It’s tough to think about the fact that we are all illegal immigrants in the United States. Even the original native Indians probably were on the continent because they were landlocked once the original “big continent” called Pangaea split apart. That being said, the people who stayed on the land, survived and colonized it are the true legal residents. Anybody else who comes in from elsewhere is an intruder until such time as they are joined to the main population (by marriage or whatever accepted means are used at the time, such as documentation or verbal agreements).
Over the years the Pilgrims conquered the Indians, the European immigrants set up shop, the North fought the South because nobody liked what the other side had or didn’t have, we’ve fought several major wars and established all sorts of general principles which are supposed to help us live peacefully. We then go all out to destroy those principles.
Folks, North America only has so much room, and business and industry only has so many jobs to keep people living decently. Our unemployment rate is too high, as are our demands on the taxation and compensation systems put in place to help the elderly, the unemployed and the destitute. Yet we have people carrying signs and suggesting that we should add to the public burden by allowing more people into the country illegally.
During the 2010 census, people grumbled about being counted, as if we were in the schoolyard and trying to cover for the boy who snuck off to have a smoke by confusing the teacher’s head count. Sure we want to keep good workers of any origin, and keep out the criminals, but leaving the barn door open in this case will let in the horses and the bobcats that will kill the other livestock.
The law Arizona is trying to pass is not trying to make the state a police run hotbed of searches and seizures: they’re just trying to prevent the bankruptcy of the system which is trying to take care of our own. Sure the rule has flaws, but if everybody wants to view the citizenship of this country as either “open to everybody or to nobody,” nothing constructive will get done.
We do need to turn within and tend to our own people. We need to build strong math and science skills in our youth. We need to get an economy in which a paying job pays the bills. We need to employ our own before we can take care of anybody from the outside. Most of all, we need to compassionately tell those who want to run away from their problems in their own countries to turn back within their own borders and make changes for themselves as we did for ourselves. We did fight a war between the North and South and both sides grew from the experience. The French citizenry stormed the Bastille and overthrew their tormentors to make the changes they needed. I’m not condoning war: I’m saying change can only come when we stick together and work it out from within. Once we fix ourselves, we can stand again as an example of what works, and our doors can open a crack for more folks to seek the same things we’ve fought so hard for.
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