Replies

You mean like Texas? I’ve lived there most of my life and I said earlier I have held your position for most of my life as well.

Okay, then (and not to be ofensive) it seems to me that the illegal immigrant activists have met with some success when it comes to their arguments and your morphed views on this matter.

By your intimation, your views on this matter have changed. Mine have not. If anything they have solidified on roughly the position you stated you used to hold. In my respone, I'll explain why.

I am not talking about the low-lifes that come over here and are looking for an easy ride or worse. I’m talking about people whose one crime is that they came here, and live here without going through the proper channels. Yes, it’s against our law but how criminal is it?

Does it rank on the level of murder? Not for me, but perhaps we should ask the victims of the murders, rapes, and other serious crimes being committed by these people. And while I have used the generic blanket context here, it is in fact legitimate because of the flood of peope who came here illegally, and thereby enabled the bad to come with them. Every illegal therefore bears some degree of responsibility for what THEY USHERED IN. You didn't do it. I didn't do it. Other U.S. Citizens for the most part, didn't do it. THEY did. Every illegal that came here, enabled the bad players to do what they did after getting here.

They are not just simple innocents. They are enablers. They were and are the destroyers.

Thirty years ago the San Fernando Valley was a white middle-class bastion of middle-class America. It was a vast community of thriving businesses and Americana, if you will. Today there are still some pockets of this but by and large the 3.5 million middle class people who lived there, were replaced by 3.5 million poorer people from Mexico and Central and South America. Places where I and other middle-class people used to shop and do business, are now occupied by retailers who have changed their sineage to Spanish. At night it isn't safe for me to travel into areas where I used to be safe at all hours just thirty years ago. The housing in the region has gone down. Van Nuy's boulevard looks more like Tijuana every time I drive down it. Frankly I don't drive down it because it's so demoralizing to see what the L.A. City and County, State of California, and federal leadership have ushered in here. While it's not third-world level conditions, it certainly isn't the first world conditions that used to be present there. Some of these streets with high palm and fur trees were extremely nice years ago. Today old whacked out cars line the streets, shopping baskets line the sidewalks, and the buildings that can't bear the rent they used to, evidence disrepair and an expanding ghetto-like status.

Portions of West L.A. have seen the same thing happen. Areas that were beautiful just twenty years ago, two story recently painted and well kept up multiple family dwellings, now have cracks in their walls, no grass, paint worn off, shopping baskets on or near the side-walks. We're not talking about a few blocks here and there. We're talking about miles upon miles of urban blight.

Let me ask you this:

Let’s say Obama were to succeed in making this the United Soviet States of Amerika and most of our freedoms were hampered and there was no hope for ever making enough money to support your family. Then let’s say Canada was a free nation and you really wanted to take your family there but so did everyone else. You find out it’s a 15 year wait and meantime, your kids have very little to eat and you have no way to get them the medical care they need nor the decent education to succeed. Would it really be evil of you to sneak your family into Canada and try to be a hard worker and provide for your family? Sure after 20 years of you living there Canada could throw you back to the Soviet States and say you are nothing but a parasite. That would be within their rights. In reality though you were trying to make a life for your family not be a leach.

Exept that leachdom is undeniable exactly what they at least in part actually achieved. They caused a heavy burden on our health care. Citizens services were cut back as a result. Facilities and equipment was negatively impacted because an extremely large population base couldn't pay their own way. Manpower, equipment, infrastructure, services including emergency services were cut back. Los Angeles lost seven trauma centers in about 15 months a few years back. Why? Because the illegals were too prevalent, and those facilities couldn't continue to take a loss and keep their doors open. What happened to the services available to citizens? Those services no longer existed. In those areas, citizens unfortunate enough to desperately need quick medical intervention, could no longer get it. The farther you travel when you need immediate care, the more people die. Citizens were dying. They still are. Who comes here to lament their loss as you have the poor plight of the Mexican national? Frankly, not one damned person.

What happened to our schools? Children here who couldn't speak English monopolized our schools. While citizen children sat in their seats reading half the day, the teachers taught English to the children of illegal aliens. The progress of our own citizen children took a back seat to the education of foreign nationals. We couldn't build schools fast enough. About three years ago, the largest single building project in the United States other than Boston's Big-Dig was the building campaign in the Los Angeles Unified School District. We were busy building half a billion (yes with a "B") dollar edifices almost completely abandoned to the children of illegal immigrants, while our tax-paying citizens paid thousands of dollars each year to obtain a private education for their children. This on top of the burden of having to pay for state of the art facilities their own children could never use. Who comes here to lament this negative impact on our children and their parents, their family infrastructure, the reduction in their quality of life? Frankly, not one damned individual.

Who pays for the health care of the children of illegal immigrants? We have opened up clinics in the LAUSD. Children of illegal immigrants get services there, or are gifted with state and federal dollars for services more complex.

We sponsor a massive transit system in Los Angeles. Who rides the buses? A significant portion of the riders are illegal immigrants. Who pays for that? Your gas tax dollars do.

Your health care rates are higher than they should be. The services you get are less than they should be. Your children's access to the schools we all pay for, is non-existant.

Then when people try to bring some sanity to the discussion, folks blame us for being so non-caring. I'll quite being so non-caring when the last dollar is paid on the public bonds that have been taken out to pay for these new schools, are paid off decades from now. I'll be more caring when over 950% of the working age men in Los Angeles can read and write at a functional business level again. Presently that figure is below 50%.

That’s where I’m coming from. They aren’t all just a bunch of parasites, they’re people and their cases need to be looked at individually. Do you disagree?

Frankly, yes. The only looking into that, that needs to be done, is to find the answer to one question. Do you have documentation? If yes, great. Welcome. If not, adios. You are not welcome.

We are swamped. For your logic to work, we would need to open up the U.S. to every poor person on the planet, so they could better their lives here. They all have children. Every one of these cases would be dire. We would be just as responsible for them, as we would the cases of every Mexican and Central and South American that are here now. Otherwise, we could be racists. We can't let on set of people treat us like a door mat, then not let everyone treat us like a door mat. It wouldn't be fair. And of course, that's our ultimate goal here. We must be fair to people who don't care about us any more than to destroy us.

Since when did it become the responsiblity of you and I to aleviate the problems of every other citizen of planet earth, who could find a way to become a destroyer in the United States?

If you want to advocate that our government lower the boom on the Mexican government, and demand they get their house in order, I'm right there with you. The way to better the lives of Mexicans, Central and South Americans is to do it in place in their countries. It is not to destroy the U.S. in order to give them a break.

Doing what you seem to want would wind up doing one thing, destroying us, in the effort to fix them.

I'm not buying in.

Thank-you for your thorough yet respectful response. I understand this is a sensitive subject and I appreciate someone willing to discuss it without getting angry.

First of all, I am in no way for opening up our borders to Mexico, not by a long shot. We need some way to keep more people from coming in here. And no, the illegals have not had success with their arguments, in fact my change has come about more by seeing the vitriol with which so many on our side talk about the illegals. I saw that our anger has turned us (not you specifically) somewhat irrational and certainly unChristian.

I also understand how the flood of illegals has caused a lot of problems for the US. I’m not against sending many of them back either. I’m saying that some have been here for so long and are really good people who are not trying to drain our resources. I’m also saying every person has dignity and needs to be treated as such no matter what we decide to do with them. I don’t think you disagree with that.

You have said that those who come here illegally have ushered in the violence and crimes that the thugs from Mexico have brought forth. In my Canada scenario, if you had gone to Canada with your family illegally along with millions of other Americans, would you be responsible for the murderers and gang members who also came into Canada illegally from the US? I wouldn’t blame you and your kids for those criminals.

I think many illegals need to be deported but not all and we need to start documenting everyone and we most certainly need to secure our borders. Most of all, we need to remember that each of us is an individual and Jesus didn’t say, “Whatsoever you did to the least of my American citizens, you did to Me.” Whatsoever we do to the least of His people...

Again, this is not saying you don’t think that too but I’m saying in general. I have seen such down right hatred for illegals that THAT is what has changed my view. Hatred is not from God.

Anyway, off to Thanksgiving duties so I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Happy Thanksgiving to you!