My Dad Has A Gun!!!                            November 8th 2005
President Bush, my beloved president, my hero.

    I look back these days, at 50 years of age, and think that I did have a happy childhood. I remember so well playing with building blocks and toy soldiers with Billy and Bobby across the street, and I played slot-cars at my home, while the TV aired the Beatles on the Ed Sulivan Show, with pooky, our dog, running about barking. It was a good time for me, warm and secure. But one day, my dad came home with a weapon, a long big shinny rifle, with boxes of ammo. I recall how he would point it out the window, in mock shooting of anyone coming uninvited. Then at night, the TV showed burning buildings, the city of Watts had exploded in flames, in race riots, and the riots were spreading across the nation. I distinctly recall viewing three national guardsmen on TV, in blood-spattered battle fatigues on the streets of Watts, pointing rifles in the air, standing next to a large sign, reading, "turn left or get shot". I ran across the street the next day, and exclaimed to Billy and Bobby, "MY DAD HAS A GUN!!!". My happy little home was now Fortress 238th Street, in Torrance California.

My grandparents and parents came to California in the 1950s, from on the demilitarized zone in Cleveland Ohio, separating the white and black communities. My grandpa would not watch NBA basketball because it had too many blacks playing. My parents did watch the NBA, but were not much better. I recall one time, while at a newspaper boys' rally, where I called a white boy the N-word, and a black boy looked at me in surprise. I immediately apologized, but in thinking about, I became ashamed of myself. I grew to hate my grandparent's bigotry, for contaminating my childhood parlance. My parents, now much guarded in their speech, still retain to this day residual bias, but at least conduct themselves civilly these days. I will certainly teach my children to judge people by the content of character and not the color of skin. It takes generations of social unrest, violence, and divisiveness to over come deep seated prejudices resulting from a mass immigration of peoples who are not readily assimilate into American culture.

The last slave ship, the Nightingale, destined for the slave market in the USA, was captured by Yankee cruisers off the west coast of Africa in 1861, yet it really took hundreds of blockading gunboats plying off the southern ports to finally shut down the slave trade. In 1863, when New York threaten to secede from the union, the large Irish population, from the migration from the Ireland potato famine, went on a draft riot, mostly sparked by fears of dying for freed blacks that would take their jobs, as poor blacks were then publicly lynched in the streets of New York. Our heroes from the battle of Gettysburg were called into New York to baby-sit the Irish as the blacks coward in fear for their lives.

North America effectively imported slaves until there were millions of blacks vastly outnumbering their white southern task masters. As a result, it has taken a civil war, and race riots, and 150 years hence of social unrest to substantially rid our society of that problem of importing, in mass, a race of peoples who were not immediately assimilated into the American culture. That mass importation of slaves directly lead to a devastating civil war and almost a divided nation. We can only absorb so many immigrants within a given span of time, without devastating consequences. We have been there and done that. And now, there are growing race tensions between blacks and Hispanics in Los Angeles when eyeing limited employment opportunities. The minute men on the southern border are getting close to armed vigilantism, and John Brown's treason of 1859. Have we not learned anything? Are we blind?

These days, we have a porous southern border where millions of uneducated, unskilled, illegal immigrates are invading the US homeland, with no end in sight. While the compassion for the low income people is admirable, the present expansion of the welfare state, creating huge deficits, is merely laying out more bait for continued illegal immigration. The US constitution, that directly authorizes a standing army to prevent invasion, is being ignored, in contradiction of sworn oaths by law makers to uphold the constitution, another national disgrace, tantamount to treason.

I was channel flipping TV the other day and came across channel 7, KABC in Los Angeles, and heard a commercial in Spanish, first one I have ever heard on mainstream network prime time broadcast. I cannot channel flip the AM radio at all any more, as at least 50% of the stations are Latino, so the Latinos have effectively captured one entire media outlet in the Los Angeles market, that I do not visit any longer. Maybe KABC, a major network is going Mexican as well. I can just see the KABC nightly news anchors all wearing sombreros, backed-up by the TJ brass. I hope Mr. Bill OReilly does not speak Spanish, I would not want to turn him off as well, though I bet he would look good in a sombrero. I can not eat the cafeteria work food any longer, as all of it is now saturated with salsa, despite recurring objections, and so I have to bring my sandwiches and fruit to work each day. The cashier does speak English very well, and communicating over charge errors creates complications, so in stead, I have to use my broken Spanish to make up for the lack of communication. In my liberal state, California is now publishing, under state imposed directives, multilingual literature, to the deprivations of poor Americans needing assistance or tax relief. We should spend our US tax dollars to only support Americans furthering American culture, while encouraging the display of various other ethics cultures only within moderation, to have a wide diverse mix furthering tolerance.

Yet, in spite of it all, I don't have a prejudicial bone in my body, but you know, every time I see a head scarf on the streets, I think of 3000 dead in NY, and get outraged. And now, there are riots in Paris, and I am shocked. An open border with a generous welfare state spells doom in the long run. There is little from the Muslim leaders condemning this outrage as 400 towns burn in France, and spreading to England, Denmark, Belgium, and Germany, all with the same immigration problem. What a mess that I don't want here in the US, yet Muslim immigration is also on the rise as well, and they to do not readily assimilate with their jihadist mentality, and their cultural disdain for the infidels. I see and hear it all clearly, now, the deafening blaring of Jihad singing coming from the local mosque in downtown Laguna Beach California, signaling all to join in state imposed mandatory mid-day four-hour siestas.

Mexicans are not coming here for all the right reasons. Sure, I respect the dignity of work, but vast uncontrolled illegal immigration goes way beyond that sympathetic view. The illegal immigrants come here in the first instance to violate immigration laws. Crime is not one of the right reasons to come here. The illegal immigrants come here, not to readily assimilate but to promote their mexicanism in this country with their special studies, their bilingual education, their salsa food, their bilingual literature, their capture of AM radio, their capture of weak minded politicians, their Mexican flags in downtown LA or in Georgia, and their Cinco De Mayo, inter alia. Sure I like a little foreign culture in the mix, but not one that dominate over US culture. The illegal immigrants come here to peddle their drugs, to join gangs, degrade property values, and effectively to generate resentment, that will ultimately result to racial riots in the out years, when the US cuts back the hand outs. The illegal worker immigrants come here to simply earn money, not generally with their families to relocate and assimilate and waive the US flag, but to send their money back to Mexico, damaging increased trade. President Fox should build industry in Mexico with cheap labor for the US to exploit, so as to lift their economy, as the way it has been done for centuries. The border must be closed, with a US offer of generous recurring temporary work visas, without any amnesty.

I do not want East Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Diego, or other southern US cities, from El Paso TX, to Denver CO, to Albuquerque NM, to Phoenix AZ, to go up in flames in the out years. I am tired of the poor-me victimization political card, or race based affirmative action, or the ruination of Americanism, or the political race card, or the weak-minded political pandering, or the eventual bigotry leading to violence and destruction and deaths that necessarily flows from an unrestrained importation of a vast number foreigners that are not readily assimilated into American culture, to only then leave that problem to my children to solve.

The GOP is destined to be marginalized by the inaction on the southern border. For the next decade, the issues that drive US politics will be WEDMI (Wed-Me), that is War, Economy, Deficit, Marriage, and Invasion. A recent FoxNews OReilly survey indicates that Americans, including the conservative base, do not believe that the current administration will get tuff on the US southern border. There is a lack of confidence that is building in the conservative circles. However, most Americans still believed that the Republicans have better leadership and vision over the Democrats who have no vision whatsoever, and simply spew their hate, while pandering any fringe group having a receptive ear.

We Americans deserve better than the lesser of two incompetent political parties. As in Raider Football, the cry seems to be, JUST WIN BABY, while the team is repetitively penalized for unsportman like conduct. I will not vote for the Republicans merely because they are the lesser of two incompetent evils, as does a vast numbers of Americans who simply choose not to vote at all. I recently received a request to contribute to the GOP again, but wrote back, only if President Bush closes the southern border. I will not support dereliction of duty, perceived as nearly treason.

    As to WEDMI, the -E-conomy is miraculously holding strong but interest rates and inflation are rising spelling immanent stagnation, the -D-eficits remain unacceptably high, the -W-ar is not perceived as going well, the US government has failed to utterly stop the southern -I-nvasion, and has failed to pass a constitution amendment defining -M-arriage as between a man an a woman, though there is some good to come in the out years in packing the supreme court with conservatives. So as I see it, that is two marginal positives, and three bad negatives. That is simply an unacceptable report card for the current administration. I had not voted since President Reagan, and did not vote in the Gore v Bush election, as well, but when I saw the BOLD leadership of president Bush in Iraq, I crawled out of my hole, cut the check to the GOP, and pounded the payment on the streets three days a week for three months prior to the election Bush v Kerry, all by myself, in a sea of liberals, relearning childhood dodgeball skills from bottles being regularly thrown at me. The southern border needs to be shut down, and if it is not, and done soon, I will merely buy a gun, barricade the front door, defend my fortress, and crawl back into my happy little world, and leave you all to your pathetic selves.

Sincerely

Derrick Michael Reid