when ranking nations by the degree of freedom of the press. We value education but are also ranked very low among international test scores and we pay our teachers a very low salary compared with the 40 some odd nations that provide better compensation for teachers.

Today, millions put aside our ideals and lay claim to practical thinking. Nazi Germany and many other nations made such a claim when they found groups to blame for every ill in the country. Although Jews and Gypsies may quickly come to mind, nations have blamed scores of other groups for their nation’s woes.

Today, we toss aside the ideal of welcoming the poor of the world. We break treaties, agreements and our own laws. We certainly ignore moral teachings and moral laws. We do this in an attempt to eliminate foreigners, the newest group to blame for our personal problems and those of our nation. Some will argue that it is only the foreigners who enter America illegally that they blame, yet they also blame the refugees who seek asylum and are protected from prosecution for being on U.S. soil without documentation. Our laws forbid the deportation of those requesting asylum if they have a reasonable claim to asylum. That is our law.

That law does allow people to withdraw their asylum request. So we take away their children, do not tell the parents where their children are being held, and coerce parents to withdraw their asylum applications, voluntarily so they may be reunited with their children. We do not even keep track of the children so that they can ever be reunited. We deport parents without their children. 

This is the not the character or ideals of the nation we love. 

This will be a darker chapter in our history than the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. This will be a darker chapter in our history that the Mexican American War. But it will pass. The arc of our history always bends toward justice.

Buy American!

Buy American!

I have no issue with the idea that when we purchase goods made in America, we help our country. More jobs with better wages can result if we buy goods made in America.

My issue is how we achieve our goal of buying American made goods. Taxing imports is not the path to take. Instead, we need laws that require businesses to pay livable wages and adhere to our environmental standards and employee safety laws regardless of where the work on items is done.

If companies know that it will cost almost as much to pay foreign workers or foreign companies as it would to hire American employees, millions of jobs would not be shipped to foreign countries. US companies remaining in other countries will force local companies to raise wages because they will be competing with American companies for workers. 

Fewer people will leave their home countries for better lives in America when they can earn a livable wage at home. More people in the USA and around the world will be able to afford American products.

Instead of companies being solely focused on their market price, they will become focused on higher quality goods, their relationships with customers and employees. The employees that generate the wealth of a company deserve a fair share of the profits.

My America (Why I long for action under Article V)

I recall standing in my 1st-grade classroom wearing a white shirt, and navy-blue tie and pants, facing the American Flag in the right corner of the room and pledging allegiance. Fort McHenry, the monuments and canon in Patterson Park and listening to stories of Baltimore during both world wars were also part of my life.

Today’s American is a different place, or maybe knowledge, education and lots of experience opened my eyes to the ‘good old days’ and how we came to be here today.

·     Gangbangers, cartel members in the USA, and drug dealers live every moment under the threat of violent death, so the death penalty is certainly not a deterrent.

·     Any criminal, insane person, or people looking to make some fast cash can walk into ‘gun shows’ and buy guns from ‘private parties’ without any background check. Of course, stealing guns that are legally owned is still in vogue.

·     People that fear no law have easy access to all the guns they want.

·     The media convinces us that our biggest problem is the police, using bad language, and finding men who behaved as was normal decades ago, and Hispanics entering the USA illegally. That’s it. Nothing else is a ‘big deal’. After all, most shooting victims are Black and that doesn’t matter unless a White person is the shooter. After all, most victims are involved in crime, except for the innocents slaughtered in the cross-fire.

Like trained seals, many people blame parents, a race, or a religion. Many otherwise sane people say that refugee children torn out of their mothers’ arms, shipped to an unknown location and put into chain link cages have a better life than they did with their parents.

Many Americans honestly believe a wall that can be scaled with a homemade ladder is the solution to problems caused by the 70-thousand pages of our immigration laws.

We abandoned participation in the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Paris Climate Pact, and criticize France, Great Britain, and Germany while we embrace North Korea, Russia, and China. We break international agreements instead of working to improve those commitments. We continue our war on poor people in the United States instead of a war on poverty. We decrease health care for our most vulnerable citizens.

This year, both Houses of Congress exceeded the president’s enormous request to increase defense spending and continue to buy weapons that even the Pentagon told Congress they do not want. As we invest in more weapons and bombs, we do nothing to raise our investment in education, leaving us at number  22 in the amount of money nations around the world pay teachers. (Our education rankings and the treatment of teachers is embarrassing in every category).

Millions of Americans are weary of our dynastic presidencies. We did not want another Bush or another Clinton. Millions are fearful of the tremendous cultural changes due to immigrants. Millions are tired of the political correctness that goes so far as suspending little children for using words found in the Christian Bible deemed to be hate speech. In fact, a grade school principal marched a student from the school cafeteria because she was reading the Bible. That principal threw the Bible into the trash and said it was filled with hate speech.

F

or all these reasons I wonder if we could actually use Article V of the U.S. Constitution and have our state legislatures call for a Constitutional Convention. Twenty-eight states have already requested such a convention and that means we only need 6 more state legislatures to make a formal request to meet the two-thirds majority that would require such a convention. Although the states have different Amendments in mind, once a convention is called for any specific purpose delegates at the convention can consider any number and any variety of changes to the Constitution. An Article V convention, in this fashion, could be a vehicle for a comprehensive rewriting of the Constitution, even for an altogether new Constitution.

Since most Americans know very little about their Constitution and their government, it could take a decade for such an event to occur. What is more likely is that the Congress would begin actually doing something to resolve the thorny issues of immigration reform, the right to bear arms, Social Security, and our bloated military budget.

Still, it is fun to think about a new Constitution or significant Constitutional changes to deal with the times and the issues of today, instead of operating as if it is still 1789.

The Nation of Laws

We are a nation of laws and the laws are clear.

This is today's battle cry for those against immigration. It is not very original.

Every German on trial for Nazi War Crimes justified their actions by hiding behind the law.
Every German citizen and citizens of occupied countries used the same claim when justifying that they did nothing when the Jews were rounded up and 'sent away'. Not one person knew or even suspected that the guards were cruel and inhumane, even to children.

I am sick of hearing that we are a nation of laws and the laws are clear.

I served as a law enforcement officer and know that discretion, good judgment, and justice are expected in America. Every single one of today's anti-immigrant crowd wants discretion exercised when they are stopped by a police officer for speeding. It is not that they don't get it. They get it. They just hate the changes in our society and many just hate Hispanics and Blacks.

Children in cages? It is enough to make me puke.

If we don't like people fleeing from hell-holes like El Salvadore, do something about the hell-hole. We created or at least contributed to the creation of these hell holes. We continue to exploit the slave wages in countries around the world. We have billions of dollars to spend at the movies and cry about helping the poor, even our own.

I am sick of the millionaires that decry the treatment of asylum seekers but don't hire attorneys to represent those asylum seekers. But mostly, I am sick of hearing about 'following the law'.

These same worshipers of the law don't want our asylum laws obeyed by our own government.
These same worshipers of the law don't want to recognize birthright citizenship.

If I lived before the Civil War would I have enforced the runaway slave laws?
Would these same 'lovers of the law' obeyed the laws during prohibition?

The 70-THOUSAND pages of immigration laws need to be changed and enforced in the most humane way possible. As for today, target the gangs and cartels. Little kids that arrive with parents seeking asylum should remain with those parents and the parents. Provide attorneys to represent asylum seekers and use GPS monitoring to keep track of them because none should be jailed pending the outcome of their cases.

Hop, Skip, Jump!

I've noticed many comments on Blog and news aggregator sites (such as Yahoo News) that use what may be called the "Hot, Skip, and Jump" to employ a historical fact to denigrate Muslims. To be fair, it is probably just ignorance, but I doubt many people bother to search for the West's view of Islam throughout history.

An example of the "Hot, Skip, and Jump" technique is when people blame the fact that Blacks were held in slavery a few hundred years ago to explain the lack of value millions of Black place on education. People ignore the history in between the end of slavery and today. During and immediately following the end of slavery, Blacks risked their lives in their quest for education. However, a simple historical line graph does not show that the closer we come to the time of slavery the desire for education becomes lower and lower. In fact, such a chart shows the exact opposite. By hopping over history, people think they have proven something.

In the case of Muslims and Western views, people 'hop' all the way back to the 12th Century and write comments about the Muslim invasion of the West. That is one hell of a 'hop'! Being curious, I began to ask myself questions. First on the list was, Was why do I have no memory of hate, fear, or prejudice against Muslims from my teenage years?"  In 1970 Muslims only accounted for 0.49% of the U.S. population and today they make up 3% of the population(Source). More significant is the fact that the movies portrayed Muslims in adventure stories that were exciting. Like all groups, there were 'good guys' and 'bad guys.' Bagdad looked like an exotic and exciting place. Most important of all, there were no news stories about Muslim terrorists. The media did not report that anyone was using the Koran to justify murder and a holy war against the West. Also, millions of Muslim refugees were not fleeing to Western nations. So what is missing as we hop over history?

A little research revealed some interesting facts about the West and Muslims. During both world wars, the West worked hard to enhance relationships with Muslims. 

As reported in the May15,2016 issue of Foreign Policy magazine: "Before the continent started banning hijab, European aristocrats used to change their names to Abdullah and Muhammad, and going to the local mosque was the latest trend."  

During the 1920s and 1930s, the governments of Great Britain, France, and Germany built Mosques. After World War I, people were looking to this religion of peace in the way some people in the 1960s looked at Buddhism. 

So we see the 'hop, skip, and jump across centuries of history to 'prove' that Muslims always invaded and terrorized the West. 

Certainly, we learn from history and hopefully apply the new knowledge when addressing the challenges of today and tomorrow. But searching for selective pieces of history, the Koran, the Bile, or Jewish teachings to prove something only proves how desperate and uncertain we are of our beliefs.

God Have Mercy on America

I cannot imagine creating a form to record information about children I am separating from their parents, without including the names and locations of the parents. It makes no sense!

Go to any Child Protective Services throughout America and the names and addresses of parents or guardians is standard information.

It reminds me of Hollywood movies where a kidnapped person is found in such horrible circumstances (held in an underground bunker with limited oxygen) that the hero shouts, “You bastard! You never intended to release her”.

Concentration camps, internment camps, the cages used in Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War all come to mind. I never believed such a thing could happen in America.

For decades, psychologists, sociologists, and historians pondered how a normal person in Germany could be glad when Jews were rounded up and placed behind barbed wire. How could otherwise good and decent people not only permit such a thing but how could they take joy in it? Well, we no longer need to study the history of those German people. We can look in the mirror and ask why.

Imagine that in America, the nation that championed human rights and especially the rights of children, tore toddlers away from their parents and their guardians to hold them as hostages so the adults would drop their petitions to be permitted to remain in America! If an author had created a work of fiction with such a plot we would have found the premise absurd.

We offer due process. We have open trials. We are a beacon to the world! At least that is what I thought.

Humanity is watching. God is watching. Reading the comments on news sites about this gross and vile action is sickening. So many people love the idea and see no problem that our government did not even bother to record the names and locations of parents/guardians when they tore the children from their arms.

May God have mercy on America. I can no longer ask God to bless America. God Bless America.

Heard in Mexico - July 2018

I saw photos of children in cages! Is America really doing this? 

Is America separating children from their parents and sending them to the other end of the country? 

Is America really telling people they can have their children returned if they give up their claims to asylum?

Our own Mexican election results make us wonder if we will become Venezuela.

In Del Rio, Texas they elected a man who marched in protests wearing high heels. He is openly gay and they elected him. We live in a time that nobody would have believed 10-years ago.

Like Trump, our new president says so many contradictory things that nobody can keep up.

We read that Trump hates France, England, and Germany, but loves Russia and North Korea. Is that even possible?