posted on May, 19 2010 @ 02:34 PM
One of the things that American history has had a great deal of, is cyclical waves of outcry against immigration -- illegal and legal, depending on
the cycle, but usually mostly legal, until now.
The issues today are partly the same as they were 100+ years ago. It is problematic when people do not speak the same language and governments at all
level need signs, forms and emergency workers who can communicate with the people. I wish I had at hand the $ spent in the state budget of California
for foreign language 9/11 operators alone. It would make you gasp. The cost for printing every imaginable form in english and spanish is shocking too
and most of that is not even tracked.
(Do you know, if you move to Italy, six months in you have to prove you have rudimentary grasp of the language--or they move you out. At least it used
to be that way, not sure if it still is. This is because they considered it impractical if people could not read warning or street signs, talk to
emergency operators or public workers, etc.)
It is problematic if there are limited resources or economic constraints and some groups contribute less than others. "Sheer numbers" are always a
problem even when otherwise the situation wouldn't be. There have been quite the political hissy fits about this several times through the
development of the USA.
Today's world has some additional issues though. 150 years ago when the immigration issue was a big deal, they did not have a government that was
anywhere near as socialized as it is today (the founding fathers probably would have just leaped off a bridge in despair if they'd known the future).
So issues like paying for schooling, paying for medical care, paying for food, paying for housing, paying for every-damn-thing, paying for prison(!!
-- WHY do we pay for prison?? Because our borders are so unsecured if we don't, they'll be back next week. Yet another issue worth mentioning...),
was not an issue then the way it is now.
And, short of issues that led to actual borderlands wars, having organized groups of well-armed soldiers from the cartels at issue were not as common
today, because they weren't so organized then, drugs were not such $ then, weapons were not so available then, and transportation wasn't as good.
So this "outcry from the citizenry" regarding border security and the flood of people into the country is not new. What IS new, is that previously
the cry was actually about legal immigration and limiting the numbers. This time, nobody is even complaining about legal immigration, not at all. They
are only complaining about people here illegally.
The irony is that
a) federal laws already exist about this;
b) some state laws already exist about this (see the CA statute posted in the thread above);
c) Mexico's own laws are vastly more strict/harsh than ours are about the subject;
d) the very word "illegal" implies not only that it is wrong but that law enforcement personnel and even ordinary people/businesses are *obliged* to
not-support such behavior/actions/circumstance;
and yet now it is somehow a major issue that in self-defense, Arizona wants to enforce existing laws. Arizona sees this as a form of *self defense* on
several levels.
To me suggesting they can't/shouldn't do this is as an analogy, like telling some woman she has no right to complain about her husband beating her.
"Hey you didn't complain before, so why does it matter now, just because the situation is worse? You're just sexist and hate men." Maybe sometimes
people just get tired of being abused, you know. (I probably shouldn't use that example since bizarrely I have known of more women-abused-men than
the other way around.)
The situation IS worse and I'm so glad they're doing *something* toward it. Who knows where this will end up, but there are times when something
simply comes to a head and the last straw arrives and no amount of talking, wishful thinking or political BS can sweep it under the rug any
further.
Everything sets precedent. Until now our precedent has been lazy and lax, it has willingly turned a blind idea to illegals in part because
near-slavery was convenient apparently, or perhaps for other reasons I have no way of guessing, but I doubt any of them were truly altruistic on the
Federal government's part. But all the side effects of that have exponentially multiplied into a disaster for the states and finally they *must* as a
matter of caring for their own citizens safety, their state economy, etc., finally do something about it.
Every time I see someone ranting about how it's all about racism I am time-warped back to the last presidential election. It is entirely possible to
be against a behavior or a perspective or a politic without caring about a race. It is also common that some people are recognized by their skin or by
their clothing, such as mexican illegal immigrants, and there is no possible way to wave a magic wand around and make that just-not-so. There are
zillions of legal and/or birth citizens who happen to be hispanic. Nobody cares about that, nobody I know, anyway.
The only issue is with illegal immigrants, of *any* country--but not surprisingly, to begin with, Mexico is the primary focus for Arizona because that
is the only foreign country they border, obviously. Whether Florida and New York and Washington and Michigan want to focus on similar laws will be up
to them. Will people still be screaming about racism when it's Canadians and not (mexicans, cubans, asians, etc.) in focus, I wonder?
RC