St. Pete Times & the Border-Jumpers

The St. Pete Times on Sunday had a frontpage article by Mary Spicuzza that told one and all very explicitly how to break the law. Matter of fact, the story’s tone almost made it sound heroic to commit an unlawful act. Maybe next week the good folks at the St. Pete Times will favor us with a nice story that tells us, step-by-step how to make, say, methamphetamine. This week, however, they were content to tell us how to violate customs and immigration law and, believe it or not, attempted to evoke pity for those who died while violating our country’s laws.

We all know the Times never met a liberal cause it didn’t love, but somehow an American newspaper championing the cause of a group of lawbreakers, U.S. lawbreakers at that seems wrong. Of course, were these the 1930s we’d expect the Times to be championing the cause of the Nazis because they were attempting to overthrow the oppression of the Kaiser, but that’s another topic.

Spicuzza tells the story from the point of view of the Zavaleta family’s women. The men are off jumping the Mexico/U.S. border, an internationally illegal act which she attempts to portray as some sort of heroism. She also tells of one member of the family who died crossing the border illegally. That’s sad, but it’s no more sad than Al Capone being shot dead in a theatre marquee. Criminals sometimes die and most of us think they deserve what they get. After all, there’s not much sympathy for the burglar who is torn apart by the guard dog who is guarding the place the burglar is attempting to burgle, now is there?

Spicuzza tries to justify the illegal border crossings because of economic necessity. She uses an example of the U.S., thanks to NAFTA, flooding the Mexican market with cheap onions, thus putting the Mexican onion farmers out of business. Get real Mary or, better yet, go talk to a Texas farmer about Mexican market flooding.

Of course, we’re taking to task the poor, downtrodden, St. Petersburg Times to make a point: There is no glory in breaking U.S. Immigration law, any more than there is glory in breaking any other of our laws, and that includes the ones against murder, fraud and elderly abuse.

One of the reasons border-jumping is wrong is that it violates our national sovreigenity. It is as if we’re being invaded when, in fact, we are. One of the things the government was worried about during World War II was something called the Fifth Column. It was a buzzword for something worse than spies. It denoted organized groups of foreign elements who actively worked against the U.S. government. In case you haven’t been paying attention, folks, those immigrant marches and protests two weeks ago – that’s your Fifth Column in action in the 21^st Century.

But I digress. Spicuzza’s story leaves us in suspense over the fate of the wayward Mexican border crosser. Did he live? Did he die? Did he fall into the hands of the Evil Empire? Stay tuned.

Arjay

Amigo, you should have figured there was a piper to be paid when you took to the American streets in your thousands to demand your 'rights' as undocumentated, illegal tresspassers into the United States of America.

All those miles you trudged , waving your banners, telling us how much you liked our country while all the while you were propping up the Mexican economy with the dinero you were shipping back home by the bale has come back to bite you in your tight bracero pants.

That's the price you pay for picking poorly your activist roll models. The likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpeton might be overraught in their rhetoric, and they may stand in the head of long columns of loud, uncouth, demonstrators. But there's one little difference: they are here legally

So is it any surprise that the immigration folks, seeing so much prey, flaunting their illegal status so blatently, that those folks with guns and ciffs took some action, albiet late, to round up the lawbreakers who were thumbing their noses, en mass, at the very laws the ICE folks are sworn to uphold.

The rhetoric of Sharpton and Jackson is a monotone.....freedom for the racial dispossed. a call for the black man to take his rightful place, yatta ta yatta. These black dudes display their ignorance. Their constituants aren't the sons and daughters of slaves. There is no historical imperative to give them equal rights with all americans.

No, the new constituency --- mostly mexicans -- are here as economic refugees. Nobody made them come here in shackles Nobody held them in bondage or sold them like wheat or cattle. No, these folks came here to work hard for a while so they could take as much American dinero to their home country where they could live like kings in their depressed econmy. Better yet, while they're here, they bleed this nation with their skyrocketing birth rates and impositions on our public healthcare institutions.

It is indeed time to call a halt on this rape of the nation. These folks need to be rounded up and sent back from whence they came. The plea that no American workers will take their jobs in the fields is nonsense. Yeah, we might get blacks working those fields and then, maybe, just maybe, Messers Sharptopn and Jackson will have a pulpit to pitch from, but not until the current problem of sneakthieves that have invaded our country are sent packing back across the border --- waay back across the boarder.

As for the bleeding heart liberals in Congress who want to mollycoddle them in exchange for their votes --- they can be sent packing too in the mid-term elections.

Finally, if we really want to see what's gone wrong we only have to listen to our president when he rants, "i'm the decider here. I decide what's right and wrong." Are these the words of a dcmocratically elected president or are the those of a misbegotten despot? YOu decide.
Arjay

Chief Barnes, Are You Listening?

A story in Friday’s New York Times has an interesting headline, "Path to Deportation Can Start With a Traffic Stop."

Here’s the URL for the story, so I won’t have to repeat all of it: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/nyregion/14jails.html?hp&ex=1145073600&en=16ab5da5a53003f4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

What it says is, basically, that local police are taking it upon themselves to do the job of the Immigration Service, which admits it’s undermanned and overworked (and what federal agency isn’t?, just ask ‘em.)

The point here is that local cops really are the point men and women when it comes to putting people in jail. John Ashcroft never arrested anyone.

The other point is that the ‘illegal’ in ‘illegal alien’ is just as much an illegal act as any other illegal act, like, say, burglary, fraud or trespass, and the job of a cop is to enforce all the laws, not just some of ‘em.

As it stands now, whenever Chief Barnes, or one of his men stops anyone for anything they ask the dispatcher to check for wants and warrants. How hard, with a little cooperation from the Feds, would it be to check immigration status as well?

The reason the immigration laws worked for so many years was because of fear on the part of New Americans that the knock on the door wouldn’t be the preacher, but the immigration man instead. That fear has gone away mostly because we haven’t enforced the laws and because the present wave of immigration stems from an illegal act itself – scaling a fence that says "Keep Out."

I’m normally a big proponent of curbing police powers, especially when enforced by bumpkins and yahoos who should be behind a plow, but when things get so out of hand that the illegals can and do take to the streets demanding their ‘rights,’ then it’s time to give Billy Bob the hammer.

Arjay

Interesting Times

Here’s the good news: Tallies for the election on Tuesday show the 538 people who bothered to vote really studied the Charter Revision proposals.

Here’s the bad news: The fate of the 7,575 registered voters of Zephyrhills was decided by the 538 people who bothered to go vote.

Here’s the bottom line: Citizens get the government they deserve. If you didn’t vote then don’t think you have a right to complain when the city does things you don’t like.

Now for the painful stuff: I was wrong. I predicted to both Molly Moorhead of the St. Petersburg Times and Nicola White of the Tampa Tribune that due to the length and complexity of the Charter revision questions the electorate would simply vote NO on everything because that’s what people do when they don’t understand things.

You, the voters, surprised me. When I was in my polling place there were two men, both of an age, huddled over a voting machine to my left. One was voting, one was helping. The helper read the question then explained it. He explained it so well I felt ashamed of the cheat sheet I had prepared and which I consulted as I filled in the yeas and nays.

The numbers tallied speak to exactly that. On Question #1, dealing with the Preamble showed 346 yeas and 155 nays with 37 voters not voting on that question. It’s that last number that tells the tale. Only 37 folks were confused enough not to have an opinion. In election parlance those non-voting electors are called ‘undervotes,’ but we know what it means. If there were widespread confusion we’d expect the undervote numbers to be substantial. They weren’t. Thirty seven was the highest, 15 the lowest. Overall, all of the Charter revisions passed, thus making my predictions to the two reporters worth exactly what they paid for them – nothing.

Voters returned Celia Graham to Council in the only contested race. They did it by giving her exactly 100 more votes than they gave her the last time she ran – unsuccessfully against Dan Burgess.

It’s hard to say what the new Council lineup will do, but as the ancient Chinese curse reminds us, "may you live in interesting times."

Arjay

They Have Rights Back Home

The New York Times, in a Page 1 article wrote,

"In rallies that appeared to be exceeding the expectations of organizers and the police, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters marched today in more than 100 cities throughout the country, casting off the old fears of their illegal status to assert that they have a right to a humane life in this country."

I beg to disagree.

Illegal immigrants to the United States have a right to a humane life in their own country. They have no rights in the country they, admittedly, have entered illegally. The only right they have here is to be deported.

Imagine this, if you will. You, an American citizen, slipped into Germany with no visa, no papers, no nothing. You stand at the Brandenburg Gate beating your chest and demanding your rights as an illegal entrant into Germany.

How long do you think it would take before you were in a jail cell?

How much longer before you were on your way back home?

Is America crazy, or what?

During these huge rallies were are the Immigration and Naturalization officers? Seems to me the pickings would be pretty good, or maybe these officers are sworn only to enforce some of the immigration laws.

I repeat. Is America crazy, or what?

Stay tuned for the next episode of Immigration Loony Tunes.

Arjay

They Would Be Shocked

Seldom do I write notes to my congressperson, in this case Ginny Brown-Waite. Usually my Congress notes go to a prep school classmate who, somehow, got elected to Congress years ago and has made a career of it.

However, and, yes, dear reader, there is always a 'however,' the recent nonsense about illegal immigrants and their 'rights' prompted me to pen a little screed to Rep. Brown-Waite. It's a little tale about my great grandparents' immigration and I'd like to share it with you.

RE: Immigration debate

When my great grandparents, all four of them, came to this country from Wales they didn't try to sneak across the border. They were upright and straightforward and they did what the immigration laws required. It would have never crossed their minds to do less than what was required of them to comply with the laws that governed them as immigrants. They did everything this country required of them and became productive, law abiding citizens.

It is with this family background that I have to question the current immigration debate. I wonder if we're living in some strange parallel universe when folks who admit to blatently breaking our immigration laws stand before the TV cameras and demand their 'rights' as Americans. As I see it, if we are a nation of laws, then the debate can only begin when those laws are complied with. That means the illegal immigrants need to go back home, wherever that may be, and begin the process anew; just like my great grandparents did.

There may be some merit to the argument that the illegals are doing jobs no American will do. In the case of my family the job opportunities were in and around the anthracite coal mines of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Yes, these were the jobs the Welsh immigrants did, but they didn't use the argument that they were doing dangerous, hard, dirty work as justification for violating the law.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo seems to be speaking out on the immigration issue and he seems to be making sense -- obey the law, and if you're here illegally you need to go back where you came from.
I'm sure if my great grandparents were still here they would be shocked that any group, immigrant, ethnic or racial would dare make the argument of descrimination if they were first and foremost lawbreakers.

Sincerely,
Arjay Morgan