Are we going backward? Those of us who grew up reading the daily newspaper were reminded at least once a week of our country’s position in the world.
At one time, there was said to be two super powers: The U.S. and Russia. Most of the world leaders looked to the U.S., though, because we were a democracy. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, all eyes turned toward the U.S. for leadership and domination.
The U.S. accepted the role and assumed responsibility for the rest of the world. We taught emerging countries how to build cars and establish manufacturing businesses. To better feed their population, we taught poorer countries how to farm and raise crops. Organizations launched in our country sent them farm animals and directed them in their care. Many countries, which depended upon farming, were shown how to improve production and plant and harvest with machinery.
Our country, as the caretakers of the world, taught other countries how to harness and produce electricity to improve their lives. We taught and gave everything we had found to be prosperous to all those who wished to learn and receive. What we failed to recognize was we were giving away all our accomplishments — and all that had made us a super power and world leader.
There was something we were not successful in teaching other countries: Human rights. The other countries learned how to prosper by the use of what we taught them so well that they began competing against us. Before long, we were buying from them because, without the same human rights our country provides to its citizens, they could produce the products much cheaper.
People from other countries who had been taught trades soon learned they could make a much higher wage by offering to work for less than “union and minimum scale” wages here in our country. Although our country established laws prohibiting the hiring of illegal immigrants, those laws have not, and are not, being enforced.
In our area, there have been employers who ignored the laws as many as seven times over the past few years. We learned in a recent press release: “A couple who own a dairy farm in Michigan’s Thumb region pleaded guilty to hiring illegal immigrants and agreed to pay a $ 2.7 million penalty.”
U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade stated, “An important component of immigration enforcement is prosecuting those who employ undocumented workers.”
During the seven years the violations took place were any fines assessed? Will the violators be arrested? Will the penalty now imposed actually be paid and when?
If not, is it any wonder laws are ignored?
As I see it, our representatives in the U.S. are falling behind on OUR goals; spending all their time and resources on the problems of other countries. How can we afford to provide financial assistance to other countries when we have to borrow to even exist? We cannot afford to cut funding for education. We have already fallen far behind other countries in producing the knowledgeable people needed to keep pace.
Our country is quickly aging and we cannot take from its elders what they have already paid in. We must avoid the financial disgrace of not paying our bills. We are no longer the world power we once were. We just open the money jar open for all to pull from — except our citizens. Have we decided we truly want to relinquish our position and admit we can no longer fulfill our role as a leader in the world? If this decision has been made, who made it for us? What party do they represent?
How much longer will it take us to realize the two-party system is failing. It has been for the past 10 years. We must retreat from assisting others and help ourselves. We cannot help those countries that vehemently oppose us to gain their rights. WE CAN NO LONGER BORROW TO LOAN OR GIVE TO OTHERS.
While we have been busy enabling other countries with valuable lessons and aid, we failed to foresee what it would do to our economy.