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Confessions of an Immigration Quisling

So I came out of the closet on my change of mind about illegal immigration. This has provoked more questions than a blond with an abacus. Jump if you’re interested.

One’s ideological positions should not be determined by the actions of the extremists on either side of an issue. You say that you have changed your mind on a position based on the actions of the “anti-illegal alien crowd”.

‘Kay. Fine. But I said that affected my thinking “to a significant degree.” It wasn’t the only reason.
Heck, one of the reasons was watching all the coverage of Katrina refugees two years after the storm whining about how they still need handouts and free housing. Meanwhile, people who can’t speak the language and probably can’t read come across the border and thrive. I know who I’d rather have around. The way I see it, inside every Mexican border jumper is an American dry-wall business owner.

…don’t you care they come here and won’t learn English?

No. I don’t like talking to people in general, so this is one less group I have to worry about. Why do you care? Someone forcing you to talk to them? They’ll learn the language and do well, or else they’ll never do more than pick fruit and clean houses all their lives. Either way, it’s win-win.

(They) are using abusing our system and draining resources from education, health care, social security…

Yes, they are. So what?

Look, I don’t like paying taxes to pay for your kids’ education or your health care or your mee-maw’s social security. I don’t care what flag is stamped on your forehead. If we could magically deport all the illegals tomorrow, are my taxes going to be cut? Is government spending going to be reduced? Of course not. So I might as well enjoy getting my lawn cut and my meat packaged on the cheap. Which brings me to the last complaint.

Illegal aliens depress wages and take jobs.

You live in a country where there’s free public education to age 18. Community colleges that are dirt cheap. Public libraries. Educational channels. Vocational schools. More grants than you can shake a burrito at.

If after all that the best you can do is a job that can be handled by an illiterate third-world refugee who came to this country floating on a door, you got some serious problems that no border fence will fix, don’t you think?

So that’s it. In the end, it wasn’t just being put off by the anti-illegal crowd. I wasn’t swayed by the kind of arguments people like Rod Davis and Steve Blow advance. What it boils down to is I want to be around the kind of people who want to work, and until the rest of America stops picking my pocket to pay for their precious social programs, I’m not going to sweat the 3 percent who don’t have a green card doing the same.

So, yeah. I was wrong. It happens.