|
Amazing.... we usually manage to avoid polarizing political
discussions here... hang on for the wild ride! Happy Mother's day! I've lived on the border of Mexico in Arizona and I am sympathetic with the people who live there who find themselves in a war zone. That doesn't mean I like the idea of encouraging what is too often a racist and nasty point of view on immigration. It is also often a double-standard (wanting exploitable, cheap labor while resenting the people who supply it). I have had personal experiences while living on the border which give me reason to resent (deeply) the viciousness and crime that goes with illegal drug traffic. I have had very little experience that suggests that the traffic of those seeking jobs (illegal jobs, created by people who clearly know they are hiring non-citizens) is more than an inconvenience to most of us, though it has gotten quite mixed up with the other illegal traffic. Illegal immigration is a "gateway behavior" to the serious problems in the same way that marijuana is a "gateway drug" to Heroin or PCP or Crystal Meth... there might be a strong correlation, but the causal relations are a little more vague. It also doesn't mean I like increasing the powers of law enforcement (directly or indirectly), especially in the areas of demanding proof of identity. I resist showing my ID to restaurants who felt it was necessary to demand it of a 50+ year old with grey in his beard, just to drink a beer. Never mind, I'll have a coke. Whether they felt put upon by tighter enforcement or not, such things are just *silly* and end up supporting arbitrary and potentially inappropriate demands for "papers". I am generally supportive of the *spirit* of most if not all of the laws of this land, but often the *letter* and more to the point, overzealous abuse of the letter of a law in the pursuit of a spirit *not* intended by the law offends me mightily. I'm sorry for those of you who think it is reasonable to be afraid of not carrying ID with you everywhere... to be that intimidated by your own government is a shame, and to sentence a significant portion of our citizens (at least in the southwest) to such fear is unconscionable. At least I have the option (which I exercise) of ordering a coke instead of a beer when my ID is demanded arbitrarily. Should a person with a tan or dark hair or eyes, expect to be harassed or even detained for not being willing to show ID on-demand? Not in my country. I'm the rare person who started my adult life fairly conservatively and found myself becoming more and more liberal as I experienced the realities of life. I'm not sure why it is presumed that this education usually goes the other way. Perhaps my youthful conservatism (libertarianism really) was rooted in naivete... others might suggest that I've just shifted my naivete as I got old and my brain and heart turned to mush. I would claim that what has changed is that the school of hard-knocks has allowed me to appreciate that people are who they are and do what they do for very specific and personal reasons, based on the experiences they have had and that the narrow stereotyped explanations for (judgements of) people's behaviour that *all* "isms" seem to be based in are just an excuse for being rude, selfish, xenophobic, bigots. Tory's cartoon posting made a very important point, no matter where you fall on the question of the current immigration debate. This country, as it exists today, was founded on an extreme takeover from an indigenous population. It took a couple hundred years to complete, but it was pretty thorough. I feel lucky enough to have lived in proximity with various native tribes throughout my life (Apache, Navajo, Hopi, Zuni and now the northern Pueblos) and known natives from throughout the west and some have been my friends, a few have been my enemies. But it was always personal. There is only a little I can do about the way this country came into being (and continues to be) in that regard, but it does seem that one thing I can do is let that experience inform my humility. In many ways, our southern border has become much like the old-time reservation boundaries. We treat our neighbors in Mexico a lot the way we treated the native populations of this country, expecting them to accept us as tourists, demanding that they stay "on the Rez", unless we give them day passes to come and do our dirty work. We need to come to terms (along with the government and the citizenry of Mexico) with the huge gradients that draw the people of Mexico into this country. On the mild side... we have jobs that we apparently don't want to do ourselves, or not at the prices we want to pay for them. On the harsher side, we have a huge illegal drug appetite... Cocaine having been the big winner for a long time, fueling much of South America's discontent. I don't have pat answers, but I suspect legalizing Marijuana would go a long way to reducing some of this pressure. Also on the harsher side, we have an appetite for even darker things... like automatic weapons, sex slaves, and probably worse than I can even think of. These are *our* appetites, and as ugly and inconvenient as they are, we don't get to blame the people sneaking across the border looking for access to "the American Dream" for these appetites. Yet some of us do, or at least we pretend to, to support our racist, bigoted, xenophobic instincts. Yes, I said instincts, I think humans (maybe all mammals) are instinctively xenophobic (which translates to racism and bigotry once you have a big enough brain to make such distinctions). I think it is natural that we fear "the other". That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to understand those fears and find a way to respond to them productively rather than loading up our arsenal of "deer rifles" and patrolling the southern border ourselves (with a cooler packed with Coors light). I understand that those charged with enforcement are frustrated and want more empowerment and help from others in doing their job. But I'm not ready to see the principles my country espouses be ditched to do that. I could rant on about the despoiling that happened over the first 8 years of this new millenium and many of you would cheer me, a few would sneer and cite the BS that the former administration pulled and maybe take a few cheap shots at the current one... but politics aside, I think it is a shame that we so often feed our worst instincts when under pressure. I think we should seek to find the best and highest responses to our challenges rather than our worst and lowest ones. Just my $.019 worth... - Steve
|
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
