Sixteen year-old Mohammed Abu Khedair was kidnapped and brutally murdered by a group of young Israelis during the prelude to Israel’s 2014 offensive against the Gaza Strip.  Showing an unusual level of empathy for their Palestinian cousins, even Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres felt the need to phone the victim’s parents to express their sympathy.  Just over a year later, the Islamic State threat against Israel is greater than ever and the Israeli leadership has once again chosen to stoke up the fires of conflict.  Clearly, hopes that the Palestinians and Israelis would be finally united by the Islamic State threat have not materialized.  Unfortunately, it is for the same reason the Arab Spring revolutions, Turkish-Kurdish conflict, and other long running conflicts of the region will not be resolved by the Islamic State threat.   

The murder of an 18-month old Palestinian toddler at the hands of Jewish extremists has driven outrage and calls for an end to the ethnic conflict and hatred.  If history is to be repeated, the Palestinian People will grow increasingly outraged and lash out with ever intensifying displays of civil unrest.  The Israeli government, in turn, will continue to refuse to recognize the provocative nature of its policies toward the Palestinian People then use the reaction of Palestinians to justify a massive security crackdown to crush the Palestinians into submission.  The actions of Hamas or some other extremists will be used to justify a disproportionate offensive against the Palestinian People.  Faced with the common threat of the Islamic State, the most pressing question is why do Israeli political leaders feel secure enough to further undermine any chance of cooperation with the Palestinians and the Muslim world.  

Long weary of the inconvenience of the Ukraine Crisis, the determination of American and European political leaders to hold Russia accountable for its blatant and unprovoked infringement on Ukraine’s sovereignty is often doubted.  When President Obama thanked Russia for its role in the Iranian Nuclear Deal early this month, it raised concerns that the Obama Administration had sold out Ukraine for Russian assistance.  Doing so would certainly be beneficial and convenient for Western governments, but it would also violate the basic tenements of the International Community while returning the world to one where the instability and violence of “might makes right” rules.

For decades, the United States has exported its democratic principles to the Peoples and countries of the world by leading the democratization of the International Community.  Not only have the many Peoples of the world experienced a steady shift in how they view their governments and rights as citizens, the International Community as a forum for governments has been democratizing.  Where the US and Russia ruled the geopolitical landscape during the Cold War, the United States briefly enjoyed a short period of as unrevealed superpower status before a resovereignization trend started to emerge.

Turkey’s decision to actually cooperate with US-led Coalition efforts to combat the Islamic State has created an opportunity for a game changer in Syria.  Not only will plans to establish an “Islamic State-free zone” in Northern Syria help expel IS from the region while offering anti-Assad ground forces a chance to entrench and regroup, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s acknowledgment that he no longer has the forces needed to secure most of Syria suggests the Islamic State and Assad’s forces are being corralled.  This is, however, the Middle East and conflicting interests always threaten progress.

Turkey was wise to push the United States to “kill two birds with one stone” by persuading the Obama Administration to embrace a strategy that tackles the threat of the Islamic State and the interests of the anti-Assad forces in Syria.  Unfortunately, Turkey appears to see the Assad regime and the Kurds as the two most pressing threats.  Under the guise of airstrikes against the Islamic State, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shamefully wasted no time in targeting forces of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) across Iraq and Syria.  

Barack Obama’s first visit to his father’s homeland of Kenya as US President has generated a great deal of fanfare, including some controversy.  Since before the first African-American President was sworn into office, the Right of the US political establishment has rebuffed him at every turn in an effort to frame Mr. Obama as the worst President in US history, which has forced him to rely on greater support from the Left.  Indeed, President Obama has grown increasingly vocal in his support for gay rights and this gay rights agenda has created so much friction that Kenyans have promised to throw rotten eggs at the US President, if he speaks about LGBT rights.

Although it is tempting for Western LGBT activists to simply frame Kenyans as “ignorant” and “intolerant,” Kenyan backlash against Obama’s gay agenda is part of a much broader culture clash.  As such, the controversy surrounding President Obama’s visit to Kenya is an opportunity to discuss broader issues in play.  Clearly, it is not just Kenyans who take issue with the topic of homosexuality as much of the world tends to be more conservative when it comes to sexuality and gender identity, but it is not just LGBT rights that provoke outrage.  Recognizing America’s myriad of foreign policy plunders and the reality that the United States is the most influential country in the world, allies and rivals alike are extremely resentful when it comes to the US imposing its views onto others.

Not only do many of the critics who conclude raising minimum wage is a counterproductive solution due to the inflation it helps drive, they also argue the existence of minimum wage creates several “perverse incentives.” In reality, these supposed perverse incentives are economic issues that cannot be solved by eliminating minimum wage.

1.     Minimum Wage promotes illegal immigration

There are many reasons people illegally immigrate to the United States that have little to do with their economic interests. Drug trafficking, gang violence, political insecurity, and a lack of justice are just some of the noneconomic factors that force individuals to leave their home countries.

Those who do enter the United States illegally for economic reasons do so, because the U.S. economy offers such individuals more opportunities than their home countries do. Although minimum wage laws do technically apply to illegal immigrants, employers who willingly violent U.S. immigration laws often do so to exploit cheap labor, according to USImmigration and Customs Enforcement.

That said, impoverishing struggling Americans by eliminating minimum wage in an effort to discourage illegal immigration would only hurt the US economy and the American People. While illegal immigration did slow due to the Great Recession according to the Pew Research Center, harming the US economy to address illegal immigration is thoroughly irrational.