Posted on 03/29/2006 6:01:46 AM PST by VRWCmember
There's nothing like the sight of 500,000 protesters on U.S. turf, demanding rights in Spanish while waving Mexican flags, to stir Americans from their siestas.
In Los Angeles, the iconic phrase may be "Si se puede," but in Muncie, it's "What the ... ?"
Suddenly, in the flash of a newscast, polite political debate about guest worker programs visually morphed into what seemed like a full-blown invasion.
Demonstrations have the desired effect of focusing attention on an idea - and television cameras can tighten that focus so that a slow drip looks like a tsunami. But the same imagery can backfire. I suspect that the sight of so many people demanding rights to which they have no legal claim will not help the cause of illegals in this country, even if it motivates politicians to act, well, politically.
Let's just say that convincing others of one's desire to become an American citizen would be more effective if one were to do so in English - while waving an American flag. Just imagine how welcome 500,000 bubbas waving American flags and chanting, "Hell no, we won't go," would be in Mexico City.
Now before I'm accused of being biased against Latinos, let me be clear. Yo quiero a los Latinos. I could go on in Espanol, but when in America, I always say, do as the Americans do. Speak English. Otherwise, I'm over-the-top pro-Latino and pro-immigrant.
I grew up in Florida with Cubans as my closest friends, and my stepfather is Mexican - a legal immigrant who came to this country at age 16 to attend medical school.
I am, in other words, an unapologetic Hispanophile.
But, like a majority of Americans who think Congress should secure our borders, I'm a fan of laws and of those who respect them - even though I occasionally turn right on red when the sign says not to.
The question of what to do with some 11 million to 20 million illegal immigrants already living and working in this country may be too problematic for mere politicians. The issue is exacerbated by our refusal to speak plain, non-PC English about what's what. Illegal immigrants are not "undocumented workers." They're illegal. And, if we're to use the legal language accurately, they're "aliens."
Then again, when we talk about illegal aliens, it is useful to remind ourselves that we're also talking about human beings. To see television images of shadows crossing the desert into the U.S. is to see criminals intent on misdeeds rather than poor people, hundreds of whom die each year in the process, trying to find jobs and plenty to eat.
As we've been told hundreds of times, these people do the work Americans won't do, which is both true and not true. It is true that Americans don't want to work for the low wages that illegal workers gratefully earn, but not necessarily true that no American would do those jobs under any circumstances.
Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies (cis.org), says that unemployment figures tell the truer story of how native workers are being crowded out of the market by cheap labor: 11 percent of American construction workers are unemployed, as are 9 percent of workers in food processing and 11 percent in cleaning and maintenance.
"The least educated Americans are getting hurt," he says.
Standing around a Washington, D.C., Metro station the other day, I watched a Latino sweeping the tiled floor. He was one of those people you barely notice - an invisible soul, dignified, unobtrusive - but plainly attentive to his job. I don't know if he's here legally, but I do know the floor was spotless. I tried to imagine any other American doing the same job. A college student? Another minority? Is there really an involuntarily unemployed American citizen keeping warm on a street grate because this small brown man is sweeping the floor of an underground tunnel?
Before I bleed to death or start writing poetry, let me balance this romantic view of the illegal immigrant with another nugget: About 27 percent of all inmates in the federal prison system are criminal aliens, according to government figures. Then again, millions of illegals who are otherwise law-abiding people have lived here for 10-20 years, buying houses, attending parent-teacher meetings and giving birth to native-born Americans.
Although there seems no simple solution to such a complex issue, two nagging thoughts persist: (1) The right to protest was a gift from America's Founding Fathers to the nation's citizens, ergo, non-citizens should protest in their own countries; and (2) the purpose of the legislative branch of government is to pass laws that serve the best interests of the nation's citizens.
Which may mean, No se puede.
Kathleen Parker is a popular syndicated columnist and director of the School of Written Expression at the Buckley School of Public Speaking and Persuasion in Camden, South Carolina.
Although there seems no simple solution to such a complex issue, two nagging thoughts persist: (1) The right to protest was a gift from America's Founding Fathers to the nation's citizens, ergo, non-citizens should protest in their own countries; and (2) the purpose of the legislative branch of government is to pass laws that serve the best interests of the nation's citizens.Well said, Kathleen.
I think this is one of Kathleen Parker's best columns in recent memory.
(3) the purpose of the executive branch of government is to see to it that those laws are enforced in the best interests of the nation's citizens.
People I know who aren't political junkies have reacted angrily to what they've seen the past few days.
Those are the ones McCain thinks will register.
I think the wetbacks' recent demonstrations have done more to hurt their cause, precisely because it "heightened awareness", than they could possibly have imagined.
Of course, logical thought might not be their strength...
That's a good observation even if your choice of words is unfortunate.
Well written:
"I suspect that the sight of so many people demanding rights to which they have no legal claim will not help the cause of illegals in this country, even if it motivates politicians to act, well, politically."
That's nailing it.
I would like to know the source of that statistic. If true we could solve a great deal of the prison overcrowding situation in one fell swoop.
And that, perhaps, is the miscalculation made by the folks who organized these "illegals protests." It's one thing to see illegals in ones and fews, in unglamorous jobs. It's another thing to see 500,000 of them all in one place.
When illegal is right, what is wrong?
That's easy, our elected leaders are wrong.
Fortunately we get to replace them in November.
Finally, I see the figure "20 Million".
All the news suggests "11 to 12 Million...".
Heck, we have a half million right here in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Exactly. They brought the bills in congress to the attention of more Americans.
They will all vote liberal and if you take a good long look at South America, Central America and Mexico you will see what America will become....if we allow them to stay..
You may think you are having mercy and compassion on them but you will be condemning your children and grandchildren to a life of fear and will have sold them out to the NWO...
They will curse you for it...and you will have earned it.
If you wish to be compassionate and merciful to foreigners fine...go to their country and become a missionary or give them your support from home...
Do not force me and mine to rubber stamp your 'mission in life' by bringing them and their bros here or making their multitudes of children US citizens simply because they managed to be born on US soil...
Liberals always force decent people to seem harsh as they have to police up the mess liberals make...then the liberals call them dirty names for their efforts...
We must deport them all ASAP...and then bring them back one at a time after careful screening for crime, education,skills and health problems...
The politicans want to pack them here regardless of their criminal backgrounds for a variety of reasons...votes,cheap labor for their cash cows,and for the anarchy they will create which will garner more and more power and less freedom for we the people...
A power hungry government loves this 'opportunity' to seize even more power and grow even bigger and fatter
The founders new this about people and power and tried to protect us against it...but we must have the will to preserve our Republic at all costs...and we must now do the hard thing in order to survive
And we better do it quickly
Starting with Term Limits for those bass turds in D.C.
imo
How can you take protestors seriously who want to stay in America when they wave Mexican flags?
Actually, "standing around a Washington, DC Metro stations" says it all.
Go to New Hampshire, where, shockingly, you can see white people serving as hotel cleaning staff. Or go to Iowa, where, even more shockingly, you can see actual college students working at a local Hardee's!
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