El Gringoqueño

From the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States 

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

From the Declaration of Independence of the United States 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Why do I bring this up?  Recently the debate has been raging about what rights are afforded to undocumented workers or illegal immigrants, sometimes inhumanely referred to as "illegals."  The heart of the debate, if it can be said to have one at all, is that only citizens are afforded the rights granted by the Constitution. 

If you are not a citizen, then you are out of luck.

The power of the Constitution comes neither from the government itself nor the People.  James Madison seems to agree with me.

"Because if . . . [An Unalienable Natural Right of Free Men] . . . be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: It is limited with regard to the coordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires, not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained: but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the greater Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are Slaves — James Madison, June 1785.

What he is saying is that the People are capricious, and since the government is an extension of the people then it too is capricious.  It [the government] cannot be trusted with our most important gifts of creation.

I think some clue to the whole puzzle of where our rights come from, how they apply, and to whom they apply is contained in the Declaration of Independence.  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…"  Unalienable: non-transferable, unable to destroy, eradicate, or remove.  That is to say, if you are human you have these rights whether you want them or not and no one can legally take them away.  Of course if someone uses force to subject you, no legal order gives them authority, and we the People of the United States with the authority of the Constitution, shall protect you and restore to you your proper rights. 

The Declaration of Independence, in my mind, can be seen as the spirit under which was formed the whole of our union.  It was the mission statement, frame of reference, or inspiration from which all the founding documents flowed. 

These rights we have as a person are in all ways incontrovertible.  The mention of a Creator, I believe, is simply an acknowledgment of "other than the ways of men."  It could have easily said, "You, by the fact of your birth in the Universe, have the following rights, none of which is granted to you by us, our representatives, or their agents."  We the government are not the authority giving  you these rights, we the government of the people simply acknowledge them and pledge to protect them from others that would seek to subvert these rights.

In short, we didn’t invent these rights, we just protect them. 

It bears mentioning again.  The government IS NOT the authority for your rights as a human being.  It took a while, but the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution is the part that finally spelled it out.  We’d spent nearly a century assuming, but no longer, the XIV was going to nail it down with railroad spikes.  Let there by no doubt.  "…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

There is no distinction there for citizen/non-citizen.  We the people of the United States recognize that the rights of man are not beholden to the whimsy of the public or the government.  The People and by its extension, the government, have no authority to grant, rescind, or amend these rights. 

Again, the Constitution and the government and its laws protect these rights but neither grant them nor bestow them.

The next time you hear some shill talking about the Constitution not protecting illegal immigrants or granting to us something it does not grant to them, be wary, for if the Constitution has the power to NOT grant rights to those other people, than from where does the authority for your rights come?  The Constitution?  I don’t think so.

To keep these rights from illegal immigrants is to subvert your own rights.  I don’t know about you, but MY rights do not come from the Constitution.  The Constitution simply exhorts you/us to protect these rights that are bestowed upon us by "other than man."  You have them because you exist.

To fight for the rights of illegal immigrants is to fight for your very own rights.  I, for one, have no interest in granting authority for my liberty to the US Government.  I hold it on my own as a person.  The People have pledged to protect those rights whether you be natural born or an alien, for it is the people we are, a people who love liberty, a people who wish for none to be subjugated under the unlawful heel of tyranny or injustice. 

Unalienable rights apply everywhere in the world in all nations, but it is only within our borders that they are protected by the Consitution.  It is only here where we have the authority to enforce these rights as a people.  The day that we apply a different standard to visitors, tourists, people of other nations living in working in America than we apply to our own citizens is the day that we subvert the true intent of the Constitution. 

No American president has ever said this, and no American president ever will.  Because I am impatient, I shall invent one who does. 

My fellow Americans, I stand before you today, not as your president, not as the Commander in Chief, but as your dear friend, your best friend who really cares about you and must tell you something you do not want to hear.  I will say it here today, because and only because I care deeply about America.

I stand here as someone who must remind us all today what it means to be American.  If you will permit me into your living rooms, I shall speak my piece and take the consequences as they may befall me.  I have kept quiet long enough.  It is time that we heard the truth about what it means to be an American.

But first, let me dispel some myths. 

It is NOT our language of English.  It is not our culture, whatever that means.  It not whiteness, blackness, latin-ness, chinese-ness, or any other -ness.  We are not American because we drive big cars or trucks.  We are not Americans because we love to buy.  We are most certainly NOT American because we shop at Wal-mart.  We are not American by virtue of keeping Mexicans from our shores, or waving the American flag, singing the national anthem, or pledging our allegiance.  I could go on.

Do I need to go on? 

The things that make us American are the intangibles, not how we look, or speak, nor what we have, acquire, or even what we build.   What makes us American, my fellow Americans, is the resolute fact that we have a willingness to fail, that we have the opportunity to fail.

To be an American means to risk failure, and to fail not once, or twice, but repeatedly.  Our failure rate, is directly proportional to our forward progress.  Show me someone adverse to risk and I will show you someone who has done nothing, and will never do anything.  He is happy, complacent, and content – content in his mediocrity.  He is a useless sort, and we do not want him here in America.

Unfortunately, we are beginning to grow more and more of these types right here on our own shores.  We are happy.  We have lots of nice things.  My fellow Americans, I have nice things.  You have nice things.   We enjoy a standard of living the far exceeds the majority of the world.  That is great and wonderful to be sure, but I see some slippage.  We, my fellow Americans, have become risk averse.  We ask that others assume the risk.  When others come and are willing to risk death, poverty, and discrimination, we malign them for they remind us of what we have lost.  It is our shame that causes us to call out to them, ‘Go home, you dirty immigrants,’  for we have forgotten our proud dirty immigrant past.  Shame on us.  Shame on me.

We shall not dishonor our ancestors in that fashion.  I shall not dishonor my ancestors in that fashion.

We Americans have lost the will to live, the hunger that made America great.   We have lost the willingness to put it all on the line.

What does this American president propose?  I will tell you.  I want immigrants that are fed up with tyranny, poverty, sickness, despots, corruption, death and mayhem to pack their bags and get to America.  Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  Just get here.

And I do mean all of you.  No quotas, no limits, no restrictions.

I want these immigrants to come to our shores, for the opportunity to earn a living, working hard, and gaining a purpose in this life.  They are no longer cattle to be lead to a slaughter.  They are to be no longer seen as simply the listless masses upon whom tin-pot dictators reap their blessings in the form of death, persecution, and abject poverty.

We Americans see you, people of the world, as human capital.  Whereas others see you as drains on government pension funds, a lot to be taken care of or robbed or just a burden, we in America see your value.  You are not a drain, you are an asset. 

You are a national treasure.

And we have forgotten it, my fellow Americans, we have forgotten to treasure our immigrants.  I ask, can a person have too much treasure?

Every life that wants to produce, that wants to be useful, because that is all any of us could ever ask, shall have that opportunity right here, right here in this great immigrant land of ours.

I can hear it now, my fellow Americans, ‘They will bring down wages, they will subvert our way of life.  We cannot absorb so many.’ 

Historically Americans believed that economic progress and prosperity were a result of the free land to our west.  When things got tough, we opened up more land, and folks rolled up their sleeves, moved and worked that land to bring more riches to America.  The fact of free land was a compelling reason for Americans to believe our nation was wealthy.  I ask, however, what good is land without human hands to work it?  Franklin D. Roosevelt once said:

We are not able to invite the immigration from Europe to share our endless plenty. We are now providing a drab living for our own people.

Which is, of course, a logical fallacy and begs the question, why should we believe that immigrants come to share endless plenty.  That land could have lain bare for another thousand years without putting a single cent in a bank account, happily.   The immigrants were the source of that plenty during the years of westward expansion, for it was their hands that cultivated the soil, that shaped the landscape, and caused it to yield untold riches.  Immigrants come to create endless plenty.

It was immigrants, my fellow Americans.  They were the riches.

Let me address the former criticism of wages.  I hope immigrants do lower wages.  Lower wages get people off their couches.  Lower wages stimulate new thinking.  If we have to compete with lower wages, we have got to think of ways to cut costs, innovate, or fail. That’s the American way.  And two, I ask, what IS the American way if its not to re-purpose international assets to our benefit.   Let me paint a tiny picture of what I’m talking about. 

Say, I am an African dictator and I am robbing my people blind.  I am taxing what little they have to build myself palaces and buy cars and support my harems of women.  I am a small-minded fool and shall soon be parted from my wealth. 

Half my country then leaves.  They take up residence in America where that first generation works happily in menial labor jobs and earns more in a day than they did in a whole month or year in their country.  Fast forward to their children’s generation, educated, hard working, and born of a spirit that there are so many possibilities.  These people will take us to scientific greatness.  They will build better cars.  They will build better buildings.  They will become amazing educators, thinkers, business people, you name it.  They do not complain.  They do not whine.  They do not sue.  They are just thankful that they are not dying, starving in some nameless ditch in some forgotten land.  They wake up every day, thanking their god, that they have had this opportunity.  They revere their lives.  They revere our land.  They revere their kind neighbors.  This my friends, is paradise, an immigrant paradise.  All they need is a chance.

Meanwhile our little African dictator takes a peek from afar, sees the riches upon which he had sat and covered with excrement.  It was, in fact, a pile of gold, a pile of gold that far outstripped the production of even his biggest gold and diamond mines.  What was he thinking? A fool he is.

And what should we be thinking.  How can we NOT absorb such riches.  It is a windfall.  It is a boon.  We should dance and sing and make merry for our good fortune.  We seized half of a country’s riches and never had to fire a single bullet.  Genghis Khan would have been befuddled by such a brilliant scheme.

Is there ever too much good fortune?

So come here.  Come and bring to us your enthusiasm.  We will give you a chance to succeed.  We will give you a chance to fail.  But you can pick yourself up and try something else.  Because in America you make your own destiny as you see it.

And, my fellow Americans, they are going to make us uncomfortable.  Change is tough.  They will challenge our ideas.  I say then, we will get over it and we must stop whining.  We must learn from them – learn how we used to be and start taking risks, thankful for every single day that we have in this great land of ours.

I thank you for listening, my fellow Americans.

The whole mess of fraudulent fines is blowing up here now.  The local paper is featuring the story and outrage on the front page.  Through the article, I learned that I can go online and check my driver’s record to see just what fines I supposedly owe.  Okay, cool, I’ll at least be able to see what they have fabricated for my fine-paying pleasure.

THEY DON’T EVEN SHOW THE SAME AMOUNT.

Let me repeat that.  The hard copy printed letter on paper, that had to come from somewhere, that had to be generated from something by someone, doesn’t even match what they have in their own database – not even close.

I knew criminals were stupid.

Supposedly, I was driving through red lights hours away in Mayaguez a week after 9/11.  DTOP shows a fine for $30 and no license plate number.  So apparently I was jogging through red lights on the other side of the Puerto Rico with my special jogging sneakers and super powers.  Luckily I had my license so that they could indicate the proper fine for flying through red lights with an invisible car or something.

BAH!  So where does the $120 come from?  I think they just made it up, pulled a number from their collective ass, and called out –

Hah, schenanegans on me.  You kidders you.

I got a letter in the mail, addressed to me, from the DTOP (Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas, Dept of Transportation and Public Works).  Weird, I thought, this is weird indeed.  What could they possibly want with me?  I quote (my thoughts in parenthesis)

Esteemed James, (ooo, I’m esteemed, that’s good, huh?)

I have good news for you (oh my goodness, good news, let me read more).  You can save $48.00.  (wow, how?  more more more!) Currently, our system reflects that you have pending traffic fines totaling $120.00 (WHAT!?)

Take advantage of this offer.  You have from March 3rd to May 1st to receive a 40% discount, a savings of $48.00. You can get out of all your fines by paying only $72.00. (WTF?)

This offer is for a limited time and will not be repeated.  Don’t waste time or money. Visit your closest local collecting office and pay your invoice.  You only have to bring this letter. (They wish)

Pay now and save.  Don’t wait until it is tool late. (or WHAT?)

Gabriel D Alcaraz Emmanuelli (Crook)
Secretario de Transportación y Obras Públicas

Okay, it looks like it came from DTOP, on official stationary.  They are not asking for a mailed check.  They ask that you go to the official government collections office to pay.  The letter is legitimately from DTOP, but it reads like a bad CompUSA rebate offer.  It just sounds like fraud, fraud disguised as a great offer.  Couple that with the fact that I just re-registered my car a week ago (so I was clear a week ago) and have never ever ever been pulled over let alone ticketed.  This is just false.  And the letter does not provide a phone number or any information to report an error.  Okay, I think to myself, I’ll have to deal with this.  What a pain.

I am reminded of a corollary to Arthur C. Clark’s "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" which is "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."  I love that quote.

Then I find out that Laura’s father, mother, and brother also got the same letter.

Okay, so that’s how it going to be, huh, naked malice.  There is speculation that the cover story is going to be a computer glitch, that if you drag your sorry ass into the collections office, wait all day for a useless government functionary to see you, you may have your "fines" removed.  Otherwise, if your time/job is worth more than the extortion demand, then you’ll just pay it and move on with your life.

I also find it weird that amount of the "fine" is suspiciously close to the median daily income of the average worker.  It’s like the dollar figure is perfectly calculated to match the cost of missing a day of work.  It’s probably a close race for the majority of Puerto Ricans today.  It’s just too perfect an amount for my "fines."  It’s too perfectly crafted.  Too high, everybody fights, Government gets no money.  Too low, and most everybody pays it resulting in an increase in revenue, but a loss on how much they could have actually gotten.  The tone of the letter makes me believe they are doing me a favor, going out on a limb, and the amount is just about right for the average joe.

This is just sick, sick, sick.  I have never heard of such a thing, government run extortion, fraud.  I mean, usually they just stick to back room graft and mismanagement.  How often do governments just come right out and say, "pay us this money, and there won’t be any problems,"  except in Cameroon?

Any lawyers out there want to take up a case against the Department of Transportation in Puerto Rico and Gabriel D Alcaraz Emmanuelli, alleged mastermind of this fraud?

What is it that Muslim’s fear so much?  Why do they wail and gnash their teeth so?  How come they can’t just go about their business, but must convince, kill, or convert the world when it conflicts with their truth?  First they are ignorant.  Second, they are just plain wrong.  Maybe that’s what they’re afraid of.

I know of a group that lives in what is alleged to be the most decadent nation on the planet, the US of A.  They live right smack in the middle of Satan’s den.  They live quiet ascetic lives the likes of which The Prophet would envy.  They shun our way.  They shun our materialism.  They shun technology.  They support each other and seem to live happy peaceful lives doing what they like.  For their way to exist, they don’t need to rail against the infidel.  They are comfortable in their own skin.

One the other hand when what you believe isn’t natural to you, when you have doubt, when you are fearful and craven, then everything is an attack against your foundation of belief.  Television is an attack.  Books are an attack.  Liberalism is an attack.  Politics is an attack.  Women are an attack.  They are attacking us.  They wish to tear us down, but quietly in places you don’t like to admit, your house is already in tatters.  Please, I pray to God, let them not see the poor condition of this place in which I dwell.  Perhaps if I tear out their eyeballs, they will not look upon me.  Then my state of shame will not be true.

Pay Attention, Islam

Perhaps Muslims could take a tip or two from the Amish.  Here we have a religious community that has sworn off most of America’s way of life.  They live amongst us, and have done so for hundreds of years.  We don’t bother them.  They don’t bomb us.  They farm, make furniture, clothes, trade with locals, and generally lead happy lives.  You do what you do, they say, and we’ll do what we do. 

That’s true belief.  That’s the comfort of knowing who you are, not basing your self identity on what others are doing.  Live and let live.

Of course, ALL the fundamental sects could take a lesson or two from the Amish.  I’ve not ever had an Amish person bother me on a Saturday morning with their literature.  I’ve never heard of an Amish suicide bomber.  I’ve never heard of a white supremacist Amish hate-monger.  They don’t appear on the 700 club.  They don’t make hateful statements against the victims of hurricane Katrina.  They don’t call for the destruction of the Infidel.  They don’t protest at the funerals of soldiers or the deaths of AIDs victims.

They just go about their business, doing God’s work as they see fit.  And here in America, we let them. 

And we’d let you *@*#&% Muslims go about your business too, if you’d just stop BLOWING SHIT UP AND MAKING A NUISANCE OF YOURSELVES.

Why can’t you be more Amish?

Dear City of New York,

It has come to our attention that you have been considering changing the tone of your Thanksgiving Day Parade.  We note with interest the throngs of people cheating death by avoiding falling lamp posts.  We have been observing our annual running of the bulls (Festival de San Fermín) for hundreds of years and we view your attempt to copy us as pathetic and ill advised.  First, you don’t know how to do it right.  Second, our lawyers have a lot more experience with liability.  Besides people being mauled in the street was our idea first.

So, in closing, stop hitting handicapped women with lamposts hurled by renegade balloons and stop promoting your city as the best destination for those who wish to cheat death.

That’s our shtick.

Sincerely,
The City of Pamplona, Spain 

P.S. The irony of using the work "shtick" is not lost on us.

How about not?  How about if we said that pulling out of Iraq wouldn’t have disastrous consequences – or put a different way: Why are we supposing that for us to get tired and pull out early would be the end of the western world as we know it?  Why are we playing that card?

So, let’s say I’m one of the terrorists.  What scenario would make me blissfully happy?  What scheme, plan, strategy spoon-fed to me by my adversary, allowing me to not tire my little mind with hard thoughts, or having to be book smart, or know geo-politics, foreign policy or even to have read Sun Tzu’s Art of War – would be like a gift from Allah?  What gift could be so great, so timely, so wonderfully selected just for me and my little comrades, ready made like a Pillsbury ready-bake biscuit roll… one of the ones that goes pop,  I love that – that I would fall on my knees in gratitude.

What little gift is the gift that keeps on giving?  A stupid enemy.

Why, tell me exactly what I have to do to win this thing.  "I say to you my comrades, look at them, they are tired, they are in-fighting, and they have told us that all we have to do is hold out for a little while longer, and we will have victory and their way of life will die dying dead like an infidel’s dead dying stinky dog that smells.  Straight from the camel’s mouth, they have said it.  To lose would be the worst possible thing.  Take heart, my brothers, we are close."

You see?!  All they have to do is re-double their efforts hang on a little longer and we are screwed. 

We – are – so – stupid, my teeth hurt.

So, what should we be doing?  What should we be saying?

Look, this is no big deal – we have already won.  The Iraqi people have already conquered the enemy.  They are marching toward prosperity.  We should be saying that victory is assured whether we pull out or not.  And if we do pull out soon, we will declare victory and go with pride having accomplished the mission.  Failure?  Not a chance, because we have already won.  Say it over and over and over and over again, until it sinks into that tiny stupid acorn-sized cell-bundle you call a brain.  Like any confederate flag waving KKK rally attending red-neck racist you fascist islamists don’t realize you lost the war.  It’s over.  It’s been over.  The world is moving on.  There is NO CHANCE of disaster striking.  No amount of car bombs, suicide bombs, shootings will change that.   You lost.  Even if we leave, you’ve still lost.

All you can do now is put your little Al Qaida bumper sticker on your little shit-hole pickup truck full of watermelons and drive your sorry ass on over to the Walmart to buy yourself some scented Christmas candles and a Coca Cola.

Well, not that I’m happy or anything, but I was figuring that since the hurricane was going to rape and pillage the Yucatan Peninsula, I’d hear the stories of the folks that live there.  I thought I’d get to hear of their plight.  I was wrong… again.

I forgot about the "American" angle – *smacks head* tourists in Cancun.  Can we at least just hear about their waiters, maids, and hotel staff? hmmm? Is it too much to ask?  Did one of them trip over a beer can or something?  ANYTHING?!

Evacuated again?  Hmm, let me have a look.  Oh, will you look at that.  What a storm.  It’s bearing down on – hmm, what’s that tiny insignificant spot of land? – oh and that other one.  I thought the Florida Keys were small.  That looks too damn big to be the Keys.  Did CNN, MSNBC, and FOXNEWS get it wrong.  Perhaps I should write them that THE FUCKING YUCATAN PENINSULA AND CUBA ARE RIGHT SMACK IN THE PATH OF HURRICANE WILMA, THE BIGGEST DAMN HURRICANE TO COME ALONG SINCE, WELL, EVER!

You know what, I finally have a crystal clear vision of why the world hates us.  I mean I always kinda knew, but it’s never been quite so apparent. 

The other day, the head of only Home Grown Puerto Rican Terrorist Group^TM, the Macheteros^TM Filiberto Ojeda Rios was killed in a gun battle with the FBI.  He had been convicted in absentia, casually sought for years, and finally killed in his home in the western town of Hormigueros in Puerto Rico.  His crime? – robbing a Wells Fargo armored car of $7 million to fund la revolución de la sagrada independencia, una revolución santificada por el pueblo puertorriqueño, or so they tell me.

Ah, but the sanguine have come ablaze, fiery rhetoric, tongues lashing, beating their chests.  This man, this most blessed man died fighting for what he believed in, the ideals of the pueblo, a popular movement comprised of less than 10% of the population.  He died defending his right to take what doesn’t belong to him, to fund a fight that no one cares about.  And now that he’s dead, and out they come, the student riots, the graffiti (FBI Asesinos!), the big big big honking idiotic funeral, the flowers, the speeches, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the eulogies.  Filiberto stood for something. 

"Um, what did he stand for?"

"The dignity and patriotism of the Puerto Rican."

"And the bling, don’t forget the bling."

"Pardon?" 

"$7 million buys a lot of bling.  I’m just sayin’."

"No, he took that money to help take back what was rightfully ours, nuestra patria, our land, our hearts, our independence, and to remove the accursed blight of imperial America."

"And how’s that going for you?"

Bah, I’m bored with this post.  The pueblo is already covering up the graffiti with posters for the upcoming Concierto con Carlos Vives.  I like Carlos Vives.  I’d call him the hardest working man in Latin Pop.   Ah, Carlos Vives.  The ladies think he’s cute too.  Carlos is the man.

Now, I just can’t bring myself to care for long enough to write what I wanted to write.  Sigh.  It’s irrelevant.  It’s folly.  Riverdance doesn’t hold my attention, I don’t see why this should be any different. 

Check out CNN for more information.