Wednesday, June 20, 2018

It's not about the children - it's about the state of the world


The concerted, all-out media and left-wing and progressive onslaught against the present Administration's practice of separating newly-arrested parents from their children is nothing less than hypocrisy.  Precisely the same policy was followed by the Obama administration, and before it by the Bush administration.  It's nothing new.  It's simply being used as a convenient emotional rallying cry by the forces arrayed against President Trump, who are determined to remove him at any cost.

However, it's also symptomatic of an underlying reality that not only won't go away - it's going to get worse.  That reality is the state of the world as a whole.

If you look at where these illegal aliens are coming from, their native societies are riddled with corruption, graft, crime and violence.  Consider these headlines (and follow the links if you're so inclined):


Those factors are having an inevitable, degrading effect on society as a whole.  They absorb resources that should be going to education, health care, etc., but aren't - because governments are corrupt to begin with, and what's left after graft has to be devoted to security issues.  This article summarizes the situation south of our borders very concisely.

The University of Costa Rica recently published a study entitled “Central America Torn,” which documented, through a survey, the reality of poor communities in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Roughly half of these young people between the ages of 14 and 24, are not enrolled in school. Of that total, 56 percent are females, while 44 percent are males.

More than half responded that they want to leave the country, with higher figures registered among Salvadorans (76%) and Hondurans (60%), according to AFP.

Having to deal with high levels of poverty, they often dream of migrating to another country to get away from the violence, gangs, lack of opportunity, as well as inadequate health care and education.

There's more at the link.

That's the fundamental reason why illegal aliens continue to stream towards, and into, the USA.  They have nothing where they are.  They want a life, a future.  The only nation within reach of them that offers those things is . . . guess what?  The United States!

Added to that, of course, are forces that decry the existence of national borders at all, and want to see free movement of peoples anywhere, anytime they please.  George Soros has been accused of funding such groups all over the world, and there's strong evidence to suggest that he's doing so;  but he's by no means the only one.  All sorts of groups see advantage in allowing greater immigration, legal or otherwise.  To name but a few well-known examples:

  • Left-wing, progressive politicians see such immigrants as a ripe source of future votes, as they tend to support parties and individuals who pander to their needs;
  • Religious groups (most particularly the Catholic Church, but not exclusively) see their numbers dwindling among the local populace.  They know that many, if not most, of the illegal aliens heading this way are (at least nominally) members of their faith group;  so, if they're allowed to stream in, they will automatically boost the numbers (and income, and influence) of those faith groups.  (This is also why churches are disproportionately represented among immigrant aid groups.  They're not doing it to help the immigrants so much as they're helping themselves.)
  • Socialist and anti-capitalist forces see illegal immigration as a necessary driver for greater spending on social services and the "welfare state", which automatically furthers their interests as well.

There are many others who benefit from the flood of illegal aliens.  All of those forces are doing their best to impede or shut down any and all efforts to control the situation.

The latest brouhaha over the separation of illegal aliens' children from their parents is just the latest move on the chessboard, appealing to emotion rather than fact.  If it is allowed to succeed, it will become yet another wedge to drive into the cracks that are already wide open in our immigration policies and procedures.  For that reason alone, we dare not let its proponents carry the day.  We have to face facts, because their reality will ride roughshod over our feelings if we don't.

I think the Border Wall (yes, I've capitalized it) is not a bad start . . . but it's only a start.  It has to be backed up with rigorous internal enforcement of the law, and external assistance to nations near us to improve their own situation, so that their people don't abandon them out of sheer desperation.  That includes tying economic and other aid to progress in the fight against crime and corruption, and directing it through non-governmental channels in an effort to bypass and choke off official graft.  There are many nations that won't allow that, of course;  they regard it as the right of politicians and officials to milk their share of other peoples' largesse.  That's going to have to change - how, I don't know, short of overthrowing governments and dealing with the worst offenders the hard way, but it has to change.

I think we also have to publicize the real cost to the USA of the illegal alien epidemic.  They appear to cost this country at least $113 billion every year, and perhaps as much as $148 billion . . . and that's probably the tip of the iceberg.  It also ignores the crime, violence and health issues that these immigrants bring with them.  If you've been raised in an environment where such things are an everyday occurrence, you can't help but bring them with you.  It's ingrained into your nature and your outlook on life.  That's just the way it is.  Read for yourself about the impact of gangs such as MS-13 on US schools and suburbs.  Again, that's just the tip of the iceberg.  It goes far deeper than that, as anyone familiar with US prisons will tell you.

The illegal alien invasion isn't new, and it isn't going to go away.  It's going to be there for the rest of our lives, and our children's lives, and their children's lives.  It's not a battle we can win once, and then ignore.  It's going to be a daily drain on our attention and resources for generations.  If we don't keep it under control, then we're going to end up in the same mess as the countries from which those illegal aliens are fleeing.  That's the plain, simple, brutal reality of the situation.

Peter

13 comments:

sdharms said...

Why don't the residents of these countries do something about it besides dream of leaving? just asking.

Rob said...

Democrat or Republican, for the last 55 years the big bucks went to the same place.
Trump is not part of the "professionals club" that has been running the country for the last 55+ years. Trump is really a 3rd party guy & that's the problem.


Anything that can be done to put him is a poor light is being done, it's not hard when almost all the media is corporate owned.

Showing what's happening today & never mentioning that that's how it's always been done does put Trump in a poor light. That is the goal!

housefitter said...

I've wracked my brain for years trying to answer that question. And the result I always end up at is not politically correct, and ugly for the outcome here in America.
I ask myself, how could we improve things in the countries we're receiving "refugees" from enough that people would rather stay in their home country? The corruption, poverty and crime they're running from can only be stopped via the culture, and even with a U.S. military overthrow of the existing government (and please name the last time that ended in a resounding success afterwards) and large scale shooting war against the criminal/drug elements, you're still left with the underlying embedded local culture. If a predominance of the population living in that culture had real integrity and honor they'd "fix" the issues internally, and we wouldn't have to be talking about this anyway - and I'm not sure you can "remedy" a culture festering with rot. - Therein lies the awful truth... when we receive large numbers of scions of that culture within our own border and they start gaining control of local and even state governments in this country... guess which direction our own culture (or what remains of the "culture" I grew up believing existed) is headed.

BadFrog said...

Peter, you highlight the 'crime, violence and health issues' that these immigrants bring with them. Based on my experience here in the UK, there is a fourth factor in play. Due to their lack of education, they have nothing of benefit to offer to the countries they want to reside in, apart from unskilled labor.

That is always supposing that they are prepared to work in the first place. In most cases, their expectations are that the current population will support them, provide them with whatever they might desire and they believe that, as immigrants, this is their right.

Absent a total change in this mindset, they are of no more benefit to the 'host' country than a fungal parasite is to a healthy tree.

Francis Turner said...

I doubt it will do any good, but I tried to explain why immigration is a bad thing for many people here - https://ombreolivier.liberty.me/immigration-cui-non-bono/ - I may need to go back and edit it to add your costs though

bruce said...

If you could actually stop U S companies from hiring illegals, every construction project in major cities would come to a screeching stop.
Every aspect of the job that relied on physical work would stop. You'd have people there to tell the none existant workers what and when/ how to do the job but in most cases, a crew of fifty men would now have three or four people . I'm willing to bet only union jobs would continue, not because the workforce was legal but because they could "manage*" the situation better than independents.

* read as, get wavers

takirks said...

The root problem in the home countries of these people is... The people who live there.

Bringing them here isn't going to help; the same ideopathic syndromes that make Mexico Mexico are going to continue here, because we quit trying to make immigrants Americans after implementing multiculturalism in schools and workplaces.

Let's face it: These "shithole countries" are shitholes not because of some natural condition there, but because of the people who live there. El Salvador could be a tropical paradise; the El Salvadorans have turned it into what it is. They chose the path they took, and now they find they don't want to be where that path took them, so they're going to come to the US and recreate the same set of problems that they had at home with the oligarchies and other issues.

If you looked at Mexico and the United States in 1780, you could be forgiven for thinking that Mexico was the obvious future powerhouse of the Americas. They had all the advantages, in terms of unity, industry, and resources. Instead, the strip of tiny, resource-deprived colonies on the Atlantic seaboard became the great power of the continent. How did that happen...? One word: Mexicans. Mexican culture, Mexican society, and Mexican dysfunction as a nation-state. Mexico chose to go down the path that led to Santa Ana, and the rest of their sordid history--As did the rest of Central and South America. Brazil will always be "the country of the future", never realized, never attained. Because? Brazilians. Brazilian culture, Brazilian values and mores.

It's just like with Japan; Japan isn't a great nation because of the geography or the resources, it's a great nation because of the Japanese. Transplant the Japanese people to Mexico, and vice-versa, and in a generation's time, Mexico will be a paradise on Earth, while Japan will be a prototypical shithole.

It's the people, stupid--And, bringing in the dysfunctional people of the Third World without a mechanism in place to separate them from their dysfunctions and socialize them to American values and mores is a recipe for disaster on a scale not seen since certain Roman Emperors thought it would be a brilliant idea to let the Goths cross the borders...

Larry said...

Bruce -- temporarily.

Aesop said...

Hey, thanks for noticing.
CA flipped in 1992.
So this only took 25 years to get folks' attention.

Texas is purpling up nicely, and from the border north, BTW.
Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
It'll be majority Hispanic in the next thirty years or so. For the first time since 1845 or so.
Florida is going the same way.

Let me know how that works out for y'all.
Especially every fourth year, when the biggest (and only) electoral tallies even nominal Republicans can count on reliably are in Alaska, Montana, and Utah.

History Quiz section:
Q: What do you call the party that's going to be coming in second place for the next 100 years?
A: Whigs.

Say, just curious, but where do Marco Screwyoubio, Lindsay Grahamnesty, and John McCrazy all hail from?
Oh yeah, all those reliable "red" states.

You brought this "immigration" problem on yourselves, and voted it there.

Vote in haste, repent at leisure.

Oh, and don't laugh so hard at Germany, France, Formerly-great Britistan, and the pending racial genocide in ZimbAfrica.

We've been doing the exact same thing in this country since 1965.
They just haven't needed to be so brutally obvious about it.

Yet.

BUILD. THE. Motherloving. WALL.
And then start shoveling out the leftovers found on the wrong side of it.
You get one chance to do this right.
If you bugger it up, you get the next Mexican Revolution, only this time it'll be in Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, Dallas, San Diego, Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, and Salt Lake City.

Best of luck, come that day.

Technomad said...

One thing that would put an end to a lot of the crime and dysfunction south of our border would be to legalize, or decriminalize, drug use in the US. The cartels would not exist without the absolutely astronomical profits they've been able to reap.

Of course, trying to decriminalize drugs here in the US runs into problems, mostly with people screaming "Oh Mercy Me! Yucky POO!" We've stupidly let the drug thing become a tribal matter, with one tribe pushing for legalization and the other tribe frantically resisting.

Will said...

Technomad:

some way to divorce the current gangsters from the future legal drug trade would have to be found. I'm thinking that each .gov would have to find some sort of way to certify the farmers get paid directly by their buyers or the .gov, to eliminate the gangster middleman. All sales must go thru the local/national .govs, with lists of people who must be restricted from any involvement.
Messy situation.

Chuck Pergiel said...

Near as I can tell, Latin America has two problems. One is the US war on drugs. The other is property rights, and this is the big one. Somehow the US has strong individual property rights, but for some reason Latin America is still stuck in dark ages.

McChuck said...

Build the wall. Shoot anybody who tries to climb it. Kick out every single illegal AND their children. Fine every employer of illegals into oblivion.

We can't fix Central America. The problem there IS the people and their culture.