Wild in the streets

Comes today the news that the immigration/border issue is once more a headline, as thousands of protesters have taken to the streets again. Many of these people are illegal immigrants, emboldened by the government’s total failure to take any sort of meaningful action to close the border. Please note that I say “government” here, not “the administration”. Securing our borders should be a national security issue of bipartisan concern. Instead, Those People are doing their best to politicize the issue, and use it as a launching platform for more attacks on President Bush. Hearing the She-devil of The Usual Suspects saying something disingenuous about the new immigration bill “criminalizing Jesus” was particularly insulting to this little Christian marsupial. But then, considering the source, I have to ask myself: “Did you expect anything better?”

As for President Bush, I am crossways with him on this issue. I like President Bush. Elected as a sort of caretaker for the office in 2000, Mr. Bush has grown into a real leader since the events of 11 September. He has a good heart, and a moral steadfastness that is sorely lacking among most politicians, especially Those People. That being said, I must stipulate that support for a politician does not, and should not, imply suspension of the thought process, denial of perceptions, and blind obedience to whatever edicts may conform to the party line. The border should be closed. Period. This notion of an amnesty for the invading horde of the reconquista, euphemistically disguised as a “guest worker program”, is ludicrous. What is more ludicrous is the fact that preceding administrations, both Republican and Those People, have ignored illegal immigration for the last thirty years. There were plenty of laws already on the books dealing with illegal immigration before this new, controversial bill. The problem is that no one was enforcing those laws in any meaningful fashion.

The president today is saying that illegal immigrants should not be seen as a threat to the nation’s identity. That raises some questions with me: If, as the president says, they’re here to share in the American dream, why are all these protesters waving Mexican and Salvadoran flags? If they’re serious about wanting to be part of the United States, and will even take to the streets to make this known, shouldn’t they be waving American flags as they march?

Don’t even think of making a comparison here with people from Dixie who still fly the Confederate flag. Our flag was long-ago hijacked by Klansmen, skinheads, Nazis, and other human filth. Numerous court challenges by Sons of Confederate Veterans have not resulted in even one restraining order against the desecration and misuse of the Confederate battle flag—which, by the way, should properly be displayed in square, not rectangular form. We true Southerners fly our flag to commemorate our heritage, and the sacrifice of our ancestors. If folks from El Salvador, Mexico, and other places want to display the flags of their national origin for the same reason, then by all means, do so. The white trash who appropriated the Confederate flag as a symbol of their racist rubbish have ruined its meaning in the minds of many people in America. When you have thousands of people taking to the streets in Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, and elsewhere, waving Mexican flags and screaming that they have a right to stroll across the border as they damn well please, it looks more like an invading army than concerned citizens and people fleeing poverty and oppression in other lands. Will those ubiquitous Mexican flags come to symbolize something sinister and unworthy, as the perversion of the Confederate flag has come to stand for?

I still think ICE—which now incorporates the old Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS]—is missing a good bet with these demonstrations. With between seven and eleven million illegal immigrants already in America, those demonstrations should be cordoned off, and every participant should be checked for personal identification, and/or a green card. I’m not saying the demonstrations should be suppressed; all legal citizens of the United States have the right to speak their minds in the public square. That’s what this country is all about, which is why people are dying to get here from the rest of the world. Just as the protests must be peaceful, and possibly require municipal permits to take place, certain fundamental rules must apply. The same is true of immigration. The notion of lawbreakers, and their enablers, marching in the streets to protest enforcement of the laws they have already violated is mind-boggling.

7,000,000 – 11,000,000—lots of zeros, huh?

If a family of illegal immigrants somehow climbed Scorpion Hill and showed up at my door, I’d bring them in, feed them, and let them hide in my basement apartment until they got organized and could find a place of their own. That’s called humanity; not hypocrisy. I’d also advise them on the best way to apply for legal citizenship as soon as possible. When they left to join the prolific Hispanic community in this area, I’d wish them well, and admonish them that I am not running a station on the modern Underground Railroad, so, no references to your friends, por favor. So I violated the law against aiding illegal immigrants; so what? A case like that is a “What Would Jesus Do?” moment. The cynical employers of illegal aliens, who can arguably say that they’re “helping” the immigrants through exploitation by giving them jobs at substandard wages, are the people who ought to be going to prison, not the parish priest who gives sandwiches and coffee to the innocent. I trust that, for the most part, the enforcers of the new immigration laws will be able to discern between doing what’s right according to the law, and doing the right thing according to decent moral precepts.

The crux of the matter is national security. Some sinister individuals have already been apprehended along our borders. Their motives for sneaking across were dubious; not the straightforward desire to flee the corruption and poverty of our neighbors to the south. Let us not forget that the chap who sought to celebrate New Year’s Eve 2000 by detonating a bomb at the Los Angeles Airport [LAX] was caught trying to cross the border from Canada. There are miles of tape and film footage of groups and individuals crossing our southern border. It may sound melodramatic, but one has to ask: How many of these distant, murky people caught on tape are terrorists of one sort or another? How much anthrax or VX gas can you fit into a single backpack? Atomic demolition munitions [ADMs]—the so-called “suitcase nukes”—have existed since the late 1950s, albeit under strict military control.

In 1993, a high-ranking member of the Russian Mayfia offered to sell a small nuclear device to an undercover ATF agent. Vast quantities of conventional weapons, purloined from the disintegrating Soviet military, had already been purchased by the BATF in that sting. In 1996, another member of the Russian Mayfia, nicknamed “Tarzan”, was arrested while arranging the purchase of a Soviet submarine by a Colombian drug cartel. Smuggling was about to reach new heights, so the feds dropped the hammer before the deal was completed. I am not making this up; I saw it on The History Channel.

30,000 nuclear warheads still exist today. Most, but certainly not all, are under the control of Russia or the United States. Seven countries officially belong to “The Nuclear Club”: America, Russia, Britain, France, Pakistan, India, and Israel. Argentina, Brazil, Iran, North Korea, South Africa, and Taiwan have active nuclear programs, and are knocking at the door. Readers here are intelligent enough to do the math and figure the odds on something Very Bad happening in the future. It’s not a matter of “if”…it’s a matter of “when”.

If any of the components and/or participants in this coming mega-9/11 are found to have crossed into America across our wide-open border, that Mexican flag waving so proudly today may indeed come to stand for the kind of evil which is associated with the old Confederate battle flag.

To paraphrase the late, great Ronald Reagan: “Mr. Bush, build up that wall!”