One More Reason I Love My Dad
This weekend, on the phone:
Me: ...and I haven't decided if I'm going to wear a veil yet...
Him: A veil??? Why not just wear a burqa?
Most awesome father of the bride, ever.
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May 01, 2006
Someone Take Away My "Liberal" Badge
If I were to go downstairs right now, I would get to witness 100,000-something people moving toward Grant Park. My office building is one block from the rally site. I even have a camera in my purse.
But I'm not down there. I'm up in my office, trying to figure out where I fall on this whole issue.
I've thought about it a lot lately. As a child, I was infatuated with the Ellis Island story of my great-grandmother (came over in 1910 from Croatia, was not yet 16, left most of her family behind, didn't speak any English, etc.). I still look for her face in photos and films from then. I used to believe whole-heartedly in Emma Lazarus and her poem.
But I got a little older; my great-grandma and Ellis Island passed into history; and there were these guys who took over some planes one day in September.
I have no problem with people marching; I really don't. I do have a problem with characterizing legislation as though it will sweep all immigrants from the country, when in fact it applies to people here illegally. People whose first steps into this country were in violation of the law. It seems at least suspect to claim that you respect a country so much that you choose to flout fairly reasonable laws to be there.
And really, today, can anyone say they have a true moral problem with making it more difficult to illegally enter and stay in the United States? The idea of a golden door that admits all the world is a lovely concept. But in the age of the dirty bomb, it makes for lousy policy.
I'm not a protectionist or an isolationist, but having seen what happens when people enter legally and then overstay their visas, I really don't have many qualms about making illegal immigration a felony.
