Thursday, May 12, 2005
No Se
Border Patrol told to stand down in Arizona - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - May 13, 2005: "U.S. Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, The Washington Times has learned."
If this is true, doesn't just make your stomach hurt? When someone comes to me and shows me a better way to do things, I might fight a bit at first, like a child told to stand in the corner, but then I usually buck up and try to appropriately learn the lesson. Here we are, post 9/11, and these border patrol people are concerned they might look bad. They already do, and this just goes to proving their incompetence. It was bad enough that citizens felt so strongly about it as to go down there, but then to try to skew the results to attempt to make them seem ineffective?
I have really not known how to feel on this, as I am just no expert on illegals and their positive and negative impacts. I tend to think of them as illegals, thus not legally here. I also have immense compassion for the squalid conditions many of them are escaping. While I am thrilled I do not have to make the decisions as to whether they stay or go, I also understand people's ire about the vast number of illegals here who cost us money, commit crime, and do not become viable, law-abiding members of our communities.
Is it a real option to protect the borders really? Do we have enough people to protect the thousands of miles of earthen borders? Do we have enough money to pay the tens of thousands it would take to guard it day and night for the next ten or twenty years? Are there more effective uses of our money? Are there more effective anti-terrorism efforts? I don't know, but I would need to know the answers to those and hundreds of others to feel passionate about one side or the other. I wish others were as careful about where they exercise their passion.
If this is true, doesn't just make your stomach hurt? When someone comes to me and shows me a better way to do things, I might fight a bit at first, like a child told to stand in the corner, but then I usually buck up and try to appropriately learn the lesson. Here we are, post 9/11, and these border patrol people are concerned they might look bad. They already do, and this just goes to proving their incompetence. It was bad enough that citizens felt so strongly about it as to go down there, but then to try to skew the results to attempt to make them seem ineffective?
I have really not known how to feel on this, as I am just no expert on illegals and their positive and negative impacts. I tend to think of them as illegals, thus not legally here. I also have immense compassion for the squalid conditions many of them are escaping. While I am thrilled I do not have to make the decisions as to whether they stay or go, I also understand people's ire about the vast number of illegals here who cost us money, commit crime, and do not become viable, law-abiding members of our communities.
Is it a real option to protect the borders really? Do we have enough people to protect the thousands of miles of earthen borders? Do we have enough money to pay the tens of thousands it would take to guard it day and night for the next ten or twenty years? Are there more effective uses of our money? Are there more effective anti-terrorism efforts? I don't know, but I would need to know the answers to those and hundreds of others to feel passionate about one side or the other. I wish others were as careful about where they exercise their passion.
