Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Lest you all think I wandered off into lalaland about caring for these illegal immigrant children  in my last post, well I haven’t.  The truth is that until some politicians get their heads out of their patooties, these children are here and more are surely on the way.  And whether they get deported in a day or month or never, they still need to be sheltered, fed and supervised in a humane manner – this is required, because we are civilized human beings, not because of politics.  Of course, Glenn Beck does everything for publicity and to sell more books, but that aside these children need to be cared for until the politicians decide on a solution.  President Obama clearly does not have any coherent plan to deal with this escalating crisis, so here is an opportunity for governors and private citizens to band together and act.  Sure, “immigration” is a federal function, but a humanitarian crisis within a state certainly is a state and local issue.  Time to rise to the occasion and deal with these children’s immediate needs first.

At the same time a real, permanent solution must be found to quell this tide of illegal immigration and anyone hoping this President changes his cowardly, mealy-mouthed response at this late date is either a complete moron, a hopeless ideologue or insane.  President Obama does not know how to solve real problems, there you have the truth.  He never really worked doing real stuff in his life; he lives in the world of political theory, not real world problems.  He thinks his political ideology will solve real problems, when the truth is you have to roll up your sleeves and get down in the ditches and dig long, hard hours to resolve most real world problems.  It usually means you end up leaving the political ideology at home and turn to basic moral tenets (our religious faith, for many of us) to make it through the rough times each day.  A political solution must be reached; expecting President Obama to craft it is delusional.  So, that leaves us with the horde in Congress to act responsibly and reach a consensus to quell the flow of these children from Central America, compose a comprehensive law to deal with securing the border, how illegal immigrants will be processed, and allocating funding to accomplish this.  Securing the border must be the primary objective, because short of that, everything else rests as photo-op politics, not real solutions.

Russ Vaughn over at the American Thinker wrote an interesting piece, “Militarize Our Border?  O’Reilly, Here’s Your Plan”, on policing the border using US Armed Forces.  He states:

“Now comes the rub: liberals will scream to high heaven that our federal military cannot be used to police law violators on American soil, a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.  However, troops in federal service have sworn an oath to protect this nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic.  Consider if you will that some of those poised on the south side of the U.S.-Mexican border intent on illegal entry into this country, in violation of clearly promulgated immigration laws, are foreign enemies determined to cross that border, subject to military capture and incarceration.  Whether or not our military has legal standing to determine illegal border crossers to search for terrorists embedded within their masses is a legal issue that will no doubt rise to the level of our Supreme Court.”

The problem in America is that the States and American people too often turn to Washington for leadership, awaiting solutions that never come, when The Constitution does not tie our hands to act on many issues confronting us.  Immigration, per se rests in the federal purview, but “we the people” and the States, rarely exert ourselves to carve out bold swaths left for us to decide within our constitutional framework.  States boldly acting in regards to the humanitarian crisis unfolding would give the States public support and clout when challenging President Obama’s political reactionary responses, which rest upon endless gauging poll numbers, consultations with focus groups and other political groups.  If State and local leaders could come up with real solutions for the humanitarian crisis and demonstrate a real ability to act, the political support would start to shift dramatically away from the President.  People gravitate toward real leadership, it’s human nature.  In those border states, the real leaders need to start banding together and quickly coming up with plans of action and then act.

A federal response must be reached and at this point securing the border should be of paramount importance, to quell flow of illegals. How quickly that can be reached might be dramatically impacted by States acting to take charge of the humanitarian crisis and forcing a showdown at High Noon with the lame Obama response.  Rick Perry should spearhead a plan for Texas quickly, then demand federal dollars for this emergency.  He should invite the press in and make them cover this chaos the Obama administration instigated and continues to encourage.