On Problems and their Solutions

I read a lot, but sometimes I think I don't think I read what I should. Then i remember, reading is like wine - it's not about what the snobs say, just do what feels right. As I've said before, it was recently pointed out to me that I like the stories in things. I like television, so I gravitate not so much to celebrity stories but more to technical stories - what shows have been picked up, what's cancelled, who's working on what projects, what NBC is trying to do to shore up it's line-up. Same thing for movies. And politics. I'm passionate about public policy. I've been accused of being a hard-core democrat, but that's not true. I like to think that I epitomize the socially-conscious fiscal conservative. But I find myself gravitating more towards the technical stories of politics - how the campaigns are being run, why someone is taking what seems like a bizarre position on the medicare prescription drug benefit, whatever. That might be why I've never seen the following solutions to two major problems actually written down anywhere.
Problem the first: Illegal immigration. I'm a dork, I believe that laws are there for a reason, and following them is necessary to the functioning of society. I think that if a law is unjust, it shouldn't be broken, but rather you should work to change it. With illegal immigration, the activists can talk all they want about the search for a better life, and the immorality of our current system, or whatever. Screw them. The fact is, they're breaking the law. Period. They get no right to complain about anything, because the simple fact that they're here is illegal. Having said that, I think we need more of them. It is an accepted fact of economics that our country's current 4% unemployment rate is as low as a functioning, growing economy can go. Anything lower, and there's no one left to fill new jobs. We need more immigrants. Period. The problem is, we also have a major security concern if we don't know who's coming into our country. The solution: forget the fence. Build a giant wall. No, build two giant walls, with a shark infested moat in between. Start a shoot-to-kill policy in the arizona desert. Do Whatever It Takes to stop undocumented people from entering this country. Couple this with an open-access policy at manned border crossings. As long as you have official ID from your home country, and you aren't on a watch list, you can get in. They'll keep coming as long as there are jobs to do, they'll be legal and documented, which means they'll be paying taxes (solution to social security right there, since most of them will go home when they retire and never collect benefits), we'll know they aren't terrorists, and because they are mostly poorly educated they'll take the house-cleaning, fruit picking, low-skill construction jobs, freeing up more americans to further their education and get better, more skilled, more innovating jobs. This will power our country forward in unimaginable ways, and has been explained further in one of my favorite books, The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman.
Problem the second: Terrorist surveillance. This one is sort of a no brainer, and I'm putting this out there as a basic primary for my mentally challenged republican friends. Repeat this sentence aloud three times: "No American wants more terrorist attacks, even the democrats. Of course it's a good idea to listen to phone calls from known terrorists." Everyone knows this. One reason the repubs lost the last election was that they tried to convince people the dems wanted to let osama call whoever he wanted without listening in. This is disingenuous horse-shit and every one knows it. The problem was never with the pres listening to the calls. The problem was that, in the interest of protecting the constitutional guarantees of privacy and protection from unreasonable searches, congress passed a law creating a secret panel of judges with the express purpose of issuing warrants for domestic wiretaps. They even realized that sometimes, there might not be enough time to get a warrant ahead of time, and allowed for the CIA or NSA or whoever to listen to whatever they want, and then get a warrant after the fact. But after this panel rejected a record number of his requests as not having enough evidence, the president decided it was too onerous to get these warrants, and that is a huge problem. You have to wonder what he was doing, when a court that, prior to Bush, only ever rejected a handful of requests, suddenly started turning down hundreds. This concerns people, and not because we're upset that he wants to listen to Osama calling his buddy in Colorado to plan the next attack.

Thus endeth the lesson.