Critically Thinking

By Charles Reichley

August 16, 2006

 

Do we spend enough to fight AIDS?

 

Every year there is another round of stories saying America isn’t doing enough to stop the spread of AIDS.  To be sure, AIDS is a bad disease, and it once was a death sentence.  While it is now largely treatable with medication, it’s still something nobody should have to endure.

 

Despite the world’s best efforts, the number of new cases rose to a record of almost 5 million last year.  The real progress has not been prevention, but treatment, with fewer people now dying of AIDS than contracting it.  This means the number of people infected is increasing.

 

In the United States, the number of new cases has remained steady at about 40,000 a year, thanks in part to over $700 million dollars a year spent on prevention.  Now some people say we could cut that number in half by spending another $400 million (about $20,000 per year per prevented case).  They claim that preventing 12,000 cases would save more than that in medical costs, noting that costs are skyrocketing as patients live longer and have better access to expensive but necessary treatments.

 

There is doubt as to whether spending more money would help.  In 2001, the Centers for Disease Control launched a major effort to cut new cases, and it had no effect. But why is it that, over 20 years after the discovery of HIV and the ensuing panic, we need to spend more money on prevention?

 

99 percent of new AIDS cases in 2004 came from three categories:  male-to-male sexual activity (46 percent), heterosexual activity (31 percent), and IV drug use (22 percent). To prevent infection as an illegal drug user, you can stop taking illegal drugs, or use a clean needle each time you shoot up.  To prevent the spread of AIDS by sexual activity, you can stop having sex, use a condom each time you have sex, or have a monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner.

 

If everybody read my column, we just saved four hundred million dollars.  But obviously it’s not that easy.  One problem is that drug users won’t get clean needles and don’t want to stop taking drugs, and men don’t want to stop having sex, and don’t like using condoms. 

 

Part of the problem is our success in managing the disease.  You can now live a relatively normal, healthy life with HIV, so people engaging in high-risk behaviors aren’t as concerned with taking precautions to prevent infection.

 

Also, while the costs of treatment are high, government programs subsidize or pay for treatment for many infected people, removing the monetary incentive high-risk people have to protect themselves.  These programs actually help prop up the cost of the drugs, since otherwise many of those infected wouldn’t be able to afford the prices and the companies would have to reduce the costs.

 

Government spending on AIDS research for 2007 is almost $3 billion, higher than any other major disease (Heart disease is second at $2.3 billion).  Relative to the number of people affected, HIV spending is vastly higher than other recurring diseases.  We will spend over $3,000 per HIV/AIDS patient next year, while spending only $50 per diabetic patient, even though diabetes kills five times more people than AIDS each year.

 

We also spend billions on treatment programs for those who have HIV.  We spend more for HIV/AIDS than any other disease including heart disease and cancer, which can strike anybody at any time with little chance of prevention.

 

Part of the problem is political.  For most communicable diseases, the health care strategy is to isolate and report cases to prevent the spread of disease.  But with HIV/AIDS we adopted a strategy of silence, hiding the identities of those infected.

 

The argument against publicizing HIV infection was that it can’t be spread casually – in other words, because it is hard to spread, we don’t provide the information people need to make informed decisions to prevent the spread.  And when people suggest ways to provide that information, they are often called bigots or homophobes.

 

Still, if spending $400 million would save over $650 million in health care costs, it would be a good thing, freeing up millions to spend on other diseases.  But until there is good evidence that spending more money would actually change the behavior of the at-risk population, the money can be better spent on prevention and cure for illnesses that can’t be so easily prevented, or successfully treated.   Medical funding shouldn’t be driven by special-interest politics.

 

© 2006 Media General. Part of the GatewayVA Network.
Terms & Conditions

 

 

Critically Thinking

By Charles Reichley

August 9, 2006

 

Lebanon is Latest front in War on Terror

 

War.  It’s a word that unfortunately we hear too often these days.  War is not a good thing.  War is, at its core, a failure of civilized society.  Most people hate war.  War causes the death of human beings – combatants and non-combatants, aggressors and bystanders, able-bodied men and women and children.

 

So I wish Israel would declare a cease-fire.  I wish Hezbollah would stop the shelling.  I wish people would stop killing each other.  Like a beauty queen contestant, I wish for world peace.

 

But life involves hard choices. Sometimes those choices are between bad and worse.  War can be preferable to the alternative.  So I might wish and end to the war in Lebanon, but I support Israel defending itself against aggression, as the alternative would undoubtedly be worse. I support the “war on terror” as preferable to surrender.

 

But we cannot actually fight a “war” with terror, or terrorism, or even terrorists.  Terror is an emotion.  Terrorism is a tactic.  Terrorist is a participant.  War is not fought against individuals, but against groups, usually nations.  We can’t win the war on terror without involving the nations harboring the terrorists.

 

In his speech following the 9/11 attacks, President Bush said “We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”

 

Afghanistan did not attack us on 9/11.  But Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan.  So America gave Afghanistan an ultimatum: “They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate”. They refused, and we declared war, holding Afghanistan accountable for acts of war perpetrated by people within their borders.

 

Now Israel is in a war with “Hezbollah” in Lebanon.  By confining the conflict to a “terrorist faction”, Israel’s hands are largely tied.  The people of Lebanon are treated like innocent victims, and if Israel’s attacks are not narrowly focused they are condemned.  This even though many  “innocent victims” strongly support and provide support to the terrorists, and even though Hezbollah is firing rockets from residential areas to draw Israeli fire, causing civilian casualties they can use in their propaganda battle.

 

But Lebanon is a sovereign country, and should be held responsible for acts of war launched from its borders.  Israel should not bargain with Hezbollah; but with the government of Lebanon.  If Lebanon cannot control its own people, then Lebanon should suffer the consequences.  Lebanon must defeat the terrorists in its midst, or else share their fate.

 

Armies cannot “defeat” individuals.  War is not a police action. Winning a war requires breaking the will of the people – NOT the army, which consists of true believers trained to fight to the death, but the civilians who support the war effort.  For example, in World War II, we bombed the cities of Germany and Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of people, because those people supported the war effort, and to demoralize the citizens, to make them weary of fighting.

 

The “war on terror” has become too focused on the terrorists.  These combatants are people who relish dying for a cause, and we’ll never kill them all.  Until we defeat the “civilian” support for these armies, we will never end this “war on terror”.

 

Civilization consists of nations given sovereignty over people and property based on physical boundaries.  We need to hold nations responsible for the actions of the people within their borders.  We need to stop targeting terrorists, and fight the nations that allow terrorists to operate in their midst.  We must give nations a reason to denounce and defeat the terrorists in their countries.

 

The latest battle in the “war on terror” is raging in southern Lebanon. The world can choose to hold Lebanon accountable, to embrace the possibility of a true victory over terrorism.  But sixty dead in Qana have broken our resolve, and instead of victory we are headed for another stalemate.  People hate war, and will do almost anything to stop it.  So Hezbollah will live to fight another day, terrorists around the world will breathe a sigh of relief, nations will continue ignoring evildoers in their midst – and most of us will just be happy the fighting has stopped.

 

 

© 2006 Media General. Part of the GatewayVA Network.
Terms & Conditions

That's my opinion, even if somewhat uninformed according to at least one loyal reader.

 

Read it at the Potomac News online website: Vulcan Quarry Should Get Approval

My column of July 5th dealt with the issue of flag burning, and my opposition to the constitutional amendment to "protect the flag".

 

Summary:

It pains me to see a flag burned – not because of a blackened piece of cloth, but because of what it says about the protestors and those who support them.  We all have things we want to change in our country.  But to trample on Old Glory is to reject the very nation we live in, to show disrespect for our culture, our heritage, and our country.  To spit on the symbol is to spit on the Republic for which it stands, and reveals those protestors for what they are.

 

So flag burning may do us a service, by revealing the perpetrators as unworthy of serious consideration.  As we do with children who express their anger by stomping their feet demanding attention, flag-burners deserve nothing more than to be put in a time-out, to be ignored until they can behave as civilized people.

 

Read the entire column at the Potomac News online site:  And to the Republic, For which it Stands

 

 

Critically Thinking

By Charles Reichley

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

 

Have We Lost Our Compassion?

 

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We have long embraced this “golden rule”, treating each other with respect and compassion. The hallmark of our society was our humanity, civility, and kindness to others. 

 

There have always been some among us without those qualities, but it seems that our society is losing the desire for compassion.  Instead, we’ve become selfish, self-centered, and ever-less likely to think about how our words and actions effect others.

 

It is clear politicians are no longer treated like human beings, even by people in the same party. The Virginia Senate Democrat primary shows how acceptable it is to “dehumanize” your opponent.  When James Webb called his opponent “the anti-Christ of outsourcing”, few people criticized the decidedly “inhuman” reference.

 

Last year Senator Salazar (D-Col) apologized after using the term “antichrist” to describe members of a religious organization.  But Webb did not apologize, and continued to use the phrase.  His supporters attacked those who suggested calling another human “the devil” was inappropriate.

 

 But that’s just politics. What brought home to me our loss of compassion for others was the story of the sleeping Cable Guy.

 

A local Comcast customer was having trouble with his new cable internet service.  After some difficulties, he finally had a service technician in his house.  The technician needed assistance from the office, and was put on hold for an hour. While waiting, the technician fell asleep on a couch. The customer’s response?  He videotaped the sleeping man, and posted it on the internet.  As a result, the technician was fired.

 

We know little about the technician.  He could be a hard-working man, with a wife and kids, working long hours with little sleep.  Who among us hasn’t drifted off during a sermon, a long meeting, or at other inappropriate times? Why not just wake the guy up? Why humiliate him in front of the entire world?  The customer’s anger at the company was directed at the technician, with no thought to the damage it would cause. 

 

When I heard this story on CNN, the reporter sounded gleeful, and seemed to think it a fitting punishment to ruin a man’s life for falling asleep waiting on hold.  It’s easy to hate a faceless company.  But where is our compassion for this man, a human being like us?

 

The internet is part of the problem.  Anonymity and physical isolation make it easy to say things that civilized people wouldn’t say in public.  E-mail complaints are often harsh and cruel compared to in-person complaints.  And the internet gives us a world-wide receptive audience for our diatribes.

 

The web offers the opportunity for debating problems and finding common solutions, but it rarely lives up to its potential.  You are much more likely to find childish insults, personal attacks, vulgar racial, ethnic, and sexual slurs, and baseless accusations of wrongdoing. The “search for common ground” with our fellow man is replaced by the simpler “seek and destroy” of faceless opponents.  Instead of working through our differences, we draw lines in the sand and hurl invectives hoping to demonize our opponents.

 

Insensitivity is spreading like a cancer over our society.  Every interaction is another opportunity for mayhem. Instead of putting ourselves in “the other man’s shoes”, we want to “bury him with his boots on”.  If a cashier isn’t polite enough, we lodge a formal complaint.  If a radio host says something we don’t like, we organize a letter-writing campaign to get them disciplined or fired.  If a celebrity makes a child-rearing mistake we call them unfit mothers, or worse. When we feel the least bit harmed, we seek revenge, our pound of flesh, with not a care in the world how our actions impact someone’s life and livelihood.

 

People are human beings, worthy of respect.  There are few truly evil people in the world, but you wouldn’t know it from our modern discourse. We used to care about people as people, now we want to dehumanize them so we can ignore them, attack them, and destroy them, without feeling any guilt. 

 

So tonight, some cable technician is sitting with his wife and kids, explaining why they had to cancel their summer vacation because he lost his job for nodding off waiting on hold.  And too many people see nothing wrong with that, because we’ve lost our capacity to see others as fellow human beings.  Life itself has become a game to us, and we’ve forgotten that real people are suffering from our words and actions.

 

© 2006 Media General. Part of the GatewayVA Network.
Terms & Conditions

 

 

 

This is a reprint of my column published June 7, 2006 in the Potomac News.

 

 

Critically Thinking

By Charles Reichley

June 7, 2006

Stop blaming others

I sometimes joke that, when things go wrong, the important thing is to find someone to blame. But too many people blame others for their own choices.

This past Sunday, the Washington Post ran an opinion by "Dana L.", who says she was forced to have an abortion by George Bush and religion seeping into politics.

Dana uses a diaphragm, and one Thursday the 42-year-old forgot it "in a sudden rush of passion". She didn’t want another child, so Friday she called her doctor to get a prescription for "Plan B", a post-encounter contraceptive. Her doctor and internist wouldn’t prescribe it, and her midwifery had no appointments available.

So she gave up, and when she later found herself pregnant, had an abortion. But she hated it, and blames Bush and religion because Plan B "was supposed to be available over the counter", but "conservative politics" was preventing approval.

Dana is a practicing lawyer, an obviously intelligent person. But when confronted with the problem of her doctor not prescribing a medication, she simply folded. In fact, as she described it, she spent a lot more time and effort getting her abortion than she did getting a "plan B" prescription.

After complaining that her doctor’s office wouldn’t tell why they don’t prescribe the pill, she said, "they were also partly responsible" for her predicament. Seems a lot of people were responsible, but not her.

So, we have a couple who decides not to have any more children. She could have her tubes tied. He could have a vasectomy. She could be on the pill, or on Norplant. He could have used a condom. She could have remembered her diaphragm.

Having failed all these simple acts, she could have looked up a Planned Parenthood clinic on Friday to get the pill, or even on Saturday. She could have gone to the ER, or called a few doctors.

Having not availed herself of any of these choices, she sees no reason to blame herself for not doing so. In her mind, she can have unprotected sex, do nothing to prevent a pregnancy, and it‘s someone else’s fault.

She also blames Virginia’s law keeping doctors from being forced to prescribe medicine against their own beliefs. She says "I was dumfounded to find that doctors" could exercise their own moral choices. She doesn’t explain why she should have a choice, but the doctor should not have the same right.

Was she forced to have an abortion? She says finding an abortion doctor was much more difficult for her than her trivial attempts to get the Plan B pill. But, unlike her lackluster efforts to get the pill she "needed" to prevent her from having an abortion, she found the strength and fortitude to overcome what she called a "murkier world" of abortionists.

Finally, after learning it would take two visits to get an abortion in Virginia (because of the informed choice waiting period), she had her entire family take a trip into DC so she could have her abortion in a DC Planned Parenthood clinic.

It is obvious that having an abortion was a traumatic experience for her, as it is for many women, unlike the picture often painted by abortion advocates. She says "I felt sick", "I became angry", and "It was awful, painful, sickening". I hope others reading her piece come away with this one truth – abortion is an awful choice. Remember, this is from a woman who has "always been in favor of abortion rights", not an anti-abortion advocate. They may say it’s just a mass of tissue, but she knew better.

She seems to find comfort in blaming others: "this administration gave me practically no choice but to have an unwanted abortion". She wouldn’t choose to have the baby, but she doesn’t acknowledge her own culpability in the affair.

This reminds me of the story of the man in the flood. He climbs to the roof, and asks God to save him. A rowboat comes by, then a powerboat, and finally a helicopter, but the man refuses all. He drowns, goes to heaven, and blames God for not saving him. To which God replies, "I gave you two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want?"

This woman refused all the choices given to her, and then chose to blame everybody but herself when the natural consequences of her own choices came to pass.

We all need to take responsibility for our own actions. With all the blame-passing recently, it’s clear we’ve forgotten that basic rule.

© 2006 Media General. Part of the GatewayVA Network. Terms & Conditions

 

This column is online at Potomac News now: Finding Bad News in the Good

 

 

 

 

 

Critically Thinking

By Charles Reichley

Columnist

A Way Back from the Brink on Immigration

Until recently most people weren’t thinking about immigration. But a lot has changed in the last few months. In December, the House of Representatives passed a strict immigration bill. Then the Senate took up the issue, there were protests around the country, children started walking out of schools, and now everybody’s talking about the problem of illegal immigration.

The issue has polarized the nation. Pro-amnesty rallies draw huge crowds, but polls show a majority want to throw the illegal immigrants out. Somewhere between turning illegal immigrants into felons, and granting them amnesty and a fast track to citizenship, there is a commonsense, conservative approach that should be considered.

Illegal immigrants can be divided into three broad categories. The first are those who want to be Americans. They want to be productive members of our society, to bring their families and become part of the American culture. These are the immigrants many of us relate to, for they remind us of our own immigrant ancestors.

The second are the temporary workers. They are not here because they love our country, or want to be a part of it. They are here to make money. These are often men who leave their wives and children behind, while they live in crowded homes and work long hours. They want to give their families a better life. When they have earned "enough", they will go back home and enjoy the fruits of their labors.

The third are the radicals. They seek neither the culture of America, nor its money. Instead, they want to take over our country. For example some Mexicans seek to reclaim the lands that once were theirs. Last month’s protests included signs calling for the removal of Europeans from "our land". A slogan tells the story: "We didn’t cross the borders, the border crossed us".

The third group we need to keep out. The second group we want to regulate. The first group we can assimilate (at a controlled pace). Our task is to sort the immigrants into the appropriate groups. This starts with real border security. Build a wall, add border patrol agents, and detain those we catch until we can send them back.

But we can’t control the border without cracking down on companies and people who hire illegal immigrants. Increase penalties, increase enforcement, and provide a process for employers to verify worker status. This will deter new border crossing, and help solve the problem of the existing illegal immigrants – if they can’t get work, many will return home.

Next, we need to expand our guest worker programs. While there is no job Americans won’t do, there are more jobs than there are Americans to do them. We can’t replace 12 million workers overnight. By creating a better guest worker program, we can decide what jobs we need to fill, and bring the illegal workers out of the shadows. Jobs must be offered to Americans first – citizens shouldn’t have to compete with foreign workers for American jobs.

While it isn’t fair, most of these guest workers will be people that are currently here illegally, because they are already doing the work. In exchange for giving them legal status for one or two years, we get them on the books, paying taxes, and on track to leave the country when their time is done. This gives us time to find American workers to take these jobs.

Third, we need to improve our processing and tracking of visitors to this country. Many illegal immigrants did not enter the country illegally, but are here on visas that have expired. And we aren’t processing legal immigration requests fast enough. We need to hire enough people to do the job right. We need to let good people in, and keep bad people out. There is still room in this country for people who want to fit in.

Lastly, we need to deal with the illegal immigrants in our country now. We need to deport those that aren’t needed, and give the others temporary work permits. They should get no special treatment toward citizenship. They should get in the back of the line, not be rewarded for their illegal behavior.

There are as many as twelve million illegal immigrants in this country. Most are integrated into our economy, and many into our society. We can’t make them all disappear tomorrow. But we can’t accept a growing illegal population in the age of terrorism. We need to find and track those who are guests in our country. Strong border security, a crackdown on companies that hire illegal immigrants, an expanded guest worker program, and more efficient processing of legal immigration is our best chance to get control of the problem.

 

© 2006 Media General. Part of the GatewayVA Network.
Terms & Conditions

My column for April 26, 2006.  The paper inadvertently left the final paragraph off (either that, or I just used too many big words so the column didn't fit).

 

Critically Thinking

By Charles Reichley

Columnist

Potomac News

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

High Oil Prices Will Drive Our Energy Independence

Our government sees a problem, and is ready to attack it. I am speaking of the horrors of three-dollar gasoline. What once looked like only a momentary blip in the storm-ravaged summer of 2005 now seems to be back with a vengeance, with no relief in sight.

Our politicians’ answer to this problem is to launch investigations. The Headlines tell the story: "Schwarzenegger urges gasoline price gouging probe", "Politicians Call for Oil Price-Gouging Probe", "GOP urges price-gouging probe on gas", "Democrats Jump White House on Gas Price Gouging". Even the White House is on board: "Bush Orders Probe into Gas Price Cheating".

But high gasoline prices have nothing to do with price gouging, and everything to do with our insatiable use of energy driving up demand while supplies struggle to keep up. There could be isolated cases of price-gouging, and our government is already investigating and prosecuting those cases, without prompting. But the price of oil is sitting near a record high 75 dollars a barrel because the people buying oil are willing to pay that much for guaranteed delivery.

It is possible that we could see oil prices drop back to the old 20-dollar-a-barrel range. The current price is far above the cost of pumping the oil, and is driven largely by supply fears, which could subside at any time. But I would not count on the market, or the government, to lower prices by any substantial amount.

Three-Dollar gas may be here to stay. But while high gas prices are a hardship for many people, they could provide just the push we need for our country to become energy independent. And that would be worth the price we are now paying at the pump.

Can we wean ourselves of dependence on foreign oil? Of course we can.

Most new electric plants are burning natural gas or coal, and we are exploring new nuclear technology. We are building wind turbine generating facilities.  Solar panel installations are much cheaper than they were 10 years ago, and high energy prices will make other technology price-competitive.

 

We have cars that get over 45 miles per gallon of gas.  There are natural gas cars, buses, and trucks. We are developing hydrogen fuel cell cars. Businesses are adopting and expanding their telecommuting capabilities, and are beginning to see the value of locating close to their workforce.

 

We can buy low-power fluorescent lights that are the same size as regular bulbs, sometimes for as little as a buck apiece.  Every appliance sold today dwarfs the energy efficiency of those from even 10 years ago.  Computers shut themselves off to save energy.

 

There is promising work on a new type of solar panel material that can be cheaply manufactured and sprayed onto surfaces. We are on the cusp of a myriad of breakthroughs. We even have vast supplies of domestic oil, trapped in sand and slate, which will be cost-effective to mine with high oil prices. And we have ANWR and offshore oil supplies we haven’t begun to tap.

 

The stumbling block has been simple economics -- there is no reason to spend 2 dollars for a unit of energy when we can get the same energy out of a dollar of oil.  The price of oil is a good indicator of how worthwhile it is to find a replacement. 

 

The free market does not anticipate; it reacts.  The disadvantage is we always seem just a step away from disaster.  The advantage is we don't waste time and money solving 100 "problems" that never will actually happen.  Instead, we fix only those things that need to be fixed, and we fix them when it becomes efficient to do so -- efficient being measured easily in terms of relative costs.

 

It’s only a matter of time. We can replace oil, and we will, we just don't know how we will do it yet.  But we will figure it out.  Maybe it will be nuclear reactors, or spray-on solar panels, or home-mounted wind turbines. Or something we can’t even imagine.

The transition may be painful. But more likely we won't think twice about it, because we won't be able to remember what it was like "before". Do you remember what it was like without cell phones, the internet, TV, airplanes, or the microwave oven? 

Three-dollar gasoline won’t make us stop using oil. But it’s high enough to make us think about it. For years OPEC has kept prices low enough to deter competition. Now they have lost their ability to manipulate the market, and that may be just what we needed to break our dependence on unstable and unfriendly countries. High gas prices hurt now, but may open the door to a better future.

 

 

 

Column published Wednesday, April 19, 2006. 

 

Critically Thinking

By Charles Reichley

Columnist

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Jobs Americans Won’t Do?

On the Discovery Channel show "Dirty Jobs", the host, Mike Rowe, tackles some rather undesirable jobs. In one episode, he learned how to run a pig farm, clean up pigeon-poop, and remove gum from sidewalks. The show is a salute to workers who do the jobs most of us don’t want to do. And many of these workers are American. Americans are not too haughty, proud, or lazy to do hard or dirty work.

We are told we need illegal immigrants to do the jobs that we won’t do. But what are these jobs? That is left unsaid. In fact, in most any field – housekeepers, lawn service, and even day laborers – you’ll find a vast majority of the workers are documented workers.

But some, like Senator John McCain (R-Az), believe that we need amnesty for illegal immigrants because Americans simply won’t do the work. At a recent speech to members of the AFL-CIO, he asked the audience if anyone was willing to pick lettuce, even for fifty dollars an hour. Surprised when people said they would do it, he dismissed them, saying, "You can't do it, my friends."

We can do it, Senator. Contrary to those who think Americans are soft, spoiled weaklings, there are millions of hard-working people in this country who will do what it takes to get the job done.

The real issue isn’t the jobs, it’s the wages. Every job has its price – and the dirty secret behind illegal immigration is that employers simply don’t want to pay people what a job is worth. So instead, they hire illegal immigrants who will work for less, at least partly because they can’t complain.

These illegal immigrants take jobs from hard-working Americans. And they are suppressing the wages for millions of other Americans who work the same jobs. How can you compete with people who live packed like sardines in squalid housing, who often pay no Social Security or income taxes and are just here to earn enough to make themselves a good life back in their own poor countries?

Last week, the Washington Times reported that 70 Americans hired to do post-Katrina reconstruction in Alabama were fired after only two weeks, because "The Mexicans had arrived" and would work for less money. They note that while we are extending unemployment benefits to over 140,000 workers who lost jobs after Katrina, over 30,000 mostly illegal immigrants are doing construction work.

The Seattle Times, in the article "Immigrants join "gold rush" for jobs rebuilding New Orleans", said illegal workers poured into the city to snap up construction jobs. ""It's all illegals doing this work," said Rey Mendez, a FEMA trailer subcontractor from Honduras". One researcher estimated up to 20,000 illegal immigrants were now in the city. Meanwhile, New Orleans natives are spread out over the country, many because of "lack of work" for them at home.

Filling our workforce with people who are here illegally, flying under the radar and therefore without the simplest of protections, is immoral and unethical. Doing so to save a few bucks on yard work and housekeeping is just greedy.

I like inexpensive groceries as much as the next person. But I don’t want to save a few pennies on the backs of people legally in this country who are willing and able to work for a reasonable wage, who love this country and want to make it a better place. To force those people to the unemployment or welfare rolls while allowing millions of illegal workers to sneak over our borders is conduct unbefitting our great, compassionate nation.

We need to secure our borders, because until we can stop the flow of illegal immigrants, we can’t begin to discuss what to do with those already here. The Associate Press reports illegal immigration jumped dramatically as word spread of the Senate plan for amnesty. One shelter operator said the last time he had seen such a dramatic rise in border crossings was in 1986, which was the last time we offered amnesty for illegal immigrants. So the first order of business has to be to stop new people from sneaking into the country illegally.

Once we have control of our borders, we can then assess our true needs. There are millions of people around the world who are currently waiting patiently for legal access to our country. Many of these people have waited years while millions crossed illegally over our southern border. It’s time to fix that. And we can fix it, because Americans can do anything. It’s what makes our country strong. There isn’t a job we can’t do if we put our mind to it.

 

© 2006 Media General. Part of the GatewayVA Network.
Terms & Conditions

 

Critically Thinking

By Charles Reichley

Columnist

Potomac News

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

 

I’ll take Potpourri for One Hundred, Alex

 

From time to time, I find too many things to write about in too little space.  This is one of those times. 

 

First, Representative Tom Delay (R-Tex) is quitting his re-election bid, about a month after handily winning a 4-way primary race.  His press conference is after this column goes to print, but he is expected to resign his seat in the next two months. 

 

This was the right decision for the embattled lawmaker.  I don’t believe he was personally guilty of wrongdoing, but he surrounded himself with some people who were guilty of crimes, and others of questionable character, which has sullied his own reputation.  The lure of political power is strong, and the many unfolding scandals reinforce the need to be vigilant against temptation.  The Republicans are cleaning house, and that is a good thing.

 

Meanwhile, Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga) is in trouble after striking a Capitol Police officer with her cell phone.  Representatives wear pins to allow them to bypass security, but she won’t wear hers, so they posted her picture at the checkpoints.  However, she just changed her hairstyle, and the officer did not recognize her.  He asked her to stop, but when she continued he grabbed her arm, and she turned and hit him in the chest with her cell phone in her hand. 

 

A quick apology by McKinney should have been the end of this.  But she refused to apologize, and instead leveled charges of sexism and racism at the officer.  In a press conference she said “This whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me, a female black congresswoman.”  Her lawyer added that McKinney was "a victim of being in Congress while black”.

 

There are certainly minorities who are mistreated by police.  But when a well-to-do elected representative cries racism at every incident, it diminishes the legitimate claims of others.  The Democrat leadership is standing by McKinney rather than the people charged with their security.  Meanwhile, McKinney has bigger problems – she has admitted misusing tax money to fly actor Isaac Hayes to Atlanta.  The lure of political power is strong, and every lawmaker is subject to temptation.

 

Next, my column last week ran with the name “Dan Thomasson” under my picture.  I have not changed my name.  Maybe next time we can use my name with a picture of Brad Pitt. 

 

This past week marked the passing of Delegate Harry Parrish, an icon in our community, a man with a career of distinguished public service, beloved by all who knew him.  Last year I supported his primary opponent.  But time and again when I talked to voters, I would be told stories of Harry coming to the rescue, helping people both in and outside of his district.  Delegate Parrish was a true servant of the people.

 

The week’s news was dominated by the student immigration protests. One story told of two elementary students held for three hours and sent home with their mother for wearing shirts with the words “Latinos Forever” and “100% Latino” in Spanish.  I won’t second-guess the decision, given the tensions this week.  If you substitute “white” for Latino you might even see offense. 

 

But as I’ve said before, we work to hard to find “offense”.  The message expressed the student’s pride in their heritage, and didn’t attack others.  I would have turned the shirts inside out, or lent the boys temporary shirts (most elementary schools have shirts in case students get sick). Banning the kids from class and forcing the mother to come in seems like an overreaction, albeit understandable given the events of the week.

 

Sunday’s Potomac News had a letter from a reader bemoaning the “Right-wing” bias of local columnists.  The description of my columns was somewhat exaggerated – for example, I do not believe the President is a “great” commander-in-chief, or that war is good, or that all (or even many) Arab countries are our “buddies”.  However, I appreciate readers who take time to read my “very long editorials” and respond with their opinions. 

 

What bothered me was the claim that my columns displayed “poor fact verification”.  While I’m certain I have not been perfect, I take extreme care to verify every fact I present.  I believe in opinions molded by the truth, and getting the facts wrong is of no value to me.  I spend more time researching quotes, statements, and information about events than I do actually writing my column. 

 

But I am human.  If I get something wrong, please write to my e-mail address listed at the end of the column.  I answer e-mail, and if I’m wrong about something I want to know.  My opinions are my own, but the facts belong to everybody.

 

© 2006 Media General. Part of the GatewayVA Network.
Terms & Conditions

I wanted to apologize if there are any readers who have missed entries in this blog since January.  We had some issues in our family.

 

Also, the paper had a change, with Alfred Biddlecomb moving on to better things.  This means the paper has not been posting my columns to the online website.

 

I have just about figured out a place to put the columns so I can link them here, so I will be starting up again next week I hope.

 

I will also be advertising this blog, so hopefully someone will come by once in a while.

My column this week deals with the shameful way the Senate Democrats have treated another outstanding jurist, Appeals Court Justice Samuel Alito.

 

Most will oppose his nomination, although at this time they aren't calling for a filibuster. 

 

Imagine you are one of the top performers in your field.  Imagine that a promotion opportunity becomes available, and you are a candidate.

 

Then imagine if half the selection committee told you they wouldn't support you.  Not because of your qualifications -- they all agree you are outstanding.  The jury of your peers has given you their highest rating, a unanimous highly qualified seal of approval.

 

You have a 15-year record on the bench showing your legal ability, your stellar character, impeccable judicial temperament.  No complaints there.  Nobody is suggesting that you are actually unethical, immoral, or incompetent.  In every way you can be measured, you have shown yourself qualified.

 

But still you will not get their vote.  Why?  Because of a quota system.  See, if you were filling one of the "conservative" seats on the bench you would be fine.  Now Chief Justice John Roberts wasn't nearly as qualified as you.  He had only served a short time as a judge.  He was also very smart, and ranked highly, but you answered more questions, and your record is 15 years long.  But he was nominated to replace a conservative. 

 

No, you can't have the job, they say, because of your political views.

 

Never mind that the Judiciary is NOT a poltical position.  In fact, we want the judiciary to be independent, to not look like it is chosen based on political ideology.  And yet you are being rejected by the minority because they want to send a political message, to help them win their next election.

 

It didn't used to be this way.  Just 12 years ago, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was confirmed almost unanimously.  She was quite the liberal, with some wild ideas.  And she was replacing Justice White, a true conservative jurist on a court that was leaning to the left already.  But the Republicans voted her in, because so far as they could tell from her record, she had outstanding qualifications as a judge, regardless of her political beliefs.

 

Justice Breyer had much the same results.  In fact, liberals on the bench generally are confirmed with much higher margins than the conservatives, although Justice Scalia had no votes against him either. 

 

Democrats love to point out that 7 of the 9 justices were picked by republicans.  This is true, and will still be true when Alito is confirmed.  And yet the court is decidedly "democrat" in its rulings, if we measure that simply by who is happier with the decisions of the court more often.  Four justices are reliably liberal, including the most liberal justice Stevens, who was appointed by a republican, and David Souter, also a republican appointee.  Two other republican justices (Kennedy and O'Conner) occupy the middle, while only two justices are reliably conservative (Thomas and Scalia).  Roberts is too new to know which way he will lean.

 

The point being that republicans pick justices who are remarkably qualified, and you don't always know how they will rule.  That is a good thing usually, since plaintiffs before the bar would like to believe they will get a fair hearing, and have a chance to persuade the judges.

 

The conservative complaint against the court is not that it rules too much for democrats -- it's that the court takes too many of our rights of democracy away from us.  That is a problem with both republican and democrat-appointed justices. 

 

The Democrats are trying to make a last-ditch attempt to use "democracy" against the judiciary, trying to stir up public opposition to Alito by scaring people into thinking that abortion will be banned.  Oddly, there is no chance that a supreme court will rule that abortion is unconstitutional.

 

In their wildest dreams, the most the pro-life advocates can wish for is that the court will strike down Roe, a badly decided ruling which found a constitutional issue where none existed, and which wrote legislation to solve a problem that was already being addressed by the legislature.  It is a little-remarked fact that Roe herself lied in her court case, claiming rape where there was none.  It is also little-known that by the time Roe was heard, Roe's baby was already born.  Roe (not her real name) and her daughter are both now staunch pro-life advocates.  The point being that the case was moot when it arrived at the court, and according to the rules of Stare Decisis (precedent) and Judicial restraint (seek the remedy that has the least impact necessary for the specific case at hand), the case should have been thrown out since it had no point.

 

But a few activist judges, believing that abortion was necessary for society, acted as judge, legislature, and executive, usurping all the power of the government in one great act of kingly dictatorship.

 

And now, in order to protect that profoundly political activist ruling, the Democrats will reject a perfectly qualified nominee to the court.  And that is sad.

That was the original title of my column, which was then changed to "Do we need warning labels to save us from ourselves?", which I have to admit is more indicative of the contents of the column.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My latest column about democrats sitting on the sidelines and carping generated some interest.  One reader expressed the opinion that the democrats have no power to do anything, and launched into a general attack on the war.  Before I provide the argument, I will say up front that I do not hate "democrats", although at times I get mad at the democrat leadership.

 

I've edited the response to make it readable:

I always like to get e-mail about my columns.  In this case I found fault with much of what the reader said.

 

Actually, my column this week wasn't just about Iraq, it was about the democrats in general in the house and senate. 

 

They don't want to participate at all in governing.  They seem content to just block progress and hope people get disgusted with the status quo.  I hope it doesn't work for them, because our government works best when everybody is represented, and people from districts which voted democrat aren't being represented now -- because their representatives refuse, or are being prevented, from dealing with the majority.

 

In a real legislature, the democrats would trade their votes for additions to bills.  But the democrats, while insisting on changes to bills, refuse to vote for the bills no matter what happens.  So there is no incentive for the republicans to try to deal with them.  And even when the moderates try to accomplish something, they are prevented because they can't get the democrats to join up with them (except in rare cases, like the library provision of the Patriot Act).

My column this week touched on the thanksgiving holiday.  I like to look at things in different ways, and in this case I took two less-travelled roads.

 

First, I emphasized the introspection of Thanksgiving.  Usually we look at thanksgiving as a time to give thanks (usually to God) for the good things that happened to us.  But this act is also something that uplifts us personally.  As we dwell on the good in our lives, it reminds us of what we have to live for, of how good we have it, and maybe rebukes us for being so negative about things.

 

Second, I note that, even though there are many bad things happening, often you can find some good in tragedy.  OK, that's not a new concept at all.  The Bible tells us that God can work for good even that which looks bad to us.  But it isn't a normal focus of Thanksgiving.

 

On Monday I watched the thanksgiving episode of 7th Heaven.  Now, I don't find this show as uplifting as some people might.  In fact, I find it almost more dangerous than clearly "evil" shows, because it gives children the idea that, no matter how good they are, or how great their family is, they are likely to end up having sex with people they don't love, get divorced, and in general experience the same problems as everybody else. 

 

Anyway, they did the thing where they go around the table saying something they are thankful for.  And in the show, Simon is engaged to this woman named Rose (who I like because she is self-centered, self-absorbed, and confident in her pronouncements of what she wants -- in other words, entirely unlike the rest of the people on the show).  The family hasn't really liked Rose, but on Thanksgiving they each give thanks for some aspect of her being in their lives. 

 

When it is Rose's turn, she gives thanks for being "her".  In other words, the thing that she is most thankful for is how she was created, how she "is".  Like I said, self-centered, but it strikes me that we could all use a day when we are thankful for just being "us".

 

Now, when I went through the part about finding silver linings in clouds, I had to be careful.  Tragedy doesn't become acceptable because of some trivial good.  And if you don't speak clearly on that point, people will be mad at you.  I will see in the next few days if I did OK on that regard.

 

I tried to choose three things that were not political, because I didn't want to turn off half the readers.  If I were to add a another, it would be this:

 

John Murtha and the Democrats.  The Democrats have been talking about getting out of Iraq for some time, but always "under the surface".  Last week they sent John Murtha out to make an explicit proposal.  This was a bad thing, for our troops and for the country. But it caused the republicans to finally address the issue, calling for a vote to withdraw our troops.  The democrats screamed that this wasn't Murtha's plan, and at some level they are correct.  However, every major newspaper on Friday had headlines about Murtha's plan to "immediately withdraw" from Iraq, so if that wasn't what he meant, Murtha wasn't very good at communicating.

 

The good news is, everybody voted AGAINST immediate pullout (well almost, 3 democrats voted for it).  So on Saturday the headlines were "House rejects immediate pullout".  This turned what could have been a very BAD thanksgiving for our troops (with daily shows in Iraqi TV talking about plans for surrender) into a very GOOD thanksgiving with the newfound knowledge that, despite what they hear from the democrats, when push comes to shove the country is still united behind completing the mission.