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Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone! Today marks the festive occasion when Mexicans (and on Cinco de Mayo, aren't we all Mexicans?) celebrate what Wikipedia calls an "unexpected victory over the French" in 1862. Although how a victory over the French could be "unexpected" is a good question for another day.
Cinco de Mayo is traditionally celebrated with guns fired into the air, ambulance runs to the hospital when victims are hit by falling bullets, mariachi music, margaritas, and a game in which children get treats and treasures by beating the daylights out of a hanging figure called a pinata (which, roughly translated, means "taxpayer").
So enjoy the holiday - but please, don't make too much noise! You might wake the immigration officials in Washington from their long, long siesta.
Remember: lick the salt, toss down a shot of tequila,
bite a lime, and THEN beat your head on the wall.
14 comments:
Granted, they live in awful conditions, some of them. Granted, they risk their lives to get here, some of them. But holey Crap! we might as well cede SoCal back to Mexico, and let THEM handle the welfare, and stuff!
I have a hot button discussion going on facebook on this....of course someone who has lived in Mexico is sticking up for the illegals...I realize conditions are deplorable...but we just can't afford to pretend we're Jesus and heal and feed everyone! Our funds are limited, contrary to what Obama thinks! I wish we could save the world, but we can't....so illegal needs to just stay illegal. If not, its unfair to those who actually come here and get their green card.
Pete(Detroit) and Suzy- We completely agree that many of the illegals are motivated by terrible conditions in Mexico and we genuinely sympathize with their plight. That being said, we simply can't throw open our borders and give "everything to everyone" and expect our nation to survive.
Failure to enforce our laws for purely political reasons sends a host of bad messages, including the corruption and cynicism of our alleged leaders, and the undermining of the "rule of law" as a general principle. When lawlessness is actually encouraged by the government, only chaos can follow.
I was born and raised in South Texas many years ago. I am well acquainted with wet backs. In answer to your question, "and on Cinco de Mayo, aren't we all Mexicans?" the answer is absolutely not! I will never be a meskin, not on cinco de mayo or any other day.
We hear the endless steam of bleeding hearts crying out for the plight of the mestizos, but in actual fact, this is the nation they have made for themselves. It is their own (rotten) culture that drives it, their innate dishonesty, lack of integrity, disregard for education, addiction to alcohol and women and a fast peso that has made mexico what it is. Sure, they will work very, very hard when there is no other alternative. But if they can find a way to cheat the system, there is no sense of righteousness that inhibits them from doing so, and they will break the law at every possible opportunity. You say that I sound harsh? I know them; I have worked with them and known them personally. They are not like Anglos at all.
I realize that we have plenty of Anglos who cheat also, but it is not fundamental to our culture as it is to the mestizo culture. That is the difference.
There's a lot of talk about "fairness" being floated by liberals on this issue. The current state of immigration (the border sieve) and proposed amnesty legislation is very unfair to LEGAL immigrants. For every ILLEGAL individual they hold up as a model citizen, they should also note the ones that work for years, get in line, followed the rules to become a citizen, and didn't jump the line.
For some reason, it's "fair" if you sneak in through the southern border and get a "home free" card with all benefits. Actually, that's really unfair to all the people from everywhere else in the world who play by the rules to be here, and all the ones who don't make it because of limits on immigration to here from their country.
Another argument that I just love is that "they [illegals] take the jobs that Americans won't do..."
So what is out answer? Subsidize those tho choose not to work because the jobs the illegals are taking are not good enough, for whatever reason...
Close the borders, send them back to their country of origin (Mexico, et al) and drop the welfare program .. suddenly you take the 10% of the population that are here illegally and replace it with the other 10% that are not working
Unfortunately, instead of providing a trampoline we give people a safety net.. they, in turn, treat it like a hammock
DrD- The comment about all of us being Mexican on Cinco de Mayo was actually a playful reference to everyone being Irish (or at least liquored up) on St. Patrick's Day. Regarding your other comments, whatever one thinks of the work ethic of Mexicans, the squalid conditions in Mexico are unquestionably their own responsibility.
Bob- Good point about "fairness." The sad and simple truism is that "Life Ain't Fair." And it doesn't get more fair by breaking rules, forcing others to pay your bills, or enacting socialism.
TheDarkKnight- There's a word to describe those who "won't do the jobs that need to be done": lazy. It used to be that entry-level jobs were understood to be just that. You didn't make much money, and you probably had crappy duties...but it was the first rung on the economic ladder. Now, as you very aptly point out, the safety net has become a hammock, and the entitlement mentality allows Americans to collect money instead of doing work that is "beneath" them.
And while we're on the topic, why isn't it considered racist to suggest that Mexicans are the proper ones to do the jobs that Whites, Asians, and Blacks are "too good" for?
Here's another hypocrisy from liberals related to this subject. How many deliberately cheat U.S. taxpayers by paying their hired help in cash and avoiding FICA payroll taxes? Remember the Clinton appointees who had to withdraw their names from consideration after it was discovered they didn't pay their nanny taxes? You would think a rich liberal would be the first to proudly pay his "fair" share and educate his employees on the wonders of paying their "fair" share. These folks are not dumb. They know that taxes fund government programs. The rules just don't apply to them.
I guess the mentality is that Immigrants come running into the USA because we are doing things right kinda the same way fans will abandon their favorite team if they lose enough games. This cements the mentality that 'We can't change our country so we change the country we're in.'
In America, we know that if we don't like our country we can change it when elections come around. It's just not so in other countries.
Don't fall into the easy trap of saying conditions in Mexico are the fault of the people themselves unless you can be sure that the people can freely choose their leaders. If you can't be sure that their elections are fair, then you can't be sure that there isn't some corrupt group ruining things for everyone else.
Lets assume for the sake of example that the government of Mexico holds fair elections. In this case I support closing the borders to illegal immigrants and educating them on how to participate in their own electoral process. Don't come to our country, stand up, take responsibility for yourselves, and fix your own country.
Now let's assume the Government is corrupt and no matter how hard the people scream and fight, no changes can be made by the government. It's hard to imagine this scenario because there are myriad options to fight corrupt government including rebellion, secession, and assassination. In this case immigrants have a fair case for trying to improve their situation by leaving because that is the only option they have left. If an immigrant could prove he had exhausted every possible means of legal immigration and still failed or if circumstances were such that waiting for approval for legal immigration is not possible, then I would let him enter my country but I would make him live in a controlled situation until the proper paperwork could be filed.
My pondering now is how far we could go with empowering their people to rise up and fix their own government without being accused of instigating a coup...
Joe- an outstanding and very thoughtful post! We agree with you completely...but of course, the dicey issue arises that IF honest Mexicans have exhausted all other options and we feel they should be given an escape route, then there should be a LEGAL path for immigration (which is the point you're making).
That's a worthwhile debate to have...only so far, this country (and in particular, this administration) isn't having it. Our immigration policy should be structured to let in the greatest number of people we can help without damaging our country. But that will require leadership, control of the borders, changes in our immigration laws and, most importantly, enforcement of those laws.
Stilt - AMEN!!!
No, I still cannot buy Pete's argument. It is not up to the USA to fix the problems of mexico, no matter how bad they are. Even when the mexican citizen has exhausted all avenues, he should still not be eligible to come to the US. If he is, the all of mexico comes to the US, and suddenly, the US looks just like mexico. That is not acceptable.
No, the mexicans MUST FIX mexico themselves. if it takes five revolutions to do it, then so be it. They have to get it straight. They have no history of doing things right, and it will be very hard for them. If they wind up killing much of their population in the process, that may be what they have to do in order to sort themselves out. They are a very primitive people. It is THEIR PROBLEM, it must be THEIR SOLUTION.
I couldn't help but notice there aren't a lot of black people in this video. Does that mean they are racist? Has MSNBC commented on that?
There is no such thing as a hyphenated heritage. You are either an American or you are not. What is it. Mexican-America ( make a choice) and if its not American, pack your bags and get out of my country. See a Mexican flag, burn it, is the answer to our 20,000,000 domestic terrorist problem.
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