Monday, October 03, 2005

Give Me Your Well-Rested, Your Middle Class, Your Single-Child Families, Yearning to Breathe Free...

While I was shaking my booty on the treadmill today, I saw a rather peculiar TV ad on the television (everyone knows that running is so much better when you can let your mind turn to mush). It was paid for by a group known as letfreedomring.com, and with a name like that, you know there's some sort of conservative agenda being pushed. Anyway, the commercial was actually advocating for the construction of a fence on the southern US border with Mexico to, "stop people from walking across our borders into the United States".

(Warning...rant is about to follow)

This is the most hypocritical thing I've heard out of the mouth of a conservative since our President last called himself a "uniter...not a divider". The people forwarding this agenda are not concerned about our nation's security. We've had an open border with Mexico for...oh...the last 229 years, and not one terrorist act against Americans on US soil was perpetrated by anyone crossing the border from Mexico. The only conclusive evidence anyone had gained of a terrorist attempting to gain entry into the US across a land border was from Canada, and you don't hear these guys calling for a big cement wall keeping those militant French Canadians out, do you?

Let's suppose for a moment that Osama Bin Ladin did want to get more operatives into our country...and he probably does. Did the last thirteen crawl their way through the Arizona desert to get here? No...we let them in through JFK International Airport. These guys do want to hurt us and are probably plotting how to do it right now, but they have money and an ineffective immigration system waiting for them at every major US airport. If you were a terrorist, how would you prefer to get into our country?

This is racism, pure and simple. Maybe the folks at letfreedomring.com don't realize it, but they are scared of Mexicans, or more generally, Latinos. Wrapping it up in a blanket of national security doesn't change what it really is. Why is it exactly that we are limiting the immigration of Mexicans into the US? Honestly, if someone is willing to risk death in the desert to get here, I would think they would be pretty motivated to work hard and be a part of their new country. I support a guest worker program and eventual citizenship for every Mexican, and every human, for that matter, who wants to come here to make an honest living and a life for themselves. We have plenty of room - have you seen Kansas?

This country has been sustained for over two hundred years by the back-breaking work of immigrants. It sickens me when some in our society still try to blame our problems and fears on them.

Pricks.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with you 100%! Well done!

12:06 PM  
Blogger exMI said...

"We've had an open border with Mexico for...oh...the last 229 years, and not one terrorist act against Americans on US soil was perpetrated by anyone crossing the border from Mexico"

Not actually true. Go back in time a bit and read of the raids by Pancho Villa. In today's terminology they definately count as terrorism.

Still, the fence is a pretty foolish idea.

3:15 PM  
Blogger Marty Stroodler said...

OK, I guess we'd have to discuss Pancho Villa, but that would be more a discussion on the definition of "terrorism" than border security. Technically, George Washington was a terrorist, or maybe "insurgent" fits him better. In today's terminology, everything seems to count as terrorism. Thank God we'll have Harriet Miers on the Court now to protect us from them.

4:03 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home