We have a very bad problem in America, a problem that cuts across the lines of both socioeconomics and culture. There are other problems that cross these lines, but the problem that has to be addressed first is the problem of self-actualization, that is the ability to see a ladder that leads to success and the will to climb that ladder, rung by rung to reach different plateaus and additional ladders.
Typically, a rich person whose ancestors are steeped in the tradition of education and success, leaves high school with plans and path already established. He quickly scrambles up the ladder to the first plateau, then looks around to find the ladder he wants for the next planned plateau. He does not question the process, simply follows it because he has seen in his family’s history, that his success is almost assured. But even if he fails somewhere along the line and has to change plans, there are no consequences for him except possibly some lost time. Some people only have a few rungs to climb in each ladder, others have taller ladders to reach the same places. Some have to expend lots of effort to reach the top of each ladder—some falter and are then satisfied to remain at one of the plateaus. Others scramble up the ladders with little or no effort and success to them only costs the time it takes to do so; each plateau to them is simply the base of another ladder.
Those people are not part of the problem I wish to address first. They often make the problem worse later on, but for now I would like to address the base of the problem. There are those that graduate high school, see the ladder, and wonder why others are so quick and enthusiastic to climb them. Still others don’t really know about the ladders and fail to notice them. Strangely enough, there are also those that do not finish high school because they have no real idea about life, have no family history of education or success, or possible their value system is broken or askew and they just do not recognize or wish to work for the later benefits of even a high school diploma and education. Some students are caught in an economic tragedy which requires them to leave school and support the family, as in those cases in which the father loses a job to cheaper labor and cannot find another job within his skill level because he has been economically ostracized by employers whose jobs require little or no skill, hence cheaper labor is always available through illegal immigration.
John Smith, a high school dropout, did not have the same vision as many of his peers. Their glasses were tall and wide, while his was short and narrow. It did not take much to satisfy him; the word success was not even in his vocabulary. His vision was an easy factory or shop job that paid a little more than the minimum wage, with a fairly dependable used car, a color TV, and a six pack or two on the weekend. He may have lost his first girl friend in high school because she could not share his vision; it was much too small and narrow. But he did meet another and with her job and his, they were able to marry and have a little boy. Life continued satisfactorily for them until the wife’s income was lost after the baby was born. Fortunately for them, the baby remained healthy because they had no savings—or even a bank account—because they lived from payday to payday with not much cash left, sometimes none, at the end of each week.
They lived in a rental row home, but rents increase every year or two and if it increased before he received a raise or changed to a better paying job, he would have to move to a cheaper place. He worked for a proprietary shop that paid a fair wage for the market, and unless the market rates changed, he could expect no raise. He had applications in for other jobs, but in some cases he could not take time off from work to interview, but more importantly when he did interview for a better job, state or city employers wanted at least a high school diploma, as did most other employers.
John Smith found a weekend job with a security firm that paid minimum wage, and this allowed them to put a few dollars in a drawer every week for emergencies. So he was now working seven days per week. He was still not complaining about how long he had to work; he loved his wife and child and was doing what he could to provide for them. He had no idea, of course, what a single medical bill would do to him. Neither job had medical coverage for him other than the state-required workers compensation plan. But the plan did not cover staying home with a bad cold in the winter. He lost a few days last winter and another worker was fired for absences because of family medical matters.
John Smith was invited with other family members to visit a cousin with whom he had attended high school. The cousin finished college and was working in a white collar job with a large company. The cousin’s home was nothing like his own, nor was the furniture or fixtures anything like his. When John and his wife looked around, they began to realize for the first time that something was missing from their lives. Life was missing from their lives. They lived in a rundown neighborhood with nothing on the walls to cover the cracks, used furniture which was in the house when they arrived and was not worth it to the former owners to take with them, and mismatched dishes and flatware that they picked up in yard sales. John looked at his wife and boy and for the first time noticed how poorly dressed they were. When he looked around at how everyone else was dressed, again for a first time, he was ashamed of his own person, feeling he did not even belong in the same house with the others. He and his wife both were happy to find a way out of the house before anyone noticed.
John Smith and his wife both wanted something better for each other and for the child. He had tried before and tried again for a better job and tried to do something to get a GED. He made an arrangement with his boss to make up time for going to Job Service to get help, but he needed more than just a high school education to do better than he is doing financially. He needs to go to school again, but he would not have income; even Title IV funds would not pay everything he would need to go to school. Quitting his job with the possibility of failing at school, gave him no safety net. At the dinner table that night, with the poor meal in front of him, but the best she could do with what was available to her, he put his fork down, and said, “We are stuck!”
His vision expanded just a little; he wanted something just a little better, or at the very least a guarantee of the status quo—but even that was denied because of a new element, the illegal alien. He made a mistake when he was a teenager and the mistake was exacerbated by the greed of companies that care less about people per se and only look at their bottom line. And it was made much worse by the American government who forgot the problems of the American workers—perhaps I could have said “ignored the crises of the American workers”—and paid more attention to global trade and the travails of the Mexican workers.
Walk across this great land of ours, walk into every state and every city, into the small towns and villages. If you knock on any door where American workers live, you will probably find another John Smith. There are millions of them. They need help, lots of help. We need help to stabilize John Smith’s life and give his kids and his grandkids a better introduction to the ladders so they do not make the same basic mistakes. It is a big job and a job that must be done if a large portion of our American workforce “are stuck”!
How anybody in this United States can talk about “Jobs Americans Won’t Do” is quite beyond me. Why everyone is so concerned with the illegal aliens at the expense of our own workforce is beyond me. Not one single illegal alien, no matter how long he has been here and no matter how long he has worked, takes precedence over our own people. Close the borders, keep more illegals from coming in, and then take care of our own people FIRST, before we try to solve the problems of some other country’s citizens.
So, our priorities are now still simple: Seal the borders! And that means no illegal aliens can enter. Once that is done, we then see what we can do to help our own workers, the John Smiths all over this country, and only after that should we address and resolve the 21,000,000 illegal aliens who caused so many millions of problems for us. Unless John Smith and those who come after him, and all those other John Smiths across the country can step up into a better job and a better life, we do not have room for 21,000,000 aliens and we don’t have room for guest workers!
Close the Borders first if you care about America!
HJS
Typically, a rich person whose ancestors are steeped in the tradition of education and success, leaves high school with plans and path already established. He quickly scrambles up the ladder to the first plateau, then looks around to find the ladder he wants for the next planned plateau. He does not question the process, simply follows it because he has seen in his family’s history, that his success is almost assured. But even if he fails somewhere along the line and has to change plans, there are no consequences for him except possibly some lost time. Some people only have a few rungs to climb in each ladder, others have taller ladders to reach the same places. Some have to expend lots of effort to reach the top of each ladder—some falter and are then satisfied to remain at one of the plateaus. Others scramble up the ladders with little or no effort and success to them only costs the time it takes to do so; each plateau to them is simply the base of another ladder.
Those people are not part of the problem I wish to address first. They often make the problem worse later on, but for now I would like to address the base of the problem. There are those that graduate high school, see the ladder, and wonder why others are so quick and enthusiastic to climb them. Still others don’t really know about the ladders and fail to notice them. Strangely enough, there are also those that do not finish high school because they have no real idea about life, have no family history of education or success, or possible their value system is broken or askew and they just do not recognize or wish to work for the later benefits of even a high school diploma and education. Some students are caught in an economic tragedy which requires them to leave school and support the family, as in those cases in which the father loses a job to cheaper labor and cannot find another job within his skill level because he has been economically ostracized by employers whose jobs require little or no skill, hence cheaper labor is always available through illegal immigration.
John Smith, a high school dropout, did not have the same vision as many of his peers. Their glasses were tall and wide, while his was short and narrow. It did not take much to satisfy him; the word success was not even in his vocabulary. His vision was an easy factory or shop job that paid a little more than the minimum wage, with a fairly dependable used car, a color TV, and a six pack or two on the weekend. He may have lost his first girl friend in high school because she could not share his vision; it was much too small and narrow. But he did meet another and with her job and his, they were able to marry and have a little boy. Life continued satisfactorily for them until the wife’s income was lost after the baby was born. Fortunately for them, the baby remained healthy because they had no savings—or even a bank account—because they lived from payday to payday with not much cash left, sometimes none, at the end of each week.
They lived in a rental row home, but rents increase every year or two and if it increased before he received a raise or changed to a better paying job, he would have to move to a cheaper place. He worked for a proprietary shop that paid a fair wage for the market, and unless the market rates changed, he could expect no raise. He had applications in for other jobs, but in some cases he could not take time off from work to interview, but more importantly when he did interview for a better job, state or city employers wanted at least a high school diploma, as did most other employers.
John Smith found a weekend job with a security firm that paid minimum wage, and this allowed them to put a few dollars in a drawer every week for emergencies. So he was now working seven days per week. He was still not complaining about how long he had to work; he loved his wife and child and was doing what he could to provide for them. He had no idea, of course, what a single medical bill would do to him. Neither job had medical coverage for him other than the state-required workers compensation plan. But the plan did not cover staying home with a bad cold in the winter. He lost a few days last winter and another worker was fired for absences because of family medical matters.
John Smith was invited with other family members to visit a cousin with whom he had attended high school. The cousin finished college and was working in a white collar job with a large company. The cousin’s home was nothing like his own, nor was the furniture or fixtures anything like his. When John and his wife looked around, they began to realize for the first time that something was missing from their lives. Life was missing from their lives. They lived in a rundown neighborhood with nothing on the walls to cover the cracks, used furniture which was in the house when they arrived and was not worth it to the former owners to take with them, and mismatched dishes and flatware that they picked up in yard sales. John looked at his wife and boy and for the first time noticed how poorly dressed they were. When he looked around at how everyone else was dressed, again for a first time, he was ashamed of his own person, feeling he did not even belong in the same house with the others. He and his wife both were happy to find a way out of the house before anyone noticed.
John Smith and his wife both wanted something better for each other and for the child. He had tried before and tried again for a better job and tried to do something to get a GED. He made an arrangement with his boss to make up time for going to Job Service to get help, but he needed more than just a high school education to do better than he is doing financially. He needs to go to school again, but he would not have income; even Title IV funds would not pay everything he would need to go to school. Quitting his job with the possibility of failing at school, gave him no safety net. At the dinner table that night, with the poor meal in front of him, but the best she could do with what was available to her, he put his fork down, and said, “We are stuck!”
His vision expanded just a little; he wanted something just a little better, or at the very least a guarantee of the status quo—but even that was denied because of a new element, the illegal alien. He made a mistake when he was a teenager and the mistake was exacerbated by the greed of companies that care less about people per se and only look at their bottom line. And it was made much worse by the American government who forgot the problems of the American workers—perhaps I could have said “ignored the crises of the American workers”—and paid more attention to global trade and the travails of the Mexican workers.
Walk across this great land of ours, walk into every state and every city, into the small towns and villages. If you knock on any door where American workers live, you will probably find another John Smith. There are millions of them. They need help, lots of help. We need help to stabilize John Smith’s life and give his kids and his grandkids a better introduction to the ladders so they do not make the same basic mistakes. It is a big job and a job that must be done if a large portion of our American workforce “are stuck”!
How anybody in this United States can talk about “Jobs Americans Won’t Do” is quite beyond me. Why everyone is so concerned with the illegal aliens at the expense of our own workforce is beyond me. Not one single illegal alien, no matter how long he has been here and no matter how long he has worked, takes precedence over our own people. Close the borders, keep more illegals from coming in, and then take care of our own people FIRST, before we try to solve the problems of some other country’s citizens.
So, our priorities are now still simple: Seal the borders! And that means no illegal aliens can enter. Once that is done, we then see what we can do to help our own workers, the John Smiths all over this country, and only after that should we address and resolve the 21,000,000 illegal aliens who caused so many millions of problems for us. Unless John Smith and those who come after him, and all those other John Smiths across the country can step up into a better job and a better life, we do not have room for 21,000,000 aliens and we don’t have room for guest workers!
Close the Borders first if you care about America!
HJS
3 comments:
I will keep asserting this until this debate is over.
We ABSOLUTELY MUST detach the debate about border security from immigration.
The two are mutually exclusive and address different problems.
What a steaming load! The "rich people" have a path, blah, blah. They will often make it worse for the "poor" later in life.
So, the man is keeping John Smith down? Maybe John Smith needs to go into business for himself. Government handouts are not the answer!
As one of the "rich" who made it through college I find the socialist, isolationist position you are presenting to be incredibly absurd. Is this a John Edwards blog now?
Comment 1 is absolutely correct. The borders must be closed first, everything else is secondary. One might even add not much else is needed except enforcement.
Not every college grad or successful person makes things worse for others later on in life; some actually make things better, but we do have much greed and other factors among the global corporations which have been using illegal immigrants in place of American workers. Instead of bringing in foreign workers there should be non-welfare programs (similar to Title IV) that can re-educate and retrain our own workers--but not to do minimum wage jobs. There really should not be minimum wages jobs for anyone not in an entry level or temporary (summer) job. We should be doing whatever we need to do with our own workers first; youthful economic mistakes should not be terminal. Of course, we realize some people will have problems no matter how much they are helped. Practical help should be available, welfare is the answer to the wrong questions.
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