Illegal Immigration, Get Behind It

It is with some concern that I note that the folks who are pro illegal immigration tend to brand those who are pro rule of law as bigots who are anti immigration. For the most part, nothing could be further from the truth.

Most see nothing wrong with legal immigration. It is the illegal aspect that many folks find that they have a problem with.

Last week, a radio talk show host read an email from an admitted illegal worker in Florida. The email said that the man had attempted to go about immigration legally, but the INS folks wanted proof of assets, job skills, education, etc. This man said that he had none of those, so he simply sneaked into the country illegally.

One supposes that this logic could be carried further. Say someone needs a new car, but the bank wants a good credit rating and a sizable down payment that this person just does not have. Would this person then be justified in simply taking the car he or she needs?

The Dallas Police Department conducted a sweep of used car lots in the past few weeks, attempting to shut down a car theft ring. In the course of this campaign, the officers of the DPD had an I.C.E. agent along with them. They apprehended something in the neighborhood of nine illegals implicated in this theft ring. One of the proponents of illegals seriously asked "since when does the I.C.E. agent have the authority to ask someone for their Green Card?" Indeed.

The opponents of the newly passed Arizona Immigration law say that the enforcement of this law will require profiling. So? Profile, I say. Apparently we are so worried about offending anyone that we would rather allow a Middle Eastern male, age 18 to 35, blow up a plane rather than risk offending him by profiling him.

We would rather allow 40 million illegal invaders to cross our borders and take over our country, demanding that we all learn Spanish so as to accommodate them, rather than risk offending them by profiling them.

Has anyone at all looked into how much extra money our government spends, from the local level all the way up to the federal level, by double printing every single form they print? I do not recall seeing pages in my census form that were printed in German, Korean, Chinese, or any other language. Perhaps one could specifically request a form in another language, but the only one that was a matter of course was Spanish.

The only immigrants we seem to coddle in this way are the ones that are most likely to be illegal. The ones that, no matter what proponents might like you to believe, are not paying their share of taxes. Most are working off the record, and the ones that are working on the record have either stolen someone else’s identification, or have made up a false one.

Do not misunderstand, not all persons illegally in the United States are Latino. But seriously, what percentage aren't?

We Want Our Country Back

We want our country back. What an interesting mantra.

Exactly where (or when) do we want our country back to?

Do we want it back to where Blacks had to drink from a different water fountain?

Do we want it back to where there were no usable roads?

Do we want it back to the good old days when 11 year olds were forced to work 80 hours a week with no rights and little pay?

How about all the way back to when everyone "owned" at least a couple of other people?

What is it that we want back?

Do we want back the days when even adult workers had no rights? How does an 80 or 90 hour workweek with no overtime pay, no minimum wage, no sick time, no holiday pay, and no weekend sound? When the owner of a company could keep his employees under his thumb by paying them very little, and then extending loans to keep them working there? That song "I owe my soul to the company store" wasn’t just a song.

Oh, I know. Do we want back the days when everyone had to carry a weapon because there weren’t enough police to keep order?

Or do we want it back to where woman couldn’t vote, and could barely get a job?

How about we do away with all those costly government programs. We don’t need any federal agency to police our food and drugs. Those companies that provide that stuff will police themselves adequately. Just like the peanut butter folks a couple of years ago. Or the Vioxx folks.

Where, or when, is it exactly that we want our country back to?

How about the days when a person could be turned out of a hospital ER to die on the sidewalk just feet away because he had no insurance or cash to pay for treatment?

What DOES "We Want Our Country Back" mean, exactly?

Tell your kids to drop out

In 1988, Ronald Reagan, a white Republican president, addressed the students of America in a televised speech. He spoke about how tax cuts increase revenue, gun control, and a few other partisan subjects. I, for one, do not remember anyone having an aneurysm over that speech. Now, 21 years later, Barack Obama, a black Democrat president, wants to give a speech on the importance of staying in school, getting good grades, and taking responsibility for one’s own education. People are apoplectic, claiming a fear that he will deliver a speech laden with partisan politics. Folks are promising to keep their kids out of school that day. Excuse me? Are these people stupid? The White House and the US Department of Education have both averred that this speech will be over nothing but the importance of getting a good education. There will be no political agenda attached, unless you can consider keeping kids in school an agenda. The president of the United States of America wants to tell your child how important it is for him or her to be a good student and you don’t want your child to participate? There is no way anyone is going to convince me that this isn’t, at best, partisan in the extreme, or, at worst, racist. I do not claim to know the motives of parents on this issue, but I do claim to know that they are idiots. Keeping your child out of school for this occasion not only sends them a message that it is perfectly all right to disrespect the office of the President, but also that it is all right to skip school because you do not agree with the content of the day’s activities. I wish this had been an option when I was in school; I can’t think of many days I would have attended. Reagan preached the necessity of cutting taxes for the richest amongst us, apparently believing that rich folks will voluntarily pass on those riches that we, the peons, pay extra for them to keep. This didn’t raise an eyebrow. Apparently the right has no problem with a president delivering a speech, even if it is partisan, to schoolchildren, as long as he is a Republican.