The Immigration Debate
OK folks, whether you support the illegal immigrants or not, please, stop using the pathetic arguments concerning the European immigrants who came over and started Jamestown or came over on the Mayflower. Did they come over illegally? Maybe, but that’s a different story. You see, that was 400 years ago (give or take a few years), back when we rode horses around, died when we were 50 years old of some disease like mumps, and you were lucky if you got to bathe weekly. Perfume was invented for a reason, not just for dates.
You see, times have changed. We all used to be hunter-gatherers, peed in the same streams we drank from, grunted to each other, and lived in caves. Now we don’t generally do that. Though actually some people do still live in caves and grunt and whatnot (and if we believe the GEICO commercial there are still cavemen), but enough about Arkansas. For the most part we only do these things for recreation and instead live in climate-controlled buildings, drive in our climate-controlled cars, pick up our dry cleaning and latte, then drive to work, and then work in our climate-controlled offices.
In the United States we have been trying to limit immigration for more than a century, whether that be anti-Asian immigration from the 19th century or limits on Southern European immigration at the turn of the 20th century. We even turned away Jews before World War II took off. So, before you argue that there didn’t used to be illegal immigration, just remember that there didn’t used to be nuclear weapons, dirty bombs, automobiles, AIDS, free speech, human rights, computers, skyscrapers, iPods, TV, radio, HDTV, broadband, telephones, teeth whitening, modern medicine, metal boats, or Britney Spears.
Now, most of the illegal immigrants are Hispanic, but it’s not really an ethnic thing. Remember 9/11? How many of the terrorists were illegal immigrants? They may have entered the country legally, but if they stayed past their visa, then they are illegal. And there are plenty more people here that way. We even have illegal Canadian immigrants, and I say kick there maple leaf asses back to the land of hockey!
In the end, it isn’t about race, or history. It is about laws. And we are a country with a great tradition of laws that everyone likes to espouse. Whether we champion the 1st Amendment, the Endangered Species Act, or the 19th Amendment (women’s suffrage) we all are saying that we have laws and we expect people to abide by those laws. Otherwise, what’s the point?
And for our elected officials, please remember one very important, crucial thing about the illegal immigrants: They can’t vote! I can!