There's a slur going around: "globalist". I guess it means that some secret cabal of radically liberal bankers or power brokers is controlling the world, and encouraging mass immigration, along with other disasters real and imagined. It absolutely blows me away that the American administration eventually embraced the term "nationalist". I know we're 75 years on from the end of World War II, but you would think we could at least learn the basic lesson of the war: that nationalism, as a reckless patriotism that uses the love of country against people in other lands--in domination, violence, and murder--should be avoided.
I don't even have a strong opinion about unchecked immigration. Frankly, we still have a lot of open space over here. We're not full, as it were. As soon as you say anything to the effect that crossing the southern border of the United States isn't in itself a grave crime, someone replies, "Don't you believe in borders?" As if I want the United States to disappear, simply by keeping things in perspective. We're full of lies concerning immigration, and many surrounding issues which involve visitors to the United States, either invited, or uninvited. We believe wrongly that illegal immigrants take jobs from us. They don't. We believe that corporations and other businesses end up depressing the wages of American workers here, because they pay illegal immigrants less than they could legally get away with paying a citizen. I must confess, I don't follow the logic here. I don't know that many middle-aged white American guys that are rushing out to pick strawberries in the California sun. The moral difficulty is in the fact that someone is paying anyone less than a just wage, rather than who it is, and where they came from. I'm happy to be called naïve for saying that the basic contours of my immigration policy are written on the Statue of Liberty. Even for us to say that we ought to prefer high skilled workers, and highly educated workers, doesn't make sense to me. A human being that does what he or she needs to do in order to live in any place contributes the benefit of simply being a human being. There could be a legitimate argument that we don't want to take in the poor, tired, huddled masses, and put them all on welfare. Fine. But our welfare policies aren't that generous anyway; we ought to do better by our own people in this regard. Welfare is a drop in the bucket, and we act like our whole economy would collapse, if we had a few million beleaguered Mexicans or Guatemalans on the rolls. I don't take this seriously. And I live in Missouri. I see support for immigration restrictionism in Missouri. Even if we assume that every single person who opposes more visitors to the United States has no racist thoughts whatsoever, there are no giant hordes of people pouring into Missouri with guns and spears to destroy our way of life. I'm exaggerating here, because I think we need to get to what's actually underneath the polite phrases and euphemisms that people use. Some people think that if they use multisyllabic words about immigration, their position is sensible, compassionate, and high-minded. Actually no, a position must actually be sensible, compassionate, and high-minded.
Moreover, every time I look with any detail about what we actually do with respect to immigration, I am horrified. The United States of America has quotas for each country, and they are shockingly low, in every case. This new nationalism tries to make a big moral mountain out of the illegality of crossing the border in an irregular fashion, while the actual process to properly become a US citizen is itself a crime against humanity. And then once someone is in an irregular status by doing the normal human thing of trying to live and survive in a better place, we don't make it very easy to get on the right side of the law. If you trap someone in the state of being a lawbreaker and provide no remedy, and no way of restitution, you are the monster. You are the criminal. This is to say nothing about acts of inhumanity directly committed toward immigrants themselves. In a world where Joe Arpaio holds his head high as a free man, I am flatly ashamed to be an American. I hope I offend someone with that sentence, because you need to be offended, and then you need to repent before God.
Don't even bother to send me news stories about illegal immigrants who kill people; again, the relevant fact of an illegal immigrant killer is that he or she is a killer. The security apparatus of a free state is by definition reactive. A people who claim to believe in some notion of freedom and liberty does not put up a wall to keep people out; they don't live in fear. The nation that is synonymous with the generosity embodied in the words, "Ellis Island" ought not to be turning inward, and turning selfish. Communists put up a wall in Germany; remember that? It was a point of American pride when our president went to Berlin, and told Mr. Gorbachev to tear it down. I think I was nine years old when it came down. I knew what it meant even then. Every patriotic American does. Today, we forget our own proud history, in order to pretend to be someone else. Some days, it makes me so angry that I don't even like to look at our flag. I hope you're offended, and then, you should repent before God.
"Chain migration" is a word people use in a pejorative sense. Do you know what chain migration is? It's families reuniting. That's what it is. I would like to know what sane person with a conscience is against that. No one should be against good order, and I support that. Make it easier for the outsiders to come, and if they did it the wrong way, make it easier to get it right.
I'll leave you alone now, because I'll be answering all day objections to things I never actually said. Such is life in public today. I want to be able to look into the eyes of people I meet, and into the eyes of people I already love, and to know that at least I tried to do right by people who were struggling. That's what any good Christian or American would want to be able to say.
I don't even have a strong opinion about unchecked immigration. Frankly, we still have a lot of open space over here. We're not full, as it were. As soon as you say anything to the effect that crossing the southern border of the United States isn't in itself a grave crime, someone replies, "Don't you believe in borders?" As if I want the United States to disappear, simply by keeping things in perspective. We're full of lies concerning immigration, and many surrounding issues which involve visitors to the United States, either invited, or uninvited. We believe wrongly that illegal immigrants take jobs from us. They don't. We believe that corporations and other businesses end up depressing the wages of American workers here, because they pay illegal immigrants less than they could legally get away with paying a citizen. I must confess, I don't follow the logic here. I don't know that many middle-aged white American guys that are rushing out to pick strawberries in the California sun. The moral difficulty is in the fact that someone is paying anyone less than a just wage, rather than who it is, and where they came from. I'm happy to be called naïve for saying that the basic contours of my immigration policy are written on the Statue of Liberty. Even for us to say that we ought to prefer high skilled workers, and highly educated workers, doesn't make sense to me. A human being that does what he or she needs to do in order to live in any place contributes the benefit of simply being a human being. There could be a legitimate argument that we don't want to take in the poor, tired, huddled masses, and put them all on welfare. Fine. But our welfare policies aren't that generous anyway; we ought to do better by our own people in this regard. Welfare is a drop in the bucket, and we act like our whole economy would collapse, if we had a few million beleaguered Mexicans or Guatemalans on the rolls. I don't take this seriously. And I live in Missouri. I see support for immigration restrictionism in Missouri. Even if we assume that every single person who opposes more visitors to the United States has no racist thoughts whatsoever, there are no giant hordes of people pouring into Missouri with guns and spears to destroy our way of life. I'm exaggerating here, because I think we need to get to what's actually underneath the polite phrases and euphemisms that people use. Some people think that if they use multisyllabic words about immigration, their position is sensible, compassionate, and high-minded. Actually no, a position must actually be sensible, compassionate, and high-minded.
Moreover, every time I look with any detail about what we actually do with respect to immigration, I am horrified. The United States of America has quotas for each country, and they are shockingly low, in every case. This new nationalism tries to make a big moral mountain out of the illegality of crossing the border in an irregular fashion, while the actual process to properly become a US citizen is itself a crime against humanity. And then once someone is in an irregular status by doing the normal human thing of trying to live and survive in a better place, we don't make it very easy to get on the right side of the law. If you trap someone in the state of being a lawbreaker and provide no remedy, and no way of restitution, you are the monster. You are the criminal. This is to say nothing about acts of inhumanity directly committed toward immigrants themselves. In a world where Joe Arpaio holds his head high as a free man, I am flatly ashamed to be an American. I hope I offend someone with that sentence, because you need to be offended, and then you need to repent before God.
Don't even bother to send me news stories about illegal immigrants who kill people; again, the relevant fact of an illegal immigrant killer is that he or she is a killer. The security apparatus of a free state is by definition reactive. A people who claim to believe in some notion of freedom and liberty does not put up a wall to keep people out; they don't live in fear. The nation that is synonymous with the generosity embodied in the words, "Ellis Island" ought not to be turning inward, and turning selfish. Communists put up a wall in Germany; remember that? It was a point of American pride when our president went to Berlin, and told Mr. Gorbachev to tear it down. I think I was nine years old when it came down. I knew what it meant even then. Every patriotic American does. Today, we forget our own proud history, in order to pretend to be someone else. Some days, it makes me so angry that I don't even like to look at our flag. I hope you're offended, and then, you should repent before God.
"Chain migration" is a word people use in a pejorative sense. Do you know what chain migration is? It's families reuniting. That's what it is. I would like to know what sane person with a conscience is against that. No one should be against good order, and I support that. Make it easier for the outsiders to come, and if they did it the wrong way, make it easier to get it right.
I'll leave you alone now, because I'll be answering all day objections to things I never actually said. Such is life in public today. I want to be able to look into the eyes of people I meet, and into the eyes of people I already love, and to know that at least I tried to do right by people who were struggling. That's what any good Christian or American would want to be able to say.
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