House of Eratosthenes

Dear President Bush:

I’m about to plan a little trip with my family and extended family, and I would like to ask you to assist me. I’m going to walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and I need to make a few arrangements.

I know you can help with this.

I plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws. I’m sure they handle those things the same way you do here.

So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Vicente Fox, that I’m on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.

2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.

3. All government forms need to be printed in English.

4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.

5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.

6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the flagpole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.

7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.

8. I will need a local Mexican driver’s license so I can get easy access to government services.

9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won’t make any effort to learn local traffic laws.

10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all police officers speak English.

11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.

12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, and I don’t expect that anyone should enforce any labor laws or tax laws.

13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on the economy.

I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico. I am sure that Pres. Fox won’t mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.

However, if he gives you any trouble, just invite him to go quail hunting with your V.P.

Thank you so much for your kind help.

Sincerely,

I. M. Gringo

My great-uncle passed away a few years ago, just a little shy of his ninety-seventh birthday. You’ll never meet a more docile soul, in fact, when I was a kid I used to wonder if he even knew what disagreement was. And with one exception, it’s fair to say I never heard him express an opinion — other than the most pleasant — about anything.

That one exception was this:

When he immigrated with my other grand-uncle and my grandfather to this country from Sweden, the three brothers established a strict taboo against speaking the tongue of the Mother Country even at home! And that’s the right way, the only way, to immigrate.

You could see it in his face, he wasn’t about to back down on this. Everyone else on the planet can jolly well do what they’re going to do, come what may — except on this point. And what a classy gentleman, I never heard him utter an unkind word against any person, or any group of people, not even with regard to that issue. He managed to confine his comments to the way things should be done…the way he was extremely proud to have done them. I don’t know if he was criticizing anybody. He never said anything to imply that he was. This will have to be a matter of interpretation on my part, and on the part of anyone who listened to him.

But I do look at the “No Hablo Anglais” crowd a little differently. Visit a country for a week or two, and not learn the language? Eh…I wouldn’t, but okay, I can understand it. But live there permanently and not bother to learn how to communicate with the locals? Why would you do this?

I don’t wish to vent my spleen at people who refuse to learn a new language, since I’m monolingual myself, nor do I mean to imply that it’s easy. My uncle had good reason to be proud. Can you imagine what a raging pain in the ass that would be — speaking the new language at home? If it was easy, how worthy of mention would it have been? But the old guy had a great point. If you’re planning to make a new country your home, why not. It’s more than sensible; it’s a responsibility.

But more to the point: I’m taking it as a given, that the person writing the letter above wouldn’t get very far. And nobody ever seems to be questioning this, or calling out that since it’s true, perhaps something needs re-examining. People visiting other countries, Americans included, have to abide by sensible rules. People visiting America, don’t. We let people protest against the enforcement of laws that they choose to break.

Some kind of equalization is in order. You know, if President Fox is not willing to treat visitors to his country the way we treat visitors to ours, we can always go the other way, as Heather MacDonald points out…

Fine. If Mexico wants to dictate our immigration policy to us, let�s follow their example to the letter. That example is particularly relevant on this further day of protests demanding amnesty for illegals. Among the demonstrators in at least 60 cities nationwide will undoubtedly be thousands of border lawbreakers. What would Mexico do? The answer is easy: deport them on the spot. In 2002, a dozen American college students, in Mexico legally, participated peacefully in an environmental protest against a planned airport outside of Mexico City. They swiftly found themselves deported as law-breakers for interfering in Mexico�s internal affairs.

If Mexico was willing to strip these students of their duly-obtained travel visas, imagine what it would have done had the students broken into the country surreptitiously�not just summary deportation but undoubtedly howls of complaint to the U.S. government for winking at this double violation of Mexican sovereignty.

You know, my own record of global travel is pretty unimpressive. I do have a passport, but it doesn’t get much use so I stay more-or-less quiet about how Americans are treated when they travel abroad.

But I know what a law is, I know what a “right” is and how it differs from a privilege. I know what protests are. Protesting, so that an entire class of people can be awarded the right to break a law, seems cockeyed to me. Cutting classes to attend such a protest, is particularly gauche to say the least. If a law is enforceable only until the right protest comes along, then why have it?

And on a planet chock full of countries that have walls, why does America have to be the only gazebo?

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GazeboSaturday, April 15th, 2006

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Saturday, April 15th, 2006