The immigrants went down to Georgia…

Someone e-mailed me this long winded rant from country music singer Charlie Daniels:

I don't know how everybody else feels about it but, to me, I think Hispanic people in this country, legally or illegally,
made a huge public relations mistake with their recent demonstrations.

I don't blame anybody in the world for wanting to come to the United States of America, as it is a truly wonderful place.

But when the first thing you do when you set foot on American soil is illegal, it is flat out wrong and I don't care how many lala land left heads come out of the woodwork and start trying to give me sensitivity lessons.

I don't need sensitivity lessons; in fact I don't have anything against Mexicans! I just have something against criminals and anybody who comes into this country illegally is a criminal. If you don't believe it, try coming into America from a foreign country without a passport and see how far you get. What disturbs me about the demonstrations is that it's tantamount to saying, "I am going to come into your country even if it means breaking your laws and there's nothing you can do about it."

It's an "in your face" action and, speaking just for me, I don't like it one little bit and if there were a half dozen pairs of gonads in Washington bigger than English peas it wouldn't be happening.

Where are you, you bunch of lily livered, pantywaist, forked tongued, sorry excuses for defenders of The Constitution? Have you been drinking the water ou t of the Potomac again?

And, even if you pass a bill on immigration, it will probably be so pork laden and watered down that it won't mean anything anyway. Besides, what good is another law going to do when you won't enforce the ones on the books now?

And what ever happened to the polls, guys? I thought you folks were the quintessential finger wetters. Well you sure ain't paying any attention to the polls this time because somewhere around eighty percent of Americans want something done about this mess, and a mess it is, and getting bigger every day.

This is no longer a problem; it is a dilemma and headed for being a tragedy. Do you honestly think that what happened in France with the Muslims can't happen here when the businesses who hire these people finally run out of jobs and a few million disillusioned Hispanics take to the streets?

If you, Mr. President, Congressmen and Senators, knuckle under on this and refuse to do something meaningful, it means that you care nothing for the kind of country your children and grandchildren will inherit. But I guess that doesn't matter as long as you get re-elected.

Shame on you.

One of the big problems in America today is that, if you have the nerve to say anything derogatory about any group of people (except Christians), you are going to be screamed at by the media and called a racist, a bigot and anything else they can think of to call you.

Well, I've been pounded by the media before and I'm still rockin' and rollin' and, when it comes to speaking the truth, I fear not.

And the truth is that the gutless, gonadless, milksop politicians are just about to sell out the United States of America because they don't have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to face reality.

And reality is that we would never allow any other group of people to have 12 million illegal in this country and turn around and say, "Oh, it's O.K. Ya'll can stay here if you'll just allow us to slap your wrist."

And I know that some of you who read this column are saying, "Well, what's wrong with that?"

I'll tell you what's wrong with it. These people could be from Mars as far as we know. We don't know who they are, where they are or what they're up to and, the way the Congress is going, we're not going to.

Does this make sense? Labor force you say? We already subsidize corporate agriculture as it is; must we subsidize their labor as well? If these people were from Haiti, would we be so fast to turn a blind eye to them or if they were from Somalia or Afghanistan? I think not.

All the media shows us are pictures of hard working Hispanics who have crossed the border just to try to better their life. They don't show you pictures of the Feds rounding up members of MS 13, the violent gang who came across the same way the decent folks did. They don't tell you about the living conditions of the Mexican illegal some fat cat hired to pick his crop.

I want to make two predictions.

No. 1: This situation is going to grow and fester until it erupts in violence on our streets while the wimps in Washington drag their toes in the dirt and try to figure how many tons of political hay they can make to the acre.

No 2: Somebody is going to cross that border with some kind of weapon of mass destruction and set it off in a major American city, after which there will be a backlash such as this country has never experienced and the Capitol building in Washington will probably tilt as Congressmen and Senators rush to the other side of the issue.

I don't know about you but I would love to see just one major politician stand up and say, "I don't care who I make mad and I don't care how many votes I lose, this is a desperate situation and I'm going to lead the fight to get it straightened out." I don't blame anybody for wanting to come to America, but if you don't respect our immigration laws why should you respect any others? And, by the way, this is America and our flag has stars and stripes. Please get that other one out of my face.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

It is, of course, illegal for immigrants to come here and work without the proper legal documentation. However, a distinction should be made between things that are morally wrong and things that are illegal. Things that are morally wrong are wrong in themselves. Things that are illegal are wrong just because a law prohibits them. It is morally wrong to murder someone, whether there is a law on the books that says so or not. It is "wrong" to smoke marijuana for no other reason that that a law says so. I happen to think it is morally wrong to eat animals, although no law prohibits such activity. Coming into this country without proper documentation to get a job is wrong just because we say it is.

Given this, why is Daniels not making an argument that the law should be changed? He is in effect saying “Gee, I love illegal immigrants and all, but unfortunately, it is illegal for them to be here. So quit working and leave.”

Instead of this, why isn’t he saying something like, “Well, as long as people demand cheap labor, and as long as there are outsiders willing to provide cheap labor, why not let the buyers and sellers of cheap labor do their thing? Everyone would benefit through cheaper goods and services.”

His scary images of terror attacks are just more of the same rhetoric that the Bush administration has fed us for the past six years. And if the living conditions are bad for illegal immigrants as he asserts, it is precisely because they are here illegally and are being exploited in a black market. I also like how he refers to the folks who hire illegal immigrants to pick their crops as “fat cats”. In any other context, he would be referring to these “fat cats” as struggling family farmers.

I like Charlie Daniels' music, but his politics are whack.