I honestly can say that I do not know one person who is against people immigrating lawfully to the United States. Not one. Maybe someone I know is cowed by a sense of social desirability and honestly hates all stinkin’ fur’ners, but right now I honestly do not know anyone who is anti-immigration.
I do, however, know lots of people who are very worried about the rampant illegal immigration occurring on our southern border. I am not even going to leap into the tar baby pits and start a big debate over whether illegal immigrants who act as migrant workers, construction workers, or whatever are a net boon or drain on the economy.
Other people with axes to grind can have their own discussions elsewhere on the issue. Personally, I am right on the fence- part of me acknowledges that the cheap labor is good for the economy, the other part of me understands that this sort of unregulated cheap labor can have a deleterious impact on wage deflation for all workers. But again, that is besides the point.
What is important, however, is that in a post 9/11 world, it is extremely distressing to me that I am forbidden to carry a lighter on an airplane, am basically strip-searched and questioned if I want to fly anywhere, have granted all sorts of new powers to the government regarding warrant acquisitions, have a country that is fighting an actual war on two fronts, yet all the while, there is a several thousand mile GAPING HOLE that you can drive a million terrorists through every year. Or, if you believe the reports, several million Mexicans.
This is a serious issue that simply is not being addressed, and I have no problem when our elected officals make statements like this:
Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and in the United States,” Schwarzenegger said Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Newspaper Association of America. “Because I think it is just unfair to have all those people coming across, have the borders open the way it is, and have this kind of lax situation.”
The Republican governor also suggested exploring several policy proposals aimed at addressing the immigration crisis, including President Bush’s proposed guest worker program and legislation sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to pave the way for undocumented workers already living in the United States to attain legal status.
“This is a very important debate. I think it’s necessary that we solve the problems rather than try to run the other way. It’s a hot issue,” Schwarzenegger said.
Schwarzenegger’s remarks were later clarified by his spokeswoman, Margita Thompson, who said the governor supports greater security along the nation’s borders but was not calling for the borders to be completely closed.
Of course he didn’t mean he wants to shut off all trade and close the border, literally. Everyone knows exactly what he meant- he means stop all the damned illegal border crossings. Only a true wingnut luunatic would interpret it any other way, and since both parties are chock full of them, the opportunists, the con men, and the politicians (Holy loads of redundancy, Batman!) pounced:
n a statement, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said Schwarzenegger’s comments reflected badly on the state’s “productive” relationship with Mexico.
“The Governor should ratchet down his rhetoric and retreat from this narrow-minded approach to immigration policy,” Nunez said. “Closing our borders to commerce and culture is an idea that comes from political extremists, not rational policy-makers.”
Idiotic grandstanding race-baiter. What else can you say? Unfortunately, with our lazy and stupid media, always quick to pounce on something to help make us as lazy and stupid as they are, promoted Nunez’s comments, and Arnold was forced to make a retraction, even when we all knew damned well what he meant:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger moved quickly today to apologize for suggesting that California’s border with Mexico should be closed in an effort to solve the nation’s illegal immigration problem.
Schwarzenegger said he misspoke in comments to newspaper editors and publishers Tuesday, intending to say the border should be secured. The governor blamed the error on his sometimes flawed use of English — his second language.
“Yesterday was a total screw-up in the words I used,” the governor said at a press conference. “Because instead of closing, I meant securing. I think maybe my English, I need to go back to school and study a little bit.”
This little bit of self-promotion by Nunez and his willing accomplices in the media (and, of course, the blogosphere- check out this picture)is a sterling example of everything that is wrong with politics today.
There are honest to goodness racists out there who may hate immigrants, people of color, etc. Arnold isn’t one of them, and trying to paint him as one is pretty damned reprehensible. But when you can’t have a seriuos debate about something as urgent and pressing as border control without the demagoguery hitting a fever pitch, you aren’t combatting racism- you are merely making the arena of ideas untenable.
To Mr. Nunez and his race-baiting ilk, all I have to say is, “Beunes Noches, credibility.” I will never take you seriously.