I Hope The Pols Get Just What They Deserve

While the out of touch, selfish, all about me, ignorant morons we call politicians are trying to figure out a way to win over a few million potential Mexican voters by next November, the vast majority of voters in this country wouldn’t vote for any of them.

They are so far out to lunch, they haven’t a clue as to what the masses of people in this country, including the legal migrants, want when it comes to dealing with our borders and illegal immigration.

There is not nor has there ever been a democracy in this world that survived by giving away everything that created it in the beginning. The secular progressives in this country are so bent on being so politically corrent with everything, with no boundaries, no laws, no rules, no discipline. This massive protesting and tap dancing of our elected idiots, marks the beginning of the end.

I know of no lawmaker, no matter their party affiliation that should remain in office. The changes needed are so massive that the only thing that would change it now is civil war. I’m not advocating it but take a look around and tell me how this can be done.

We no longer have an official language, we legally can murder babies and adults simply because we don’t want them anymore, we can’t worship the way we would like without fear of offending someone, our citizenry can mock Christianity through movies, cartoons, blasphemy and pornography, no one has to work for anything anymore, the pride is gone, no respect exists anywhere in America, idiots come here because we’ve created a free ride for them and are now demanding “equal rights”, nothing is earned and to top it all off, we now have a Spanish version of the National Anthem.

This is what we have created. We’ve sat by and watched it happen with more important things to do, like make money. Now live with it!
Tom Remington

FROM IGNORANCE AND INCOMPETENCE TO OPPORTUNITY AND PRIDE

WILLIAM PENN FALLIN
COLUMNIST
Douglas, GA Enterprise
Natchitoches, LA Times
Camden County, GA Courier

IMMIGRATION: FROM IGNORANCE AND INCOMPETENCE TO OPPORTUNITY AND PRIDE

By Jim Willits and William Penn Fallin

Note: Jim Willits is a businessman in Dallas, TX who deals with immigration on a daily basis

(4 Part Series)

(Part 1) Typical Washington

This immigration issue is a symbol for what’s wrong with America. Let’s look at the landscape in which we find ourselves, what we’re doing wrong, and how to solve the problem.

Washington is completely out of touch with the American people on the immigration issue. That doesn’t mean Democrats or Republicans. It means both of them. Their suggested policies (or solutions) are ridiculous and impractical. But there is a workable solution out there. It involves a dirty word though, “Compromise.”

People have become so self-centered today that they forget we live in a country of 300 million people. Whatever your personal opinion on any subject, the chances of you getting everything you want on any enormously complicated issue are roughly zero. A rational person then looks to what is achievable and seeks to solve the problem to the best extent possible. That will involve aspects of a solution you don’t like. Get over it. Whiny little partisans on the other hand, like those we have running our country, scream obscenities at each other to whip up their bases, who are usually equally whiny and self-centered. Ask Average Joe American what he thinks and you see the seeds of compromise.

Does Average Joe want the borders controlled? Yes.
Does he want all illegal immigrants returned to Mexico? No.
Does he want blanket amnesty? No.
Does he want some path to citizenship for at least some of these people? Yes.
Does he want to stop immigration? No.
Does he want to stop illegal immigration? Yes.
Do we need these people? Yes.
Do these people currently drain our public infrastructure? Yes.
Are they still a net benefit for us? Yes.
Does he want immigrants to learn English? Yes.
Is he racist? No.
Is he tired of people breaking the law and calling him a bigot whenever he brings it up? Yes.

Each side believes they represent the American people. They don’t. People who want to shut the borders and return all illegals represent the uncompromising hard right. They are a generally well-intentioned group who stand for old-fashioned American values, anybody who wears jeans and a well-worn hat representing a corporate entity, sports team, or mouth cancer causing consumable product. Unfortunately they get “Stuck on Stupid” instead of taking advantage of the fact that their opponents are just basically mean-spirited people or naïve dreamers.

The opposite extreme are people who swoon and talk in glowing terms about the hard working nature of these oppressed people and their struggle to overcome racism and the fight for open borders. They are more easily identified as the uncompromising hard left. These people lament the fact that we don’t live in a world where cars and vehicles of all kind are unnecessary. They live in a dream world, which bears no relation to the one in which we actually live. They spend their time looking up into the sky at the pretty birds and then get run over by the buses that they think shouldn’t exist. They owe allegiance to “a larger cause” than any nation; an elusive notion of citizens without borders, universal humanity and any number of other post-Marxist fantasies. They are the flag desecrators.

Middle America loathes both of these groups even more than illegal immigration. They’re sick of hearing it, all of it. Most Americans fall in the middle this issue, like most issues. If there were ever an issue that more cogently illustrates the dire need for a Third Party in this country than this issue, I’d love to hear about it.

You Politicians should put down your talking points and quit looking for the perfect catch phrase to increase your fund-raising ability with the base. Middle America detests your base. Just get out there and solve the problem by coming up with a workable solution that will inevitably include great compromise, but in the end will allow all of us to be secure in the knowledge that we did a good thing. You aren’t going to satisfy the outer 20% of either wing anyway (with anything that could actually happen), so stop trying. To put it in terms that Washington can understand, there are more votes in the middle anyway.

So what is that solution to immigration? We’ll discuss that in Part 2.

ANOTHER SIDE TO IMPORTING

WILLIAM PENN FALLIN
Columnist
Douglas, Ga. Enterprise
Natchitoches, La. Times
Camden County, Ga. Courier

ANOTHER SIDE TO IMPORTING

Back in the eighties when I lived in Taiwan and managed the import division of Newell/Rubbermaid we were asked to help put a product together for our Anchor Hocking Division.

A-H made a really nice glass product for the oven, good looking, very serviceable and heatproof. Their problem was how to make it attractive to the shopper. Sitting on a shelf at retail with a price sticker didn’t get it done. They settled on selling it as a package deal, along with a woven wicker basket to protect the dining table and a plastic lid (to keep casserole hot before serving). They asked us to source the following:

Plastic lid that would snap on the cooked dish,

wicker baskets to fit each size dish and

printed carton.

After much searching throughout China, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines we finally found a source in Manila who could provide the baskets. He convinced me he could produce 60 (40 foot) containers (tractor trailer loads) a year. That is a lot of baskets. He also had the best price. Since we had four sizes we had to send him a few samples of each. From those he had wooden molds made around which the weavers would then weave the baskets. We used colored patterns to further enhance the beauty of the basket. To get consistency he had all the wicker strips dyed in Manila. The wicker and the molds were then delivered to women and girls in the mountains of Northern Luzon and surrounding Philippine countryside. They made baskets after they finished their daily housekeeping chores. The baskets were then collected by trucks, running weekly routes to all the weavers.

We bought those baskets for less than $.60 each. The weavers got $.20 for each basket.

Next we found an injection plastic molder in Thailand who could make the lids for the glass casserole dishes. And then we located a printing company in Osaka, Japan who had perfected the finest quality printing on a carton I had ever seen. They could reproduce the photo of a dish of roast beef or of a cherry cobbler that was better than the original photo.

Now came the coordinating. The Americans had to predict how many of each size they could sell in a selling season. From their forecasts we then placed orders for baskets (four sizes), plastic lids (four sizes) and full color printed cartons (four sizes). All that took a lot of set-ups for the printer/carton maker, a lot of wooden mold making (in four sizes) for the weavers and the building of four injection molds for the plastic lids.

Once production was underway we then had to inspect the finished products in Manila, Bangkok and Osaka. No wonder I was traveling all the time.

When you consumers walk into a WalMart, Target or any other retail outlet that carries Anchor Hocking products and see that beautiful carton sitting on their shelf you have no inkling that it contains a wonderful oven proof dish made in Lancaster, Ohio, a basket in which to serve your final creation, (made by a little old lady somewhere in the hills of The Philippines who makes $2.00 a day) a plastic lid you would snap into place to keep the dish hot (made in Thailand) while the whole package is displayed in a beautiful carton printed in Japan.

And so goes the world of imports.

If that final product had to be made in America there would be no basket or if there was one it would cost at least ten times more. The plastic lid would cost about twice what it cost from Thailand and the carton would cost about the same but would not be as beautiful. The retail price of the final product (100% made in America) would be at least twice the price you pay now.

That is but one example of the benefits of importing. When we talk about bringing all those jobs back to America do we ever give full consideration to what it will cost us when we go shopping? It’s something to think about…anyway. There are two sides (and sometimes three) to almost every question.

Baseball is Back

Nobody other than George W. Bush starts off the season by throwing the first pitch…

“PLAYBALL!!”