Neil Steinberg (Chicago Sun-Times Sept. 21) thinks a lot of people are needlessly
worried or bothered by illegal immigrants and Muslims. After all, children from even the best
families can go wrong, and people die every day from automobile accidents, and nobody
talks about banning cars.
He is sure that the only reason these people are so worried about
illegal immigrants and Muslims must be because they hate immigrants.
I think there are a few other possible reasons.
As for illegal immigration, I would think a country has the
responsibility to know who is coming into it.
Try to enter Mexico or Canada illegally and see how they respond. You’ll either be in jail or back where you
came from.
I have a government textbook from 1949 which lists 11
criteria that immigrants had to meet before being accepted into our country,
including their health. Diseases that
had long been essentially eradicated in our country are back, like tuberculosis
and leprosy.
People were not allowed in if it was thought they would
require government assistance. Now the government
gladly assists them whether they are legal or not. And it borrows money to do that, as the
federal government alone is $20 trillion in debt.
Years ago, we used to make all of our own stuff. As the population grew, demand increased, and
so did the jobs. We had jobs for
everyone, and they were good paying jobs.
You could stock shelves in a grocery store and support your family so
your wife didn’t have to work.
Now we have about 90 million people of workforce age out of
work, the lowest rate of labor participation since the late 70s. And all these people are being supported by
the rest of us who are working.
As for Muslims, the key to understanding the issue is to
compare life in the United States before and after 9/11 and seeing how our
country has changed solely because we are afraid a Muslim will commit an act of
terror.
The FBI has over 1,000 open terror investigations right
now. I won’t say that none of these
involve Protestants, Catholics, or Jews, but I would bet at least 1,000 of them
involve Muslims.
We have over a million people on a terror watch list. Again, I won’t say there are no Protestants,
Catholics, or Jews on that list, but I would bet at least a million of them are
Muslims. It is costing us billions of dollars
a year trying to keep track of all of them.
We have the Department of Homeland Security, including the
TSA, that was created solely as a result of 9/11. We are closing in on almost a trillion
dollars that have been spent on this department since 9/11.
Forever and ever we now must spend hours in line at airports
being screened for bombs. They are only afraid
of a Muslim bringing a bomb onto the plane.
That is the only reason we started doing this.
Now this has been expanded to baseball and football
games.
Forever and ever we must endure screenings
and are forbidden from bringing drinks into the stadium, because we are afraid
a Muslim will bring a bomb or other weapon inside. The Chicago White Sox have a stadium on the
south side of Chicago, which has possibly the highest gun violence rate in the country. But they were never worried about gun
violence at a ball game before now.
Why? Solely because of the threat
of a Muslim committing an act of mass violence.
Why are we doing all this?
The Constitution says that government, our government, exists to “form a
more perfect union, . . . insure domestic tranquility, and promote the general
welfare . . .” And it is supposed to do
all this for the people of the United States.
It seems to me that our government is expecting our people
to give up their money, freedom, and security to put the needs of the people of
other countries before the needs of its own.
That sounds noble and compassionate, but it doesn’t have that right
without the consent of the people it governs.
As controversial as these issues are, I would say that the government is
acting without the consent of the people.
