Iyow - in your own words

Part two of ‘A Long Way Home,’ a series on immigration we began in April 2006.

My parents came over in the late 1960s, my father from a poor, uneducated Armenian family in Iran (his father was a cab driver, his mother took care of the seven children), and my mother an orphan raised by her grandparents in Croatia. My mother was taking a “temporary” break from her studies at the University of Zagreb, and my father came to get an education, something that would have literally been impossible with his ethnic/religious and economic status in Iran.

Neither of my parents really spoke English when they arrived (they actually met in English language school). My father worked as a busboy at Denny’s while putting himself through night school (first English, then undergraduate, then graduate), my mother working at an insurance company as a clerk until I was born. They bought their first house in L.A. when I was born, about five years after coming into the country, a literal shoebox (one-bedroom, no garage)....

What I find most troubling about the current immigration debate is the talk of a guestworker program. Most of its proponents probably have no idea how badly this system bombed in Europe…. [I]f you think our immigrant debate is ugly, then you really haven’t lived elsewhere. It does get worse, much worse.

a.k.a. how to buy off guilt for having it so good, and still get into Heaven

LEFTIES

$1-2/day x 20 working days/month x 12 months = $240-480/year

-and/or –

$21,725 (MSRP) – $300 annually in gas savings

RIGHTIES

$10/Sunday into the collection plate x 52 weeks per year – those 20 weeks gone on vacation or fishing or “work” = $320/year – and/or –

$87.60 for sendoff party once per year + $1.60 international postage 1x/ month for letters to missionaries in South Molucca
= $106.80

A Question:
How does one defend being:
1) FOR the death penalty, but AGAINST abortion?
or…
2) AGAINST the death penalty, and FOR abortion?

I’m not saying it’s impossible—but it seems taking either position would require higher-order reasoning and not a reliance on a pithy rejoinder like “I support life!” or “Killing is always wrong!”

And yet somehow it seems the first case (despite its inherent hypocrisy) is supported by the Right, and the second case (again, despite its inherent hypocrisy) is supported by the Left.

People who are against both the death penalty and abortion? Hmmm… how do we classify them? Well, I guess Catholics would apply here, but how many in the US, including American “cafeteria Catholics,” would find themselves agreeing with this?

Anyway, that’s a bit of a segue into the world of Latin America, where two leaders dominate the discussion among the incessantly bickering Left and Right in the Developed World:
FIDEL CASTRO
and
HUGO CHAVEZ

If you fall into either of two prevailing political moods today, then they’re both either:
DICTATORS
or
BENEVOLENT SOCIALISTS

Yes, I know they’re friends, confidantes, political bedfellows, ideological buddies, whatever. But isn’t there a clear difference between the two?

One of them was elected in free elections by his own people. Twice.

The other has not allowed elections since he seized power over 40 years ago.

So… regardless of how despicable or wonderful you think they are, one duly deserves the legitimacy of leading his people, while the other duly deserves the contempt of squelching the basic freedoms (expression, assembly, pursuit of happiness) of the people he is supposed to be uplifting.

Maybe it’s the ends justifying their means. You could be such a fan or opponent of their political/economic model that it really doesn’t matter how legitimate their power is. It’s just wrong or right.

Anyway, just getting this rant out…

(Yes, I’m aware that a precious few are willing and able to set aside today’s current polemics and render a more nuanced perspective, although I have to say, in my opinion, that precious few is really a precious few…)