Priorities

Our immigration system is broken. After two and a half years of President Trump saying it and the Democrats continuing to invite everyone to move to the US from across South America, they have finally realized that this isn’t a fabricated crisis. In fact, they have invited all these people and now it’s an even worse humanitarian crisis.

I am not unsympathetic to the plight of anyone in the world who wants to come to America. America remains the land of opportunity it has always been. However, due to the increasing ease of travel and the increasing failures of Socialism around the world, more and more people are fleeing to freedom. So, we cannot begrudge them wanting to be free. These people are not our enemy, but we simply can not allow people from all over the world to come here because our country can not support them.

A big part of the problem here is the lack of low skilled labor available in the US creating a demand for labor and drawing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to fill these jobs every year. But when they arrive illegally, they become vulnerable to abuses due to their status and drive down the wages for our existing low skilled labor force. This demand for labor, and the massive influx of immigrants then impacts our entire system: education, healthcare, the legal system, housing availability, etc.

Until we can increase the supply of low skilled labor among US citizens, by getting the poor and under employed into these low skilled jobs, this will continue to be a problem. What is it that we need to do?

1. Reform our immigration system so that it is more efficient, and takes into consideration realistic labor market needs, and enhances U.S. competitiveness;
2. our laws must absolutely discourage employers from hiring illegal workers;
3. we must secure our borders, with a wall if necessary, and have full implementation of the Secure Border Initiative; and
4. the law must provide a pathway to citizenship for those people our past political leaders encouraged to come here illegally.

I believe that these four objectives could be implemented immediately with the right political leadership in Congress.

We don’t have a gun violence problem in America. What the Democrats call a gun violence problem is really something far worse – its a poverty problem, a war on drugs problem, an addiction problem and a mental health problem.

In way of proof, out of the 30,000 or more supposed “gun related deaths” or “deaths caused by guns,” as the Democrats term things, fully 20,000 or more are suicides. That’s right, they are lying to you. Suicides apparently are caused by guns. Not relationship problems, hopelessness problems or financial problems which are the actual causes of suicide. Imagine their argument if they had to tell the truth that there are only about 7,500 homicides every year and that they are all, that’s right all, in inner cities run completely by Democrats. If you don’t believe me look at the FBI data on this issue. We don’t even really have a 17 city problem, we have a 17 neighborhood problem because the vast majority of these homicides by guns are in specific neighborhoods.

Also, in way of proof that the Democrats really want to disenfranchise people from their 2nd Amendment, there are only a few hundred deaths every year from rifles. That’s all rifles. This includes the mythical “assault rifle.” There are actually, almost 1,000 deaths every year caused by “hands and feet.” So we don’t have and have never had an “assault weapon” problem. This is another completely fabricated claim by Democrats who really just want to diminish our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

If they really cared about this problem they would stop talking about “assault weapons” which don’t exist in the hands of the civilian population and instead focus on mental health (suicides) and actual violence in the inner cities they control across the United States. Democrats use tragedies like what happened in El Paso, Sandy Hook etc. to make false claims about guns and by derivative gun owners. According to Democrats all gun owners must be disarmed and disenfranchised from their 2nd Amendment rights, because of horrific acts carried out by people with mental health issues or simply hatred in their heart.

As I said, the real problem is mental health, poverty, drug addiction and the war on drugs. None of these problems have anything to do what-so-ever with guns. Violence is a symptom of these problems – lack of jobs, lack of opportunities, the deliberate dismantling of the family. These problems are not easy to fix but certainly the Democrats’ methods of victimhood and dependency are not the solution. If you need more proof of this just look at fifty years of failure in inner cities across the US all led by Democrat mayors.

With regard to the epidemic of suicides (40,000 completed suicides and 1.4 million attempts each year) we need a nation response like we did with HIV. With regard to mental health we need to invest in programs that identify and provide assistance to people in a constructive way. This type of effort will get at the suicide problem, the drug addiction problem, the bullying problem, the homeless problem, the poverty problem and the hopelessness problem.

We must hold the line against the Democrat and Socialist agenda to slowly and incrementally disenfranchise all Americans from their 2nd Amendment right to protect themselves. All Americans, including those law abiding citizens in the inner cities of America who are living in fear of their life that a drug addict or violent criminal with an illegal firearm is going to rob, rape or murder them in their home or on the street.

I think our yardstick for measuring education in the US is broken. Not only is it broken, we are measuring the wrong things. We measure education by time spent in school rather than by promoting individual achievement. We need to fundamentally change how we think about education and we need to go big. We must re-prioritize our resources into education infrastructure including physical infrastructure (schools) and human capital infrastructure (people) such as more STEMM (MM – mathematics and medicine) programs and teachers. This includes the promotion of vocational trades. This refocusing of our resources will improve every facet of our country from purposeful employment right out of high school to reinvigorating the American Dream.

But, in order to achieve this, we will need a unifying goal and a step by step strategy to make it a reality. This is something we absolutely must do if we are to remain competitive against countries such as China and Russia. But we cannot simply invest in STEMM without a clear vision of where we are going. What we need is a vision as a country that will drive innovation and creation, as well as jobs well into the future. I believe our dream should be focused on the exploration of space.

By creating a climate of absolute focus on a unified vision of exploring space we will experience a scientific and technological renaissance unlike anything the Earth has ever seen. This technological renaissance would promote advancements in robotics, artificial intelligence, every form of transportation, energy, computers, computer security, manufacturing, mechanical design and repair, biology, agriculture, medicine, every form of construction from brick laying to facilities maintenance, not to mention mathematics (general, applied, and theoretical).

Don’t laugh. Remember, they laughed at the automobile, the airplane and the computer too. When the car was first invented, people were first terrified of the “infernal machines.” When the personal computer was invented most people never would have ever dreamed of having one on their wrist or being able to use a computer to talk via video to someone on the other side of the world instantly and cheaply.

A brief look at the SpaceX website for available careers should give you an idea of what the future of space exploration looks like – Laser Communications Engineer, Power Electronics Engineer, Sr. Hardware Development Engineer (Phased Array Systems), Avionics Integration Engineer (Falcon), Robotic Waterjet Operator and Fleet Operations Engineer. I don’t know what any of these jobs are, but they sound cool. Guess what, they also need Cooks, Certified Weld Inspectors (CWI), Dining Room Attendants, Crane Operators and Porters. They are going to need cooks on the Mars colony! I want that job – Space Cook.

To achieve this lofty goal we must first invigorate our education system through thoughtful integration of the Departments of Education and Labor and bring to bear the innovation and vision of NASA and private industry for the singular purpose of space exploration.

America needs to take a very close look at our justice system. We need justice reform in the United States. In my late teens I broke into a comic book store with four other young men. Boys really. When we got caught the three of us with money all got off scot-free. The two of us without money would have been charged with a felony. Our lives and our futures would have been forever changed. It was a mistake. We were being stupid. I took full responsibility but it was the $200 I borrowed from my grandmother which saved us. I paid an attorney $200 to get our charge reduced to a misdemeanor. It shouldn’t be a crime to be poor.

I want to be clear. I don’t believe that the rich are at fault for this disparity. I believe it is simply an outgrowth of change in our culture and advances in technology. But, I do believe that this disparity has had a terrible effect on minorities and the poor generally.

Additionally, I believe our legal system was never intended to be a permanent brand on a person regarding their mistakes. When our laws were initially established I don’t believe the intent was to permanently handicap someone for their crime. The intent was to punish them and then let them move on with their life. But because of the computer age and the easy of access to public information now every single mistake a person makes is available for anyone to read and as such people can be permanently handicapped from a very early age as a result of a mistake in their youth. The poor in particular. The rich can just buy their way free of the brand. That was never the intent. We need to do something. I was blessed to have a grandmother who had $200 and a self-esteem and belief in myself that I was worth it. But not every kid has these things.

Poor children and adults are not only less likely to get the same kind of justice as a rich child, but the legal process is working against them getting a fair hearing because of the informal “courtroom work group,” which has four cornerstone concepts: speed, pragmatic cynicism, collegiality, and secrecy. Efficient courtroom work groups seek to process cases rather than dispense justice. Notice that fairness and justice are not part this process, and in fact essentially the courtroom work group deliberately circumvents these values of fairness and justice. Today 97% of people in prison never had a trial because of this courtroom work group. It is just not convenient for everyone to get a trial. If you really want to understand how badly our justice system is broken, watch the documentary, The 13th.

Convenience should not be our priority when it comes to justice. Justice and fairness must be our priority.