I came upon a bank where most of employees had gathered on a raised brick planter to watch the march pass by. A gentleman in his mid-thirties stood nearest the end where I hopped up to join him.That's what I'm trying to do with these weekly updates - make people think about the consequences of their actions (or lack of actions). We can't get so wound up in the romance of "The American Dream" that we destroy it.
I asked him his thoughts on the march. He replied that he thought it was great, that these people definitely deserved to hold a march like this. He was waxing quite eloquent when he uttered an oopsie. He went on to say that we should welcome everybody.
I queried, somewhat astonished, everyone on the planet? It was fascinating to me to watch his facial expressions cycle through surprise to astonishment. I honestly don’t think he’d ever thought it through before, that we can’t welcome every person on the planet no matter how much the president might want to. My interviewee had just bumped nose first into a hard reality. I noticed over and over how many people merely recited cant whenever you asked them questions about immigration, nation of immigrants, immigration has always been good, etc., etc., etc.
Yet if you followed up and began asking hard questions such as “well, should we just allow a couple of billion people to move here then?” Their eyes would get big and they’d stammer for a bit before saying no. I’d ask, so where do you draw the line? They never had a cogent answer.
I think that really sums up the public debate on immigration in America today. We want to be a nation of immigrants, yet realize this may no longer be possible as it was in the past.
A young black gentlemen provided a slightly different take. When I asked him his thoughts on the march he at first tried to avoid answering but I kept at it and finally he allowed that he thought it was a good thing. Again, that they should be allowed to march, then he uttered his own oopsie. He said he thought they should be allowed to march because they came from a poor country. When I pointed out that in terms of the whole world Mexico was actually a fairly rich country with a decent standard of living compared to many countries he was literally dumbstruck.
If today’s march taught me anything it was just this. In terms of the average Jane and Joe American, the two biggest enemies proponents of sane immigration policies face are rank ignorance and romantic notions.
Where should we stop? When we've allowed in so many people with no stake in our values that they decide to eliminate them? People who will ignore inconvenient laws? People who only interact with their own "tribe"? People who will take what they want, no matter whose it is? People who have no loyalty to the US?
If we allow our health system to be wrecked by illegals (as is currently happening in CA and other parts of the Southwest), where will YOU go when sick?
If we allow our educational system to be broken by the weight of educating all the ESOL students, who will provide the skilled workers of the future?
If we allow our communities to be overrun with trespassers across their own land, leaving behind trash and crime in their wake, our country is the poorer. Every "humanitarian" step that has been taken to prevent illegals' deaths in the desert has been used to increase the flood of entrants. The government of Mexico even printed, at GOVERNMENT expense, a guide to the best and safest crossing sites. They only recalled the pamphlets when a pro-alien group pointed out that the anti-alien groups could use it as a way of blocking their entry.
It's not just people crossing the border - vast quantities of drugs and other contraband are making their way over.
The bedrock basis of the US is the fact that the law applies to all - it isn't just for the rich, or the well-connected. The guy on the lowest rung of the economic ladder has access to the same rights as the guy at the top. We cannot allow the laws to be trampled in the name of compassion.
We have to win this fight. In the old days, when people were fleeing other countries, there was always the US to escape to.
Where will the oppressed escape to, if we no longer have the freedoms?
Tags = Immigration and Guard the Borders
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