Thus far I have kept my posts on topic and I have only written about things of a political nature. But tonight, as I sit here with too much Ambien in my system and too hard a day behind me I feel compelled to speak out about my own life, about what has created the person writing the things you have read thus far.
Once upon a time, I had siblings. My older sister was my constant nemesis through my youth, due to the fact that somehow she grew up honest and forthright whereas I was the one always on the margins and in the dark places. I do not know why we were so very different, coming from the same parentage, and only 2 years apart to boot, but things sometimes work out that way.
My brother was my best friend, a light in the shadows where I had set up my life. He was a constant check on my darker natures- though everyone has them, mine seem particularly strong- He, too was forthright and honest. But in a different and more elegant way. I remember thinking about how to train him, how to make him into a person who could appreciate the differences between people and yet bring them together and except them as they were. In essence, how to create the perfect person; one of great strength and personal honor but with great understanding and acceptance of those who differed from him. He turned out, in spite of all of my teaching, to be exactly that and so much more.
They are both gone now. I speak, and although I believe they listen, I cannot hear their replies. I love my siblings, but they are gone now, their memories the only thing connecting them to my life. I miss them terribly. I ream about them all the time and I cannot sleep for it. It is almost 2 in the morning and I am exhausted yet I know if I go to sleep the dreams will be there waiting for me. And I cannot handle any more of them right now. Better to go for months without sleep than that!
I have a pretty keen political mind, if you couldn't tell that already. But, as with all people, I have enough issues to qualify for a subscription. My issue is loss. Full disclosure time, folks. I suck, really and truly, at loss. Loss of feelings, loss of confidence, loss of those people who share my history and help make me who I am. But contrary to what major media would tell you, a person does NOT have to be perfect in order to have valid ideas, good points, or interesting discussions.
But I miss them. My sister is the latest to go. This winter has been too short a time, though hard and long for me at once. I wish my boys would have known them, the hard righteousness of my sister, the soft, accepting nature of my brother.
But they are gone, relegated to a place I do not know and have little hope of attaining. I am a spiritual man, I believe in a heaven perhaps because I must, because without it I would have no hope of reuniting with them. I remember teaching my brother about balance and good, about accepting the things one has no hope of changing. I remember teaching him letter sounds until he read and teaching him the value of EVERY person, no matter how different.
I am uncertain about if I ever taught my sister a damn thing; though I loved her dearly, especially at the end, she was a better person than me- older and wiser. Perhaps I taught her that the rewards can sometimes outweigh the risks, that taking a chance can be its own reward. Probably not, but I can never know. Leukemia took her from me as a minivan on the ice took my brother away.
Neither one was my fault, but I still can't stop the dreams from coming. After My brother died, I must have killed him a hundred different ways in my sleep. each time thrashing and awakening crying. Every time I sleep nowadays I do the same to my sister. I do not know why. But I would give everything I own to not sleep ever again.
I go to the gym, I punish my body to exhaust it so I can maybe fall into a dreamless and dark sleep. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn't. The harder I push the more I have to push the next time so I can sleep at peace. On the upside I am getting into pretty good shape. On the downside I feel sick and exhausted when I do not have a spotter. I need to push as hard as I possibly can EVERY time or I can't sleep through the night. Without a spotter I can't do it. My father is training for a marathon so he cannot help me. I know nobody else who can. And so I stay awake and drugged, till I pass out exhausted. I wish he would stay with me, I need his help but don't know how to ask for it. He is my father and I love him, but he has to deal with his problems in his own way, and for now it seems that running is the answer. Not running away, he is training for a marathon- just to be specific.
I am with my toddler son and my infant son all day every day now. They do not offer the best conversation, but we teach each other quite a bit. I revel in their successes and do all I can to make them self sufficient. But I have no job nor interaction with people of the same interests as I have and I am very lonely all the time in spite of the constant contact. I am rambling an messed up on too many sleeping pills, which my doctor promised would get me to sleep in 15 min. It has been 3 hours and my body is still terrified to sleep.
There is no accounting for pharmaceuticals vs. the human mind and the terrors within it. But if I am to raise my children well I have to swallow the fear and sleep again. Kill my brother and my sister and wake up in cold sweat to read the little critter books to my eldest and to laugh and smile with my youngest though I feel so tired and need rest from my mind. My mother was finally right: I have indeed outsmarted myself.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Immigration: The American Promise
Immigration is a touchy subject. Nowadays when you turn on the TV or radio and immigration comes up as a topic it seems as though the only people contributing to the discussion are wing-nuts of both sides, one arguing for no restrictions and full amnesty and another for shooting illegals as they try to gain entry. Both sides fail on every level to provide for America and her people the basic ideals of the nation.
True, illegal immigrants are a massive burden on our systems, taking an incredibly disproportionate amount of social services without contributing. Also true that most people are coming here to try to better their life and pose no real threat to the rest of us natural born citizens.
The problems I see are those of multiculturalism versus the melting pot. The people who come here are fighting to get away- putting everything on the line to escape the life they came from. Yet they are lauded and coddled by the left when they refuse to leave that nation behind them- refusing to learn the language (no law against speaking it at home) or expecting the other citizens of the country to conform to their beliefs. When one comes here it is with the tacit expectation that they will do their level best to fit in, that they will leave their past behind them and start fresh with opportunity limited only by their willingness to work hard and strive for the dream of freedom.
These are the people we want, and need, at all costs. Those who wish to set up little versions of their old countries should stay there and make a go of it. Those who wish to impose their belief systems upon us can stay in the hell-holes from whence they came. Citizenship here needs to be the entire package: the great opportunities and freedoms offset by the agreement that they are Americans now, and will live by our laws and our standards. Case and point: this means you are free to open a Mosque but you cannot expect to bind others to Sharia Law.
Regardless of the color of their skin or the nation they were born in, there are those we want, and those we cannot accept. It has nothing to do with creed or education or wealth, in fact I would venture that the majority of the ones we want are very poor and have little formal schooling. The ones we want are those who are Americans already- the ones who are free in their own hearts and minds without ever having been exposed to what freedom is. They are the ones who strive and dig in and push themselves past the breaking point to be greater than they are; they live the American dream of productive prosperity oftentimes better than those born here by good luck.
The ones we cannot take are those who wish to leech off our freedoms and economy; the indigent and lazy, the elite from another nation have no place here. This is a country founded on the dreams of farmers and blacksmiths and shopkeepers, not mighty lords and kings and aristocracy. We were the first nation to choose the path which might allow ANY person to be an aristocrat with hard work, and the will to develop their mind and manner to be so. Let princes of other nations stay where they are, we will take the people under their boots and be happy in that, because we know what they don't: the power of those individuals is greater than any army in the world, so long as they are free.
The hysterical fit of "multiculturalism" in this nation has turned what has historically been our greatest asset- the ideas and abilities of our immigrants- into a social cancer which threatens everything about our way of life. Yes, the Statue of Liberty says "...give us your huddled masses", but it makes the caveat that they are the ones "yearning to be free".
In order to facilitate the acceptance of those who would be Americans, why don't we open a new policy in immigration: all able bodied men and women seeking citizenship will be granted such after a term of 4 years in the military, preferably a combat unit. You wish to avail yourself of the opportunities here? You have to choose to put everything on the line, right down to your bones. In the military one can learn the lessons one needs to be an American that they may not have learned in the cultures they came from: The English language, modern sanitation standards, rule of American law, the value of freedom and what is costs to gain and protect it.
In the meantime their immediate family members would live on base with them, learning the same things in different ways and becoming, slowly and with care, Americans. Should the soldier be honorably killed in combat the survivors would receive standard military survivor benefits and citizenship after passing their evaluations.
Those who wish to have our opportunities must also obey our laws, and those who enter illegally have shown disdain for those laws and should be given the choice of long, hard labor imprisonment or service for citizenship, with all the familial benefits entailed. Those who hire illegals for pennies on the dollar wages should be prosecuted with prejudice. They take jobs from those who would follow our laws in order to make an underhanded profit and rob us all.
But for those politicians who seek to weaken us as a nation by robbing us of our culture and ideals, by making a mockery of the law- we must have no mercy upon them.
True, illegal immigrants are a massive burden on our systems, taking an incredibly disproportionate amount of social services without contributing. Also true that most people are coming here to try to better their life and pose no real threat to the rest of us natural born citizens.
The problems I see are those of multiculturalism versus the melting pot. The people who come here are fighting to get away- putting everything on the line to escape the life they came from. Yet they are lauded and coddled by the left when they refuse to leave that nation behind them- refusing to learn the language (no law against speaking it at home) or expecting the other citizens of the country to conform to their beliefs. When one comes here it is with the tacit expectation that they will do their level best to fit in, that they will leave their past behind them and start fresh with opportunity limited only by their willingness to work hard and strive for the dream of freedom.
These are the people we want, and need, at all costs. Those who wish to set up little versions of their old countries should stay there and make a go of it. Those who wish to impose their belief systems upon us can stay in the hell-holes from whence they came. Citizenship here needs to be the entire package: the great opportunities and freedoms offset by the agreement that they are Americans now, and will live by our laws and our standards. Case and point: this means you are free to open a Mosque but you cannot expect to bind others to Sharia Law.
Regardless of the color of their skin or the nation they were born in, there are those we want, and those we cannot accept. It has nothing to do with creed or education or wealth, in fact I would venture that the majority of the ones we want are very poor and have little formal schooling. The ones we want are those who are Americans already- the ones who are free in their own hearts and minds without ever having been exposed to what freedom is. They are the ones who strive and dig in and push themselves past the breaking point to be greater than they are; they live the American dream of productive prosperity oftentimes better than those born here by good luck.
The ones we cannot take are those who wish to leech off our freedoms and economy; the indigent and lazy, the elite from another nation have no place here. This is a country founded on the dreams of farmers and blacksmiths and shopkeepers, not mighty lords and kings and aristocracy. We were the first nation to choose the path which might allow ANY person to be an aristocrat with hard work, and the will to develop their mind and manner to be so. Let princes of other nations stay where they are, we will take the people under their boots and be happy in that, because we know what they don't: the power of those individuals is greater than any army in the world, so long as they are free.
The hysterical fit of "multiculturalism" in this nation has turned what has historically been our greatest asset- the ideas and abilities of our immigrants- into a social cancer which threatens everything about our way of life. Yes, the Statue of Liberty says "...give us your huddled masses", but it makes the caveat that they are the ones "yearning to be free".
In order to facilitate the acceptance of those who would be Americans, why don't we open a new policy in immigration: all able bodied men and women seeking citizenship will be granted such after a term of 4 years in the military, preferably a combat unit. You wish to avail yourself of the opportunities here? You have to choose to put everything on the line, right down to your bones. In the military one can learn the lessons one needs to be an American that they may not have learned in the cultures they came from: The English language, modern sanitation standards, rule of American law, the value of freedom and what is costs to gain and protect it.
In the meantime their immediate family members would live on base with them, learning the same things in different ways and becoming, slowly and with care, Americans. Should the soldier be honorably killed in combat the survivors would receive standard military survivor benefits and citizenship after passing their evaluations.
Those who wish to have our opportunities must also obey our laws, and those who enter illegally have shown disdain for those laws and should be given the choice of long, hard labor imprisonment or service for citizenship, with all the familial benefits entailed. Those who hire illegals for pennies on the dollar wages should be prosecuted with prejudice. They take jobs from those who would follow our laws in order to make an underhanded profit and rob us all.
But for those politicians who seek to weaken us as a nation by robbing us of our culture and ideals, by making a mockery of the law- we must have no mercy upon them.
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