“http://www.youtube.com/v/RrX3xfxbyx8&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3“

“Questions of Travel”:

Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
what childishness is it that while there’s a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.

. . . . . . . . .

—And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians’ speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
n which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:

“Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one’s room?”

The question rings large and the answer seems to be right on the tip of the tongue,  still  I don’t think the poet quite sees the answer.    Perhaps the answer is best stated and left for us to ponder in quotes from Jean Paul Sartre and Soren Kierkegaard.  Sartre opined that “Life ceases to have any meaning the moment the illusion of being eternal departs from us”.  To which Kierkegaard a century earlier had observed that, ” Faith is the passion of all human beings. Many in every generation never come that far, but no one in any generation comes farther”.  We will leave it at that.

The economy is depressed, people are out of work, real estate is in the tank and people are just generally fed up with a declining standard of living and the politicians that have caused most of the problems.   If this is your view of life in the twenty first century, let us consider what life was like a few hundred years ago in the middle ages.

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.  However, since they were starting to smell .  …..  .

Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.

Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.  The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children.  Last of all the babies.  By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it..  Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water!”

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath.  It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof.  When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.  Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.  This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed.  Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection.  That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt.  Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.  Hence the saying, “Dirt poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing.  As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside.  A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.  Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire..  Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot.  They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat.  They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day.  Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while.  Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.  Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.  When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off.  It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home the bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter.  Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing death by lead poisoning.  This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status.  Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.  Hence:  The rich people or special people are called the “upper crust”

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey.  The combination of lead and alchol would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.  The inbibers would collapse on the road. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.  They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up.  Hence, the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people.  So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave.  When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive.  So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.

Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer

Well perhaps things aren’t so bad after all.  I think I’ll take the problems that we have today, as difficult as they may seem, rather than longing for the non-existent bucolic past.   Just a thought.

This is Rudolf Havenstein. The name probably means nothing to most people. However, during the hyper-inflation in Germany that commenced after WWI.,  this man was the President of the German Central Banking System.  He held essentially the same position that Ben Bernanke holds in the U.S. today.   When Germany needed more money to fight WWI. Mr.  Havenstein printed more, regardless of the fact that there was nothing of value to back it.  When Germany lost the war and was being pressed for Reparations Money owed to the Victors, Mr. Havenstein simply printed more.  Mr. Havenstein believed that the answer to all of Germany’s financial difficulties was to simply print more money.  He eventually printed so much worthless money that the once strong German currency collapsed due to Hyper-Inflation.   The German people suffered  and the rise of Adolf Hitler came about partially because of the incompetence of Mr. Havenstein.  Ben Bernanke is an economist and a student of history. Mr. Bernanke knows who Rudolf Havenstein was and is fully aware of the mess the man-made of the German economy, yet he persists in following the same path that will lead the U.S.  to possible hyper-inflation and collapse of the U.S. Dollar.  Every day the price of commodities go higher.  Gold is at a price level never seen before and continues to rise every day.  Oil is getting very close to the $100 a barrel level again.  The reason for this is not that there is any shortage of these products. The reason for the unseemly rise in prices is that the Dollar is becoming worthless because of Mr. Bernankes printing  of currency that has nothing of tangible value to back it.   Mr. Bernanke is playing with dynamite and he knows it.  He has run out of tools to deal with the faltering economy, but feels he must do something even if that something is very risky.  We always tend to think that when men reach high office and positions of great responsibility that they are immune from falling prey to the foolish missteps of the less competent.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Mr. Bernanke needs to set vanity aside,  admit that the Federal Reserve has exhausted its legitimate remedies and put an end to the printing of more worthless currency.

This is not an idea that is original to the President.   This method is frequently used by State and Local Government to finance Public Education and the building of  “Roads to Nowhere”.     Thanks to Rube Goldberg for his on target assessment of the arcane and Byzantine methods that politicians come up with to  make people think that government is  giving them something that will cost them nothing.   The  ” Lame Duck Congress”  will continue to try and foment fiscal mischief for the next three or four weeks.  LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

“The meritoriousness of your complaint is directly proportional to the condition of those you are complaining to.  The illustration is from the  Steven Pastis  cartoon  “Pearls Before Swine ” He  has really hit the nail on the head with this entry from today’s newspaper. Very often great wisdom and heady observation emerge from the wonderful little characters in this thoughtful little comic strip.  Kudos to Mr. Pastis



I answer that it can be proved in five ways that God exists.

The first and plainest is the method that proceeds from the point of view of motion. It is certain and in accord with experience, that things on earth undergo change. Now, everything that is moved is moved by something; nothing, indeed, is changed, except it is changed to something which it is in potentiality. Moreover, anything moves in accordance with something actually existing; change itself, is nothing else than to bring forth something from potentiality into actuality. Now, nothing can be brought from potentiality to actual existence except through something actually existing: thus heat in action, as fire, makes fire-wood, which is hot in potentiality, to be hot actually, and through this process, changes itself. The same thing cannot at the same time be actually and potentially the same thing, but only in regard to different things. What is actually hot cannot be at the same time potentially hot, but it is possible for it at the same time to be potentially cold. It is impossible, then, that anything should be both mover and the thing moved, in regard to the same thing and in the same way, or that it should move itself. Everything, therefore, is moved by something else. If, then, that by which it is moved, is also moved, this must be moved by something still different, and this, again, by something else. But this process cannot go on to infinity because there would not be any first mover, nor, because of this fact, anything else in motion, as the succeeding things would not move except because of what is moved by the first mover, just as a stick is not moved except through what is moved from the hand. Therefore it is necessary to go back to some first mover, which is itself moved by nothing—and this all men know as God.

The second proof is from the nature of the efficient cause. We find in our experience that there is a chain of causes: nor is it found possible for anything to be the efficient cause of itself, since it would have to exist before itself, which is impossible. Nor in the case of efficient causes can the chain go back indefinitely, because in all chains of efficient causes, the first is the cause of the middle, and these of the last, whether they be one or many. If the cause is removed, the effect is removed. Hence if there is not a first cause, there will not be a last, nor a middle. But if the chain were to go back infinitely, there would be no first cause, and thus no ultimate effect, nor middle causes, which is admittedly false. Hence we must presuppose some first efficient cause—which all call God.

The third proof is taken from the natures of the merely possible and necessary. We find that certain things either may or may not exist, since they are found to come into being and be destroyed, and in consequence potentially, either existent or non-existent. But it is impossible for all things that are of this character to exist eternally, because what may not exist, at length will not. If, then, all things were merely possible (mere accidents), eventually nothing among things would exist. If this is true, even now there would be nothing, because what does not exist, does not take its beginning except through something that does exist. If then nothing existed, it would be impossible for anything to begin, and there would now be nothing existing, which is admittedly false. Hence not all things are mere accidents, but there must be one necessarily existing being. Now every necessary thing either has a cause of its necessary existence, or has not. In the case of necessary things that have a cause for their necessary existence, the chain of causes cannot go back infinitely, just as not in the case of efficient causes, as proved. Hence there must be presupposed something necessarily existing through its own nature, not having a cause elsewhere but being itself the cause of the necessary existence of other things—which all call God.

The fourth proof arises from the degrees that are found in things. For there is found a greater and a less degree of goodness, truth, nobility, and the like. But more or less are terms spoken of various things as they approach in diverse ways toward something that is the greatest, just as in the case of hotter (more hot) which approaches nearer the greatest heat. There exists therefore something that is the truest, and best, and most noble, and in consequence, the greatest being. For what are the greatest truths are the greatest beings, as is said in the Metaphysics Bk. II. 2. What moreover is the greatest in its way, in another way is the cause of all things of its own kind (or genus); thus fire, which is the greatest heat, is the cause of all heat, as is said in the same book (cf. Plato and Aristotle). Therefore there exists something that is the cause of the existence of all things and of the goodness and of every perfection whatsoever—and this we call God.

The fifth proof arises from the ordering of things for we see that some things which lack reason, such as natural bodies, are operated in accordance with a plan. It appears from this that they are operated always or the more frequently in this same way the closer they follow what is the Highest; whence it is clear that they do not arrive at the result by chance but because of a purpose. The things, moreover, that do not have intelligence do not tend toward a result unless directed by some one knowing and intelligent; just as an arrow is sent by an archer. Therefore there is something intelligent by which all natural things are arranged in accordance with a plan—and this we call God.

In response to the first objection, then, I reply what Augustine says; that since God is entirely good, He would permit evil to exist in His works only if He were so good and omnipotent that He might bring forth good even from the evil. It therefore pertains to the infinite goodness of God that he permits evil to exist and from this brings forth good.

My reply to the second objection is that since nature is ordered in accordance with some defined purpose by the direction of some superior agent, those things that spring from nature must be dependent upon God, just as upon a first cause. Likewise, what springs from a proposition must be traceable to some higher cause which is not the human reason or will, because this is changeable and defective and everything changeable and liable to non-existence is dependent upon some unchangeable first principle that is necessarily self-existent as has been shown.

[The biggest political change in my lifetime is that Americans no longer assume that their children will have it better than they did. This is a huge break with the past, with assumptions and traditions that shaped us.

The country I was born into was a country that had existed steadily, for almost two centuries, as a nation in which everyone thought—wherever they were from, whatever their circumstances—that their children would have better lives than they did. That was what kept people pulling their boots on in the morning.]

Ms. Noonan is absolutely correct in this observation. My own experience (having been born in 1943) gives me the same sense that all is not right or deserving of the same sense of optimism that I knew as a child and for most of my adult life.  She further goes on to state that:

[Parents now fear something has stopped. They think they lived through the great abundance, a time of historic growth in wealth and material enjoyment. They got it, and they enjoyed it, and their kids did, too: a lot of toys in that age, a lot of Xboxes and iPhones. (Who is the most self-punishing person in America right now? The person who didn't do well during the abundance.) But they look around, follow the political stories and debates, and deep down they think their children will live in a more limited country, that jobs won't be made at a great enough pace, that taxes—too many people in the cart, not enough pulling it—will dishearten them, that the effects of 30 years of a low, sad culture will leave the whole country messed up. And then there is the world: nuts with nukes, etc]

These are not attitudes that are conducive to a healthy democracy and certainly should not be taken lightly or ignored. Yet Ms. Noonan states that the hubris of todays political class is doing exactly this:

[But do our political leaders have any sense of what people are feeling deep down? They don't act as if they do. I think their detachment from how normal people think is more dangerous and disturbing than it has been in the past. I started noticing in the 1980s the growing gulf between the country's thought leaders, as they're called—the political and media class, the universities—and those living what for lack of a better word we'll call normal lives on the ground in America. The two groups were agitated by different things, concerned about different things, had different focuses, different world views.

But I've never seen the gap wider than it is now. I think it is a chasm. In Washington they don't seem to be looking around and thinking, Hmmm, this nation is in trouble, it needs help. They're thinking something else. I'm not sure they understand the American Dream itself needs a boost, needs encouragement and protection. They don't seem to know or have a sense of the mood of the country.

And so they make their moves, manipulate this issue and that, and keep things at a high boil. And this at a time when people are already in about as much hot water as they can take.]

The refusal of Washington to do anything about immigration other than thwart the will of the public and interfere with the State of Arizona because they are doing something about it is a perfect illustration of what Ms. Noonan has observed above.  Even if November’s election were to be a watershed of change it is doubtful that the public’s wishes will be carried out in regard to the immigration issue. This is a dangerous situation and the demise of  democracies have been prompted by lesser issues than this. Ms. Noonan concludes by stating:

[When the adults of a great nation feel long-term pessimism, it only makes matters worse when those in authority take actions that reveal their detachment from the concerns—even from the essential nature—of their fellow citizens. And it makes those citizens feel powerless.

Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combination]

I could not agree more with Ms. Noonan in her conclusion.  We can only hope and pray that those who we elect to public office will re-connect to the attitudes and hopes of the constituents who have put them there before America as we know it implodes.

Atheist apologists seem always eager to assert that faith is belief without evidence, notwithstanding that no religion I’m aware of sees it that way (Christianity surely does not) and that dictionaries don’t define it that way.

That this idea is wrong gets further support from Diana L. Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University and Director of The Pluralism Project:

Traditionally, “believe” means “belove.” It doesn’t mean, “I think so, but I’m not sure.” It doesn’t mean, “I accept this intellectually because I have the evidence.” No, believing is a matter of the heart. The Latin credo with which the great Christian creeds begin means: I give my heart to this.

The word “believe” has gradually changed its meaning from conveying certainty so deep that I commit my life to it, to conveying uncertainty so unstable that only the “credulous” would rely on it. But faith is simply not about propositions, but about commitment.

To say that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is to say “I love this Jesus Christ,” and I do. Jesus enables me to see something of God that I do not know in any other way: God truly grounded in the soil of human life and death, and hope beyond death. God who does not rescue us out of this world, but who accompanies us in this world, even in the darkest times. God who is as close to us as our neighbor, as close to us as the stranger. God who surprises us with divine presence as we walk along the road to a familiar place. God who comes not as a judge, but as a child.

To say, “I believe in Jesus Christ” is not to subscribe to a dogma or proposition, but to express a deep commitment to God among us, to God’s presence, justice, and love here on earth.

There is no possible way that anyone could convey this message any better.  Today we are deluged with books by Christopher Hitchens and other angry Atheists.  Christianity is under attack today as much as it has been at any time in history and there seem to be few able defenders to counteract these attacks.  Christian Art, Music, Literature and influence are mediocre by past historical standards.  The Church is judged today by the Charlatans, Televangelists, Pedophile Priests and Pretenders who dominate the Popular Culture.  It is indeed ironic that a Professor at a secular university has been able to state  so eruditely what every Christian should be able to clearly profess.

1.   Do restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable?

2.  Does mandatory licensing of professional services increase the price of those services?

3.  Is the standard of living in the U.S. today by and large higher than it was 30 years ago.

4. Does rent control lead to housing shortages?

5.  Is a company with the largest market share a monopoly?

6.  Are Third World workers working for American companies overseas being exploited?

7.  Does Free Trade lead to unemployment?

8.  Do minimum wage laws raise unemployment?

The answers are: 1. yes  2. yes  3. yes  4. yes  5. no  6.no  7. no  8. yes

By an overwhelming margin Conservatives and Independents did better than Liberals in correctly answering the eight questions.  Liberals on average incorrectly answered about 5.2% of  the questions.  Conservatives  missed at an average of  about 1.6%  and Independents including Libertarians did slightly better at a 1.4% average incorrect answers.

As a young man I was fascinated for a time in understanding Marxist economic theory.  I remember being very aware of the liberal fellow travelers of the time. They were overwhelmingly Liberal Democrats who liked to engage in the revolutionary jargon of the Marxists,but if you talked with them you quickly realized that they were painfully ignorant of the economic theories that went along with the rhetoric.  Today we have much the same thing occurring as Liberal Democrats try to manage a staggering economy that they know very little about.  Sadder yet is that the constituents that put them in office know even less.   The economist Adam Smith believed that giving the power of government to the uninformed was a terrible thing, but not something that is unusual. I think that if we look at the present administration in Washington and the voters who put them there, we may begin to understand why things just aren’t getting much better.

This is the Sun Liner model for 1954. Note the great tail lights and the very wide white wall tires.

Another view of the 1954 model year.  Fender skirts were very popular in the late 40′s and early to mid 50′s.  These skirts were very minimal compared to some that were used on earlier models.

(The return to the gold standard is supported by many followers of the Austrian School of Economics, Objectivists and libertarians [5] largely because they object to the role of the government in issuing fiat currency through central banks. A significant number of gold standard advocates also call for a mandated end to fractional reserve banking.^{[citation needed]}

U.S. Congressman Ron Paul has continually argued for the reinstatement of the gold standard, but is no longer a strict advocate, instead supporting a basket of commodities that is voted upon by the free markets.)

I think that  Congressman Paul  has seen that most voters don’t seem to be ready for any such reform as a Gold Standard and that the entire present mind-set and ideology of interest groups, politicians and voters would have to be changed.   The following disadvantages of a return to a Gold standard are noted here from the same Wikipedia entry:

Disadvantages

Gold prices (US$ per ounce) since 1968, in nominal US$ and inflation adjusted US$.

• A gold standard leads to deflation whenever an economy using the gold standard grows faster than the gold supply. When an economy grows faster than its money supply, the same money is used to execute a larger number of transactions. The only ways an economy can execute more transactions with the same amount of money are to execute transactions more quickly, and to lower the cost of the transactions. As deflation drives costs down, the value of each unit of money goes up. This increases the value of cash, but it decreases the value of assets, since the same asset can be purchased with less money. This in turn increases the ratio of debts to assets over time. For example, the monthly cost of a fixed-rate home mortgage stays the same, but the value of the house goes down, and the value of the dollars required to pay the mortgage goes up. In essence, deflation rewards cash savings, and discourages the use of loans.
• The total amount of gold that has ever been mined has been estimated at around 142,000 metric tons.^[17] Assuming a gold price of US$1,000 per ounce, or $32,500 per kilogram, the total value of all the gold ever mined would be around $4.5 trillion. This is less than the value of circulating money in the U.S. alone, where more than $8.3 trillion is in circulation or in deposit (M2).^[18] Therefore, a return to the gold standard, if also combined with a mandated end to fractional reserve banking, would result in a significant increase in the current value of gold, which may limit its use in current applications.^[19] For example, instead of using the ratio of $1,000 per ounce, the ratio can be defined as $2,000 per ounce effectively raising the value of gold to $9 trillion. However, this is specifically a disadvantage of return to the gold standard and not the efficacy of the gold standard itself. Some gold standard advocates consider this to be both acceptable and necessary^[20] whilst others who are not opposed to fractional reserve banking argue that only base currency and not deposits would need to be replaced.^{[citation needed]} The amount of such base currency (M0) is only about one tenth as much as the figure (M2) listed above.^[21]
• Many economists believe that economic recessions can be largely mitigated by increasing money supply during economic downturns.^[22] Following a gold standard would mean that the amount of money would be determined by the supply of gold, and hence monetary policy could no longer be used to stabilize the economy in times of economic recession.^[23] Such reason is often employed to partially blame the gold standard for the Great Depression, citing that the Federal Reserve couldn’t expand credit enough to offset the deflationary forces at work in the market. Opponents of this viewpoint have argued that gold stocks were available to the Federal Reserve for credit expansion in the early 1930s. Fed operatives simply failed to utilize them. In this case, a causal factor of the Great Depression was not the gold standard but rather a politically usurped monetary system.^[24]
• Monetary policy would essentially be determined by the rate of gold production. Fluctuations in the amount of gold that is mined could cause inflation if there is an increase, or deflation if there is a decrease.^[25][26] Some hold the view that this contributed to the severity and length of the Great Depression.^[19][27]
• Some have contended that the gold standard may be susceptible to speculative attacks when a government’s financial position appears weak. For example, some believe the United States was forced to raise its interest rates in the middle of the Great Depression to defend the credibility of its currency.^[27]
• If a country wanted to devalue its currency it would generally produce sharper changes than the smooth declines seen in fiat currencies, depending on the method of devaluation.^[28]

Perhaps a better solution to our fiscal problems would be a Constitutional Amendment requiring a balanced budget.  If a Constitutional Amendment were to be enacted mandating a balanced Federal Budget many reforms would be required.  The Federal Reserve would have to stop inflating the money supply which would mean an end to bail outs of the financial markets. Federal entitlements  programs would need to be severely cut back or in some cases ended. Departments of the government would need to be greatly reduced or phased out . Perhaps even a moratorium on increases of all but emergency government spending . There would be a major push for increased taxation, but even draconian levels of tax increase would not eliminate the deficit.  The only thing that will bring the deficit down to budget balancing levels are 1.  A reduction in the size and cost of government.   2. Robust growth of GDP (growing our way out of deficit) and this is choked off by increased taxation.  The Constitutional Amendment route to fixing the economy will be difficult, but in my opinion will not be as complicated, difficult or painful as trying to return to the Gold Standard.  I will end this by returning to England’s attempt to return to  the Gold Standard in 1925.  Bettina Bien Greaves  is a student of Ludwig Von Mises’s work. Von Mises is one of the best known of the Austrian Economists. In studying the results of the British attempt to return to Gold she concludes:

Faced with a devalued pound that was worth less on the market than it had been, the British again chose, as they had after the Napoleonic wars, to try to return to gold at the pre-war, pre-inflation rate. On April 28, 1925, England went back on the gold standard at the artificially high rate for the pound of US$4.86. The immediate effect was to price British goods out of the world market. For instance, U.S. importers who had been paying US$4.40 to buy a British pound’s worth of British wool or coal, now had to pay about 10 percent more. England was heavily dependent on exports, especially of coal, to pay for imported food and raw materials for her factories. As the cost of her goods to foreign buyers went up, they could buy less and British exports declined. Her factories and mines were hard hit. To keep the factories and mines open and men working, money wages would have had to be adjusted downward. This drop in money wages would not necessarily have affected real wages for, with the return to gold, the pound was worth more. But the unionized workers resisted and refused to work for less. Many went on the dole. And many went out on strike. Prices and production were seriously disrupted. Finally, on September 20, 1931, England announced that she would again suspend gold payments and go off the gold standard. The consequences were disastrous. The British monetary experiment played an important role in bringing about and prolonging the world depression of the 1930s.

With this historical assessment from Ms. Greaves, I will leave it to my readers to decide for themselves whether the current Libertarian idea of a return to a Gold Standard is the best answer to the problem.

thinking protest and divisiveness that can only harm this nation at a time when we are vulnerable economically and from terrorist threats.   Arizona has a problem with illegal immigration that needs to be solved.  Constitutionally it is the job of the Federal Government to solve problems concerning immigration. The problem is that the Federal Government has not in the past done anything about this problem and refuses to do anything now.  That being the case, the State of Arizona has a Constitutional obligation to protect its citizens. Because the Federal Government won’t act, the State of Arizona did and to legal scholars the law they passed passes Constitutional muster.  Why won’t the Federal Government take action when it is obvious that our country is being invaded?  The reasons are that  1. Corporations own this country and its political elites. They demand open borders to provide a constant supply of cheap labor and Scabs to defeat union organizing attempts.  2.  Both Republicans and Democrats are petrified that they will permanently offend the largest growing ethnic population in the U.S.  (Hispanics) and lose their votes.  These parochial concerns have no credibility in a time when our national economic and physical security are so at risk. Since 1965, when the “Immigration Act of 1965″ was passed, the gates of this country have been thrown open to massive immigration from countries that have never had their people successfully assimilated into advanced first world cultures. Not only have they not assimilated, many have no desire to assimilate and come here with hostile attitudes to western culture.  Just because there was a time when massive immigration was good for this country, does not mean that massive immigration is always a good thing.  The ” Immigration Act of 1924″ limited immigration to allow for a time of assimilation of massive numbers who came between 1880 and 1920.  During WWI. immigration ceased entirely.  During WWII. there was an intentional moratorium placed on immigration.  During hard times and times of national emergency these measures make good sense. What is the answer? What do we need to do right now?    1. We need to construct permanent twin fences (15 ft. high) enclosing a two lane road to permit Border Patrol to move in both directions . We need motion sensors buried in this roadway to detect people who have breached the outer fence.  Beyond the fence there needs to be coiled wire (8 ft. high) and beyond the wire ditches to stop trucks and SUV’s along all 2,000 miles  of the southern border.  This should be paid for by a $5.00 fee to enter the U.S.  and the savings from Welfare, Healthcare, Education and Incarceration that is used by illegal immigrants.    2.  We need to end automatic citizenship of children born to illegals  in the U.S. .   3.  Legal immigrants  should only be allowed  to bring wives and children into the country (no other family members).  4.  We need to end dual citizenship. Anyone who votes in a foreign election or serves in another country’s military should lose their U.S. citizenship.   5.  Provide only emergency services to illegals (no schooling, medical, etc.)  Hiring illegals should be a crime  punishable by monetary fine.  Repeated violations should be subject to jail terms.  Illegals should be ineligible for Social Security and Earned Income Tax Credits.   6.  Because we have an unemployment rate currently at 9.9% we should call a moratorium on all immigration into this country. This moratorium should stand until the unemployment rate goes back down to the 5% level.   The above proposals would seem to represent no more than common sense in a time when our country is struggling and endangered from terrorists.  That’s just my opinion.

After Basic Training I was assigned to an Artillery Battalion and a 155mm Howitzer Battery.  I learned to break down a breach block and change a firing pin in under two minutes.  We trained endlessly at Camp Drum N.Y. When we went to the field we slept in two-man pup tents and in the winter the cold would go right through you (Camp Drum is very close to the Canadian Border).  I have three very clear memories of my time there. 1. The bone chilling cold.  2. Being on High Alert and expecting to go to war during the Cuban Missal Crisis.  3. One of the Batteries in our Battalion mistakenly hitting a barn in a neighboring farm-yard with a 155mm shell.

I re-enlisted and was promised that I could change my M.O.S. (Military Occupational Specialty ) from Artillery to Heavy Truck Operator.  I went back to Fort Dix and after 8 weeks of the proper training I was assigned to the Heavy Section of the Main Post Motor Pool. Every man in our section was supposed to be familiar with and licensed to drive every piece of equipment there.  I was very eager back then and made sure that I was checked and authorized (license stamp) to drive everything including the 10 Ton Wrecker. Most of the guys in the Heavy Section were much older than I was, were married,  had more rank and were not  nearly as naively eager as I.  So most of them picked and chose what they would qualify themselves to drive. If you stayed clean and didn’t have to bounce around too much, they had it put on their license.  If it was a lot of work and you got dirty doing it (like on the Wrecker) they didn’t bother qualifying.  One very snowy January day a call came in that one of our 42 passenger Buses was  broken down on the Garden State Parkway.  Our Section Chief,  Sgt.Bernie, came into the Drivers Room looking for someone to take the Wrecker out and pull in the Bus. I of course volunteered, but something within the Sgt. seemed to bother him about sending a teenager out on such an assignment. He told one of the older guys to go and soon it came out that the guy had not bothered to get licensed on the Wrecker. To make a long story short, I was the only one in the section that was properly licensed on that piece of equipment.  After a huge tirade in which Hell Fire and Brimstone were promised if everyone was not qualified on everything by the end of the week,  the good Sgt. bowed to inevitability and sent me out.  His parting words were, “Don’t make me regret this”.   I made it to the breakdown site and as the N.J. State Troopers held traffic I dropped the Bus drive shaft and hooked the Bus  up to tow it away.  I remember one of the State Troopers asking me how old I was? When I told him he just shook his head and told the other Trooper something about only in the Military would they send a kid out in expensive, dangerous equipment to retrieve an even more expensive piece of equipment.  I returned to the Motor Pool with the Bus in tow  much to Sgt. Bernie’s relief.  Much of the rest of my time at Ft. Dix was spent driving the Army Band around to various engagements in a 42 Passenger Bus.  We were beginning to hear much more about fighting in Vietnam  and American Troops were beginning to  be sent there about this time. A contingent of MP’s from our Base was sent there in the summer of that year and as things continued to deteriorate, most of us began to suspect that we would be going there before long. However, to my surprise I received orders to go to Germany.  I arrived in Worms, Germany in the early Fall.  My memory of that place and time was an overpowering constant smell of cooking sugar beets. Long train loads of those beets would go by our Kasserne on their way to the factory that processed them. When I think about that, I can still smell them . Shortly after I arrived I was told that there had been a mistake and I had been sent to the wrong place and that I was to be sent instead to the 35th QM Bn. in Ludwigsburg.  I was assigned to A Company as a Tanker Driver. We delivered JP 4 for fueling aircraft and gasoline to the other bases in the Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg area. Before I ever made my first run, I was told to report to Bn. Headquarters Personnel.  They had seen from my Personnel Records that I knew how to type so they reassigned me to the Bn. S-1 office as a Clerk.  That is how I spent the rest of my time in the Army. I typed courts  martial documents and other military legal papers. I also took about 60 days leave where I traveled throughout Germany,  France , The Netherlands, England, Switzerland and Italy. My buddy Frank and I visited all the great art museums, cathedrals, and medieval towns that we could.  This was a wonderful education paid for by the military.  Which leads me to the point of all this. The U.S. Army got a know it all 17-year-old boy who they had to feed, clothe, provide shelter for and reconstruct in order to be of any use to them. That 17-year-old boy got a place to grow up, learn some character and respect, become responsible, learn some skills, get an education, buy a home on the GI Bill, receive Veterans Medical Benefits for a good part of his life and when the time comes, he and his wife will be buried in the Veteran’s Cemetery,  with a headstone provided, free of charge.  Who came out ahead in that deal? The 17-year-old boy without a doubt.  At the time that the 17-year-old boy enlisted, his main impetus to do so was that he would be drafted sooner or later anyway.  Congressman Charles Rangel has for a number of years been advocating a return to the military draft. I agree with this man on absolutely nothing else but this.  He argues that it is too easy for a President to go around Congress to engage in unwise military adventurism,  when we have an all volunteer, mercenary army. If the President has to send an army of conscripts, that may include Congressmen or Senators sons, or even his own son, he is apt to be a bit more circumspect about it. I would also add  that there are today as many young people at loose ends as there were in my day. It would be in our country’s best interest to give these young people the same impetus that caused me to join the military, that they might gain as much as I did from the experience.  But you say, ” What if that boy had been sent to Vietnam,  and he had been killed in combat”?  That could have happened, but statistics indicate that only 6% of all those in the military ever see combat. Also, of those who do see combat, most survive the experience.  When I enlisted in the Army, my best friend decided to take a different path and went to college instead. In his Jr. year he was killed at age 21 as the result of a traffic accident.  How then can we say that being in  the military carries any more inherent risks than life in general? For far too long we have been telling young people that they must delay adulthood and get a college degree. Far too many have done that and gone on to get degrees in useless majors that only allow them opportunities in jobs where the main qualification is the ability to ask, “Do you want that order with fries”?  To be fair, many go on to get useful degrees and make a good living, but not nearly enough.  It may be time to look to the past for some answers. A college education is not a universal panacea. One size does not necessarily fit all. It might just be the time for an open-minded examination of alternatives like a return to the military draft.  At least that’s my opinion.