Page 4 - Reedley Exponent 4-25-19 E-edition

The Reedley Exponent A4 Thursday, April 25, 2019 Editorial & Opinions
Serving “The World’s Fruit Basket” since 1891
A Mid Valley Publishing Newspaper
Founded March 26, 1891, in a two-story building on the corner of 11th and F streets, by A.S. Jones
Fred Hall — Publisher
In my OPINION
Jon Earnest — Editor / Sports Juanita Adame — Panorama Editor Budd Brockett — Editor Emeritus
QUOTE
“Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.”
George Carlin (1937-2008)
The United States of America has the most dysfunctional immigration systems in the en- tire world! We’ve managed to strip away all of the mandates that new arrivals in this country be self-sustaining by providing them access to taxpayer largesse in this country which features more and more socialistic offerings. No longer are they asked to, or required to, assimilate into the American culture nor is learning the English language a requirement. Anyone who has ever read the Bible is aware of what happened to the Tower of Babel.
As the weather warms, a busy spring of weekend events comes to Reedley
Fred Hall
Students are back in school this week from a mid-April spring vacation break. But that just means the coming weekends will be busy ones for the Reedley community as events arrive and the school year winds down.
This weekend, Reedley High School will be active all day and night Saturday and Sunday morning with the annual Relay for Life. It’s a 24-hour marathon of walking, running, music, memories and emotional stories as vol- unteers raise money to fight cancer. It’s a chance for the public to show their support and love for those in the community dealing cancer, and also is a chance to remember those whose lives have been taken by the disease. Reedley’s event always id memorable with an active core of volunteers from many factions of the community in-
cluding Reedley College. The purple ribbons you currently see around the city are the identify of the Relay.
Also on Saturday, April 27, is the Immanuel Schools open house event from 5 to 8 p.m. on campus. The event includes dinner, programs, tours of the campus, music and worship.
That leads to one of Reedley’s busiest weekend, the first weekend in May. The Reedley YMCA hosts the annual Pets and Storybook Parade along G Street through downtown Reedley on Saturday, May 4, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Parade participants will gather at 13th and F streets and take the walk down to Pioneer Park and the Reedley Police Department. It’s an annual tradition that dates back three-quarters of a century.
The weekend is capped off by the
32nd annual Reed-
ley Street Faire
and Car Show
downtown on Sun-
day, May 5. The
event runs from 10
a.m. to 5 p.m. and
features the popu-
lar car show host-
ed by the Nomads
Car Club, food and
retail booths and plenty of music on two different stages.
May also will include events like the Korky Kevorkian Memorial Bar- becue and Fly-In at Reedley Municipal Airport on Saturday, May 11, Reedley College’s annual commencement on Friday, May 24 and high school grad- uations for Reedley, Immanuel and Orange Cove at the end of the month.
A study released by the Federation for American Immigration Reform found that providing education, health care, law enforce- ment and social and government services to illegal aliens and their dependents costs Californians $25.3 billion per year. That means that the state’s approximately three million illegal aliens and their 1.1 million U.S.-born children costs the average California house- hold, headed by a U.S. citizen, $2,370 annually.
The costs include:
• Funding the K-12 education for children who themselves are illegal aliens as well as the children of illegal aliens accounts for the largest share of the cost to taxpayers at $14.4 billion. These services include standard public school education and supplemen- tal English language instruction Despite federal funding, the aver- age per pupil expenditure is $10,450 every year.
• Justice and law enforcement costs—policing , court, and in- carceration — associated with illegal aliens soared to more than $4.4 billion.
• Medical services cost taxpayers approximately $4 billion, including $388 million associated with 68,000 births to illegal alien mothers.
• Public assistance — low-cost meal programs, free immuniza- tions, etc — are available to residents regardless of legal status. The $792 millionprice tag for these services is borne by California taxpayers.
Stein concluded his report by saying that despite overwhelm- ing evidence that illegal immigration represents an unsustainable fiscal burden to the state, the California legislature and local gov- ernments across the state continue to provide new benefits, new services and new privileges to illegal aliens. This comes even as the state neglects the needs and concerns of other Californians. The costs will continue to grow so long as the state continues to reward illegal immigration and impedes immigration enforcement. California taxpayers will continue to be the losers in this unhappy scenario.
In complete fairness, we do understand that illegals do pay taxes and proponents of illegal immigration are quick to point that out. The unvarnished truth is that the taxes collected from illegals amount to about $3.5 billion annually. That still leaves a deficit well north of the $20 plus billion mark which this costs all of us every year!
It would appear to the average observer that, although there is a huge hue and cry from the political class for “immigration reform,” the simplest beginning to a solution would be to observe the laws that are already in place. Official ports of entry should the the only permissible way to legally enter this country!
History is replete with examples of corrupt and devoid of ra- tionale immigration policy has been in the hands of our political class. Native Americans were denied naturalization while — ac- cording to the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo which resulted in the U.S. acquiring Colorado,
Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Nevada from Mexico — the Mexicans who remained were granted citizenship.
It was not uncommon for politicians, such as William “Boss” Tweed to manipulate the naturalization process to win elections. Tweed was successful in getting approximately 30,000 Irish Ameri- can voters naturalized in the six-week runup to an election. As a reminder, Tweed was a part of the infamous Tammany Hall politi- cal mess that ruled New York during that time period.
In 1980, Jimmy Carter — in an attempt to repair and restore relations with the Cuban government — opened the floodgates for an influx of Cuban refugees into the United States. For years prior to his move, Cubans fled that Communist country in small boats and rafts with many being lost at sea.
The 125,000 refugees involved in the Carter deal sailed from the small town of Mariel and acquired the tag of “Marielitos.” Fidel Castro repaid Carter’s generous humanitarian act by emptying jails and mental institutions in Cuba and including them in the boat lift. It became obvious that the gesture of friendship was being abused and the movement ended in about five months.
Throughout history, our handling of immigration and foreign- ers has really been a “mixed-bag.” Our country has, through the years, been extremely benevolent in sharing the freedoms and bounty this country has to offer with so many people from distant lands. Many decisions were made that may seem cruel under to- day’s standards but, in fairness, should be examined in the context of the times which they occurred.
Space here does not provide us the luxury of being able to truly examine the happenings and what was in the heart of Americans when the events of the past occurred. The one thing, of which we are sure, is that we cannot continue to provide an increasingly so- cialistic society and leave the door wide open. Put yourself in their shoes. Sneaking in is pretty easy, especially with the border as open as it currently is; potential punitive action for getting caught is minimal; and the rewards include lots of free stuff, especially if one comes to California.
Jon Earnest
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Race baiting dominates the Democratic Party
By Harold Pease
Guest columnist
AsayoungmanIob- served that those who saw racism in everything were usually the most racist. That analysis has proven itself over time. Today the accusation is so frequently made on Democratic Party media outlets, very re- cently by Beto O’Rourke against Israeli Prime Min- ister Benjamin Netanyahu, that it’s now difficult to know who is not a racist. If a Jew, the most persecuted race in modern world his- tory, is racist as O’Rourke says, then who is exempt? But the term is used sever- al times a night on MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and ABC news outlets. Presumably every- one is racists except Demo- crats who decry everyone else as such.
As a result white Demo- cratic presidential contend- ers are apologizing for and fleeing from their white- ness. Joe Bidden (yet unan- nounced) and Bernie Sand- ers, are “old white men,” we are told. The party seems intent on purging the stain of whiteness from itself. Sanders, thus far ig- nores it while instead apolo- gizing for his great wealth and “tax breaks.” Biden re- cently apologized to Anita Hill for the “whiteness” of the Senate Judiciary Com- mittee he once chaired.
Beto O’Rourke, former- ly Robert Morris, (name changed allegedly to attract hispanic voters) recently admitted having benefited from what he called “white privilege.” He told a group, “Absolutely undeniable. I have been arrested twice. But that didn’t come to de- fine me or narrow my op- tions in life. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m a white man.”
Other Opinions
Democrats also see everywhere “white nation- alism,” a form of racism, and attempt to attach the label to anyone who wishes to enforce existing, long- standing, immigration law, the same law enforced by Barack Obama. Democrat- ic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar recently tweeted, “Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage.” This, com- ing from probably the most anti-jewish (and therefore racist) member of con- gress. Unable to show clear documentation for the charge, supporters ac- knowledged that although they could not X-ray for “racist bones,” even so, Miller (and by extension President Donald Trump his boss) is still guilty of “soft-core” white national- ism. In other words, they are white nationalists be- cause they are white and in the majority.
Since whites participat- ed in slavery in our early history thirteen Democrat- ic Presidential hopefuls attending the Al Sharpton founded National Action Network’s annual confer- ence April 3, committed to sign Congresswoman Jackson Lee’s recently in- troduced bill creating a commission to study repa- rations for African-Ameri- cans. Most saw it as a way of addressing the persis- tence of racism and white supremacy today. Cory Booker said, “It will be- gin to right the economic scales of past harms.”
Senator Kamala Har- ris, “Justice means recog- nizing domestic terrorism, including white national- ist extremism,” which she
noted, “should be consid- ered a national security priority.” Senator Bernie Sanders said he would sign, then returned to his racist central theme, “We have a president who is a rac- ist, who is a sexist, who is a homophobe, who is a xe- nophobe, and who is a reli- gious bigot.”
Senators Elizabeth War- ren and Kirsten Gillibrand would sign as would Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Gov. John Hickenlooper and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Indeed, no presidential candidate at the gathering opposed it. All supported “racial res- titution,” whatever that means.
The problem with such legislation is no white per- son now living had any- thing to do with slavery 154 years ago. Even then, it was almost entirely the whites of the north that gave their lives to free the slaves. It was whites that estab- lished and maintained the Underground Railroad at considerable risk to them- selves and it was white author Harriet Beecher Stow in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, who brought attention to the moral issue of slavery. Even today, race baiters need to be reminded that it was whites that elected the first half-black president, Barack Obama.
Of course, there were abuses of the past. Indi- ans, Chinese, Germans, Japanese, Quakers, Jews and Mormons can all make cases. Race baiters want whites to acknowledge that they are racist and oppres- sive by nature and should have what they call “white guilt.” The only remedy they seem to accept is com- pensation, but this is never enough.
But their focus is al- most entirely on the blacks
and slavery and the then perpetrators and victims are dead and today’s de- scendants, many gen- erations later, were not wronged. How do they make the case for their receiving compensation for wrongs committed to their ancestors without committing an injustice to those now living — even if it were their ancestors who committed the injustices mentioned? Would they not be the source of new injus- tice?
Why should I pay for the injustices of my an- cestors, even worse, when they may not have been the perpetrators? And why should my black neighbor receive a benefit forced from me without creating an injustice to me? Under this logic his posterity will need to atone to my pos- terity. Could not the same arguments be used against them in a later century?
Today most white Americans are of many races and not racist. Insist- ing that all whites should have “white guilt “ because of presumed ancestral in- justices or confederate as- sociation only exacerbates racism, the very thing race baiters insist they wish to end. Then, are not race baiters the “real” racists? That the news gives their racism so much attention should be objectionable to everyone.
Harold Pease is a syn- dicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedi- cated his career to studying the writings of the Found- ing Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College in Kern County.
Letters Policy
THE REEDLEY EXPONENT invites letters from the public on any topic of local relevance. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity or brevity, and we reserve the right to NOT publish them if they could be deemed libelous or profane. Letters should
be 300 words or less, and bear the author's name, address, and phone number. Letters can be mailed, emailed (jon@midvalleypublishing.com), submitted via our website, or personally delivered to: Editor, Reedley Exponent, 1130 G St, Reedley CA 93654.
Have an opinion? Want to share it?
Weigh in. Let your voice be heard.
Send us your letter to the editor for publication on this page and on our website.
jon@midvalleypublishing.com