American-Ideal.com

Anybody with children has heard of the No Child Left Behind Act. This is the Act that frees up school districts and teachers to do what it takes to educate our youth. I like most of the act. It makes sense to set objectives and not procedures, and even though the testing part is controversial, in real life we test our performance against objectives everyday. Your annual review at work is nothing more than reviewing your test. Though I like the Act, it has one overriding failed assumption; that assumption is that all schools are Suburban School Want-To-Be’s. Since suburban schools are successful, the obvious assumption is that failing schools are just not wisely using their resources to measure up.

The reality is that wealthy districts have good schools and poor districts, for the most part, have poorly performing schools. There are very different challenges facing poor and working class school districts compared to suburban life. Suburban schools find a stay-at-home parent in the family, bedrooms are filled with books, kids are signed up for every extra curricular activity imaginable, English is the first language, and life at home is safe.

In the poor district, both parents work, there are more single parent households, parent’s can’t afford many extras at school, for many kids English is a second language, and the play ground of the street is shared with drug dealers, pimps, and anemic economic life. One child get told day in and day out what is possible; the other gets told by the emptiness of their world that there is no future.

Believing that some schools are bad while other schools are good oversimplifies the problems in our schools. The problem lies in our unwillingness to address the forces facing each child in a poor district. We need a massive influx of teaching talent onto struggling schools to support the children where their parents either can’t or won’t help in their child’s education. Our teaching talent has to overcome the influence of the street, and the demoralizing absence of opportunity in poor communities.

To get the teaching skills we need in poor districts we need to offer high pay commensurate with high standards and expectations. We are reaching for teachers with extraordinary talent and asking them to go into very difficult circumstances in our poor school districts. We won’t get the talent unless we are serious about the pay.

We need national standards for teacher and student performance. Our standards must be based on exceeding the global standards that many children around the world enjoy. Our policy should be directed toward liberating teachers to decide how to best teach and eliminate standardized techniques. A teacher’s job is to teach.

We need to look beyond our K-12 grades. The number of well paying jobs for high school graduates will decline over the next decade. The world recognizes the value of a college education. We need an equal emphasis on higher education for all Americans. We should expand financial aid through low cost loans, grants, and scholarships. If we build an interest in going to college in our youth, if we make the idea of going to college a realistic goal attainable goal for anybody, if we make college financially palatable, we will be building Americans that are ready and able to compete on the world stage.

Copyright: American-Ideal.com 2007

I voted this last election season; in fact I can boast a 26-year voting history with only one glitch. In 2004 my district had six voting booths for about 6000 voters. The five hour wait pushed me up against an afternoon flight – I was disenfranchised. This year I have to give the committee credit for getting their act together; my wait returned to the usual one to three minutes.

The electoral process improved, but the political tickets were a wasteland. Five of the races had only one candidate. I refused to vote for any of the lone candidates. Why should anybody bother? All one-candidate races should receive a single vote – the candidate’s own. The reason there were so many lone races is that too many people vote party tickets. The races were in iron-clad republican districts so no democrat, regardless of how wise and committed to excellent representation, could win.

I live in a populated area so I had the pleasure of following two congressional races. Voters heard nary a single word about sharpening our education system to equip our children to compete in a global economy. There was no discussion of a better strategy to combat terrorism and to achieve a stable and prosperous peace in Iraq. Voters received stone-cold silence about the inevitable challenges of the rising global demand for resources and the environmental impacts of about six and a half billion people using the resources. Not a word was said about investing in our decaying infrastructure. In the place of issues I was treated to empty claims of achievement by less than achieving incumbents.

In one race I found a long-term incumbent boasting of his service to education by connecting educators with the Library of Congress. Wouldn’t raising pay and having a commensurate increase in our expectations of our teachers be more effective? The incumbent boasted of his service to textile workers. How has he helped our workers compete with a few hundred million Chinese and the eighty million Vietnamese ready to join the World Trade Organization and compete on quality and price? American workers will be competitive when we make sure our trade agreements are truly fair for us and when we educate our workers for the next generation of jobs.

I would like to hear how the incumbent fought to eliminate unfair trade practices that hurt US factories. I would like to hear how he brought research and development jobs into the district and trained our workers for the ensuing jobs. But he can’t make these claims. He promises to keep factory life as it was years ago when U.S manufacturing had no rival. This incumbent promises to keep his district linked to an unchanging past while the world changes around him and his constituency. I don’t live in this incumbent’s district; I live just over the district boundary. I wish I did get to vote in his race; he was reelected by about 330 votes. I would have liked to have made it 329.

In my district I get to vote for a big red sign. Each election cycle big red signs go up all over town – Vote for Sue Myrick. And why should we, we are not told. She brushes off what appears to be a very dated photo and creates an image. We are to vote for what we think the big red sign represents. We never get to hear the issues.

The big red sign takes credit for keeping the United Arab Emirates (UAE) out of “owning our ports”. First of all, our ports were not being bought; the British company that operates some of our ports was being bought. Notwithstanding the problem with accuracy, are our ports safer having kept the UAE at home? No, nothing has changed. In fact we would probably be safer if we had let the UAE deal go through; I suspect that we would have become more focused on security. At a minimum, I would have liked to have seen a debate over whether the big red sign made our ports safer.

The big red sign claims to be tough on immigration by voting to build a fence on the border and, get this, deporting illegal aliens that are arrested for drunk driving. I would think that a “get tough on immigration” candidate would advocate deporting any person arrested and found to be here illegally. How come she doesn’t want to deport illegal immigrants arrested for shoplifting? The big red sign was accused by her opponent of being a rubber stamp for President Bush. She countered that accusation by saying she was against Bush’s comprehensive immigration policy. That’s one area of policy where she should have worked with Bush. A comprehensive policy is the only way to secure our borders.

As I looked at my ballot, the one-candidate races and the empty congressional agendas saddened me. Americans love debate. We tune into the so called reality shows and the “Jerry Springer” genre just to see what people might say. Why don’t people who seek our vote have the courage to say what’s on their mind? One candidate is gong to lose; I would rather lose having said something than to lose by being timid. And this is the crux of the problem. Incumbents don’t want the open their mouths and spoil an image. Challengers should be more vocal and show their passion to serve. Make the race interesting and maybe we can all make a difference. How else will get beyond voting for a big red sign or for a candidate that keeps his district connected to yesterday?

Copyright: American-ideal.com - 2007

By the title of this article some would think I am writing about the whacko liberal viewpoint of climate change; in fact I am coining a new term–the hysterical neo-con. It is the neo-cons that are hysterical about the issues; every issue gets the same chant: “the country is falling apart under the weight of the wacko liberals”.  The topic of climate change gets the same response; global warming is a hoax perpetrated by liberals.

I am not a liberal, nor am I a hysterical neo-con; I rebuff both ends of the spectrum for the more difficult middle ground of reason.  When it comes to the topic of climate change, I have to admit I was swayed by ideology. I figured Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” was what the neo-cons said–a bunch of liberal hog wash. Well, I finally sat through the film on HBO and found it to be a bland recitation of facts. Glaciers are receding, ice packs in the Artic and Antarctic are melting, and the temperature patterns in the oceans are changing. This is fact. In the past, ice dams have ruptured and massive ice sheets have slid off of continental land masses to wreak havoc. Every bit is historically accurate.

Al Gore’s movie did set the stage for the worst case sequence events, which may or may not happen, but for the most part all I saw were facts. Al, you did a good job; sorry for listening to the hysterical neo-cons. What is not so factually evident is the pesky question of whether we really know the cause of climate change and the even more difficult debate of “what do we do about it”?

I don’t agree that we can absolutely link climate change to human activity. The climate has changed many times in human history and people had nothing to do with it; are we the cause now? Who knows, but I don’t think the uncertainty of the cause is relevant; we need to look at the bigger picture. If climate change is natural the impact will be devastating.  Billons of people and trillions upon trillions of dollars of infrastructure reside right near sea level. If climate change is natural we have a monumental problem ahead; if people have their fingers in climate change we are insane. I am not willing to take the risk that our activities have no impact on climate.

Here is why we should not ignore the possibility that people might play a role in climate change. The U.S represents about 20% of the global economy and we emit about 35% of the CO2. We have only about 4% of the global population. Now consider China with their population of 1.3 billion people, India with their population of over a billion people, factor in Viet Nam with 80 million, and other regions of the world that are rapidly growing their  economy. When the rest of the world catches up to the present day GDP of the U.S economy, which they will, and if the rest of the world achieves the level of efficiency and environmental controls as the U.S, and they do not, we would see a 500% increase in CO2 emissions.

Changes on our atmosphere can last for 50 to over 200 years. If human CO2 emissions play a part in climate change we are crazy to stay the course. Changing course does not mean returning to the horse and buggy.  I believe in technology.  We should invest in alternative fuel research, we should invest in carbon sequestering technology, we should invest in greater efficiency in all of our products, and we should invest in forests that remove carbon from the atmosphere.

I do not believe that we can tax our way to reduced carbon emissions.  People and industry will definitely move in a direction to avoid a carbon tax, but we won’t necessarily move toward something good. To move us all in a direct that is good, offer tax advantages and monetary awards for technological breakthroughs.  Offer a reward and we will get results.

Copyright: American-Ideal.com 2007

Health care is driven by politics and economics. The economics don’t look too hot. Americans spend more on health care than most any other industrialized country and we are less healthy. Costs are going through the roof and the ranks of the uninsured keep rising. Given the dismal state of the economics of our health care system there is a push for a political fix. What will the fix look like? If we rely too much on pure politics and don’t look at economics I suspect that the fix will be nothing more than rearranging the problems while fixing nothing. For the sake of the debate let’s look at the politics and the economic reality of health care.

The Politics

First we have the big dollars of industry speaking in Washington. Prescription Drugs and medical technology are high risk businesses with a fantastic profit potential on a successful product. Given the risk and rewards involved, drug makers pursue political protection of their industry by extending patent protection and limiting competition, especially from foreign markets.

The second political driver is you and me. The baby boom generation is aging and our country is entering a period where a large segment of our population will require more of our health care resources than ever before. The attitudes of this aging demographic will drive politics. The baby boomers have spent a lifetime consuming. From birth, baby boomers have been showered with the good life that our parents, mine included, did not have as children. What else would a generation that grew up in a depression and then went to war do, but shower comfort onto their children? Unfortunately a generation has learned that what is best is what has been paid for by someone else.

The third political driver is that health care is a right. People rightfully argue that health care is a right, and I agree. The principal purpose of a society is to provide a better life for everybody by binding people together and sharing a common good. Even if you don’t agree with this premise, isn’t having everybody as healthy as possible better than having the wealthy cured and the poor diseased? Since health care is perceived as a right, and society has at its disposal the means to create medical miracles, health care is automatically elevated to the political arena.

Economic Reality

Health insurance for a family can easily top $14,000 per year. What are we getting for that $14,000 per year? It is not insurance in the traditional sense. Insurance protects people from unexpected catastrophic costs. Think of auto or home insurance; we don’t insure our car against oil changes or our house against pealing paint. We insure ourselves against the loss of our car or against the cost of repairing our home after a fire or after the wind rips off the roof.

Health care insurance should be thought of in the same sense; we should insure ourselves against major medical procedures, not day to day health care. But that is not how we perceive health care insurance. We don’t want any cost but the $20 co-pay. Is that all we are paying, twenty bucks? Nope, we pay a lot more. Let’s look at the economics.

In realty, an “insured” person pays about $887 per doctor visit. How did I get to that number? For a typical family, “insurance” will cost about $14,000 a year. You may think of that $14,000 as your employer’s money, but in fact it is yours. Your employer could have given you the money and said go and buy whatever insurance you want. About $3,600 of your annual premium is for catastrophic care coverage, the rest is to get that co-pay for a doctor’s visit down to twenty bucks – that’s $10,400 for the “benefit” of a $20 co-pay per visit. If you visit the doctor once per month, each visit cost you $887.

What I would Like To See

My ideal health care program would provide preventative care such as check-ups, blood screenings, and typical cancer screening at a very low cost. We would also be covered for catastrophic care. General care should be paid for through personal health care savings accounts. General care includes such items as broken limbs, ear infections, rashes, poison oak, and alergies. Why do I like this health care scenario: it lowers our costs while keeping our health care industry motivated to advance technology.

How can we afford this type of insurance? We get there by having benefits paid directly to employees and letting us select insurance. Small companies could pay into a fund that is used to provide benefit stipends for those of us that don’t receive company benefits. By buying our own insurance we would make better decisions. Insurance companies would lower the cost for preventative care because staying healthy makes money. We could provide tax incentives to insurance companies and Doctors that provide low cost preventative care.

More people would buy policies that paid less for general care and invest in policies that covered them for catastrophic costs. This change in emphasis would lower insurance costs allowing people to put a significant part of their benefit cash into health care saving accounts (HSAs). As people age their bulging HSAs would keep their out of pocket health care costs to near zero and would save a lot in Medicare Dollars.

Health care providers would have to be more cost conscious because people would be spending what they perceive as their own money. Lower cost general care providers would pop up everywhere offering general health care at a much lower cost than a hospital. Hospitals would no longer by burdended by the uninsured. Pharmacies would have to compete with generic drugs and overseas sources as people demanded the lowest cost medication available. Care would be better and costs would go down. Factored onto all these market driven cost savings, we need to get rid of the archaic paper work process that adds about 30% to our health care bill.

Reality can be nice, but it demands from us personal responsibility. Politics provides us an escape from responsibility, but at a cost. My ideal is that we reform health care and rely on responsibility. I would be much more secure in my health care insurance if I had had my benefits as cash and had been educated on how to spend it. Instead, I look back on twenty eight years of “benefits’ going up in smoke every year as I erroneously thought my employers were paying my freight.

Copyright: American-ideal.com - 2007

Every American leader, from a municipal clerk, to a congressman, to the President of the United States, is dedicated to winning the war against terrorists. Americans give their wealth, and many have given their lives, to protect the innocent. The need to fight is not a subject of debate. How we should fight is a whole different question. We have two distinct problems with the question of how we should fight the war. The first problem is that the mere mention of the need to discuss strategy is viewed by the republicans and the Bush Administration as a desire to crawl into bed with al-Qaeda. How revolting can politics get? It is our duty as Americans to discuss strategy.  The good news is that we can ignore the moronic politics of the “stay the course marionettes” and stick to the debate.

The second problem is more disconcerting, we really do need to change strategy; for what we are doing now is weakening our long-term position. The president is finally accepting the fact that the internal conflict in Iraq is starting to mirror Viet Nam; he has yet to accept the fact that groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and even the Taliban are actually getting stronger as a result of our approach to the war on terrorism.

From the day the atom bomb fell a whole new strategy for victory in war emerged. The strategy is called wining the hearts and minds of the people. We actually got off to a good start in the new world of warfare. The Marshall Plan in Europe and the leadership of General Macarthur in Japan were brilliant. In these two locales we implemented a strategy of standing for justice, listening to people, and winning their allegiance. Unfortunately, our flirtation with true power was short lived. We still articulate the need to win the hearts and minds of the people, but the civilian arm of the Pentagon is much better suited to Mach 3, smart bombs, laser beams, and satellites.

Our strategy has to be based on listening to the people throughout the world. Ignoring the interests of other people does not build allegiance, and without the allegiance of people we won’t win the war on terrorism. Terrorists hide among the innocent and wear no uniform. There is no industrial infrastructure that serves their capacity to make war that we can attack and eliminate. Terrorists thrive in the company of corrupt governments, international business deals that benefit only the upper echelons of a society, and where rank and file people have no power. When our policies feed any of these three allies of terrorists we lose.  Terrorism makes our strengths – Mach 3, smart bombs, laser beams, and satellites – impotent.

Since terrorists won’t fight in a manner that that plays to our strengths we will never ferret out the bad guys and put an end to terrorism on our own. We need allies in the war on terrorism, and I don’t mean we need to make France, Germany, or Russia happy. We need to make the Islamic world happy, for the Islamic world is the primary target of the terrorists. For every westerner that dies at the hands of terrorist, thousands of people of the Islamic faith die. The Islamic world has to rise up against terrorism and they need our help. But we don’t act in a manner that says “lets partner” .We have some allies such as Jordan, Turkey, and Morocco, among a few others, but I am not talking about being aligned with leaders - we need their people. There are 60 completely Islamic to mostly Islamic nations in the world. Most all are not terrorists, they are the principal victims of terrorism. Our policies alienate the people of these countries to where the leaders cannot openly endorse the U.S and rally with us against the scourge that affects them more than any other people.

Israel’s tryst with Hezbollah resulted in bombed out shopkeepers and dead fathers and children. And what is the outcome – Hezbollah becomes the champion of bombed out shopkeepers. Hamas retaliated against the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and builds allegiance in the streets by pointing to their incredible poverty and naming Israel and the U.S as the cause. It does not matter whether terrorist are right or wrong, allegiance is a powerful weapon. Allegiance of people is becoming the strategy and weapon of choice of terrorists. The allegiance of people could make what we call terrorist organizations legitimate freedom fighters in the eyes of other people.

Does any of this matter when we have smart bombs, laser sights, and satellites?  If we want to lose we won’t seek the allegiance of people over the alliances of leaders, many of whom are little better than the terrorists in the eyes of their people. When we appeal to the rank and file Muslim with our justice, charity, and righteous goodwill, terrorist won’t have a chance.

Copyright: American-Ideal.com - 2007

Foreign Policy has always been a weak spot in American politics. We have had a few high points such as the era shortly after World War II and during the Nixon Administration. All of Nixon’s faults aside, he had the courage to approach China and the Soviet Union with a spirit of peace supported by the strength of our American ideals, and of course, our military power stood behind those ideals. We must always remember that our finest hours were when the U.S pursued dialogue and peace, not when others suggested peace to us.

I believe the last several years rank as some of our worst hours in the history of our foreign policy. The tensions in the Middle East are wound so tight that something may snap, and all our policy accomplishes to wind the region ever tighter. When historians review our policy, I believe the unanimous conclusion will be that our ignorance of the region contributed to the snap heard around the world.

President Bush will probably not have to deal with the outcome of our policy; it is the next administration that will face the music. We will vote for that administration so we need to vote smart for a policy that will reduce the tensions. There is no way to vote smart unless we understand the Middle East. This essay lays out for you the tangle of political wrangling and infighting in the Middle East. You will learn that, as usual, our ignorance of the issues places us in the middle of the cat fight.

Policy Proposals

The republican stance is fear; if we don’t keep pulling the trigger we will all die at the hands of terrorists. The belief is that our shear power will topple the bad guys. The republicans don’t seem to understand that improvised explosive devices and a zealot with a bomb strapped to his body are not easily thwarted by high technology. The policy also ignores the uncertainty of who the bag guys are and the source of their power.

The democrats are trying to illuminate a more sophisticated policy by arguing that a political solution is just as important as power, but what is meant by a political solution? We rely too much on sound bites and too little on the big picture. Knowing reality in the Middle East is important if we are to make the right choice in 2008.

The Shiites

Quick, without reading further, are the Shiites the good guys or the bad guys? Many people, including many of our political leaders would say the Shiites are the bad guys. Shiites get their bad reputation from the “Death to America” chants in Iran and the terrorist high jinks of Hezbollah. Given that people believe Shiites are the bad guys we naturally assume that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are Shiite – they are not.

If the Shiites are the bad guys then why are we fighting for them in Iraq? The Shiites in Iraq are the majority, but have been oppressed by Sunnis for centuries, culminating in massive oppression under Saddam. Given the lack of evidence that the war was justified to defend America, the war has become a war of liberation of the oppressed Shiites with a goal to create a stable democracy in the Middle East. The war did liberate the Iraqi Shiites, and the Iraqi Shiites are the most ardent supporters of democracy in the region. In fact, in an odd twist of fate the Iranians and even Hezbollah are stanch defenders of democracy.

Iranians came out in masses after 9/11 to hold a candlelight vigil of sorrow over the tragedy. It is true that Iranians only get to vote for candidate approved by the clergy, but Iranians have voted against candidates ardently endorsed by the clergy. Hezbollah has gained power in Lebanon through legitimate democratic processes. It is odd that a terrorist organization and a country that chants “Death to America” are stanch defenders of what we are trying to accomplish in the Middle East. There must be something else going on that we don’t understand.

The Sunnis

Quick, without reading further, are the Sunnis the good guys or the bad guys? Many people, including many of our political leaders would say the Sunnis are the good guys. Our closest allies are Sunnis. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan are all Sunni; but are these allies the good guys? In the case of Jordan I would say yes. But Saudi Arabia is a monarchy where thirty percent of the people are unemployed, most being angry young males. Pakistan is a dictatorship led by a former general that staged a coup. Al Qaeda is Sunni; Bin Laden is Sunni. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan funded and established the Taliban, the government that gave haven to bin Laden. Egypt is far from a working democracy. The U.S calls the Sunnis, generally led by governments most resistant to democracy, our allies in the war against terrorism and our quest to establish democracy in the Middle East.

The Big Picture

Sunnis and Shiites hate each other. Sunnis see their faith as true and they see the Shiites as sub-human animals. Shiites do not have a higher opinion of the Sunnis. The conflict is a millennium old. Over the last 1000 years the Shiites have been subjugated, abused, and in cases the recipients of genocide. However, after the overthrow of the Shaw of Iran the Shiites got a toe hold on their destiny. Iran is a nearly pure Shiite state and Ayatollah Khomeini made sure the world knew the Shiites were back. Under Khomeini Iran ventured out to light a fire under the Shiite sub-states in the region, including Iraq; but only one, Hezbollah in Lebanon, bit the hook. For two decades the Shiites sat lonely in Iran and in the guise of Hezbollah, but now Iraq, thanks to our liberation, can be added to the Shiite revival and the Sunnis don’t like it.

Sunnis are bent on the destruction of the Shiites. The insurgency in Iraq is not about the fall of Saddam, it is the manifestation of the regional conflict between Shiite and Sunnis. The Sunni insurgency is manned and funded by the Sunni states (our Allies); the Shiite response is manned and funded by Iran. The war is not a civil war; it is the surrogate for the silent regional civil war.

Sunnis are out to destroy the Shiites and this is why Iran is looking for a nuclear bomb. Sunni Pakistan has one so the Shiites want the same. We are playing with fire in the Middle East, but we don’t seem to understand the actors.

The silent regional civil war is built around governments and individuals, both Shiites and Sunnis, vying for political and religious power within the Middle East and within the Muslim faith at large. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a pure Shiite or Sunni faith. There are as many disagreements on what is means to be a Shiite or Sunni as there are streets in Baghdad. If you are trying to establish political and religious power over a diverse group what do you do? You create a third party common enemy; the U.S and Israel is that third party common enemy. We are not hated; we are the cement that holds warring factions together. We are a political pawn.

If we continue to only use bullets as the enforcer of our foreign policy we play right into the role as the common enemy. Sunnis and Shiites alike will see the U.S as the enemy. However, if we leave Iraq the Shiite majority will win and will drive out the Sunnis.

With a Shiite victory the Shiites in Iran, Lebanon and Iraq will unite as a political alliance. The Kurds will stand alone, but could upset the tenuous stability in Turkey. There are many Kurds in Turkey with an independent streak. If there is an independent Kurdish territory the ensuing turmoil could take down Turkey, one of the few democracy-driven states in the region.

With a Shiite victory the Sunnis in Iraq will flee westward into Jordan destabilizing that country. Our so-called Sunni allies will form their own regional alliance against the Shiites and only god and hell knows what may come next. Remember, the Saudi Arabia/Pakistan alliance gave the world the Taliban and thus Al Qaeda and Iran wants a nuclear bomb to defend itself against a Sunni on-slot.

What to Do

Our policy is messed up because we look toward the attitudes of governments and not the attitudes of people. The Shiite people respect the U.S, but their governments do not – and why – because their people respect the U.S. Remember, to stay powerful the government needs a third party enemy. We fall into the third party enemy trap by calling a country our enemy when the majority of the people actually support us.

In the case of the Sunnis we have governments that claim their allegiance to the U.S like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, but their people hate us – and why – because we ally with their government, a government that oppress them. We fall into the Sunni third party enemy trap by supporting governments where the people hate us.

If we are to win the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism we have to lead the peace. Many of you may be saying how can we lead the peace when country like Iran chants Death to America and when Iran and a terrorist organization like Hezbollah dedicate themselves to the destruction of the west and Israel? We can win the war if we base our policy on the interests of the people of the region. We need to respect the Shiite people and appeal to the interests of the Sunnis living under oppressive regimes.

We need to return to the roots of our power and rely on the power of our ideals and the power of our economic might to bring prosperity. We rely too much on the power of our force alone. We need to open a dialogue between all players in the Middle East and call each party on the folly of their hatred. It is not diplomatic to call someone the carpet for their hatred, but sometimes the most effective diplomacy is brutal honesty. We should recognize that the Shiites have shown a record of supporting democracy and that the Sunnis have not. We need to show appreciation for the efforts of the Iranian people to stand for democracy in their own country and thank them for their support on 9/11. We need to say loud and clear that making the U.S and Israel a common enemy of the Islamic faith is a political move, and we must then prove it by leading with justice for the people of the Middle East.

This may sound naive, but using our guns alone is cementing our role as the common enemy and increases the divide between Sunnis and Shiites while increasing their power. The use of guns alone feeds the legitimacy of the terrorist arm of Hezbollah and strengthens the Taliban and al Qaeda.

It is often said that there are three pillars of power. One is coercive power, basically do what I tell you or I will kill you. Another pillar is economic power. Economic power can be used coercively or it can be used more effectively in a supportive manner such as do this and I will reward you. The third pillar of power is the power of ideas and the ideals behind them. Good policy leads with ideals, backs them up with the supportive use of economic power, and has a mighty army standing behind. For eight years we have put force first. Let’s rearrange our policy and lead with American ideals.

Copyright: American-Ideal.com; Ross V. Overby, 2007

I don’t have an editorial on Social Security and entitlements at this time.  Feel free to publish your own under the “comments” button.

I don’t have an editorial on taxes at this time.  Feel free to publish your own under the “comments” button.

Politicians love the topic of immigration. Even the meekest office seeker or incumbent becomes a Wild West sheriff promising to “lock down the borders”. The toughest of the “get tough” candidates argue to personally deport millions of illegals. We are now actually building walls. Show me an example where a wall did not become the rallying point for the problem.  These so called solutions to uncontrolled immigration make us feel good, but feeling good does not make things good. The last thing voters will ever hear is the big picture of immigration and the big picture solution to our sieve-like borders – until now…read on.

To fix the problem we need to understand it. Let’s ask a silly question; silly questions are often the ones most on target.  Why do we have illegal immigration?  Now that’s a dumb question…right?  Wrong.

Immigrants come here illegally for several reasons. One is that life in their homeland stinks. Mexico is a major world oil producer. Even with $60 to $75 a barrel oil Mexico can’t become a country where wealth flows freely and reaches the lowest echelons of the society. That’s one reason for immigrating to the U.S, but why come here illegally? Why not just come over legally. Here is why.

If you are a well-to-do, educated professional and you want to immigrate to the U.S, all you have to do is show up at a U.S Consulate and the doors will open, red tape gets cut, and visas flow. Now show up as a poor person with few or no skills. Tell the clerk at the Consulate that your want to come to the U.S to nail two-by-fours, sweep floors, or pick asparagus. That person gets a weak smile, red tape, and a fat chance of immigrating. If you can’t come in legally, the Rio Grande does not look too foreboding.

So we have life that stinks and red tape, but that’s not all; it takes more than a rotten life and red tape to push a person to swim across a river or into the back of a “coyote’s” sweltering truck. The critical last piece of the puzzle is that there has to be a demand for the illegal worker in the U.S – that’s a fancy way of saying jobs. If there were no jobs an illegal immigrant might as well be sneaking into the Sahara.

Most people like to blame employers for hiring illegals, but that’s a copout. Employers respond to the market. Now here comes the politically suicidal part of my argument. Every American has a choice, we can choose $6 asparagus or the $1.99 asparagus; we can choose higher taxes to have the landscaping along our highways maintained by $20 per hour landscapers, or we can choose lower taxes and pay $7 per hour immigrants to cut the grass. We like less expensive houses built by immigrants. We like an immigrant’s work; we just don’t want to hear about them. And that’s why they come – we ask them to come via our buying decisions.

Finally, how many home-born Americans willfully seek migrant farm work, sweeping floors, or other physically demanding and low paying work? Employers have buyers that want low prices; the same buyers that won’t come to work for them. Employers are not given a comfortable choice. I suppose someone could sell $6 asparagus, but they won’t be in business for long.

Now what do we do about it?  To fix a problem we need to look at the root causes. Can we change life in Mexico or any other struggling nation? Not in the short term. We can help, but is up to other nations to fix their problems. And we are dreaming if we believe walls will keep life that stinks on the other side.

What we can control is the red tape that promotes swimming a river instead of legally coming over. We can also control the demand – basically the availability of jobs for illegals. And how do we do this? First we need a guest worker program. Employers should be able to register their jobs through the government. Guest workers should then be able to apply and get their visa; the only hassle will be a background check and biometric registration. Employers would then have access to the labor they need to respond to our buying demands. Employers would be able to sell $1.99 asparagus with legal workers. When we give employers easy access to labor we can justifiably crack down severely on any employer hiring an illegal. When the illegal jobs dry up, so will illegal immigration.

Copyright:  American-Ideal.com - 2007

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