This post is by Garry Hamilton – co-owner of NoisyRoom.net. His post is in response to a link from The Anchoress yesterday who disagrees with us strongly on the subject of illegal immigration – read her post here. We have the greatest respect for The Anchoress and she is certainly entitled to her opinion, but we respectfully disagree with it – please read my post here that she responded to. Further background and important reading can be found with this post... And now, a word from Garry:

(This essay is long. It is, however, a whole lot shorter than the so-called “reform” bill currently in congress.)

OUR PRESIDENT

Our president is navigating us, as a nation, onto some truly nasty shoals, and a serious and long-overdue course correction is needed.

He’s my president, and he’s wrong.

I voted for George W. Bush.

I voted for him twice.

I like the man.

It is my conviction that G.W. Bush is a good and decent man whose heart is in the right place and who has helped this country deal with some of the most difficult matters presented to us in decades.

Let’s just get that out of the way right up front.

Now, let me brag a moment.

WHO AM I?

I, myself, am a good and decent man, a patriot, a veteran of an unpopular war, a good husband, a good father, and a programmer of some considerable skill.

G.W. Bush and I are as different as day and night. We do, however, have one thing in common: neither of us is infallible.

I have endured severe financial hardship in my life as a result of errors in judgement.

I’ve lived through a considerable amount of crap to get where I am.

And, along the way, I’ve accrued some small smattering of wisdom, hard won, often at the cost of pain of one kind or another. I have learned how to recognize dishonesty in a man because of all the prior failures to do so. It’s something you figure out or stay stupid on the subject.

I learned to learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others.

I learned logic, I learned math, and I’m actually not bad with English when you get right down to it. I have been stupid in my life, but I learned that I don’t have to stay that way.

I’ve also spent some time at sea. I learned that everyone on the ship is responsible for its staying afloat and making way toward its intended destination, and that no one on board is excused of that duty, even if it means confronting the captain with one’s concerns.

Just as there are certain things that are patently a bad idea on a ship, there are certain things that are a bad idea on a “ship of state”—that is, a nation. You can capsize either one.

BORDERS, LANGUAGE, CULTURE.

There are three things which must be preserved for a nation to retain its identity: its borders, its language, and its culture.

A culture will not survive if its moral foundations are undermined. The morality of a culture is encoded in its laws, customs, and traditions. The customs and traditions, along with the laws, are very much communicated from generation to generation by way of language. You cannot—cannot—preserve the customs and traditions intact if you supplant the language that carries them.

A culture also relies for its stability on compliance with its laws. If I have to explain that, then you should probably stop here; your coffee is probably calling you.

If you eliminate the moral foundation you will destroy the culture.

If you disagree with that statement, just stop reading here and go get your coffee.

The perpetuation of a culture depends, literally, on preserving its language and its mores.

Now, a nation has borders. What’s a border, and why is it important?

A border is that boundary at which one may say, “on this side we follow our rules; anything that violates those rules stays outside this boundary.”

This is not hard. This is basic.

It’s fundamental to the point where analogies shouldn’t be needed at all.

Even so . . .

YOUR HOME.

One should not have to point out that, in your own house, you impose your own rules and allow only those whom you invite, and anyone who a) wasn’t invited, or b) breaks the rules, is asked to leave.

If someone shows up at your door and claims the right of entrance because “this used to be my neighborhood” do you just let them in? Lead them to the fridge? Kick your son out of his bedroom to make room for this person who “claims the right” to be there?

Do you let him take over your son’s chores and dispossess your son because the new guy is “hard working” and will do the jobs for half your son’s allowance? Well, why not? It makes good economic sense, doesn’t it?

Yes, and if you do that, you’re a moron. If you accept the argument that someone is entitled to take from you that which you have earned and they have not—simply on the strength of some lame “I was here first” argument—then you are are moron.

It’s a border. What we do on THIS SIDE is up to us. We don’t import our rules. And if we do, we’re morons.

If just any jackass can march into your home and demand of you that you provide for him, speak to him in his language, and allow him to conduct himself according to HIS rules—not yours—and you permit this, then you are a moron.

And your home and family and possessions are forfeit.

Thanks for playing.

ARE YOU BORED YET?

The durability of a culture depends on how well its laws are followed, how well its culture is propagated, and the integrity of the language used to do both.

One of the fundamental rules of a nation is that it gets to say who and what shall be allowed entry.

Any nation. Every nation I’ve ever visited has had that same requirement. If they don’t want you there, they send you home. If you try to bring in something forbidden, they will seize it or send it back.

Okay.

RATIONALIZATIONS.

There are plenty of rationalizations for “why it’s okay to break the law” to get into the country, work below the minimum wage, lie to obtain services, and a long list of other crimes.

There are too many of them. Enforcement is too hard. We need the labor. We’ve always had immigrants. I like cheap vegetables. American kids won’t wash cars, mow grass, pick fruit, hammer nails, serve food, clean tables, blah blah blah. Fifty-dollar heads of lettuce.

For every one of these there is a statistic that debunks it. Heck, even a little logic will do that.

Like: There are millions of them, and it’s just too hard to enforce the laws on millions of them.

WHAT LAWS?

Did you know there are millions of American citizens? No, really, millions.

There are just too many of them to enforce all the laws on them. You’d never catch them all. It’s pointless to even try.

So, what are you waiting for? Cancel your car insurance, take off your seatbelt, and drive as fast as you want! Hell, they can’t catch us all. There are millions of us! Millions and millions!

But they would catch us, wouldn’t they?

You know why? Because they care. Because they care enough to put systems in place to make sure they can catch us. And they don’t have to arrest every speeder; just the fact that they will do it at all is enough to slow us down.

You see? “There are too many of them.” That’s simply false.

SO WHERE DO WE START?

Easy. You are at sea. You are on a ship that’s taking on water. You have identified the leak.

Do you a) fix the leak first, b) start bailing like crazy, c) note that the sea was here first and besides everybody needs water?

You fix the leak.

You don’t do anything else until you fix the leak.

Once the leak is fixed, you start bailing (or run the bilge pumps).

Then you assess the other damage and deal with that.

You don’t execute a “comprehensive swamping plan” expressed in a 700-page memo.

Now, when you have a big enough crew, you can have people bail while others fix the leak, but no matter what else you also do, YOU FIX THE DAMNED LEAK.

SO NOW WHAT?

Those people who think that unregulated entry to this country is a good thing need to smack themselves in the face with a trout.

Emergency rooms across the Southwest have been closing down because they can’t sustain the unrelenting flow of free service to foreign nationals.

Ranchers all along the border are experiencing heavy losses from incursions.

The environment along the border is an ecological disaster.

The status quo is catastrophic.

So, what’s the one thing people do when something like this happens: they turn to the government and demand they DO SOMETHING about it. Pass another LAW to fix it.

Why would you do that?

Because the government has such a wonderful track record of faultless solutions to society’s problems?

Are you nuts?

Fix the frigging leak already!

This is just not that hard.

The money it costs us to chase them, arrest and imprison them, service them in hospitals and schools, even provide them with welfare is huge.

Building a fence that stops 99% of that flow is a fraction of that cost.

Yes, I hate the idea of a fence, too, but I hate losing our country this way even more.

NOW, LISTEN TO ME.

Many of you out there are okay with the 1,000-page “immigration reform” bill because G.W. Bush endorses it.

Stop right there.

So does Ted Kennedy. And Kennedy was a prime mover on the content. And this thing was “agreed” to before it was ever finished, and when it was presented it was between 750 and 1,000 pages long AND NO ONE HAD READ IT! And it bypassed the committee process.

At this point, I don’t have to know any more about the bill than a) it’s huge, b) it was drafted in secret, c) Kennedy’s behind it, d) we didn’t need it in the first place.

We have the laws. We already don’t enforce them.

By what magical leap of faith do you imagine that a new law—one that’s bigger, all by itself, than the entire bible—would ever be enforced?

Over the past week, I’ve heard a number of in-depth analyses that just made my skin crawl.

This bill is, hands down, the worst piece of sell-out legislation in decades.

It seeks to solve the sinking ship problem by drilling holes in the bottom of the hull.

This piece of crap legislation needs to be scrapped.

Not “revised” or “amended,” just scrapped.

AND PRESIDENT BUSH?

I honestly don’t know what’s going on with G.W. Bush. I don’t know whether he’s just slipped a cog or if he has simply caved in to all the special interests on this.

And now he’s going on T.V. telling us that we—that’s the majority of Americans—are wrong?

At this point it doesn’t matter whether I like the President. He is wrong, flat wrong.

Don’t imagine it’s fun or satisfying for me to say that.

The ship is taking on water, and the latest “plan” will sink her for sure.

Whether you like the captain is suddenly beside the point.

Don’t drown in your loyalty.