haloguy628 wrote: Here you are defending a criminal who sneaked into this country illegally, then obtained falsified passport, which he then used to become the enforcer of the law. Foreign criminal the lawman in the US. Unbelievable, but I am sure that cases like this one will become more prevalent as we seriously start dealing with this illegal invasion.
Actually, I’m not defending him at all (other than to sympathize with the desire to live in a country of greater opportunity, and to recognize that crimes committed for no other purpose than to do so are not the most heinous of crimes imaginable). Nowhere did I make any comment about how the law should treat him. My comments have been, and still are, directed at the prevalent attitude here toward those who have crossed our borders illegally, an attitude emphasizing the alleged horrors of this crime, and the alleged horrors of illegal immigration. That’s not a defense of the law-breaker, but rather an indictment of those who are exploiting it as an occasion for and justification of hatred.
That attitude isn’t rooted in some generic commitment to the law, any law, no matter what it is, because the same posters argue vociferously against those laws that they disagree with (e.g., healthcare reform). When it’s a law you approve of, no further discussion is required (or tolerated). When it’s a law you disapprove of, it’s the product of a socialist conspiracy that must not be tolerated. The end result is that nothing but your own blind ideology can ever be tolerated.
The attitude being expressed here by so many, this particular facet of your overarching right-wing ideology, is rooted in an in-group/out-group dogma, a fundamental belief in the rightness and moral purity of exclusion, a belief that has had many incarnations throughout our history (all of which we recognize as repugnant in retrospect), this being just the most recent one (identical, in fact, to the same nativist outcries during previous waves of immigration, voiced against the Chinese, Irish, Germans, Italians, and Eastern Europeans, in the same way and with the same attitude that it is being voiced here and now).
It may be (or may not be) that some degree of exclusion is a practical necessity. But exclusion never has to be exercised with such a complete lack of compassion and humanity. It is the pleasure you (plural) take in excluding, your zeal to morally condemn and denegrate those whom you are excluding, that is most appalling. If it is the case that we are forced by the practical realities of the world to exclude some from entry into this country, then we should do so reluctantly and with regret, not crowing with disdain for those we exclude, or for those who managed not to be excluded despite our attempts to do so.
As we confront this practical question, of who (if any) must be excluded, and who or how many we can afford not to exclude, we should confront it in the best-informed, most rational way possible, and, if with any bias at all, with a bias against exclusion and in favor of inclusion. We should desire to give opportunity to as many rather than as few as possible. And we should weigh our own interests against our values, recognizing that our relative good fortune in this world is not merely to be hoarded, but, to the extent possible, shared and extended to others.
If the two professional economic analyses I’ve linked to (the only professional economic analyses anyone here has yet linked to), which show that illegal immigration actually yields net economic and fiscal benefits to the state of Colorado, are not perfectly accurate (though I have no reason to believe that they aren’t), then at least we know that the truth is that the costs are exaggerated by some for polemical reasons: In reality, the costs, if, despite the analyses to the contrary are not negative, are at least not so enormous as ideologues arbitrarily insist, while the benefits to humanity are. This is the attitude and the predisposition with which we should confront the practical problem of immigration reform.
To me, there is nothing unethical or morally bankrupt about caring about humanity, even that segment of humanity that cannot legally immigrate to the United States but crosses our border anyway, seeking opportunity for themselves and their children. There is nothing ethically or morally bankrupt about decrying the visciousness of someone who posts “waaahhhh, waaaahhhh, we don’t care” in reference to a family torn apart by our indifferrence to the welfare of these humble, hardworking people. There is nothing ethically or morally bankrupt about expressing disgust at the poster who sincerely opined that we should execute them all (all 12 million of them), a post that received from those outraged by these opinions of mine one passing, parenthetical rebuke by one poster only (apparenty, calling for a massacre twice the size of the Holocaust isn’t nearly as morally repugnant as calling for a sense of humanity toward our undocumented population).
Yes, we have a different sense of morality. And as often as you want to highlight that fact, that’s how often I’ll state my pride in it, and my fervent hope that more of my fellow Americans will discover their lost or misplaced humanity, and share with me the just pride in being, or striving to be, a humane and rational people.
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La “confluencia colorado” es una confluencia de culturas, de sueños y esperanzas. Es una confluencia de esfuerzos, todos ayudándose los unos a los otros. O así se espera. Es la confluencia de gente, de pueblos, de valores, de ideas. Es la confluencia de humanidad.
Quiero animar a los lectores (y escritores) hispanos a participar en este “blog,” o en español o inglés (o ambos idiomas). El nombre de nuestro estado es un nombre español, como todos ustedes saben. Refiere al color del Río Colorado, por el hierro en las rocas y, por la erosión, en el río también. El símbolo mas conocido del oeste, una parte grande de la mitología estadounidense -el vaquero- es mas hispano que norteamericano en sus orígenes, incluyendo el monte, el sombrero, y el pistolero. Debemos una deuda cultural a los hispanos que dominaron este hemisferio desde la conquista, y aún la sangre y las culturas de los conquistados está incorporada en las culturas hispanas, con tradiciones antiguas e indígenas.
La historia de nuestro continente y de nuestro país es una historia tanto de los hispanos (y gente indígena) que vivieron aqui antes de los gringos, como de los ingleses y otros europeos. La ciudad de San Agustino (St. Augustine) en Florida (establecido por los españoles en 1588) y Santa Fe, Nuevo México (1610) son entre nuestras primeras ciudades (ambas mas viejas que Plymouth Rock, establecido en 1620, y San Agustino es mas antigua que Jamestown, la primera colonia inglesa, establecida en 1607).
Los Estados Unidos nunca ha sido un país sin influencia hispana. Aún en sus raises mas profundas, es un país en gran parte hispano. Como dicen los hispanos del oeste frecuentemente, “la frontera nos ha cruzado.” La gente y el gobierno de los estados unidos se apoderaron de esta tercera parte del terreno del país por medio de una historia de mentiras y oportunismo. Los colonizadores estadounidenses los cuales colonizaron a Texas temprano en siglo XIX prometieron obedecer las leyes Mexicanas, pero después decidieron que preferían tener sus esclavos y su propia religión (ambos prohibidos por las leyes Mexicanas de esa época). La guerra de independencia de Texas, seguida por la anexion a los estados unidos, era un robo de terreno. Y la guerra Mexico-Americano siguiendo esa por un década era otro robo de terreno mucho mas grande.
Así es la historia: No es para quejarse ni para recuperar el terreno que debemos reconocer en la historia, sino para entender la relación histórica entre las culturas que constituyen a nuestro país, incluyendo las injusticias históricas. Porque el método de los conservadores aquí en este país y este estado es identificar a algunos grupos de personas como menos miembros de nuestra sociedad, como si pertenecieran a este terreno menos que los gringos. Y en muchas maneras, es completemente al revés.
Tenemos muchos desafíos en este país y este estado, no solamente la intolerancia en contra de los hispanos. Es mi deseo que todos nosotros, toda gente razonable y de buena voluntad, trabajen juntos como un pueblo, como una sociedad, mejorando la calidad de la vida para todos, y para todos nuestros niños y nietos y bisnietos. Por eso, los invito a todos ustedes que lean esto para juntarse conmigo en mi proyecto, que se llama “las políticas de razón y buena voluntad” (A Proposal: The Politics of Reason and Goodwill). En cualquier idioma, tenemos que recordar que la meta de nuestros esfuerzos como miembros de una sociedad debe ser alimentar y facilitar a “la audacia de la esperanza.” En cualquier idioma, que siempre entonemos “¡si se puede!”
Un error de la izquierda estadounidense siempre ha sido dividir nuestros esfuerzos entre varios intereses, sin reconocer y desarrollar la unidad del movimiento, la idea sencilla en su centro: Vivimos juntos en este mundo, una humanidad. Somos interdependientes, los unos con los otros, y todos con la naturaleza. El desafío de ser un ser humano, un miembro de una sociedad, un miembro de humanidad, es trabajar juntos como gente razonable y de buena voluntad, intentando mejorar nuestra existencia compartida. Así todos ganan.
Si se puede.
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There are lots of reasons to pass the Dream Act in the lame duck session before the new (more irrational and belligerent) Congress is sworn in (see http://www.economist.com/node/17575113). The Dream Act provides a path to citizenship for those undocumented young people in America who have been here at least five years, arrived before the age of 16, have not had problems with the law, and have completed some years of college or military service. It serves the interests of humanity, of America, and of the Democratic Party. The opposition to it is blindly punitive, convinced that any gesture of humanity to the millions who migrated illegally toward opportunity would be an affront to all that is good and true, and so determined to punish such a heinous crime as fleeing destitution that they are eager to do so not just at the expense of those poor souls who were evil enough to be born on the wrong side of our southern border, but also at the expense of the American economy and American people. It is one more chapter in the epic story of the ongoing battle between humane reason and belligerent irrationality, a story in which the United States is now front and center.
I’ve already written A comprehensive overview of the immigration issue. Massive, orderly immigration is good for America, good for those who are immigrating, and good for the world. One major real challenge involves providing improved educational opportunities for those already living in the United States, so that they can occupy higher paying, more specialized positions in the economy rather than compete (to the marginal extent that they do) with new immigrants for unskilled jobs. The main obstacle, as has become the central theme of current American political discourse, is the robust force of Organized Ignorance vigilantly obstructing the implementation of intelligent and humane public policies.
It’s time for all reasonable people of goodwill to organize, communicate, and strive mightily to prevent our continuing slide into the belligerent “Fortress America” that some are insisting we become, and to enable us to be a force for reason and humanity in the world. It is, and continues to be, “A Choice Between Our Hopes and Our Fears”
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