FROM IGNORANCE AND INCOMPETENCE TO OPPORTUNITY AND PRIDE

WILLIAM PENN FALLIN
COLUMNIST
Douglas, GA Enterprise
Natchitoches, LA Times
Camden County, GA Courier

IMMIGRATION: FROM IGNORANCE AND INCOMPETENCE TO OPPORTUNITY AND PRIDE

By Jim Willits and William Penn Fallin

Note: Jim Willits is a businessman in Dallas, TX who deals with immigration on a daily basis

(4 Part Series)

(Part 1) Typical Washington

This immigration issue is a symbol for what’s wrong with America. Let’s look at the landscape in which we find ourselves, what we’re doing wrong, and how to solve the problem.

Washington is completely out of touch with the American people on the immigration issue. That doesn’t mean Democrats or Republicans. It means both of them. Their suggested policies (or solutions) are ridiculous and impractical. But there is a workable solution out there. It involves a dirty word though, “Compromise.”

People have become so self-centered today that they forget we live in a country of 300 million people. Whatever your personal opinion on any subject, the chances of you getting everything you want on any enormously complicated issue are roughly zero. A rational person then looks to what is achievable and seeks to solve the problem to the best extent possible. That will involve aspects of a solution you don’t like. Get over it. Whiny little partisans on the other hand, like those we have running our country, scream obscenities at each other to whip up their bases, who are usually equally whiny and self-centered. Ask Average Joe American what he thinks and you see the seeds of compromise.

Does Average Joe want the borders controlled? Yes.
Does he want all illegal immigrants returned to Mexico? No.
Does he want blanket amnesty? No.
Does he want some path to citizenship for at least some of these people? Yes.
Does he want to stop immigration? No.
Does he want to stop illegal immigration? Yes.
Do we need these people? Yes.
Do these people currently drain our public infrastructure? Yes.
Are they still a net benefit for us? Yes.
Does he want immigrants to learn English? Yes.
Is he racist? No.
Is he tired of people breaking the law and calling him a bigot whenever he brings it up? Yes.

Each side believes they represent the American people. They don’t. People who want to shut the borders and return all illegals represent the uncompromising hard right. They are a generally well-intentioned group who stand for old-fashioned American values, anybody who wears jeans and a well-worn hat representing a corporate entity, sports team, or mouth cancer causing consumable product. Unfortunately they get “Stuck on Stupid” instead of taking advantage of the fact that their opponents are just basically mean-spirited people or naïve dreamers.

The opposite extreme are people who swoon and talk in glowing terms about the hard working nature of these oppressed people and their struggle to overcome racism and the fight for open borders. They are more easily identified as the uncompromising hard left. These people lament the fact that we don’t live in a world where cars and vehicles of all kind are unnecessary. They live in a dream world, which bears no relation to the one in which we actually live. They spend their time looking up into the sky at the pretty birds and then get run over by the buses that they think shouldn’t exist. They owe allegiance to “a larger cause” than any nation; an elusive notion of citizens without borders, universal humanity and any number of other post-Marxist fantasies. They are the flag desecrators.

Middle America loathes both of these groups even more than illegal immigration. They’re sick of hearing it, all of it. Most Americans fall in the middle this issue, like most issues. If there were ever an issue that more cogently illustrates the dire need for a Third Party in this country than this issue, I’d love to hear about it.

You Politicians should put down your talking points and quit looking for the perfect catch phrase to increase your fund-raising ability with the base. Middle America detests your base. Just get out there and solve the problem by coming up with a workable solution that will inevitably include great compromise, but in the end will allow all of us to be secure in the knowledge that we did a good thing. You aren’t going to satisfy the outer 20% of either wing anyway (with anything that could actually happen), so stop trying. To put it in terms that Washington can understand, there are more votes in the middle anyway.

So what is that solution to immigration? We’ll discuss that in Part 2.