Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Citizen of Earth

Since today is the day for immigrants rights marches I'm going to add my two cents worth.

I don't care what the talking heads say....there is no such thing as an "illegal" person. Somewhere along the line some of us got the bright idea to restrict where human beings could choose to work and reside based upon their place of birth and some arbitrary boundaries. What part of "that is an incredibly stupid idea" are we not getting? Don't tell me "it's the law", laws are only as good as the people who write them and we have an unbelievable number of incredibly stupid people in positions of power. What are you going to say when someone decides to pass a law restricting you to living in the town you were born in?

Humans have been immigrating all over the planet as long as there have been humans and they still immigrate for very much the same reasons they did 2000 years ago. Resources, security and safety, and general quality of life. That we are even having this discussion, that people can actually utter the words "illegal immigrant", in North America of all places....boggles my mind.

How in the hell does anyone imagine we got here in the first place? Sorry fundies...God did not drop down out of the sky and teleport your ancestors across the ocean. Nope, unless you are 100% Native American or African-American what happened was your ancestors paid "coyotes" to bring them over on ships. They didn't bother to ask the people already living here how they felt about it either.

The way I look at it we're really pretty lucky in this wave of immigration. See, unlike how some of our ancestors behaved this current group of immigrants don't have any plans to eradicate us or forcibly convert us to their religion or utilize us as slave labor to build their plantations. No, this group of immigrants wants to come over and send their children to school and they are willing to pick our crops, wash our dishes and clean our houses if that's what they have to do to pave the way for their children to have a better life. If karma applied 100% to nations....we'd be in much worse trouble.

Somewhere along the line people better start getting a clue that every single one of us is born on this earth and has just as much right of access as the next person. Being lucky enough to have been born in a desireable place is just that, dumb luck. It doesn't make you special or give you any special rights. Hopefully we can figure this out before a time comes when we might need to move to greener pastures and everyone closes their door to us.

10 comments:

Flimsy Sanity said...

Two More Points: I often hear people complain that the Mexicans should speak English if they come over here. I point out that just two generations ago when settlers came from Europe, they settled into ethnic areas and spoke their native languages. Their children learned English when they went to school. Also, Mexicans are mostly Indian and this land was stolen from the Indians so they are just reclaiming their heritage.

cls said...

Preach on Mama!

Anonymous said...

Now, this is one I could have written, almost word for word. The stupid, hypocritical patriotism of Lou Dobbs and Co gets right up my nose. If we all gave up our national boundaries, and accepted ourselves as citizens of Planet Earth, free to roam at will wherever and whenever we choose, it just might bring us all a little closer together. It would also help focus our attentions on the effects of climate change. Lou Dobbs was lucky that his accident of birth landed him in America. Maybe next time around he'll end up in the middle of the Sahara, with Aids or malaria. Then, he'd be singing to a different tune.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Mama mia is not prisoned by boxes or even borders. Although, I readily accept this mindset, I also know, that the world's population is conditioned to think of the borders as for them, for their safety and well being. That they have hardly delivered anything but wars and conquests and associated misery, doesn't seem to dampen our willingness for the enthusiastic flag waving and the nationalistic fervor.

Of course, all these borders were not there in the beginning. We pretty well went where the game went. In a strange chain of the events, we are slowly trying to minimize the borders by forming larger trading unions, such as the EU, with free passage for people and goods. The fact remains, that we still eye each others with a weary eye, and that let's me to believe that the borders will be around for a long, long time. For what ever it's good for, we just love to have "us" and "them" around.

TomCat said...

Very interesting, Mama. I think there are some undesirables that we might want to keep out, such as Al Qaeda operatives. I also would oppose people immigrating and going directly onto the welfare rolls. So there are things to iron out, but I think the main reason "illegals" have been kept "illegal" is to keep them in a position where their labor can be unfairly exploited.

Not Your Mama said...

Aha! There's the thing...think it through. How much leverage do you think organizations like Al Qaeda would have in a borderless world?

Remember, I said "borderless", NOT "lawless".

TomCat said...

Good point

TomCat said...

On the other hand, there's the LA police solution. :-(

Not Your Mama said...

Law enforcement in many southern CA communities is more like the gestapo. That is not an exaggeration at all, in fact it is more of an understatement. They literally terrorize many low-income and minority neighborhoods.

Saw the video last night. It was obvious that most of the people they were attacking had nothing to do with the initial incident but good luck getting anyone to care about it....until there's another riot.

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