What Donald Trump Should Have Said About Immigration

At the Republican debate in Milwaukee last night Donald Trump showed again why he connects with ordinary Americans and leaves the chattering classes cold. Specifically his answer on sending illegal immigrants out of the country, “We have no choice”, demonstrates a solid grasp of the problem that appeals to the, generally working class, people who have been negatively impacted by illegal immigrants. However he either can’t or won’t elaborate the reasons why “we”, in this case the citizens and government of the United States, “have no choice”, but to insist on strict adherence to our immigration laws and punishment for those that have broken our laws.

This is a little surprising because, from what I have learned from media reports anyway, people who know Donald Trump pretty uniformly consider him exceptionally intelligent and the reasons “we have no choice” are neither new nor complex. In short it is not within the power of any person or government to wish away the consequences of violating the law. Hopefully our man-made laws respect this principal but when they do not, the benefits of justice and good order that the law provides are lost. At best, it is only within the power of the government to determine who shall bear the burden that follows from violation of the law. And here the choices are pretty much limited to placing the burden, as much as possible, on those who have violated the law or placing the burden on the innocent.

It only requires a couple of examples. The immigration policies that Donald Trump opposes suggest that the entire working class in America should bear the economic burden of illegal immigration in the form of lower wages and higher unemployment for American citizens. Assertions that attempt to deny the economic consequences of massive illegal immigration or claim that many jobs are beneath the dignity of American citizens are pure fantasy. The law of supply and demand remains in full effect and for the right price there is no shortage of people who will learn to, for example, pick fruit or clean toilets. I know I have had both of those jobs when I needed the money. The reality is without cheap illegal labor wages for less skilled labor will rise to the level required to attract workers, whatever that level is. American workers will have more jobs and make more money. Does that sound bad to you?

The other example is more sinister. By placing themselves outside the law and good order, illegal immigrants provide a shelter and refuge for a criminal element that preys on innocent victims. Of course I have to mention the tragic murder of Kate Steinle in the notorious “sanctuary city” of San Francisco and don’t really need to say much else. Arguments about the exact number of crime victims, or how many extra deaths unlicensed illegal alien drivers are responsible for, miss the point. Given the size of the illegal alien population the number of victims is certainly in the thousands per year at least and any one of them could be your innocent parent, spouse, or child. This is the result of attempting to act as if there are no consequences to breaking the law. If justice is not maintained and the law enforced then the innocent pay the price.

None of this is new or surprising. In 1922 Calvin Coolidge observed, “It makes it necessary to keep in mind the limitation of what can be accomplished by law…When provision is made for far-reaching action by public authority…it all means the imposing of large additional obligations upon the people.” So what Donald Trump should have said is simply “We have no choice. Either we demand that our laws be respected and enforced or we will, in fact, continue to punish the innocent.”

Big Business Betrayal

The US Chamber of Commerce won the backstabber award again by publishing an open letter targeted at Republicans in the House of Representatives intended to increase pressure for immigration "reform". Although signed by "636 business organizations" a quick scan for tell-tale words like "Association", "Council", "Institute" or most amusingly "Chamber of Commerce" revealed only about 40% of the signatories were actual for-profit corporations. I'm sure most Americans really don't want immigration policy coming from the California Fig Advisory Board.
But what about the actual companies that signed on to help push down American workers wages? Well the next time you are shopping you might want to remember who your friends aren't.

Amway
Apple Inc.
AT&T
Cargill, Inc.
Caterpillar Inc.
Citi
Darigold, Inc. - WA
Deere & Company - IL
Deloitte LLP
DHL
Emerson
Facebook
General Electric Company
Google
Halliburton
Hewlett-Packard Company
Hilton Worldwide
Hormel Foods Corporation
IBM Corporation
Ingersoll Rand
Intel
Land O'Lakes, Inc.
Marriott International, Inc.
McDonald’s Corporation
Microsoft Corporation
Overstock.com, Inc.
Qualcomm, Inc.
RockThePost - NY
Sunmaid Growers of California - CA
Symantec Corporation
Texas Instruments Incorporated

This list is purely my own subset of the signatories created by selecting companies I recognized. I wonder how Facebook feels about being on the same list as Halliburton.

Tribute to 9/11 Victim Joseph J Berry

Part of the 2996 Tribute Project

A proper tribute to Joseph J Berry must start with his family for he valued his family above all else as this article and this make clear. But along with being a wonderful husband and father he was also an extraordinarily successful executive and it is this aspect of Joseph J Berry I wish to expand on.

Just to get some perspective on the outline and dimension of his success in business consider this simple listing of the various job titles he held throughout his career:
Men’s Clothing Salesman
Math Teacher
Vice President of Equity Sales
Senior Vice-President
Executive Vice-president
President and Chief Operating Officer
Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board

His early position as a math teacher hints at his analytical ability and indeed Joseph Berry spent his career in the arcane world of financial institutions and their incredibly complex transactions. In this world he not only mastered the technical details, a daunting feat itself, but added two other important dimensions, the human and strategic perspectives.

His continuing involvement and success in equity sales speaks to his ability to build strong personal relationships with his customers. His position at the highly respected firm of Keefe, Bruyette and Woods gave him excellent products to sell that created real value for his clients. Nevertheless, the nature of sales work always requires personally facing difficult situations without the resources to control the outcome. Those without the empathy to truly understand the customer, the fortitude to sustain their own energy and optimism, and the strength of character to maintain their integrity, cannot enjoy lasting success in this challenging field. Joseph J Berry however, possessed all of these traits in abundance.

His ability to lead through consensus also speaks to his mastery of the human and strategic elements in business. Managing highly skilled professionals, such as the traders and analysts employed at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods has been quite properly compared to herding cats. Only someone with the ability to let all employees know their opinions had been heard and respected combined with the ability to find the key common elements to set a vision and strategies providing daily guidance to employees and keeping the firm moving in the right direction can be successful. Again, Joseph J Berry possessed these abilities in abundance.

Finally the continuing success of the firm he ultimately headed speaks to Joseph Berry’s abilities as an executive. From its founding in 1962 through to today Keefe, Bruyette and Woods has enjoyed both steady financial growth and the respect of customers and even competitors. As one of the early employees, hired in 1972, and as a leading member of the management team who helped to set and implement strategic direction, Joseph J Berry was a key contributor to the firm’s outstanding success.

With these outstanding achievements it is no wonder that for the last two years of his life Joseph Berry was honored as one of the top fifty Irishmen on Wall Street by Irish America Magazine. Although he always placed his family first he achieved an uncommon level of success in his career. Doing both so well made him a truly extraordinary person.

Verbal Momentum

Karl Rove Strikes Again
While watching Hannity and Colmes on Fox News last night cover John Kerry's pronouncement that our troops in Iraq are no better than terrorists it suddenly struck me: Karl Rove has made suckers out of the democrats again.
Remember how the Bush team kept strangely silent for months while democrats unleashed increasingly powerful attacks against Bush's Iraq policy and its results? Remember the agonizing questions about why Bush did not speak out in defense of his policy and its indisputable achievements in Iraq? The answer is in the phrase, verbal momentum.
What the heck is that? Well all right, I just made it up. But what it means here is the tendency to defend and even extend a position one has taken when it is first challenged, before the higher brain functions like logic have a chance to kick in. Of course the longer those higher brain functions take to kick in the further the position will be extended and with a lot of politicians that gives plenty of time to get way out in left field. Howard Dean and John Murtha spring to mind for example. I have a cousin who described this effect, after an argument with his wife, as his "out of body experience". "I was over here", he said, "and my mouth was over there still talking!"
The reason this is important is that there's a pretty fine line between vigorous opposition to your country's policy during war and behavior that most Americans regard as treason. Stay on one side of the line and your criticism drains support from your political opponents. Cross the line and you are suddenly in political no man's land. Now it's clear why the Bush team had to wait such an seemingly excessive length of time to respond. They had to wait while the democrats all slowly racheted up their rhetoric, until they were just barely on the "safe" side of the line. Then, when the Bush team finally responded, the susceptible democrats took the bait and jumped right over the line, driven by their own verbal momentum.
It's interesting to note that one politician, who pretty much everyone agrees is the Mr. Spock of the democratic party, didn’t fall for it. Of course with Hillary Clinton it's pretty hard to tell if she's one politician or two so the extra brainpower probably helped her see the trap sooner.
Anyway that's the idea. Karl Rove, master of timing and momentum, strikes again and we all get to watch the democrats crowd together on that last little twig way out at the end of the limb.