Immigrants Are Not Our Greatest Problem. Republicans Are.

I wouldn't beat up on Republicans so often if it weren't for the fact that they always stick their chin out every time I'm feeling politically punchy.

I consider myself "THE" Conservative Socialist because I stand firmly for the destruction of the welfare state and I love God and the Bible just like Donald Trump.  I firmly believe that proactive health care and education investments (socialism) have the power to disintegrate all other forms of social welfare since educated and healthy people rarely need welfare (conservatism). I believe we owe it to our future generations to eliminate the welfare mentality more so than welfare itself, which is actually hard as hell to get and keep these days.

Welfare is an ugly word that started in the 20's but became any ugly blight on its recipients during the politically polarized and economically challenged years of the late 60's and  early 70's.  Once Bill Clinton got his hands all over it, it got rightfully relabeled into TANF (TEMPORARY Assistance for Needy Families) .  Consequently, it is no longer the stereotypical handout that it used to be.  Those who get any services these days get them because they are American born or have American born children (anchor or whatever you like to call babies who could be our president one day).

Benefits are temporary because Bill Clinton insured that all welfare recipients return to work via services designed to connect people to jobs. Some poor folks will tell you that welfare is currently the best way for the needy to get connected to a good job because it insure access to the additional (free) training support (education) and (free) health care connections that are needed to make a the transition from welfare to work a success.

In this post-Clinton era, food stamp benefits in particular demand part time work or volunteer hours just to maintain them or get them at all in between any proven period  of absence or reduction of work.  As a result of the Clinton clamp down on welfare,  (almost no one remains on welfare for more than 5 years) because the system NO LONGER ALLOWS IT.

The challenges with getting and keeping any welfare benefit these days is immense for an actual American citizen. Any non-citizen without American born children has no access to anything accept emergency medical benefits, and this only helps to reduce overall health care increases from the proliferation of unpaid emergency care.  In other words, paying a premium for the emergency room or clinic is immensely cheaper than absorbing the entire unpaid bill on the back side.

Welfare in America does insure that American children are eating, but focuses these benefits towards the children only, so even the families who try to hang from the "Anchor" must try diligently to under report the entire household size and incomes just to avoid weighing the anchor down and losing benefits altogether.

Most poor working families that could probably use a little help with food and bills don't care to bother with the struggle Clinton created getting Food Stamps or TANF  because they are dehumanized by the challenge to constantly jump through hoops to prove you really need help.

In some ways welfare has always been dehumanizing for very proud people.
Now it is only worse.

Because of  the diminishing size of all families in America- even poor ones- the old theory of broke and downtrodden welfare recipients bleeding the system and having more and more babies is totally mythical as well.

Yet, if you listen to the current patch of republican leaders (leaders for the lack of a better word), you start to wonder if regular poor people who actually can use welfare are still the target of republicans anymore who now seem more apt to blame the ruination of this nation on the welfare state that immigrants create?

Minorities rarely vote so they typically make for great political targets.  Immigrants can't vote but are assumed to be eligible for welfare so they are also an easy target for blame when a little inspirational blame becomes necessary during voting season.  Women, on the other hand, vote in droves and have exercised their voting privileges for as long as they've had them (1920).

I guess I understand the calculation of upsetting immigrants and inspiring ignorant's who think welfare and the illegals are destroying our nation; although I don't quite understand what message such an attack sends to the mass proliferation of legal Mexicans and Asians who can vote and didn't vote particularly strong for republicans last time around.

You Call This Outreach?

If there is one thing that makes me think that Donald Trump is in fact an internal plant from the Hillary Clinton campaign, it might be his single handed destruction of the republican platform promise to reach out to MINORITIES as a result of the last two presidential campaign failures; failures that Trump criticizes but is doomed to repeat without Hispanics or Asians or Blacks or Women or any strong support from minority groups.

 Among organized American minorities, women lead the power rankings list but remain at the back of the pack in the perception of way too many republicans. Say for example, those foolish republicans who are co-signing the video terror attack being leveled at Planned Parenthood.  These attacks falsely assume that WOMEN who believe choice is important also HAD NO CLUE THAT FETAL RESEARCH EXISTED IN AMERICA. Fetal research has never been a field that we hire women to have babies exclusively for research purposes, and smart women have NEVER been stupid about abortion or fetal research.

In fact, many clueless republicans all throughout the land think welfare is mostly for illegals because they actually tried to get help during these trying years; help that hardworking people who really need temporary help can't really get it anymore, so they blame immigrants for changing our job market and for our stringent temporary assistance laws.

In reality, the conservative Clinton's are responsible for welfare stringency, our job market transition (caused primarily when NAFTA forced Mexican farm workers into America), and might be responsible for finally getting that Keystone Pipeline drilled and all of those infrastructure jobs since Hillary, who's been very vocally opposed to drilling in Alaska, won't tip her hat on Keystone one way or another.  If she's shutting up about Keystone though vocal about Alaska, it's because the distorted structure of today's Super PAC's allows her to get secret donation's (10 time's more than ever before in case you forgot) that a few of her conservative oil loving friends (maybe even Trump) won't regret once she gets elected.


WE Didn't Create Capitalism Nor Do WE Control Its Advance

The Clinton's are not only neo-conservatives just like me and Donald Trump for that matter, they are Global Initiative capitalistic conservatives with a mission to expand capitalism to a universally hyper level in which the nation at the top will ultimately gain the most from capitalism's destined design.  A globalized mission is maniacal  in some ways but so is capitalism.

If capitalism's global advance is inevitable (and it is), America may as well be positioned to benefit the most, since often times WE are asked to sacrifice the most for the sake of capitalism too.

I totally support the make a buck to help me rub more backs approach that the Clinton's are using towards worldwide diplomacy because the nation who gains the most from capitalism will always be challenged by the existence and the needs of the needy.  Even Christ was bestowed with wealth though he shunned it. Because our power to perform Christ-like miracles is limited, our need for money is great if in fact we are to do greater things as Christ' suggested we will.


Make America Great Again By Redefining Conservatism

 I wish the Clinton's could help me recapture the conservative label so that it goes back to only meaning God(Grace....forgiveness...tolerance) and Country(that place made up of a bunch of immigrants) instead of  this distorted meaning of conservatism that republicans are crafting for their own purpose. I'm not sure if republicans or conservatives are driving the Trump frenzy, but I know for certain that they are not the same group of people since the same people who are voting for Donald Trump could never be willing to settle for Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush instead.

 (check out Trump's performance with evangelical's)

I would totally be on board the Hillary bandwagon if not for the Run Hillary Run prelude to this kiss. Hillary is trying to give us her best smooch while avoiding the Jeb Bush label of being dry and flat. Bush is fighting for energy because he too was encouraged into doing all of this by a crowd of normal conservatives like me who keep searching for an electable candidate while wondering why the republicans can only uncover the best of a bad bunch of options.

Now we've got the Draft Biden camp working hard to encourage another presidential run from somebody who wasn't already encouraged to be our president.  While I TOTALLY understand the hesitation to run for this job that produces Teleprompter Hillary or SuperDry Jeb, I also find myself a bit leery of anyone who is already justifiably weary.  I hope Jeb Bush survives to go head to head with Donald so us neo-conservatives can rest assured of holding office like we basically have since way back when trickle-down economics didn't stop the Bush boys from raising taxes anyway.

I am Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and every neo-conservative socialist that appreciates immigrants and enjoys praise and worship service too much to accept that kids started struggling in school right about the same time they kicked God out the door. From the sounds of it, I am Jeb Bush too.  All of us neo-conservatives want to do something RIGHT NOW about immigration, but none of us cared for gay marriage until we discovered that our gay friends and family had been struggling to breathe for years. Abortion is hardly preferable to neo-conservatives, but we certainly accept the intelligence of both women and the Roe .v. Wade decision enough to leave that topic alone too.

The Clinton's and I are in lock step on the importance of a global economy for the sake of diplomatic outreach and for America's vibrancy over time. Trump clearly agrees, and we all know how the Bush family reacts to the word oil.  Whether we like it or not, the global economy WE resist already exists but begrudgingly, which is what creates so much counter productive competitive corporate sabotage like the Chinese did with their inflated market valuations in the hopes of helping themselves and hurting the dollar at the same time.

As we recently discovered ourselves, all balloons will eventually pop. What we are now waiting to uncover is how attached to the struggling Chinese market are WE really, and what long term impact does China's market struggles have on U.S. economic strength?

My market hunch is that our economy has inflated enough rich Americans in recent years for US to totally exploit the self off in China, of China.  Aside from cheap loans from China that our economy is fully positioned to re-pay if necessary, we are disconnected to China just enough to use them more than they use us since their citizens do the back breaking work that allows us to enjoy the benefits of The Dollar Tree, and our farmers export enough products to insure the health of the American farmer and the long term necessity of farm work in America.


Now That Oil Has Fallen, Are Cheap Workers The Greatest World Commodity?

In reality, rich Americans are perfectly positioned to take full advantage of Mexicans or Asians, including the one's who stay in America on visa's and are now working illegally all over America as we speak.  Since the common immigrant flies into America, none of them will be stopped by Donald's big wall or Donald's big rhetoric that keeps placing the most valuable assets in the American economy in full opposition to the republican party and its fence building, gobble up and deport, change the 14th Amendment and, oh yeah- defund Planned Parenthood agenda. (did I miss anything)

Donald Trump might be really good at pretending that he doesn't call anyone a bimbo except Rosie O'Donnell and Megan Kelly (via retweet), but the rest of the republican field is not so good at this media trick.  They will be held to account for the direction that the lead polling republican candidate took the entire party when it comes time to really address immigration instead of temporarily using it just to drive primary poll numbers.

These same republicans are currently being asked to own the false fear that they've created of immigrants on welfare just like they are being asked to own the unsubstantiated fear they created of ObamaCare; a fear that they mysteriously refuse to address now even while a few of those fear mongering republican governors gave in already and adopted the very program they denigrated.

A real conservative would have quickly taken advantage of the opportunity to receive federal financial support for the vital duty of providing health care access to the people who need it the most and who elected officials are duty bound to serve.  A real conservative would never accept poor schools that don't offer EVERY American citizens the best of America's educational opportunity.  Most importantly, a real conservative would never give a man a fish, or not share one, when he could feed that man while teaching the skills to acquire a good job in the fishing or food processing industries.


Republicans Are Not Necessarily Conservatives

I'm drawing the lines between those republicans and US conservatives because I want to make it clear that creating free benefits to insure life long healthy and educated Americans who don't need welfare or excuses makes me much more a conservative than socialist. Once Hillary comes clean on Keystone,  I will probably decide to join her in support of the Keystone Pipeline because creating really good pipelines that don't actually burst open and spill everywhere will someday minimize the environmental impact on our roads and railways- that just so happen to need to be rebuilt as they've become human death traps. These bills have long since been jammed together as one.  Both need to move forward and get Americans back to work.
        _______________________

Trump Supports Rebuilding Roads & Bridges Too (does he know about that jobs bill that republicans jammed up in Congress over the Keystone pipeline?)
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Continuing to destroy our roads and rails with oil transport won't be a great way to fix or maintain our infrastructure,  or achieve cleaner air, an initiative we've promise to lead the world in as well.

Why do we have droughts in California at the same time we have
floods in Colorado?  Can't one problem address the other?...
..and whatever happened to that jobs bill to fix our roads and bridges?
Are republicans using the Keystone Pipeline to get people killed?

In the long run, increasing oil production to the point of extreme saturation is the best way to devalue the price of the commodity and usher in the era of alternative fuels and the era of alternative thinking. Smart companies who currently produce oil, have already anticipated the coming change and are transitioning into the future of alternative fuels,



Being A Conservative Is A Good Thing.

My greater vision relative to alternative thinking is the day when we consider the greater good of people and the economy as mutually achievable; when we embrace conservative sensibilities like pipeline technology for its value and its worth instead of run from it and never use it to mitigate the impact of oil transport or the floods in Colorado at the same time we deal with droughts in California.

Or when we realize that you don't have to agree with climate change to recognize the value of destroying the grip of oil and dominating the alternative energy industry at the same time we minimize the emissions
causing this debate.

It seems plausible to my small brain that people who are dying to carry humans into space or dirty oil across risky pipelines could also transform floods from immigrants or water into resources and not problems.

There will probably come a time when we have no choice with either.

What Should Christians Against Homosexuality Do About Gay Marriage?

Forget for a moment that Christianity is a religion based on tolerance and forgiveness. Lets explore the deeper question of what to do if you sincerely have a religious problem with gay people getting married.

Apparently, the deeper question of morality keeps getting swept beneath the carpet according to those who fought to pass the religious freedom laws in Indiana and now Arkansas, so we shall tackle it now.  Given that these two new variations on the theme have attempted to protect the right of religious bigotry more than any similar law before, it should be clear that some Americans think we are all heading to hell in a hand basket- and its primarily for our acceptance of things like abortion and homosexuality.  Forget, for another moment, that humans are divinely ordained with free will and have chosen to engage in every sin that the bible warned about- including the sin of judging others.

Early Christian Americans experienced similar concerns over the years of this country's existence while watching the onslaught of liberal influence, especially in the realm of religion.  Puritans sought to impose their view of religion by legislating tough social standards upon one another.  Citizens considered outside of the mainstream were immediately assumed to be demon possessed and a risk to the social fiber of puritanical living.  Since the religious people of this time overwhelmed popular opinion, they also dictated the community response.

If you need to be intolerant because of religious views
then you might need to follow the leaders of intolerance.

We might have stopped burning you heathens, but religion has never been far from the framework of our nation and it has often been used as a tool for social engineering or as an excuse for the failures in this effort.  When America could not endure the stench of slavery, WE needed to legislatively degrade blacks (3/5's compromise) in order to further the abuse against them.  Nothing changed overnight, but eventually the laws and signs promoting racial intolerance came down and the face of racial intolerance covered up in embarrassment.
But it did not go away.

Ushered on by their insistence in a religious justification to their behavior, racial bigots in America who couldn't abandon their hate decided to hide their faces and press forward.  They quickly realized that America was no longer tolerant of such intolerance, so it became necessary to express their protected freedom of speech minus the risk of exposure and retaliation.

In America, bigots are totally free to be bigots.  What they are not free to do is force you and I to buy into that bullshit.  Literally.

What happens if you can't tell their gay?

Homophobia is still alive, but it is far from well.  In fact, its getting green at the gills and sucking for air to breath, but finding very little.  Less than a decade ago you could almost assuredly walk into a Christian church and hear a sermon against drugs, guns and gays, as if homosexuals were threatening to destroy America as much as our culture of  addiction or violence does.  Today the sermons have subsided a bit, but only if you stay away from red state pulpits.  In many of our conservative leaning churches of America, God is punishing us all for allowing gay people to exist so comfortably. In other words, God needs each of us to put on a hood and push those gays towards their own communities and not into the general public where good, God-fearing Christians live and work. Indirectly, the message becomes one of limiting gay freedom and not one of expanding religious freedom at all.

That Klan Man had a plan to go mainstream.

Maybe we should never hide the face of gay disgust but boldly parade it before the electorate of America as an alternative against those who continue to allow for the ruination of America.  David Duke came out from beneath his sheet so that proud bigots could profess their need for white supremacy efforts, since blacks, Jews, gays and somebody else that I can't remember right now, were stealing America away from the white man.

Yet, this effort is different in some ways.  Our history of intolerance has made us indignant towards the things we insist on tolerating (religious freedom) but even more so towards the things that need to change, like intolerance of all kind.  Way too many Americans have found themselves on the bad side of intolerance to allow new intolerance to be ignored.  When the AIDS epidemic reached a peak, it was often said that we will soon live in a world where everyone knows someone who has the disease.  As gay closets open across the world, we already could say the same for homosexuality- meaning that the face of intolerance is frowning at US all.

Few people in the world live untouched by homosexuality.  Some are furious about the role it has in our lives, but few are unaffected.  If everyone is truly touched by someone gay, homosexuality becomes more than a buzz word, but a difficult lifestyle that OUR friends and family are living.  Those who could be more normal and less shunned by the world at large would likely welcome the change.  So the question becomes, who needs to change?

Who Needs To Change?

What should a devout believer who reads the word and understands the statements against homosexuality do?  If they run a business and really feel awful about making a wedding cake that says "Congratulations Adam and Steve" and not Adam and Eve, should they be allowed to reject that customer?  Before gay weddings became the religious discussion, this was an access to contraception debate. Should businesses be protected by their state for ANY religious view they profess towards OTHER people and their lifestyle?

Governor Mike Pence and Indiana said yes- and they did it without a hood on their head or anything to protect them from the outcry. Now they get to deal with the retribution of those who abhor social intolerance.

The message to Indiana, and Arkansas, and everyone in search of freedom of religious bigotry is that WE have already decided on how these things will work out and we draw the line at the marketplace. Religious Bigots are totally allowed in America, but sometimes they need to put on a sheet to avoid marketplace retribution.  Outside of the marketplace everyone can believe as they choose. Inside of the marketplace, you will believe as your customers dictate.  If the religious bigots of  Indiana and Arkansas believe they can survive outside of the American marketplace, they should stand firm behind these new laws.


Otherwise, you bigots need to change. Not US.

Indiana's Religious Freedom Law. What Problem Does It Actually Fix?

As a born and raised resident of the first state in the union to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, I totally get it Indiana.

Some of what makes America so incredibly special is the fact that we are 50 separate but United States of America.  Whatever laws govern the environment within that state create the environment within that state.  For years now, despite the abject failure of America's attempt to prohibit alcohol sales and consumption, certain cities (usually down South) still maintain dry county status- in that you are expected to leave the city to purchase and consume alcohol.  In such places, most people quietly circumvent the rules, but undoubtedly there are local residents who remain happy residents of communities that have decided against alcohol as a vice.

Does the decision to become a dry county also come with the revelation that revenues typically generated from the consumption of alcohol are secondary to the health and social benefit of banning this mind altering elixir?  I would certainly hope so.  Nationwide, even in dry counties, our war over booze has made it abundantly clear that America loves its liquor and is willing to fight for the right to have it, so the value of being dry is more moral than tangible.



Nationwide, America has also taken bold stands on the issue of marriage.  From city to city, marriage equality has moved like a wildfire threatening to bring equality to a city near you even though many people still view homosexuality as a abomination.  What some of those same people have come to accept is that ALL sin is an abomination to God who doesn't isolate sexual sinners from murderers, at least not in Christian doctrine.  Even if our previously devout strain of homophobia is losing some panache, several unnamed faces are trying their best to keep gay bashing cool.  I call them unnamed faces because no one seems bold enough anymore to simply say they hate gay people and despise their lifestyle.  Instead, they create laws that allow for religious freedom (wink wink).  Indirectly, the message of this new law becomes one that says the ultra religious can now move to a place where they can vote to be a dry county for sin.

Inside of a dry county, revenue is sacrificed in the name of righteousness and righteous living. Indiana's new religious freedom law now allows any 'for profit' business owner to withhold their services from certain people for certain reason's and Indiana will protect this behavior as a religious freedom.  What that means in practice is anybody's guess since the law just got signed and the governor is begging to change it already.  In a detailed op-ed piece that Pence wrote to clarify the message of this law that he signed into existence, he admitted that he would probably not do business with  people that he saw refusing service to a gay couple.  In other words, governor Pence agrees with this portion of America. What he doesn't believe is that he just signed a law that legalizes the refusal of business to a gay couple, or black couple, or homeless couple or whatever justifies religious freedom for bigoted people. So what does this law do then?

Alcohol, tobacco and marijuana restrictions may be rooted in a moral component, but they are social vices- and banning them has always been an attempt to curb the use of these vices.  It doesn't work but there is no question what problem these approaches attempt to fix.

What Problem Did Indiana Fix?

The problem with this new law is that it totally begs the question of what problem needed fixing in the first place?  Were Indiana state legislators being overwhelmed with requests from their constituents that insisted something be done about the problem of gay people not staying over on the gay side of town or eating too much food at heterosexual restaurants?  What vision of accomplishment did the founder who wrote this law and the legislators who fought for it imagine themselves having once the ink was dry?  Would thousands of people rush from surrounding states to sit down in an eating establishment full of obviously straight folks?  Would restaurateurs warn out of state visitors that straight only eating establishments are only allowed in Indiana, so taking photos of straight people while eating is not allowed, especially if you are going to take the evidence back to your more liberal cities?

Indiana has employed dry county politics upon religion and have the nerve to call it freedom.  Even at the risk of losing the atheist and agnostic of Indiana, Pence signed the bill that he could hardly defend when challenged on national television. Pence clearly felt the pressure from conservative leanings, but the pressure to defend it will be stronger than the ink that created it.  Across the world, protests of all sorts have surfaced against the actions of Indiana and its governing body.  The final outcome of this debate remains murky.  The problem that it now creates for Indiana is not.  Indiana is not unique in religious freedom legislation but they are unique in extending it to businesses that make a profit. Much like Indiana's neighboring states with dry counties that happily shun the revenues of debauchery, Indiana will now have to decide if the lost revenue that will certainly come as a result of this lone wolf stand is worth being isolated from the pack.

Over and over, governor Pence keeps insisting that Indiana is not a bigoted state and this law was NOT intended to discriminate against anyone.  What he- nor his legislators that sent the bill to him have cleared up is exactly the reason they needed to add language unique to this old legislation.  Advocates will tell you some weird story about people who work in the wedding industry being forced to do gay weddings despite religious opinions, but you really have to press them on the question just to get this gay wedding example which ultimately admits to the gay bias. Governor Pence already wants legislators to modify the bill to insure that Indiana doesn't lose business from the assumption that this bill was targeted at freedom from servicing gay people.

If legislators add the language to un-address exactly what this law addresses. then what value remains in the original bill.

Pence and his peeps keep trying to convince us that this law fixes a problem by reaffirming what it does not do. So once and for all Pence. What did Indiana actually fix with this law?  I keep getting confused.