A Lesson From Charlie's Murder

 

With the vicious murder of Charlie Kirk, this child of the 60's is once again dealing with long forgotten bad feelings. Here we go again is how it seems.

Looking back at the 60's, I came to different conclusions than others did. While most, after living through the grief of the deaths of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy, focused on who to blame, I went in a different direction. Observing the fact that anyone who seemed to be leading this nation in a good direction soon became a target of assassination, I realized that the deep lesson to be learned out of the 60's is that the people have to find a way to lead themselves.

The assassination of Mr. Kirk should teach us that same lesson. He boldly upheld Christian, conservative, American values, but he did so in a way that built bridges. He was starting to make great inroads with young people, rebuilding a culture of civil debate. That is probably what put a target on his back.

It is said that the death of a tyrant ends his reign, but that the death of a martyr begins his reign. Charlie Kirk is without a doubt an American martyr, and so it can be hoped that many will grow his reign by following his example. However, that will entail more than just looking for the next Charlie Kirk. Instead, those of us who value his life must strive to become like him, to seek truth, stand up for America and Christ, but do it in a constructive, positive way. Just like after the violence of the 60's, we have to find a way to lead ourselves, and Charlie has given us a good example. Let's take it.

Finally, my contribution to our becoming a self leading populace has been to analyze what has gone wrong with America, and developing ways to fix our problems. The most important dysfunction our system has endured is that our free press, the media, was long ago put under the control of an entrenched oligarchy. Breaking the back of that media control has to be our first item of business, if the people are to find a way of leading themselves. The plan I came up with to do that is to establish a true public forum. Here is a link to that plan.

https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-open-media.html

MAGA Has a Paradox

 

I saw a couple factoids on the media today that made me realize MAGA is facing a tough but real paradox in the coming midterm elections. It all relates to what was discussed in my recent post about immigration.

The paradox grows out of these two new factoids. One, the numbers of those being deported is woefully short of what some folks have been expecting and hoping for. At this rate the numbers of illegal resident aliens will barely be affected, let alone reduced to zero, by the end of the Trump administration.

The other side of the paradox is that the historically high support among Hispanics for the Trump administration's deportation policy is declining steeply. This puts the entire MAGA agenda in jeopardy.

The gist of the paradox is this. The only way for the Republicans to actually carry out an effective reform of our immigration system is to increase their majority in Congress. That way President Trump can be empowered by actual laws, and not be limited to executive orders. The only way, however, for the Republicans to increase that majority, to actually enact those new laws, is to increase, not decrease, their support among Hispanics.

Our Hispanic friends and neighbors see that they have been dealt, by time and political circumstance, a strong hand, and they seem intent on playing it well. At the same time, we should see that they collectively want to live in a nation of laws, many having come from nations that don't have that advantage. But they also insist on our being a nation with respect for family, and clear headed compassion based on reasonable compromise.

So we face a difficult paradox. We can just sit and moan, woe is MAGA, life is unfair, and all that. Or we can wake up, grow up, and realize it is time to assert ourselves in our own governance. There is a way, an agenda we non Hispanic Americans can choose, which will settle the issue of illegal immigration, reinforce the rule of law, and enable us to complete the agenda of making America great again. That plan is detailed in the already mentioned previous blog linked

here  https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/07/maga-red-wave-in-26-and-immigration.html

But we had better get after it, because the midterms are a month and a half closer than they were when I first wrote that blog. Time is short and getting shorter, so it is high time for us to stand up, step up, and insist our elected officials follow our lead. That is, if we really love this nation, and want to pass a viable future on to coming generations.

Liberate Hemp to Revive Small Farms

 

I recently had an epiphany about all the anti marijuana hysteria we are being bombarded with lately. We have all heard the arguments. The smell permeating the air in legal states, the dangerous potency of modern strains, and all that. There might be some validity to those points, but it mostly smells like phony hysteria. Try living downwind from a feed lot, or a sewer works, or a freeway, or just on a typical downtown street. Lots of objectionable smells and fumes there, and yet no one wants to hear about it, or base policies on it..

I bought my first hemp t-shirt the other day and, unexpectedly, it launched an episode of eye opening revelations. I was surprised at what a superior cloth it is compared to the cotton or polyester shirts I am used to. It just feels better. More solid, less sweaty, and all the other things it was advertised to be. So much so that I have started to consider investing in small scale hemp cloth production.

As I consider investing in hemp cloth, some real social benefits of hemp come to mind. First of all, it could produce a lot of jobs, whether in cloth production, paper production, or a myriad of other products. That is in addition to the jobs on the farms that grow it. Most of the jobs, and money, would stay in the local region, and certainly stay in the national economy.

Another benefit would be that it could be grown in small batches by small farmers. That is if hemp were not so tightly regulated (which makes it both risky to grow, and prohibitively expensive). However, with those severe regulations, and the high cost of getting a federal license to grow it, that happy dynamic of small farm cultivation is not likely to get traction. With all the federal regulation it is rendered into just another crop that will be economically viable only when grown in large plots on mono culture agri business “farms.” So the dream of a small scale hemp facility operating in close cooperation with local small farmers will remain just that; a dream, until the reefer madness hysteria around cannabis is overcome.

The big ramification of the anti cannabis hysteria is the THC content allowed in hemp plants. It has to be no more than .3%, and that has to be measured by dry weight, with the tested sample coming from the flowering top of the plant.

To put this in context, top shelf cannabis, sold out of dispensaries in states where it is legal, tests out at between 25-30%. Low end flowers and what is known as popcorn tests out at 10-15%. There is almost no market for anything less than 5%. So .3% is a ridiculously minuscule standard, far less than just one tenth the potency of anything of marketable quality.

What's more, farmers who have tried to raise a compliant hemp crop find that the THC level peaks just at the end of the season. If, just before harvest, (when it must be tested) it goes over that standard, the crop must be destroyed in an expensive process. The upshot is that few farmers will take the risk. So those who would set up hemp processing plants are likewise put under an artificially risky government regimen, with undependable supply lines, and thus are also not likely to enter into the business.

Over the years, “deep thinking” pot heads have conjectured that it was the tobacco and alcohol industries that worked so hard to keep pot illegal, to eliminate that form of competition. Other, even “deeper” thinkers speculated that it was the cotton and lumber interests who were using anti cannabis hysteria to keep hemp from competing with their products.

All of that thinking seems conspiratorial and suspect, because those concerns are run by hard headed business people. Business will, if there is profit to be made in some alternative to their product, usually put some of their eggs in that competitive basket. Tobacco and alcohol producers could, and probably do, buy marijuana farms. Lumber and cotton growers could also invest in hemp production, and would be hyper-aware of any emerging stream of profit.

Leaving those pot induced brain storms behind, there still must be some reason behind the reefer madness hysteria, and that reason does seem to be directly tied to preventing a free market for hemp. It is asserted here the reason is that the quasi prohibition of hemp is a wicked, long term attack on the small, self sufficient family farm.

For someone with a small, self sufficient, farm the traditional practice was to grow most, if not all, of the food for your own consumption, and then sell any excess. It is a feasible plan in most places, but what is needed to make the plan work is a dependable cash crop so that cash needs of the otherwise self sufficient farm can be met.

Hemp was always that dependable cash crop. It is extremely drought resistant, and when it was legal, there was always a ready market for the crop, because paper gets used up, and clothes wear out. In many ways, legal hemp was an economic pillar of the small family farm. It truly appears that ginning up this anti marijuana hysteria has always had the nefarious purpose of making small, self sufficient, sustainable family farms not economically viable.

Which contributes to making healthy rural communities not viable. Combine that with federal farm price subsidies, which drive up the cost of land by making farming less risky for corporations, and the decline of the family farm and rural communities seems inevitable, if not intentional.

All of this seems to have had the goal, long since accomplished, of literally changing the American landscape. The mass of the people have been driven into the cities, making almost everyone dependent on corporate controlled food supplies. Much of that food is artificially unhealthy, which also drives the people into dependence on the dubious blessings of the petroleum based medicines produced by the big pharmaceutical companies. All of this is very bad for the health, of both the people and the natural environment.

We need to rethink this whole system, and we should start by rethinking hemp. Stop allowing the truly hysterical voices opposing marijuana to bamboozle us into effectively prohibiting the cultivation of hemp. Liberating hemp can be a vital first step in re-invigorating the small family farms and rural communities of America.

MAGA Red Wave in '26 Conclusion

 

“To sum up, solving the housing crisis with freedom, like solving the immigration mess with compassion, could both be factors in a MAGA red wave in 26.”

I finished off the previous two posts about a possible red wave for MAGA in '26 with that sentence, but the operative word there is “could,” because there is only a slight chance that we will do the right thing on either issue.

I say “we,” but in all honesty I am only semi MAGA. I didn't even vote for Trump in '24, although I did vote (with trepidation) for him in '16, and (with some enthusiasm) in 2020. My mixed feelings toward the MAGA movement is because it resembles a cult of personality. That is, most of the folks involved are continuing their life long lazy habits of not engaging as citizens, and not really formulating plans about what we should do as a country. They are content to let Donald Trump do their thinking for them, just as they let the George Bushes and Ronald Reagan do in years past. In other words, most of my fellow conservatives act like dependent children, not realizing they have a duty to shoulder some of the ideological weight of citizenship.

The two issues brought forth in the previous two blogs are good examples of how we could, if we had the sense and determination, really bring our nation back to greatness. It is, however, highly unlikely that either approach will be tried mainly due to the fact that no one of real influence, meaning no one in the country club wing of the Republican party, is going to take the MAGA folks by the hand and walk them through it.

That is the real tragedy of this moment. Donald Trump has done us a great service in demonstrating that with strong leadership, the common folks, the backbone of this nation, can defeat the country club, establishment Republicans. Then, once we win the party, we can win the nation. However, while he won, and is President, long term he has only opened the door. It is up to us to walk through it, and this time we are not going to have the country club set helping us, because it is them we have to defeat.

Take the issue of illegal immigration. I know, the approach I talk about, of tempering a drive for justice with some hard headed mercy and compassion offends many. Even though it is actually straight from the heart of a Christian mind, it sounds to a lot of MAGA folks kind of vaguely un-American.

So what will probably happen is we will get a year or so of intense mass deportation. We will try to deport everyone in sight. In a typically misguided American manner, we will look like someone furiously trying to bale water with a sieve. When that effort exhausts itself, after a lot of unnecessary brutality and following the script, the next stage of the plan will unfold.

There will then be a slow curtailment of such actions, as both the Democrats take back the House, and big business takes back control of a demoralized Republican party. Already, we hear the case being made to not enforce immigration law in agriculture. Those voices will eventually carry the day. Then, there will have been two or three million deportees, and some few Americans who will have gained some jobs, but mostly things will go back to the way they were. Most of the workers will still be illegal, and working in the legal margins. Just the way the country club Republicans planned it. They don't want to get rid of those low paid workers, and they definitely don't want them to have the full rights of Americans.

Likewise, the housing crisis will most likely play out in a way that pleases the country club establishment. The ideas I proposed could work, but they are not the only free market ways to deal with the housing crisis. However, none of these ideas will get any real support because they would step on the wrong toes.

There will be a lot of crocodile tears and hand wringing, but at most we will see some ill fated rent control schemes, or another wave of government housing projects. Those will be overpriced, restricted to renting to the poor,(not allowing the positive dynamic of personal ownership to get traction) and quickly become crime infested hellholes.

Housing will remain wildly overpriced, with rent even worse. Crime and immorality will get worse. Just the way the country club establishment (the bankers, developers and mortgage brokers) want things to be. Their toes must not be stepped on since they are sacrosanct, much more precious than the hearts, minds, and lives of lesser Americans.

When the '26 midterms come and go, we will probably find ourselves once again in a 50-50 divided nation, with the polity balanced against itself on a razors edge. So there will once again, unlike this rare moment which we are allowing to slip through our fingers, be no time or intellectual space for new ideas to come forward. Like it has seemingly always been, we will be told to shut up and keep in step if we are to defeat those terrible folks on the other side. Just the way the country club Republicans like it.

We can expect the Deep State, and every other foul manifestation of the uniparty to once again raise their ugly heads. Just as the establishment wants it.

Then the globalism, and the slow decline of either secular or Islamic corrosion of our national culture will continue unabated, just as the establishment wants it to.

In other words, we had better wake up and recognize that the next 18 or so months could be, that is COULD BE, the era during which we take our country back. The bad stuff that has been happening will just keep happening, unless we have the sense to stand up and change the national course.

It really isn't about our sense though, is it? We are plenty smart, as a people. We have the intellect to figure out the truth, what we lack it the intellectual integrity. Along with the moral integrity. We just can't figure out how to hold on to the truth, and at the same time hold on to the material ease and privilege we have seduced ourselves with. So we abandon the truth, and pretend to not understand.

To stand up for the truth might lose us the esteem of the big boys, the movers and shakers (the country club types) in our local circles, in the state house, in the business agreements, and on the national scene. So if we dare to speak the truth, (or really even allow ourselves to think it) it is in hushed tones at coffee or family gatherings, with the inevitable caveat of, “I don't know,” at the end of every discussion.

Let's face it, we, the people, have lost our courage, or at any rate, the most vital component of courage, our intellectual courage. We, the people, have become intellectual cowards. We probably still have enough physical courage to stand up and defend our families, but without the fearless ability to look at the truth, what does that really get us? Without intellectual courage, as a people, and as individuals, we will continue to be reduced to what DeToqueville warned we would become, timid and hard working beasts, with a tyrannical corporate/ socialist government as shepherd.

In conclusion, and this is the last I want to say on this because it is starting to get me (and hopefully you) angry, you, the individual MAGA backer, had better get over your shallow triumphalism about Trump being in power. Instead, it is high time for you to take up your duty of doing the hard work, the courageous work, of actually rebuilding this nation of freedom. If you don't have the integrity, the intellectual courage, to stand up and do that, as an individual, (even if you stand alone at first) then you should get ready to wave guh'bye-bye to your quaint little pipe dream of ever making America great again.

MAGA Red Wave in '26 and Housing

 

My last post explored the possibility of, instead of just eking out a win, or more probably eking out a loss, in the 26 midterms, MAGA riding a red wave to a permanent cultural shift if we handle the illegal immigration mess with a hard headed, justice tempered with mercy, approach. Similarly, housing is another challenging issue which MAGA could convert into a culture shifting red wave if we could rid ourselves of the fear the establishment Republicans use to blind us to our own best interests.

Wall Street is basically bamboozling Main Street on this because the middle class concern about the housing market is all about preserving property values. That middle class obsession with property values is not only misplaced, but it puts many of the good people of this country on the side of wickedness.

Many of the working people, the middle class, have a large share of their wealth tied up in the value of their property. Because of that, many are scared that if truly low cost housing was allowed, via a truly free market, that the equity in their house might decline, and therefore their wealth,(their old age savings) might be lost, or diminished. So the middle class can be counted on to defend strict, value enhancing, zoning laws. This, even though such laws create homelessness by preventing low cost housing from being built. The moral blindness that drives this thinking doesn't make these middle class folks exactly wicked, but it does make them complicit in wickedness.

The thing these “good” people don't see, their blind spot, is that the real value of their house won't be diminished by allowing more low cost housing to be built. Just as in the case of a growing economy, when it is said a rising tide lifts all boats, so a lowering tide will lower all boats. What that means, in this context, is that the real wealth, not the monetary wealth, of middle class housing won't really decline if more low cost housing is built.

By way of explanation, let's be real here. Most of us will live in our house until we either die, or we move into a nursing home. If, when we die and pass that property on to our heirs, it will be worth just as much housing as it is today, even if the monetary value of all housing has declined. So the heirs will be able to use it as housing, or transfer the equity to other housing, at just about the same rates as today.

The same holds true if one must convert that wealth into x number of months in a nursing home (with the government taking over the costs when that equity is expired). The folks working in those nursing homes will be living in housing that is less expensive if the market has declined, and so the number of months (x) that old house will pay for in a nursing home will be about the same.

Ont the other hand, the real bad actors in this scenario, the investors, the developers, and the bankers might lose a great deal of real wealth if the housing market was more free and fair. Since they expect to convert their property wealth in to monetary wealth, a free and fair housing market, with declining monetary value, will probably cut into their vast wealth. Stop and consider the depth of wickedness they are engaged in here, and that they scare the middle class into supporting.

In the name of propping up property values, they move heaven and earth (and zoning boards) to prevent the building of almost all low cost housing. To do so, they enlist the previously mentioned middle class, who happily carry this wicked water. Then we have a situation more cruel and barbaric than the most barbarous cultures in history. The poorest of the poor are denied the God given right to erect the most basic structure to get out of the elements.

“Oh no,” we are pompously informed ,”we can't allow people to live like that.” Meaning, we can't let them build the most efficient housing they can with the materials nature and God provide. Instead, we force them to live in tents, or sleep on urine and feces encrusted sidewalks in the most crime ridden areas of our major cities. How terribly compassionate of us.

If any low cost housing is built, it is way overpriced, owned by the government, and rented out to only the depressed and despairing. Then it is used to micro manage their lives for as long as they will put up with the micro management.

What's more, this greed driven squelching of a free housing market has profoundly negative effects on the morality of our nation. The nearly impossible price of home ownership has driven most young people out of the market. That has resulted in a steeply declining marriage and birth rate as responsible young people put off starting a family until it is affordable. This situation is a dire long term threat to our civilization.

Even further, since young people still have the same sexual drives as previous generations, the seeming impossibility of achieving a stable family life has caused the dubious allure of various forms of sexual deviance, from heterosexual fornication on down, seem reasonable. Thus much, if not most, of the sexual deviance afflicting modern American society can be traced to the greed of property developers, and the middle class dupes that help them.

These days, a lot of well meaning people hoping for a moral revival will quote II Chronicles 7:14

“if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

While some few do take this sincerely to heart and try to refrain from some abiding sin, most are more focused on the wicked ways of the other fellow, including the aforementioned sexual deviance. Certainly, the wickedness of their own obsession with property values escapes their notice, and yet that, on closer inspection, is probably the very thing God is referring to, and wants us to turn from.

It would be relatively easy to change things (God willing), and it wouldn't take any big government subsidies. Just lighten up on some zoning laws, and maybe make some long needed modifications to how we allow land to be owned.

What I am referring to here is a concept I have long advocated, called micro incremental housing. Allow people, usually young people, to buy, not rent, micro plots of land, as small as 5' x8'. And then allow them to build, or have built, extremely small, but expandable domiciles on the plot of land.

With this concept, the house, and land could start very small, but by design be expandable in micro increments, as the probably low paid worker could afford it. That way, a person just getting out of school, even high school, could afford to get started in a house, which they would own and be secure in. In the course of just a few years of regular work and frugal living, they could own a small, two bedroom, two story house.

Any number of building technologies could be used for this, from hay bales, to used tires, to (as I read about) a guy in South America designed a system of adult sized lego style building blocks made from recycled plastic grocery bags. Human ingenuity is the only limit to what new uses of our high tech capabilities (3d printing) could be creatively used in this effort. The only real barrier to overcome is the wicked fear that prevents us from allowing the poor to be free economically.

As said, it won't take government involvement. No socialism needed. Just some good hearted land owners, or some visionary churches or civic organizations, offering the land for sale, by the square foot, for what it typically costs to buy agricultural land. And the original sellers will get that money back when the new owners buy the plots reserved for them.

Yes, in the name of sanitation and health, there will be some zoning required, and some water needed. While that might be a problem, in the face of agri-business use of that water for irrigation at the rate of thousands of gallons an hour, it is reasonable to assert that humans in houses should be a somewhat higher priority..

As in the case of solving the illegal immigration mess, I don't want this blog to sound like a dire warning about what will happen if folks don't listen to my ideas. Rather, think about how much this will benefit us if we would actually do it. Think of the benefits that might accrue to our society if we could do this good thing.

The young could plan on owning their own homes, at a young enough age that they can start families at a young age, as God intended. Marriage and child bearing (family formation) would increase, probably accompanied by a proportional decrease in sexual deviance. On a different note, since low paid workers could live, in these low cost houses, on a much lower wage, we would probably be able to attract manufacturing jobs back to these shores. Our workers could live on a wage that would be competitive on the world market.

Combined with tariff and immigration reforms, our economy might get to humming so well that we would want to attenuate it so as to not drive other nations into bankruptcy. That would be a nice problem to have.

All of which brings us full circle back to the mid term elections of 2026. If MAGA could do this, break the thrall that the establishment, country club Republicans have over the party by freeing the housing market, it would benefit us greatly at the ballot box. Sincerely working to break the logjam in low cost housing will attract young voters (MAGA's worst demographic) in droves. Doing it without resort to big government socialism will keep the economic conservatives on board. The only losers would be the ultra wealthy establishment, and who will they turn to? Communists like Mamdani?

To sum up, solving the housing crisis with freedom, like solving the immigration mess with compassion, could both be factors in a MAGA red wave in 26.

MAGA Red Wave in '26 and Immigration

 

Here we are, just rounding the first 1/8 turn of the second Trump administration. Things are looking good so far, better than expected.

International affairs are going better than anyone thought they would, with serious thought being given to awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump. What's more, his use of tariffs and focus on getting America back to a favorable balance of trade looks like it might rev up our economy without landing us in a recession, or excessively driving up inflation.

The MAHA agenda, with Robert Kennedy Jr. at the HHS helm seems to be making steady progress. Since the whole agenda there is necessarily driven at the pace of good science, any big changes will probably come later.

Meaningful reforms are already coming in the military, as Secretary of Defense Hegseth makes good on his promises to return it to being a lethal, effective fighting force.. Likewise, the recently passed Big Beautiful Bill, along with the rescission package are a strong beginning. With those votes in the rear view mirror, the congress might actually get to many more of the recommendations made by DOGE to rein in governmental waste, fraud, and abuse.

Even on the perennially unsolvable issue of illegal immigration, this administration's fierce initial approach has resulted in reducing the flow of illegal migrants across our border to a trickle. That is a solid beginning. This is, however, the one issue that we must focus on, because it could make or break the entire MAGA agenda. Illegal immigration will prove to be either the Achilles heel of the MAGA movement or its' greatest achievement, and it will all come down to whether we will just remain hard headed about it, or convert to a stance of hard headed compassion.

The 2026 midterms are coming at us like a freight train, just a couple more turns down the road. A year from now that election will loom like a dark cloud over the national mind. The conventional wisdom is that the party in power usually loses seats in the midterm, and we must not let that happen. If the Democrats gain just a few seats in the House, and maintain at least the filibuster option in the Senate, these first two years might eventually be seen as the high water mark of the MAGA movement.

If the Democrats gain control of the House, as seems likely, that will scuttle almost the entire agenda. Impeachment will fill the air, and it won't be aimed solely at the President. Certainly, Big Pharma can be counted on to bring the impeachment gun to bear on Kennedy. Even if others are not impeached, those like Tom Homan will be forced to spend more time in Washington, answering to committees, than in doing their jobs.

On the other hand, Illegal immigration could prove to be the Republican's breakthrough issue of the 26 midterms. If we could get the hard headed among us to accept a modified stance, we could not only manage to barely hold our own, we might turn 26 into a red wave landslide. There is a real chance we could get to a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, while increasing our majority in the House. We might then, for the first time in a long time, have one party national government. Then, with no excuses for failure, the nation can decide if we have done a good enough job to continue in power after Trump. Then, and only then, we might be be on the verge of making America great again.

To get to the heart of the issue, what we have to do is modify our hard headed, absolutely NO AMNESTY stance with some realistic compassion. This plan necessarily contains some fine nuance (it can't be a repeat of the 1986 debacle), which will be explained in a bit, but first let's look at how unrealistic, and fictional, the NO AMNESTY stance is.

As a conservative guess, there are probably at least 30 million illegal migrants here today. They mostly have close attachments, via children (citizens who will remain citizens even if birthright citizenship is ended. No Ex Post Facto laws allowed, remember?), in-laws, and friends. So, at a minimum we are talking about a deportation process that will have traumatic effect on 50 or more million people, many of whom voted for Trump in 24.

Chances are they will switch their votes in 26 if things keep going like they are, and that will hand at least the House to the Democrats. That could possibly render the entire MAGA movement a soon forgotten footnote in the history of the decline of the American republic. Trump can't run again, so we have only this one shot. We best not blow it.

Look at how things have actually been going. Yes, it appears that a million or so illegal immigrants have been detained and or deported, and once again, the border has been closed. That is a good start.

But most of the deportees have been the despicable criminals and gang members nobody wanted in the first place, along with those self deportees who were probably intending to leave soon anyway. In other words, they were the low hanging fruit. Even with all that going for the deportation process, the administration still had to resort to multiple deployments of the National Guard to assist ICE, and the almost unheard of deployment of American combat forces on American soil.

To get from one million to 30 million, we will have to double that effort, and then double it again, and then double it again, and then double it again, and then double it yet again. Even now, many of the immigrant's home countries refuse to repatriate them, so we shunt them to third countries. That will work only in the short term and in small numbers. In large numbers, dumping unemployed foreigners will result in criminal gangs running amok in those countries, who will then also refuse them.

It is hard to see how we can continue, let alone accelerate, down this path without resorting to martial law. Especially because of the resistance in sanctuary cities and states. That might require dozens, if not hundreds of National Guard and regular military deployments, making America resemble a police state.

Disturbingly, some of the brutal immigration enforcement looks like the worst form of scapegoating. You know the drill. The people are deeply frustrated about never seeing any elites arrested and convicted, no matter how great their crimes. That kind of anger can be and historically has been transferred, by sly leaders, to some other group, some scapegoat. Then, suffering is inflicted on the scapegoats while the truly guilty go forgotten. Evil leaders have worked that game many times in the past.

Don't try to argue the current American people are too smart for that. It is to laugh. What's worst, this scapegoating looks like, and might actually be, a continuation of the racist heritage we almost all say we want to leave in the past.

If we continue down this path, we will probably become a police state, or fall into some form of civil war, or most probably both: low level civil war and authoritarianism. America will become an armed camp. Our deportation efforts will likely become an avoidable slow burning humanitarian disaster, not solve the problem of illegal immigration and resemble genocide.

All of that will likely follow if we stick to the hard headed, absolutely NO AMNESTY approach. Or rather, our false version of that approach because let's be real here, that NO AMNESTY thing is a fiction to begin with. There is no intention of applying that hard headed logic to all the illegal employers. If NO AMNESTY were applied to illegal employers today, almost all the meat packing, construction and agri-business concerns would quickly be put out of business. Not only would they lose their workers, but they would be fined into bankruptcy, that is if we were serious about NO AMNESTY to law breakers.

Many will shout, “Whoa up and hold on there sport. A strict application of the law to deprive billionaires of some of their millions of dollars is a bridge too far, a tragedy too great to consider.” They will say this while asserting that ruining the lives of millions of weak and defenseless workers is perfectly alright. This is scapegoating in action.

So that NO AMNESTY thing will, in the fine tradition of American euphemism and equivocation, fall apart in the wink and nod, backroom dealings of the good old boy network. We all suspect that is how it will end, after we witness a time of highly publicized brutal enforcement. When immigration enforcement starts hitting the bottom line of some big campaign donors, the vigor of law enforcement will peter out, and things will go back to how they used to be. The problem of illegal immigration will remain unsolved. That is the way it has gone before, and that is how things will probably go this time.

That is what happened in 1986, and that is why amnesty did not work then. Amnesty to illegal immigrants, with the border remaining porous, was just an open invitation to more illegal immigration, and that is what we got. Instead, we must first close the border, which we have done, and make sure it stays closed, which will require an ending of ALL illegal employment. It might also include expanding the wall where appropriate, but that is a relatively small side matter.

Enacting and vigorously enforcing strong laws against illegal employment will be the key factor in keeping the border closed. We have simply to turn off the jobs magnet attracting the workers.

Enforcement of immigration laws will, contrary to those defending illegal employment, be an easy fix. Simply attach hefty fines to every instance of illegal employment, and make half the fine money payable, as a bounty, to those who report it. That approach would make enforcement very effective, and profoundly cost effective.

In fact, that way of doing it would be so effective that it would actually threaten the economic well being of many big corporations. Then the real world benefits of this policy would come to the fore. Rather than allowing themselves to go broke, the big corporate illegal employers would be forced to make their arguments in transparent public debate, and not just in smoke filled back rooms. When the big business folks have to make their arguments public, we will probably soon discover that in some fields, such as agriculture and meat processing, we really do need some foreign workers

With the real issues around illegal immigration finally up for transparent public discussion, we could then move forward to find agreement on real solutions to the problem of illegal immigration. Consider the following possible agenda.

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Any such solution will have to be based on keeping the border tightly closed. The first step has to be that everyone who comes in to this country comes in through the front door, in compliance with our laws, whatever we decide those laws will be. And that closure must be maintained for as long as the border exists.

The next stage in the plan is to establish some date certain, in the near future, at which time all illegal employees, and their employers, are required to identify all illegal workers. At that time each worker will be assigned a provisional green card, with bio-metric data attached and downloaded to a data base.. After that date, any worker without such a card, and file in the data base, is subject to immediate deportation and the employer is subject to a fine, if not criminal prosecution.

Concurrent with that, each of the workers is entered into and subjected to a vetting process, the provisions of which will have already been established and made transparent to the public. These protocols will be designed to determine who deserves to gain permanent green card status.

These protocols will be based on things like time in country, legal record, work history, character references from friends and employers, record of family use or abuse of government services, and things like that. That way, a person who has been here twenty years, worked hard, paid their bills and kept their nose clean will be relatively assured, even before entering into the process, of gaining a permanent card. That way, much opposition to the plan will be muted.

On the other hand, those who engaged in criminality, or who lived on the edge of the law, or were illegitimately brought in during Biden's open border fiasco, or who came here to game our system and take advantage of our compassion, will be filtered out.

While that vetting process is being carried out, all employees, legal or illegal, will, for the first time, have equal legal status. That means minimum wage, safety, and worker benefits laws will be in force. That alone will make it to where native born Americans will once again be able to compete for jobs in those fields. As the vetting process continues, many of the foreign born illegal workers will be gone, and even more native born workers will take their place.

Once again it must be emphasized that a closed border will have to be a permanent fact for this plan to work. From this point forward there will be no new illegal workers coming in. That will be the big difference compared to 1986. Then, over the course of just a few years, with our economy expanding as expected, the formerly illegal workers will be absorbed into an open, free and fair market. The problem of illegal immigration will largely be solved. Then we can have full employment, with a dignified, legally protected and decent life for all workers.

That is the plan to solve it, but before we can get there, we must first recognize and deal with the true bad guys in this scenario. There are clearly some very powerful and entrenched special interests that want the illegal immigration situation to stay exactly where it is. (One wonders if some of them aren't among those pressing so strongly for the NO AMNESTY fiction, so as to prevent any real solutions from being presented.).

The two major bad actors here are the commercial interests who desire an ongoing supply of low cost and legally marginalized workers, and the gangs and drug cartels south of the border who want easy access to our nation for their nefarious activities, such as drug and human trafficking. Those groups are very influential and will work hard to prevent any solution to the illegal immigration problem, a problem which makes them filthy rich. So we had better be fully prepared for their intense opposition when we do agree on a solution.

The pivotal issue to consider in defeating them is the rule of law. This factor is naturally our best tool because the rule of law unites us: it empowers the people to be certain we are in the right. This is THE issue that corrupt politicians (by definition) and corporate greedmeisters (by inclination) want to ignore.

As an example, think about how ignoring the rule of law effects workers in just one kind of job; janitorial work. It used to be that janitors were paid by the hour as employees, with benefits, overtime, vacations, insurance and such. These days that work is mostly subcontracted out,(largely to illegals) so the worker has no benefits and is expected to pay their own taxes. It’s still very low paid work, averaging little more than ten to fifteen dollars an hour, and the worker, as stated, is expected to pay the taxes out of that. The situation is similar in other trades, such as construction and landscaping.

Most of the illegal workers simply don’t pay their taxes, which maximizes their take home pay, allowing them to pay for their own benefits. And there is a tendency to have the government subsidize their pay by relying on emergency rooms for medical care. The only way for an American to compete is to take a job that after taxes brings home less than seven to ten dollars an hour, or to take the risk of not paying the taxes.

If the IRS comes after the illegal for back taxes, they can go underground, get a new phony ID, take a temporary deportation, or maybe just take their savings and depart for home. On the other hand, if the IRS comes after the American worker, they’re in a lot of trouble, with almost no place to hide. So the situation is that if the American is going to compete with the illegal, they tend to move to a marginalized legal status, effectively working under the table, just like the illegal. That’s how it is working today, how it has always worked when the law is being ignored, and how it will always work. Lawlessness always begets more lawlessness.

Now consider how this microcosm plays out when repeated millions of times over many years. (As a side note, it is clear that the illegal community is composed of more than just Mexican nationals, but the situation between our two nations is so unique and we are so closely tied together that the discussion will be simplified to make the point.)

Basically, if the rule of law continues to be ignored, (if we allow lawlessness to continue it will only get worse) the status of Mexican and migrant workers, both in this nation and in Mexico, will stay the same or slowly get worse, and the status of American workers (wages, protections, security, etc) will, over the course of years, be brought down to that level. This has been happening for decades now, and is a major factor in the widening disparity between rich and poor in this nation.

On the other hand, if we insist on the rule of law, requiring our government to do the will of the people and forcing businesses to obey the law, the status of the American workers (wages, benefits...) will stay the same as today, or tend to slowly improve, and the status of the Mexican and migrant workers, in this nation and in Mexico, will slowly be brought up to that level. Thus, many of the economic issues facing the masses will improve if we reject illegality and instead embrace the rule of law.

This might seem anti business to some, but it really isn’t. It must be acknowledged that the forces of commerce can be a great benefit to society, but there is a tendency of business to be guided by runaway greed, exploiting the weak and corrupting governments. It’s not that business is immoral, rather it is amoral. Like a mindless, amoral beast, it will take as much as it is allowed to take, and just like a beast, if we stand up and say no, it will obey us and stand down.

If we stand up and tell the forces of commerce that they can no longer ignore the law to exploit desperate Mexicans and weaken the status of low skilled Americans, they will turn tail like Bud Light after the boycott. They will behave much like a dog caught trying to steal a steak off the grill at a cookout. They will look up, offer a falsely friendly smile, wag their tails, and change their plans.

They will probably think something like, “Darn, I was making a killing off that setup. Now I can't make so much money off the illegal Mexican workers. Since they are all in Mexico, why don’t I figure out how to make some money, maybe not as much, but some, off them in Mexico. While I’m at it maybe I’ll invest some time and effort into cleaning up the situation in Mexico so I can regularize and maximize that stream of profit.”

In that way, solving the illegal immigration problem by compassionately returning to the rule of law will benefit all working people, in this and other countries, and only minimally reduce the wealth of the already wealthy.

If we conservatives can do this, if we can temper our absolute NO AMNESTY determination with some hard headed compassion; a compassion that will truly and peacefully return us to the rule of law, then we could very well generate a true red wave in November of 26. If by September of 26 it looks like the issue of illegal immigration, can, under Republican governance, actually be solved without causing a humanitarian disaster in the process, we will likely prevail mightily and the MAGA agenda will continue on to greatness.

In the election of 2024, it was clear that the American people turned with revulsion away from the Democrat agenda of anti American, anti Christian DEI, LGBTQ and basically communist economic ideology. If we Republicans allow NO AMNESTY absolutism to be the sole driver of our thinking on immigration, many of those same voters will tend to turn back to the Democrats. After four years of being out of power, and hence out of mind, the latest re-packaging of commie lies from the left might be made to sound good. To the undecided masses it could look like a fresh and attractive alternative to the militarism, racism, fear and loathing that will seem to be on offer from the Republicans.

If we continue on our present agenda of hard headed militaristic mass deportation, we will find that the American people, long term, don't have the stomach for it. Then the problem will go unsolved, (like always) and the Republicans will have to scramble to hold on to any power in 26, Which will probably result in a President AOC, or something like that, in 28. All our present gains could be quickly wiped out.

Reforms of the military will be reversed. The Supreme Court might well get packed. Abortion would be re-legalized nationally, MAHA will die, and Big Pharma, and Big Food and Agra will be re enthroned. Worst of all, the national movement toward moral revival will be viciously attacked as DEI is again foisted on us with renewed determination.

What's more, we will deserve that fate; of our so called Christian moral revival fizzling. That is if we can't find a way to fulfill our desire for a return to the rule of law without brutalizing the weakest among us. Along the same lines, we Americans have also traditionally scapegoated the weak, turning a blind eye to the depredations of the rich and powerful.

If we fall, once again, for this traditional American double sided moral compromise, we truly will deserve to fall. If, on the other hand, we can find a way to apply our Christian compassion, in a hard headed way, to the problem of illegal immigration, we will demonstrate that we deserve a chance to govern even after Donald Trump exits the scene, to go all the way in making America great again.

Our fate in 2026, the fate of the MAGA movement, indeed the fate of our once glorious republic depends on our ability to think outside the box. We must find a way to apply our Christian sensibilities to the problem of illegal immigration without succumbing to either brutal repression or passive surrender to runaway globalism. This has been a presentation of one way we can do that. Can we join together to pray for God's wisdom, courage, and faith as we move forward to improve on and carry out this project?

Happy (Constitutional) 4th of July

 

With the 4^th of July once again upon us, it is time to put some finishing touches to the reasons to support and revive our Constitution. Coherent thought is long overdue on this subject. In fact, much of our current social breakdown is a result of many folks gravitating toward the numerous half thought out alternatives to our constitutional republic that are being advocated these days.

First of all, many say that our Constitution should be dismissed out of hand; that it was written by a bunch of White male plutocrats to entrench themselves in power. Like all effective lies, there is some truth to this charge, but it is just a half truth. Yes, the founders were White men, and many, but not all, of them were wealthy. In fact though, many of them died penniless.

More importantly, this particular group of plutocrats were caught in a unique set of historical circumstances. This unique set of circumstances impelled them to produce a system of government which served the people far better than any previous system of government ever had. In fact it probably ended up being better for the masses, especially with the addition of the Bill of Rights, than many of the plutocrats probably wanted. Certainly, within ten years, one of the founders, John Adams, was working to defy First Amendment limitations.

In 1787 the Articles of Confederation were falling apart. That was our original constitution, our original basis of government, that had been slapped together during the crisis of war,. That system of government was failing, and we looked likely to slip into 13 different nations, or at best two or three competing nations. It looked as though the newly born nation was going to fall into disunity, and thereby be easy pickings for the powers of Europe (especially Great Britain) to swoop back in and, one by one, dominate the states,. If that happened, those “plutocrats”, our founders, knew that their lives would be shortened, and probably end swinging on a hangman's noose.

So this group of well educated men knew that their only real hope for survival lay in establishing a system of government that could hold all the states together as the United States. Their problem was further complicated because they knew that the people of this new nation were restive, skeptical of bad government, and that they were the most well read and politically astute populace in the world.

So the founders were motivated to apply all their learning and creativity about government, and put together a structure that appealed to the masses, and yet could last over time. They gave us republic, if we can keep it, which has sustained for nearly 250 years.

While our republic has sustained for a couple centuries, it isn't really thriving today. To most of us, it appears to be circling the drain, showing the classic symptoms of the last stages of a declining republic with widespread corruption, forever wars, and poisonous bread and circuses for the apathetic masses.

To fix this mess some propose a new constitutional convention, or at least an Article Five convention to fix this one. Such folks neglect to notice that this is not the same political moment the founders faced in 1787. Those involved in said convention will not have the same motivations as those men did. Sadly, the most likely outcome of some convention for enacting new amendments will probably resemble the latest Democrat or Republican conventions, loaded with corruption and producing the sly tools of entrenched oligarchs.

Most of the utopian schemes of government that are currently advocated by many folks fall to pieces when they come up against those same rocks of real world political opposition. Any scheme or plan will have to be implemented in defiance of a world wide oligarchy that seems intent on controlling everyone.

Socialism (or communism) anyone? That perennially sounds good, with the idea of “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The unsolvable problem with communism is that in the real world the bureaucracy empowered to determine who should give and receive becomes the seat of elitist power. It is then indistinguishable from fascism and folds easily into the control of that same international oligarchy.

Libertarianism sounds good, with the idea that total economic freedom will bring about socially meaningful freedom for all. However, for that to work we must have a much higher level of social consciousness than is in evidence today. Without that heightened moral thinking, a libertarian society is likely to quickly devolve into a neo-feudal corporatism, which would also, in our modern world, be indistinguishable from fascism, and be easily folded into the international oligarchy.

Anarchy, the idea that we should live without any government, has herds of fans in this era. Mostly though, we should notice that the biggest fans are the kind of strong armed thugs, and their henchmen, who would just love to not have any organized resistance to their having free rein over everyone else. Another strong constituency of anarchy seems to be elderly folks with government pensions. More on that in a bit.

Once again, a much more elevated moral thinking, on the part of the vast majority of people, would be necessary for anarchy to not fall into chaos. When it does inevitably fall into chaos it will in turn result in the masses clamoring for the international oligarchy to come in and save them.

Another approach, advocated by some very well meaning folks, is the call to a community based society. This idea actually underlies all the other ideas. It arouses strong emotion because the diminishment of community, of the spirit of community, is the leading cause and symptom of our declining republic.

Almost all of us have long yearned for a more sincere and nurturing connection with community. Unfortunately, it seems that the oligarchy knows this about us, and is constantly abusing our striving for community, monetizing it through entertainments, and weaponizing it via religious and political movements. Can you say “cult?” Jonestown and the Branch Davidians are two prominent examples of historic cults and their risks. There are thousands of others.

Even where modern informal community seems to work, where nominal anarchy is observed, it is often facilitated by elderly or disabled members who receive government funding. Without that subsidy, one wonders if such communities will sustain for long, and if they do; if they will continue to have absolutely no government. Frankly, I doubt it but wish them well, and plan on copying them to the degree they discover an approach that works.

Make no mistake, a lot of these ideas actually make some sense, and should be given a fair chance to work. But of course, no matter the idea it stands little chance of making it past our oligarchic masters. That is a truth we simply must acknowledge. Anything that might be done along any of those lines will in reality only be “allowed” by them, so participants will never be more than kept pets. Kind of museum pieces, like some of those “off limits” islands in the Indian Ocean.

If anything starts growing that might actually threaten the ruling status of the oligarchy, it will be systematically eradicated like weeds in a modern corn field. The oligarchy is into mono-cultural agribusiness, and is allergic to self sufficient small farms. Consequently, it is obviously certain that that is the mode in which they intend to farm the human race.

The upshot is that the only way any of our modern revolutionary ideas will be truly established is if we regain control of our own government first. That is the reason the only real play that we, the people, have is to first revive our original Constitution.

It is just as feasible a concept of government as any of the others currently on offer, and it has the advantage that we might actually, if courageous and creative enough, establish it over the opposition of the oligarchy. . This form of political revolution is uniquely achievable because it is based on a conservative return to our liberal Constitution. Kind of going back to the future. That happy coincidence of social forces has historically been America's bedrock advantage, and has always proven to be an unbeatable combination.

The ultimate point to consider, when talking with hopeful revolutionaries, is that when we revive a true use of our Constitution, we will have a form of government within which all the other ideas about government can be tried and proved. We could all organize ourselves, and move to communities of agreement, and freely live out the utopian vision we each believe in. We will be able to learn from our own experiences, and the experiences of other communities as we all struggle to once again take on the powers and duties of free self government.

When we are free, in our own communities, to live out our idealistic visions, we will still be enveloped by a system of checks and balances, preventing the worst of extremist thinking from becoming oppressive on the local (or state) level. As I read it, our national system is idealistically supposed to be a germination bed for LCMSG. Instead of ignoring and squandering that glorious heritage, we should embrace and improve on it. Especially so since, with a long view of our history, we can see that the original American experiment was a raging success.

Where local community was truly empowered, a republican spirit thrived in the hearts of the American people. Regrettably, that didn't really happen in some places, but the aroused citizenry that grew in many communities nationwide is the only true greatness America ever displayed. That citizenry, remaining aroused for generations, grew enterprise and innovation like mushrooms after a rainstorm, and lived out a spirit of political reform the world has never before known. Eighty years after our experiment began, we had become a nation with millions of people who were willing to fight, die, and even kill to abolish legal slavery. Quite the elevation of morality in a very short time.

LCMSG is an architecture of government that tends to produce a citizenry infused with a reform minded republican spirit, and very importantly, no other system of government does that. But let it be quickly added that the United States of America is not the only place with that form of government. A number of other countries have it. Such as Finland, Switzerland, and etc., and in some of them it is working quite well because the people are working their system as designed. Which is what we should do.

The abiding blessing of Local Community Moral Self Government (LCMSG) is that in that structure human beings tend to develop an elevating moral consciousness. Being compelled to wrestle with real decisions about how we govern ourselves tends to motivate individuals to become better people. That is because they then witness how socially harmful immoral behavior is.

Even if that experience doesn't cause folks to change religions, it will tend to impel them to initiate laws and customs designed to get their ideals functioning. Individuals will then tend to be sincere about trying to make their local system work effectively, because they will have a voice in forming that system. They will all (for the most part), that is to say, we will all, become much more morally minded, at least in the light of local moral thinking. That effect, in the long term, will tend to transform us, as a people, into a nation which can make those utopian ideals work. This is the way to evolve toward that enlightened universal mindset our spiritual instincts call us to.

That is why we should all commit to reviving the Constitution of the United States of America..

Happy 4^th of July.