Laredo is a holy place on a par with Lourdes, Mecca, and Jerusalem. It is the Vatican of trucking, and truckers the priests. No other place exists and thrives on transportation over roads by men and women in large vehicles like Laredo.
That would make it special enough. But Laredo's trucker chapels hide on every dusty street of this border town, each one holding treasured memories for those who have had their fellowship there.
Tonight, I went to one of the great trucker's chapels and offered a prayer in honor of the friends who were unable to accompany me. To the civilian, the layperson, it's a Whataburger with a somewhat oversize parking lot. To a trucker who knows Laredo, referring to the Mines Road Whataburger guarantees a memory of an adventure which began or ended there.
I remembered my friend Oscar, from Corpus Crispy-the misspelling is intentional, as nearly everyone in Texas says it that way. I haven't seen Oscar in six years, after he told me he had a front row seat to an event that still resonates, while on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Part of me wished he were lying. I hoped he had been telling me a great trucker story. But some part of me knows that he had been very credible, and having been a witness to mass murder probably would have driven me mad with survivor's guilt. We once spent a long night traveling from Laredo to Little Rock.
He was the last person I saw from the first era when I traveled regularly to Laredo. I saw him a couple of months after I ran across my friend Earthquake in a Georgia truck stop. Four years passed before I returned to Laredo, and another year passed before I found Earthquake again.
Earthquake comes from rural Oklahoma, and exhibits the kind of character that the world expects from America. He speaks slowly, but in a crisis he is the kind of person you hope to see walking up dressed in camoflage, because he will be hands to the task until you both come out or die trying.
'Quake isn't much for misbehaving, not because he is unable, but because he can find better things to do that legitimately are not misbehavior.
On a warm night last fall, across the street from the launch pad for our earlier highjinks, I heard his real name on the intercom. Unfortunately, his real name is, well, pretty common. But I followed the name, to see if it was my missing friend. Lucky for me, it was. Otherwise, this story would be very different.
I found 'Quake five years married to the woman he had just married the last time I had seen him, prospering in Oklahoma, and still doing what he ought to be doing. We discussed a few of our mutual friends. He wasn't as close to Oscar as I was, so Oscar remains missing.
Then I told him I had run across our friend Moose at a truck stop in Missouri, but Moose had seemed quite unlike himself when I saw him.
Of course, when I saw Moose at the Mizzurah truck stop, I had three years of believing that he had died. That was a case of mistaken identity. I was quite overjoyed to discover my friend alive and kicking, and I freaked him out a little bit.
At the time there was one other person I could not find, and I feared the worst. I married her 26 months later. She lived in the morning shadow of Manhattan.
To be succinct, 'Quake put me in contact with Moose. Moose and I had shared similar personal setbacks, but we were now in respective places of greater prosperity than we had known during the nine months we worked together, and partied together, years before. We found that the friendship had not atrophied during a long dormancy.
Moose is now in a committed relationship with a lovely lady in Oklahoma, and pointed toward a future that neither one of us dared imagine for its positive possibilities. I will also remind her that February 29 is considered "Sadie Hawkins Day," which is customarily a day when a woman may propose marriage without social exclusion.
As I finished my meal, I considered that while my friends were physically absent, they were as present in the Mines Road Whataburger as the poster offering the limited-time peppercorn ranch burger.
And if being able to connect with a spirit of love and friendship isn't church, y'all, I have no idea what a holy place is supposed to be.
20 October 2007
14 October 2007
The People's Observer
Lou Dobbs is a fraud.
With rhetoric that evokes the best work of Herr Joseph Goebbels, Dobbs has managed to sell a phony "war on the middle class," that threatens to ensnare those it purports to liberate.
His tactics are not noble. He focuses upon anecdotal evidence, unvetted sources, and slavishly sycophantic commentary and opinion from peripatetic politicians and media hosts. Beyond that, Dobbs uses a style book which relies upon constantly repeated adjectives to reinforce a xenophobic, isolationist, and authoritarian outlook.
Imports from China are always dangerous, tainted, or merely unsafe.
Troops and laws are always ours, which discounts CNN's penetration into nearly every country on the face of the planet. The "royal collective" is a tactic beloved by managerial seminars and retreats as a means of getting those deemed to be inferior to take ownership of organizational errors as part of the collective. This includes "our broken borders." (italics are mine.)
God forbid that any heinous crime is committed by someone who crossed the border and stayed too long, or came without a pedigree. Instantly, that individual is labelled an "illegal, criminal, alien Mexican, drug smuggler/gang member/rapist/litterbug." Anyone who may suggest that under the United States Constitution, individuals are innocent until proven guilty and deserving of due process is immediately part of an "amnesty agenda."
If no crime exists where the accused's immigration status is included in objective reporting, Dobbs chooses to pick his go-to guys, the two ICE agents who shot a man in the tuchas, then covered it up. They did not get sent up for shooting the dude in the butt; they got sent to prison for lying about it.
Dobbs is somewhat less than intellectually honest, here. No record exists of Dobbs offering the same benefit of the doubt to Bill Clinton, for discharging something arguably less lethal than a bullet, then lying about it. No one really wants to be on the receiving end of either shot, but only one of the two has a chance of going wide and hitting the femoral artery.
No attempt will be made here to assign a pretext of bigotry to Dobbs on the immigration issue. Like a socially maladroit teenager, it would be too easy to attempt a bon mot, and too easy to get wrong. However, what is clear is that Lou Dobbs has found an issue which can be utilized for maximum effect on ratings, book sales and Lou Dobbs' profitability.
Nevertheless, some of the "experts," (quotations mine) who have spoken on the issue have been revealed to be connected to white supremacists. There have been charges of undocumented immigrants causing a resurgence of Leprosy, as well as taking a disproportionate level of funds for social services.
First of all, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, 165 cases of Leprosy were reported in 2005, the last year of reporting found in the Wandering Gentile's research. Of those, 125 cases were among persons born in the United States of America. This concurs with research vetted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and is in fact lower than the average number of cases reported per year by the same government agency.
Dobbs was forced to recant the statistic quoted on his program in an amusingly humbling moment on the air.
With regard to the disproportionate funds for social services, it is absolutely wrong. This is a hypothesis tendered by anti-immigrant groups which discounts the fact that Federal requirements for social services include ascertaining that the recipient of social services is legally entitled to said services by being a citizen of the United States.
Please understand the confusion here; if undocumented persons are receiving federal benefits, then it is the negligence/fraud of federal employees not fulfilling their duties as prescribed by congressional mandate. That is worthy of investigation. There is a very large difference between persons who obtain benefits, and those who are being paid to know who deserves them.
Likewise, there is a clarion call in Dobbs' nightly tirade for "Government" to get involved in inspections of "dangerous imports from Communist China." If you want to call for a war on the middle class, then there would be no better opening salvo than starting a trade war with China.
This is not to defend the environmental/human rights/economic record of the PRC. The point of Chinese trade practices and the current imbalance being anticompetitive at the moment is salient. But in the long term, openness and prosperity in China will be in the best interests of the free world because these are the conditions in which education and democracy grow.
For the time being, low cost imports from China, proffered through large retailers, contribute to a high standard of living in the United States. Should a consumer choose to find goods from a source closer to home, options exist via the internet to find a product that suits the consumer's need. It's called free enterprise. The consumer is required to be proactive, though.
The Chinese don't have a monopoly on products which are dangerous or unsuited for the market. Anyone who remembers the Chevrolet Vega or the Ford Pinto is quite aware that Americans can do a spectacular job of producing unfit or dangerous products.
Finally, Dobbs is absolutely wrong about what he calls "amnesty." In February, this blog suggested the result of removing twelve million productive individuals from the source level of food production and construction would be fundamentally detrimental to the United States economy.
Since then, most readers will confirm, through their own experience, soaring food prices. The collapse of the subprime mortgage market has taken some of the sting out of the effects on the construction industry, but growth markets like Dallas, Atlanta, and Houston are seeing the beginning of an inflationary spiral owing to a lack of willing labor in the construction industry.
Not coincidentally, these are also areas where anti-immigration sentiment has produced an environment hostile to those who build homes. Forget a wall. If one wants to live behind a wall in a controlled environment, there is another word for it: prison.
Somehow, your Wandering Gentile holds no illusions about empowering Lou Dobbs as warden.
With rhetoric that evokes the best work of Herr Joseph Goebbels, Dobbs has managed to sell a phony "war on the middle class," that threatens to ensnare those it purports to liberate.
His tactics are not noble. He focuses upon anecdotal evidence, unvetted sources, and slavishly sycophantic commentary and opinion from peripatetic politicians and media hosts. Beyond that, Dobbs uses a style book which relies upon constantly repeated adjectives to reinforce a xenophobic, isolationist, and authoritarian outlook.
Imports from China are always dangerous, tainted, or merely unsafe.
Troops and laws are always ours, which discounts CNN's penetration into nearly every country on the face of the planet. The "royal collective" is a tactic beloved by managerial seminars and retreats as a means of getting those deemed to be inferior to take ownership of organizational errors as part of the collective. This includes "our broken borders." (italics are mine.)
God forbid that any heinous crime is committed by someone who crossed the border and stayed too long, or came without a pedigree. Instantly, that individual is labelled an "illegal, criminal, alien Mexican, drug smuggler/gang member/rapist/litterbug." Anyone who may suggest that under the United States Constitution, individuals are innocent until proven guilty and deserving of due process is immediately part of an "amnesty agenda."
If no crime exists where the accused's immigration status is included in objective reporting, Dobbs chooses to pick his go-to guys, the two ICE agents who shot a man in the tuchas, then covered it up. They did not get sent up for shooting the dude in the butt; they got sent to prison for lying about it.
Dobbs is somewhat less than intellectually honest, here. No record exists of Dobbs offering the same benefit of the doubt to Bill Clinton, for discharging something arguably less lethal than a bullet, then lying about it. No one really wants to be on the receiving end of either shot, but only one of the two has a chance of going wide and hitting the femoral artery.
No attempt will be made here to assign a pretext of bigotry to Dobbs on the immigration issue. Like a socially maladroit teenager, it would be too easy to attempt a bon mot, and too easy to get wrong. However, what is clear is that Lou Dobbs has found an issue which can be utilized for maximum effect on ratings, book sales and Lou Dobbs' profitability.
Nevertheless, some of the "experts," (quotations mine) who have spoken on the issue have been revealed to be connected to white supremacists. There have been charges of undocumented immigrants causing a resurgence of Leprosy, as well as taking a disproportionate level of funds for social services.
First of all, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, 165 cases of Leprosy were reported in 2005, the last year of reporting found in the Wandering Gentile's research. Of those, 125 cases were among persons born in the United States of America. This concurs with research vetted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and is in fact lower than the average number of cases reported per year by the same government agency.
Dobbs was forced to recant the statistic quoted on his program in an amusingly humbling moment on the air.
With regard to the disproportionate funds for social services, it is absolutely wrong. This is a hypothesis tendered by anti-immigrant groups which discounts the fact that Federal requirements for social services include ascertaining that the recipient of social services is legally entitled to said services by being a citizen of the United States.
Please understand the confusion here; if undocumented persons are receiving federal benefits, then it is the negligence/fraud of federal employees not fulfilling their duties as prescribed by congressional mandate. That is worthy of investigation. There is a very large difference between persons who obtain benefits, and those who are being paid to know who deserves them.
Likewise, there is a clarion call in Dobbs' nightly tirade for "Government" to get involved in inspections of "dangerous imports from Communist China." If you want to call for a war on the middle class, then there would be no better opening salvo than starting a trade war with China.
This is not to defend the environmental/human rights/economic record of the PRC. The point of Chinese trade practices and the current imbalance being anticompetitive at the moment is salient. But in the long term, openness and prosperity in China will be in the best interests of the free world because these are the conditions in which education and democracy grow.
For the time being, low cost imports from China, proffered through large retailers, contribute to a high standard of living in the United States. Should a consumer choose to find goods from a source closer to home, options exist via the internet to find a product that suits the consumer's need. It's called free enterprise. The consumer is required to be proactive, though.
The Chinese don't have a monopoly on products which are dangerous or unsuited for the market. Anyone who remembers the Chevrolet Vega or the Ford Pinto is quite aware that Americans can do a spectacular job of producing unfit or dangerous products.
Finally, Dobbs is absolutely wrong about what he calls "amnesty." In February, this blog suggested the result of removing twelve million productive individuals from the source level of food production and construction would be fundamentally detrimental to the United States economy.
Since then, most readers will confirm, through their own experience, soaring food prices. The collapse of the subprime mortgage market has taken some of the sting out of the effects on the construction industry, but growth markets like Dallas, Atlanta, and Houston are seeing the beginning of an inflationary spiral owing to a lack of willing labor in the construction industry.
Not coincidentally, these are also areas where anti-immigration sentiment has produced an environment hostile to those who build homes. Forget a wall. If one wants to live behind a wall in a controlled environment, there is another word for it: prison.
Somehow, your Wandering Gentile holds no illusions about empowering Lou Dobbs as warden.
16 September 2007
A View From the Lee Wuornos Truckstop
Seffner, Florida.
The trucker was sitting in his driver's seat, playing computer solitaire. A scruffy man approached, with a very dramatic story about his car breaking down, while at his mother-in law's funeral. There were details about how he had come from Mobile, and the price of the repair.
Instead of gaining the driver's empathy, he found the driver's ire.
"You're from Mobile? Let's see your driver's license. Your hat says Tampa."
The scruffy man answered, "you know, I left it on the dashboard of my car."
"Uh-huh," The trucker replied. "What's your tag number?"
"Ah, well, I don't remember all of it, but I know it starts with W."
"So you have a personalized plate."
"Noooo-ooo?"
The driver recognized that the beggar was full of pulp waste from the beginning, but now the driver was having fun. All plates in Alabama begin with a number, which is also the county code.
"Did your beloved mother-in-law live in Honduras?"
"Naw."
"Because the poverty there would have explained the lack of access to a washing machine or razor blades."
The beggar was trying to get away, but the driver was not done querying the beggar.
"So I take it that your mother-in-law had no friends who could refer you to a competent mechanic?"
"Oh, ah, I never wanted them to be bothered during their time of grief."
The driver raised an eyebrow. "But it's okay to have your wife stranded, what, 500 miles from home without a way back?"
"Oh, no, no..."
"You don't have any co-workers back in Mobile who could get you a bus ticket back and you could pay them back?"
"Well, ah, I was laid off. The plant moved to Mexico."
"Really?" The driver asked. "What kind of plant was it?"
At this point, the only response that could have been acceptable would have been "philodendron." Unfortunately, what came out was, "...the Dodge factory."
"Oh, yeah? What kind of Dodge did you make?"
"Darts."
"The last Dodge Dart was built in 1976! Have you been laid off for 31 years?" The trucker also remembered that Chrysler's nearest plant to Mobile was either St. Louis or Indianapolis... in Chrysler's good years.
"I mean Dusters."
"The Duster was a Plymouth." The trucker was done playing with the beggar. "Your story is full of holes. It's one thing to have a need, but dang it, if you're going to tell me a story, get your facts right!"
"But I'm telling you the truth."
"You're not, but you know, I'm willing to give you all of the help you deserve."
The shiny nickel the trucker pulled from his pocket bounced from the bill of the beggar's "Tampa" hat.
"You know the difference between you and an illegal alien? The illegal alien is actually good for more than the production of greenhose gases! And I never had a Mexican come up to me in a truck stop and beg for money. Because he's willing to get up in the morning and go to work."
"Well, they're taking all the jobs!"
"Because you didn't apply for them, or didn't do the work when you had them."
"You amnesty types are killing the middle class!"
"Not as fast as Americans who think they're entitled because of where they were born. You have papers, access to education, and all the assistance of a nation of 300 million, and you're whining and begging in a truck stop. It's because of people like you who give the impression that my nation is petty, and weak, and incapable of competing. Do America a favor, and get your happy butt out."
The trucker rolled up his window, put the air conditioner on high, and went back to work in the morning.
The trucker was sitting in his driver's seat, playing computer solitaire. A scruffy man approached, with a very dramatic story about his car breaking down, while at his mother-in law's funeral. There were details about how he had come from Mobile, and the price of the repair.
Instead of gaining the driver's empathy, he found the driver's ire.
"You're from Mobile? Let's see your driver's license. Your hat says Tampa."
The scruffy man answered, "you know, I left it on the dashboard of my car."
"Uh-huh," The trucker replied. "What's your tag number?"
"Ah, well, I don't remember all of it, but I know it starts with W."
"So you have a personalized plate."
"Noooo-ooo?"
The driver recognized that the beggar was full of pulp waste from the beginning, but now the driver was having fun. All plates in Alabama begin with a number, which is also the county code.
"Did your beloved mother-in-law live in Honduras?"
"Naw."
"Because the poverty there would have explained the lack of access to a washing machine or razor blades."
The beggar was trying to get away, but the driver was not done querying the beggar.
"So I take it that your mother-in-law had no friends who could refer you to a competent mechanic?"
"Oh, ah, I never wanted them to be bothered during their time of grief."
The driver raised an eyebrow. "But it's okay to have your wife stranded, what, 500 miles from home without a way back?"
"Oh, no, no..."
"You don't have any co-workers back in Mobile who could get you a bus ticket back and you could pay them back?"
"Well, ah, I was laid off. The plant moved to Mexico."
"Really?" The driver asked. "What kind of plant was it?"
At this point, the only response that could have been acceptable would have been "philodendron." Unfortunately, what came out was, "...the Dodge factory."
"Oh, yeah? What kind of Dodge did you make?"
"Darts."
"The last Dodge Dart was built in 1976! Have you been laid off for 31 years?" The trucker also remembered that Chrysler's nearest plant to Mobile was either St. Louis or Indianapolis... in Chrysler's good years.
"I mean Dusters."
"The Duster was a Plymouth." The trucker was done playing with the beggar. "Your story is full of holes. It's one thing to have a need, but dang it, if you're going to tell me a story, get your facts right!"
"But I'm telling you the truth."
"You're not, but you know, I'm willing to give you all of the help you deserve."
The shiny nickel the trucker pulled from his pocket bounced from the bill of the beggar's "Tampa" hat.
"You know the difference between you and an illegal alien? The illegal alien is actually good for more than the production of greenhose gases! And I never had a Mexican come up to me in a truck stop and beg for money. Because he's willing to get up in the morning and go to work."
"Well, they're taking all the jobs!"
"Because you didn't apply for them, or didn't do the work when you had them."
"You amnesty types are killing the middle class!"
"Not as fast as Americans who think they're entitled because of where they were born. You have papers, access to education, and all the assistance of a nation of 300 million, and you're whining and begging in a truck stop. It's because of people like you who give the impression that my nation is petty, and weak, and incapable of competing. Do America a favor, and get your happy butt out."
The trucker rolled up his window, put the air conditioner on high, and went back to work in the morning.
31 August 2007
The Senator In The Tea Room
There are days when one would think that the cast of Weekend Update had gotten loose in the halls of CNN in Atlanta. Hearing that a Republican US Senator was busted for attempting to procure gay sex in the men's room at Minneapolis airport was one of those days.
Oh yes, even better is the idea that he was from Idaho, a state which fears that Montana would change its name to "Idapimp."
(Your Wandering Gentile has been waiting for several years to find an appropriate mien for using that particular joke.)
Now, let it be stated that this is a blog tolerant of whatever individuals choose to do in private, providing that the behavior is between adults, and free of fraud, force or duress. Mr. Jefferson once said that the government that governs least governs best. Amen.
Government has no place in sanctioning marriage. That decision is between the Communicants and their Creator. Should there be a choice for polygamy, as long as the participants are happy and willing, it is not society's business. Should the participants be of the same sex, so what? The contract is the only thing which government should sanction.
Marriage cannot be defined by government. That is strictly the role of faith and defined by the participants faith traditions and communities.
If my marriage is threatened by two people I don't know choosing to participate in a contract that I have no interest in, then by God, it was already in serious trouble.
Which brings us back to the tearoom Senator. If he wants to participate in homosexual trysts, that's his business. Have fun.
But he's selling his moral position as a "defender of family values." The Senator convinced the citizenry of the state of Idaho to vote for him, in part, by supporting the "Defense of Marriage" amendment...one man, one woman only as eligible participants.
Does anyone else see the conflict here?
Oh yes, even better is the idea that he was from Idaho, a state which fears that Montana would change its name to "Idapimp."
(Your Wandering Gentile has been waiting for several years to find an appropriate mien for using that particular joke.)
Now, let it be stated that this is a blog tolerant of whatever individuals choose to do in private, providing that the behavior is between adults, and free of fraud, force or duress. Mr. Jefferson once said that the government that governs least governs best. Amen.
Government has no place in sanctioning marriage. That decision is between the Communicants and their Creator. Should there be a choice for polygamy, as long as the participants are happy and willing, it is not society's business. Should the participants be of the same sex, so what? The contract is the only thing which government should sanction.
Marriage cannot be defined by government. That is strictly the role of faith and defined by the participants faith traditions and communities.
If my marriage is threatened by two people I don't know choosing to participate in a contract that I have no interest in, then by God, it was already in serious trouble.
Which brings us back to the tearoom Senator. If he wants to participate in homosexual trysts, that's his business. Have fun.
But he's selling his moral position as a "defender of family values." The Senator convinced the citizenry of the state of Idaho to vote for him, in part, by supporting the "Defense of Marriage" amendment...one man, one woman only as eligible participants.
Does anyone else see the conflict here?
20 May 2007
Comprehensive Means Comprehensive
First of all, it isn't amnesty.
As reports of the Senate compromise on immigration reform came across the news on Thursday, the usual group of anti-immigrant yodelers hit the airwaves within hours. From Tancredo to Dobbs to the right-wing ranters on AM radio, their one note screamed "AMNESTY!"
It isn't. By definition amnesty means a lack of penalty. There are penalties involved with the new senate bill. There are sacrifices to be made by an undocumented immigrant, and compliance will test and prove the difference between those who wish to commit to an existence in this country, and those with less honorable motives.
A better way to look at it would be to call it a mechanism for a No Contest plea to the charge of jumping the border. There has been a twenty year window where the current immigration system has shown profound flaws. It has not served the needs of this country, and the hard-line tenor of the law as written has served to stifle both assimilation and those who would have qualified under previous immigration laws for legal paths to remain in the United States.
Tough, but just and reasonable, the Senate compromise represents not the impossible- a good solution- but the least bad solution.
If the reader will imagine, as a caller to the Mark Davis radio program in Dallas did recently, the political will and repercussions after the appearance of a cell-phone video of an undocumented woman being removed, and her small child crying for her mommy. This would make Abu Ghraib look like a visit from Mother Teresa. And it would be political death for anyone who had supported the forcible removal of undocumented aliens.
The logistics of removing twelve to twenty million people; convincing the world community of how humane the United States of America is; and replacing that population in the labor force would devastate the nation. It would be suicide.
The manpower required to remove twelve million people would require at least a quarter of a million agents trained in law enforcement and logistics, plus dedicated areas and holding facilities and transportation. Figure upon the American taxpayers taking about a trillion dollar hit.
China and Mexico could call in their markers. The EU nations and Japan would. Without about seven million proven, but undocumented, participants in the labor force, and less than seven million unemployed (and a good portion of them unemployable) in the United States, productivity would fall. The economic engine of the United States would be stalled in mid-air.
With a broken economy and political instability, we could anticipate challenges to our sovereignty and our military from sources such as Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, and their satellites. What would remain to be seen is if we had any good will remaining from our traditional allies such as Israel, Canada, and Australia.
Kids, don't try this at home. Because the last trained professionals who tried to (and succeded at) removing twelve million people deemed undesirable are not around to talk about it, jawohl?
The last, best option remaining option to save the United States as the country we know and love, is to swallow a population of people, who, aside from not following bureaucratic procedures, have been beneficial to our culture and economy, and haven't really done anything else wrong.
The Senate compromise is not amnesty. It is nothing less than the survival of this nation. These are people with a strong work ethic, deep love of family, and profound Christian faith. We need to be able to identify and embrace people who share our values.
No one is in favor of letting felons run amok on our streets. If someone commits a violent crime, let's get rid of that individual quickly. But if the only crime has been the escape from the desperate conditions that exist in so many of the countries to our south, as your Wandering Gentile's Daddy used to say, that ain't a killin' offense.
As for the impotent, arrogant, anal-retentive yard nazis, who find their very existence threatened by people who have entered without a pedigree, considering the source is the best option. These yard nazis are the same people who pushed a neighborhood covenant in the Atlanta area, and fined a man US$3,500 for the infraction of FLYING THE AMERICAN FLAG!
The tone of these collectivist authoritarians has spread to city councils and county commissions throughout the country, most notably in Farmer's Branch, Texas; Oceanside, California; Cherokee County, Georgia; and Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The most amusing thing is that their rage has been directed on a local level, to a federal issue, in places that are remarkably devoid of anyone but affluent, self-absorbed, English-speaking people of predominantly European descent.
The Senate compromise will have several desirable effects upon the illegal immigration issue in the United States. When employers in Mexico are forced to compete economically for a finite labor resource, the democratization of affluence throughout Mexico will be the result. At the point where the drawbacks of emigrating outweigh the benefits, people will stay home. The streets of Missoula are not crowded with people who snuck in from Alberta, Canada.
Labor safety and health standards will also improve in both countries due to the expectation of our more stringent and effective regulations, and their applicability by people functioning within a normalized environment. Abuses that have been tacitly accepted cannot survive when both parties have a voice.
Finally, the ICE resources that have been dedicated to behaving punitively toward people jumping the border in lieu of a functional immigration process can be turned towards capturing and punishing smugglers and other malicious individuals.
The people who have patiently sought entry to the United States through the current immigration system deserve a nod for their forebearance with a confusing, complicated, and infuriatingly indifferent bureaucracy. They merit nothing less than an expedited processing of their documents and a concession of fees beyond what would be expected of someone who entered extralegally.
Privatization of the vetting process could best achieve the necessary legwork, leaving CIS agents for the approval interview process.
Someone wise, quoted frequently by Dave Ramsey and Dr. Phil McGraw, once said that repeating an ineffective behavior and expecting a different result is insanity. The immigration laws that we have on the books have not worked. The time to scrap the malfunctioning system is now. The immigration laws we have now created this situation. These laws are a total loss, and any attempt to use them would be hazardous to the health of this nation.
And watching the Yard Nazis of America melt down would be priceless.
As reports of the Senate compromise on immigration reform came across the news on Thursday, the usual group of anti-immigrant yodelers hit the airwaves within hours. From Tancredo to Dobbs to the right-wing ranters on AM radio, their one note screamed "AMNESTY!"
It isn't. By definition amnesty means a lack of penalty. There are penalties involved with the new senate bill. There are sacrifices to be made by an undocumented immigrant, and compliance will test and prove the difference between those who wish to commit to an existence in this country, and those with less honorable motives.
A better way to look at it would be to call it a mechanism for a No Contest plea to the charge of jumping the border. There has been a twenty year window where the current immigration system has shown profound flaws. It has not served the needs of this country, and the hard-line tenor of the law as written has served to stifle both assimilation and those who would have qualified under previous immigration laws for legal paths to remain in the United States.
Tough, but just and reasonable, the Senate compromise represents not the impossible- a good solution- but the least bad solution.
If the reader will imagine, as a caller to the Mark Davis radio program in Dallas did recently, the political will and repercussions after the appearance of a cell-phone video of an undocumented woman being removed, and her small child crying for her mommy. This would make Abu Ghraib look like a visit from Mother Teresa. And it would be political death for anyone who had supported the forcible removal of undocumented aliens.
The logistics of removing twelve to twenty million people; convincing the world community of how humane the United States of America is; and replacing that population in the labor force would devastate the nation. It would be suicide.
The manpower required to remove twelve million people would require at least a quarter of a million agents trained in law enforcement and logistics, plus dedicated areas and holding facilities and transportation. Figure upon the American taxpayers taking about a trillion dollar hit.
China and Mexico could call in their markers. The EU nations and Japan would. Without about seven million proven, but undocumented, participants in the labor force, and less than seven million unemployed (and a good portion of them unemployable) in the United States, productivity would fall. The economic engine of the United States would be stalled in mid-air.
With a broken economy and political instability, we could anticipate challenges to our sovereignty and our military from sources such as Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, and their satellites. What would remain to be seen is if we had any good will remaining from our traditional allies such as Israel, Canada, and Australia.
Kids, don't try this at home. Because the last trained professionals who tried to (and succeded at) removing twelve million people deemed undesirable are not around to talk about it, jawohl?
The last, best option remaining option to save the United States as the country we know and love, is to swallow a population of people, who, aside from not following bureaucratic procedures, have been beneficial to our culture and economy, and haven't really done anything else wrong.
The Senate compromise is not amnesty. It is nothing less than the survival of this nation. These are people with a strong work ethic, deep love of family, and profound Christian faith. We need to be able to identify and embrace people who share our values.
No one is in favor of letting felons run amok on our streets. If someone commits a violent crime, let's get rid of that individual quickly. But if the only crime has been the escape from the desperate conditions that exist in so many of the countries to our south, as your Wandering Gentile's Daddy used to say, that ain't a killin' offense.
As for the impotent, arrogant, anal-retentive yard nazis, who find their very existence threatened by people who have entered without a pedigree, considering the source is the best option. These yard nazis are the same people who pushed a neighborhood covenant in the Atlanta area, and fined a man US$3,500 for the infraction of FLYING THE AMERICAN FLAG!
The tone of these collectivist authoritarians has spread to city councils and county commissions throughout the country, most notably in Farmer's Branch, Texas; Oceanside, California; Cherokee County, Georgia; and Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The most amusing thing is that their rage has been directed on a local level, to a federal issue, in places that are remarkably devoid of anyone but affluent, self-absorbed, English-speaking people of predominantly European descent.
The Senate compromise will have several desirable effects upon the illegal immigration issue in the United States. When employers in Mexico are forced to compete economically for a finite labor resource, the democratization of affluence throughout Mexico will be the result. At the point where the drawbacks of emigrating outweigh the benefits, people will stay home. The streets of Missoula are not crowded with people who snuck in from Alberta, Canada.
Labor safety and health standards will also improve in both countries due to the expectation of our more stringent and effective regulations, and their applicability by people functioning within a normalized environment. Abuses that have been tacitly accepted cannot survive when both parties have a voice.
Finally, the ICE resources that have been dedicated to behaving punitively toward people jumping the border in lieu of a functional immigration process can be turned towards capturing and punishing smugglers and other malicious individuals.
The people who have patiently sought entry to the United States through the current immigration system deserve a nod for their forebearance with a confusing, complicated, and infuriatingly indifferent bureaucracy. They merit nothing less than an expedited processing of their documents and a concession of fees beyond what would be expected of someone who entered extralegally.
Privatization of the vetting process could best achieve the necessary legwork, leaving CIS agents for the approval interview process.
Someone wise, quoted frequently by Dave Ramsey and Dr. Phil McGraw, once said that repeating an ineffective behavior and expecting a different result is insanity. The immigration laws that we have on the books have not worked. The time to scrap the malfunctioning system is now. The immigration laws we have now created this situation. These laws are a total loss, and any attempt to use them would be hazardous to the health of this nation.
And watching the Yard Nazis of America melt down would be priceless.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
