The endearing image of Chuck Norris on a hoverboat in the Everglades, shooting it out with the Russian terrorists, has never left me. Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen kicked ass when the Reds and the Cubans teamed up and nuked most of the major targets in America. Bittersweet, though, when the Russian gunship mows down C. Thomas Howell and the movie ends with Jed Eckert carrying his dead brother to the frozen playground. Cold war terrorism was a big theme for post adolescents like myself in the mid 80's. I used to lose sleep to dreams of Jason Robards' slowly melting face. But that was then, and this is now.
Now Americans don't fear any kind of conventional invasion of our shores. In fact they don't seem to fear any kind of invasion; but we have already been violated. They've been throwing this figure of 12 million around the past couple of weeks, but who counted? I would figure it at a much higher number than that. We're holding a half a million in our prison system. I forget how much it costs to house an inmate but it's something on par with what I clear in a year of full-time toiling for our local government. Who are these people? They're largely Mexican and other South American Hispanic peoples who cross on our southern border. They come here to pick strawberries, work construction, operate the car wash, congest emergency rooms, overrun public schools, and provide authentic cuisine (not in that order). Mostly uneducated, mostly unskilled, and mostly hardworking and friendly, these folks have spun themselves into a pretty good niche in our society. It's a good enough niche that they feel entitled to certain rights that have never been granted to non-citizens, at least not officially. The pols are arguing right now about how to make it official.
While I'm not happy with the immigration issue and how our elected officials have dealt with it since the last major legislation in the mid 80's, it's not even the river of thousands of Hispanic people that flows into California, Arizona, and Texas every day that truly worries me. It's the small trickle of men that look like them that has me on the edge of my seat. You know who I'm talking about: the real bad guys. It's the chink in our armor that will allow these Mexican look-alikes representing the medievalists to carry out another 9/11. They are here right now plotting to kill you and your family. I don't care what Mike Bloomberg has to say about it, I'm freaking worried. Why shouldn't I be? There's no wall, there's noone watching, and they're free to come over here and set up camp like a bunch of squatters under the overpass.
How can we, in the midst of a war, not have our borders secured to protect against these people who would kill you and your family at the mall? It befuddles me. We're literally begging for it to happen again until we do something about it. Build the wall. No amnesty. Identify as many of them as we can and process them. Fill the labor void with our teenagers. I worked when I was 15, why can't that annoying kid next door who just rides around the parking lot on his skateboard irritating my dog get a job? The legislation needs to stop talking amnesty and start talking about stiffer penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants. The Patriot Act can help us identify the bad elements of this mess, but first we need to stanch the flow at the source. Recognize that the real threat of illegal immigration is about the flow of Islamic fundamentalists into our country and use that issue to attempt to correct the problem of the millions of undocumented workers who just want to come here to provide a better life for their families.
