IT SEEMS SO MUCH LESS LIKE WAR... when your enemies are invited!

The big issue of the day domestically is definitely immigration. Some see it as applying to any and all who come to this country from some other country for longer than vacation. Some see it as only applying to those who come here lawfully to work. Some see it as only applying to those who come here lawfully to work and become citizens.

I fall into this last group. My creed, therefore, can be found in the immortal (but too soon forgotten) words of Teddy Roosevelt: "In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 1907

There it is folks. You are not an "immigrant" simply because you came here to work. I don't care if the job you're doing is so menial, so unpleasant, so underpaid that it really is impossible to find native born Americans to do it, that has no bearing on your status or identity here. I also don't care what color your skin is, how miserable conditions are from whence you came, or how earnest, honest or "decent" you may be personally. Least of all do I care about the "culture" you are supposedly "contributing" to my country. We have our own culture thanks. It may be a hodgepodge of other cultures, woven together like a tapestry, but a tapestry is still one thing that can hang on the wall independently, beautiful because of its wholeness, not because of its individual threads.

If, however, you agree with President Roosevelt, and want to come here to BE an American, then it ought to go without saying that you respect the Constitution and the laws of the land. If you really want to be an American, you would not start your life as one by breaking any of those laws, and if you did, you wouldn't cynically shove the Constitution you had just disrespected in our faces to justify your actions. After all, it's not your Constitution yet, you cannot use it to protect yourself from the punishments it allows, and if you try, I have to assume YOU ARE MY ENEMY.

We are a "nation of immigrants," but the people we're talking about are NOT IMMIGRANTS by definition. Politicians can't redefine reality—they can try, but they should fail. They can't guilt us into supporting lies unless we allow them to.

The reason the politicians need to redefine reality is so that we won't notice that they—the President especially—are NOT DOING THEIR JOBS. According to the Constitution, Job #1 of the Federal Government in particular is to "provide for the common defense." They take an oath of office that includes the words "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

When they don't defend us against intruders, they are derelict in their duties. So what do they do? Recast the "intruders" as friends, "guests" even, recast us as hosts, tell us that if we oppose the presence of these "guests," we are lousy hosts at best, racists at worst.

It's all bullshit.

Now I know what you're thinking, that I've gone off the reservation, casting innocent doe-eyed hard-working foreigners as no better than Al Qaeda, but hear me out. Imagine that Al Qaeda's grand master plan was to send tens of millions of people streaming over our borders illegally every year. Whether they were sympathetic to Al Qaeda dogma or not, let's just say the vast majority of these intruders arrived intending to take jobs from low-skilled American workers, lower overall wages, reproduce at a rate of over 200,000 babies per year, overcrowd our schools, hospitals, courts and prisons, flood our streets with drugs and gang warfare, all of this while insisting on speaking a foreign language? How would you feel about these "guests" then? Would you call them immigrants, or would you call them enemies?

Short-term we might have tidier lawns, cleaner hotel rooms, more sprawling newly constructed neighborhoods and cheaper produce, but so what? How does cheap lettuce provide for our defense?

Even if you think it's important that our GNP benefits from the higher profits made by the big-company-employers of these cheap "invaders," remember this, a GNP has no loyalty, no color, no national anthem. The word "national" has no particular emotional import here. After all, during WWII, most of the powerful businesses in Germany kept right on making money, despite what that money was paying for. Those who refused were simply taken over by the new enemy within—Der Führer—who was, after all, an "immigrant" himself!

It's very simple really. We don't need "reform." We don't need new laws or programs to deal with this problem. We merely need the backbone to enforce the laws we have, and scale back the programs that are already being misused. We wouldn't need a fence if:

- We treated those trying to sneak in as intruders in our home and shot them dead in their tracks when they refused to turn and leave on their own;

- We arrested and sent back those who managed to escape our notice until later;

- We imprisoned or interred those whose countries refused to take them back;

- We arrested, fined and made example of those who profited from their intrusion;

- We denied their children automatic citizenship on the grounds that they were criminals, and rewarding criminals for criminal activity is against the law of the land (not to mention the spirit of the culture);

- We put foreign governments who refused to cooperate with us in our efforts on notice that their behavior was considered "aggressive";

- We told those governments that any act of aggression perpetrated on our soil by a citizen national of their country would constitute an "act of war" by them.

That's it, my "comprehensive immigration reform package." If it looks familiar, it should. Its roots can be traced directly to our very own beloved Constitition. Too bad we have a President who hasn't read it.

If you want to know who else isn't doing their job—the job they took an oath to do—visit this site and look up your own Senators and Representatives. I'm happy to report that at least one of mine
—Sue Myrick—agrees with me.

Posted by Deb on

Comments

[Peg]

So very well said!! Bravo!! PegMi

[Alois]

You know, Deb... this makes me proud to be (very, very) distantly related to TR.

Bloody good show!

[Deb]

Pete,
Just so you know, this quote (apparently, I looked it up) is not from 1907 as I thought. It's from a letter he wrote three days before he died. Here's the detail:

Theodore Roosevelt indeed wrote these words, but not in 1907 while he was still president. The passages were culled from a letter he wrote to the president of the American Defense Society on January 3, 1919, three days before Roosevelt died.

"Americanization" was a favorite theme of Roosevelt's during his later years, when he railed repeatedly against "hyphenated Americans" and the prospect of a nation "brought to ruins" by a "tangle of squabbling nationalities."

He advocated the compulsory learning of English by every naturalized citizen. "Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country," he said in a statement to the Kansas City Star in 1918. "English should be the only language taught or used in the public schools."

He also insisted, on more than one occasion, that America has no room for what he called "fifty-fifty allegiance." In a speech made in 1917 he said, "It is our boast that we admit the immigrant to full fellowship and equality with the native-born. In return we demand that he shall share our undivided allegiance to the one flag which floats over all of us."

And for anyone who can't figure out what he means by the "red flag," he was talking about the Socialists whose flag was solid red as far back as the late 1800s.

Want to be really really proud? Read this from 1915.

[Peg]

How has the House lost this message? This is so beautiful it tears me. Thanks Deb.

[Peg]

I wish he had a piece written about the ones who are here and turn their back on speakers that are war heroes! People that are offended with the cross and the sight of a living or a dead soilder! A person who calls the President a tryant, liar. A person who has more sympathy for the enemy than our soilders. People that are offended and dissagree with everything he said! I like the very end it says, History does not repeat itself but it rhymes. (Mark Twain). I thought I heard the sounds of ..guns..

[Peg]

Deb, our American tapestry is torn and tithered, patched with imported and smuggled material with holes, tears and stains, stinks! Sorry! Did you see the Muslem protest at LA and the Jews trying to defend themselfs they played guitars and sang with signs we love Israel? The Muslems protesting for the halocaust of Israel! How can this be? In America? Freedom of speech? Not for America, they are speaking for the Palestinians, they say Hamas is The People's Choice and Israel is the 4th right! How can America be, being used to distruct these colleges and our well being? It is esculating!! I would still like to comment more on the other but it all ties in too. They were sayin on Fox the Legal mexicans here, their children are going to gang fightining. They asked why do you think this is, because parents are working so Hard? ,,I... believe it is because they have all these illegals in the school and what are they to do? They hang out with them. Po' johnny's...Back of the Line Traveling Wilbury's...

[Peg]

Sorry, I was thinking again. What about the fact Afro-American wasn't mentioned? I agree though it doesn't matter they are Americans! As it said we do not use the hyphenated American. These illegals I can think of alot of hyphenations!Illegal-Mexicans! This is just so unfair to us Americans, we have enough to worry about. Our intelligents has been so underminded! Seems it is all about money. So sad!!

[PegMi]

Here it is 2008! Just read this - what a long way it's been! heh?. ...un ""
Look what $ and color of skin has done for you- 'All' now, i should say, or not say..? ""
I can say because everyone else is we have a Black President! and does it matter or did I miss something? . . just like me. .
Deb would you ever of guess...? ?
oh Tom Petty I Won't Back Down . . .

[PegMi]

Envaders!
To many illegal americans. lol
in dictionary envaders!
It has busted us and they are saying it was uh the banks? realtors? government? ..
well..fargo they are all the same anyways!
we are to pay for them while they ripp us off and off and off and off and off ... sorry...
the new prez wants to bail out Detroit car business! bad idea! car crash cash! . . well back again if you are still here.. chow...