What the world needs is "imaginuity"!
Obviously, "imaginuity" is a roll-your-own hybrid combining "imagination" and "ingenuity." Examples:
When white tuna first hit the market there was a lot of sales resistance, even fear. Everybody was convinced that all tuna was, or should be, pink. How did the white tuna forces fight back? They ran ads declaring their product was certified, authentic white tuna. Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can!
Owing to poor planning, Don was way, way behind on his Christmas cards. He needed Christmas Day to complete his list. He rejected the notion of resorting to email. He also gagged at the notion of adding pitiful little apologies to his Christmas cards. Imaginuity to the rescue! On those cards he didn't get to until Christmas was actually upon him, he simply wrote, "This is the most authentic Christmas card you'll ever receive – written, signed and mailed on Christmas Day itself!"
How now might imaginuity make us safer as a nation?
In my Army basic training unit there were three foreigners – Chepes from Greece, Gatty from Australia and Mastroianni from Italy. There was a red-hot shooting war raging in Korea, and there was a little-known deal they – and we – were taking advantage of. If you were a foreigner of military age you could come to America and go directly into the military. After basic training you were given an M-1 rifle and a trip to Korea. If you survived, you were an American citizen! A recruiting sergeant told me the program was a huge success. Bear in mind, a lot of that fighting in Korea was hand-to-hand, and the temperatures were colder than those that did the Nazis in at Stalingrad! And still, the sergeant said, America couldn't manufacture uniforms fast enough to accommodate the foreign takers!
The 800-pound gorilla in the American living room these days is the realization that President Obama's refusal to leave a residual force to hold freedom's gains in Iraq and Afghanistan leaves us the choice of sending many more American boots-on-the-ground over there or ceding huge hunks of Mideast territory to ISIS-and-Friends. Americans deplore the prospect of sending more American boots-on-the-ground to the Middle East.
Why not mitigate that revulsion by filling a lot of those American boots with foreign feet? Why not dust off that old deal from the early 1950s and grant "Combat Amnesty" to foreigners able and willing to fight for America as a means of earning the honor and pleasure of being an American? Aren't there acceptable ways and means for attractive people to exploit their attractiveness for personal gain? America is an attractive country, or haven't you noticed how many people from how many places are eager, nay, desperate to find a way to get in here and become Americans? And why not? We're free and we're prosperous. And, despite some ugly body blows by the current administration militating against those attractive qualities, we're still free and we're still prosperous!
The greatest compliment that can be paid a nation is not imitation (although we're ahead there, too). It's immigration! This strikes me as a neat way to reward ourselves and "cash in" on being the single most desirable country on earth. Imagine converting our attractiveness into security!
Obviously, there must be precautions. Every single applicant must be vetted. You can't outsource national security. You don't want to wind up with the American military resembling the French Foreign Legion, although the temptation to increase American might with international volunteers is formidable. Those and other issues are eminently solvable.
Some Americans might consider an infusion of foreign fighters for America "unhealthy." Some might consider it the wrong message. The recollection of the British using German Hessian troops to keep America within its empire is distasteful, and the mere label of "mercenary" puts an unnecessary negative light on the project. That's wrong, what they call down South "bad wrong." Proving you're willing to fight for America is a much better way to become an American than sneaking across our southern border and staying "snuck"! Suiting up to defend America is vastly preferable to leftists pretending it's humanitarian to admit one and all. They don't care about you or humanity, all they care about is your vote!
One of the most interesting units in World War II was composed of "enemy immigrants" from Germany, Italy and Japan who were regarded as closer to patriotic Americans than enemy aliens. They were stationed in South Carolina and were invaluable as interpreters and guides as we took more territory from those countries. To keep them busy (a traditional Army custom), each day one of the men – in American uniform and under the American flag – would lecture the group on the military in their home countries.
It so happened that on the very day Italy surrendered it was an Italian's turn to lecture on the Italian way of warfare.
"This is the linea di battaglia (line of battle)," he said, drawing a line on the blackboard. That drew chuckles and guffaws from the rest.
The infuriated Italian threw his pointing stick on the floor and yelled, "All right, you Nazi bastards aren't doing too well on the Russian front, either!"
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