So...I was sitting in Econolube's waiting room while they changed the oil on my little Saturn (Notice that I am proudly telling you that I drive a small, inexpensive hi-mileage car. I'm am beginning to sincerely dislike people who drive around with one person in some behemoth. Damn resource hogs!! But I digress...) happily reading a Terry Brooks book from the Shannara series and paying no attention to the TV rumbling in the background when, against all my increased concentration on the book, the talking head on Fox News intruded itself on me. I mean, when I walked in an told the nice young lady behind the counter that I needed an oil change, I did glance at the tube, but, when I noticed that they had it on the Fox News channel, I deliberately sought a seat about as far from it as possible. I did not want to have to deal with those pinheads today. And, yet, they managed to force themselves upon my consciousness.
The particular talking head who started raising my blood pressure was some Yahoo (and I use "yahoo" in its original Swiftian usage)declaiming how the Bible mandates that we close our borders to the "huddled masses yearning to be free" (and rich) to the south of us. He spewed out some convoluted reasoning that these people were "coveting" our goods and were, therefore, sinning in the eyes of God, and that it was our duty to close our borders to these poor wretches. Of course, he doesn't tell us how we are supposed to harvest the veggies he buys at the supermarket or who is going to cut our lawns or do all the other menial tasks that us "native" born (and here I extend my sincere apologies to any Native American who might happen to read this, but, what the hell, if a person was born on this continent, that makes him/her "native born".) are too damn "good" to do. Yes, I do have a lawn service cut my grass in the summer and, yes, almost all the people who show up to run the various machines have Spanish as their native (and primary) tongue. But, then, I don't deny them the same opportunity that my ancestors had.
People, like this "person" (and I use the term loosely) who claim to be both Christian and American are, in fact, neither. Both the founding fathers and our Heavenly Father, would (and will) disavow them when they appear at the gates of Heaven requesting entrance. At least they would if I had anything to say about it. "I'm sorry, we can't allow any undocumented immigrants (and you, sir, are completely undocumented) into the Heavenly abode. Nope, you're on the outside gnashing your teeth and generally feeling shitty about your eternity." But, then, God is all merciful and all knowing. He will probably allow these people in because, once they are there, they will know how wrong they were in this life and have to live their eternity with that knowledge. In other words, they carry the seeds of their own Hell within them. I can live with that...
4 comments:
The reaction to illegal immigration may be partly racist, but that does not make illegal immigration a good thing. Yes, there are jobs that Americans don't want to do, but that is only a small part. The use of illegal immigration is driven by the desire of business to cut costs and remove restrictions of worker safefty. Entire industries that used unionized workers two generations ago have replaced them with immigrant workers (just think of the meat packing industry and construction). One must look at illegal immigration, H1B visas and outsourcing as different aspects of the same thing.
So, while I may condemn the yahoos, I cannot ignore the damage that uncontrolled immigration has done to lower paid workers in the US and one cannot dismiss the possibililty that this is all just another effort by the top 1% to maximize profit.
I've said many times that I probably have as much experience with illegal immigration as anyone in the country. I grew up in Texas and worked alongside them, ocassionally for one or two, and most often worked as a sort of supervisor over them. I've never, ever, seen one native born American lose a job to an illegal immigrant - in fact, they made sure my butt stayed planted in a tractor seat by doing the manual weeding.
I keep hearing stuff about "the top 1%" maximizing profit, but the fact is that it's a lot of people along the way. More often than not, it's the small businesses that depend on cheap labor to compete with bigger businesses.
The answer to cutting illegal immigration to to have a sensible migrant worker program. If someone is willing to risk their life to come here and work like a dog, threatening them with jail isn't going to deter them.
XT
My daughter would give you big points just for reading Terry Brooks. You score well with me for your engaging writing style. Yeah, the guy claiming to be a "Christian American" does sound like a yahoo in the original sense. Naturally FOX news would give him time on the air.
Go get 'em, Tiger. I can't stand when people benefit from something themselves and slam the door on other people in the same need.
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