Talk Elections

Good Citizens of this Fine City;

Atlasia, The Imperial Dominion of the South, and this great state, where all built by immigrants. Immigrants have enriched and improved our society, our culture, our economy and most importantly the food (oh yes, the food :P). It is important that is point be the made whenever we discuss any issues concerning immigration, both legal and illegal. Now that said, our tradition of immigration into this country is not a justification to embrace or except illegal immigration. We do have rules and in order to preserve both the Atlasia they seek to enter and their own safety as well as that of all Atlasians, it is essential to regulate and control the flow of people into this country’s borders. Nothing about that premise contradicts or in anyway impinges on the importance of immigration to the country and the need for it to continue. It is in no way anti-immigrant or nativist to state the Atlasia has the authority and the obligation to control who enters the country and under what circumstances… In Texas!

Currently before the Senate we are debating an issue that is of the up most importance to the fine people of this city, that is the issue of granting Amnesty to a certain sect of illegal aliens. Normally, I would be steadfastly against any amnesty at all for reasons I have made clear in the past. The reasons why I am taking a different approach is the realization that if you restrict the criteria and apply tough standards, you can legalize the kids, without the same ramifications that would exist if you had a mass amnesty, which seems to be the hit politically-correct, horrible policy idea of the last three decades. Consider also, that the children were just that and were not capable decision makers when they committed the act along with their parents and thus you can argue that it wouldn’t be right to punish them for the criminal acts of their parents… In Texas!

However, a Senator has introduced an amendment that would  turn this “Dream Act” into the nightmare from hell, McCain-Kennedy times 1,000. I have not been silent on this issue in the past and won’t be silent now. The idea of granting mass amnesty sickens me, because of the message it sends and how it smacks of merely a continuation of the same pay to play, go along to get along politics that has dominated how this issue has been handled for the last 30 years. Again, it is not because I don’t like immigration; immigration is essential to the economy and has been a critical force in the development, growth and nourishment or Atlasian society; it is because I can’t stand corruption of processes to suit one’s personal, political or financial benefit. We have had multiple such amnesties, each promising there would never be another and each has produced a the same result a few years later, FAILURE!!! It sends a message that we aren’t serious about are own sovereignty or the enforcement of our immigration laws, which in turn leads to be more attempting to come. It tells less then upstanding business people, that they can just continue business as usual and the appropriate agencies will turn a blind eye. Thus the final result is also more businesses operating on a model that is depended upon illegal behavior. For some the cycle of failed amnesties is an intended result in order to keep the money rolling in or to gain some kind of political objective.

There are businesses that have as their model the use of what is essentially slave labor and gain financially from the practice of hiring illegals. They love the idea of a cyclical amnesty policy long term, because it provides a continuous stream of cheap labor. Why has it been in the past the those most concerned about the plight of the workers and/or the unfortunate, seem to have no problem turning a blind eye to this travesty? Why is it that those who in any other circumstances would be the ones hounding to chop off the heads of the CEOs and put them on pikes, seem to conveniently ignore the long term picture when looking at this. They think that legalizing the illegals with an amnesty is the solution, because you will “bring them out of the shadows”. There are two problems with these “after the fact” band-aid measures. One is that you do have limits to how many people you can realistically allow to immigrate to the country and you can only ensure that these are maintained through the use of the legal immigration process to control who comes and who doesn’t. If you don’t value immigration rules and laws, how will you be able to maintain immigration within those limits? The second is that amnesty will create another two part inducement for another wave to enter into the country.

Employment verification would solve this problem to a large extent, but the problem is that if you continue to send the wrong messages regarding are immigration laws, then such will be just as worthless. In order to ensure that employers are using the verification system, you would have to cross check with say the IRS, Social Security or some other agency to ensure that all those working were scanned through the system. If you continue the more of the same approach though, these agencies will “decline to check”, the effectiveness of E-Verify will plunge from 97% to 0% and we will be right back where we started from, all over again… In Texas!

You have other groups as well, they see everything through a racial lenses and seem determined to prevent or sabotage the integration of people into Atlasian society. When people talk about assimilation,  you have to be careful, because certain unsavory people love to use it as a coded word for cultural suppression. I don’t use code words though, I say what I think and you either like or you don’t, so I am not going to hesitate to use it here. When I talk about assimilation, I mean values, I mean education, I mean hard work. Shared principles and understanding that bring people together in piece and harmony. There is no static “Atlasian Culture”, it is constantly in flux because of the latest introduced into it. So for assimilation to be based on religion or anything of that nature would be counter productive in a melting pot anyway, just further emphasizing it in the context of assimilating people into local civic society. The same process applies to all transplants, to one extent or another, whether they are going between states or between countries.

Now that I have covered my ass in the last paragraph, I can get back to my original point, which was, ah, Oops! :P

My point was that you have these groups who confuse and conflate both civic assimilation, which is most certainly a positive, with cultural assimilation which is a negative since Atlasia is enriched by combining the talents and experiences of the many into the one, and thus oppose and condemn both. Some go as far as separatism, others go as far as to demand centuries old borders be redrawn, which wouldn’t work so well…. In Texas!

I am not a conspiracy theorist and I have no doubt that those pushing for mass amnesty here, actually think they are pursuing what is the best course. However, over the past several decades, each time a compromise of mass amnesty combined with “greater enforcement”, the enforcement never materialized under pressure from the above groups and in some cases even outright corruption of the process to ensure that violators of the law continue to get away with their actions without any sanctions or discouragement. We can’t continue to engage in these kinds of actions, that only serve to turn our legal immigration system, which badly needs modernizing and simplification, into a more of a joke that fewer and fewer people will respect both because of its own failings and because of the combined with the continued feasibility of the illegal alternative.

Atlasians deserve better, the people deserve better! Therefore, I hope the amendment is defeated and we can proceed to create a strong bill that will provide an opportunity for the children to engage in and succeed in Atlasian society, provided they meet the required standards and criteria first.

Dave Bless You and Atlasia…. In Texas! (Couldn’t Resist. :P)