The Lone Dissenting Voice

Since the illegal immigration resolution passed unanimously in Liberty County, Texas, I offer the lone dissenting voice. First off, this is my personal opinion. It does not represent anyone else’s opinion in any group or organization that I may belong to.

I am sick of fear mongering. There, I said it. I’m sick of the refrains of “diseases, plagues, future democrats, and end of days”. Let’s just be honest about it. We are a nation of immigrants which hates immigrants. We always have been and always will be. The Irish were an issue at one time, as were the Chinese, and the Italians too. One has to wonder if the modern Tea Party would have turned away German Jews as well. I realize that this notion of banning any “holding” of illegals has become a popular political slogan in Texas. I realize I am a minority voice on this subject. However, I try to consider myself a man of principle, far above any party dogma. I also find it totally repulsive that most of these very same people show more concern for imaginary lines in the Middle East than they do for the southern one here.

I am a huge supporter of securing the border. I will stand firm on that. However, I still believe in humanity. I still have a sense of pride that our nation is one that people will risk everything to come to be a part of. They will fight, die and even send their children off alone because of our exceptionalism and the promise of a better life. It kind of used to be our mantra, but that’s no longer so.

Shame on this court in Liberty County, for not even one single man was willing to say, “Hey, maybe this is a bit of an overreaction to the issue at hand.” What have we become? When did we turn into a nation of cowards? Much like we bomb other countries out of fear, without a thought of the future consequences, we as conservatives are also blocking any common sense solutions out of fear of brown people, that some Texas conservatives have gone so far as to compare to diseased animals. For what, I ask, “the burden on the school system?” The school system is already broken. Anyone who doesn’t know this is living in a dreamland to begin with. “They are going to steal our jobs!” Yes, mowing your lawn that you’re too lazy or busy to do, or being recruited by that McDonald’s Drive Thru which you’d rather collect unemployment benefits than work in. “What about the rise in treating them with medical care?” Sure, but there are vast numbers of our own citizens, outnumbering them by far, doing this very thing.

We refuse to accept any responsibility in our own problems we create. We prohibit drugs, while our population consumes more and more, only fueling the cartels these people are fleeing. We create a welfare state that our very own citizens abuse and wonder why immigrants will abuse it as well. Do we even consider their plight? I wonder how far we’d go to protect our children if they were walking by fence posts with human heads on them. I’m quite sure we’d do whatever is necessary to get out of that situation. Now, of course there is an argument to be made that these people’s very own government should be better in stopping gangs and cartels. I suppose by the same logic one could ask: Why are we willing to protect and fight and lose our sons and daughters in lands that are extremely anti-American to ‘keep peace’ and supposedly ‘save’ people, but we aren’t at all considerate to our very own, fellow democratic neighbors? Perhaps a real ‘War on Drugs’ should look quite different from the policies we pursue today. Or perhaps, just perhaps, Mexico’s oil reserves just aren’t in enough jeopardy to warrant any significant level of American concern for the Mexican people. But, what do I know?