The immigration debate is really not a debate at all

The Tucson Weekly ^ | 6 April 2006 | Tom Danehy

[axes_of_weezles]

PUBLISHED ON APRIL 6, 2006:

Danehy

The immigration debate is really not a debate at all

By TOM DANEHY email this author Richard Pryor did a bit about pimps on cocaine who spoke in disjointed, run-on sentences. He concluded that these people "talk all the time, but don't be sayin' shit!" So it has become for what passes for the news business these days. With the proliferation of cable news outlets and the explosion of talk radio, there is, paradoxically, less hard news than ever. And don't even talk to me about blogs; to the best of my knowledge, blog is an acronym for "blathering lengthily on generalities."

Somewhere during the past couple of decades, our national attention span shrank to zero, and what used to be debates were reduced to frantic exchanges of pithy slogans and calculated sound bites. It reached its zenith when proponents of abortion rights realized the inherent power of the word "abortion" and wisely steered clear of it. But it got so bad that they had to contort themselves by referring to their philosophical opponents as being "anti-pro-choice."

Now, all of a sudden, it has been discovered that a whole lot of people living here shouldn't be (or, depending on your point of view, should be, and we shouldn't be), and the dirty little secret is out in the open. Alas, public discourse on the subject has quickly degenerated. Here are some of the sound bites in what passes for a "debate" on the immigration issue.

We are a nation of immigrants. --countless talking heads

Technically, only about 10 percent (a surprisingly hefty number) of the people currently residing on American soil are immigrants; the other 90 percent were born here. Certainly, almost everybody in this country is descended from immigrants, but all that does is make us a nation of people who are descended from immigrants. That's not all that unique. Unless you live between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and can trace your lineage back 2.8 million years or so, everybody's ancestors came from someplace else.

This is not an amnesty plan. --President George W. Bush

Oh, it's an amnesty plan. It's pretty much the same one that President Ronald Reagan disappointed his core constituency with 20 years ago, and it's the same one at which President Jon Bon Jovi will shrug at and then sign into law 20 years from now.

I don't know what the big deal is. They used to own this land. --Anglo woman being interviewed by KOLD Channel 13 during a rally at Sen. Jon Kyl's Tucson office

The woman appeared to be too old to have gone to a charter school, but her tenuous grasp of history was shocking. I'm not really sure what her statement means. Parts of Italy once belonged to Africans who rode in on elephants. Do modern-day descendants of Carthaginians therefore have a right to show up in Florence and demand citizenship and a full slate of rights? For that matter, "we" used to "own" Cuba. Can we just show up in Havana and make that argument? Probably not.

Humanitarian aid should not be a crime. --sign at a rally

No, it shouldn't. But how about giving a ride to someone you know broke a law that's on the books (even if you don't like that particular law), because that person was really, really thirsty? Should that be a crime? If everybody gets to decide each case on their own, just throw open the border, cut out all the hypocrisy and start a shuttle service. But if you're going to willingly engage in civil disobedience, you should at least be willing to spend that night in the Birmingham jail.

I'm doing this for my country --high school student featured in front-page Tucson Citizen column

Um, yeah, exactly which country is that?

How would you like to pay $1.50 for a head of lettuce? --activist warning of "severe" price spikes if the cheap migrant labor source dries up

What are you talking about?! I paid $1.29 last night at Albertsons. When's the last time you went shopping for food? Personally, I'd be willing to kick in that extra 21 cents for the knowledge that a head of lettuce hadn't been picked by some foreign guy who risked his life to get here just so he could be dicked over by some giant agribusiness corporation.

This is no man's land. --several protesters gathered at the federal building

At first, I thought they were referring to Aztlan, the mythical land consisting of that part of the United States that used to belong to Mexico and/or Spain. But after I asked a few of them, they said that it's more a matter that man is free to roam the Earth, and that borders are artificial constructs, unworthy of recognition or respect. (I paraphrased.)

A giant has awokened. --12-year-old Phoenix resident who walked out of school to protest various immigration bills

You'd better get your ass back to school and hope you didn't miss English class.

[axes_of_weezles]

Even the leftist moonbats are awakening to immigration issues. The Tucson Weekly is a leftist/alternative free newsweekly rag. Recently they have been publishing articles from Leo Banks instead of the atypical leftist moonbat rants. Apparently the moonbats are having issues keepig up with the hyperbole on immigration.

[Travis McGee]

The amount of historical idiocy and fallacies surrounding this subject is staggering, chief among them the "Aztlan" fairy tales. What's the truth? How did the Spanish Europeans conquer the Southwest? The "conquistadores" (that means "conquerers") did it with the lance, and the lash.

For example, in 1541 Coronado entered present-day New Mexico searching for "cities of gold," and one of his first actions on meeting the natives was to burn 100s of them alive in their dwellings, for not handing over suspected horse thieves. That is how Spain conquered the natives of the present US Southwest--not nicely! It was certainly no love-fest between long-lost brown-skinned soul-mates, as it is often portrayed today by the delusional Aztlaners today!

By 1821, Mexico City was strong enough to overthrow even more decrepit and ineffectual Spanish rule. However, the distant provinces of the current US Southwest were far beyond the reach of the authority of independent but strife-torn Mexico. These distant northern provinces received neither military protection nor needed levels of trade from the south.

For example, Comanches ran rampant in the 1830s in this new power vacuum, burning scores of major ranches that had been around for hundreds of years and massacring their inhabitants. Mexico City could neither defend nor keep the allegiance of its nominal citizens in these regions. Nor could it provide needed levels of trade to sustain the prior Spanish-era standard of living.

Meanwhile, a growing America was making great inroads into the Southwest, via ships into California, and via gigantic wagon trains of trade goods over the Santa Fe Trail from St. Louis. The standard of living of the SPANISH in these states subsequently increased enormously, which is why they did not support Mexico City in the 1846-48 war. In fact, the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of the Southwest NEVER considered themselves "Mexicans" at all, ever. They went, in their own eyes, from SPANISH directly to AMERICAN.

So how long did Mexico City have even nominal control over the Southwest? For only 25 years, during which they had no effective control, and the area slipped backwards until the arrival of the Americans. Since then, how long has the area been under firm American control? For 150 continuous years.

And now, we are supposed to let any Mexican from Chiapas, Michoacan or Yucatan march into the American Southwest, and make some "historical claim" of a right to live there? From where does this absurd idea spring?

At what point in history did Indians from Zacatecas or Durango stake a claim on the American Southwest? Neither they nor their ancestors ever lived for one single day in the American Southwest. The Spanish living in the Southwest in 1846 stayed there, and became Americans by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

No current inhabitants of Mexico have ANY claim on even one single inch of the Southwest!

They are criminal invaders and colonizers, pure and simple.

[axes_of_weezles]

Tucson Bump

[cripplecreek]

Some of the most liberal people I know are vehemently opposed to illegal immigration. It wasn't always this way but they're realizing that it's not about humanitarian issues or jobs.

[Tzimisce]

The reason they want to be here is because of the social spending - cut that off and they'll all go home.

Their cries for a separate nation are a joke - welfare, social security, food stamps - they'll all dry up without John Q Taxpayer.

[Borax Queen]

Thanks, Axes!

[umgud]

All that you said is moot. They will at least, rule via the ballot box, CA and most likely other SW states in the not too distant future.

[rolling_stone]

the great southwest united states would still be a sewer full of crime and corruption if it belonged to Mexico. It is not just the infrastructure but our laws and enforcement of those laws along with it being governed by the people instead of the elites is what made it different from Mexico and made it great. To bad our elites can't see our country is headed in the same direction as Mexico, governed by a few elites, mass poverty, crime corruption, briberyetc...don't enforce our immigration laws and we become a lawless Nation of lawless people...hasta la vist America..

[Mr. Mojo]

Here are some of the sound bites in what passes for a "debate" on the immigration issue:

"We are a nation of immigrants." -- countless talking heads
"This is not an amnesty plan." --President George W. Bush
"How would you like to pay $1.50 for a head of lettuce?" -- activist warning of "severe" price spikes if the cheap migrant labor source dries up

The author forgot the big one: "They're doing jobs Americans just won't do." - GWB

[seastay]

The idea that we are a nation of immigrants is misleading because more people have been born in this country and lived here as full blooded Americans than the total number immigrants who came to this country ever.

Immigration averaged only 235,000 persons per year prior to the disastrous 1965 Immigration Act. That's only 47 million immigrants over the course of our nation's history.

Compared to our current population of nearly 300 million, that's not much. And then, if we add all the people who have lived before in the United States, we are approaching a billion total Americans who live now or who have lived .

[Moonman62]

Even the leftist moonbats are awakening to immigration issues. The Tucson Weekly is a leftist/alternative free newsweekly rag.

I wondered why their were profanities.

[backhoe]

I have been psuedo-blogging, for years, a couple of the elements in WWIV ( III being the Cold War ), in which we find ourselves engaged.

The first element?

Islam, a Religion of Peace®? ( links, blogs, quips, quotes, aggravating pictures ) is located here- click the Pic, and scroll backwards:

The other, somewhat interlocking element is this one:

"Thunder on the Border," click the picture:

That infamous"Mexican Flag Superior, American in Distress" is in the upper left corner...

[axes_of_weezles]

See what his feelings about President Bush are here:

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/opinion/Content?oid=oid:64798

He's a regular on PBS friday evening talk shows and a RAT.

This paper regularly berates the Minutemen, yet his opinion this week sounds like he is one of them.

Talk about hypocrites.

[Eastbound]

""They're doing jobs Americans just won't do." - GWB"

Okay, let's send them to Washington, D.C. Maybe we can get them to enforce the immigration laws that our own politicians won't do.

[seastay]

Good analysis, pointing out the nation of Mexico had only a 25 year claim, to the southwest.

Even if it were more, or even if Mexico could claim the the majority of their citizens were descendant of the southwest Indians (which is not true), and if it is abount an inheritance to the land they are up and in a fuss about, then why is it they are not marching to reclaim the desert that was left behind, instead of claiming infrastructure that followed that was financed , designed and built by people whom most are not even related to?

Why don't they march for return of the grandparents tumbleweeds

instead of trying got rob infrastructure that was built by the rest of the world, that doesn't belong to them ?

[alloysteel]

The welfare perks and the anchor babies - that is what gets them established in the first place.

Take away the "anchor baby" clause - The child born on our soil, of foreign parents, is not automatically a citizen. The child has PREFERENCE for entering the US as an adult and THEN applying for citizenship, after submitting to an examination of knowledge about the US Constitution, US history and English language. A formal petition would have to be entered while in the home country.

And the welfare perks - vastly reduced over the strenuous objections of Ted Kennedy in previous years - no longer available to US citizens without a "workfare" qualification, should similarly withheld from any immigrant who came to this country on other than political asylum grounds. There are many diverse ways of collecting on this mounting public cost, perhaps by imposing a designated payment on those persons who hire these itinerant workers.

It is obvious that the governing powers of Mexico have a conscious and active policy of exporting their hordes of poverty-stricken individuals, so could we not insist on a stipend for each of them from the Mexican government? Say, so many barrels of oil (which Mexico apparently has in great abundance) for each migrant that crosses in the US? The proceeds from the refining and distribution of the petroleum products would be designated for the social costs of supporting all these migrant people.

What would be the best solution, is for Mexico to assume the costs of raising the standard of living for its lowest economic strata, to the point where crossing into the US, with all its attendent woes for the migrants, is less attractive than staying in place in Mexico.

This may require a vastly overhauled economic order in Mexico, which by all objective standards, is a country well endowed with a wide variety of natural resources, and even some of the infrastructure necessary to construct a modern industrial society. China only a generation ago was vastly more backward than even Mexico, and the world can see clearly what a shift in priorities of monetary policy and fiscal management has done for them. And China is still very primitive in these accomplishments. But they do concentrate on educating and applying the skills of their people.

[Spirochete]

Left-to-right, left-to-right. Short, controlled bursts!

[backhoe]

Short, controlled bursts...

Trigger control, vs "spray & pray."

[Jim Noble]

Why don't they march for return of the grandparents tumbleweeds instead of trying got rob infrastructure that was built by the rest of the world, that doesn't belong to them ?

Because people with an average IQ of 90 or less cannot create modern cities - they can only take them.