Corporations hide Taxes

Most employed workers have to pay payroll taxes from payday to payday, so your state (if applicable), federal, local (if applicable), social security and Medicare taxes are directly taken out of your paycheck.  For some people, this means that come tax season they might be due a refund for various reasons, but typically when you get a refund, you are merely getting back taxes that have already been taken from you, so you are simply getting your own earned monies back!  For other people, that didn't have enough withheld, or for other  reasons, they will instead have to  pay additional taxes on top of the taxes already withheld, while for others that aren't receiving a steady paycheck but perhaps making their monies thru dividends, there will be quarterly estimated taxes due.  In any event, if you work in America, there is a good chance that you are paying taxes to the Man, and that's the way it has been for a while.

Let's consider though publically owned for-profit corporations and their tax liabilities.    Corporations, for their own reasons, like to be considered legally to be people, in which corporations received this extraordinary ruling from the misapplication of a headnote to a Supreme Court Case of 1886, in which the headnote stated “Corporations are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”  As they say, be careful what you wish for, as these types of dubious rulings can be dual-edge swords.  Corporations have benefited, profited and become more powerful because of this legal designation, allowing corporations the freedom of speech, or an undue and unmerited influence to lobby and undermine; corporations are able to defend themselves better against libel because their resources and power are nearly unlimited in regards to their legal powers and legal maneuvering as compared to their opponents who are limited and circumspect often due to their inabilities of  proper funding, time, and legal experience; and finally large corporations which have global footprints are often beyond the control and the powers of their own home national government and consequently corporations will set the national standards as to their own benefits and desires and therefore corrupt and compromise national sovereignty.

However, the IRS makes it clear in regards to the Foreign Income Tax Exclusion that "If you are a U.S. citizen or a resident alien of the United States and you live abroad, you are taxed on your worldwide income."   Instead, corporations hide their overseas profits through foreign subsidiaries in which these profits are taxed at either a significantly lower tax liability, or if the profits are held overseas they might not be subject to U.S. taxes at all.  The WSJ reported on March 10, 2013 that in its: "survey of new regulatory filings found that the total earnings held by the 60 companies' foreign subsidiaries rose 15%, to $1.3 trillion, from $1.13 trillion a year earlier".

There isn't any doubt that these truly massive and powerful corporations have the world's best lawyers, lobbyists, & accountants, and are expertly skilled at avoiding, delaying, hiding, and moving any corporate tax liabilities for their own corporate benefit.  It shouldn't be that way.  If they are people, as they previously have been legally defined, their tax obligations should be the same as the people's tax obligations and it is high time for America to throw down the gauntlet and therefore to bring back home more fairness to our tax code.

Consumption Tax

Most everyone is in agreement that our current tax code is confusing, unfair, corrupt, complicated, and woefully inadequate in doing its true job which is to collect taxes fairly without dubious tax dodging or special tax shelters for well-heeled individuals.  However, our current tax code with its assorted lobbyists, accountants, brokers, and lawyers is too well entrenched to be overturned or vanquished in the near future.  For instance, businessinsider.com reports from a chart created by The Tax Policy Center that in 2011 there were: "491,000 Americans who made more than $100,000 a year who paid no income tax."  With our country running massive deficits it would seem worth our while to take a look at other forms of taxation that might pull their weight and thereby provide us some leverage for needed tax reform.  My suggestion is a modest consumption tax to be applied forthwith,

The http://data.worldbank.org estimates that in 2011 the United States Final Consumption Expenditure was $13,323,400,000,000.  That is a massive number and if there was a consumption tax on everything that we consume or purchase such as homes, medicine, food, boats, phones, and automobiles, and we were to tax those items to the full estimate of our annual consumption at the rate of 2 percent, that would bring in estimated revenues of $266.5 billion.   I consider 2 percent to be a reasonable percentage in which it is high enough to produce meaningful revenue but low enough not to be an oppressive burden on the public at large.  No doubt, there would be an outcry for this industry or that product to not be taxed, or to tax some items at one rate and others at another, but for sake of simplicity, this is the 2 percent flat consumption tax, and this consumption tax should tax everything without exception and that would simply be the way it would be and people and businesses would eventually adjust to it--with perhaps both parties having to sacrifice some small part on either end.

Some would cry that this form of taxation is regressive, I would counter that it is fair.  A tax that offers no end-arounds, workarounds, and no dodges, and furthermore only taxes you when you consume or purchase something is reasonable.  A family that spends $100,000 will have to pay $2.000 in consumption taxes and a family that only spends $20,000 will have to pay just $400 in consumption taxes.  One family bought more and so they rightly pay more in aggregate, and the other family bought less and therefore paid less.  A consumption tax would also encourage a modest increase in our savings rate, since this tax is not applicable to people that save money, and with our savings rate having been in a downward spiral since the 1980s this is an important and needed step in the right direction for Americans when it comes to financial responsibility.

Finally, a consumption tax puts all Americans in the same boat, from coast-to-coast, from youngest to oldest, from richest to poorest, it is a form of tax democracy in which no favors are given out and no angles can be played.

Chinese in Africa

When I read about the truly massive Chinese investments into Africa, I wonder as to whether this is the new version of the colonization of Africa, or outright cronyism between China and oppressive dictators, or perhaps a lustful drive for the precious minerals and resources that Africa has in its possession.  China and Africa have historically not been trading partners, typically do not interbreed with each other, and when living together in the same country they are by design segregated from one another.

The United States has double the GDP of any other country in the world, and also has a long-standing, meaningful, and historic interest in Africa, but according to CNNMoney trade between China and Africa: "… hit $198.5 billion in 2012. By comparison, U.S.-Africa trade volume was $108.9 billon, and is slated to fall further behind: Research from Standard Chartered estimates that trade between China and Africa will hit $385 billion by 2015."  Africa is truly the final frontier in regards to growth, youthful population, and potential.  It is a continent that has abundant natural resources including: oil, gold, silver, and other precious metals.  While all Africa's resources have their importance, it's most vital natural resource to foreigners is oil.  The Chinese are there for a lot of reasons such as agriculture, mining, industrialization, but their most important and most urgent need is oil.

The United States was the #1 oil importer in the world, but its importation and consumption has been declining since 2005, while its production of oil has been increasing.  While China's production of oil has increased since 2005, this production has been falling far short of its consumption increase and therefore China's importation of oil has been growing and will continue to grow because China is a rapidly maturing nation developing at a high single-digit growth rate.  According to ABC news: "Chinese oil consumption outstripped production by 6.3 million barrels per day, which indicates the country had to import that much to fill the gap, the Energy Information Administration said this week."China's steady growth in oil demand has led it to become the world's largest net oil importer, exceeding the United States in September 2013,'" the agency said in a report."

There is little doubt that oil, the access to oil, and the extraction of oil is the economic engine of growth and often of war.  While China may have many good reasons for being in Africa and may be doing many good things for African nations, the Chinese are there primarily to get access to oil and to a lesser extent other precious minerals and assorted trading activities. You could probably say that China is in Africa because it's good for China.  Further, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration in 2010 China: "…imported 1.5 million barrels per day, or 30 percent" from Africa.

Whereas in America our President is African-American, and there are African-Americans in other high profile political offices, as well as there are African-Americans in executive offices at our largest and most prolific public corporations and throughout our society, the same cannot be said of China and its relationship with Africans.  For peoples of African origin in America, it has been a long, arduous, and difficult road of often uneven progress with sweat, bloodshed and tears from all parties, but the righteous light of true justice shines on the road for us ahead.

As Muhammad Ali famously quipped: "No VietCong ever called me nig..r". What say China?

Atheists and agnostics

I certainly can have some respect for someone that is honest enough to say that they don't know or they aren't sure whether God exists.  Although I don't agree with those sentiments, at least one can say that they aren't claiming omniscience; and by definition their mind is still open to accepting God as their Creator.  I do take exception, however, to those that command absolute knowledge to state the God doesn't exist.  Their position is nonsensical, egotistical, bull-headed, misguided, and a gross and deliberate misstatement of known fact.  In addition, atheists, in order to be true to themselves are compelled to the following moral guidelines:

1.      If God doesn't exist, then your creation came by the union of your mother and father, therefore they are your god(s).  Everything that you create, accomplish, and become must be done on behalf of your parents.  You owe them your allegiance, your protection, your faithfulness, your money, your labor, and everything that you create of value.  For things that you do that are negative, your deserved punishment by your parents shall be whatever that they deem necessary, be arbitrary or not, because you would not exist except for their creation of you.  Without your god(s) you would be void, nothing, non-existent, and therefore your creation mandates an unending servitude to your god(s).

2.      Upon your parents' death, everything that you do, accomplish, and create is owed to the State.  Your rights, even if limited rights, are provided by the State, and they are entitled to everything that you have earned without limit and without end.  Nothing is yours, since it is the State that gave you the rights that you have, it is the State that you will serve.  Failure to voluntarily provide everything to the State, even if unrequested, is your obligation to the State, to which all your rights have been created from.

I suppose one could then say, for those that believe in our Creator, that the same basic moral guidelines should apply to them as to the atheists.  But as Christians we are told to uphold Mark 12: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'"The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  In regards to our responsibilities as representatives of the State, fortunately our Declaration of Independence states that our rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable Rights granted to us from our Creator and not by the State.  So the paths of Christians and atheists are not the same.  Being an atheist encompasses a far more stringent and more circumspect set of guidelines because their god is of this world and of this state, and thereby atheists must live up to that standard in order to be true to their professed creed.  Failure for atheists to uphold their obligations is a de facto admission that atheists hold themselves above their parents and above their State.  This cannot be so, because their creation was by their parents and their rights are by the State.  Atheists cannot be a law onto themselves, to do so, would be anarchy, hypocrisy, and apostasy.

Therefore all true atheists must bow their heads before their gods.  To not do so is truly an egotistical delusion.

Televising criminal trials

In today's modern world I believe that it is imperative that the public have the right to see that criminal trials are televised, subject to prior court approval,  proper decorum, and the rule of law.   Transparency is a net benefit to society at large and is an important foundation when interacting with public servants.  By law, our trials are public trials and what better way to present trials in today's world but by television.  Although I cite television as my preferred mode of viewing, I would also be a proponent of a radio broadcast, podcast, or even updates via twitter or similar.  I do believe that it's important to present criminal trials to the viewing public utilizing media that is cost-effective, prevalent, relevant, flexible, and easily affordable.

Having criminal trials available to the public will help to get the public more engaged in our overall criminal justice system in which most citizens are willfully ignorant of.  It's common to have City Council meetings televised, so it certainly isn't much of a stretch to be able to provide certain criminal trials in the same type of format.  Criminal trials need not be shown "live", they could be tape delayed, edited, or the such, as long as the interests of the public are served and kept foremost in mind than the results should echo those facts.  Therefore if there was a particular concern, for instance that the televising of a certain case might influence the jury in some way, form, or manner, the trial broadcast could be delayed until a verdict had been reached.  While that would certainly take away from the day-to-day drama because the case outcome would now be known, it would still attract interest from the general public, especially "armchair quarterbacks" and those that just have a certain fascination with trials that pique their interests.

Another segment of the population that would definitely have a vested interest in current criminal trial broadcasts would be lawyers, or law students, or the like.  Using broadcast criminal trial media, you would be able to get past the theory and get into particulars.  Debates between students or students and their Professor could be done in 'real-time' and would be very practical given the circumstances of their profession or professed profession.  In theory, the watching of real trials may whet certain students' interests, or for some, it might put them off and perhaps they would re-evaluate their life goals and direction.  The real world is not the same as something that you picture in your mind, or read in a book; the real worlds' nuances and drama are something that must be experienced in order to appreciate and comprehend.

Additionally, court cases and trials are a practical example of your tax dollars being put to work and importantly the application of constitutional principles in our everyday life.  The public has not just the right to know but the need to know and therefore should have access to know.  The barrier to entry to present criminal trials in some sort of media format has never been lower than it is today and therefore this is another valid reason as to why these trials and their availability must be a choice that informed citizens can avail themselves of.

Semantics

The Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act (aka USA Patriot Act) are just examples of semantics that sell us the illusion that our government is all about protecting us, protecting the American Way of life, and providing us with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The United States Department of War was renamed the Department of Defense in 1949, but why?  To whom is the United States defending itself against?  I would submit: no one. Whereas, the United States and its proxies has waged war against several countries since 1949 such as North Korea, North Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and a host of others.  None of these countries attacked the United States mainland and none had any real intention of doing so.  The Department of Defense is a misnomer and should be properly renamed the Department of War.  Our soldiers, our materials, our logistics invade other countries, that is war, not defense.

The Department of Homeland Security is something that sounds distinctly Orwellian but unfortunately is also absolutely real, in which the DHS submits that "…has a vital mission: to secure the Nation from the many threats we face." Incredibly, this essential department wasn't created at the time of Washington's first administration, but had to wait until 2002.  My goodness, how was the United States able to secure and protect itself against a myriad of threats and actionable offenses for so long without this department!  In fact, the DHS is a redundant bureaucracy, serving no useful purpose, and accomplishing little or nothing of merit, while violating the civil rights of its citizens and Constitution it has sworn to uphold and protect.  The DHS' ultimate goal is to impose upon its citizens a quasi-police state in order to best protect us from events that are unknowable, undefined, unseen, and ever changing in which every year homeland security is something that is perpetually unsecured. 

My most scathing disgust has to do with the Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act (aka USA Patriot Act).  This act which purports to combat terrorism is essentially another tool to monitor and surveil our domestic activities. I despise the Patriot act because of their misuse and misallocation of a great word: patriot, which has a profound historic importance in this land of the brave and home of the free.  A patriot is a man who stands up unstintingly for truth and justice as Clarence Darrow said: "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else."  And G.K. Chesterton adds: "“My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”"  A patriot's purpose is to do and stand up for the right thing against all odds if need be.  A true patriot is a man of integrity, he is neither a summer soldier nor a sunshine patriot, and he is a patriot through-and-through.  A nationalist, however, will do whatever it takes in "defense" of his country because his country is always right, always just, and always best, even if all the evidence clearly demonstrates that this is not the case.

"Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry

Red light cameras

Communities are always trying to come up with creative ways to increase revenues and certainly on the surface one of the better ways is a system in which a machine takes pictures of vehicles that have run a red light.  This seems like both a valid safety device and a very profitable way to increase revenue because of the cost-effectiveness of the cameras, their accuracy, and the fact that you don't need to draw upon the resources of your police department.  Yet, this program has fundamental structural flaws which have resulted in pushback from drivers at large.

One of the most glaring annoyances of the automated red light camera scheme is that the photos produced simply shows images of your vehicle and its license plate but no images of the driver of the vehicle at the time of the violation.  In Georgia, the ticket is sent to the owner of record of the vehicle who is presumed to have been driving the vehicle, and although you have the right to dispute that you are not the driver, you must then as part of your defense identify the actual driver of the vehicle.  But what if the actual driver was your spouse?  Doesn't your legal spousal rights/privileges supersede an automated red light enforcement program?  I'm not sure of that answer but I find the thought to be quite intriguing.

The next problem with red light cameras is the fact that you are not actually ticketed by a human law enforcement officer in real time.  While city and state legislatures presume that their tickets have legal validity that may or may not be upheld by courts over the long term.  The main legal issues would be your right protecting you from self-incrimination, your right to due process, and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.  All of these may be valid against a traffic ticket issued without a law officer present.  The state workaround is shown, however, by the wording of the infraction itself.  For instance, in Georgia, the ticket states "the imposition of a civil penalty is not a conviction for any purpose, including: insurance rates.  Payment of a civil penalty is not reported to the department of public safety."  This pretty much gives up the game as distinctly indicating that the automated red light enforcement is all about increasing revenue and that the state knows that they are on a somewhat legally shaky ground.  To prove the point beyond any reasonable doubt, running a red light and being ticketed by an actual police officer would result in a 3-point penalty assessment against your driving record.

Additionally, there is the issue of the ticket being received by the owner of the vehicle.  When a driver is ticketed by a police officer, their signature on the ticket is proof positive that they received notice of the ticket and that they are the infringing party.  An automated ticket is mailed and because people move, travel, mail is lost, thrown away, and such, there isn't any guarantee that it was received.  Therefore, in Georgia it is mandated by law that the recipient of the automated ticket must be notified by certified mail or the traffic fine is uncollectible and invalid.

Finally, red light cameras were put into place ostensibly to improve public safety, and the fines were merely a means to pay for the equipment and to penalize drivers that infringed upon that public safety.  However, studies have consistently proven that by extending the length of a yellow light by one second and/or delaying the onset of a green light will do more to improve traffic safety than an automated camera.

By the way, a good friend of mine, got not one but two red light automated tickets, incredibly, at the exact same light although on different dates, $70 each, was never served by certified mail, and therefore never paid them, not that she had the money, and she is doing just fine. 

It pays to do a little research.

Pensions

What happened to pensions in the private sector which by 1960 covered nearly30% of all private employees?  They have primarily been replaced by Social Security and the 401(k) but that's not been a real good deal for employees.  Pensions are defined benefit plans with very specific rules and payments in which your employer makes a commitment to make those payments to you based on your length of service, salary, and some other miscellaneous factors.  Not only is this something that is specific but it is also definable, consistent, and understandable.

So presently we find that while payments from Social Security use a fairly straightforward formula, one's 401K is completely in the employee's hands.  You can contribute nothing or up to the legal maximum towards your 401K but in absence of any employer matching of your 401K, that contribution is essentially you saving money from your salary.  If your employer matches your 401K contribution it is often worth your while to try to maximize this contribution by contributing the maximum that you are allowed to put into your 401K in which you are receiving the same amount of monies from your employer as matching funds.  These matching funds are essentially the only monies that you will directly receive from your employer as part of your "retirement" benefit and your employer contribution will fall far short of providing you the type of financial benefits that you would have previously received under a valid and more preferred pension.

Perhaps one significant reason that pensions fell out of favor with corporations is that they found that their overall commitment to employees was no longer sustainable and in lieu of employee benefit plans they moved onto stock options, incentive bonuses, and the like in which the employer can maintain better control of the overall compensation and cost to the corporation.  Also, corporations wanted to maintain flexibility, durability and sustainability in which it was perceived that pension commitments took away from those options. Additionally, stock options and incentive bonuses were met with approval and appeal to the "I want it all right now" mentality in which employees are ensnared into a belief that with just the right moves at just the right time that they too can make a lot of money in a hurry, so why worry about tomorrow.

The employees that are benefiting most from pensions in today's world are government employees.  In particular, civil servants are not only able to earn wages that are comparable or typically higher than the private sector, they also have better job protection, and far superior defined benefit plans.  This hardly makes them servants in the true sense of the word as their overall pay package and benefits are simply superior on average to the private sector.  However, certain government pensions in numerous cities, counties, and some states have come under increasing strain in not being able to stay solvent or are running huge deficits to their pension commitments and payments.

Solvent pensions work best in cities in which there is a broad-base tax base, cities that are growing in both population and employment, and cities that are fiscally conservative.  Pensions do not work well in cities that are losing population and employment, suffering from a recession, or negative changes in their tax base, and cities fare poorly that have made fiscally unsound decisions based on pie-in-the-sky projections or worst.  In those types of situations, those that have counted on their pensions may just find how insecure their pensions are and suffer the consequences at an age in which they are effectively unemployable and on their own.

Man's Law

Is man's law always right?  It can't be for a lot of reasons, one of them being that the laws of man constantly evolve and devolve, additionally man by definition is changing and fallible.  If, however, you believe that man's law is absolutely right, and should always be obeyed in any and all circumstances, than the crucifixion of our Lord on the flimsy evidence of Christ proclaiming himself a King and therefore in rebellion against Rome, in which Christ consequently suffered the penalty of this crime, which was death by crucifixion, then you would approve and commend his crucifixion.  That is man's law, not God's, and of the countless injustices here on earth, can we think of any less justified than the crucifixion of Christ.

I submit to you that man's law is ever changing and not always right, making it problematic and questionable to obey all laws, just because it is a law.  No doubt, this then does present a problem in regards to which law man must answer to.  You must as a matter of course, always answer to the Highest Law which is God's Moral law; doing so, however, will potentially bring you into conflict with man's law and therein lies a problem not easily resolved.

No man, given free will, must obey God's law or man's law for that matter, but failure to do so, will have consequences.  Obeying all of man's law is difficult because even the finest lawyers in the country don't know all the laws, or their application, or their history, or their contradictions, meaning that you as a citizen can at best, presume that you are obedient to all laws but that is merely a presumption.  But what about Moral law; how can we find it, know it, and obey it?  Moral law is something that is imprinted on our conscience.  The precepts of Moral law are the same precepts of the great prophets and messiahs of history which have in common such attributes as:  surrender (to God), sacrifice, diligence, fortitude, integrity, temperance, brotherhood, and love (of God and neighbor). Further to this point, Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, stated: “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” … “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

Man can has created many unjust and hateful laws and continues to do so until this day, because the history of man is so often the history of man's injustice and oppression of his fellow man.    Man's laws are necessary and needed in order to enforce upon mankind, proper and corrected behavior, to heal wounds, to right injustices, to protect the defenseless, to assure fair play, and as a touchstone for society at large.

True justice can only come from correct and constant application of True Law.  Man's law must be in accordance with Moral law, those laws that are not in harmony, are laws onto themselves and therefore are false laws with foundations of sand and untruth.

Integrity v. Honesty

I hear a lot about how people want you to be "honest" with them, and their request often comes across plaintively as if they are unable to ascertain whether your wordsare honest and therefore they essentially want you to self-consciously 'rat yourself out'.  I've always considered that sort of attitude to be rather lame.  You can expect that most people are "fair weather" honest folks, very few (if any) are completely honest, and some are very dishonest.  If it's in your self-interest to be honest, you're going to be honest, but you certainly don't merit any approval for that.  The line in the sand is drawn, when your self-interest or your self-image is in conflict with the honesty of a given situation, such as when you are accused of stealing something.  The answer is pretty darn clear, either you did or you didn't and the only truly honest answer is the correct answer as towards your actual actions, but for some people when the honest answer puts them in some sort of trouble, or an embarrassing situation, they give a dishonest answer.

From my viewpoint, an honest man, could in theory steal something, and not be caught nor be called account on it, and thereby justify to himself that he was still an honest man.  Whereas, a man of integrity would never contemplate the act in the first place, or, if he was placed in a position in which he did steal, he would own up to it as Jean Valjean did upon breaking a window pane and stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's children that were starving.   He paid the penalty of his crime and served his time.  Later in the novel, when the wrong man is arrested and misidentified as Jean Valjean and sentenced to death, the real Jean Valjean dramatically returns and is willing to face the music despite now being a respectable man, mayor, and successful factory owner with attendant responsibilities and duties.  Valjean cannot allow a man to be wrongly convicted of a crime that he didn't commit, no matter the consequences for himself.  These can only be the actions of a man of the utmost integrity.

If one wants to have good friends, you want friends of integrity.  For instance, an honestman might tell you that you look tired and worn out whereas a man of integrity would inquire as to whether you had been getting your proper rest, good sleep, or whether you were under any undue stress without invoking directly your looks.  An honest man, might say to his wife, when asked how she looks in a particular dress, "it makes you look really fat, honey," and not receive a smile or thanks in return.  Whereas a man of integrity would ask his wife to look at herself in the dress from different angles, demonstrating perhaps how a touch here or there might bring out her beauty more, and so forth.

Integrity is having the conviction, the courage, and the will to do the right thing even under the most trying circumstances.  Honesty is truthfulness and straightforwardness but often honestly lacks the requisite reflection, experience, and wisdom that makes up integrity. 

Free Speech

Freedom of Speech is one of our fundamental rights; in fact, it was given to us as the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.  Any assault on our freedom to speak our mind is a quasi-assault on our freedom to think our own thoughts.  There are few people that believe that our thoughts should be controlled by the state, or by religion, or by other people, yet there are many people that believe that there should be necessary strict shackles and limits on our freedom of speech and that our speech should be monitored and/or controlled by the State.  In short, that our speech, is not a right, but a privilege granted by the Government.

It is interesting to note that in James Madison's Speech of 1789 on his Proposed Amendments to the Constitution he stated the following: "The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable."  He further added:  "No state shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press."  It should be noted also that he stated:
"First. That there be prefixed to the constitution a declaration That all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from the people."

Freedom of speech is an essential right and the cornerstone of our liberty in which so many of our other rights are dependent upon it.  Free expression of ideas, opinions, and philosophies are necessary and vibrant ingredients in order for our community at large to function at an advanced and liberated state.  It is not the government's responsibility or legal right to suppress our freedom of speech.  If our speech must meet with government or private approval, than our freedom of speech has been curtailed and therefore is a sham.  While there may be exceptional circumstances in which freedoms must be constrained, the powers to do so are covered by Constitutional law.  

It is especially troubling that so many of our leading universities and higher educational institutions have implemented policies to preclude freedom of speech and freedom of the press, mainly under the guise of protecting students from bias, prejudice, inflammatory and uncivil remarks, lawsuits and the like.  In order for ideas to grow, mature, and develop, it is absolutely mandatory to have freedom of speech.  Part of maturing as an individual is dealing with adversity, by right thinking, counterpoint, and careful & reasoned reflection. 

A society in which each person is instructed to think the same, do the same, act the same, and accomplish the same, is a society that has given up its freedom of expression, its freedom of speech, and its freedom in any real conception of the word.  Without freedom of speech, we have ceded control of our lives to the tyranny of the powerful and to the elite to our own demise.  The ability to think and to express ourselves is an inalienable right that is sacrosanct and is the very essence of free will, freedom, and what our Constitution represents.  Without freedom of speech, and its attendant powers, we have ceded essential control of who we are to the State.

Franklin, Jefferson, & Washington and Christianity

Historians would have us believe that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson weren't Christians, and that George Washington was a Deist.  These beliefs are wrong and they therefore send the wrong message to posterity.  Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington were all good Christians in the most meaningful sense of the word.  A true Christian believes in a Higher Benevolent power and is therefore a brother to all men, as Christ said, "Love your neighbor as yourself," and these gentlemen embodied this sentiment to the utmost.

In 1790, Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter explaining his Creed the following: "I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe…  That the most acceptable Service we can render to him, is doing Good to his other Children."  These weren't just idle thoughts of Franklin, he practiced what he preached by accomplishing or helping to implement:

            Street cleaning, street paving, street lighting

            Fire insurance company

            Public library

            Petition for the abolition of slavery

            Mapping the gulfstream

            First volunteer fire department

            Inventor of the stove

            Bifocal glasses

            Printer and writer

            Public servant

            Entrepreneur

            Electric experiments

            First Hospital in America

            Proponent of frugality

            Diplomat

            Signed the Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Paris, and U.S. Constitution

Franklin's life was devoted to his fellow man; his pursuit of excellence, his integrity, and his industriousness were seldom matched by any other man.  Franklin is the quintessential American man, self-made, self-educated, universally respected and loved, and successful both here and abroad.

In 1789, Thomas Jefferson wrote about the importance of each generation paying its own debts as follows: "What is true of generations succeeding one another at fixed epochs… The conclusion then, is, that neither the representatives of a nation, nor the whole nation itself assembled, can validly engage debts beyond what they may pay in their own time."  His wise words have been ignored by our present generation whose imprudent government passes onto future generation's deficits that they did not incur, which is an irresponsible and un-brotherly act of selfishness.  Jefferson was known for being:

            Author of the Declaration of Independence

            Public servant

            Founding the University of Virginia

            Inventor

            Architect

            Diplomat

            Author of Statue of Virginia for Religious Freedom

            Attorney

            Governor of Virginia

            President of the USA

Jefferson's authorship of the Declaration of Independence, is the most important founding document of this great nation, in which Jefferson states that our rights are unalienable and come from the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, and that all men are created equal, and therefore our rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come from our Creator. 

George Washington wrote in 1790 the following: "For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens." Washington was:

            Surveyor         

            Farmer

            Commander of the Continental Army

            Defeated Cornwallis at Yorktown

            1st President of the United States

            Freed his slaves upon death

Washington was in a uniquely powerful position upon the completion of our successful revolutionary war against Britain, but after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, he resigned his commissioned and retired to Mount Vernon.  When his country called on him to become our first President, he completed two terms and once again retired to Mount Vernon.  Washington's actions of walking away from power were virtually unparalleled and unheard of.  This was indeed a man of real principle.

Each of these great men, Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington were not only our Founding Fathers but men of the utmost respect, accomplishments, courage, industriousness, and scruples. There are great Christians in the finest meaning of its designation and our country would not well exist without their accomplishments.

Tax Church Property

I am not a secularist and I do believe in and appreciate the great moral strength and values that good churches have provided to our Nation time and time again, to this, a God-fearing country endowed with unalienable rights by our Creator.    Having said this, I don't believe that church properties should continue to be tax exempt, especially given the trying circumstances of our present economy.  While there are a multitude of reasons why the Protestant Reformation came into being, certainly one of the more significant reasons (and not necessarily for noble reasons) was to wrest away and confiscate from the Catholic Church, their land and their properties.  Land is a form of wealth and that is why land and its attendant improvements are taxed.  It hardly seems fair that you and I must pay property taxes but churches and other tax exempt organizations aren't legally required to do so.

The best way of looking at taxing churches is simply to see it as the cost of "doing business" in this real material world.  Property tax rates do vary from community to community and state to state with estimated percentages of .18% to 1.89% annually paid, which is usually based on the present value of the property, but not always.  Additionally, some communities have caps on how much increase a given property will be assessed on a yearly basis, and there are deductions for ownership, your physical age, disabilities and the like, so the amount of property taxes due, varies given the circumstances involved.  If we were to use the ballpark percentage of 1% of the present value for church properties to be taxed, that amount seems like something that would be manageable by churches and wouldn't crush them or place churches under an overwhelming burden when it came to actually tendering payment of those taxes.

According to patheos.com, University of Tampa professor Ryan T. Cragun along with students Stephanie Yeager and Desmond Vega estimate: "that States bypass an estimated $26.2 billion per year by not requiring religious institutions to pay property taxes."  So the amount of money that could be collected in tax revenue in aggregate is a significant amount which would be welcomed by the taxing authorities.  While we should expect the usual "gnawing of teeth and complaining" about being taxed, this allows the churches to have "skin in the game" and a real voice about how our tax dollars are collected and spent.  Additionally, one could make a strong argument that the current tax structure in reference to churches, is in direct violation of our 1st Amendment which states in part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." By virtue of the fact  that Churches are tax-exempt from property taxes, this means that the Government subsidies Church property which is in contradistinction to "…shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."  However, the Supreme Court in its 1970 Walz decision upheld the tax exemption of churches.  Justice Douglas dissented in that opinion and he referenced James Madison (father of the constitution) in which Madison fought the Virginia Assessment Bill of 1794 which as Douglas writes: "That bill levied a tax for the support of Christian churches, leaving to each taxpayer the choice as to "what society of Christians" he wanted the tax paid, and, absent such designation, the tax was to go for education." Madison stated: "Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us…As the Bill violates equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens, so it violates the same principle, by granting to others peculiar exemptions."

Because of James Madison, the Virginia Assessment Bill of 1794 was defeated.  Madison's reasoning is sound today and will form the well-reasoned foundation for the overturning of the property tax exemption for Churches in the future.

CEO Pay

First off, private corporations are not the same as publicly-owned companies which are traded on the stock exchange.  While there isn't any doubt that I have something also to say about private corporations and their compensation structure, I will leave that for another time and just concentrate on the elephant in the boardroom of our publicly held corporations.  Corporate executive pay and compensation packages are too high, have been too high for an unseemly extended period of time, and don't seem to be on any path except the insanely steep arc that they are currently on.

For those that believe that that is just the way it is and therefore just to deal with it, I must beg to differ.  These are corporations that are publicly traded, usually of massive size, and consequently must be held to a higher standard that is in turn consistent with American values and historical precedent.  CEO pay is a sick sideshow that is wholly antithetical to America, which encourages and encompasses quid pro quo approvals by lackey Board of Directors who seem to serve no other purpose than to sell the illusion that they have a real interest in prudent corporate governance.  While there are exceptions to all of the above, there are far more that follow this present formula down to the 'T'.

The biggest boosts to CEO salaries are cash bonuses, stock options, and restricted stock issues, not to mention lucrative compensation packages that include second homes, country club memberships, private air travel, exclusive vacation packages, limousines, executive office perks with benefits, tax consultants, and just about anything that you could possibly imagine of which very little has to do with the actual requirements that the job entails.  While it is argued, that corporate packages have to be competitive in order to attract and maintain talent, that is in itself a slippery slope and doesn't on its own justify the top-heavy compensation packages that benefit an elite few while under compensating others and short-changing stockholders as a whole.

The most egregious forms of overcompensation are stock options and restricted stock, while there has been out-and-out fraud with backdating of options, and falsely augmented earnings, I want to just concentrate on the options themselves.  Greed is an incredibly motivating force and when corporate executives know what their stock option exercise price is, many of them will essentially do whatever it takes to goose their stock to affect that higher stock price.  Buybacks of stock by the company are ostensibly justified as good value, but often the real reason is to reduce the amount of shares outstanding so as to boost earnings and thereby the stock price.  Additionally, a study by P. Raghavendra Rau, Michael J. Cooper, andHuseyin Gulen as reported by qz.com found to their surprise: "…that those that were most generous with stock-based incentives saw stock-market returns lag those of similar-sized companies in the same industries, by about 8% over three years."

Recently, restricted stock compensation has become more prevalent in more corporations.  Basically, restricted stock is common stock in which the CEO will become vested and thereby can "earn" those shares over an agreed upon period of time.  CEOs like this form of compensation because unlike options they don't need to worry as to whether their shares will be "in the money" as their restricted stock is pretty much a sure thing for their overall compensation package, subject only to the vicissitudes of the market and their continued employment.

According to toomuchonline.org, "Three decades ago, in 1982, American CEOs averaged 42 times more than average U.S. workers. Two decades ago, in 1992, the gap stood at 201 times. A decade ago: 281 times. The latest ratio: the 354 times." CEO pay increases can possibly be curtailed or stymied by an active and concerned mutual fund industry, common stockholders united in purpose, media that continues to expose this inherent inequality, and a Board of Directors that takes its stewardship of its corporate responsibilities seriously with true fiduciary duty.

Underage Drinking

Very few countries have a legal drinking age of 21, with the USA being one of them.  It hasn't always been that way, the legal age to drink in America use to be 18, but that was overturned in 1984.  Changing the minimum drinking age from 18 to 21 was a travesty of justice for several reasons which I expand upon below.

In 1971 the 26th Amendment to the Constitution was pass, which enabled the voting age to drop from 21 to 18 throughout our nation.  This was an important step in enfranchising those that did not have a vote in a time in which they were subject to a draft at the age of 18.  This also confirmed that for the vast majority of states, the legal age in which you essentially moved from being treated as juvenile to an adult was now at 18.  Consequently, we can conclude that at age 18, decisions that you made, were no longer mitigated by being a juvenile, yet this appears directly contradicted by the drinking age moving from 18 to 21 in 1984.

Either you are an adult at age 18 or you are not.  As an adult, you should be able to engage in all activities that other adults have the right to participate in.  By taking adults of the ages 18-20, and arbitrarily deciding that they cannot consume alcohol base on nothing more than capricious whim, you have created a 2nd class of citizenry in which these particular citizens are having their 14th Amendment Rights violated.  The 14th Amendment states:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges…. …nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"

Additionally, there is a misperception which you often see in laws, that by virtue of passing a particular law, that you will modify or change behavior so as to not violate that new law.  In fact, what happens when you pass a bad and unjust law is that you take what use to be normal law-abiding citizens and make them law-breaking citizens by virtue of a bogus law.  This gives the police and courts more power over citizens since they can apply the law at virtually any time against citizens as a form of arbitrary punitive punishment.

It is not for me and you, to decide whether a young adult of ages 18-20, should or should not consume alcoholic beverages.  If alcohol consumption is pure evil, than why is it tolerated for those that are 21 and above.  There are several countries that do not permit alcohol consumption whatsoever; why not try to pass a Constitutional Amendment to that effect and thereby make the law equally fair.

If the United States wants to keep the age to legally consume alcohol at 21, then why not change the law to define all those that are under the age of 21 as juveniles, and subsequently change all laws to reflect that fact. 

If not, it seems clear to me, that if you are old enough to be drafted or to serve your country at age 18, you should also be old enough to legally take a drink.

Tax Porn

The USA taxes the hell out of cigarettes and alcohol.  In fact, In FY11, with a federal excise tax on cigarettes at $1.01 per pack, $15.1 billion dollars in tax revenue for the federal government was collected in 2011. In FY 2011, states collected an additional $17.7 billion in tax revenues from cigarette companies.  These above taxes for cigarettes do not take into account that in most states sales taxes are added which produced even more tax revenue from cigarette sales.  According to RJ Reynolds the "government per-pack profit from cigarettes in 2011 was $3.68 (or 66 percent of the cost of a pack of cigarettes)".

Alcohol taxation is divided into the three basic categories of: wine, beer, and spirits.  For FY11 over $6.24 billion dollars in tax revenue was generated from alcohol sales for state and local taxes according to the taxpolicycenter.org.  There is also a federal excise tax on alcohol depending on whether it is beer, wine, or spirits in which in FY07 a total of $9.35 billion dollars in revenue was collected.  Additionally, most states have a sales tax for alcohol which too brings in additional revenue.

Sin taxes for alcohol and cigarettes are pretty much accepted by the general public and are undoubtedly here to stay as they have generated massive revenues for engaging in something that is a personal choice and which has some nasty health issues.  It is somewhat surprising though that porn, adult entertainment, and the like have somehow skated their way through without having to pay the piper some sin taxes.  This should rightly change and it should change immediately. 

The sin tax for porn should consist of a special tax on all media, all adult novelty stores, and all men's clubs and should be divided between a federal tax and a state and local tax.  The tax percentage should be huge, as in a double-digit percentage, and it should simply be looked upon by entrepreneurs as the cost of doing business.  With the exception of a few localities, there aren't all that many municipalities that encourage this type of business or desire it so for those that insist upon entering the adult world of porn, the price for that admission should be a sin tax.

As for the patrons that solicit these types of establishments, it will end up costing you a few more dollars to get your entertainment or your x-rated media or your adult novelties and the businesses that you frequent will continue to stay open and even perhaps innovate to adjust to the new economics.

I'm not sure how porn and the adult entertainment business have survived so long without facing a sin tax but certainly it is their turn to step up and face the music.  While I suspect there will be a hue and cry from everybody, in the end, businesses will adjust, patrons will adjust, entertainers will adjust, and somehow it will be business as usual, but with the government getting a much bigger piece of the action in return for allowing these sinful businesses to continue to operate.

Seems fair enough.

Superbowl PPV

Boxing was once shown for free on commercial TV but now all the big events are on Pay-per-view or on a premium channel such as HBO or Showtime.  Mixed martial arts started off on PPV and that hasn't changed for the big events.  For better or for worst, PPV is here to stay.  Additionally, the NFL is a sophisticated money-making machine and there isn't any doubt that they have thought about PPV.  Let's run the numbers.

For Superbowl XLVII nearly 114 million Americans tuned into the game.  To get a perspective, the biggest PPV event to date is the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight in 2007 which generated 2.48 million buys.  However, the Mayweather-Canelo fight of 2013 exceeded 2 million and may have been greater than 2.48 million buys once the final tabulations are in.  The pricing for the Mayweather-Canelo fight was $65 for standard definition and $75 for hi-definition.

First, let's start with the pricing.  The average cell phone bill is somewhere around $70/month and I think it's pretty easy to equate this special Superbowl PPV event as just a one-time extra cell phone payment or alternatively the average NFL ticket price for a regular season game is approximately $80 so that works as well. I really don't believe that you can start off with a Superbowl PPV at triple digits (e.g. $100), so pricing of $75 for standard definition and $85 for hi-definition seems to be something that would be considered fair and would be acceptable to the general public. 

How many buys would be generated?  The Superbowl is almost an all-day event to begin with but you could maybe add further to it by coming up with exclusive access to pregame activities involving the preparation of the big game and also the postgame activities, which would truly provide you with one-of-a-kind,  full, complete and comprehensive coverage.  Consequently, nothing of substance would be programmed against this once-in-a-year event.   

Another thing to take into consideration is much like a boxing event, the Superbowl is an experience in which the typical audience is made up of friends, family, fellow workers, etc., and so with each person contributing their fair share the PPV price doesn't appear prohibitive at all.  This would probably equate to a very high buy rate, perhaps as large as 25 million peoples and using a $80 average buy rate, the overall initial gross would be $2 billion and that estimate is truly conservative; additionally this hasn't taken into consideration the PPV at movie theatres showing the Superbowl, or PPV at bars, overseas revenues, or revenues generated from commercials.

Obviously the biggest supporters of the PPV event would be the owners in the NFL, the players, and the bars which should see their business revenues jump.  The biggest loser would be the general public but with the NFL being the most popular sport and this being a once-in-a-year event, that public would probably suck it up and get use to it.  There is little doubt that this Superbowl PPV is coming, it is inevitable.

Peak oil

I believe in peak oil as written and described by M. King Hubbert, Ph.D., the esteemed geologist in 1956.  According to his 2nd scenario Hubbert believed that the USA would achieve its peak oil production in 1970, which it in fact did.  In 1970 according to eia.gov the United States produced an average of 9,637,000 barrels per day.  Subsequently, this production amount has never been matched or bettered by the United States and realistically probably never will be.

Still, even forty years after peak oil, the USA and world at large somehow manages to find and extract enough oil globally to keep the world economy going.  The primary reason that this is so is the massive increase in the price of oil since 1956, the year, that Hubbert published his paper.  In 1956, according to ioga.com the average price of a barrel of oil in the USA was $2.90.  In 2013, the average price of a barrel of oil in the USA is $87.67.  If you add inflation onto the $2.90 you would get a price in present-day dollars of approximately $24.16 that leaves us with a massive dollar increase of over 350% in a barrel of oil over the ensuing years--inflation adjusted.  While one can contribute this increase to several factors, the largest factor by far would be that the monetary cost of extracting a barrel of oil has gone up considerably.  This would indicate that it is technology, ingenuity, and scientific breakthroughs that have allowed us and other countries to produce the amount of oil that we need over the ensuing years as opposed to any mistaken viewpoint that oil is plentiful and abundant.

In his book, Twilight in the Desert, Matthew R. Simmons states: "From 1930 onward, the United States had so much oil that state agencies in Texas and Oklahoma prorated output among all producers allowing each to produce oil for only a limited number of days each month.  These proration policies were established to prevent oil prices from dropping so low that the US oil industry would disintegrate.  Proration remained in place until the end of the 1960s."

Not only are those days, long gone, they will never in our lifetimes come back.  We need only go back one hundred years to recognize that oil has its definite peaks, as shown in Leviathan: the History of Whaling in America, author Eric Jay Dolan stated: "During 1847, its most productive year for oil production, the American whaling industry processed just over 430,000 barrels of sperm and whale oil combined."  Whale oil was supplanted by crude oil and the history of whale oil has been mainly forgotten by mankind.

Hubbert believed that the bell curve was applicable to USA oil production and the United States has followed the downward slope of that curve, although it must be said in the last couple of years, production of oil in the United States has gone up.  Again, that is mainly a function of price and also most definitely a function of necessity.

While our country uses many resources to keep its economy going, oil, in particular the access, the availability, and the extraction of oil is not only mandatory, but it is fundamental and absolutely critical to our livelihoods.  Globally, six out of the top seven companies in revenue, are in fact, oil and gas companies.     

Officer Krupke

I recently returned home from a flight at 12:20AM.  Upon entering my vehicle I had a clear goal to get to my home promptly.  As you might imagine, traffic was very light and as I cruised down the last main stretch towards my home, I tried to maintain a speed of approximately 12-13 MPH above the posted speed limit. As a reference, in my community, it's a two-point violation for speeding 15 MPH  above the speed limit and it appears per GA code that in order for a radar device to be used against you in a court of law you need to be exceeding the posted speed limit by more than 10 MPH.  Therefore, all things being equal, you're probably pretty safe doing 8-9 MPH above the stated speed limit, and if you want to push your luck a little bit, as long as you're doing less than 15MPH above the speed limit, it won't count against you on your driving record, so that is the mindset that I have while driving.

As I finished that stretch and pulled up to the stoplight I then saw the strangest thing.  A cop on the opposite side of the street had turned right and then stopped his patrol car almost parallel to my car.  He didn't have his flashing lights on, he wasn't moving, and it was just plain weird.  I didn't see that as a good sign but he did drive off and so after the light turned green, I was really eager to get on home, lest this madness catch me.  As I drove down the street I noticed that there was a car trailing behind me, not on me, but I could catch him in my rear mirror, I turned right and sure enough there he was again.  I was still speeding but I was keeping it under 10MPH above the limit, finally I turned down my street to my house and this car was still on me and although it was dark out and I could not see the outlines of the vehicle I was pretty much convinced that this had to be 5-0.  Sure enough, he turned his blue lights on, about 50 feet from my driveway.  I pulled into my driveway, press the button to open up the garage door and put my vehicle in park.  I slowly reached over to my wallet and pulled out my driver's license and rolled my window down.

The cop approached my car and before he could even say anything I just handed him my license.  "You live here," he said.  "I sure do," I answered.  Then he wanted to talk for a second, saying that his radar gun had me going 100 MPH on the original main stretch that I had been cruising down on.  The fact that he would even say that was beyond absurd.  It was just not the type of road that you could open it up to 100 MPH, even if you were intent on doing so as that road had too many dips, too many curves, and occasionally too many deer.  I answered him by looking him straight in the eye, and stating, "I definitely wasn't going 100 MPH."  He admitted that he thought he had a false positive but he never did show me the radar gun, or perhaps it was all a pathetic ploy to get me to incriminate myself.  "You been drinking?" he asked.  "No," I responded, and he didn't take that thought any further.  "Where you coming from?"  "The airport, I just got back from Las Vegas."  "Is your bag in the trunk?"  "Nope, it's right here by me, in this backpack."  He didn't seem to believe that and so I proceeded to tell him that I pack light, which in fact, I do.  He then told me that he had me going 50 MPH in a 40 MPH zone which I didn't respond to and a couple times he excused himself to check on whatever.

I had several factors in my favor.  I was the same race as the officer.  I was approximately the same age as the officer. I hadn't been drinking, there was no traffic on the road, and the weather was clear. Also, I drive a really nice car and live in a really nice neighborhood and despite his trying to pin some bogus 100 MPH claim, he didn't have me for excessive speeding, even the so-called 10 MPH above the limit, was probably not supported by the radar gun.  So all is well that ends well.  But how if I was: a different race, lived in a worst neighborhood, drove a beat-up car, or my record wasn't clean, or had a drink or two.  How then would it have played out?

Immigration

Immigration is a complicated subject but it's best to remember this fundamental truth that we are truly a nation of immigrants that founded this great nation and developed it.  The United States has had many periods of heavy immigration from Europe in which some of these periods have been quite controversial.  There was blowback against the Irish, Germans, Italians, Russians, Chinese and the creeds of Catholicism and Jewish peoples.   Yet, through it all we have adapted and grown stronger.  With the symbolic walls of America having grown tall and impregnable for legal immigration which has trickled down to a bare few, we have on the other hand have had gaping gaps in our wall which has allowed a huge influx of illegal immigration into our country during the last half century or so.

Although America is bordered by two countries, the vast majority of the illegal immigration has come from Mexico and not from Canada.  Canada is a huge country, lightly populated, with a standard of living which is comparable to the USA and which also has a vibrant middle class.  Whereas in Mexico, which is a relatively poor country, made poorer by the widely unequal division of income, so consequently most of the peoples are impoverished with little hope or room for improvement.  It is this lack of opportunity that impresses upon Mexicans a desire to improve their lives for themselves and their families by immigrating to the USA.

It is estimated that we are a nation of over 11 million illegal immigrants and although we have a long border with Mexico which is patrolled, has fences, and security, this border appears to be relatively easy to breach.  Not only that, but it's only fair to admit that, virtually all government agencies and employers that need cheap labor are complicit in the success of the illegal immigrants inro this country.  Quite frankly, there simply is no way that 11 million illegal immigrants could be within our borders without the powers-to-be looking either the other way or actively encouraging their immigration.  If this nation truly wanted to do something about illegal immigration it could but it has chosen not to.

Still it is short-sighted for the USA to have such a restricted level of legal immigration, while admitting in through the backdoor scores upon scores of illegal immigrants.  This is not only a violation of our laws, it also has unintended consequences, in which illegal aliens can be exploited by not only the "coyotes" who provide passage into the United States but also by the companies or agencies that knowingly employ them.

Currently, the numbers of illegal immigrants are so large that the only fair solution is an Amnesty program so that these immigrants can be normalized within the United States.  There should be a broad support for legal residency with stricter qualifications being needed for citizenship.  Those that do not meet these requirements can apply for "guest worker" status, and those that are unqualified for any of the above should be deported to their country of origin. 

Current United States policies discriminate against those that follow the rules for immigration, while knowingly allowing others to circumvent our policies.  It is high time to adjust to the realities of our present situation, to make much needed changes, and to update our immigration policies.