Like the picture of two old men talking, I’ve become friends with Bob, who is a little left of center politically. I’m a little right of center. Extremists can’t talk to each other. We can hardly stop talking. We’ve met three times for coffee. Last time we met at 10:00 am and stopped at 3 pm. We drank a pot of coffee and both old men had to pee twice. We thoroughly enjoy it.
Bob is opposed to Trump’s attempts to reduce crime in major cities. He believes that people are violent by nature. I agreed. I told him that a friend of mine pointed out that crime in major cities is just in sections not the entire cities. I asked my friend if he thought the sections that were violent were the poor and minority sections. My friend did think that was true. I asked Bob for his opinion.
Bob also believes the violence is in the poorer sections of cities. He believes that because they have less economic opportunities, they are more likely to violate the law.
I asked Bob if he thought people in poor areas enjoyed high crime rate.
He did not think so.
It seems to me that the answer is to enforce the law and provide economic opportunity.
He told me that I am more optimistic than he is. He has given up.
Bob is also against the deportations of illegal immigrants. I told him that a classmate had a car dealership before going chiropractic college. He told me that he had a Mexican national detailing cars for him. If the Mexican didn’t show up, he knew ICE had got him. The Mexican would often beat ICE back to town. That was the first time I had heard of ICE.
The second time was during the Clinton administration. ICE arrested 8 people while working for a local manufacturer. Some people blamed the employer, not the workers. The claim was that if the employer wouldn’t hire them, they wouldn’t come.
People are not attacking the farmers for employing illegal immigrants. In fact, people are saying the farmers will have nobody to pick crops. Some farmers are now claiming they have to pay higher wages. People don’t want to pay higher prices for food. Yet, they want workers to have higher wages. Wake up!! That is how it works. We either pay higher prices for goods so the suppliers can afford to pay higher wages, or we won’t have the goods.
Tomorrow people will be protesting. What are they protesting? Do they want crime to remain high in inner cities? Have they given up? How do people who live in fear feel when their politicians refuse to protect them? How do they feel when people from the wealthier areas protest? Will they realize that Democrat leaders have either given up or don’t care?
Do protestors want illegal aliens to come into the country and compete for jobs against the poorest among us? Do they realize that the policy is hurting wages for the poor? Do they not care? Do they just care about their own cheap food? Or have they just given up?
I want to see crime reduced. I want people to be able to walk all of the streets of every city without fear.
I want people to be able to have jobs that support their families. I want people to experience the dignity of being employed.
I believe we must enforce laws and provide economic opportunities. I will not be protesting tomorrow. I have not given up hope.