Thursday, November 30, 2006

Judge: Mexicans are weeds

» Boston Herald: Brooklyn judge pens kids’ book about unchecked immigration
In The Hot House Flowers, self-published by Judge John H. Wilson, an envious dandelion releases her seeds into a hothouse, where they grow and eventually use up so much water and food that there’s none left for the plants that were already there.

In the end, the master of the hothouse — clearly standing for God — removes the dandelions, and when the original dandelion tries to send more seeds in, the hothouse flowers trample the seeds so they can’t grow.
If Wilson were trying to be realistic, he'd have to make the dandelions actually produce much of the water and food that the hothouse plants enjoy; rather than starving the existing plants, the dandelions would be largely responsible for their continued well-being.

But that's not the only stupid thing about this xenophobic book. Let me count.

Read the full post …

It goes without saying that I haven't read the book, so I have only the news story to go by, but here goes.

1. "An envious dandelion …" Envy? That's what this guy thinks is the reason illegal immigrants come into the United States? Illegal immigrants come into the United States for money. Claiming that illegal immigrants work our fields and build our houses because they envy us is like saying that if you got laid off from you job tomorrow, it would be envy that drove you to look for a new one. No, it would be the more basic desire to, you know, eat and stuff.

2. "… into a hothouse …" Yes, a hothouse. A special place set up exclusively for the controlled cultivation of plants. Or, translated, a special country set up exclusively for the controlled cultivation of Americans. Because Americans are different from those people. The ones who are wild and dangerous and breed like crazy. The not-so-pretty brown ones. And just who set up the greenhouse and cultivates the pretty chosen plants?

3. "… they grow and eventually use up so much water and food that there’s none left for the plants that were already there." As I noted above, this is the reverse of the actual situation. There aren't enough Americans around to do all of the work needed to sustain us. Even the most rudimentary calculation shows that if there are around 11 million illegal workers in the United States and only around 7 million unemployed Americans, even if every illegal immigrant were replaced with a good ol' citizen there would still be 4 million empty jobs needing to be filled. And thanks to the marvels of capitalism, we need unemployed Americans to keep a competitive labor market. We need constant immigration, at a higher level than is legally allowed under current law, for as long as our economy hopes to grow.

4. "In the end, the master of the hothouse — clearly standing for God …" Ahh, yes, that's who protects America. Because it's not like Latin America is chock full of faithful believers or anything. Oh. Right.

5. "… removes the dandelions …" I know it's an allegory and all, but just what is this supposed to teach children? We have a problem with some people and God will remove them? It he going to do it covertly with diseases or just poof them away?

6. "… when the original dandelion tries to send more seeds in, the hothouse flowers trample the seeds so they can’t grow." Let's review: a once strong country is having increasingly severe problems, allegedly due to a pervasive infiltration of a certain group of people, so after all other options have failed the final solution is to trample them. A judge, presumably as well-educated in 20th-century European history as anyone, thinks that the responsible and moral lesson to teach children is that the country's problems are due to those people and if they don't leave, we have to kill them.

Whatever happened to "Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore./Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:/I lift my lamp beside the golden door."? That's the America I want to live in. Don't trample.

2 comments:

  1. "That's the America I want to live in. Don't trample." How insane. If you want to live in third world conditions then may I suggest that you move to the third world. The tired and poor masses of previous generations first act was to stand in line and get processed to legally come into this country. These new weeds just blow in and set down roots and their very fist act is to break the law (that's why they are CRIMINALS). Not only are they breaking US law, they are violating an international border of a sovereign nation. When two or more people conspire to do that, I consider it a de facto declaration of war. the only problem is that Bush is a big time liberal, new world order, socialist traitor and refuses to do the right thing and permanently remove all 25 million illegal aliens from this country.

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  2. As do most anti-immigration fanatics, you ignore the economic reality that we need immigration if we want to maintain our economy. The reason that previous generations were able to immigrate legally is because the legal quota for immigration was set high enough to accept them. We force illegal immigration through "free" trade treaties like NAFTA that (for example) move jobs from Mexican farms to U.S. farms, and then we act shocked that the farmers follow the jobs.

    The problem is not that there are immigrants coming into this country, the problem is that we set our number of visas and permits so low that they must do so illegally, and then we blame them for the conditions we put into place.

    But be honest, the real reason you oppose immigration has nothing to do with declarations of war or economics. It has to do with them coming and changing what it means to be us.

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