Tag: illegal immigration


The 4th

4
July

Happy Fourth of July!  I hope that everyone is having a great day.  This isn’t exactly my favorite holiday in the world.  I used to love it a lot, but now it seems kind of like any other holiday.

I don’t get why people call it the nation’s birthday.  It seems like the country’s birthday would be the anniversary of it winning the American Revolution or the day that the Constitution was officially ratified.  The day the Declaration of Independence was adopted just doesn’t seem like a birthday to me.  Independence Day should be the celebration of that, but calling it America’s birthday seems like the equivalent of saying a person’s birthday is the day their parents either had sex or the day that they were conceived.  It disregards that the colonists could have lost.  It disregards the struggles with regards to the Articles of Confederation and the framing of the Constitution.

Even after winning the war, the country might not have been “born”.  The war just guaranteed that initial bit of independence from Great Britain.  It didn’t guarantee that the country would last or that the states would want to stay together.  They could have split up.  So, it seems like we should celebrate another day as the birthday.

Anyway, other than my being annoyed at the birthday thing, I’m annoyed about my neighbors shooting off fireworks.  It is illegal to shoot them off within city limits.  They do it every year.  They don’t just do it on the Fourth.  The fireworks go off from the 1st of July through around the 7th or so, when they run out of them.  These are probably the same people who would advocate capital punishment against anyone who committed any crime and the same people who say that illegal immigrants are evil people because they violated the law by coming here.  (Some of the people who support launching them even though it is illegal are literally the same people who have said that all of the laws of the country/state/government have to be followed and respected.  They will advocate on behalf of laws that violate the Constitution, but heaven forbid you ask them to not illegally shoot off fireworks.)

For the record, there are shows for people to go to so that they can see fireworks.  These shows have permits that grant them the right to shoot the fireworks.  These shows are closely watched by safety people.  These shows are okay.  These shows I have no problem with.

I might not get so annoyed by the fireworks my neighbors use if the litter from those fireworks didn’t end up in my yard. I would be less upset if they didn’t disregard burn bans when they are in effect. (People will set the fireworks off when there are full burn bans in place, even though it compromises public safety.) I would be even less annoyed if I didn’t have to spend 6 hours on the nights they do this keeping Gretchen calm.  Having to comfort a terrified dog those 6 hours and then keeping an eye on her and making sure that she doesn’t continue to have issues for another 6 hours gets to a person.  I think that if my neighbors had to spend their holiday weekends trying to keep part of their family calm because someone was outside their house violating a law, then maybe they would get why I get so pissed about the fireworks.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Alabama Weirdness, Causes, Confessions, Friends, Geekery, Holidays, How I Met Your Neighbors (aka An Overactive Imagination), Rants

Thanks for Writing

2
March

If a person explicitly asks (multiple times) that they not receive things promoting a certain agenda, then isn’t it possible that they might not be too thrilled when they receive an invitation for someone who supports that agenda? Isn’t it possible that the person might want to scream when they continue to get invitations for conservative causes despite publicly announcing that they do not support conservative causes.

I got an invitation from a woman I’ve known since right after my mom joined our ward when I was 10. This invitation was for the Grand Opening of Mo Brooks’ Campaign Headquarters. This was after I had reminded people on my facebook page that I do not support a conservative agenda. So, I sent the following:

******, I love and adore you, but please don’t send me invitations for Mo Brooks’ campaign. I’m not conservative and I’ve never been conservative. I understand and respect that you are, and I love that you’re politically involved, but I don’t share your political opinions.

Respectful, no? To which, I received:

Oh I don’t mind that you’re a liberal. God loves us all, dear. You can get an invitation and then not accept it– no problem. However, if you gave Mo Brooks a listen you might find yourself agreeing with him. I love his stance on keeping our borders closed to illegals. Ever since our friend Tad was brutally murdered by that drunk illegal last year, I’ve had a personal desire to keep this country safe. He not only killed Tad and his girlfriend, he’s also wanted in North Carolina for kidnapping a 12 year old girl. I want scum like him kept OUT. End of free rides at our expense. People can come here legally or they can stay home. No more destroying our children. By the way, I volunteer as a nurse at the HSV Free Clinic. Just got home from there a few minutes ago, in fact. So you see, Conservatism does NOT mean a lack of compassion. Anything but!
Love you too, and thanks for writing!

I know that God loves me. I have no doubt about that. I also know that people can be conservative and can be compassionate. I also know that I have not heard any legitimate confirmation of the North Carolina kidnapping case, unless it was on the news sometime when I was asleep.

I was about to send a fuming response. Something that would have severed all ties with this woman for all eternity. Instead, I wrote:

Thank you for your response, but please don’t send me things for his campaign. I don’t feel that it respects my wishes, since I have explicitly asked on my profile that I not receive these kinds of things. I do not send people who I know differ in beliefs invitations to pro-choice causes or rallies, and I don’t send things promoting gay marriage to people who I know are opposed to it.

I know that people can be conservative and compassionate, and I know you are a very compassionate and loving person. However, I also know that on political matters, we’re not going to agree…even on illegal immigration. (I adored Tad, but I’m not going to change my views on illegal immigration because of a personal tragedy.)

I know that she wants to punish people because of a loss, but it doesn’t seem right. Sure, there are bad guys who come across the border illegally. There are also bad guys who come in legally, and there are bad people born in this country. Bad people are going to exist no matter what. There are also good people who come illegally, legally, and are born here. What if we ban all illegals and we end up doing something detrimental to someone who is good? Are we legally culpable for that person’s problems because we changed our immigration policies to a harsher stance? No. We wouldn’t be, but we should be morally culpable. A lot of people leave their native lands illegally looking for something better. Some might even be considered refugees. However, if you look at the policies towards refugee status and, in many cases, legal immigration, the standards can be so difficult that a person might think that there is no hope.

It is odd that our country is made up of a bunch of people who believe we have a right to this land, a manifest destiny. We have this belief that if it looks like it could be ours, then it is ours. But this doesn’t mean that we are the owners of this land. It doesn’t give us a right to it that supercedes another person’s safety.

Update: The issues continue to go back and forth between us. To my latest statement:

Just ignore the invitation. You don’t have to go. An invitation is an opportunity a friend offers to another friend. I would never ask an enemy to an event.
I didn’t know you knew Tad. It’s been a hard 10 months on his mom and dad and his little brother and sister. I know– I’ve been there for them every day. I hope you and I will never lose a child, as it’s UNBELIEVABLE to see the pain the parents and family goes through. The sad thing is that when I sat in court at Ortega’s arraignment, I doubted very much if he even remembered what he’d done. As a nurse I’ve discovered that is often the way of a drunk– they take lives but they themselves are rarely harmed. [A very descriptive statement on the deaths of Tad and Leigh Anna.] No, you don’t have to change the way you think about illegal immigration, if such is your cause. Until you’ve stood in the middle of it and have tried to comfort someone who cannot be comforted, you will never understand the enormity. It is not your fault. I pray you will never have to stand in such a place.

I am really starting to feel disrespected, but I continue to feel like I’m responding somewhat politely.

Yes, I knew Tad. He had been at Break the Fast with me. I understand that the Mattle family has been through a horrific loss, and I can understand how that kind of grief can motivate you to feel such a way, but what if Ortega had been a legal citizen of this country? Would you feel that he is scum? Would you want the same level of justice lobbied at him? I don’t look at people and see their nationalities, their legal statuses…I see humans.

I’ve lost people. I’ve had friends who’ve been killed by their parents. I’ve had people killed at their own home by their own son the day after I was there, and have seen the repercussions of violence on the children of those people. I have seen the loss of family members through violence, too. Tragedies are not something that I am unfamiliar with.

I don’t feel like I’m to blame for what happened to Tad and Leigh Anna. I also don’t feel like God doesn’t love me because of how I believe. I don’t feel that I am responsible for the actions of others, since I believe that 1.) God gives us free will and 2.) we can’t circumvent God’s will.

I don’t appreciate having the circumstances of their deaths in my message box. I do know how they died, but I don’t want to have to read about it, in a way that I can only describe as a way to manipulate me into feeling some sort of guilt over what happened. I could sit and describe the reasons why so many people come here illegally. It would only upset you, and I wouldn’t do that to you.

I feel that you want me to be something that I’m not. You’ve invited me to support Mo Brooks twice, once after my request that I not get such things again. You’ve invited me to be a part of a cause supporting being Conservative, after my request. You’ve requested I attend an event supporting someone that I don’t want to support. Is there a reason that you have continued to invite me to these things when I ask that you not do so? I understand how invitations work on here, and I also understand that we choose who we invite. Is it that hard to just not invite me to something that you know I won’t want to be a part of?

2 comments » | Facebook, Friends, Rants

Some people disgust me

24
April

Last night, as I stayed up reading the online condolence books for Tad and Leigh Anna, I began to feel this knot in my stomach. Something I didn’t want to feel. I felt anger and hatred. I hate feeling hatred towards people, but I wasn’t feeling it at the person who took away someone who had touched my life. I was angry at the people who were vilifying the man who killed him.

Felix Ortega was immediately suspected of being an illegal immigrant. People saw him, and they would readily admit that they thought that he MUST be illegal. After all, we look at Hispanics in this country as being criminals. (Similar to how our ancestors looked at Blacks and Jews.) Because they KNEW, without any evidence, that he was illegal, they knew what to do to him. Some said deport him. Others argue he’ll come back. Some suggested execution…no one was telling them that this was extreme.

This was an accident. The only thing that we should be focusing on is the NATURE of the accident. It is not automatically an accident that was caused by an illegal immigrant. It is an accident that was caused by drunk driving. Focus on trying to get drunk driving laws stricter. Don’t focus on executing a man because he got drunk and did something stupid.

I wouldn’t favor execution even if he had murdered them with his bare hands. I wouldn’t want to know that three lives were lost because one man got drunk and did something stupid. I know, that means that I actually count the man who killed Tad as a human being, but you know what? He is, and I feel sorry for him. I really do. And hearing tonight on the news that he worked with Leigh Anna’s mother on her documentary? That was heartbreaking. Knowing that not only does this man know that he took a life, but he took the life of someone who touched his own life…it’s tragic to think of, and then when I read on some callous right-wing blogger’s statement of what happened the night of the accident and what he saw as someone from my church die (he described what it was like to watch him die), I just want to scream. I want to scream until I have no sound left. Not at Ortega. I want to scream at this blogger. The internet is big and wide. We can find things that touch our lives in many ways on it, but no one deserves to read the agony that their friend went though. To me, his posting a statement like that was insensitive. I understand he was trying to emote what it was like, but there are some details that even I, the Queen of oversharing, believe should be left off the internet. Talking about someone’s reaction to being burned alive is not something that I want to read when I get online and am looking at information about this tragic night.

I’m trying to make sense of it. We all are. We are all trying to see this world we live in, but some of us are not ready to hear about every little detail about that night.

Don’t politicize Tad’s death. I know that it is easy to do it. I know that it is so easy to say that this proves that all illegal immigrants are evil and that they deserve the needle or something, but it is not right to take our tragedy and turn it into your political mission. If the Mattles or the Jimmersons want to pursue laws to change illegal immigration, then let them. If the city wants the state to change laws, then let them. But don’t take our issue to your blogs and act like you speak for us.

Oh, and if you are in a condolence book, don’t say you hate a race of people because of what one man does. Racism is vile. We don’t need to be angry with people right now. We need to be living and loving and grieving.

Comments Off | Friends, Internet, Rants

Why Do They Even Care?

3
September

Welcome to the wonderful world of people who shouldn’t care do, and people who should care don’t. Apparently, when I did a search of some keywords related to the recent sentence of Benito Albarran, his case isn’t well known among activists for the abolition of the death penalty. It is, however, known to those who want to rid the country of illegal immigrants. They (the activists) wanted to execute him pretty much for just being here and committing a crime. Let’s forget the facts here. First of all, he has been described by doctors as being mildly retarded. Second of all, he has also been diagnosed as mentally ill. Now, just in case you haven’t read anything about the death penalty and who its okay to execute lately, it is not okay to execute anyone who is mentally retarded…and in a way, you’re not supposed to kill the mentally ill either.

How do I feel?

Well, I’ve never been pro-death penalty. I’ve always hated it. I believe the only being who should be able to determine if a person should die is God. Now, if God chooses to send a lightning bolt or something after Benito Albarran for killing the police officer 3 years ago, then He can do that. However, a state, a judge, or 12 people, who apparently didn’t pay attention to the facts of the trial, should not get the opportunity to kill a man for his crimes. I know he did it, but that doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t get executed for committing a crime, especially if you’re not necessarily in control.

He claimed to basically be possessed, so his attorneys tried for Not Guilty by Reason of Mental Disease or Defect. He thought that he was the Devil. Now, does that sound like something a sane man would say? No. I know that there is not really an official test that is 100% reliable to see if someone is “crazy”, but there are tests to see if a person is mentally retarded, and his results came back that he was.

Of course, I know to some that doesn’t matter because he’s an illegal immigrant and therefore “has no rights as a human being”. Well, he does. Everyone has rights. You can deny it to kingdom come, but it’s true. We are born with inalienable rights no matter where we’re born or where our official country of residence is.

And why is it that the judge in Albarran’s case just flat out ignored that the man is retarded? I don’t really have any answer to that. I do know that, even if he didn’t get an automatic appeal, she just guaranteed him one. Maybe even a new trial, if other judges don’t do the same thing ignoring that he’s got some brain problems. Oh, and she ignored that a juror lied. Was that even responsible?

I just wish we lived in a country where things like the death penalty were abolished, where people were more concerned about the well-being of their neighbor than getting rid of people who came here “illegally” by any and all means necessary.

Having nothing to do with this post: Oh, and by being called sexist by the group of women who say that I have to like Palin ’cause she’s a woman, just further infuriates me. They’re all for making statements about Obama because he’s got little or no experience, but they don’t see the same things in Palin. They also don’t see how other women could be a bit ticked off that the alternative to Obama basically another 4 years of something we don’t even like NOW. I don’t see why I should have to fake a smile about a woman who I don’t think I would even like if I met her, considering that she supports everything I abhor (gun rights, etc.) and just seems fake, but maybe that’s the beauty queen in her ticking off the feminist in me.

Oh, another thing that has nothing to do with the initial post, is that my clothes from 2 places have come. Three pairs of jeans fit, but five did not, even though they were ALL the same size and from the same brand. The three bras did not fit, even though they’re the same size as some I have now that do fit. I am still waiting on my clothes from Alloy, and my other purchases from other places. I have to quit shopping because I need to have some money in the bank when my next bank statement comes. I have a feeling that when my mom sees all the stuff I have purchased, she’s going to demand that I give up my check cards. She finally let me have them back, after taking them away for three years, and she’s going to get so upset by my purchases, but I haven’t had the opportunity to actually buy things for myself in a year and a half, except for groceries. I don’t think I’ve gone overboard, and I may send some of the clothes back that I ordered because they probably won’t all fit. I am keeping the DVDs (Gilmore Girls and an enrollment package from CH), CDs (Metro Station, GG soundtrack, OneRepublic, and Katy Perry), and books (the Twilight saga, another Stephanie Meyer book, and a cookbook) I ordered. I know it’s going to tick my mom off, but I just had to get the stuff.

Oh, and one more thing, has anyone ever joined Columbia House DVDs? I just joined and they double charged by check card for the enrollment. It was only $4.90 total, but it was a little unnerving that they would charge me $2.45 twice. I get it if it didn’t go through the first time, but it went through the first time, so it’s a bit weird to me. I sent them an email asking them what was up, but they haven’t told me yet. Of course, I only did that this morning ’cause it only happened this morning. I would like them to explain it to me quickly though because I don’t like having a lack of control over my funds.

1 comment » | Alabama Weirdness, Causes, Rants

     

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