TBT: The Brutal Truth

Fixer's got some 'splainin' to do and he does it:

Ladies and germs, 'illegal' means you have broken the law of the land. I realize we have become desenitized to 'illegality' after dealing with the Chimp and his entourage for the past 5 years but the definition is the same. So, in dealing with illegal immigration, let's first get that fact straight. The illegals' first act of setting foot in this country is to break the law. An auspicious beginning.

Next, it is these same people who are making demands of the United States. I doubt, because I've researched it in anticipation of retirement outside the U.S., many other nations would even consider the wishes of folks who are not citizens, let alone in the country illegaly. A jail term at worst, deportation at best, are the current reactions by others toward illegal entrants. So when these folks march down the streets in U.S. cities waving flags of their own nations, making demands of our government, it naturally chaps my ass. Not because I'm a white boy and they're all brown, but because they don't vote and don't pay taxes (don't wave the sales tax at me, not when I pay close to $40,000 a year in state and federal income taxes). I don't give a damn if they're British, German, Indian, Asian, or Canadian.

Next, the jobs illegals take are not 'jobs Americans don't want to do'. They are jobs corporations don't want to pay competitive wages for. Not when they have a ready and willing pool of cheap labor just across the border. Illegals are being exploited, period. If corporations would feel some pain for hiring illegals, enough pain for them to feel it in the bottom line, they would change their tune, quickly.

The F-Man just hammers it with a 16 pound sledge. I find no fault with his argument at all. When it comes to how this issue has chapped his own ass, where I bleed and wince the most isn't from the justifications Fixer ranted and raved about. Nope, not all at all.

What really drives me out of my goddamned tree is in a country whose people witnessed the Bush Administration's belligerent "Scorched Earth" Neo-Con foreign policy completely destroy America's image as a tolerant nation with humble citizens, his constant claiming to be above the Constitution and above reproach from the American people via his "signing statements", his clear-and-cut disregard for human rights as he and his crony-shooting Veep jockey for not only the right but the privilege and honor to waterboard any random brown-skinned Arab they see all under the false and fraudulent auspices of Rightwing Conservative Christian fundamentalism, it all wasn't enough to break the camels back.

The Downing Street Memo wasn't enough, either. Neither was Russ Feingold's call for censure that made the Democrats literally run for the hills. All the reporting Anderson Cooper did on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and all the reporting he still does about all those empty, undelivered, tax-payer funded trailers sinking in the fuckin' mud wasn't enough. Dick Cheney and Karl Rove's obvious-as-all-hell criminal involvement in the Valerie Plame leak wasn't enough. The Dubai port deal wasn't enough. Diebold's election fixing wasn't enough. The lack of finding WMDs in Iraq wasn't enough. Darfur, Gitmo, and Abu Ghraib wasn't enough. Jack Abramoff wasn't enough. Tom DeLay wasn't enough. The two Alaskan bridges to nowhere wasn't enough. The outsourcing of American jobs wasn't enough. The widening gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" wasn't enough. The lack of Big Oil not being sworn in for their Congressional testimony as opposed to baseball players wasn't enough. The incompetence of FEMA wasn't enough ...

To put it simply and encompass it all, the last 6 sorry years of a Republican "Culture of Corruption" walking hand-in-crotch with a Democratic "Culture of Complacency" has given millions of Americans a virtual solar system full of justifications to push the fuckin PAUSE button on their EverQuest/WorldOfWarcraft lives long enough to put on or participate in huge rolling protests and demonstrations within the largest cities in each state all accoss this country. Oh, but draft a dodgy immigration bill ... and suddenly 500,000 white, black, and brown people all over California finally recieve the fucking gumption to rise up off their otherwise dead asses, dust off a few Mexican and American flags they'd normally use for curtains, and take to the goddamned streets?!?

These protests tell me more about the priorites (or lack thereof) of the American people in general than it does about immigration. I'll leave it at that, because if I keep going, I'll be making more enemies than friends within left blogistan and in a big goddamn hurry ...