The Solution from Within

Dear Mr. Kettle,

Some time back, I read somewhere that President Eisenhower miraculously solved our immigration issues during the course of his administration and in very short order. For whatever reason, that revelation has stuck in my head. Somehow a sitting President of the United States of America resolved, through presidential decree, an issue deemed to be plaguing the American people. I took note of that declaration, dutifully scribbling it upon a virtual post-it, tucking it away in the corner of my mind. Having seen the level of dysfunction within the confines of our Capital grow over the past three decades, that bit of trivia found its way to the top of a sizeable of pile of minutiae, with alarming regularity. Today, when I hear a politician, regardless of affiliation, a not-so-small voice in my head convulsively screams, “Peter Principle!”

Depending upon what direction the foul wind blows, our government is either performing with the ineptitude its Founders intended or it’s crippled by unfettered political finance and associated special interests. Whichever explanation you care to embrace, I find it implausible that we survived a civil war and two world wars to rise to global preeminence with leadership operating at its current level of impotence. Please don’t read more into my statement than is there, for I point accusingly at every sitting member of all branches of our government as co-conspirators in this farce. However, as I jump from my seat to boo and hiss and shake my fist at having been cheated of my money and time, it dawns on me that I’m not sitting in the auditorium with my equally disgruntled, fellow citizen-spectators. Rather, we’re all crowded in the wings, like the aristocracy of old, making ourselves as much a part of the show as the hapless thespian inhabiting the stage. Meanwhile, the rest of the world gawks and guffaws at us all with stunned disbelief from those dark seats.

It’s always been my contention that an illegal immigrant is merely an international tourist, until some U.S. citizen or resident gives him a job. Voicing that observation publically always gets me look as if I’d just cried out, “That baby’s ugly!” Sadly, it doesn’t matter which side of the political fence the listener might be standing when the proclamation is uttered. After all, we the citizenry are not the problem, rather the fault lies with our leadership, for their inability to lead, regardless of governmental branch or party affiliation. If they cannot lead then how can we follow?

Someone recently commented to me that undocumented workers are the bane brought upon us by corporate America. Regrettably, I felt compelled to correct him on this subject. While it’s true that corporate America has grown dependent upon a shadow workforce of people who work without the full rights and protections that the rest of us enjoy, so too has suburban America become addicted to the same vice. In my little corner of the country, I can drive to at least three locations within ten minutes of my home where anyone with the need for cheap day labor can acquire it. Need a ditch digger, bricklayer or carpenter? No problem. Need your lawn cut? No problem. Speak no English? No problem. After all, these guys aren’t being hired to quote Shakespeare’s Macbeth and they’re certainly not asked to sign a labor contract.

One of these sites which I’ve mentioned is a permanent facility constructed with local tax dollars. It was erected in an effort to make the location adjacent to the town square more palatable for both the workers and those local businessmen and women who come each day to hire them. That particular facility was built during the previous U.S. Presidential administration and continues to this day to create more than a little drama in the township where it can be found. Still, it was what the local business community wanted and what the local business community received. Another location is a simple, half-mile stretch of five-lane highway where men stand shoulder to shoulder, as early as four a.m., in hopes of picking up work. Regardless of the weather, one can always find two or three dozen of them waiting on one side of the road or the other until four, five or even six in the evening. These places are representative of a thousand others that can be found in and around the greater Houston area. These folks aren’t being hired by Megalomart/Acme, Inc. so much as by Joe the Plumber. You see, good ol’ Joe knows that it’s cheaper, easier and faster to get day laborer this way than to recruit, train and retain an assistant. No payroll taxes, no unemployment or workers’ compensation insurance. If the gentleman he recruits on Monday proves to be lacking, there’s no filing for unemployment insurance come Tuesday morning. It’s really all quite civilized.

Sir, you recently asserted that you could find no evidence to support the claim I made regarding the prolific use of undocumented workers in a subset of the agricultural industry. I have no doubt in the voracity of your claim, for you see, folks are pretty much the same in this regard. We don’t like to openly discuss those activities that in the light of day might appear unseemly. The sad reality isn’t that we have an illegal immigration issue or an uncontrollable undocumented worker problem. The real issues are two-fold. First, we possess a cultural duality regarding how we choose to treat these folks that reminds me of someone suffering from severe paranoid schizophrenia, in that we shout violently and vehemently at the situation even as we engage it in such a way as to ultimately exacerbate the problem. Our collective outrage is so disjointed and incoherent that we’re completely ineffectual at helping ourselves. As we try to attack the problem, we end up injuring ourselves and each other in a macabre fashion. Second, even those to whom we might turn for assistance – our leadership – appear equally afflicted. This, kind sir, is the true zombie apocalypse visited upon us, making for raucously disturbing theater for any poor soul bearing witness from the auditorium.

Of course, this all brings me back to the original assertion regarding how those who came before us supposedly resolved the same issue. By 1954, intended or not, the United States was starting to reap the benefits of its post-war efforts to stabilize affairs, both internally and abroad. Thanks to an after-thought clause in the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (better known as the GI Bill) our country gave birth to an unprecedented number of scientist, engineers and artists, making contributions at levels unheard of since the Age of Enlightenment or the Renaissance or, perhaps, the Persian Empire. Thanks to the vision of U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, the United States not only emerged from World War II victorious, we also create new markets in which to peddle our surge in industry and ingenuity - markets that would endure for half a century. For the first time in nearly a generation, we were shining as a nation and doing so more brightly than in any time in our country’s history. We knew prosperity in a way previously unknown and in this knowing found a means to elevate the status of labor to where a shadow workforce was not a requisite – or at least not as large of one. Is it possible – just possible – that President Eisenhower’s push to purge our borders of unwanted visitors coincided with a communal desire and will to get our collective house in order?

Do we need immigration? Absolutely. Do we need to stop treating immigration like a disease to be eradicated? Absolutely. Perhaps if we look upon our immigration issues as symptoms of larger systemic issues within our borders, we might better understand the love-hate relationship which we openly hold for the undocumented worker. Only then can we hope to understand and, hopefully, resolve the matter that’s more and less mad science. Until that day comes, I feel there are no answers and the solutions we implement will be as fleeting as those we impose in 1954.

Sincerely,

Mr. Pot

“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interest. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”

– James Madison, From The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection. First published in the Daily Advertiser. Thursday, November 22, 1787. Part of the Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 10.