The Ugly Scar of Slavery

Slavery is an ugly blemish on America’s history, yet for all that we have managed to overcome since the days of 3/5 of a person slavery is not dead in the United States. Slavery is, despite the efforts of the United Nations and freedom loving countries, a booming market. Many people from Latin American countries and from Asia pay thousands of U.S. dollars to traffickers who will take them illegally to the U.S. To pay for this service most work in sweat shops, but many more will work as prostitutes. It’s not just the U.S., it’s global, and it’s much worse in other countries.

Human beings, forced to work for years under threat of death – or worse the death of a family member or child. Children, little girls who should be riding tricycles and eating ice cream cones are forced into prostitution.

The side effects of this disgusting reality are even more disheartening. The spread of AIDS and other STDs in Africa is in large part due to men who have sex with these women and children prostitutes, getting the disease from the child and taking it home to their wives, who give birth to children with life threatening STDs.

They money made from the slave trade is surely linked to terrorism, whether fundamental Islam, or other forms of terrorism in the local countries. Drugs are not doubt a partner industry with the slave trade, as is modern day piracy. A whole host of criminal enterprises are interconnected with the slave trade. And worst of all people’s rights as human beings are being violated, and the peace and security the rest of the world’s free people have is threatened by pandemic diseases, drugs, and o host of other illegal troubles.

So how can it be stopped? Well there is hope, and it begins with changing the lives of one person at a time. I strongly encourage you to research International Justice Mission. This organization is dedicated to the rights of human beings as creations of a loving God who made us ALL equal. The women of the sweat shops, the girls of the sex trade, and the men and boys of bound labor need your help.

One of the most powerful things you can do to help IJM and millions of slaves around the world is to write your state representatives, your governor, your Senate and House representatives, and the President. Let them know that you care about these injustices. It will make all the difference in the world when IJM lobbies in Washington for action.

"Talk Is Cheap, Gas Is Not"

These are the words of NY Senator Charles Schumer (D) who said them in response to President George Bush's announcement that recognized the gasoline prices crisis. I could not agree more, but what I hope Sen. Schumer realizes is that I hold him and the President equally responsible for the outrageous prices I pay at the pump.

Congress is a power hungry, money thirsty monster. It cares nothing about the people. "Lawmakers" have campaigned on Health Care before using the argument that elderly persons often choose between eating and buying prescription drugs. I demand to see someone stand up for my plight of choosing between food and gasoline!!!

Florida's legislature has also been approaching the issue of gas prices. Everyone wants to seem like they are for the people. I dont believe a word of it. Their travel expenses are paid for, and many live comfortably enough thanks to the ability to write off expenses as part of being a representative.

I am all in favor of passing a law that holds representatives in Florida responsible for their own fuel expenses. We will still pay for airline tickets, but no more turning in receipts for gas you put in your car. And no tricky work trying to get a "company car" to take you around in either. I want you all to pay as much as I do for gas on a MONTHLY basis.

Americans Do Not Pick Strawberries

I have been following the immigration issue for almost as long as Lou Dobbs has been reporting on it in the spring of 2005. Every day he would come on at 6 pm EST and give some kind of new angle to the immigration issue. He is still going at it, and I like to believe that in some way he is responsible for bringing the issue to the national stage.

The nation is becoming ever more polarized on this issue… and nothing could be more detrimental than a Congress stuck with a divisive issue. You will do well to remember Terri Schiavo and how badly the members of Congress fell all over each other to back a horse.

Well this is an issue Congress needs to pay attention to, and find a solution for. I don’t think it will happen, at least not in our best interests – and I don’t mean the best interests of hot blooded patriots who are madder than a hornet over illegal aliens running all over the country either.

You see, I am just as torn over this issue as the whole country is. On the one hand I could not be any more irate about the idea of some millions of illegal immigrants simply being given citizenship. Not only is it exploitative politics, but its like putting up a big “Open House” sign to the world. If you want citizenship and don’t want to go through 10 years of paperwork just come on over and we will eventually just give you your Social Security Card in about the same time it would have taken to go through all the red tape.

A part of me wants to put them all on buses back to their homes. However, and I was sharply reminded of the consequences of my proposed ideas when a friend called me the other day. She and her family own a farm here in South Florida, one of very few left in the state as local governments keep running them out of town and big business farming takes over agriculture across the nation. She and the entire farming industry employ illegal immigrants to work the fields. She is afraid of loosing the farm, a part of her life that she has always known and loved. Even if we do come up with a solution that keeps industries working, and respects our national laws at the same time there is still a very good chance that some people are going to be mad examples of.

The IFCO case on April 21, 2006 is what prompted my friend to call me. Her father and other farmers in South Florida are very, very concerned about the future, as they should be since these are also working fathers supporting children in college.

I see a solution in which the enforcement of the law, coupled with a guest worker program that follows the meaning and logic of its name can become the compromise necessary to put our nation’s federal agencies on a path to responsible immigration control. But as many conservative Congressmen and comedian Carlos Mencia have already expressed, the actions of Mexican immigrants waving the Mexican flag will not help the situation.