Texas Governor Rick Perry for President?
2 Matrices Suggest His Success, but There Are Problems..............(Original article dated 9/15/11, UPDATED with a Blog Discussion about children of illegal aliens on 3/11/2013, and then again on January 20, 2018).
On the matrix below PRESIDENT appears at skip +1 in a 68-letter matrix with Texas Governor RICK PERRY against odds of about 66 to 1. He announced his candidacy on August 13, 2011. His was the second best match seen so far, although nowhere near the quality of the match between Mitt Romney and President. However, he also has another excellent match with President at skip 1 when we search for the axis term GOVERNOR R. PERRY as shown on the second matrix below. Odds against two matrices this good are about 3,696 to 1. He does not have Governor Romney's health insurance baggage. As such, he shot ahead in the polls as soon as he announced his run for President. However, he was damaged in the debate held in Tampa, Florida on September 13, 2011. The biggest problems for many voters will be the fact that he is unwilling to build a fence on the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and his belief that illegal aliens should get discounts on college tuition in Texas. Somebody has to pay for the latter policy, and it's got to be American students forced to pay higher tuition to cover the bills of their illegal classmates. Please see the blog comment on 3/11/2013 about this by Shira Hanna and my response to it below.
The first matrix shown on this page only used a 6-letter axis term (RICK PERRY). Normally I prefer an 8-letter axis term when I can get it. On the second matrix, I found GOVERNOR R. PERRY (8 letters) at its second lowest skip. In 40 letters with it is PRESIDENT in the open text. Odds against a match this good were about 56 to 1. The photo shown is of the Governor at NASA Headquarters in Houston. Unlike President Obama, it seems likely that Governor Perry appreciates the importance of funding a U.S. manned space program.
Blog comment by Shira Hanna made on March 11, 2013: In the interest of clarification regarding who pays for discounted college tuition in Texas--the TX state university system is funded by the state sales tax, which everyone (including illegals) pays, and there is no state income tax. The tuition "discount" is for in-state (Texas) residents, but is also available to out of state students who are awarded a competitive scholarship of at least $1000, as my son did coming from PA (my ancestors having come here on the Mayflower just a few years ago). I offer this clarification with the hope that a Torah-based solution can be found that allows citizenship for children brought here illegally by their parents (seeing as how they grew up here and know not the country of their birth), and legal status (but not citizenship) for those who came here as adults illegally. As it says in Exodus 12, if the foreigner wants to celebrate Passover he must be circumcised, and in Ezekiel 18, the parents eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge (the children shouldn't be punished because of the parents' sin).
Response by Barry R. Roffman: Thanks for the clarification. I wish Governor Perry had been as clear back in 2011 because what we were stuck with as a Republican candidate was a disaster. We have three Republicans in our family and none of us voted for Romney in the primaries. While Perry got blasted for his have a heart message, Romney lost in large part for appearing to have none (at least for his famous 47%). Shira raises the issue of an apparent contradiction between Torah (Exodus 20:5) which discusses visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him, and Ezekiel 18:20 which says that the soul that sins, it shall die; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father with him, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son with him. Bypassing historical issues based around the sinful King Manassah, sins of the parents can indeed be visited upon children. For example, if mothers are felons that are sentenced to prison, in some cases their babies are sent there with their mothers, but in many cases the children may be raised in foster homes. In Ezekiel what is being discussed is not just punishment. Rather, it is specifically death or life in Ezekiel 18:4; 18:9; 18:13; 18:17; 18:18; 18:19; 18:20; 18:21; 18:22; 18:23; 18:24; 18:26; 18:27; 18:29; and 18:32. There is enough redundancy here to be clear that the issue is one of life and death for the child. That’s a lot more serious than deportation.
Texas has a special relationship with Mexico, in that it started out as Mexican territory. While it’s easy to sympathize with children of illegal aliens from there who are themselves blameless; what about children from all other countries? Shall we lose control of our borders in order to protect all those kids? Shall we allow an unchecked flow of Muslims to our nation, including those who want to destroy us? Can we afford to leave open our nation with no defense allowed for such people once they penetrate our porous southern (or northern) borders?
In the end we live in an often cruel world. There is nothing pretty about how Jews were told to maintain sovereignty once we crossed into Canaan. We were told to wipe out the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Deuteronomy 7:1-2). Later we read, "But of the cities of these people… save nothing that breathes… utterly destroy them (Deuteronomy 20:16-17). Gaza was clearly part of the land designated in Torah for the Jewish people. In trying to be fair to the Palestinians, Israel gave it up to Hamas and received thousands of rockets in return. Clearly failure to secure Israel’s borders in accordance with the only real manifest destiny ordained from on high has been a problem. Before the last two wars with Gaza, Israel employed many Palestinians from there to pick Israel’s crops, much as the U.S. does with Mexicans and other people from Central America. That practice did not bring peace, nor did the suicide bombing from other Palestinians really drop off much until Israel started building a wall between most of the West Bank and what was generally accepted as Israel before 1967.
The issue of who is being most cruel to the children of illegal aliens is complex, but surely the responsibility for their situation lies primarily with their parents. It seems likely that the kids quickly learn their status, but think it’s in their interest to follow their parents’ lead and break the law. You and I can come to different opinions that have terrific supporting arguments, but any American president must act first to protect our nation. Governor Perry may be the right man in 2016. I’d certainly rather have him as President now than Obama. But Perry needs to figure out how to keep America American before it becomes mostly a land of foreigners.
My son, David, is a 20-year old physics PhD student at the University of Florida. Over half of the physics department grad students there are not Americans. Most are Chinese. There is one physics job in the U.S. today for every two people with a physics PhD, and both political parties here are in favor of a green card for those who graduate here with a physics or engineering PhD. That’s wonderful for the Chinese, but it means that David will likely have to get out of physics and go into quant finance on Wall Street. He is not happy about it. I was born here. David was born here. His mother (a convert to Orthodox Judaism) was born in South Korea. She came here legally and earned her citizenship the right way. Why should the rules be different for other foreigners?
UPDATE ON JANUARY 20, 2018: It turned out that David earned his PhD in physics in August, 2016. He could not find employment for four months, and then took a post doc position at Yale for ten months. In the later part of 2017 he found a high paying job in physics that is close to our home in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
I approve of the idea that children of illegal aliens can earn citizenship by serving in our military. But most children of illegal aliens are probably not old enough to do so, and I don’t think that earning a degree here is a fair tradeoff. The military serves our nation. Earning a degree here illegally is only using our nation. As for sales tax, illegal aliens pay it in Texas, but those taxes must not just cover college tuition, but also public schools, police, road construction, sewage treatment, and all other associated costs. If they make less money than American workers then they pay less in taxes individually because they simply cannot afford to buy as much.