Well, well, well. Aren't we in a hell of a fix?

Fuel prices are through the roof, illegal immigration still isn't fixed, the two "presumptive" major party candidates are everybody's second choice, education is just plain broken, and our officials seem to think we're so stupid we can't see the lies for what they are.

In California, the latest load comes from our Governor and the Metropolitan Water District. After a year of record rain and snow fall, they tell us we are in a drought. Like...we don't remember the floods and snowstorms just a few months ago?

But it's like that all the way up to the federal government. Does anyone else feel like a mushroom, being fed manure and kept in the dark?

These people are not listening.

So, once again, the regular folks are going to have to do something about the situation.

My suggestion?

Shut it down. All of it.

What do I mean?

I mean stop the economic motor of the country by going on strike for one day a week. I suggest Friday.

If no one does anything....drives, uses electricity,  buys anything, cooks anything, does anything but sit the day out, reads, writes, but consumes nothing...it would certainly get somebody's attention.

I know it will be tough, but better to do it of our own will now than be forced to do it later because "they" said so.

Government officials listen to one thing, and that's money. If the money flow is impeded, even for one day a week for say three months, they will have to listen.

We are now being ruled by an oligarchy of special interests. Environmentalists have created the oil shortage by derailing drilling in our national interest. Politicians have done nothing substantive on immigration in hopes they would carry the immigrant vote. Education is run by a bunch of wimps who are afraid to make learning a matter of individual responsibility.

If we stop everything on Fridays, we take 14% out of the economy. That's a substantial hit.

Now, I know that there cannot be full co-operation on this, but if we extract even 5% from the economy, then they will get the message. Remember what happened when we, as a nation, wrapped ourselves around the immigration problem? We didn't keep the pressure on long enough, but at least they did hear us.

This is a matter of difficult choices. We either do something now, on our own, or we let the panderers do it for and to us whenever they feel like it.

We are not their servants. They are our servants.

When was the last time you saw a politician do anything that served the country on a practical basis?

You haven't.

They are not listening to anything but big special interests.

Well, we are the biggest special interest, but unless we get ourselves together, those in power will continue to stick it to us.

Y'know, the French did do one thing right. The populace struck every now and then. I believe they're getting close to striking again over their own immigration problems.

It's time to shut it down until we get what we want.

Now.

On the illegal immigration thing read my earlier post on this blog.

Respectfully, or not,

Lee w. Dodson

Dear Mr. McCain:

Just a few days ago Senator Feinstein made a rather clumsy attempt at tying an Immigrants codicil onto a Federal funding bill. Fortunately, it was caught in time, and it did not make it into the final draft. (Whew...that was close!)

I know you are trying to come up with something to get this process on track, but it is just not working, and it's not going to work as long as it is handed down from on high where the rarefied atmosphere has a deleterious effect on official eardrums. Washington, including your staff, does not get it.

So, I thought I'd approach you from street level and offer up an idea or two or three on how to make it work...if you don't mind.

Let me give you some of my background so you won't think I'm neither a raving, right-wing lunatic, nor am I a left wing, flatulent elitist.
Actually, I'm an embattled general contractor who builds hillside houses in Los Angeles. Y'know, the ones perched on what's left of empty real estate in this already congested city.

Yes, I do use some undocumented workers, mostly from Mexico or El Salvador or Guatemala. If a man has the cojones to walk up on my job and ask for work, I'll more than likely give him a two week tryout to see if he has the skills and the work ethic, and if he does, I take steps to get him underway on permission to work here. I'm fluent in Spanish, so this is easy for both of us.

I generally don't hire "gabachos (white guys) unless they show me in that two week period the same ethic and adaptation the latinos do. It's rare. In thirty five years in the trade as a carpenter and concrete guy, I've employed, maybe, ten at various times. Out of the thirty or so black guys I've hired (because a government program made it to my advantage and theirs), not one has been able to keep up. I do have a number of black sub contractors. For some reason, the fact that they have their own businesses increases their diligence, and I am happy to have them.

I genuinely like and respect the guys on my crews, and I pay them way more than they'd get anywhere else. They know that if they make me money, they make money. It is sheer joy for me to give them raises, help them buy cars, teach them tricks to save time and make the job easier. These are honest, caring men who work hard, co-operate, and get the job done.

Eight years ago, (one month to the day before the WTC attacks) I was injured in a saw accident that made my left hand useless. At 54, I should have long since retired from hands on cutting, I had to change my style of business from working (and I mean WORKING) contractor to a supervising boss. At the time I had no employees, huge bills to pay (BTW, Workers' Comp just plain sucks), and a job of bringing to level  a four unit apartment house. I was going to lose my house and everything I owned right down to my tools.

I had to have help, so I cast around for a couple of guys and found two Salvadorans who were happy to have the work and the pay. They worked out well. One was married to a US citizen, and the other had  paperworked  his way through the beginnings of  the  then "green card." To be honest, my experience with Salvadorans had not been good, so I made up my mind to keep these two only short term.

They stayed because they were valuable...learned quickly, co-operated, never doped off....not once. One guy left for greener pastures (he hated construction work), but the other hung in there, and today, Jaime is my lead man. I trust him, have trusted him, with my life.

Jaime came here by walking across Mexico. He got a job from a real jerk roofer who paid him $2 an hour, 14 hours a day, for two years. Jaime did it so he could bring his also-orphaned younger brother up from San Salvador. You can imagine how happy Jaime was to get a job that started at five times what he made from the roofer.

The aforementioned is background for my ideas on the immigration issue.

The laws in effect are useless. Unless the law conforms to the will of the people, it's just paper pushed around by government people who have not gained the respect of those people. If the law puts the burden of enforcement of the employers, and if those officials do nothing to conform themselves to the will of the governed, nothing good can happen. It is failure, as is the law as currently designed.

I admit freely that I am just a working stiff, blessed with common sense and an overdeveloped sense of justice, so my remarks here can be taken as those of the average man on the street. I am not a racist, although I know quite a few, and I have a deep affection for Hispanic people, developed in my growing up years in El Paso, Texas. I know both good and bad, so you can take my advice as an honest broker in this matter. I'm also one quarter Commanche (a fact discovered only recently....who knew?) so I guess I qualify as a minority who's been "passing" for sixty-three years.

Let me get to it.

BORDERS AND MEXICO

Either seal 'em up or move 'em 200 miles south to make control and fencing easier (only half-kidding about the border move). Adopt an exact reciprocation of Mexico's law re: work, schooling, rights. In Mexico, you couldn't get a job unless you brought it with you. Your kids could not go to public school. There is no true due process there, no true bail, no true habeas corpus, no right to a speedy trial.
No wonder so many want out.

Declare drugs lethal weapons. Anybody bring them in is to be shot as an armed invader or taken prisoner of war. If it's a "war" on drugs, treat it like a war. It would take about six incidents of serious gunplay, and the cowards who import drugs would have no takers as burros. Problem solved. Messy, at first, but effective.

Adopt Joe Arpaio's philosophy of incarceration. Jail is not a playground.

Federally abolish Special Order 40, and dry up federal money to any city that declares itself a sanctuary. Money talks, everything else walks.

Tell Mexico that we'd be happy to send in swat teams to protect its citizens from the drugeros, and if they balk, give them a month of closed borders and severe treatment of the burros, and they'll be welcoming our guys in with flowers on the driveway.

Accelerate deportation, and charge the deportees for the fare. I know, they're poor, but if they owe money, they'll think twice about coming back. And I'd give the collections to Chase Manhattan Bank. Those suckers are better than the FBI at finding people, and they NEVER give up. Besides, when the government is awash in capital, debt collectors will be out of a job anyway, so the unemployment problem gets re-directed in a very suitable manner.

Also, tell Mexico that we have a duly approved death penalty in this country, and that we'll try any fugitive in absentia whether they give him up or not, and if they don't care for the idea, we'll stop their trucks from crossing the border.

Revamp ICE. Get rid of non-supportive mid-level executives, and fire any United States Attorney who brings frivolous charges.

Immediate release and pardon the two Border Patrolmen who received an unfair trial that did not reveal all the facts concerning the immunity deal with the drug smuggler.

We have, so far, been quite unwilling to solve this problem on both sides of the border, so now if we have to suffer a bit without Mexican vegetables, they can rot in the fields. This is serious business, and we need to treat it so.

UNEMPLOYED ILLEGALS

If they don't have a job, are on welfare for reasons other than illness or injury, they go back. They pay, of course, or they owe. Temporary unemployment is a different matter. Sometimes the work is slow, but any alien without a recent employer to vouch for him is back across the border. And they are billed for the welfare. If they do not pay, their country of origin should be billed, the money deducted from the aid they get from us. That should go negative cash flow in less than a year.

Plus, we bill country of origin for medical treatment consistent with their billing.

EMPLOYED ALIENS

Here it gets sticky. As soon as an illegal has a job (or a business license color-coded to denote citizenship status, i.e. blue for fresh across the border, yellow for work visa applied for), the alien shall be required to enroll in  an English course, shall be vouched in by the employer  (transferable  to other employers), shall enroll in  a civics course, shall apply for social security  (which would be revoked in the event of criminal activity or deportation or both), and shall be required to state status when applying for work or benefit.

Amend the "anchor baby" rules to become a reality when the alien becomes legal resident or citizen.

Require alien report of change of address, work status, schooling status. Any lapse of reporting shall result in immediate deportation.

Require community service of anyone who crossed the border sans documentation. This way, the debt for border infraction is satisfied by service to the country.

If the alien plays by the rules, the alien can stay, but the community service is imperative to recover cost of residency implications. If they care enough to meet the requirements, the service can be a guarantee of serious intention.

Employers must be required to report any and all alien employees and status quarterly, and must have access to a data base of any arrest or infraction so he can make an intelligent decision as to hiring. The employer shall pay an immediate fine of $500.00, with rapid court proceeding not exceed delay of 14 business days from discovery of infraction. Employer of five or more employed aliens shall require same to purchase catastrophic health and accident insurance, administrated by the employer. Should employer not acquire said insurance, his workers' comp policy shall rise commiserate with cost of above insurance.

CRIMINAL ALIENS

Add ten years to any sentence if the convicted is an illegal alien. If a death is involved, an automatic consideration of the death penalty is mandatory, even in drunk driving offenses. If a sex crime reaches indictment, there shall be no plea bargain. The prosecutor shall automatically proffer a death sentence.

If there is a suspicion of terrorist activity, there shall be no bail.

THE ALMOST LAST WORD

If these measures are enforced, a few things will happen. First, if the aliens are made to believe we are serious, they will think twice before encroaching on our borders, both north and south. Second, if the aliens are serious about building a new life here, then they will accept the rules and make a concerted effort to rectify their status. Third, the welfare rolls will drop, and the money and jobs will be forthcoming.

NOW, THE LAST WORD

All the rule changes in the world won't do anything if the American people don't support them. Nor will any rule be valid or carry any weight if we citizens of the United States fail to obey them in the first place. We cannot be a nation that has one set of rules for the white guys and another set for the minority.

The rule of law depends on our discipline, our sense of justice, our feel for fair play.

We, as a people, have been reduced to a loop hole seeking bunch who have to abide by regulation, rather than excellence. We need to be set free, to innovate, to create, which is impossible under modern constraints of "fairness."

Check the street. See if I'm wrong.

The only problem you have, Senator, is making people believe you mean it.  If they do believe you, not only do you win, but so do the people (like in "We, the people......).

Not bad typing for a one handed carpenter from Texas, is it?

I have a great format for the health care system, based on student loans for doctors, new medical schools, etc. Just your basic free enterprise thinking. But that's another blog.

If you want to see more of my thinking, log onto the website below.

Best regards,

Lee W. Dodson
Owner
http://www.thecontractorsside.com