(Editor's Note: Gordon Smith is the owner of a small business that has specialized in computer control and security for more than 25 years. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and chapter events. John Wiley and Sons has published two of his books and he is currently working on a third. He was awarded the 2002 Wassermann Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in the field of Information System Audit and Control. The Tea Party Movement captured his attention and ignited his passion for America. He now is an active participant in this movement, regularly attending events in Lehighton, Berks Country, Reading, as well as participating in Tea Party demonstrations in Harrisburg and Washington DC. Mr. Smith is always interested in receiving reader comments. Please email them to

gordonesmith@verizon.net.As a member of the Berks Patriots, Lehighton 9/12 project and UNITEPA 9/12 Reading Berks, I have attended meetings and donated to the cause when I could. One of the things I noticed is that we are many people coming together because of some common beliefs and reaction to the current government of our country. We do not have to agree on everything, we just have to come together to ensure that we fight for the things we each believe in and not resist each other when we disagree. I thought I would summarize some of my beliefs, as I believe that writing them down helps me to evaluate my position. I will expand on a few of these items towards the end of this document. I can expand on the other items in another article if people are interested in reading my thoughts.I am very concerned about the loss of American jobs. I buy American products even if it costs more. I believe that retailers did more to kill American manufacturers than any government could ever do. The constant downward price pressure placed by the retailers upon suppliers forced the suppliers to go overseas. As more factories closed here, throwing workers onto the streets, the welfare and social assistance ranks grew, placing unbearable load on we the taxpayers. Remember when televisions were made here? Remember when North Carolina was the fine furniture capital of the world? Remember when most cars were made in America by American owned companies?Once the factories were closed, American companies decided that we should outsource middle class jobs to India, Pakistan, Eastern Europe and yes, even Canada. These jobs could be done cheaper there. Well that is a short-term view. Now that Information Technology, engineering, infrastructure, auditing and accounting jobs have moved overseas the middle working class has been decimated. Look around you at the people you know who are middle class and outsourced. I know an IT professional working at a golf course cutting grass to feed his family. Similarly another professional I know, who took a job at Cabela's for peanuts. He was laid off a few weeks ago.Outsourcing and off shoring has decimated the middle class, moving them down to the needy class, swelling the ranks of those on government assistance. Now that they have lost their jobs, their dignity and their health care, Obama can count on them to vote for change.I do not state my positions on abortion or gay rights. The politicians use these issues to fan the flames so they can get elected. Instead, I believe that our politicians should be working on other issues. Here is my list:• Put our people back to work (I have an idea I will be publishing on a high speed rail system New York to LA in 7 hours including a national high speed rail system between all major cities).• Eliminating foreign aid to countries that do not like us• Deporting all illegal immigrants immediately just as Eisenhower did. Their U.S. born children can stay in the United States or go back with their parents. The U.S. born children will always be American citizens and can return at any time.

http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/history/timeline/20.html• Rebuild our cities using funds that currently go to foreign aid• Reenergize our scientific endeavors, be it space, medicine, technology or agriculture. The Chinese plan to have a man on the moon by 2016, Mars within a decade. Our President has decimated our space effort.• Drilling for oil and gas here, right now. We have plenty. Using our own coal (we have a 200 year supply) or gasified coal to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Researching and developing cost effective alternative power sources over the next 20 years• Properly educating our children, rather than just spending money on education• Retraining our workers so that they can get jobs in arts and science, rather than fast food outlets.• Permitting true freedom of religion by permitting Christmas greetings and public displays of religious items. I support full religious freedom, not just any religion that is not Christian.• The right to have and carry guns to protect myself, my family and my neighbors.• Politicians work for the taxpayers and should remember that.• There are too many laws. Sunset five laws for every new law passed. Every new law means hiring a small village to enforce the law. For every new law they pass the politicians should have to terminate 10,000 more civil servants than they hire to enforce the law.• Optimize and right size the federal government, reducing the number of people working in government. Less government jobs, more private sector jobs will invigorate the economy and keep our people working and paying taxes• Build and maintain a strong defense. This includes protecting our country from enemies and enforcement of our borders. If we have to fight a war, fight it to win. Always support our troops and give them what ever it takes to get the job done quickly and with limited American casualties• Withdraw our troops from the four corners of the world. We can no longer afford to defend those who will not defend themselves. We can no longer defend those who do not support the American DreamBut most of all, I believe in freedom of speech. As a person who makes much of his income through public speaking, I am expected to be politically correct. I decided at the end of last year to start each of my professional presentations with a reference to the first amendment. I will say what I really want to say, how I want to say it. If people do not like my words, then that is their right. They do not have to pay to come and hear me speak. I am going to say what I believe needs to be said. Others can exercise their first amendment right to criticize me.My Positionon Illegal AliensI call illegal aliens just that. I don't call them undocumented workers or Future Citizens of America. To me, they are job stealing, resource sucking, often non-tax paying people who decided to bypass the process to come to this country legally.I was not born in this country. I saw the American Dream from my Canadian homeland. I immediately realized that this was the place I needed to be. I came here legally, started businesses, paid taxes and supported the communities I lived in. Most importantly, I became an American citizen and gave up my Canadian citizenship. Every time I see an illegal alien or here stories of how downtrodden and abused they are, I want to vomit. There are hundreds of thousands of people on the waiting list to come to this country legally. To make room for those who are qualified and are legally applying to enter this wonderful country, here is my plan for illegals, based on staged implementation that minimizes the effect on the community and maximizes the savings to the taxpayer:• If an illegal alien is in prison, deport him and his illegal family members immediately. If the illegal alien has been on death row for over 5 years, then speed up the appeals process so that the person can be deported if they successfully appeal the sentence, or for those who fail at the Supreme Court level, have the sentence carried out.• Illegals on welfare are sucking our country dry. Whether they are on welfare, WIC, food stamps or receiving free medical care, deport them. They are here illegally and need to go home.• Illegals who are working off the books, either as day laborers working for cash, or working for employers breaking the law, should be deported immediately. Those who knowingly hire illegals bypassing the W9 process and / or eVERIFY should be fined per the law ($250 to $2,000 fine for each unauthorized individual; $2,000 to $5,000 for each employee if the employer has previously been in violation; or $3,000 to $10,000 for each individual if the employer was subject to more than one cease and desist order).• Illegals who used stolen identities should be deported• Illegals who applied for Social Security Numbers and paid their taxes should be given a break. They must register with Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Services. They will be given 3 months to stay in the country to put their affairs in order. They must then leave the country and apply for legal immigration. Their names go to the bottom of the list. Those who did the right thing and applied for legal immigration should be fast-tracked through the verification process. If they are eligible to come to our country, let's get them here pronto. Once these people have been processed, the illegals who paid taxes and registered can be processed to come back to the U.S. as legal and welcome immigrants.• As for anchor babies who are U.S. citizens because they were born in the Untied States, they can stay here. Their parents will still be deported. The anchor babies can stay with legal relatives in the United States or go with their parents back to the parent's country of origin. If they choose to leave the country, they remain American citizens and can return at any time.I know that my suggestions above sound harsh. In fact, they are fair and compassionate when compared to the program President Eisenhower put in place. I understand that we will have to exempt a few illegal aliens from deportation as they face death in their homeland for political reasons. We can offer them political asylum. We can open up a closed military base here and let them stay there until their request for asylum is granted or rejected. If granted, they will be welcomed to the United States. If not granted, then they can leave the country and go to any country that wants them.My Positionon Foreign AidI am really concerned about the amount of money we give to other countries. Getting a good number on just how much we give is difficult to say the least. For "official" data up to the year 2007, you can go here:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s1262.pdfThis table shows that in 2007 our regular and military aid (note: not wars) was $54,963,000,000 give or take a few billion. We have no way knowing just how much is really being spent because the data is hard to consolidate. I'm sure there is a large amount of hidden money used to fund secret operations and bribes. I truly believe that the number I quoted above is less than half of the total aid we provide. Maybe one of you reading this article can take the time to get a really good, solid number.Now for my main point. I am very concerned that we are funding the rebirth of other nations at the expense of our towns and cities. Recently, I saw pictures of Japan and Germany after World War II. The pictures were devastating. In the same email, there were pictures of their main cities today, after being rebuilt with our money. At the end of this email there were pictures of Detroit today. Needless to say, Detroit needs to be rebuilt. I believe that we should only give foreign aid to countries that like us. They should not get any money until after we start fixing our cities. How about spending $5 billion on Detroit and Philadelphia this year. Next year, lets spend five billion on Chicago and Los Angeles. Think of the jobs this would create here in the United States.I look at our foreign and military aid contributions in the past and I see that it was wasted on Noriega, Castro, and Hussein. We funded dictatorships that then turned around and scorned us. We consistently fund our enemies in the mistaken belief that we can buy the peace. In every case we fail. If we send funds to the leaders of a starving nation, you can bet only a small amount of the money gets to the people who need it. That is my option, not necessarily a fact. How many of you agree with me?I also believe that we should stop foreign aid until we pay off our deficit. I'm fine with using some of our surplus (if we ever get back to a surplus) to assist those who are less fortunate than us. I remember the words on the Statue of Liberty:"Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"And I add, leave your money sucking dictators behind"I would rather accept those who want to build a new life here in America, who want to bring their skills, their families and live here as decent law abiding citizens than support their corrupt governments. Let's stop rebuilding other countries until our country is back on its feet. Then we can proudly say that we are strong, we are free and we are generous.I don't want you to think that I am against all aid. Americans are a very generous people. When Katrina struck our citizens sent money, food, tools and support. In Haiti, our dollars, sent by our citizens are saving lives every day. I believe that if individual Americans want to donate, we can and should do so.Drill Here, Drill NowNewt Gingrich got it right. Drill here, drill now. We have massive amounts of oil in the Bakken Oil fields and off both the east and west coasts of this great land. According to the Energy Information Administration, we have 275 billion tons of coal here in the United States. This is the largest coal reserve in the world. We can build clean coal plants that dramatically reduce our oil imports. In 2008 we imported 12.9 million barrels of oil a day. Think of what this does to the economy when we have to send $903,000,000 every day overseas. This is almost a billion dollars a day and is a major cause of our trade deficit.I remember the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and 1974. They had us by the gas tank and they used it as a weapon. They did it then and they and others will do it again. We need to drill here, drill right now. We need to build more clean coal electric plants, and yes we need green energy as well. If we start the effort now, in 10 or 15 years, we will have the energy we need without sending our dollars overseas or being beholden to foreign powers that may one day want to strangle our fuel supply. Oh yes, and we will put some Americans back to work in the process.I do believe that we should also use green energy. We should develop solar and wind power. Our roofs should be lined with solar panels. Our yards should have a windmill. Yes we should build more nuclear plants, but not until we have a safe way of disposing of the nuclear waste. The government proposed putting this waste in Yucca Mountain. Despite decades of funding, many nuclear plants still store their waste fuel rods in pools of water because we do not have the capacity to safely store it.Until green energy is available to completely power our cities, lets use our own oil, our own gas and our own coal. Let's invest in American gas and oil wells, pipelines, refineries and distribution systems. Lets put Americans back to work developing and delivering made in America energy solutions. Once we have the capacity, the world market price for oil will drop dramatically. If we vastly reduce our demand for foreign carbon based energy, the oil cartels will collapse!ConclusionAs you can see, I have some ideas to rebuild our nation. If you are reading this now, it means someone believed in the first amendment enough to risk publishing this article. My ideas are not new, but they are politically unacceptable. It is time for Americans to do what is right, not what is politically correct. We must rebuild our nation. We must refill our treasury. We must rebuild our cities and our industries. I have many more ideas that I think can save this nation. I'm sure you do as well. I would be pleased to write another article on some of my other ways to bring prosperity back to our nation so that our grandchildren will live in the land that remains free, with liberty and justice for all.I appreciate any comments you have, whether you agree or disagree (gordonesmith@verizon.net). Please send them to me so that we can share our ideas, our dreams and our desire to preserve and protect the United States of America for future generations.