Christianity and Immigration

My friend Perry Eidelbus (of Eidelblog fame) recently wrote about my proposal for immigration reform. I thank him for vouching for me personally, and I can assure you that I am neither anti-immigrant, nor racist. I am for the rule of law.

There is a seeming discrepancy between the Christian charity we feel toward illegal immigrants and the need for strong immigration laws. We can love these people as our brothers and sisters, but that does not mean that we should encourage them to break the law. Christ himself believed in honoring the law:

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. (Mark 12:17)

I agree with Perry that we need a more sensible way to encourage legal immigration. My friend, Borsós Péter from Hungary, who has been trying for some time to obtain a visa, is a skilled and competent worker that would not be a drain to our system, and yet he has consistently been denied the ability to come here. Why can he not come, when thousands can break in with impunity?

We can love our neighbors, but we don't have to love their actions. We must honor, uphold, and sustain the law.

Mawwiage

Lest you think that this site has become YADB (Yet another defunct blog), think again. I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to be blogging. I'm back.

My third wedding anniversary approaches, which for many people in this day and age is a huge milestone. It's incredible to me how fast (and how slow) the last few years have been. It's now difficult to remember living without Camille in my life. She is my best friend, the person I most like to spend time with, and the one with whom I share my most intimate thoughts.

I recently read a chat session that I saved when we were engaged, and was reminded of the unique and charming way in which we got together. I can honestly say that there was divine influence in our meeting and that she is the person I am supposed to be with. I love her with all my heart. May God bless her.

I simply hope that you can find someone that fills the emptiness in your life the way that she has for me.

Proposal for Immigration Reform

It is impossible to calculate (or even estimate) the overwhelming costs associated with the steady influx of illegal aliens crossing our borders every day. They tax our court and criminal justice system and drive up the cost of our welfare and health care costs.

They are here illegally. I-L-L-E-G-A-L. They are lawbreakers, and should be treated as such. Many of my ancestors were immigrants. They came here legally. L-E-G-A-L. Regardless of whatever propaganda exists today, there is absolutely no reason to confuse the two. Do you understand the difference?

President Bush has suggested that we weaken immigration laws. What is there to weaken? We don't enforce the laws already on the books. Our borders are porous.

Therefore, I suggest that we do the following to eliminate this problem:

1. Seal the border. The success of the Minuteman Project cannot last indefinitely. Congress needs to ensure that enough border patrol agents exist along the border to cover it. There should be a review of the effectiveness the border patrol along each 20 mile stretch, and add agents where necessary.
2. Don't let them in when you catch them. Detainees should be immediately deported.
3. Catch illegals already in the country. Any time a government agency becomes aware of an illegal immigrant in the country, they should be turned over to the immegration service and immediately deported.
4. Enact harsh criminal penalties for employers that hire illegals. If illegals don't have a place to work, they will have to leave.
   
5. Maintain a list of who you catch. No one caught here illegally can apply for U.S. citizenship for a period of 10 years following the last offense.

Since I believe it is possible that there are some jobs that no American wants, we should establish a guest-worker program as follows:

1. Workers from other countries can apply for the guest worker program, but only if they do not currently reside in the U.S.
2. No illegal that has been caught can be a guest worker for the period of 10 years following the last offense.
3. Potential employees with U.S. citizenship should always be preferred over guest workers in employment.
4. Guest workers should have to register when they change addresses.
5. Any guest worker convicted of a felony should have their guest worker status revoked permanently and immediately be deported after serving their prison term.

I strongly urge the President and Congress to toughen, not weaken, immigration laws and to take our national and economic security seriously. Enact legislation as I've layed out.

Bye, Bye, IE

If you are still using Internet Explorer to browse the Internet, you have fallen away from the path of innovation. Back when the Netscape/IE war was raging, I stuck it out with Netscape until I found the IE feature I couldn't live without. Additionally, Netscape's tendency to crash pushed me over the edge.

What was this dramatic feature? The addition of the address bar to the Start bar, allowing me to click and simply type in an address without the hassle of finding and starting the application. Since then, I've used IE, but I'm worn out from all of the security holes and the inevitable patches. Now Firefox has the feature I can't live without.

When my Linux-only brother-in-law told me about Firefox, I was skeptical, having been burnt by other browsers, such as Netscape 6 (which was awful). I wasn't sure that I'd like the tabbed interface. However, after using Firefox as my default browser for the last 8 months, I'm sold.

Even without the extensions, Firefox has significant advantages over IE. The tabbed interface is both easy to use, and allows you to have multiple pages open without cluttering up the start bar. I tend to have 15 applications running at any given time, and 3-5 web pages open when I'm searching for things, which makes this new method well-worth it.

The extensions, however, are where Firefox just shines. By default, you can block popup windows in Firefox, but when you tack-on Adblock, it allows you to remove ads from within pages, using a wild-card to remove all ads from specific sites. After a week or so of playing with this, I rarely, if ever, get any ads at all. Dict allows you to select words out of any web-based text and define it. Nuke Anything allows you to remove any part of a web page, such as those stupid animated GIFs I find so annoying.

My only complaint about Firefox is its inability to use a couple of sites that are IE-specific. However, when you add the ieview plugin, you can automatically launch IE for those pages.

If you have not tried it, you are missing out. You can download Mozilla Firefox for free from http://www.mozilla.org.

Choice and (un)accountability

I remember several years ago, when I got into a fairly serious bicycle accident. While riding my bike down my street, I looked behind me toward my friend, not noticing the impending collision with the front of a dumptruck. Although the dumptruck was parked, I hit the grill with enough force to knock me out cold, opening a large gash in the side of my face and giving me a concussion.

(My friend, Freddy, ran to my house and told my mother that a dumptruck had hit me. I like that version better, but technically and according to Newton, we hit each other :). Okay, it was an inelastic collision.)

Several weeks after the resulting hospital visit, when the bills had arrived, my parents received a phone call asking them to sue our neighbor for parking the dumptruck there. (Apparently, the dumptruck shouldn't have been parked on the city street.) To their credit, they turned down this insane suggestion. It was my fault, we accepted the responsibility for it.

Lately, our society has moved toward the complete elimination of personal responsibility for one's actions. From our judicial to our welfare system, it is in vogue to say, "It wasn't my fault". Instead, we blame our personal failures on our parents, our upbringing, our religion, our friends, our enemies, our economic situation, etc. As a society, we are supporting this ongoing idiocy when we sit on juries.

Why can't we learn that when we make choices we are compelled to accept the consequences?

Women today do not accept the consequences of their own immoral behavior. The subtle fallacy of the pro-choice movement is that it is promoted as freedom for women to make choices. Women do have the right to make choices for their own bodies. However, after they make the choice (to engage in sex outside of marriage), they have made their choice. You just can't choose the consequences. At that point, the will of the mother has to be tempered with the will of the baby to live.

As a society, we must learn to own up to our own mistakes, or we are heading for disaster.

The Eidelblog

My longtime friend, Perry Eidelbus, has a great blog that has been running for several months. Check it out.

E-cards and other 'friendly' spam

Late last night, my wife Camille remembered that yesterday was her brother's birthday. She asked me if she could borrow my computer to send him an e-card. After over 1/2 hour had passed, searching through the mire of inane cards, in desperation she finally settled on the least annoying.

I told her that it my opinion e-cards are worse than spam. Spam, after all, can be thrown away without a second glance. When I receive an e-card, I feel an obligation to watch through the 'cute' animation, listen to the terrible MIDI file that plays throughout, and/or 'play' the silly Flash game that comes with it. As for me, I'd rather get a nice note in an e-mail.

Can you believe that there are actually PAY sites for e-cards?

This brings me to my next point. Some of my not so computer savvy friends feel obliged to forward to me every joke, chain-letter, hoax, touching story, political statement, solicitation, or virus. Out of necessity (and no help from the CAN-SPAM act), I maintain multiple e-mail addresses to try to prevent hours of sorting through spam. Unfortunately, my friends who legitimately have my address don't take the time to consider whether something is worth forwarding. Camille finally decided to give up on her main address--her friends were sending her so much spam.

When you give out your e-mail address to these friends to keep in touch, you end up wading through tons of garbage. My friends, please do not forward everything you receive to your entire address book! If you think something is truly worthwhile or funny, send it to only those people who might care. Please?!?