Thursday, September 13, 2007

You probably won't care about what I say in this post, so you might want to skip it


While I was on vacation, a coworker forwarded the following email message to me. It's a little distasteful, but if you read it through, I'll continue:
Subject: Feed the birds (?)
From: A coworker
Date: 8/23/2007 8:06 PM
To: Me

QUITE AN ANALOGY

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed.

Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.

Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table...everywhere.

Then some of the birds turned mean: They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.

And others birds were boisterous and loud: They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore.

I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone.

I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be...... quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now lets see..... our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegal's came by the tens of thousands.

Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families: you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor: your child's 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English: Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to press "one" to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than "Old Glory" are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

Normally I would delete this kind of drivel without a second thought, but I don't normally receive this kind of drivel from a coworker. Someone I know. Someone whose political convictions I know to be right-wing extremist. And someone who knows me. And the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable it made me feel. Uncomfortable that someone who knows me might think that I am as drivelly as he is. And I just couldn't bear that thought. I couldn't let myself be thought of that way, even by a driveller. So I replied. This was my reply:
Subject: Feed the birds (?)
From: Me
Date: 9/10/2007 4:21 PM
To: A coworker

From: A coworker
>> Now lets see..... our government gives out free food, subsidized housing,
>> free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be an
>> automatic citizen.
>>
>> Then the illegal's came by the tens of thousands.

The causal relationship between government welfare and illegal immigration is not established by this writer, and I'm pretty sure it does not exist. Immigrants poured into this country by the millions and millions (not merely tens of thousands) long before welfare was available. And the vast majority of the illegals in this country today work hard at menial jobs and do not benefit from free food or subsidized housing. In many cases they are migrants whose children don't even have a chance to attend school. And, by the way, anyone born here has always been a citizen, going back to the founding of the country -- it isn't something that was instituted just recently to encourage illegal immigration. And public education has also always been free -- Thomas Jefferson considered free public education to be the most important component of a functioning democracy.

You know, appplying a little critical thinking can go a long way. Although I guess emotional button-pushing a la this writer can go a long way, too. After all, it's what got us into Iraq.

gs

That's it. That's all I have to post. I told you you wouldn't care. You should have skipped it. But I felt better.

Oh, and I restrained myself from pointing out that "illegal's" in the original message should have been "illegals." I didn't want to seem... well... educated. Educated, you know, by that free education that is subversively provided by our evil government.

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Comments:
Clearly you are an East Coast college educated Liberal of the worst sort -- using reason against a defenseless twit. Really, have you no shame? Those illegals do nothing but add cultural diversity and richness and sustain our economy. Get them out of here. The nerve.
 
Nice response. And excellent restraint on the misused apostrophe...

The only large group of non-recent (say, over 500 years ago) immigrants are the Native Americans.

Heck, the part of America I'm sitting in is younger, as a state, than many buildings in Europe.
 

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