Does anyone know how to get in touch with God? He/She/It is being impersonated and someone needs to break the news. It's an illegal offense, you know, and (the United States of) America is as guilty as O.J. Simpson's gloves.
It all started with an unwelcome takeover in 1492, when Columbus discovered America and displaced all the Native Americans. Got that? *Native* Americans...that means that everyone who came after was not native, simple as that. Then, as I understand it (and I was never a history buff), more people kept moving in. The first settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1607 and the thirteen colonies were soon established. So, to summarize what we've learned so far: America was founded by immigrants.
Now, here we are, more than 400 years later, and we, Americans, are discriminating against other immigrants who want to have the same opportunities that "we" have. What right do "we" have to play God and decide who should be entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? How did this "we" become a "we," anyway? Who constitutes part of the "we"? And the "others"? If roles were reversed, would the others discriminate against "us" Americans? When you think about it, the term "American" has come to connote the idea of coming from the United States of America. But what about Central Americans? And South Americans? Why is it that they are Central Americans and South Americans but don't get to reap the benefits of being an American? It's not like we, members of the United States, are *the* Americans. We are merely *some* Americans.
So when people make the often-several-week perilous journey to cross the border illegally in search of a better life, what right does border patrol and everyone else have to say that they aren't welcome here, that they have to go back from where they came? What if the Native Americans had said that to Columbus? Or if the Jamestown settlers were deported for just getting off the boat and saying that that land was their land? Then, where would we be? Probably scattered around the world in places whose residents choose to emigrate to the U.S. Probably trying to decide how to best help our families and whether it would be worth it to trek to the U.S. and cross the border illegally, knowing full well that one must choose between providing a better life for his family and staying with his family, never able to successfully do both.When faced with such a decision, what would you choose? Would you sacrifice seeing your family and friends again so that you might be able to create and maintain a lifelong window to various opportunities? Perhaps when thinking about, commenting on, and judging those who have made that decision -- in true Sophie's Choice fashion -- "we Americans" should be more accepting of the "others," who arguably constitute "otherness" based on the simple fact that they were not born on United States soil.
If you think about it, even "our" national anthem is a contradiction. In the multi-verse "The Star-Spangled Banner," each verse ends with "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." Well, freedom connotes that every individual has the right and power to authoritatively make decisions for oneself. That doesn't seem to be the case with immigrants to the U.S. And the home of the brave? Why is the label "the brave" restricted to people who enjoy the freedoms that were won hundreds of years ago by other people? It seems that the "real braves" are those who actually fight for what they believe in, especially those who know full well that that their beliefs do not conform to popular consensus.
Besides analyzing the Star-Spangled Banner in this way, maybe the Declaration of Independence needs another look. It explicitly states that, "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." The word unalienable (a variant of "inalienable") has been explained in the following context: "In contrast, natural rights (also called moral rights or unalienable rights) are rights which are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of a particular society or polity. Natural rights are thus necessarily universal, whereas legal rights are culturally and politically relative" (according to Wikipedia). Wouldn't that mean, then, that everyone -- regardless of their customs or beliefs -- is entitled to those rights? Even those who fall under the term "aliens"? It's kind of curious, actually, how those who illegally come from outside the U.S. are deemed "aliens" and that, in our very own Declaration of *Independence* we assert particular rights as being unalienable! But really,ever since 1492, hasn't our country been made up of aliens? Maybe our whole collective "intro-American" perspective has just perpetuated itself all because of a silly case of semantics...
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" ... but why has no one realized that we're all just walruses?
