A 230 Year-Old Experiment

This whole immigration thing is bothering me. I suspect it will for a while.

I don't have any articles to quote, I probably won't reference anyone else's two cents, just my own. This is not going to be the most organized or well thought entry I've ever posted, but it is what it is, and where it goes nobody knows.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the premise of what I've been seeing over the past few weeks which is this:

People leaving a country for a better life from a country that regulates an underclass. Coming to this country, the land of endless opportunity, and cursing it. Saying it's terrible, evil, unfair, awful, racist. And that's just what the politicians are saying as they side with the masses.

The excess of our freedom has put us in the red.

We are being asked for things that are less than zero. The expectations of living in the US are a fairytale to people who do not understand our civics, and that nothing is free. Money doesn't come from the money fairy, and everything dries up eventually. You can't push zero for more.

Three Stories.

I know many people who have moved here from other countries and their experiences have run the gamut. My old boyfriend, Miguel, whose parents immigrated from Mexico told me "you must understand this is the only country in the world where you can come in with nothing and make yourself into something. This opportunity does not exist anywhere else in the world". He's extraordinarily successful. I wish I would have been more mature.

My other friend from South America came here when he was twelve. He wants to remove all the freeways so we can't drive anywhere. There is a lot he'd like to force on all of us, like rationed napkins, but he doesn't get the premise of our country - Freedom. He has however made a complete sh*tload of money in his IT practice. He also believes in rationed healthcare and education on the dole. Those low-quality services are in fact good for everyone else who hasn't made it yet but he'll take the top of the three-tier plan, thank you.

My sister in law has been working on her citizenship for years. I stood in line with her downtown, I held their line in place so that she and her husband, my brother, could just sit for a moment together after standing in line for hours. Holding a baby.

All three of them with different experiences and different levels of "getting it", understanding what we're about in these United States.

And overall if all these protestors can curse these United States, I won't hold back either. But I'll be a little more rational: they just don't get it. They don't understand what citizenship here is about. They don't understand what has been said for eons to the point where it only registers as a faint murmur: There is No Free. This is not heaven with endless supply and all cares are cast away, this is the United States. Until you get to heaven, you exist here as Free within a Framework. That's all we're asking you all to do, live within the laws that we ask you to.

Any other country would not even offer you that option. Do things the right way, that's all we ask. If you can do that, we're more than willing to have you participate in our 230 year-old experiment.