28 January 2013 -
Odds
and Ends:
1)
Poor
Secretary Clinton. She falls down,
suffers a concussion, has to testify before the Senate and the House about a
debacle that was on her watch, and suffers from double vision due to a damaged
nerve in her head. It has not been a
good couple of months for the Secretary.
She now has glasses with prisms in them to correct the double
vision. Apparently, at least this is
what I heard, Secretary Clinton had to get the corrective lens immediately in
order to prevent further falls and more physical damage. It seems that when she started to see double,
she instinctively walked to the left, causing her to smash into everything. She has now corrected that action; for how
long clearly remains to be seen.
2)
Soul legend Tina Turner, is giving up her
American citizenship and requesting to become a citizen of Switzerland. Ms. Turner, 73, has lived in Kuesnacht, a Zurich suburb, since 1995 with her longtime music manager,
Erwin Bach. It seems that MS. Turner, née
Anna Mae Bullock, has come a long way from Brownsville, Tennessee. I hope she will continue to be happy and
secure in a country the size of a postage stamp and that looks like a
postcard. For her naturalization process
to be complete, however, the canton of Zurich has to approve her request, and
then the Swiss Confederation will review the case before a passport can be
issued. The two-step procedure is worth
mentioning. Switzerland is a modern democracy
that resembles the United States in the 18th and 19th
century. The cantons, or states, hold
much more power that the Swiss federal government does on such matters as
citizenship, voting, etc. Local
government matters there. It works. It seems that one can be happy and prosperous
and secure with limited central government and strong canton control of the law. I am sure that Ms. Turner will continue to
love the United States, but then again, what’s love got to do with it anyway?
3)
Rich
and famous celebrities changing abodes and citizenship is not important to most
average people. The rich and famous live
real lives, but they are not seen as real by those whose only contact with them
is through music, sports, films, or books. But mass immigration of real peoples into the
U.S. has always been a contentious issue. The recent announcement that a group
of influential senators—is there any other kind of senator?—has reached an agreement
on “the outlines” of a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. immigration laws and
policies is good news. This overhaul
will address creating a way for citizenship for the roughly 11 million illegal
immigrants currently in the U.S., will implement stricter border enforcement
measures, and will ensure stricter enforcement of visa compliance by aliens in the
country legally. There also will be
procedures to ensure that young people brought into the country illegally as
children will be given a faster path to citizenship. A couple of things:
a.
Nothing
about this announced plan is remarkable.
In fact, all of this easily could have been done last year, with the
same group of senators leading the process. The fact that such a comprehensive plan was
announced only one week after the inauguration means that they must have been
working on it for some time. So, why now for the announcement? Because nothing contentious gets done in the
year leading up to major elections. Restructuring
immigration law & policy\y—massive, illegal
immigration being one of the biggest threats to the sovereignty of the United
States, simply was too contentious an issue for the senators to do anything bold
and courageous until after the election.
Yawn. Politics as usual.
b.
Two
definitions of the word reform conflict with each other as they apply to the
issue of illegal immigration. According
to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the first definition of reform is to make
change in a social, political, or economic institution or practice in order to
improve it. This is a neutral definition. Any side of the argument could use it to
start a stump speech. The second definition
is to put an end to an evil by enforcing or introducing a better method or
course of action. The second definition,
full of moral judgment, is where the conflict begins. Some people say that we must put an end to
the evil of policy makers mocking the rule of law and creating an increasingly
balkanized country for the sake of a few votes.
Others say that it is evil when local government and racist groups resist
giving immigrants—illegal is such a perjorative term—the rights, advantages,
and privileges of citizenry, especially because of the harsh conditions most of
them escaped in coming here. How you choose
the lesser of the two evils usually determines where you stand on the issue of illegal
immigration. More tomorrow on immigration reform.
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