BUSH’S IMMIGRATION POLICY – 

A   COVERT  MEXICAN STAND-OFF

A DW “E X C L U S I V E” and…. A “MUST-READ”

By: Dr. Leonard Carrier, D.W. In-House Historian and Philosopher and Robert Foster*, DW Contributor and In-House Conservative Counsel , with an Introduction and preface by DW Foreign Policy Editor, Dusty Schoch outlining the unique circumstances where DW “art” (Len Carrier’s Article) induced—in dreamlike fashion– our DW writer in Georgia to deal with 5 illegal Mexican Aliens in a manner and under  circumstances I predict you will find unique and memorable.  I labeled this article a “must read” because it is one of Len Carrier’s most compelling commentaries on our immigration policy, followed by Foster’s real-life reactions recorded by the author (Foster) himself  and recounted in his entertaining and  inimitable short-story style.

Dear DW and B.E.A. Staff and friends,

As DW writers and contributors, I know we all wonder from time to time whether—or to what extent—our expressions and polemic offerings actually have an effect on the readership. The sequel to the Carrier article  provides us substantial incentive never to question what we remedial bloggers are about.

Robert Foster is an amazing thinker and personality I had the privilege of becoming friends with while attending law school in Tuscaloosa Alabama (U. of Ala.’s home site).  Foster is a life-long conservative Republican and we have enjoyed sparring from time to time on Bush policies, domestic and foreign.  Foster was among those “DW friends” I sent a preview of Carrier’s presently-featured article on corporate American complicity in our illegal alien problems.

Without further waxing, I give you (some of you for the second time) Len Carrier’s piece, preceded by my little introduction, following which I urge you all to relish and derive encouragement and hope from Foster’s letter to me…which I have elected to share with its proper audience (the world).

Thanks, Len,  for placing the focus and blame on proper target. Corporate hiring of illegals is the hole in our national dyke, and criminal prosecution (of employing corporations) is the only mortar.  Thanks, R.F., for showing us all that the mark of true intelligence is not always being right, but rather always being able and willing  to readjust one’s vision and actions in order to see—and/or imagine, and/or do– what is right.

Best,

Dusty

BUSH’S IMMIGRATION SLOGAN:

“Welcome, Guest Workers…

To the Corporate States of America”

By DW In-House Historian and Philosopher, Leonard Carrier, who points us poignantly to the fact that Bush’s newest Neo-Con euphemism is calling our immigrant slave population, “Guest Workers”.

The problem of illegal immigrants has been exacerbated since President Bush took office.

    The chief cause is that of corporations seeking cheap labor. Most of these people came here legally under “guest worker”  H-2A and H-2B programs.  They not only got low wages but they also suffered other abuses.

    See the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report, “Close to Slavery,” that outlines all this.  When their visas ran out, many of them didn’t go back to their countries but stayed in illegal status rather than work legally under deplorable conditions.  The corporations then asked for more “guest workers,” and the process continued. Big business has had a sweet deal. They pay lousy wages, treat the workers like indentured servants, and let the government (that’s you and me) pick up the tab for social services. Then they ask for more cheap labor when the current crew has gone underground.

     Now the Bush administration hopes to get even more “guest workers,” and it is willing to throw more money at security fences (which won’t solve the real problem) and to mollify Hispanics by offering a tortuous path to legality for those illegals already here.  I was glad to see this so-called “reform” bill strangled in its crib. I think that the problem should be attacked at its root, which is corporate desire for an underclass of workers whom they can exploit.  If the penalties are made severe enough for employers who hire illegals, then the ones already here won’t be able to work and they won’t stay. If the “guest worker” programs are forced to pay a living wage and provide health benefits,  then corporations will seek out citizens and legal immigrants to hire, instead.

    I don’t think it’s fair to blame the illegals already here for the situation in which they find themselves. If you’re poor and desperate you’ll take advantage of all the services that are offered.  I’m afraid that much of the criticism of the immigrant reform bill is misplaced, and it results in a nativism that tends to blame the victim. I think that we have sufficient immigration laws on the books to deport illegal immigrants if we had the will to do it.

     Big business would prefer things as they are–an inexhaustible supply of cheap labor, with the average taxpayer picking up the tab for health and social services. Unfortunately, if social services are cut off for illegals, then it will probably be cut for poor people who are here legally, as well. I don’t think it’s a good idea to make war on poor people.

     I remember Emma Lazarus’s words, “Give me your tired and your poor…” inscribed at the Statue of Liberty.  We are a nation of immigrants.  What we need is an orderly process for immigration to take place.  Big business doesn’t care about that, because it doesn’t enhance their bottom line.

 Leonard Carrier

FOSTER’S DREAM

 (in Cobb County, Georgia):

 Dusty,

I received your e-mail at 3:57 PM yesterday  and immediately read Carrier’s piece with great interest and reflection – particularly given the fact that I had scheduled 5 guest workers to come tomorrow and  clean up a pile of tree limbs, cross ties and whatnot that I have accumulated on the back of my property over the past 30 years.

Several days ago I was speaking with a friend and lamenting that I could find no one interested in cleaning up my property; mentioning that I had even spoken with a law-enforcement friend about getting some prisoners lend-leased to me but found that questionable practice had been discontinued in our state some decades earlier.   But my friend said that last year he had used some Mexicans to work at his house.  He told me they congregated at the town square in Marietta and if I got up there early morning, I could pick up as many as I wanted at $5.00 hour plus food.  Problem solved – or so I thought.

You know how dreams sometimes serve to solve problems that, confronted in the daylight you find impossible of resolution. Well, with the situation of my back yard property sort of weighing on my subconscious, and with the reading of Carrier’s article still fresh on my mind, I went to sleep last night and had the most extraordinary dream, which I will here share with you.

At 6:00AM in the morning, before first light, I pulled up to the square in my big fully-Loaded 1994  Lincoln Town Car.  I quickly deduced that this was a no-miss proposition–only me and a circa 1958 yellow GMC school bus with “Cobb County Schools” on the side of the bus having been crudely crossed out and the single word “Jesus” painted above (or was it Jose’–couldn’t quite make out in the existing light).  There could only be one winner in such a one-sided pairing and it damn sure wasn’t colored yellow.

However, my sense of a forthcoming triumph quickly evaporated when I realized that only the big Lincoln and the yellow GMC were on the square – not one single Mexican was in sight.  I thought maybe it was a little early as the sun was just starting to break over the trees that line the square.  At this point, I noticed someone standing next to the bus, so I decided to head over and see if he could tell me if I were at the right place to pick up Mexicans.  I didn’t know if I were on the way to church or a cutting but in either event I needed 5 hard-working Mexicans and this was the only guy around–or at least I thought it was a guy.

As I neared the bus I saw that the guy was in fact a very attractive lady wearing white linen slacks and with her blond hair pulled back in a tight bun.  Had I not been focused on her as I approached, I would have noticed that every Mexican in Marietta, Georgia (and possibly all outlying cities) was packed inside the bus.  It was as if this were the last chance to cross the Rio Grande.  As I introduced myself to the lady, whose name as it turns out was “June” * and not Jose’ or Jesus, several Mexicans came from between some buildings, shot across the street at full gallop and pushed through the bus doors.  There was no way to get another soul on the bus, let alone a person but they kept coming.  It was like a run of herring.  They just kept coming and coming but none were hopping in the Big Lincoln.

Well, Dusty, when Robert Foster has his mind set on something, the table isn’t going to be cleared before he has dessert, which in this case was 5 Mexicans today – not tomorrow or next week.  The brush pile was going and it was going today.  First, I turned on the charm and asked June if she could let me have a few of her Mexicans (I was coy – holding in reserve the fact that “few” correlated to 5).  When she responded that she couldn’t help me, I asked her why the hell not (charm and coyness aside – time to become aggressive).  You will not believe what I learned.

June was an executive of a large multi- national firm (she speaks five languages and is fluent in Spanish) and worked 15 hour days which left no time for housekeeping or gardening. So she got in her car one day, went to the square in Marietta and found a gardener and a housekeeper/cook.  She lives in East Cobb County (where the elite reside as opposed to us outcasts down here in lower Cobb County).  June hosts many parties and her friends begin to notice the quality of the maid and gardener’s work.  This leads the friends to ask how they could get such good (but principally cheap) help.  I will fast forward as it is getting late.

June buys a bus at a Marietta School Board surplus equipment auction, quits her job and starts supplying domestic help (guest workers) to every social climber in East Cobb.  She picks up at the square between 6 and 6:45 Monday thru Saturday and delivers the workers to the homes and then picks them up and returns to the square at the end of the day.  She spends approximately 5 hours a day driving the bus and another hour on paper work (all requests for domestics come via e-mail).  It is totally a cash operation.  She pays the Mexicans $7.00/hr and bills them at $15.00.  After minimal expenses, June figures she clears $6.50/hr x 8 hours x 6 days x 46 domestics = $14,352 or $746,304 per year.  I bit for 5 @ $15 and she dropped them off at the house around 8:30 this morning and gave them instructions as to what I wanted done (none of them spoke English).  Now here is where it gets interesting.

At 4:30 P.M., after some soul searching prompted by Carrier’s piece, I decided to put the Mexicans in my car and return to the square.  None of them could understand what I wanted until I flashed a wad of $20’s and then it was a chicken on a June bug.  All 5 hopped in the Big Lincoln and I dropped them off at the square after stopping at the cash machine so I could give them each $120 (8 hours x $15).  I returned home and this gets us to 6:15PM when June arrives to pick up the 5 Mexicans only to find that I had already returned them to the square.  She was fine with this until she asked for payment and I told her I gave $120 to each worker and handed her a copy of Carrier’s piece.

As I compose this letter, the 5 Mexican guest workers are patiently awaiting my arrival at the square  and I am in the process of deciding what I—today, in real life and realtime—intend to do with the problem before me. Whether I will perform in conformance with the version of myself which appeared to me in my dreams—who I consider to be idealistic to the point of being “heroic”, or whether I will do otherwise, is yet to be determined…somewhat in a scenario similar to the problem American presently faces in regard to its illegal Mexican population in general.  What each of us as individuals—in the microcosm—in deed do will determine what our country as a macrocosmic whole becomes.

I do plan to respond hereafter more definitively  to Carrier’s piece which has some good points and valid observations.  However, I believe the problem runs much deeper than big business.  It would not surprise me if over 50% of the “guest workers” are employed by small business and /or individuals.  Where everyone is living in sin, it is hard to find anyone willing to cast the first stone.  I sincerely hope that —in either my dream state or my  waking words– I haven’t hit a friend.

Foster

July 13, 2007

P.S. As an afterthought, I wonder: Would $200,000 be too much for the Atlanta Franchise rights??

**Robert Foster is a legal scholar and businessman and humorist living in South  Georgia; this is his initial (hopefully of  many) contribution to DW. Names (including “June”) have been changed to protect the guilty and innocent alike.

BILL By: Leonard Carrier, DW In-House Historian and Philosopher

Congress is now debating the hodge-podge of an immigration bill that the George W. Bush desperately wants to sign. So far, it contains something for everyone—more miles of fence, a path to legality for the roughly twelve million illegal immigrants already here, and, dearest to Bush’s heart, a guest worker program that would allow U.S. employers to pay low wages to hundreds of thousands of foreign workers. The bill is a nightmare. Like the No Child Left Behind Act, and the Patriot Act, this 1000-page Frankenstein monster was cobbled together by staffers with no likelihood that anyone in Congress would actually read the whole thing. We know that “No Child Left Behind” has failed its purpose, and we now know that the Patriot Act was used as an excuse to have the government spy on us; but this immigration bill promises to top them both in sheer stupidity, and, I should add, cupidity on the part of employers lusting to make profits on the backs of underpaid workers, while leaving American workers out in the cold.

The first thing that Congress should do with this bill is to uncouple the part that tries to right our present immigration woes from the so-called guest worker program. The concentration should be on how best to give the twelve million illegal immigrants already here a path to legality. Congress should not be afraid of the word ‘amnesty’ The best way to handle the problem of undocumented workers is to offer them a way to come out from the shadows. They are not felons. Being “illegal” is a civil offense, not a criminal one. They should be given the chance to purchase a new temporary visa that would allow them to work in this country, and also to pay taxes. The price should not be too high to prevent their becoming legal, and it need not be paid all at once. If their record is clean after a two-year period, they could be given a choice, either to renew their temporary visa, or to apply for a permanent visa. Anyone with a criminal record should be deported, as should anyone who does not opt for legality. We already have sufficient immigration laws on the books to find and deport those who opt to stay in this country illegally. Congress should use money designed for border fences—which is money ill-spent, since the fences are really no deterrent–to increase the number of immigration agents whose job it should be to find and deport illegal immigrants. More important, employers should bear the responsibility should they hire illegal immigrants. A really stiff fine, or even jail time, might be imposed. If undocumented immigrants are prevented from getting jobs, then it is highly likely that they will either leave the country, or else take the necessary steps to become legal.

Central to Bush’s plan, however, is his guest worker program, which would allow foreign workers to enter the country to work on a temporary basis. If Bush gets his way on this, the path is open for hundreds of thousands of new “guest workers” to flood our employment rolls. What Bush doesn’t say, however, is that we already have a guest worker program for unskilled laborers, one that is largely hidden because these workers are socially and geographically isolated. This is the current H-2 program that brought about 121,000 guest workers into the United States in 2005, roughly 32,000 doing agricultural work, and the others in low-paid non-agricultural industries.

The H-2 workers, however, are not treated like guests. Instead they are systematically exploited and abused. They lack the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated and are instead bound like slaves to the employers who import them. If workers complain about abuses, they face deportation or other retaliation. Even though the Department of Labor provides some basic protections to H-2 workers, government enforcement of their rights is nearly non-existent, and private lawyers typically refuse to take their cases. This being the case, these workers are routinely cheated out of wages, forced to live in squalid conditions, denied medical benefits for injuries on the job, and are held captive by employers or labor brokers who confiscate their documents. All this has been documented in a 2007 report of the Southern Poverty Law Center, entitled, “Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States.” This report is based on thousands of interviews with guest workers, scores of legal cases, and the experiences of legal experts throughout the country. As Congressman Charles Rangel put it recently, “This guest-worker program’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery.”

Of the twelve million illegal immigrants in the United States, most of them entered legally. They chose not to try to renew their visas and instead went underground. The reason they chose to do this should be obvious. They did not like the way they were treated by their employers. When their work visas expired they were supposed to leave the United States Rather than do this, and rather than put up with the exploitation they experienced, they became illegal immigrants. Now President Bush wants more temporary workers to enter our low-wage labor market. It should be clear that this tactic is likely to swell the ranks of illegal immigrants once the mistreatment of these new workers forces them to choose either to leave or to go underground. Bush’s plan is simply a way of allowing employers to hire disposable labor on the cheap. Congress should reject it, not only because it will exacerbate our present immigration problem, but also because it would deprive Americans of jobs they would be willing to perform for a fair wage.

Before any new guest-worker program is installed, the defects of the old one need to be cured. Here is an outline of the recommendations contained in The Southern Poverty Law Center’s report. First, Federal laws protecting guest workers from abuse must be strengthened, including a process that allows workers to gain permanent residency over time. Second, The Department of Labor must force employers to comply with guest-worker contracts, including a means of recovering earned wages not paid by employers. Third, Congress must provide guest workers with access to our courts, including federally funded legal services for all guest workers and penalties for employers who confiscate guest-worker documents. The Thirteenth Amendment to our Constitution abolished slavery. It is high time that the “legalized slavery” of our H-2 programs be brought to an end.

ISLAMIC IMMIGRANTS AND ISLAMIC DISCONTENT

THE  “AUSTRALIAN SOLUTION”

(How Much It Might Aptly Apply to America’s

Burgeoning Populations of Resident Islamics and

Illegal Mexican Aliens? )

DECIDE FOR YOURSELVES . . .

Editorial Note: (By DW Foreign-Policy Editor, Dusty Schoch)
What follows (thanks to my moderately-conservative Republican brother Arch)  is a verbatim re-print of an article appearing in the Israel Reporter, on Sept. 20, 2006.
The article is viewable on line at:
http://israelreporter.com/index.php/2006/09/20/australian-treasurer-heir-apparent-to-pm-sets-excellent-example-of-proper-political-policy-for-muslim-world/

The article is the now publicly-expressed opinion of  Australia’s current Treasurer (and Prime Minister prospect), Peter Costello, and concerns his concerns about Australia’s resident Islamic populations and their declared dual-loyalties to Islam and the secular authorities (government) of their adoptive country.   The world at large, especially democratic societies like America, is closely monitoring Australia’s management of its anxieties over the influx and evolving political espousals of its resident Islamic peoples.
The expressions of Costello are quite provocative. The response by way of compliance and/or defiance on part of Australia’s resident Islamic population will be, to euphemize it,  quite interesting.
The views and expressions of Costello at first blush appeared to me somewhat zenophobic,  even borderline fascistic. But taking a second look,  putting his expressed concerns and admonitions in the foreground of America is facing today by way of  concurrent concerns with over three million  legally-residing Islamic Citizens and our eight (or is it closer to eighteen) million illegal Mexican aliens,  I’m inclined to say that America should invite itself to schedule and attend open forums where, without any fear of being or seeming “politically correct” we examine to what extent we do or should take issue with the newly-declared “Australian Solution” to our own clearly over-stocked supply of resident aliens, legal and illegal.

Should we not be tightening our borders?  Should we not be taking measures to send large segments of illegal , or illegally-intending  residents…elsewhere?

The Editorial Staff of DW invites all its readers and contributors to read, reflect, and send in their reactions to the following article, hopefully in terms addressing the concerns expressed in the present preface.
1/29/07

Israeli Reporter Sept. 20, 2006:

Australia Again

 Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on
Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted
radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.

A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to
Australia and her Queen at a special meeting with Prime Minister John
Howard, he and his Ministers made it clear that extremists would face
a crackdown.  Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to
Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the
country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state, and
its laws were made by parliament.  “If those are not your values, if
you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then
Australia is not for you”, he said on National Television.

“I’d be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws
governing people in Australia : one the Australian law and another the
Islamic law, that is false.  If you can’t agree with parliamentary
law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and
have the opportunity to go to another country, which practices it,
perhaps, then, that’s a better option”, Costello said.

Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he
said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked to move to
the other country.  Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told
reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should “clear off.
Basically people who don’t want to be Australians, and who don’t want,
to live by Australian values and understand them, well then, they can
basically clear off”, he said.

Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by
saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation’s mosques Quote:
“IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT.  Take It Or Leave It.  I am
tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some
individual or their culture.  Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we
have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.”

“However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the
‘politically correct’ crowd began complaining about the possibility
that our patriotism was offending others.  I am not against
immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a
better life by coming to Australia .”  “However, there are a few
things that those who have recently come to our country, and
apparently some born here, need to understand.”  “This idea of
Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute
our sovereignty and our national identity.  And as Australians, we
have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle.”

“This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles,
trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom”

“We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese,
Japanese, Russian, or any other language.  Therefore, if you wish to
become part of our society .. Learn the language!”

“Most Australians believe in God.  This is not some Christian, right
wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on
Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly
documented.  It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of
our schools.  If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another
part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.”

“We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why.  All we ask
is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.”

“If the Southern Cross offends you, or you don’t like “A Fair Go”,
then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this
planet.  We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change,
and we really don’t care how you did things where you came from.  By
all means, keep your culture, but do not force it on others.

“This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow
you every opportunity to enjoy all this.  But once you are done
complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our
Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take
advantage of one other great Australian freedom, ‘THE RIGHT TO LEAVE’.”

“If you aren’t happy here then LEAVE.  We didn’t force you to come here.
You asked to be here.  So accept the country YOU  accepted.”

Maybe if we circulate this amongst ourselves, British or American  or
Canadians citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voting the same truths!!

I have jumped feet first back into the political fray. I have done this grassroots politics thing before and now find myself leading a group whose name includes “action”, so I can’t be still.

I was active when Ronald (and Nancy) Reagan served as president. The reality of “supply-side economics” meant very little “trickled down” to the common folk. The war on the poor was in full swing and still rages today. Reagan broke the PATCO [Professional Air Traffic Controllers] union in July 1981 — a slap labor hadn’t had in almost 50 years — and the people began to lose their voice. The “bosses” embedded divides and factions that, 25 years later, are chasms between those WITH and those withOUT. Our differences — money, skin tone, status, ideology, political leaning, spirituality, power — are pushed at us like evil street drugs so we cannot coexist as the wonderful “stone soup” that makes
US America.

Enter Bush II and a new level of audacity; an administration steals an election and is blatantly handed the White House. The usurpers verbally beat their critics and call them crybabies. Mainstream media, bought up and sold out to the controlling interests of the administration, have skewed what is regarded as important news: no one discussed the economy or the (s)election or dishonesty. “Hanging chad” was vilified, so the people stopped speaking out.

When the war drums began beating, we took to the streets. We didn’t want to wage war on the Iraqi people. The UN wanted us to wait 30 days, but the administration said we couldn’t — they were gonna “git” us if we didn’t “gitRdone” first. It is now obvious to most of the nation that we could have waited those 30 days, but the Bush Administration had already planned to start this war and profit from it.

People lose jobs while corporate fat cats continue to profit. Yet WE allowed NAFTA and CAFTA to happen. Have we ever held our representatives accountable, really? Trails of corruption and deceit accompany this administration, trickling down to others in the Grand Oil Party, but they still have the power. No Orange Revolution here.

There is plenty to be upset about: comprehensive health care (how many people don’t get any because they can’t afford the doctor visit, diagnosis or treatment?); job loss; housing costs; inflation and the cost of fuel. The government Beast, deaf and blind to environmental destruction, and with palms greased by the gas and coal industries, has a snail’s pace of research and development into sustainable energy. Religious fundamentalism has taken hold in this country like the Taliban elsewhere, driving further divides based on silly things that don’t really matter and on important rights that have no business being legislated or restricted. There is no freedom FROM religion.

It is time to feed, house and employ our people! It is outrageous that we promote democracy and civil rights elsewhere when our own people are hungry and homeless. I would have made that statement before Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, but now I underscore it. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in support of the Revolution, but ONLY if it is bloodless. I’m afraid, however, that the hate and fear mongering of the last five years have made that impossible.

For now, we must exercise our duty and VOTE. Register to vote, get your neighbors and friends to register by October 13, and then vote this fall. Early voting (October 19 – November 4) makes it easy. Call for a ride if you need one. There are no excuses for complacency. We have settled for too long.
—–
Kirby Heard is Chair of the High Point Democrats in Action, a non-profit social change group promoting full participation in democracy. Visit www.highpointdems.org.

Kirby Heard

Illegal Mexican Aliens…

A Common Sense View

Mi  Casa es tu casa, pero..

Mi patria ???

[Editorial Note:  B.E.A. member and DW contributor, Charlie Crotts, a native High Pointer, artist, printer and Viet Nam veteran forwards us this uncommonly-sensible take on  illegal Mexican Immigration.  The article is a letter to an unknown editor by an unknown citizen of the U.S. 

We are all familiar with the friendly expression Americans have adopted from their Mexican amigo’s who entered the country legally:  “Mi casa es tu casa”  (translated: “My House is Your House”).  It’s got a warm and fuzzy ring to it, I think we’d all agree.  This is the way we’d all like to feel about all our neighbors, and the way we’d like them to feel about us, I’m sure.  

The writer asks, however, two important related questions:  (1) Is the reverse true?  That is to say, what would you feel like if your neighbor walked up to your door, walks in without knocking and said:  “Your House is My House”?  and, much more importantly (2) When someone enters your country without knocking (legally immigrating) and says… Mipatria ! , what should our reaction be?  I think the “unknown” op/ed writer makes a poignant  point here.  Thanks, Charlie for the contribution.

Dusty Schoch (DW foreign policy Editor)]

Mi patria ???

I have NOTHING against anyone from other countries immigrating to the United States legally.  Having said that….

Recently large demonstrations have taken place across the country protesting the fact that Congress is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration. Certain people are angry that the US might protect its own borders, might make it harder to sneak into  this country and, once here, to stay indefinitely. Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these protests.

Let’s say I break into your house.  Let’s say that when you discover me in your house, you insist that I leave.  But I say, “I’ve made all the beds and washed the dishes and did the laundry and swept the floors; I’ve done all the things you don’t like to do. I’m hard-working and honest (except for when I broke into your house).”

 According to the protesters, not only must you let me stay, you must add me to your family’s insurance plan, educate my kids, and provide other benefits to me and to my family (my husband will do your yard work because he too is hard-working and honest, except for that breaking in part).

 If you try to call the police or force me out, I will call my friends who will picket your house carrying signs that proclaim my right to be there. It’s only fair, after all, because you have a nicer house than I do, and I’m just trying to better myself. I’m hard-working and honest, um, except for well, you know.

And what a deal it is for me!! I live in your house, contributing only a fraction of the cost of my keep, and there is nothing you can do about it without being accused of selfishness, prejudice and being an anti-house intruder. 

Oh yeah, and I want you to learn my language so you can communicate with me.

Why can’t people see how ridiculous this is?!  Only in America….if you agree, pass it on (in English). Share it, if you see the value of it as a good analogy.  If not, blow it off along with your future Social Security funds.

“MY HOUSE”  IS “TU CASA”  

AN ADDENDUM ON THE ISSUE OF A COUNTRY WITH A LANGUAGE BARRIER

By: Michael Kevin Murphy

Dear Dusty and DW friends:

The older I become, the more convinced I am that language — specifically, a common language — is the single most unifying attribute of a country and is far and away ahead of whatever is in second place:  religion, commonly accepted form of government, political persuasion … whatever.

One can look across the planet and point to any of a number of countries where there is no common language and you’ll find one or more pieces of evidence of civil unrest — even chaos, political instability, weak public institutions; the list goes on and on. 

And we have to look no further than our neighbor to the north for evidence of that.  Canada is blessed with abundant natural resources, a population that was settled largely by industrious European stock during the same period that the U.S. was peopled with the same kind  stock.  Yet Canada is riven by political and cultural strife.  Is it a country with formal Anglo-Saxon based institutions but its two languages, French and English, have left its people with two distinct countries and cultures nesting inside a single border. Canadians are 25% French extraction and 35% British, and in total population are a bit more than 10% the size of the U.S. but, geopolitically, why did Canada lag so much behind over the years on so many indicies?  I believe that lack of a common language accounts for much of that.

*Mr. Michael Kevin Murphy is an attorney in Virginia, and a B.E.A. correspondent  of long standing. Mike served with the U.S. Army in Viet Nam during the period which straddled the 1968 Tet Offensive. He was commanding officer of an infantry rifle company in the Mecong River delta and  his badges and decorations  include the U. S. Parachutist Badge, the U.S. Combat Infantryman’s Badge, the Vietnam Ranger Badge (Biet Dong Quan), the U.S. Bronze Star Medal, thirteen Air Medals, and the Vietnam Gallantry Cross.

Democratswrite.com extends an admiring welcome to its youngest contributor to the present date:  Mr. Ryan Kampert, soon to be 16 years of age is the grandson of Dr. Lenard Carrier, who has contributed generously to our website, and in fact several commentaries in this same Border Wars series. 

It was in response to Dr. Carrier’s sharing this series with his grandson that young Ryan’s composed his passionate and informed responses, which will, because of their frank and self-explanatory content and context, shall be printed verbatim hereinafter.  

Featured first will be Ryan’s comments to Len in counterpoint with views earlier expressed by our foreign policy editor, Dusty Schoch (in Border Wars I through VI). Next will be Schoch’s letter of response transmitted via grandfather Carrier, and finally will come Ryan’s final eloquent words on the topic, all of which we sincerely hope our readers will find (as we did) both informative and enjoyable.

I deny altogether any intent or mood of patronization when I say to you that the term “precocious” falls short of capturing this young thinker’s levels of thought , verbal expression and passionate concern with issues affecting our country’s welfare.  Welcome, Mr. Kampert, to our humble forum here  at Democratswrite.com, and we hope you will continue to visit and contribute to us as time permits in the future.

Dusty Schoch 5/25/06

RYAN’S LETTER TO LEN:

—– Original Message —–

From: Ryan K

To: Leonard Carrier

Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2006 3:08 PM

Subject: Re: Border wars

Hey Grandpa.

    I thought I’d add my two cents about one of the most aggravating arguments used in our current immigration “crisis” .  Very good argument, by the way.

    I do a lot of research on languages, and this current idea that everyone (including your Mr. Schoch there) has that bilingualism divides a country and gives rise to cultural animosity doesn’t hold water.  The rhetoric-spewing advocates of that theory, that offer Canada (e.g. Quebec), Sri Lanka (e.g. the Tamils and Sinhala), and others as examples, conveniently forget that, in these instances, multiple aspects of culture are opposed; and with Quebec as the rare exception, one of those cultures has been repressing or antagonizing the other.  This causes the repressed culture to lash back at the oppressors.  Bilingualism is very rarely the cause of internal dissent in a country.  For instance, the Chinese were never closer to having massive revolts than during their “cultural revolution” of the ’60′s.  Since the government of that nation has recently (mid-’90′s) opened up and allowed the use of minority languages (the Tibetans speaking Tibetan, the Yi speaking Yi, the Manchu’s speaking Manchu,  Inner Mongolians speaking Mongolian – complete with the classical Uyghur-esque script, etc.) the Chinese have experienced worlds-better complacency and cooperation in minority peoples.  I heard a reporter just yesterday on MSNBC point out an example of “mono-lingualism-in-a-nation-breeds-unity” thinking by referencing England and their abolishment of the Irish language upon taking them over in the Middle Ages.  Where did that get them?  Ireland is now independent, and reinstating the Gaelic language along with English.  Or look at the Isle of Man.  England still firmly holds that island, and the people are happy, like British dominion, do not cause conflict with the rest of the UK, and are currently trying to bring back the Manx language in everyday affairs.  Declaring Inuktitut (with the syllabary) an official language of Nunavut in Canada has gained the Canadians increased peace with the Inuit peoples of their northern regions.  Even in the US, bilingualism is helpful in areas.  Look at Hawaii.  In Hawaii, Hawaiian is an official language, and is a mandatory course in public schools.  Last time I checked, we’re not currently battling the Hawaiians within our borders.  There are also plenty of regions in this world where a lack of official bilingualism is causing a conflict.  France has seen this with their homogenizing of France under one language, where they now can’t deal with minorities (i.e. the Muslims) who don’t speak that language.  Spain and the Basque country are cases-in-point.  Language is the greatest tool in cultural identity.  Spain’s attempted eradications of the Basque language in the past is then also a stamping out the Basque culture, which is where we again find the repressed and antagonized scenario mentioned earlier, and minorities become hostile.   The same fate awaits the US if we try to make English the official language. We will see minorities across our nation — the various Native American tribes, the legal and illegal Mexicans, the aforementioned Hawaiians, the Inuit of Alaska — take offense and rise against it.  In conclusion, having English as a lingua franca is great, requiring it as a language of most businesses if fine.  But to try to stamp out all languages but English is a Pandora’s Box waiting to be opened.

Ryan

P.S. Can you tell this issue really irritates me?? ;-)

DUSTY’S RESPONSE TO RYAN (VIA LEN)

Dear Ryan,

Your grandfather (and my friend), Len Carrier shared your reaction to our “Border Wars” exchange, and I struggle to find words sufficient to express how much I admired your thinking, your analysis, and your extremely prodigious (I don’t want to patronize you by calling it “precocious”) writing skills.  It seems our educational institutions aren’t failing us in America altogether. 

With your permission, I would like to post your thoughtful criticism of my previously-expressed views advocating a monolingual America, in regard to immigrating Mexicans, alien and otherwise.  In responding to you I may conclude, when I finish, that I’ve composed something worth sharing with our web readership; I’ve already concluded that your thoughts warrant publication.  We have created Democratswrite.com to serve us as a clearinghouse and on-line “think tank” for the exchanging of ideas on matters of domestic and foreign policy.

So here’s my reaction to your offering:  You are obviously a serious student of history and social order. I am not motivated even to  question your statements regarding the things you say about efforts in other countries and times to bi-lingualize peoples. History is a great teacher, and that’s one reason learned folks admonish us to either study it or risk its repetition.

But some cultural phenomena become skewed when you consider them as “transplantable” templates.   For axiomatic example:  We Americans love our dogs and include them in our families as beloved, if  inarticulate, members.  In Hong Kong, dogs are “cao” and frequently serve as coveted entrees at the family dinner table. (I made the mistake of accepting  a cruel quantity of precious canine flesh a few years back and will never forget the aftertaste and memory when the joke on me was disclosed.)

Ryan, America is not Canada; it is not the Balkans. We (unlike they) were once a united and very prosperous and powerful mono-lingual country.

We have dysfunction wherever we have language dividing us. Our colleges teach in English; we enjoy our movies in English; we read our news in English; we write one another…as now…in English.

 Honorable native Americans never in fact “sold” Manhattan to our early European settlers.  Those noble savages came to the bargaining table and accepted gifts of valuable specie in return for the “purchase” of that now invaluable real estate when, in their language at the time, there was no known word for “ownership” in reference to land.  The noble savages who inhabited and hunted Manhattan and neighboring islands felt themselves to be a part of the land.  If there had been a shared language among American aborigine and European immigrants, a mass slaughter and myriad tragic “Indian wars” and inhumane forced genocidal migrations might have been avoided.  But our forefathers “didn’t have time” to master the language of America’s original inhabitants and hence dealt with them accordingly (savagely).  

Now we’re the natives. By hook and historic crook, times have changed.  There are now 300 million of us. We are not Canada. We are not the Balkans. We are not a nation (e.g. Iraq) composed of disparate (and naturally antithetic or warring) peoples politically composited by the fiat of foreign and remote  power politics. 

Until recently, the U.S. was the strongest nation on earth.  One of its strengths was its “E Pluribus Unum” popular modus operandum .  French, Irish, English, German…peoples from all over the globe swarmed in at our new-world beckoning and dived into the melting pot; parboiled themselves voluntarily in hell’s kitchens until the mongrel American emerged.  You and I. English-speaking Americans.

When the smoke of that cultural conflagration cleared, the masses selected English as their common language.  America evolved into what the Balkans…make that the rest of the world was not…a federation of united states where everyone could speak to everyone else. This perhaps more than any other single factor accounts for our strength and our success throughout our brief history.

Did this shared language end all ethnic stressors among America’s diverse population?  Of course not. But it made it possible for everyone to communicate their commonalities, their differences and their essential business matters mano a mano…and without the need (and disability) of a paid translator or  plodding resort to foreign language lexicons.

Ryan, you and I are having this wonderful exchange for one reason and one reason only: We are both masters of the same language. Try an imagine your task if you were trying to debate me in Spanish.

When I VISITED France one summer long ago, I studied the language before I went. Had I planned to reside there, my mastery would have been much greater.

In the Bible’s Old Testament, there’s a story of Babel’s tower.  Old stories passed through centuries carry the strongest messages. When people speak divergent  tongues, there is social/cultural/political chaos…and occasional mayhem.  

In your contending that the Balkans, and diverse cultures of Canada and other “Balkanized” countries survive in their respective states of lingual diversities, you are talking about the Balkans and Canada, etc. In every case you are hoisted on your own petard. If Canada was forced to go to war as a people, its linguistic diversity would be hugely counter-productive.  The fact is, most people in Canada speak English (along with their ethnically-“native” languages).

Your pointing to England’s separation from Ireland on the basis of language is, I’d say, less than determinative of our issue. England and Ireland’s problems are, as I’d say Canada and the Balkans,  Apples, tangerines, and grapefruits to America’s orange. America’s strength, as I see it, derives from far more than its prior, consistent mono-linguality.  But its mono-linguality I think is part of the foundation of  her success as a nation.

And I think you may have overlooked a part of the thesis with which you took issue. I don’t personally know of anyone (including myself) who has championed the idea of forced mono-linguality.  I think it would be just fine if Mexicans spoke fluent Spanish and English.  I simply insist that, before they become citizens, they should learn English.

My reasons for so insisting stem from experiences you have perhaps not yet encountered as a student.  I am a lawyer. In American courts (which I daily attend and observe) when an illegal Mexican immigrant commits a crime, it costs the State of N.C. ten times as much to arrest, try and convict him because he must be supplied a bi-lingual interpreter every step of his criminal adjudication.   Add to this the additional fact that they are committing, per capita, crime at 2 to 10 times the frequency English-speaking residents are, and you see the problem is compounded.

Let me offer you a few more capsules of analogical (to Balkans, Canada and other multi-lingual countries) distinction.  Illegal Mexican aliens are not “Balkanized”. They are not geographically concentrated in our country so as to constitute and manage an independent sub-cultural “micro populace”.  They live among us.  Our irresponsible dollar-driven corporations hire them in spite of their language disabilities, and as a result, their disabled language status adversely cripples their abilities to do their jobs and, as a result, competence at all levels of American society is dwindling.

Example: I just got back from enjoying an evening of music and dining with the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in our capitol.  Ruth Ginsburg got me a room at the Plaza State hotel. I arrived late (just past 12PM) but was up until 3 AM because there was, literally, no-one in the entire facility who spoke English. They made serial errors in denying my credit card account;  charging me for a parking space they could not provide; searching for a fax they could not locate because it was located in a safe in a package labeled with a transition instruction in English (to the hotel desk clerk, a foreign language). The letter was my engraved invitation (and admission) to the Supreme Court function. 

When an illegal alien is run over in the street, he will often die, not  from the impact, but from his inability to say “I am allergic to sulfa”, or “I have type O blood”, or “I have diabetes”.

Corporations now charge us increased prices for everything we purchase because everything we purchase has bi-lingual packaging and instructions.  

Saying that bilingualism causes little dissent in China carries no merit in the argument that bilingualism in America causes waste, confusion, and in some cases death.  Across the board it causes the antithesis of cultural assimilation and creates dysfunction on every level of social function from inability to read menus and road signs, to inability to relate vital data to healthcare and police authorities.

If I concede that bilingualism is not often—anywhere—“the” cause for dissent, I will never concede the reciprocal:  that shared language is not the best preventative for dissention  (all forms of social dysfunction among foreign—only–language speaking immigrants and their indigenous hosts).

This could go on forever, because, as most “social issues”, the layers of complexity are onion-like.  You can peel downward to new layers seemingly forever.  Intelligent reference and allusion to similar (but not exact) problems in other countries and times can skew our thinking. 

When there are many complex angles and possible solutions presenting themselves in regard to a given problem, I like to bring out Occam’s razor…. “The simplest  solution is probably the best.”   Here I believe Occam’s razor cuts our ignorance down to the core admonition:  “When in Rome, do as the Romans.”

When you come to America to live, learn the language…before you come. Up until a very few years ago, most immigrants felt so fortunate to be allowed through our gates they considered learning English a privilege.  We still offer free lessons to willing illegal aliens in most state-run trade schools.  They don’t want to bother. They want to protest being threatened with deportation when they have entered in violation of our laws. They want to march in our streets under the protection of our Constitutional rights to due process of law and free speech, and they want to sing our national anthem on such riotous occasions in Spanish while waving the flag of Mexico, a foreign country.

Please. Give me a frigging break.  “Spanglish” is a fairly enjoyable movie, but in reality, we are an English-speaking country.  If you want to become part of our great country and culture, learn the language and knock politely on the front door.  We’re the natives and you (Mexican aliens) are the new-coming would-be settlers.  We’re not going to sell you Manhattan—or even Texas- for a few pesos…not even a dozen Taccos Bellagrandes.

A parting thought, Ryan. Picture yourself three years from now. You’ve decided to take a sabbatical from college and see what the working world is like. You get a job hanging steel on the Freedom Building…replacing the old Twin Towers.  You like it up top where the view and inherent risks are  thrilling and the pay is double because of the risk.  Your job is riveting the major I-beams on the top floor as it rises to the sky (like Babel’s tower).  Behind you, as you work is a guy running a crane which swings the new beams over your head as you sit, facing the other way with torch and hammer in hand.

One sunny day the guy in the crane hasn’t hoisted his 12-ton load of swinging bars over the level of your head, and pendulous death is on its way towards making final contact with your plastic-hated cranium.  The guy watching your back says to you, “Esquivar, Ryan!”  Instead of ducking, you turn to ask your friend Pedro what the hell “Esquivar” means. 

Now you know why God gave us that potent little parable about Babel’s multilingual tower.  I personally think there may be something far scarier and more dangerous even than the terrorists who took down our Twin Towers in Manhattan in 2001 screaming “Allah Achbar!”   That would be the man running a steel-loading derrick on the construction site where they’re replacing the felled towers screaming “ Esquivar, Ryan!”

Thanks Ryan for the careful thoughts and passionate communications. Words are the only tools of our amazing human intellect. A language which is foreign to us is simply…not our tool.  Every day I am grateful if and when someone gives me cause and occasion to think and to write.  Today I’m thankful for you.

Best regards,

Dusty

PS: Please send me your full name, address and where you attend school, so I can post it in the by-line to your fine policy essay.

RYAN’S CONDLUDING REMARKS:

(and by-line)

Mr. Schoch,

    Thank you for reading my argument, and taking the time to respond to it as well.  You may indeed post it on Democrats Write, or wherever else you’d wish to use it. For the By-Line, use:

Also, I would like to express my gratitude for your answering my comments in earnest, and not being condescending or half-hearted as people (adults) often are when addressing someone of my age.   And, I would like to thank you for your kind comments in the opening paragraph of your response.

    On the issue we were discussing, may I send along a response-to-your-response, if you will, which I give you full permission to publish as well (It follows the line break after this paragraph).  This was taken from a letter I sent my Grandpa, so you may wish to omit the parts that refer to him, or the parts that refer to you in the third person.

    I like Mr. Schoch.  He forgot one part of my argument, however, which was that English should DEFINITELY be a lingua franca for our country.  Peoples that can’t communicate at all can’t be hoped to coexist perfectly.  I just think making English “official” and thereby making the minority languages “unofficial” and therefore “not as good,” “unworthy,” and even to a certain degree “unclean” is not a good idea.  I’ve known (through school) several people who speak English as well as anyone, but whose parents do not (often because they are working on it, but it is hard to learn. Notice they made sure their kids learned, though).  I’ve also known people who speak English just fine, their parents speak it just fine, and yet they choose to speak Spanish (or, as is the case with some I know down here, Vietnamese) in their home-like and around their community.  These are both legal and illegal people I’ve known.  So to force English as official, and thereby strip these other languages of any sort of status, is unfair to people who try to learn English to become Americans but still want to hold to their ethnic roots in private life, or around their community.  It violates the “equality” our country is supposedly built on.  Going back to my China example, most of those minorities speak Mandarin along with their language. They have to to get by.  But with Chinese promoting of “official” status to their respective languages, those people no longer feeloppressed by Mandarin.  So in the end, we have similar ideas, but different approaches. I think stamping out Spanish (or Vietnamese, or whatever) is wrong.  I think giving them a lesser status is wrong.  I think, personally, it wouldn’t hurt the average American to quit thinking, egotistically, that English is THE language, and learn one or two others.  But in the end, Mr. Schoch is right.  Immigrants who come and exclusively speak Spanish are a problem.  His, and others, method of fixing it, however, leaves something to be desired.  I think the problem need not be solved in laws against the language, but in perhaps persuading business to be less willing to hire Spanish-only speaking workers.  How that can be done I only have ideas, but not being an economist, I’ll not be so pretentious as to voice them.  I just know it is possible.  In the end, I say don’t try to solve the problem (Spanish-only speaking immigrants run amok) by creating more (angering both legal and illegal Spanish speakers, as well as any other minority language in America, by denouncing their language).  Besides, there is the utmost of likelihood that, like the Basque, to use one of my other previous examples, trying to lessen the status of the language will only make those who speak it speak it more vehemently, and with less willingness to compromise.  Anyone can see that this is a bad course of action.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to listen to me, and for responding as well,

Ryan

P.S. If you find any typos, or see any place where you feel sentence structure could be improved, feel free to change them.  I would ask if you could send me any revisions you make before you publish them, though. (As much for my own enlightenment as for screening purposes)

Ryan Kampert will soon be sixteen (!).  He resides in Panama City, Florida and there  attends Rutherford High School (where he is an International Baccalaureate scholar) as a sophomore.   

His grandfather, Len Carrier, is understandably–and understatedly–quite proud.

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“Nothing makes allies like a common enemy”… or so they say.  That rule may well ring true in the case of the issue of illegal immigration in the United States.  If we allow this issue to become a political ping pong ball for Democrats and Republicans to bat around to garner votes, we’ll all wind up losers by trying to appease our resident and voting LEGAL immigrants, who for the most part will all be endorsing some form of amnesty for resident illegals.  

Democratswrite.com grants exceptional welcome to Republican writer, Steve Bryantas we republish here with his permission his conservative views on and remedies for the problem of eleven million illegal immigrants in our midst. (Steve is a High Point businessman, guest columnist for the High Point Enterprise,  and counterpoint commentator in our website’s archived article, “Neo-Contentions – Including the Neo-Con Corporate Frankenstein Monster”, March 6,  2006) .

Ranting And Raving In Puerto Vallarta

     Anyone who remembers Richard Burton’s character in the film Night Of The Iguana,as he drove a busload of terrified tourists through the hills above Puerto Vallarta should have a reasonable idea of my appearance late in the evening of the first day of my recent vacation there.

     When I awoke the next morning, I hadn’t a clue of where I was or, how I got there. But as I held my head and felt the crusted salt around my temples, it all came crashing back to me, like the kiss on the end of a wet fist. Later that day, I was told that the owner of a restaurant where I had eaten had insisted on bringing several rounds of complementary tequila to show his appreciation for my business. This scenario was the reason that I stopped drinking liquor nearly ten years ago. You see, I found that each time I drank it, most hosts would request that I not return.

     But Puerto Vallarta turned out to be a great place to vacation. Although it wasn’t a place where folks around here would choose to live, it was full of friendly, employed people who seemed to be very happy. Everyone who I asked about any possible interest in moving to the US looked at me like I was crazy. But, 200 miles away is the city of Guadalajara with 6,000,000 inhabitants, 95% of who live in dirt floor poverty that is the result of ignorance, lack of any birth control efforts, and the rampant corruption that pervades every aspect of Mexican life. Those people are much more representative of our south of the border neighbors who are illegally entering our country, by the thousands, every day. And while there are several other happy places in Mexico like Puerto Vallarta, they are the exception, and inhabitants there give the other Mexican citizens the bum’s rush, for the same reasons that we should.

     They’re desperate, they want out and they intend to come here. This is what should be done, in order of urgency:

1-Re-evaluate the right of citizenship for simply exiting the birth canal on US soil. When our law enforcement personnel break laws while pursuing those engaged in criminal activity, then the resulting evidence is disallowed in court as “fruit from the poisoned tree”. What’s the difference here?

2-Enforce our existing laws.

3-Deploy our military to the southern border today, and stop the illegal entry of foreigners, now.

4-Arrest, and deport, ANY illegal immigrants caught breaking ANY law in this country, beginning now.

5-US businesses caught knowingly employing illegals should be fined $10,000 per occurrence, and those responsible should be sentenced to jail for a mandatory 90 days, per occurrence.

     The preceding five measures will freeze the problem where it currently stands. Then:

6-Construct a barrier along the entire border and, equally as important, provide enough personnel to patrol and secure the barrier.

7-Stop all US Government financial assistance to illegal immigrants.

8-Say NO, to amnesty and “guest worker” programs. Why reward criminals with citizenship, and give them parity with those who came here through the legal process? The FBI can’t even find those on their “most wanted” list. How will they locate the “guests” when their time is up? (Also, see suggestion #1)

     If there was ever an issue for which to vote for the candidate rather than for the party, then this is it. If you’re representatives vote to diminish your birth right in any way, then throw the bums out in November.

Thanks, Steve,  for the creative and sound thinking and proposals. Just remember that if proposals like yours are to prevail, the first bum we’ll need to throw out would be Bush. Shame we can’t do it in November.

Dusty

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 A polite and civilized, but genuinely “at-odds” dialogue between two concerned “independents” on the question and handling of the Illegal Mexican Alien issue, which is rapidly becoming the most important political hard-ball in domestic play today. In this exchange, Professor Leonard Carrier* challenges our foreign policy Editor, Dusty Schoch to defend his position that illegal Mexican Aliens (all 11 million of them) should be treated as felons.

PART I – Len Opposes Legislation

(In a letter to U.S. Senators)…

Your message was sent to the following recipients:

Your U.S. Senators

I’m writing to urge you to oppose the immigrant punishment bill scheduled to come before you this week.

The bill, which focuses ONLY on harsh enforcement and heavier penalties, does nothing to address the root causes of our immigration problems. Making felons out of millions of undocumented workers is just not a workable solution. As I’m sure you’re aware, the House version of the bill also punishes humanitarian organizations that try to prevent migrants from dying of thirst in the desert, and conference negotiators could easily slip this provision back into the final bill at the last minute. Other provisions under discussion –- including requirements that churches verify the legal status of anyone to whom they provide assistance –- are equally troubling.

Please oppose the immigration punishment bill, and take the time to come up with a more workable and less punitive solution. I look forward to hearing from you with your views on this matter.

Part II

Dusty’s response

Leonard,

I haven’t studied this bill much, but the media-shown sight of thousands of illegal aliens assembling—en outlaw masse–to protest U.S. governmental enforcement of the laws they broke when they illegally entered the country and continue to violate as they waive sign and shout,  sort of made me say- Aren’t things a little topsy turvy in this picture?

The temerity of their massive assembly and protest to me smacked of crumbling civilization…. Too many criminals to enforce the law. Sure we were slow in coming out of the illegal-entry ether.  Once upon a time Mexico was a tolerable place to live and there weren’t so many MILLIONS of fiscal refugees.  We’re slow to catch up on most problems. That doesn’t make illegal entry either smart or tolerable or good.

Mexican aliens, because they’re illegal, stay huddled, separatist, ignorant, and mono-lingual in sub-cultural camps.  Their initial fraud of entry breeds a web of successor criminal frauds in forged SS#’s, ID’s and fake drivers licenses that enable them to drive and crash into you and me with uninsured , very old , very heavy automobiles.

 They’re afraid even to come to me at the legal aid clinic I conduct (free) in our homeless shelter.  They’re afraid to attend English class at the local (free) trade school for the same reason. The only place they feel safe in is their 1/8^thbedroom space in the suburban ghetto where 6 families park their uninsured trucks in the front yard of their 1500-square house, their Mexican “hole in the wall” point of pathetic refuge, where they dream of saving enough dollars to bring in the rest of their over-expanded families from M-City squalor. They don’t attempt birth control here either, and you and I are paying the birth bills, because our hospitals, like their employers, won’t/can’t say no to the opportunity for more low-cost labor and tax-supported charity healthcare.

 I’m for literally enforcing the naturalization laws that exist…on the books today. America is way over-populated, can’t feed its own native poor, and is below 30^th among civilized nations in health care.

The objection that it will “make felons” out of hundreds of thousands of “felons” is specious, it appears to me. Because we were lax in enforcement the past 10 years doesn’t make our present enforcement wrong. The law (new) of course can’t be enforced in every instance. We don’t have that many courts or immigration officers.  But even when your main femoral artery is torn on the battlefield, you do what you can to staunch the flow. You apply the tourniquet and do your best.  The law proscribes. It’s the tourniquet.  We may still lose the leg, but we may save the body in the process. And the other leg, in that altered process, might not itself suffer a lesion that exposes us to a compounded risk of bleeding to death.

A first (perhaps  preferred) line of remediation would be to punish, under existing laws, employers who hire illegal aliens, just for the bucks. They are guilty under the existing law. They are outlaws again shielded from prosecution by the “virtue” of their numbers.  

In my mind, there are two groups of modern day slaves that are bringing America to its indolent knees:  the slaves in China and India who’ll mostly die trying to emulate Western-level consumer madness, and the enslaved poor (trans ethnic, trans racial) in our country that see foot-soldiering in Iraq preferable to being homeless and jobless on the streets of our dying democracy, a democracy waning  from the greed of its moneyed/fascist/corporate/Republican, let’s-export-America-because-it’s-economically-expedient oligarchy. If we rid ourselves of our resident aliens, we’d be ending at least one form of slavery, and forcing their country’s of origin to take care of their own and their indigenous and perennial problem…over population.  In the same process, we’d accelerate the necessarily inevitable  process of industry and labor’s getting back together to find a way to staunch the flow of jobs and labor dollars to even poorer workers’ exploiters abroad.

What specifically don’t you like about the proposed bill?  I  think 700 miles of fence is hardly enough.  I think we should put our dollars in rounding up aliens’ employers and deporting them. This corporate exploitation of  aliens is melting our melting pot.

While we were becoming the hybrid mongrel of nations, strong of back and fang, we were still endowed with enough E Pluribus  collective wisdom to insist on a common native language.  Your last batch  of breakfast cereal likely came with bilingual bios of the Chiconic slugger who steroided himself onto history’s  pages and cereal’s box tops. The old rules are good rules: Before you naturalize, you speak and write the language.  The corporate mongrels would give up our language and our economic stability and our criminal control systems…for consistently easier bucks…until consistently easier bucks inflate our capitalistic American dream derrigible til it floats into the galactically  glutonnous ether. (Wrong word: ether connotes solvency.)

Educate me, professor.  

March 28, 06

PART III

LEN’S REJOINDER

Thanks for your thoughts, Dusty.  I’m against the immigration bill as written by the House mainly because it would make “illegals” guilty of a felony.  Under present immigration law, their undocumented entry into the US is a civil offense, not a criminal one.  Hence, if they’re found they can be deported without any sort of trial.  If we make them felons, then, in effect, our law officers would become agents of the Immigration Service, and our criminal courts will be flooded with cases. 

    Of course, I’m in favor of trying to enforce the laws we have on the books.  But those laws are not working–not to our favor, and not to the favor of the undocumented immigrants that arrive here.  Not to their favor because, as you say, they live among us in fear of deportation, many with no health insurance, drivers licenses, and without funds to get back to their own country.  And even if they were able to return, there is no work for them there, thanks to NAFTA, which has broken the Mexican farming industry.  Not to our favor, because without “illegals” working on our farms, our farmers would not be able to make a profit, because they can’t pass through upgraded costs to the consumer.  (If they could, then the food on our tables would rise considerably in price.)

    I almost hate to say this, but Bush’s idea of guest workers, a limited amnesty, and an easier path to citizenship is not a bad one.  Senators Kennedy and McCain have also worked out another plan that drops the felony component of the House’s bill.  But there are no easy solutions.  No matter how big you build that wall, desperate people are going to try to get a way to feed their families. Homeland Security would have the task of policing this wall, and we all know that they are not capable of securing their own offices. This is not the United States of fifty years ago, when immigration reform wasn’t needed.  Today it is needed, but the House’s simple “law and order” solution will, to my mind, only make things worse. What’s needed is a way to integrate these workers legally within our economic system–give them a chance to work and strive for the American dream, or at least to send back money to feed their families. 

    I usually don’t disagree with you on much, but I think we need to find a way to bring liberty and justice to all–including those who happen to be the undocumented aliens who live among us.

    All the best, Len

PART IV

Dusty’s response to Len

Dear Len,

Thanks for the thoughtful, provocative  and considered response. You gave me considerable pause, and much to consider. Here’s what I (still) say:

You say you are in favor of enforcement of the laws that exist, but you oppose subjecting aliens to criminal prosecution and deportation as “felons”.  I see no reason we can’t do both. Giving U.S. authorities the option of proceeding criminally and/or civilly to accomplish deportations of extant  and deterrence of future illegal aliens seems a capital proposition. When officers arrest the alien on felony charges, he’ll be subject to release if he goes peacefully back home. When he’s brought in the second time, there’s no trial. He’s violated probation (banishment) and goes to jail. The criminal “back up” consequence is for deterrence and is invoked/prosecuted only for the incorrigible. We need desperately to stanch the flow of alien entry and residency in our country and the old “civil” process alone is clearly not working.

Look to the East, my friend, at our former ally France. Letting their immigration gates swing open, they’re facing social mahem.  The newspapers called yesterday’s protests, riots and marches (March 28), involving over 3 million youths… “about labor law”.  That of course begged the issue. The fact is one out of five Frenchman is now Islamic, most immigrants of recent entry. The influx of people has resulted in unemployment across the board in excess of 20 percent. We’re next. Workers being imported; jobs being exported. Consider the math.

Two things have us hell-bent in America for replicating the French disaster, now moving toward anarchy with alarming momentum.  First, our neo-con corporate profiteers have exported a substantial segment of our blue-collar careers to China and other third-world slave labor camps. Second, replacements for the missing labor in the lower ranks of the service  industry (primarily insulation installation, agricultural harvesting and roofing) are  30-percent Mexican.  Greedy American businessmen  have self-servingly succeeded in resisting enforcement of immigration laws.

At present, one in 30 “Americans” is an ILLEGAL MEXICAN ALIEN. That is an abysmal number from the law-enforcement and social stability standpoints. That’s not counting their American-born (and under the law “citizen”-status Mexican/American children).  Over 14 percent of the entire population is Chicano; With a soon-to-be accretion of 6,  we’ll stand with the French, with every one in five of us having more ties with a culture and country… south of the border.

America, Len, is no longer “the land of opportunity”.  These swarms of immigrants bring to my mind that dark, god-awful scene in “Zorba the Greek” where the aging French “madam” is dying and the native old harpies who were her envious  less-affluent neighbors are teeming in and out of her boudoir carrying off her treasured trousseau and memorabilia while she lies agape, gasping  her final breaths and  grimacing at the canabalism of her invaders’ rites of passage and acquisitions by default.

We’re next. Here are some stats that should stun:  There are 12 million illegal Mexican aliens in the U.S.  today.  In California there were 1.4 million in 1990 and 2.5 today; in N.C. in the same period the number has jumped from 25,000 to  395,000, a 16-fold increase. In all, America has over 30 million foreign-born residents; that’s one in ten of us.

These people are not joining our culture. They are setting up their subcultures within us. Parasitic rather than symbiotic. Adversity as opposed to diversity. They won’t attend free language classes for fear of detection and deportation. They will not be amalgamated into so as to evolve with diversity the “American Dream”  because they enter under and remain in a marginalized “hole-in-the-wall” ghetto subculture. Because they are illegal aliens in our midst.

Ashville, N.C.,  is one of the  most beautiful cities in America’s mountains. It’s the place wealthy Floridians have their “summer homes”.  Len, as a resident of that beautiful city, can you tell me how many houses in your immediate neighborhood—say of the nice 2500-square foot variety—are presently housing 6 Mexican families? –That is about 20 to 30 people inside with 5 to 7 pickup trucks in the front yard because the 2-car garage is  too full of exterior  dining tables, deck chairs, smoking grills and ceramic cheminee’s  for warming the extended families outside during the perpetual family reunion?  In case you haven’t guess it, I just described the situation in my neighborhood, 5 yards ( and driveways)  from where I presently sit, and write.

The value of my 4500-square-foot ancestral home is presently, and ipso-facto, a joke.  And I do laugh a little at the poetic justice, consoling myself with the self-sanctioning symmetry of it by saying:  “It’s what you deserve for hanging on to that huge environmental Albatross  in the first place.”  But tell me the truth, Len: Would you want to live in Tiajauna?  O.K., then would you want Tiajuana transplanted and accreting  next door?  And in the bargain, neighbors who will never, ever , speak English?  The fact is “illegal aliens” inside America have little to lose. They can only be deported. So why not do illegal things until that push comes to shove?…things like driving without a license or insurance and saying to hell with single-family housing laws, I want to move in this great house and share expenses with my 26 cousins. We can afford it.

Len, somewhere between the insulation of your mountain retreat and the insult of my “Mexican Border standoff” in the urban foothills of N.C., there’s a place to reflect dispassionately and note that America as a whole is in trouble with its burgeoning Mexican subculture and population. We are as a nation already over-populated. That fact alone supplies us with all the reason we need to close our doors to immigration, legal and otherwise.  The melting pot has melted.

The affluent countries of the world are but “enablers” and accomplices to irresponsible over-populating nations and cultures when they let down their gates to   population over-flow. There was a time when emigration from overpopulated areas of the world, such as Asia, India and Mexico might have been symbiotic and efficacious for both countries, but it was never good policy from the global environmental standpoint.

When a population within a given territory expands beyond its resources and borders, the population should restrain itself. When overgrowth of  tissue in the human body occurs, threatening the life of the whole, we call it “cancer”. When it happens among the human elements of our living, unitary and finite  global ecosystem, we euphemize it “overpopulation”.  When a “cancer” migrates in microcosmic man, they term it “metastasis”;  When it happens in our global macrocosm, it’s “immigration”.

Where is the needed “sanction” for inhibiting overpopulation when one country can simply export its unemployed needy surplus population to another?  As earlier postulated, unfettered immigration amounts to “enabling” the globally-dysfunctional process and producers  of uninhibited population growth, and cultural irresponsibility in regard to birth control and conservation of finite resources. What these reproductively-irresponsible masses have done in their countries of origin they will continue to do in our country.  The statistics of the exponential expansion of Hispanic population in America confirm it.

As a depressing bottom line, what’s happening in France today as a result of the unimpeded influx of refugee immigration from the calamitous cauldron of the Middle East is destined to happen in America with Monetzuma’s retarded revenge. The 12 million illegal Mexican aliens are not assimilating in America; they are a growing, fuse-glowing time bomb in her bosom and loins and the process of their further invasion needs to be fixed.

The problem of the illegal Mexican alien is converted to conundrum by the bloc-voting political power of the legal Mexican immigrants. Both political parties want to avoid alienating the Hispanic voters, who are 100-percent polarized in favor of some form of amnesty, and any form of compromise that will keep their illegal family and friends from being deported. 

I say end the Mexican political standoff.   Fix the broken borders.  Mend the fences of the Rio Grande. Give a Marine escort to these southern encroachers back to the halls of Montezuma.  Guard the border lines with the soldiers presently engaged in losing the theocratic war now in Iraq.  Put a life-saving tourniquet on our country’s bleeding boundaries …or prepare to contend with the riots and cultural mahem presently threatening to crumble the foundations of the French Republic.

And let’s do it quickly. Before we complete our nightmarish rush to replicate the history of the Roman Empire.

Best as always my learned and considerate friend,

Dusty

To be continued ….

PART  V

PREVIEW OF  CONTENTIONS TO FOLLOW:

PREVIEW TO LEN’S SIDE…

One thing I do want to mention now, though, has to do with your concerns about our losing our national character by having more Latinos living here.  About ten years ago, I attended a guest lecture at the University of Miami given by a demographic expert.  He showed that we were definitely becoming more Latinized, and that soon there would be a majority of people living here with Hispanic backgrounds.  But the lecture had nothing to do with illegal aliens.  It was just based on demographics.  I don’t think that this is such a bad thing.  I lived in Miami during the great influx of Cubans into South Florida.  Mama and papa might not have learned English, but their kids did.  The Cuban influx helped turn Miami into the vibrant city we have today.  I also find it ironic that all you have to do if you’re a Cuban is to set foot on U.S. land and you get asylum; whereas Mexicans are to be hunted down, deemed felons, and turned back. That doesn’t strike me as being a fair and humane policy.  (MORE LATER)

PREVIEW TO DUSTY’S SIDE…

I’m not opposed to diversity.  I’m proud of my mongrel cultural heritage and DNA.  I detest the integration of bi-linguality  and bi-culturalism  in America. The separateness sucks. It’s not the melting pot that brewed the American spirit. It’s two separate pots on an archaic, increasingly- under-heated and under-tended, single-burner stove, each vying for space over the flame. A national, cultural hell’s kitchen.  Chinatowns are bad ideas…every time and every place. Festering places for fringe criminality and aberrant everything.

 We have too many people in the U.S. now, Len. We are overpopulated. Our overpopulation–with our habits of energy and other consumption–adds to the urgency of our closing our gates to barbarians aspiring to become worse…American-Class Consumers. Forget the legal vs illegal issue.  We need to close the gates to all but those who can help save us from us. German scientists who will help rehabilitate our GM-EXXON mentality with wind-powered energetics. As long as we “adopt” the bastard refugee children of over-populating nations, those nations will continue to over-populate, under-develop and under-conserve.  We’re a support system (enablers) for the addiction (unguarded sex) that’s killing the world. Unfettered human sperm is the doomsday WMD.  Plutonium can’t hold a candle.

There is no environmental problem that does not have as its essential primary cause, human overpopulation. Even nuclear arsenals and waste have at their roots men’s struggles over limited earthly territory and resources.   Australia …even China of all places are doing positive things about it. Immigration is an ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE FIRST.

Please address this in your next response so I won’t be the lone ranger ranting on that most important aspect of the immigration problem. My basic tenet for preservation of life on earth is re-establish borders as a barrier to overpopulation. When a given territory starts losing human lives (thru starvation, disease contagion etc.) because humans have reproduced themselves to a point their space can’t sustain, that’s a problem that warrants quarantining as if it were  the most virulent  disease pandemic in earth’s history…because it is.

When a tsunami hits, send volunteers.  When a people begin to starve because there are too many of them eating from the same garden on the island, send them a life raft.  Drop the raft from a jet airplane at high altitude in a position to drift to the shore of the island. Fill the raft with a generation’s supply of contraceptives.

Despite what I seemed to imply above (re “hottest issue”), immigration and global warming are karmic (causal)  cousins. (MORE LATER)

*(Dr. Leonard Carrier received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Miami in ’56 and ’58, respectively, and his Ph.D from Stanford in 1967.  He taught at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia and the University of South Florida (Tampa) before spending the rest of his teaching and research career (29 years until 2000) at the University of Miami. )

Robert R. (Dusty) Schoch is an attorney, inventor and writer (novels, essays, screenplays) living in High Point.  BA (English) degree, UNC Chapel Hill,  JD (law) U. of Ala., Tuscaloosa.  Dusty is founder and scribe of the B.E.A. (“Barristers et al”) a N.C.-based, politically-independent foreign policy think tank. He is also co-editor (foreign policy) of Democratswrite.com through the contact link of which readers are invited to correspond with him.

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