Smoke Screen on the Journal Charming, Just Charming
I left a comment on a journal about flag burning and how the reader believes it to be a smoke screen. I left the beginning of a comment but when I realized it was going to be so long I decided to post my comment here so as not to leave a whole dang on book on his journal.
Before I start with the rest of my comment let me say this: My opinions seem to be as strong as yours. I hope you see these comments for what they are, questions and observations with some judgment thrown in. I do not intend to make this a slam against you because this subject has come up in my private life again and again. I appreciate a good thinker and you seem to be just that which is why I didn’t feel too intimidated to leave a comment with an opposing view. Enough of the disclaimer.
You say that the govt worrying about flag burning is a smoke screen and that there are bigger issues to address. The comment I left was: I have to wonder how on earth “they” came up with the number of “illegals” in the country. If they know how many are in the country why did “they” wait for it to get so large before calling it a problem? And how do you count someone that doesn’t register themselves? And how do you count the taxes lost if you don’t know the exact number of people not registering and paying taxes. If they know the number then they know where they are so why is it just now after they somehow counted the unregistered illegals that they publicize the problem? What good timing they have, eh? Right in the middle of a costly war that most do not support the government now makes a big issue of those who have crossed the borders illegally. They site that they are a drain on the economy but how do you know just how much “they” are draining if you don’t really know the exact number of “them?” I’m confused about why now this is a problem that has to be addressed with such fervor and urgency. I believe this in itself is a smoke screen to draw attention away from this war.
This is where my comment continues: The truth is, the US is it’s worst enemy. Yes there are a heck of a lot of people that hate the US but as a citizen of this country I can see clearly that our worst enemy is not over seas and is not wearing a ” head towel” or speaking a foreign language. We hurt ourselves by being so arrogant and being so bullheaded and willing to overlook social crimes committed by registered citizens. You are correct, there are larger issues at stake than the burning of the flag. There are many more issues such as protecting children, preventing sexual violence and prosecuting it to the fullest and keeping track of predators who seek out victims. There are issues such as gender equality or the lack thereof, issues of privacy, of global warming, of cruelty to animals and other acts against the earth and those who live on it. What good is a flag if there are no relatively safe, healthy, well fed, housed and educated people to stand under it?
If you want to talk about how illegal it is for “them” to be here then we have to stop and think about all of the other illegal things that go on that you and I do not benefit from. Although people say that these “illegals” drain the economy those same people benefit from the “illegals” every time they buy fresh produce from a grocery store or every time they go to a restaurant that has an immigrant doing a job others feel they are too good to do. We benefit from the fact that such desperate people will take very little money and live under horrible conditions. When was the last time you benefitted from a corrupt politician? When was the last time you benefitted from the thief next door or others that have been considered to practice illegal behaviors? I do not mean to say that illegal immigrants are criminals. I’m just saying that if one chooses to view them this way they have to ask themselves if they have ever benefitted almost daily by other illegal activities the way they do with illegal immigrants.
I keep hearing about how “they” are taking our jobs but I hear little about how companies will take their business to Mexico or India for the sole purpose of hiring desperate people who will not complain about not having medical insurance or workers compensation or lunch breaks and all the things that we demand here. As a matter of fact we joke about little Chinese kids making Wal-mart products and we joke about other hardships that third world countries face. Is that funny, that a small child would work so hard to send the US a shirt, a trinket, a doll so they can have a few dollars to eat with? It is obvious to me that it is corporate America that is taking jobs away from “us” and targeting people who have nothing to loose by taking a job for considerably less than the legal minimum wage. These people take these jobs for the same reasons American’s work, for their family, for a home, food and basic needs. So I have to ask again, why now is this such a huge issue and something I hear about daily? Is this not also a smoke screen? Why isn’t anyone totally focusing on how much Bush has to gain from this war? Why isn’t everyone and their brother upset that Bush has ties with oil and that he himself probably shits oil? Why isn’t anyone passing laws to keep the V.P from capitalizing on Katrina with his own companies doing a lot of the clean up work? These issues get overlooked when words like, “our way of life is threatened” and “American jobs are being taken.” If you use words and phrases to make a person feel that they are immediately threatened then you can get them to look away from the illegal and immoral acts of the speaker.
The US was built on dishonesty and illegal activities wasn’t it? Heck, we live on land that was stolen. We put those people on reservations and we celebrate every single year some false idea of thankfulness when in reality we are celebrating the theft of the land we live on. Heck, don’t get me started on slavery, on rounding up the Japanese during World War II or about the fact that it hasn’t even been a hundred years that every citizen no matter race or gender can vote without harm coming to them or their family. This country was built and exists because of acts of injustice but those acts get pushed under the carpet and “forgotten” or replaced with words like, “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” I do not mean to sound like I hate this country or anything and I don’t intend to suggest that we become a lawless country. I’m just saying that if you blow away all the smoke it will become clear that the biggest issues in the US are US born.
Ps. I saw the word cackleberry on a comment you left at another journal. I wanted to know what it meant so I looked it up. It’s an egg. And heck, there’s a whole urban dictionary out there to explain words like cackleberry, chavs and other words that I never knew existed. Thanks for the new word. I had fun looking it up.
With much respect,
Austin’s August
You have some valid points. Our government is throwing a smoke screen but the smoke screen is political posturing. For your information congress has never worried about illegal immigration until the public forced them to do so. This has been at the forefront of neo libertarian and conservative libertarain blogs for several years and the past couple of years has been picked up by the conservative blogs. We have pushed the issue and have forced congress to at least make an attempt to take action. The house has done so with a viable bill.The senate has throw a smoke screen first by debating a failed anto gay marriage bill and now with the flag amendment.
This country does have some problems that are self inflincted. But not as you seem to think by companies such as haliburton. One of the 10 commandments is ‘thou shalt not covet’. The greed of the left wing who figures that everyone should be equal economically has inflicted the most wounds on this country. We started social welfare to help people out of poverty and when the programs didn’t bring equalize the incomes..and no program will because people do not have equal abilities..the left wing refined poverty and demanded a bigger share of the producers production. I reckon the question is who will you loot when the producers quit producing? See, I quit producing. hen I quit it cost the economy a small business grossing a few mil a year and 10 jobs with a 8,000 dollar a week payroll plus making my CPA/bookkeeper’s Cadilac payments. I quit because I was sick of the governmet making more off my business than I was and the roadblocks they through in front of me to keep me from producing more for them to loot. The only reason I didn’t move off shore was that I am too gotdam old to start over. So I just pulled up my pants and quit. Within the next twenty years you are going to see a lot more of it. But don’t blame business for moving off shore…blame the socialists for forcing them out. It is not business that is greedy..it is labor and government. And by the way, Haliburton gets the contracts because they are the company prepared to go in the jobs now..today..there is no waiting. And damn right they demand big money for those jobs they do but they also earn every penny of it.
I know this has been a ramble, hell that is the way I write most of the time and I reckon the way I think. But let me leave you with a thought that I call Guy’s first rule, “Actions taken to force society to help itself generally have the opposite effect because for every action their is a reaction. Most of the time the reaction causes more new problems than the action solved.”
All I will say is bravo Austin, I think you are very correct. I am not into politics at all, find them all (politicians)out for one thing, to line their pockets and for the most part they are doing a darn good job!!! Some indeed want to change things but the pork barrelling and scratch my back stuff just irks the you know what out of me. I will say that my own neighbors are more prejudiced than I ever knew, our neighbor 70+ years old, widow, hired a company to do her lawn, they sent a work party of Mexicans and after they left several neighbors asked her how she could hire “those people”, this was right after the 1 day strike by illegals. What a crock!!
there’s my 2 cents worth, for what it is worth
John W