We take a break from the normal Valentine’s Day messages you’re probably reading on the blogs and present to you an important safety issue. 

I don’t think our country can take any more Ill Eagles.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I’m not against immigrants.  I’m not against non-white races.  I couldn’t care less what someone’s heritage, home country, gender, or religion is, when it comes to sizing up someone’s worth.  I think the actions of a person speak louder than their skin color.

Reverse Discrimination

I know that as a white male, I get unfairly judged before I’m heard.  I already know the prejudices that abound in our nation - as soon as a white male such as myself speaks out about something illegal, he’s branded a racist pig.  I don’t think people can see the real me because of the blinders they have on because of my skin color.  “He’s white and male, so he’s probably rich too.”  “Just look at him, over there in his mightier-than-thou whiteness, whitening up the place like some whitey.”  “I bet he hates non-whites, because you can just tell; he’s white.”  “Of course he hates immigrants; all the powerful people don’t like letting go of power, like all those white people do.”

Therefore, I’m very used to having people assume all sorts of untrue things about me when I have an opinion about the law. I’m used to people misunderstanding when I say something like “if it’s illegal, then maybe we should stop it” and instead hearing “round up all the hispanics because we don’t want them here.” 

There must be some global translator somewhere turning the phrase “let’s secure our borders” into “I hate Mexicans.” 

And it’s not just happening to me.  Everywhere, people are performing all sorts of lexibotomies, removing some words from our vernacular in favor of other NEW words.  Words that don’t hurt so much.  All of a sudden, the term “illegal” is so… so… offensive to people.  So the phrase “illegal immigrant“ is changed here and there to “undocumented worker.”  Or “unauthorized migrant.”  Or “paperless immigrant.”  And I’m reduced to being a racist when I use the proper term “illegal alien” as though I were being insensitive, rude and callous by calling a spade a spade.  Soon they’ll be called “oppressed immigrants” or “valuable unclassified asset“.  Shoot, why don’t the politicians who want them here illegally just call them “next generation entitlement-hungry voters?”  Heck, let’s just call them “liberal meal ticket.“  You think 20 million votes wouldn’t sway any election one specific way?

Look at this quote from the paper.  How much you wanna bet the guy said “illegal alien” and the reporter decided to omit the word and put in a “better” word instead.

Why stop there?  Maybe we should eliminate the horribly and incredibly offensive word “murderer” from our vocabulary.  Doesn’t that word offend you?  Doesn’t it shock you?  Isn’t it an ugly word?  Maybe we can refer to people who take other people’s lives from now on as “life un-enablers.”  After all, they’re just un-enabling someone from using their life force - the word “murder” is so harsh and condescending.  We don’t need to be passing judgment with our words, now do we?  How insensitive!

You’re too good at your job so stop doing it

So you might guess that I was more than shocked at the outrage displayed locally in Austin at Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton’s GALL at actually putting in the resources to - get this - catch people doing illegal things.

Imagine this scenario:

• Police bring in someone doing a crime.  Maybe it’s a DWI, maybe it’s theft.  Maybe it’s a murder.  Who knows? 
• They are brought to jail.
• The person has no ID.  They have no fingerprints.  They have no verifiable identity in the States at all.
• The person gives some unverifiable name.
• The person stays in jail a while.
• The person might get set free; might not.

What Sheriff Greg Hamilton did is offer up a single desk for ICE (federal immigration agents) to be there when suspects are charged and booked, so that they can check if the person brought in is an illegal immigrant.  These agents already have a job and already do their job.  Hamilton just wants to help them do their job and save time and money.  They’re not profiling and they’re not going out to “find illegals” (even though that’s their job).   You should see the debate and community response.  He just wants it easier for the in-house check to be done when someone is brought in and charged with a crime.

Hmm…. “crime.”  That’s another one of those harsh words that conjures up horrible thoughts and shouldn’t be used, lest we offend the criminals.  Maybe we should use “lawbreaker” - oh wait, no that sounds even worse!   In the video, one of the people against the agents having a 24×7 space in the jail says, quote “what they’re gonna be doing now, is checking them, even before they’re convicted.”  WHAT?  The guy is against checking if someone is a criminal (illegal immigrant) before we convict them of another crime they’ve commited?  What is going on here?

Am I a racist? 

Maybe I’m a little upset at some of this.  Maybe I *am* racist.  If I were, could I really tell?  Maybe you can help me decide.

Here’s another scenario:

• Recently in Austin, a 5yr old boy was kidnapped right out of the back seat of his family’s car around 7:45am
• Witnesses described 2 hispanics in white hooded sweatshirts w/orange flames snatching the boy and putting him into a nearby volkswagon and driving off with 2 other hispanics.
• A HUGE state-wide Amber Alert was sounded and caused hundreds of tips to come in (the amber alert is an all-out blitz on radio, TV, huge highway signs, etc).
• The family received two anonymous calls demanding $300,000 for the safe return of the child.
• The boy was later found safe about 12 hours later by a man taking out his trash that night around 8pm.  It is presumed that the quick action of the Amber Alert freaked out the kidnappers into giving up their plans.

Welcome back home, Adrian.  I hope you weren’t too scared during your ordeal.  My thoughts and prayers went out to you as I heard of your horrendous day, and willed you to get home safe. 

What these stories DON’T tell you is that the kidnapper (Modesto Vences-Garcia) is the cousin of the boy’s father.

What these stories OMIT FROM THE NEWS is that the kidnapper is an illegal alien (oops, sorry, um, I meant unverifiable tissue mass)

What the stories DON’T mention is that the kidnapper had been in jail no less than three other times on other charges.  He has warrants on drug possession, drunk driving, and immigration violations.

Now I’m sure someone out there is going to say I’m a racist for bringing up that he’s illegal.  Please, bring it on.

Someone tell me how it’s racist or unfair to have stopped this thug the FIRST time he was brought into jail and have him deported.   Explain to me how it’s profiling when we take criminals and remove them from our society.

I apologize for the political bent and the abnormal passion I’m displaying towards this topic.  Oh wait, no I don’t.  I don’t apologize for my reaction to KIDNAPPING or REPEAT OFFENDERS or WANTING TO STOP CRIME from impacting my family.

Anyone for some levity?  Anyone got a lighter side?  My favorite recently was…

He was only doing the kidnapping that Americans won’t do.   (posted by Dov)

Call to Action 

How do you feel on this topic?  As you can tell, I feel pretty strongly.  I want to voice my support for Sheriff Greg Hamilton and I invite you to do the same.

In a similar vein, I submitted a “correction” form to Austin American-Statesman, control number 2008021403060224775 stating the following:

In many of your stories, you refer to illegal aliens or illegal immigrants as “undocumented worker” or “undocumented immigrant” or “paperless immigrant.” This is incorrect. They are _illegal_. Please refer to them appropriately in your news stories. To define new words is to distort the news and effectively lie to the public. I believe you to be intentionally playing down the importance of the criminal activity going on with illegal immigration. Laws are being broken and your paper is painting a picture of someone simply being “undocumented.” They are here illegally. They are breaking the laws.

I bet if they got an influx of letters and emails about the same thing, perhaps they’d stop lying.