H.R. 4477
You know, I've lived in this Mayberry-lookalike of a town for over fifteen years now, and I have never seen a protest before, for any reason. Smithfield is, by all accounts, a small and quiet place to live. Nothing happens -- you can walk its streets at midnight every night for a year and never get mugged, because there are no muggers.
Understandably, however, the population percentage of hispanics has become extremely high in recent years, due to our large fields and agricultural industry. In the rural areas next to the fields, every five or so miles you can find a dilapitated house or trailer with five or more cars in the drive and broken couches on the porch. It may sound like a stereotypical view, but it's one I see everyday on my way to work, and it really shouldn't be overlooked.
In my high school there were hispanics everywhere, and most of the ones I talked to either admited to being illegal, or that their parents were illegal and that they themselves were actually born in the United States, making them citizens.* They tell me this, frankly, because they don't care if anyone knows, 'cause who would ever turn them in, anyway?
My father owned a carpentry business for a long time, and hired illegal aliens to work for him all the time. He payed them well, bought them lunches and even became fairly friendly with some of them, sometimes taking them out for dinner. Of course, he never said publicly that they were illegal, but it was sort of an understood truth.
As I mentioned in my post We Come from the Land of the Ice and Snow, Americans are dependant on illegal immigrants. If they all vanished tomorrow, it would mark a dark time in the United States. But that being said, we would get over it, work through it, and come out on the other side, I believe, better for it.
I sympathize with immigrants, both legal and illegal. I understand all too well the life of not having, never recieving, and always having to work for what seems like an eternity only to arrive with no more than you had in the beginning. It is not an easy life, and America has always been known as the Land of Opportunity. But I look now at the reasons hispanics come into the county illegally in the stead of legally, and I see it is only out of a greed. They see the grass on the other side of the fence green and flush, but then see an easier way -- a side door, as it were -- where there are no taxes and no payments, only money. They don't want to give anymore, and like I said...I understand the feeling.
But that does not change the fact that the feeling is a wrong one. America is the Land of Opportunity, and anyone can reach any level, with hard work and determination. Yes, some will have to work harder, but it is always achievable.**
In the post REAL Art Appreciation, I mention how I wanted to cheat on a test, but didn't only because I knew I would get caught...and the consenquences were LARGE. It would have been easier to cheat, but if I had studied more and put in a little more work, I wouldn't have found that necessary and I'd be all the better for it. So there is nothing wrong with trying to make it harder to break the law, because the law is not meant to be broken.
But now the protestors come in the hundreds, and that is just in my little hometown. They go against H.R. 4477, a bill that has alot of parts which you can read more about here, but that basically cranks up the consequence for illegals when they're caught. And I'm all for it.
In the sixties, this was called the Civil Rights Movement. Well this is a movement as well, but where legal blacks were lacking the rights other legal Americans had in the sixties, this has illegal hispanics lacking the rights legal Americans have.***
Technically, that's the way it's supposed to be.
* And the family translators.
** ALWAYS.
*** Confusing? I was hoping so.
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