Immigrations and Emotion
At a Q & A with the Monticello, MN Chamber of Commerce, Congresswoman Michele Bachman (R-MN) pointed out that America is being lost to immigrants, and that a fence at the border between Mexico and the U.S. from Arizona to Texas is a well-thought-out answer to the seeming problem. Following is the excerpt from the Monticello Times:
She touched on various topics, including the Iraq war, immigration control, healthcare and energy conservation.
She was particularly emotional about immigration, a subject that she made headlines with back in February when she was very critical of the system that allowed the woman charged with crashing into a bus in Cottonwood, Minn., to continue driving.
“We’re losing our country,” she said. “People are not assimilating themselves to America. They’re not speaking English, and you must speak it if you want to succeed here in this country.”
A Monticello businessman asked about a fence along the southern border of Texas and Arizona.
“The money is there. Why haven’t we seen anything?” he asked.
“Exactly. The money is there. It’s our (Congress’) fault. We aren’t doing our job here,” Bachmann replied. “And the argument that fences don’t work doesn’t hold water. Look at Israel and Palestine Fences work. Maybe people have too much interest or benefit from open borders.”
Where to begin! I’d like to address first the flagrant misunderstanding she seems to have regarding the “success” of fences in Israel and Palestine. Obviously a congressperson that hasn’t traveled to the region, or one who keeps up with international news, because if she did, she’d know that success is elusive in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and that the fence she so righteously champions is one put in place as a deterrent from a population with whom Israel is in frequent conflict, and whose goal is the ethnic cleansing of Israelis in certain areas they inhabit within that fence. In other words, the fence is part of a comprehensive defense system against enemies with whom they’re at war. At least one Minnesotan agrees.
To equate the necessity of the Israeli-Palestinian fence with one along the southern border of the U.S. is nothing short of ludicrous and incongruous. It minimizes the struggle between Israel and Palestine, equating it to the overblown immigration media circus in this country, and it further scandalizes an issue that gets little rational thought and much ideological abuse. This irrational urgency in finishing the fence between the U.S. and Mexico has lead to the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, waiving (via congress approved waivers) more than 30 laws in place to protect property, environment, and people.
An immediate trigger of suspicion for me is the report that the congresswoman got “particularly emotional” regarding immigration policies. This is indicative of an opinion not based on fact or figures, but on a “gut feeling,” or a set of ideas cobbled together through hearsay or misunderstanding about the topic at hand. To be led, as a politician, by one’s emotions regarding any policy will inevitably cause one to proceed with blinders on, to champion things other than logical courses of action or clear-headed notions of the facts, thus motivating legislation that does not have a clear practical goal, but rather serves to stand as an ideological statement of such emotions. She appeals to those present by using words like “losing our country,” which is a baseless statement meant to rile the emotions. Again, a clear indication of a lack of knowledge regarding the issue, and furthermore an encouragement to others adopt similar myopic views.
Congresswoman Bachman would be well-recommended to visit the areas about which she speaks with such ignorant command. By standing next to and appreciating the full meaning of the wall between Israel and Palestine, I would hope she might come to appreciate its true purpose and reason for existence. By visiting the American Southwest and staring out across the vast miles of desert the border traverses, she might come to understand that what doesn’t hold water is her unilateral, uneducated view of what a fence will and won’t do.
A further discussion of immigrant assimilation, beginning with a critical view of English Only policies and the demystification of bilingualism will follow in the days and weeks ahead. Stay tuned!