I Am So Mistaken - Nation of Laws: NOT

Our US Congress' dumbfounding reaction to the FBI's legal search and seizure of evidence from William Jefferson's office reveals a fatal flaw in my previous posts: I'm understanding now that we are not really a nation of laws. I claimed we were. I thought we were. But there is just too much evidence piling up that proves the contrary. My beliefs are based on an out-dated and wishful notion of our country's ethical standards.

The congressional call to return this evidence in the name of "separation of powers", along with the Senate's stupifying amnesty legislation leads me to these conclusions:

• Congress does not give a damn about laws or the enforcement thereof
• They are concerned more about their own welfare
• As an institution, they are self-serving to the detriment of this nation

One of my pet peeves at any level of government is the establishment of laws for appearances sake, to satiate the complainers, with no resources or real intention to enforce the laws. To me, that is not just politics and "political correctness", but simple dishonesty and fraud.

This congressional call to defend their fellow criminal in the name of "separation of powers" reveals to me why these same self-serving SOBs (save our butts) don't care about enforcing our current immigration laws. There is too much in it for them. There's too many corporate contributions to be had. The laws be damned.

The Immigration Speech - Why I Believe the President Has Lost His Credibility

...the little he has left.

• This is the first time he has clearly, publicly articulated "amnesty": making a way for the illegals to become legal with little disruption to their flagrant disrespectful methods of being here.
• This will encourage still additional thronging hoards yearning to be anarchists storming our borders and violating our laws.
• He demonstrated he acknowledges there has been a problem; we all know it has built up over the past 6, 10, 20 years.
• The first six years he could have done something about it but didn't. Why? He doesn't believe in doing anything about it. And he still doesn't.
• We know his heart is not in doing this; it is in producing cheap labor "for the jobs Americans won't do." I don't believe that, either.
• Therefore his actions are disingenuous, with no real intention of following through with a long term program.
• He, like many others, portrays this issue in black/white terms: amnesty or mass deportation. Sure, amnesty is kinder and gentler than deportation and we're really not able to deport 12 million people (especially since we don't really want to). How much of a freakin red herring is THAT! We couldn't (didn't want to) keep them out. We don't even know who they are to kick them out (if we wanted to).
• He ignored the "middle ground: Attrition. Attrition is achieved by not rewarding the illegals with free education and health care and tax-free jobs. Many will trickle away. You wouldn't believe how much of our resources and taxpayer dollars are spent on these free services, plus the law enforcement problem from their law-breaking predisposition.

And yes, we do need private sector cooperation. It's the private sector that is hiring them and encouraging them to be here. Businesses need to be a part of the solution by exercising some responsibility for becoming a major part of the problem. A "tamper-proof" card system is part of the solution to assure businesses can rely on knowing who they hire. But I'm just waiting for the ACLU or equivalent complaining about the dehumanizing, discriminating aspects of having a card. They conveniently forget that we needed social security cards to get a job, but most of us didn't consider forging them.

Too little, too late, and too transparent (translated "disingenuous"). This is not the kind of transparancy in government we need.

A Spirit of "No Can Do"

China. This is rough terrain, okay. And they didn't have tractors or bulldozers. They did it with sweat and blood. Oh and the weather, not blistering hot but bone chillingly cold (high winds and heavy snow). And the length: 3,946 miles. Built during the 14th century. They built this wall for defensive purposes, and you know what? IT WORKED!!

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Contrast the United States. The US/Mexico border is only about 1,400 miles long. We need to build a wall for "defensive" purposes, too. And you know what? IT WILL WORK. We won't keep everyone out, but we will stop the great majority. Let's say 10% make it over. 100,000 is a lot better than 1 million. But we hear excuses: It won't keep everyone out so don't do it, they say. From our President and from our Senate, both Republicans and Democrats. I'm surprised we have the political will to get up in the morning. What is driving our political stupor? Oh, I remember. Greed!

Let's All Support the "Illegal People"

Yes...let's open up all our jails and close our court rooms and lay off our police departments and what little there is of our border patrol in support of the "illegal people" of this nation.

The following is a news story from the Transylvania Times in Brevard, NC:

Locals Attend Immigration March In Asheville

On MondayJuan Martinez closed his restaurant, Cielito Lindo, pulled his children out of school and gathered his employees on Monday to join the thousands of people marching for immigration support in Asheville. “We closed because we want to support the illegal people and Hispanic population,” said Martinez, a legal immigrant who came to the states from Mexico City in the 1980s. “I wanted to show support and help change the laws in Congress. They need to change,” he said. Martinez estimates he lost $3,000 in sales at his Brevard restaurant. But he said it was worth it to support immigrants, both in the United States and across the borders.

Even in little Brevard, NC.

Why Do We Do the Things We Do

We rented a movie the other night - "The Family Stone" http://videoeta.com/movie/72706 Actually my two daughters and step daughter rented it. It's rated PG-13, so most people would not find it offensive.

I did, of course. I'm a prude. I'm old fashioned. The review on the above link doesn't sound bad at all - "love" ties up all the loose ends for the dysfunctional family Stone.

I didn't watch it all the way through. I rebelled. Here's the problem I had with it. It focused on a dysfunctional family - two sexually disoriented men, a couple of selfish egotists, and a couple of other generally confused people. With a personality deficit disorder prevalent in most of the characters throughout the movie, any coming together in the name of "love" at the end must certainly be a fleeting event. The point is that the movie focused on really screwed up people. Maybe that makes those of us who feel similarly depraved feel better about ourselves - as in stupidity loves company - or is that misery loves company.

Why do people spend so much time soaking up violence, bad behavior, and downright destructive action and attitudes in our "entertainment?" Aren't there enough real life problems and counterproductive influences in life without deliberately immersing ourselves in it? It's not like we have to endure it because we have no choice. We actually pay for and spend hours of our valuable time offering up ourselves to have this crap pumped into our brains.

The same weirdness applies to some of the addictive habits we have. Smoking, for example. The facts are clear. Smoking gives people lung cancer. It stinks on people. It gives them yellow teeth. It's addictive. My brother and mom died from diseases caused by smoking. Yet "intelligent" people still smoke. Why? Do they have a death wish? Do they turn off parts of their brain that house most of their intelligence when they decide to light up? What causes them to "feel good" about smoking? And alcohol abuse and drug use - that's a whole different dimension.

If I dare suggest smoking is not good for them and encourage them to quit, of course they will point out that I eat too many brownies and oreos. Ooops. They got me there. Can't argue with reason. Although I do maintain the secret little thought that my habit is neither as anal or as harmful as smoking.

We don't realize how true the digital adage "Garbage in - garbage out" really is in all that we expose ourselves to.

Dysfunctional behaviors, dysfunctional families, and dysfunctional entertainment have become the norm. I am trying to be an oddity. My goal is to be labeled "odd" in the eyes of the dysfunctional of the world. I occasionally hear comments that convince me that I am succeeding. Yesss!

I have experienced and created my share of dysfunction during periods of my life, and frankly, I'm rather sick and tired of it.

It is difficult to understand the processes that lead up to the actual point that inappropriate decisions are made. But I will speculate - and I believe this is true - that all of the influences in our life, from the time we are little children, through the hundreds of hours of interacting with other people (most of whom we choose to interact with), the hundreds of hours we expose ourselves to various forms of entertainment (all of which we choose to expose ourselves to), and the hundreds of hours that we direct our minds to unproductive or destructively inappropriate thoughts (despite the fact that we can control these thoughts) - all of these things together form the path that we take. We have control over all these things that influence, consciously or not, the decisions we make. We can control how we react to our hormones. We can separate ourselves from destructive or negative people. Do we take advantage of the control that we do have to "do the right thing?" Sadly, much of the time we do not.

There is no greater truth than this verse from the Bible:

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Philippians 4:8

Selfishness is not pure or lovely. Destructive habits are not virtuous. Spending our time being entertained by dysfunctional lifestyles is not of good report. There is no virtue in these things.

The truth in this Scripture can help us avoid selfish, perverse, degenerate, painful and destructive actions and attitudes. We cannot change the past. We have the ability to focus on the good and virtuous with each decision we make from this moment forward. Long live my disdain for The Color Purple and The Family Stone - despite the fact that our society says they are fine for 13 year olds!

Extremist Habits of the Media

They act like two-year olds...or psychotic adults who see everything in extremes of black and white - they distort to sensationalize. Many are "drama queens". They do this to increase readership at the expense of reality, truth, and reason. They have their audience, and unfortunately, I am part of it.

I am speaking of the media - both liberal and conservative. Here is a typical example from a site I frequent, though I have to admit its blatant sensationalist exaggerated reporting is getting on my nerves...

The headline reads "Church Damns da Vinci" with a closeup photo of burning books. The reality: The "church" did not "damn" anyone. And the chuch is not burning books. CNN, FOX, CBS - they all do this... Drudge is a somewhat more blatant.

This may be my turning point away from the sensationalizing liars.