Immigration Rant

Originally Posted: June 28th, 2007

This was originally written just after the house immigration bill failed to pass towards the end of the summer of 2007. I believe I posted my mood at that point as, "annoyed". Lol. In retrospect, I'll take this opportunity to apologize for the somewhat caustic tone of this note, haha. I also took Lou Dobbs off my shit list, since I've since revised my opinion of the man.

Immigration... Jesus Christmas, are you bloody kidding me? Every other country in the world has some sort of static, functional and serious immigration policy (sure, they're not all GOOD, but at least they have one). Now the fabled Immigration Bill is in its death throes, and every media and political analyst, pundit, and hell, barbershop gossip, is voicing their opinion on it, and they're mostly WRONG. And the politicians? The biggest problem here is that they all have entirely the wrong incentives in the whole debacle - they're the farthest from the truth of all.

But who am I to hold my tongue? Here's my spiel - you may not think I'm right, but I sure as hell am not as wrong as most of these clowns.

To the pundits, analysts, gossips, old people talking in the restaurant I was in the other night: Stop blaming "big government". You can't claim that there's a problem with the bureaucracy when the bureaucracy hasn't even had a chance to deal with the issue yet. There is no effective process because there is no effective policy. That isn't the government's fault, it's the politicians' fault. You have to check the source of the stream before you start trying to reengineer the channel if you want clean water; fix the leadership before the process if you want good policy.

Similarly, quit comparing the job that the government would do with whatever immigration legislation is put in place with FEMA during Katrina and other past botches. You can't corelate a few isolated incidents (albeit, horrendous and tragic disasters) with a total breakdown of the goverment. That misconception is entirely the MEDIA'S fault. Think about all of the situations that the federal government has actually done a good job of managing through either regulatory or response agencies over the years: Fraud. Hurricane Charlie. Inflation and Unemployment. Sure, alot of areas need work, but to say that the government - that the bureaucracy, civil servants, administrators, and that ALL of the processes that are currently in place - have failed miserably, is hyperbolic at best.

To the Media: Seriously, I love you guys. But quit dumbing things down into "Mc-News". If you don't think we're smart enough to eat up the truth, then educate us. Teach us about the processes even if it takes a few extra minutes instead of making such broad and conclusions. The education system certainly isn't doing it. Less opinion, more facts. I don't give 2 shits what Bill O'Reilly has to say about anything, and anyone that does should be DEPRIVED of such an opportunity.

To the Right*: You can't have it both ways. You can't have your corporate buddies benefitting from cheap labor, AND throw all of the brown people out of the country. It just won't work. I can understand not wanting to give "amnesty" to "criminals", but what else are you going to do? It's not like they killed people or anything - if you really want to punish them, have them do some community service as a condition of their good legal status or something. I hate to say it, but there is an unbelievably racist underpinning to these arguments. Kicking illegal immigrants out has nothing to do with prosecuting criminals; it has everything to do with xenophobia in its worst form. Certain people think their way of life is being threatened by foreigners of a different race and cultural background, and want to do everything in their power to keep them from having any sort of power in society. So it's in the right's best interest to make sure nothing happens with that bill: if it passes they have to get over their collective cognitive dissonance (between big business and preserving majority privilege), but if it fails they can rely on States to tighten up the borders while their corporate buddies keep their access to the current huge pool of absurdly cheap labor.

To the Moderates: Grow a pair and pick a damn side! I sure as hell don't agree with everything on any one side of the aisle, but there's never going to be a third centrist party in this country. Optimize and prioritize your issues and join up; all of your naysaying in either direction is just pissing people off.

To the Left: Just because it started in the Bush White House doesn't mean we should beat the every loving crap out of it. The man is running from the hawks in his own party on this one - embrace his offer and turn it into a victory for the party instead of pandering. Being in opposition is a game that needs to be played very carefully - if the Democrats would only embrace this like the opposition in parlimentary systems do instead of trying to stay safe and not take risks, we'd get alot more done.

Which segues into my next point: Start talking about the hard things! Let's not be quiet about race, immigration and xenophobia issues at times like this. Sure, we respond to clarify that we want the criminal aliens and drug smugglers arrested, but we don't argue the point that some of our opponents are trying to implement racist, classist, or otherwise discriminatory policies - we use more "tasteful" language, thereby obscuring our message. We don't call our opponents out when they turn mere talking points into arguments, and similarly do ourselves a great disservice.

I might not have all the solutions, and I might not know the truth; but anyone can tell you how to get a little closer to the truth, once they know what to look for. Sure, there's some stuff wrong with the government, but before they can be addressed, the political will to do so must be present. The government has not broken down; its leadership has. The government has not failed us; the politicians have. Until the political will exists to address the real problems and frankly discuss pragmatic and REALISTIC (you can't ask all of these people to leave and come back, that's just silly - they know you can't catch them, are they really going to leave?) solutions (and until racists either become real, decent human beings), the US will continue to have no coherent immigration policy.

It's not a question of "Americans" having lost faith in their government like the media has suddenly started stating as fact. You check those polls (which are hideously flawed anyway) and compare them to similar ones decades past, and people probably had the same general opinion of the job that their SYSTEM of government was doing. It's not the system's fault that the neocons are too busy playing with toy soldiers in Iraq (and I say this not to do any disservice to the amazing men and women that are fighting over there, but only to poke fun at the Bushies) to treat domestic policies with the rigor that they deserve. I didn't hear of any nationwide referendums, or even serious studies, where they actually asked anyone in the general population about this issue... or any issue for that matter - did you? Did we miss something??? I don't think we did. It's a question of political will.

* Hey! Hey! Chill out! I'm not saying all conservatives are racists - there are many of you that I love like family! My generalizations are really aimed at a select , subtle element, not at everyone. One love!!