Doubling Down on Double Dealing Douche Bags

19 Sep 2022 5 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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What or who is a doubling down, double dealing douche bag?  Ever since Trump took center stage two egregious behaviors have become the norm in Republican politics.  The first is lying.  The second is doubling down on stupidity, arrogance and greed.  Trump set the bar on these behaviors and his loyal followers keep lowering the bar.  Many good hearted but naïve citizens of America are amazed with each new low and the media is constantly asking “How low can they go?”  There appears to be no low.  Lows with Republicans are like a black hole.  You can put an infinite number of lows into a black hole and never reach the bottom or fill it up.

I will save my comments on lying Republicans for another blog and today focus on doubling down behavior.  The latest example of this is Douche Bag Governor DeSantis and his ill-conceived and mean-spirited stunt of sending immigrants east to Martha’s Vineyard.  His followers think this is just grand behavior and applaud him when he responds to criticism with “doubling down behavior.”

DeSantis provides an excellent example of doubling down behavior:

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday said he intends to use “every penny” of the $12 million his state budgeted to relocate migrants and set the expectation for buses and “likely more” flights full of migrants paid for by the state.” — CNN

No compassion.  No remorse.  No backing away from a cruel stunt that hurts the lives of others.  Did you know that the immigrants he sent to Martha’s Vineyard with lies and misinformation were not from Florida but were from his fellow Douche Bag governor’s state of Texas?

So, what does it mean when we say that someone is “doubling down.”

“The phrase “double down” means to put forth an additional effort or risk in a situation or argument, even if you know the outcome will be a mistake or will be negative.” — Wikipedia

Doubling down can involve putting more effort into an approach that has not yet worked or even an approach that seems to be working but needs more commitment.  Thus, there can be a positive connotation to the phrase “doubling down.”

when-i-say-stupid-things-i-double-down-lie-and-make-it-worseUnfortunately, too often when it comes to Trump and his supporters, the behaviors that they are doubling down on have negative consequences.  This is because the efforts that they are doubling down on are either wrong or dangerous.  A few examples:

  • Trump doubling down opposing masking during the Corona Virus
  • Trump doubling down on assertions about a rigged election
  • Trump doubling down about his executive privileges
  • Trump doubling down on his appeal to White Power and privilege

When Trump and his followers double down it is because they know that they are mistaken or lying or corrupt.  The efforts of Trump and his sycophants have increasingly created a negative connation for the term “to double down.”  Why would any “good” person that we elect to help lead our country double down to support evil intentions?   Well, first it is because they are not good.  They do not give one red cent about morality or ethics.  They are pursuing what is known in ethics as a Utilitarian approach.  If the behavior is useful to their ends, then they will pursue it.  Obviously, doubling down is very useful to Trumpists.

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How is Doubling Down Useful?

In answer to the above question, you must be ready to accept the peculiarities of certain people.  For instance, there are people who believe:

  • The Trickle-Down Theory
  • Tax breaks for the rich will help the poor
  • Trump won the 2020 election
  • There is no climate change
  • The world is flat
  • 9/11 was a CIA effort
  • The moon is made from green cheese
  • Elvis is alive and living upstairs in Graceland

Doubling down behavior somehow (do not ask how, it just does) convinces some of the people noted above that the douche bag engaging in pursuing lies and criminal behavior must really know what he or she is doing.  Lincoln said that you can “fool all of the people some of the time but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”  Doubling down behavior is designed to lull us into thinking that we are wrong and that the person doubling down is right. Why we ask ourselves would anyone keep pressing an issue if they are wrong?  Why would people that we think must be smarter or more knowledgeable than we are stalk mistaken goals and objectives?  The answer which too many of us fail to understand or believe is that some of the people we elect are more focused on their own self-interests and do not care one iota about their constituencies.  Unless of course, they want your money or vote.

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We live in an age where the acquisition of things, the acquisition of power, the acquisition of riches and the acquisition of fame far override the value of the ideas that our Founding Fathers believed in.  If you add in the values that Jesus preached, you would not be able to recognize or understand what Republicans stand for.  They say they believe one thing, but then they pursue a completely different agenda.  The Republican Party today is the party of hypocrisy, lies and greed.  Lincoln would hang his head in shame at the behavior of his old party.  Jesus would probably throw most so-called Christians today out of his church just as he did with the money lenders.  As the song should go, “The Times they have a changed.”

“Pride can make one a stronger person in the one sense, or so it is often believed, when based solely on the surface, but in the other, and much more frequently, a stronger devil. When pride is undeniably found out of an evil, it saves face by doubling down.”  ― Criss Jami

destruction

Documents a chronology of the potential end of our democracy.

Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2022

“I found this a difficult book to read because it shows how successful the republican party has been in destroying facts, reality, and our democratic foundation in order to move us towards an authoritarian minority rule nation. It was interesting to add up the number of related events through the decades since the onset of Newt Gingrich in 1994, that have been driven by lies, conspiracy theories, slander, and violence, or at least threatening it. Trump is truly a symptom of an underlying national decay that panders to the absolute lowest base instincts of human nature. Frankly, the book is harrowing and fatalistic in leading the reader to assume that the fix is in and our democracy in at least the near future is doomed. While we tried to “go high,” it seemed only to embolden the worst among us that going “low” was the path to their success.” — Richard Nelson

Republicans:  Why They Were Once a Great Party but are Now the Party of Hate, Bigotry and Greed – AKA Donald Trump– Part 1

15 Aug 2016 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

dumb-republicansToday the Republicans have become the party of Dumb and Dumber.  The likes of Palin, Bachmann, Inhofe and Sessions are not so mute testimony to the fools that now dominate the Republican Party.  Add Donald Trump to the hand and you have a five ace hand of losers.  Every day, we read of some new evidence that shows how bigoted, hypocritical and vile the core beliefs of the Republican Party have become.  The leadership of the Republican Party seems to have no integrity.  Half of them spend their time trying to explain the inane and dangerous comments spewed out daily by their party nominee. A candidate so devoid of any character or morality that many in his own party are trying to dissociate themselves from him.  What is left of the party leadership are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.  There is no longer any true leadership in the party. Trump and his supporters are destroying what once was a grand old Party.  The party of Lincoln, which stood for freedom and equality has now become a party of fear, greed, intolerance and hatred.

Today, the Republicans even hate themselves.  They are now trying to destroy their star candidate for the 2016 Presidential elections.  A gross Neanderthal who equates money with character and morality named Donald Trump has upstaged the Party’s chosen one to rally the extremists who have now come to dominate the Republican Party.  The grand old Party which once attracted many progressives who believed in the power of the individual over the power of the state now is controlled by a clique or power structure which has no connection to the traditional core Republican values. (I will say more about these values in this blog)

“Republican voters view Donald Trump as their strongest general election candidate, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that highlights the sharp contrast between the party’s voters and its top professionals regarding the billionaire businessman’s ultimate political strength.”  – Steve Peoples and Emily Swanson  

In addition to those who I would call the traditionalists, the Republican Party has attracted a large contingency of supporters that we can divide into the following five blocs:

  • Bigoted Voters
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  • Uneducated White Male Voters
  • Greedy Voters
  • Fearful Voters
  • Religious fundamentalist Voters

I will say more about each of these in Part 2 of this blog.   Suffice, it to say for now, that the voters in these five blocs have now taken over the Republican Party (I will also explain in Part 2 how and why this happened.)  Just like the Nazis took over Germany, the traditionalists in the Republican Party made a pact with the devil and the devil has now tinfoilhatrush3come to collect his dues.  The Traditionalists know that the candidacy of Trump will destroy the party.  There are indeed a large contingent of voters who will support Trump but by and large, the people in the USA are not so stupid or ignorant that Trump will be elected.  Mark my words on that!  Trump, who hates women, minorities, immigrants and anyone with a brain, will go down in defeat in the biggest landslide in history for our next Democratic president and he will take the entire Republican Party with him.  The stalwart traditionalists in the Republican Party understand this and that is why every day we see headlines like:

“The Republican Party Tries to Take Out Its Front-Runner”

“Trump has proven highly successful in manhandling a parade of bland Republican politicians. To him, Carson and Fiorina present different challenges because they both possess the outsider status that elevates them over Republican officials who have to deal with reality of some sort, and they symbolize demographic groups that are some of the biggest stumbling blocks for Republicans. The party wants to show the world that it has a black friend and a lady friend.”  — The National Memo

Returning to the concept of traditional core Republican values, you may well be wondering what they are.  The first core Republican value is freedom from intrusive government interventions.  The traditional Republican is not so much against big government as they are against a government that might try to dominate the will of the individual with the will of the state.  Hence, traditional Republicans hate the idea of gun control, federal regulations, government red tape, and government watchdog agencies.  However, they are not against “Big Military” since the military is seen as protecting those very values that Republicans cherish most.

“Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.”  — Barnhill, John Basil (1914)

A second core Republican value is the right to earn and keep as much money as possible.  “You earned it; it is yours to spend.”  This is a value that still resonates with much of our society.  The idea being that if I work hard, I should be entitled to spend my money anyway I chose.  What Republicans and many people in the USA hate most is the thought of working hard to earn a pot of money and then having that money taken away by a government agency to distribute to some unnamed “others.”

“That government is best which governs least;” — Henry David Thoreau

A third core Republican value is the value of a capitalistic economic system.  This value overlaps to some extent the two named values above but I believe it is a distinct value of its own.  In the USA, we are and have been a country strongly against communism and to some extent socialism.  The values of these two economic systems are seen to be in direct contradiction to the value of free enterprise and a capitalist economy.

“A market economy based on private property, buttressed by the rule of law, is truly the best environment for mankind. People will work harder and with ingenuity if they know they have earned rewards from that labor. When the rewards are given to them for nothing, there is frustration and despair. Capitalism benefits more people than any other economic system. To work for oneself and reap the rewards is a basic human aspiration.” –Sally Julian, Writer of ‘The Case for Capitalism’

The fourth core Republican Party is a conservative approach to adopting new laws or changes to the US Constitution.  Traditional Republicans have long resisted change to the US Constitution as well as new laws that they see as infringing on the rights and dictates of the US Constitution.  Hence, the Republicans have resisted many changes in the Constitution which were intended to create a more equitable society for women, minorities, disabled and those below the poverty line in this country.

Part of this resistance lies in the belief that a government cannot and should not dictate how people chose to live their own lives.  If you want to be a racist, that is your right.  If you do not want to hire women and minorities and the disabled that is also your right.  This core value has resulted in a fundamental contention between those who say that the constitution must be changed to reflect new times and new circumstances and those who do not want to see changes that might infringe on rights or responsibilities prescribed in the US Constitution.

“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”  — Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 27, 1856

The fifth core Republican value lies in the doctrine of fiscal conservatism (There are other important Republican values but I think these five are the most important).   Fiscal conservatism finds its roots in the theory of scarcity.  Money and time are both scare commodities and must be carefully managed.  Trends like cheap credit, government bailouts, deficit spending are anathema to a fiscal conservative.  A fiscal conservative wants a flat tax, balanced budget and strict guidelines for loans and government spending: “Thou shalt not run budget deficits.”  “Thou shalt not spend more money than thou maketh.”

Its-not-Obamas-faultI must confess, that I am not critical of these five core values.  I have long ago learned the value of juxtaposing opposite viewpoints so as to provide a clearer roadmap to truth and progress.  Every “ism” needs a counter “ism” and a system where the two opposing viewpoints can debate each other and Aristotle’s “Golden Mean” needs a democracy.  Capitalism must be balanced against socialism.  Liberalism must be balanced against conservatism.  Individualism must be balanced against collectivism.  One of the strengths of the United States has been its ability to allow opposing viewpoints and to strive to find a consensus among dissenting political perspectives.  Sadly, of late the constructive dissent of old has given way to a practice of destructive warfare between the two dominant political parties that has put the good of each party over the good of the country.

However, to return to the theme of this blog, the dumbing down of the Republican Party, the majority of the Republican Party now no longer seems to understand or care about these five core values.  Instead, the narrow-mindedness and shear obstructionism of the five voting blocs that I noted above have taken precedence over political compromise and searching for 1193-20120917-NoSmartPeoplethe Golden Mean.  The “Stupid Voters” are hijacked by the anti-intellectualism that has always characterized much of the political right.  The “Ignorant Voters” already believe that voting-republican1they know the truth and there is no persuading them otherwise.  The “Greedy Voters” want to keep as much of their wealth as they can and have no concern for the poor or needy.  The “Fearful Voters” are worried about crime, immigrants, health care, growing old and losing what they have already worked hard to obtain.  The last of the five Republican blocs, the “Religious Fundamentalist Voters” are worried that their biblical Christian God will be taken out of the USA and replaced by an obscure assortment of new Gods from various religions that are confusing and esoteric.

The Traditionalist Republicans (many of whom I know and hope still tolerate my views enough to call me a friend) are aghast at this assortment of new Republicans and their extreme uninformed viewpoints.  The Traditionalists could reach across the aisle and talk to their Democratic counterparts.  The Traditionalists realized the need for dialogue, discussion and compromise.  Furthermore, the Traditionalists also appealed to many independent voters (Which I am and remain to this day).  They appealed to us because we while we could ally ourselves with Democrats over many social issue, we could also see the value in the economic policies and positions often adhered to by the Traditionalist Republicans.

I can see the value in all five of the core Republican values I described above.  God Forbid, I would ever live in a country that totally extirpated even one of these core values.  Nevertheless, while I am for a balanced budget and against deficit spending, I can see making some concessions to Keynesian economics during times such as the most recent recession.  I am also for less government intrusion in our lives.  However, unlike Perry who could not name even three government agencies he would abolish, I can name ten I would abolish tomorrow if I were able to.  I am also against government bailouts.  I did not think GM should have been bailed out although I could concede with the value of hindsight that it may have been the right thing to do at the time.  And while I am against big government, I can and am equally critical of big unions.  Nevertheless, in my USA, unions and government would still have a place at the table.  I would like to paraphrase a part of Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream Speech.”

Let the Golden Mean ring from the hallowed halls of Congress!

Let the Golden Mean ring from the esteemed corridors of the US Senate!

But not only that; let the Golden Mean ring from the benches of the Supreme Court of the USA!

Let the Golden Mean ring from State Capitals in the east to State Capitals in the west!

Let the Golden Mean ring from every school and university of America.  From every village, city, town and hamlet in this great country, let the Golden Mean ring.

In my blog next week, I will explore how the Republican Party let stupidity, ignorance, fear, greed and intolerance come to dominate its political agenda.  If you are a Republican, you might not like what you are going to hear.  However, if you are a Republican, perhaps the truth that I have to tell could help you to understand what you must do to restore the Republican Party to its rightful place in the US political system.

Time for Questions:

Are you a Republican? What did you find that you disagreed with in my blog today?  What did you agree with?  Which of the Republican voting blocs are you in? Why?  Do you think the Republicans will take the next presidency?  Why or why not?  If you are a Democrat, what did you like or dislike about this blog? Why?  What do you think I should have added?

Life is just beginning. 

Republicanism is the guiding political philosophy of the United States. It has been a major part of American civic thought since its founding.[1] It stresses liberty and “unalienable” rights as central values, making people sovereign as a whole, rejects aristocracy and inherited political power, expects citizens to be independent in their performance of civic duties, and vilifies corruption.  Wikipedia

Thinking about Immigration, Part 3: Living in the Path of Illegal Immigration.

12 Oct 2015 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Six months of the year I am what they call a “Snow Bird.”   Karen prefers us to be called “Winter Residents.”   We live in Arizona City.   It is south of I-8 and just west of I-10.  It has been a major corridor for coyotes, drug runners and illegal or undocumented immigrants. There is hardly a week that goes by that we do not have coffee shop stories of found pot bales, abandoned vehicles, spotters hiding in caves and illegal’s coming to homes asking for water or food.  These stories are supplemented by our almost daily observations of border patrol vehicle searches and regular high speed police runs. One of our visitors commented that she had never seen so many police vehicles in her whole life as in our area.

Caution Ilegal immigrantsLast fall, one elderly resident who lived out in the desert was found murdered in her home. Nothing was missing but no suspects have been found. There are many folks in my area who will not venture out in the desert without being armed and there are many areas where you are warned to stay clear of.  I routinely jog in the Casa Grande Mountains and while relatively safe, there have been drug busts and roundups of drugs and illegal immigrants within the past few months.  A short time ago, I found a rifle with a telescopic sight and a sawed off butt behind a cactus.  I turned it into the police station where they were not too concerned about it. To date, my biggest danger while jogging has been a cactus that is known as a “jumping Cholla.” These things seem to magically find a way to get attached to you and their barbs are quite painful.  I have had at least six attacks by them during the past few months.

GatedThe picture I am trying to paint for you, coupled with the fact of the ongoing drug war in Mexico, which is only about 120 miles from our front door (47,000 deaths and counting), is designed to give you some idea of the context in which many Arizonians find themselves.  Gated communities, suspicion of neighbors, fear of criminal break-ins and an overall worry about the poor economy, housing foreclosures, and jobs (Arizona has led the nation in many of these problems) gives rise to a citizenry which is far from tolerant of anyone coming over illegally into this country. There is a great deal of fear in the nation as a whole ever since 9/11 and nowhere I think is it more evident than in Arizona.  Fear and tolerance do not go hand in hand.  However as Ben Franklin noted “Those who would give up their freedom for safety will soon find they have neither.” It is difficult to counsel this advice though when neighborhoods cannot be made safe and people are afraid that they will become victims.  So what does this have to do with stopping illegal immigration?  Let me turn the clock back to help answer this question.

Migrant farm workersIn 1963, I was sent to an Air Force station located in Osceola, Wisconsin.  Coming from the East coast, I could not have told you where Wisconsin was if my life depended upon it.  Furthermore, to be dropped into the middle of “Dairy Farm USA” was a major culture shock.  Nevertheless, I adapted by marrying a woman from Thorp, Wisconsin and having my daughter Christina born in Osceola.  Life was good for me in the service but money was short.  I found local employment doing migrant farm work and obtaining a part-time job (to supplement my military income) at a local nursery called Abrahamsons.  It was at this place, that I had my first meetings with Mexican farm workers.  Each season, Abrahamsons’s would bring in workers from Mexico to work at the nursery. The work involved digging, balling, burlapping, loading and then digging to replant trees for wealthy buyers in Edina and the Twin Cities.  It was hard work.

Chart-farmWe dug trees and loaded them from 6 AM to often after 9 PM at night.  I was paid one dollar per hour.  I do not know what my Mexican counterparts were paid because they could not speak English.  I could not speak Spanish and my bosses warned me to never discuss salary with the other workers. Thus, I spent my days working in the fields, sharing food but no conversation with the other workers.  Believe me when I say there were few local non-Hispanic people applying for these jobs.  I have since been to other areas of the USA including Mackinac Michigan and Door County Wisconsin, where they rely on immigrant workers to provide services to locals and tourists. To say that illegal or legal immigrant workers are taking jobs and bread from the mouths of Americans is a shallow and false bit of rhetoric.  I have heard it said that if these undesirable jobs were not taken by immigrants then the wages would go up and USA workers would then apply for them.  This bit of fantasy ignores two possibilities: 1. The work could go overseas to even lower wage workers or 2,  The Law of Substitution says that other higher value added services could replace services that become too costly.  In any event, I have yet to see the “older” immigrants from America who are now second generation citizens clamoring for these hard dirty and low paying jobs.

bracero statesSo year after year, from the middle 40’s to the late 60’s, immigrants came over from Mexico and South America on a seasonal basis.  Each year millions of these Bracero program workers would come and work in the USA.  Most would go back home after the work was over.  Some would apply for citizenship and stay in the US. The Bracero program favored Hispanic workers (there did not seem to be many Canadians or Europeans looking for farm work) and it seemed to create a rather orderly and neat influx and outflow of labor seasonally needed by US employers.  Then the program was changed.  Barred from working seasonally and denied access to work permits, many Mexicans and other Latinos took the easy road.

Illegal yes, enforced no.

US-Mexico_border_fenceThat is until 9/11, when all hell broke loose.  Never in the past 100 years had USA citizens felt as vulnerable as after 9/11.  Fearing for an influx of terrorists and watching unparalleled amounts of drugs crossing the border, we reacted to our fears by passing the Patriot Act, by beefing up Homeland Security, by building Border Walls, by making it a felony to repeatedly try to cross our borders, by greatly expanding the Border Patrol and by building large detention centers in the Southwest.  My county Pinal is often referred to as “Penal County” and has numerous detention centers to house drug runners and detainees awaiting deportation. The number of anti-immigration bills started to proliferate state by state as the Federal government seemed impotent to deal with the crisis.  Citizens armed themselves and formed watchdog groups to police our borders with Mexico.  No one really seemed worried about those Canadians.  I suppose ever since prohibition was rescinded, the Canadians have stopped smuggling whiskey across the border and are less of a threat to the US.

prohibitionSo let’s ask a simple question here?  Why do all of these illegals come to the USA? The answer is easy. Two reasons: Jobs and drugs.  I wonder if the solution to the problem seems as evident to you as it does to me.  First, legalize drugs.  Let the government tax them and let anyone sell them just like cigarettes, coffee and alcohol are sold. We have spent billions on a fruitless drug war and we have accomplished nothing.  Furthermore, in light of all the drugs that Americans take, it is a hypocritical war to begin with. It is a war waged by idiots and morons who keep our prisons, courtrooms, and lawyers sucking our taxes and wages for no apparent gain. It is perhaps the most ludicrous endeavor that has ever been created.  It makes Alice in Wonderland look like a reality show.  We have become so blinded by the anti-drug rhetoric that we no longer have the ability to see reality. What did we learn from Prohibition?  “THOSE WHO FORGET THE PAST ARE CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT!” Banning alcohol did not stop the use of liquor nor did it curtail organized crime.  On the contrary, it gave organized crime the income and mandate to expand its power and territory and become even more powerful and dangerous. The same is true for the South American drugs, primarily pot and coke that we are trying to banish. The drug cartels have become so rich and powerful, they are immune to any efforts to abolish them.

bracero-program-poster-series_NTOkThe second reason illegals come over is to find work and to have a better standard of living.  To help others accomplish this, we need to create a new policy for temporary and migratory workers that represents the nature of work needed by immigrants and by employers in the USA. This policy needs to be fair and equitable but also realistic. The relationship we have with Mexico cannot be dictated by the relationships we have with Canada, Europe or any other countries. We need an equitable policy, but there is a difference between equity and equality.  A fair and just policy must create a win-win both for our nation and for the immigrants we give visas or sanctuary to.  There cannot be one size fits all for this policy.  Part of this policy must be humanitarian.  It is in our constitution and in our national charter to help others escape from tyranny, poverty and other calamities.  Part of our immigration policy must also be self-serving.  We need to help our country become stronger and to better meet the needs of competing in a global economy.  Realistically, we may have a cost attached to immigration.

Despite many arguments on the negative and positive costs of immigration, the best evidence to support a more liberal immigration policy is to look at our success as a nation over the last 250 years.  Can anyone doubt that it was immigration that built and fueled the development of this great nation?  We may need to balance short-term costs with long-term gains in a realistic immigration policy but a good policy needs to be slanted towards tolerance for immigration and not intolerance.

I have one final idea. Let’s take the development of an immigration policy away from the politicians and appoint a group of immigration experts from a wide range of viewpoints. Take twelve experts on this subject and put them in a room together.  Give them four weeks to hammer out a new immigration policy. When they are satisfied that such a policy is realistic and equitable, let them distribute this policy to the newspapers and Internet websites for a review by American citizens.  After four weeks of review, let there be a national referendum on the policy.  A plurality of sixty percent should be needed to pass. If sixty percent cannot be reached, the policy will be returned to the experts for further changes and amendments. Once a plurality of American voters has accepted this policy, it would be sent to the Senate and House for review and to become law.  Woe to them if they could not finalize this policy.

Time for Questions:

There are many things you can find wrong with my suggestions. I can hear all the reasons why these ideas would not work. The question I have for you is this: “Can you find any better ideas.” The definition of craziness is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.  Maybe it is time we tried some new ideas; as Einstein said: “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” We need to discard our prejudices and biases and see things in a new light. What do you think needs to be done?  When was the last time you wrote your representative to express your ideas?  When was the last time you went to a party caucus or actively worked to help elect a representative?  What could you do to help create a new and fair immigration policy for this country?

Life is just beginning.

“The interaction of disparate cultures, the vehemence of the ideals that led the immigrants here, the opportunity offered by a new life, all gave America a flavor and a character that make it as unmistakable and as remarkable to people today as it was to Alexis de Tocqueville in the early part of the nineteenth century.”  ― John F. Kennedy, A Nation of Immigrants