Christianity and democracy go hand in hand.  In fact, true democracy is the child of Christianity.  Both emphasize the dignity of the individual.  Both make the person to be more important than the state. The rights and powers of the central government are given to it by the people.  The state is for the citizens, not the citizens for the state.

….

The great danger to our civilization comes not when subversive movements appear — but only when our people relinquish their former ideals, disavow their former beliefs, and accept the new philosophical ideology!

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The real difficulty today is that the higher, nobler, worth-while things of life have been taken away from us.  We have relinquished them and have received nothing to replace them.

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The twentieth century has made much progress scientifically, hygienically, mechanically, and materially.  But — while doing so we have surrendered our basic beliefs, relinquished our cherished ideals, seared our modern consciences, and well-nigh damned our immortal souls.

From a series of radio messages, “Showers of Blessing,” by Rev. Russel V. DeLong. Originally published in 1954.

Did you know that an illegal immigrant can, after becoming a legal immigrant, claim work done in the U.S. while they were still “illegal?” I only became aware of this when I saw the following headline from The Washington Times, 5/18/2010:

Illegals granted Social Security

The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment — even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents.

The following is from Tim Chapman, Director of the Center for Media and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., before the vote (emphasis mine):

To qualify for full Social Security benefits, a worker must register 10 years of work. Under current law, illegal immigrants who obtain legal status can use their previous illegal work history to apply for Social Security benefits.

A compromise immigration bill pending right now in the U.S. Senate (sponsored by Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Mel Martinez (R-FL)) comes at a time when our nation is facing an enormous crisis on the entitlements front. A recent report moved the year in which Social Security will go broke from 2041 to 2040. Congress cannot afford to keep the promise of Social Security to its own citizens, let alone illegal workers.

To remedy the situation, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) has offered an amendment to the pending Senate immigration bill that would reverse this law to ensure that law-breakers are not rewarded for their past work at the expense of immigrants who have waited in line and American citizens.

Of all people, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) voted against the amendment, saying that it wouldn’t be fair to wipe out the “nest eggs” of currently legal immigrants who have already accumulated benefits from illegal work completed before they were authorized to work in the U.S.

Excuse me? Why should illegal work mean you’re entitled to anything? If you get a job with a stolen Social Security number, you should get jail time, not benefits.

Consider this scenario: a man who is a full U.S. citizen — born here and never a citizen of another country — wants to get a new identity (for whatever reason). He gets a job using a stolen Social Security number and forged and stolen documents. If he is caught, would he be prosecuted?

If the answer is yes, then any illegal alien who obtains work, loans, bank accounts, or any other benefit using the same stolen Social Security number and forged/stolen documents should be prosecuted.

Besides, the legal ramifications are spelled out when you sign forms for work, bank accounts, etc. — that by signing your name, you are attesting to the truth of the information you have provided. Usually, you are also agreeing to abide by the company’s right to fire you and close your accounts if they find that you provided false information, and not to hold the company liable for damages as a result of providing false information.

But back to the bill amendment…

I did some searching, and here’s a good summary of the amendment and vote (the original post is no longer online):

Just a few minutes ago, on the floor of the United States Senate, senators debated an amendment to the McCain immigration bill.

This is not, by itself, profanity-inducing.

But here’s the substance of the debate– Should ILLEGAL immigrants, once made legal by the McCain legislation, be entitled to receive the Social Security benefits they have paid into the system while ILLEGALLY using FRAUDULENT Social Security numbers STOLEN from actual, legal citizens of the United States of America.

The fact that this is even up for debate is just beyond insane. Everyone knows we will never have enough Social Security funds to serve, you know, actual citizens.

Every single one of those senators knows that, and they’re debating whether we should extend such non-existent, unsustainable, budget-busting, generation-saddling benefits to millions of people who fraudulently entered the system by stealing the identities (and sometimes ruining the credit) of legal Americans?!?

Sen. Ensign, God bless him, offered an amendment suggesting illegals should not be eligible for Social Security benefits accrued while illegal.

The U.S. Senate voted to kill that amendment, 50-49.

I can think of no better response to this than this quote written in 1919 by President Theodore Roosevelt:

We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birth-place or origin.

But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. ….There can be no divided allegiance here. . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.

In contrast, Massachusetts seems to be following the letter of the law by not allowing illegal immigrants (or the companies who support them) any more leniency than they would American citizens caught in the same felonies. (To compare again, think what would happen if a company was found to knowingly and regularly hire U.S. citizens with false identities and forged papers. Both the individuals and the company would likely face prosecution or penalties.)

From the Boston Globe, 5/27/2010:

With one lawmaker citing President Lincoln’s respect for the rule of law, the Massachusetts Senate passed a far-reaching crackdown this afternoon on illegal immigrants and those who would hire them, going further, senators said, than any immigration bill proposed over the past five years.

In a surprising turn of events, the legislation replaced a narrower bill that was passed Wednesday over the objections of Republicans.

The measure, which passed on a 28-10 vote as an amendment to the budget, would bar the state from doing business with any company found to break federal laws barring illegal immigrant hiring. It would also toughen penalties for creating or using fake identification documents, and explicitly deny in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants.

The amendment would also require the state’s public health insurance program to verify residency through the Department of Homeland Security, and would require the state to give legal residents priority for subsidized housing.

If there are “federal laws barring illegal immigrant hiring,” why is the U.S. Senate voting to reward illegal aliens who got away with it?

I made a storage unit reservation online for a 10×10 unit at $119.95/mo. The location details said that 24-hour access was available for $10/mo. When I signed in, I signed a contract that said my monthly rent is $129.95. I thought that this included the $10 fee for 24-hour access. Make sense, right?

What really happened, though, is they put me in a “newer” unit that has an alarm on it, which is $129.95 instead of $119.95. THEY DID NOT TELL ME ABOUT THE PRICE DIFFERENCE when I signed in. They also did not in any way mention 24-hour access as an additional service — it was not offered as an add-on, and I was not reminded verbally about access hours. 

Nowhere on the contract does it list that 24-hour access IS or IS NOT included. It does not state specifically that my access is during business hours only.

I discovered that I didn’t have 24-hour access when I tried to enter after business hours with my swipe card.

When I complained, the girl at the counter told me that the 24-hour access would have been listed in the Services section. How am I supposed to know that?

The location told me to call corporate if I wanted to complain, so I did. The agent who called me back to resolve the issue basically said that since I signed the contract, there’s nothing he can do. He said that he understood how I could be confused, and that the location should have told me about the price difference. However, he also said that there was absolutely nothing he could do — not even letting me have 24-hour access free for a month or something like that. He also kept putting the burden back on me, saying I should have asked, even though the contract is ambiguous on the 24-hour access thing.

Other notes about the location:

- very limited parking by the front office
- the gate to the storage area is crowded by U-Haul trailers parked around it
- the access gate stays open a long time after opening to your card swipe (real secure, eh?)

I’m reviewing this bad experience as many places online as I can.

I wanted to make a balance transfer, but I didn’t see a link online to do so, and the help pages didn’t tell me what to do. So I sent a message online. The reply told me that there were “no balance transfer offers available.”

I tried to reply to the message, but kept getting an error message (maybe because I upgraded to the latest version of Java). So I called instead.

My question was, “If there are no special offers for balance transfers, does that mean I am prohibited from making any balance transfer requests at this time?”

The answer is, “Yes.” It’s not that there are no special offers available. It’s that I have not been selected to have that ability.

The interesting part to me was that accounts are selected completely at random for these balance transfer offers. According to the script provided to the phone reps,

1. The Marketing department creates a consumer profile. (The rep didn’t know how they create it; his script merely said that they do.)
2. The profile is sent to an outside agency who selects consumers (not necessarily card holders) who meet the profile.
3. The list of consumers is sent to a third party who randomly selects individuals to receive the balance transfer offer. If you’re a card holder, great. If not, you are offered the credit card along with the balance transfer.

In other words, the

1. longevity of my account,
2. current or past balance on the card,
3. current or past activity on the card; and
4. current credit rating

…do not directly affect whether I am allowed to make a balance transfer to my card.

It’s all a crapshoot.

How disappointing.