There is much to learn from the embarrassment of Russia for their poor performance against the much weaker Ukraine. The Russians didn’t understand the “enthusiasm gap” between their conscripts or draftees, compared to the Ukrainians who were fighting for the country and their families. Enthusiasm matters!
When discussing immigration, my Democratic friends dismiss my Republican friends as merely being racist. That’s not true! It is a very important issue to them. It is at least as important to my Republican friends as abortion is to my Democratic friends. If my Democratic friends want to invigorate my Republican friends, do nothing!
Immigration averaged around a million people annually, following “The Great Recession” of 2008/9, dropping to about a quarter-million before the panademic. The Covid-inspired Title 42 kept the totals low for the last two years, but it expires next month, One estimate is that there were 62 thousand “gottaways” last month alone, which could spike to 200 thousand after the expiration. Think about those numbers for a while . . .
Asking how to stop the influx is like asking how to stop moths from circling a light. Reagan was right that America is the “shiny city on the hill,” but that also makes us an “attractive nuisance.” We should accept the fact that poor people will not stop looking for a better life. Does that mean we should let everybody into our great country? No! Of course not! Does that mean we should not let anybody into our country? No! We need more workers. Does that mean we can be discriminating? Absolutely! How about barring single males and anybody who doesn’t speak English and anybody without Covid vaccinations. If that is racist, so be it! There are no perfect solutions!
Anything is better than the mandatory purgatory we currently force on immigrants, border officers and business employers. If we can only admit a certain number, shouldn’t we admit only those that are likely to become more self-sufficient. It will take a spine of steel to tell a poor family, who may later be subjected to violence, to stay out of America. Like I said, there are no – exactly zero – perfect solutions.
