Robert's State of the Union

First I want to express the love and appreciation that I have for President Gordon B. Hinckley who passed away last night. He was a great and inspired leader, not just to my church, but for the world.


The presidential primaries have been interesting. It's amazing how polls swing from one candidate to the other. A lot of people assume that I support Mitt Romney, because he is LDS. I support Mitt Romney because he is most aligned with my politics than any other candidate. The fact that he is a good Mormon is simply just that...a nice fact. Romney is the best candidate to lead us toward good economic policy and I am confident that he would lead well the battle against evil terrorists.


I've talked about John McCain in a previous blog and my thoughts have not changed. Its time for him to retire as a national hero. Giulliani is too liberal on moral issues and I can't support him. I would however support any of these three over Obama or Clinton. Obama is very impressive to listen to, but when you look at the substance of what he is saying, he's practically a socialist!


I've been reading Glenn Beck's book, An Inconvenient Book. Its been an interesting read. I can tell that a lot of the material was simply compiled from his radio and tv shows. Its chuck full of humor and a lot of media myth debunking. He has a great take on the socio-economic-political ills that face our country today.


President Bush just finished giving his State of the Union address. I'd give him an 8 out of 10. He sure proposed a lot of goverment initiatives that will cost tax payers millions of dollars, which would be better left in the hands of the private sector.

On the topic of illegal immigration...there are two eternal laws...justice and mercy...and both of those lost have to be met. Justice would require all illegal aliens to be deported. Mercy requires that we not break up families. When these eternal laws cannot be met individually, the savior principle has to be applied. I am good with a fine of say $5000 for those who are here illegaly. If they cannot pay it on their own, they will have to have a savior, or rather a sponsor (preferably their employer) that will pay their fine allowing them to remain here. If no one will vouch for them, I suppose justice would have full sway and the unwanted (presumably non-contributing) immigrant would have to return to their country. At the same time, the United States has to remove all the beaurocratic red-tape that makes work-visas and citizenship so hard to come by. The process should be simple. From that point forward, employers hiring illegals and who are discovered paying employees under the table should be shut down and punished severely. At that point, immigrants would become full participants in paying their fair share of taxes and other fees.

The question remains, what about border security with regard to terrorists having easy entry into our country? The idea of a fence repulses me. It conjours images of the Berlin wall or prisons. I wonder how many terrorist are actually sneaking across the border? I'll bet most come into our country some legitimate way. Hmm. This one will take some more pondering.

Make sure to check out Mark Steyn's comments about the Canadian healthcare system on Hillsdale's Impris publication. It is hilarious and is a powerful viewpoint.