Tuesday, May 02, 2006

A Day Without Insults? Hardly.

Cinco de Mayo isn’t for another few days, people! Stop carrying the Mexican flags at rallies and marches related to American immigration issues. Do I sound xenophobic? I’m not. At a national eyewear chain here in Israel, an Arab optometrist sold me the glasses I’m wearing now. When I went to a pizza place the other night, I had to wait for the Ethiopian security guard to let me pass. Sometimes, the security guards are Russian. I myself am an American, albeit a Jew but in essence, popular culture and mindset a foreigner, living in Israel.

It seems like these people are trying to turn America into France. A bunch of people don’t want lawmakers to pass laws, or don’t want the government to enforce laws already passed, so they take to the streets. Sure, it’s valid to protest. But the Congress is trying to work out a deal, and the protestors are trying to force one on their own. They don’t want to let Senators and Representatives do their job. They want to bypass the machinery of government.These pro-illegal immigrant (and thus, pro-law breaker) protestors encouraged people to leave their jobs and kids to be truant from school for a day - all because Washington is finally considering enforcing U.S. law as it should be enforced.

They were quiet up until the time that the government finally decided to try and get its act together.

Right when something meaningful can happen, protestors protest it.

You could say that’s democracy – but then again, you could also call it obstructionism. It’s not letting the democratic process work. It is people protesting for the rights of those who break the law to continue to go unpunished, just because they are willing to scrub toilets when others aren’t. But, like I said in my last blog, a legal immigrant from Mexico deserves a crappy job more than an illegal immigrant from Europe. In any case, instead of petitioning the government to actually uphold laws instead of give a wink-and-a-nod to cheap, illegal labor, those who organized the rallies on May 1 want the government to stay its hand, not do anything of merit, and let the illegals keep coming.

I keep on seeing so many flags of nations other than that of the U.S. in pictures of these rallies…and it’s all fine and well if they want to wave their flags on their national independence or other holidays. But such protestors are doing a disservice to the United States of America by waving flags other than the Star-Spangled Banner while marching over an American issue – these rallies are not and should not be about “Latino” pride. A Mexican immigrant wants to march under the red, white and blue, great. In another nod to my last blog, if one wants to march under the green, white and red, save it for Cinco de Mayo. It is not for U.S. immigration rallies.

Oh, and a Spanish-language version of our national anthem? Ain’t the real thing baby. Especially if it is called “Nuestro Himno” instead of…“The Star-Spangled Banner”. So what if the tune is based on an English drinking song? The words as they were written by Francis Scott Key have meaning. You change the words, you change the meaning. Imagine, just imagine, the riot – and the French are good at riots – which would start were someone to walk down the Champs-Elysees on Bastille Day singing “La Marseillaise” in, say, English instead of French? The French would be rightly insulted.

Marching in support of breaking the law? Native-born or immigrant, legal or illegal, that’s just wrong. Singing the national anthem in a language other than the national language, which is the heritage of the country? Native-born or immigrant, legal or illegal, that’s just wrong.

Waving flags other than the national flags, at rallies on a national issue? Native-born or immigrant, legal or illegal, that’s just wrong.