The Land of Empty, 2026 A.D.

Phyllis Spivey
June 29, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

The year is 2026. Well past middle age now, you still remember the life that was. Memory is a curse, you think, for it means endless grieving for the America that once meant freedom, hope, and plenty. Only 20 years ago you were part of a thriving middle class envied by the world. Despite encroaching globalism, your future seemed secure.

Today, your family hovers at poverty levels and there is no American middle class, just the corporate elite, an army of government operatives, the working and non-working poor -- and the gangs. An endless supply of migrants willing to work for less keeps wages starvation-low.

You speak Spanish now in public, as discrimination against English speakers often turns ugly, and it’s unwise to attract attention. Your grandchildren, even at home, speak the country’s new language and reprimand you when you slip into English, which is now associated with hate and intolerance. You worry about what your grandchildren are taught at the government schools but hold your tongue, as they might report you.

Thankfully, you’ve so far escaped the dreaded human settlements but, like other families, you, your adult children and grandchildren live together. Massive housing shortages and economic necessity, but also personal safety, mandate multi-family living. The same kinds of knife-wielding, gun-toting gangs that once instigated drive-by shootings and forced cancellation of community events, now roam most neighborhood streets at will.

Appealing to the police is futile, since most either work for political bosses or drug lords which, in many areas, is the same thing. And, as light-skinned people are considered invaders and occupiers, the law is more threat than protection. There’s no relief from either the Constitution or the courts, the latter having dismantled the former, in the process shattering the concept of God-given unalienable rights as well.

You imagine conditions for today’s Christians are similar to those in China a few decades ago Most worship is private, occurring in the home, the churches having gradually been closed or commandeered by government agencies. The Gospel message is carried quietly, underground.

Surveillance cameras abound. Nevertheless, the government encourages people to spy on each other because, as the press constantly warns, fighting terrorism is everybody’s job. Since 2007, anyone crossing the old national borders has been required to accept tracking chips implanted under the skin, just as the VeriChip Company proposed in 2006. Then, the national – actually, international – identity cards were imposed on all citizens, but threats of terrorism only grew. Nor had Operation Gun Confiscation in 2009 reduced terrorism. It had simply put law abiding citizens at the mercy of terrorist gangs who suddenly possessed all the firepower.

Government at all levels has become hopelessly corrupt, the politicians and bureaucrats entrenched. Elections are still held – for the sake of our democracy, they say – but everyone knows that electronic results are changed with the click of a computer key whenever the bosses order it. Paper records long ago went the way of English-language ballots, outlawed by Mexican judges.

You’re certain the country is wallowing in depression, but the government insists the region is enjoying unprecedented prosperity. The dollar, once the world’s premier currency, was phased out in 2009 and a new currency – the Amero – phased in. It buys very little, but there’s very little to buy.

Unable to withstand the onslaught of millions of new dependents, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid collapsed several years ago, taking welfare systems and, finally, the whole economy with them.

You knew in 2006 that passage of the Bush-promoted McCain-Kennedy Immigration law would devastate the country and, according to all reliable polls, a big majority of your fellow Americans agreed. But, despite strong public opposition, a lame duck Congress called into session after the November elections, passed it into law.

Supporters claimed that 12 million illegal aliens resided in the U.S. and were good, hardworking people who didn’t deserve deportation. Never mind if they broke U.S. laws, used fraudulent documents and stole the identity of American citizens, they and their families must be offered a path to citizenship and all entitlements.

Further, advocates demanded, the U.S. must initiate a guest worker program, enabling additional "human capital" to enter the U.S. legally. Like illegal aliens, guest workers and their families could become permanent residents or citizens and babies born here would continue to get automatic citizenship.

Opponents cried foul, warning the scheme was nothing more than amnesty for foreign lawbreakers and would destroy the country. Secure the borders and kill the jobs magnet, they demanded, and worked for passage of competing legislation in the House of Representatives.

Then came that attention-grabbing report from Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation. Even after his calculations forced the Senate to reduce the guest worker program, Rector predicted the Bush-McCain-Kennedy plan would increase America’s population by 66 million to 120 million over 20 years.

Critics railed against Rector’s calculations, accusing him of inflating numbers and making false assumptions. In reality, Rector’s figures were abysmally low and his assumptions inadequate.

Rector based his projections on an illegal population of 10 million, when the number likely exceeded 25 million. (A Bear Stearns study had put the number of illegals at 20 million in 2005, and even that might have been conservative. Another year, and a huge flood of new illegals hoping for easy citizenship accounted for at least an additional five million).

Appropriately, Rector warned that the guest worker program was essentially an open border provision that would "allow an almost unlimited number of workers and dependents to enter the U.S. from anywhere in the world and become citizens." But he ignored effects of the open border provisions incorporated into hemispheric trade agreements, e.g., the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which by themselves would bring chaos.

Hugely significant: Rector’s analysis of the impacts of the Bush-McCain-Kennedy bill failed to consider the consequences of a new Hispanic voting bloc. It swept Hillary Clinton into the presidency in 2008. With a new Democrat-controlled Congress, she worked swiftly to remove all numerical limits on visas, guest worker programs, and hemispheric immigration in general.

Then, Hillary accomplished what the first Bush president and her husband had launched with NAFTA, and which was pushed forward by the second Bush president with the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the Security and Prosperity Partnership – the North American Community, stepping stone to a European-style union of the entire hemisphere.  

After the merger of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S., resulting in the continuous importation of crime, poverty, and disease, people stopped talking about the numbers. It was too late. Hillary had shown herself all too willing to use the sweeping police powers inherited from George W. Bush. The Patriot Act stifled all opposition.

By the end of President Schwarzenegger’s term, your America was a Third World jungle, devoid of all that had once made it the freest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world. Now, life is cheap, liberty a hopeless dream, and the pursuit of happiness a distant memory.  

Painfully, you recall how, in 2006, concerned patriotic leaders asked for help. You were too busy to join a group or write a check. Contact your legislator? Too busy If only you – and other concerned Americans --had picked up the phone, called your congressional representative at 1(877)762-8762 and demanded: NO AMNESTY! NO GUEST WORKER PROGRAM! NO COMPROMISES!.

Phyllis is a researcher and freelance writer specializing in political analysis. She has been published in Lew Rockwell’s Rothbard-Rockwell Report, The Welch Report (on-line), The Orange County Register and is a regular contributer to NewsWithViews.com, The Sentinel Weekly News, Corona, California. She holds a Christian worldview and writes primarily on trade, economic, education, environmental, and immigration issues.

E-mail: SPIVEY2@infostations.com