... that would be Richard Rodriguez: The 'Great Wall of America' and the threat from within.
In the 16 years since we moved here, a lot of Mexicans have moved here as well. I like them. They work hard. And they make visits to Taco Bell completely unnecessary. (You want authentic Mexican food? Come here.)
Also, this country has always been a nation of immigrants. Not that we've always accepted them at first or made things easy for them. But most previous immigrants came from overseas and were legally processed on arrival.
There are laws in place. Those who are charged with enforcing those laws should enforce them. Those who break such laws should pay the penalty. After all, the Mexican who comes here legally deserves to be distinguished from Mexicans who didn't.
And laws can be changed. We can start with identifying what the problem is:
First, a lot of people evidently can't have a good life in Mexico and want to come here for a fresh start. We ought to be able to accommodate them.
Second, there are a lot of people in this country who want illegal drugs. Now I have never understood why an individual does not have the right to put into his body whatever he wants. Somebody wants to shoot heroin, let him. As for any unsocial behavior that might result, well we already have drunk and disorderly laws. You kill somebody while drunk, you get charged with murder. Remember, too, that these drugs attract criminals precisely because, by being illegal, they command high prices. Those prices would drop once the legal proscription was lifted, and they would drop a lot. Unless there is a reasonable profit to be made, nobody is going to make the stuff.
Third, if so many Mexicans want to be Americans, why doesn't Mexico apply for statehood?
Hi Frank,
ReplyDeleteI don't think we can let heroin loose on society. I have a problem with luring people to the destruction of their lives, and then their deaths. If we will have achieved the highest levels of moral reasoning by the time we would first encounter some of these horrific drugs, then the argument would hold, that whatever someone puts into their own body is their own business. But, there is a relatively high level of moral reasoning whereby a person feels that if something is legal, then it is okay. No amount of advertising otherwise will change that. There are too many people who simply will never develop beyond that.
I don't like the black and white argument of all those affected by the border wall and laws being either poor and hardworking Mexicans or drug dealers. There is a great area of indigenous people being tossed about by this wall, the placement of which often has to do with who has momentary political power: "El Calaboz Rancheria & the Border Wall" by Margo Tamez, for instance.
Yours,
Rus
As I understand it, Rus, if heroin were not illegal, it's value would be less than mulch. In other words, no one go to the trouble of making it, because no one is really interested in supplying anybody with it just because they want it. Also, it is not a drug the would appeal to many -- I speak from experience: You have to be a peculiar kind of person to want to be zombie-ized. I just don't think the problems people say would come os legalization would actually materialize, and I often wondered who really is profiting off its ban, given that it has no real value.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, you are right about the black-and-white argument.
I should have added, by the way, that my neighborhood has been an immigrant neighborhood since the middle of the 19th century. So new immigrants are just more of the same. It is the gentrifiers who are destroying the neighborhood.
ReplyDeletenice blog you have..
ReplyDelete