SHOULD IT EVEN BE "SAN FRANCISCO"?

Hello from New York! Visiting the parents for a time. Haven't seen them since Christmas. And it is an opportunity, of course, to catch up on that particular type of insanity that is New York. . .


Shortly after arrival, we were greeted voicelessly by one of JFK's border guards at passport control. That's right, "Officer Personality" said not a word at all to us. He simply took my passport, swiped it, stamped it (there is something extremely irksome about getting YOUR passport stamped to enter YOUR OWN country; in contrast, when they arrive home British passport holders don't get that treatment) and stamped the customs form, and then turned to the wife. Rather than say, "Thumb here, please," etc., he simply gestured to her to be fingerprinted and photographed, swiped and stamped her passport, then tap, tap, tapped all her info into his PC, and then signed off her required forms and then handed me everything back all at once.

Yes, welcome to the United States. U.S. immigration usually treats returning, law-abiding American tourists with at best disdain, and at worst as if they are close to dirt. ("Next! Stand over there! On line . . . [unintelligible].") So just how it can be that illegal aliens and their supporters are SHOCKED, SHOCKED at the way illegals are treated has always been a source of minor amazement to me.

So, in catching up in the car home with my parents on that, as well as related issues, by this morning I noticed that certain family opinions seem relatively consistent. Here's a breakdown:

1) Why is it that US citizens arriving by legal, public transport get bureaucratized up the you know what -- have to fill in a customs form, have to note their first address upon admission to the U.S. (another intrusive, irksome policy which no one seems to think anything of), have their passport stamped (noted above), and perhaps even be subjected to their OWN BORDER SECURITY people gruffly questioning them on what they were doing abroad (that last has also happened to me), all despite the fact that U.S. citizens under no prior legal restraint and using a valid passport have every right to leave and to return to the U.S. unhindered -- while those who are not citizens demand a right to walk across the border from Mexico as if it is their birthright to do so?

2) And why is it that valid passport-holding foreign nationals arriving by legal public transport, who merely wish to take their kids to Disney World or visit the Empire State Building and see a Broadway show, must be subjected to being mug-shoted, electronically fingerprinted, stamped and otherwise treated shabbily, while others who are not U.S. citizens demand a right to walk across the border from Mexico as if it is their birthright to do so?

3) Is the problem being too many of that latter thinking it is indeed "their birthright"? And then having children in the U.S. who are by law U.S. citizens? Citizens who then grow up to develop the mistaken impression that the aberration which enabled them to become US citizens was in fact somehow their "birthright"? And then rather than considering themselves lucky enough to have benefitted from that aberration, actually take to the streets to proclaim everyone who disagrees with them is "ignorant" or worse?

So to clear up their misunderstanding for the longer term, perhaps it is time at last to rewrite this opening line from the "root cause" of that misunderstanding?: the 14th Amendment:


And re-ratify it this way:


So then those who are born in the U.S. of parents who are neither, get the foreign citizenship of their parents, and then possess no subsequent right to reside in the U.S. For in its original form, the 14th was ratified to make sure that former slaves born in the US were US citizens. And it worked. (Hey! We can solve problems now and then!) It certainly wasn't approved by those voters thinking it was going to be used 100+ years hence as legal cover for people illegally to cross an international frontier specifically to give birth to a U.S. citizen.

4) But how do we deport all illegals? We can't do that? 11 million (the majority of Mexican origin)? Just because one can't stamp out murder doesn't mean that murderers when caught are not jailed. The same for any other crime. So if illegal and willing to risk living that life, then fine. No one is forcing them to remain. But if they are caught, they are then deported -- as happens elsewhere (and even to nice families).

5) Maybe it's well past time, too, to Anglicize all the place names in all areas won in a certain long ago conflict, an action that by not doing took us outside the norm? For perhaps not doing so was a terrible mistake? For we can see clearly that some in subsequent generations from the defeated side have come to fervently embrace the idea that somehow it is still "rightfully theirs". Essentially, it should have long ago ceased to be "San Francisco"; it should be St Francis.

6) By the way, who came up with the idea of a "temporary worker" (better known as a "guest worker") program? Is it considered so useful for the U.S. because of how well such a set-up worked in, for instance, Germany? (Not.)

7) If the Republicans get creamed in November, the Democrats will spend the next two years trying to impeach President Bush, and no one will pay any attention to the land border issue or other stupidity related to immigration issues.

8) If President Bush deserves to be impeached over anything it is NOT over the campaign in Iraq, or other "war-related" issues. It is because of a weird determination NOT to protect the southern land border.

Democracy in the Middle East. We all agree it is an excellent idea. So, how about dealing with the refugee crisis coming from Mexico? The root of it remains the inflexible, authoritarian state that governs Mexico. Maybe it is finally time for "regime change" there too?

[posted 2:55 PM NY time]  ¶ by Robert, Tuesday, April 25, 2006