America the great

 

As I walked out on my front porch this morning, coffee in hand, I watched as the sunlight flowed through the overcast clouds and brightened up the surrounding forest. I always enjoy the start of the day when there is sunshine piercing through the leaves of the trees hitting the forest floor.

I have been home now for a couple days since my three-week journey across the western United States. While on the journey I rarely watched the television or listened to the news. I was focused on just getting from one point to another while enjoying the ride and the changing landscape views. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to one of my favorite stores to buy some items I needed to continue work on several of my projects. As I went to the checkout stand I noticed that there was no one at the cash register. Within seconds a young Hispanic woman hurried around to her position at the cash register saying that she was sorry for the delay but she was translating for customer. This young woman seemed so full of life hidden behind a great smile. I responded to her by saying that that was no problem and it reminded me of my time on the Police Department when I had wished I had a translator working with me. I mentioned to her that when responding to a call in the community where the language spoken was not English usually resulted in my using the children of the adults to translate in a conversation. I also mentioned to her that when there is an emergency or some chaos around the situation the language spoken usually is in the native tongue of the person calling the police. This would lead to some poor exchange of hand signs to try to discover what the emergency was. Most police agencies now recruit many different minority language speaking candidates to help with this problem. In Los Angeles there were many different languages that dominated the streets of the city. It went from Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. Whole sections of the city, like Chinatown, echoed in the traditional language that represented where those living there came from.

The woman at the register looked at me and asked how I got here from Los Angeles. After my answer I could see that she, like many other people, wish that they could go to the many different places in the United States. Since moving to this area of Texas I’ve noticed a lot of people have been born and raised in just this small area of the world. This was the case of this young woman at the register. I told her that she should at least go to the many major cities in the United States. Places like; New York City, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas. Each one of those areas has many different cultures that approach the same issues that we approach here in Texas but with a difference. Many times while listening to the news I heard someone talk about the use of common sense. Well it will not take long to find out that common sense in one area is not necessarily common sense in another. If you’re walking down the street in West Hollywood California you would think that is a common sight to see gay couples walking hand-in-hand representing the norm for that area. If you’re walking through the Federal housing section of New Orleans you would see street sales of narcotics being openly conducted and that would seem as the norm for that area. If you walking in certain areas of Los Angeles and you observe multiple spray painting on almost all buildings, whether it was gang related or just tagging, that would seem like the norm for the area. If you are visiting New York City and you would look out the window at the traffic, you would see a sea of yellow cabs and a swarm of bicyclists buzzing in and out of traffic and that would be the norm for that area.

If you are on the East Coast of the United States back in 1800s you might witness the large outpouring of immigrants of the ships from the many different areas of Europe and beyond. They would pour off of the ships and their first year in the United States should be one of the five different neighborhoods developing in the underprivileged areas of New York.

In this year if you live along the southern border of the United States it would seem normal to see the many different immigrants and drug traffickers making their way across the border with little or no difficulty. Unlike the immigrants in the 1800s who were fully documented this new flood of immigrants are undocumented and completely out-of-control.

Does this mean that we want to seal off our borders and stop anyone who is not already here from gaining entry into our country? No, I feel that we still open arms to those who want to enjoy the freedoms that we do here in America. There is a mechanism that allows this to happen, using the existing immigration laws. The current flood of immigrants from Central America, include a large number of children traveling alone. Anytime you put the word children or child in front of an issue many people’s hearts go soft because it is a child. They do not wish to apply the existing laws. And so those areas that are along the border are taxed with balancing the issue of a child versus the overwhelming cost of handling such new immigrants.

I think this issue has not been a very important issue to the rest of the United States because they do not feel the impact of this new immigration of undocumented aliens with so many of them being children. I think that if this was happening along the borders of Virginia, Washington DC, New York City or New Jersey their outrage would find a quick fix to this problem. It is ironic that places like New Jersey take such pride in its different ethnic backgrounds. But when it comes to the issue of illegal immigrants from South American countries, the Eastern states really don’t appreciate the problem.

In this week’s news that focuses more on a civilian airline that was shot down in the Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza. I think we should just leave those issues to those people that are involved. The fact that there was one American on the airline shot down, who had dual citizenship, is not a good reason for the United States to get so involved in this incident. If the government thinks that they’re going to somehow shame or push Vladimir Putin to do some kind of apology, they’re wrong. If the government thinks that they can get the Palestinians and Israel into some kind of peace agreement, there are wrong. Let those governments and their people spend their energy and money on their problems. Let’s get focused back on our problems in the United States. The disgrace and mismanagement of the Veterans Administration has not gone away. The issue of increased deaths from heroin and methamphetamine has not diminished. The love ones that we lose every day from diseases, such as cancer, has not diminished. The current issue of children of Central America walking across our open borders to our country has not diminished.

I call for the divided Congress and the President United States to refocus on those issues that are still current and active here in the United States. I’m not concerned with who will run for the presidency in the next election, I am concerned that the current Congress and the President of theUnited States has somehow lost focus on the issues in their country, my country.

America the great is the place of great promise and wealth. A place that promises that the only limitations are those you put on yourself. A place should not try to be the world’s policeman. It is a place that is beginning to run out of patience and understanding. It is a place that on its west side is running out of enough water. It is a place where the natural resources like oil are running out. It is a place such great cities like Chicago that its infrastructure are deteriorating and falling apart. The USA is a place that had such a demanding influence on the rest of the world and is now facing a diminished and dwindling influence.

My thought is that we need to refocus on our own lands and people. We need to spend our energies and intelligence as well as our monies on many issues that affect us directly. The rest of the world does not need the United States to tell it what to do a lot of their lives. I lost faith in the Congress of the United States and the many state and local government agencies that are obliged to follow the lead of the Congress. I think a move back to the states having more power is appropriate at this time. The national government must continue to exist but it is lost his focus and the state governments are more likely to focus on the issues at home.

How did I get to all of this thinking from just going through a checkout line and talking to the person behind the register? Because I see the hope and the wonder of a new generation and in this young woman’s face. I see that she has adjusted to the surrounding community while still paying respect to her culture. I see her desire to leave the comfort of her home town and learn about the many different cultures of this country. She is not consumed with the many issues that I’ve just mentioned. I truly wish that she will not have to be confronted with the issues that I mentioned. I see the nation’s future in this young woman’s face. So I believe it is my part to express my thoughts on the issues I believe will affect the future.

Pops