Posted on 01/06/2004 11:26:08 PM PST by JohnHuang2
My 8-week-old son's Social Security card recently arrived in the mail. On the back, there's a stern warning: "Improper use of this card or number by anyone is punishable by fine, imprisonment or both."
Welcome to the world of government theft and selective enforcement, my boy.
While innocent babes who have yet to earn a penny are threatened with jail time for misusing Social Security cards, the Bush administration appears set this week to turn the ailing government pension program into an international relief fund for illegal alien workers who used counterfeit Social Security cards and stolen numbers to secure illegal jobs.
Unlike the bedtime stories I tell at night, I am not making this up.
This belated gift to the open-borders lobby and Mexican President Vicente Fox is part of a larger amnesty plan that has been in the works since before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. So, why exactly are we rewarding a country that has been obstinately opposed to the War on Terror? Go ask Mr. Brilliant, Karl Rove. This I do know: It couldn't have come at a worse time from either a fiscal or national security standpoint.
According to Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security, benefits paid to retirees will exceed revenues in just 15 years. The pay-as-you-go system could go belly up as early as 2030. These projections don't take into account the economic impact of the Bush proposal, which would allow untold millions of illegal aliens from Mexico to collect full cash benefits for themselves and their families from their home country -- without having to work the required number of years that law-abiding American citizens must work to be eligible for payouts.
Reporter Joel Mowbray, who first exposed this treachery a year ago, noted that this raw deal may well cost overburdened U.S. taxpayers $345 billion over the next 20 years. Probably much more. As we know from experience, Social Security projections are notoriously off the mark.
The bureaucrats call this scheme "totalization." Try total prostration. The proposed agreement is nothing more than a transfer of wealth from those who play by the rules to those who willingly and knowingly mock our own immigration and tax laws. What are we doing promising lifetime Social Security paychecks to day laborers in Juarez when we can't even guarantee those benefits to workers here at home?
Unbelievably, the White House is trying to convince us to embrace this global ripoff because it "rewards work." No, it rewards criminal behavior. The plan will siphon off the hard-earned tax dollars of American workers who may never see a dime of their confiscated earnings and fork it over to foreigners guilty of at least four acts of federal law-breaking: crossing the border illegally, working illegally, engaging in tax fraud and using bogus documents.
Giving money to scam artists will simply result in more fraud -- not only by Mexican agricultural workers, but also by Middle Easterners such as Youssef Hmimssa, who provided fake Social Security numbers and fraudulent drivers' licenses to members of an accused terrorist cell in Detroit. "If you have the right connection, you can get anything," he testified before the Senate last fall.
The door is now open for all illegal aliens to collect retirement benefits using bogus Social Security cards. What's next: survivors' benefits for the families of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers?
I haven't allowed myself to be "baited" into a flame war since the Lead Moderator made that request of us all.
I'm not going to allow you "bait" me into a flame war this time, either.
You should be apologizing to the other FReepers you personally attacked on this thread instead of making further attempts to antagonize others and instigate another flame war.
FR could maybe start a '12 step' program for all of you flame warriors that seem to be unable to just go 'cold turkey'.
It might be good for your mental health to begin your every FReeping session with words like,
"Hello, my name is CWOJackson and I am an incorrigible flame warrior, whose motives are absolutely transparent to everyone on the other side of all of my issues, and boy do I have issues.
LOL!
And this is not the thread I ended up posting to CWO to back off.
On the thread I am talking about, I saw someone get extremely nasty with CWO out of the blue. Probably due to some old spat.
Instead of responding in kind, CWO just said "Nah, not a party thing but rather" and made his point. The other guy replied "OK, peace on that. I agree."
I am not going to say that CWO doesn't mix it up, but good. And I am not going to say he doesn't start it sometimes. But what I will say is that when asked to back off, he does and I will also say that when he does get into it, he never complains, even when his stuff gets pulled and the other's don't. And he does not always return fire.
Now that I have gotten the platitudes out of the way, CWO, you do know that you do enjoy mixing it up rougher than most. And what ends up happening is that you may understand or know who you can do that with, but others see it and do it and do it to people they don't know if they want to debate that way or not, and then we get hit with "but he does it" and "you let him get away with it but not us". And sometimes you do get into it with someone who complains. You do make our jobs harder. It would be better for us and probably for the forum if the times you held back, like you did when Burkeman1 was flaming you, were more often and the times where you respond in kind (or throw the first blow) were less.
And it would be better for me if I didn't keep getting called back to micromanage things. I tried for a day or two to kind of set expectations for what I think would work to get things under control in the forum. I think there has been great improvement overall. Now let's do a little more self policing and less scorekeeping and get back to good debate.
Thanks, LM
An approach I could take is to hit everyone I see doing the things that destroy these threads with a suspension when I see it. Given the amount of whining over the little bit I have done so far, I imagine that would cause a huge uproar, but if the forum wants it, they can let me know here on this thread and Jim and me and the rest of the moderators will discuss it.
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I would anticipate that will continue for a short while longer.
I have seen some improvement in a lot of people.
I have also seen some people going off the deep end. One or two (and they are not any of those suspended or restored) are coming really close to crossing a line over which they won't be coming back.
But any effort takes time to work, and we are giving it that time. Thanks, LM
" These projections don't take into account the economic impact of the Bush proposal, which would allow untold millions of illegal aliens from Mexico to collect full cash benefits for themselves and their families from their home country -- without having to work the required number of years that law-abiding American citizens must work to be eligible for payouts."
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