Critique Of An Unthinking Man, Pt. 4

This is Part 4 of my critique of Robert A. Hall's "I'm Tired." You can find Parts 1, 2 & 3 here, here and here. Hall continues:

I’m tired of illegal aliens being called “undocumented workers,” especially the ones who aren’t working, but are living on welfare or crime. What’s next? Calling drug dealers, “Undocumented Pharmacists”? And, no, I’m not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic and it’s been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I’m willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person who can speak English, doesn’t have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military. Those are the citizens we need. Update: A few people have taken this to indicate some bias against Catholics, bbased on events 400 years ago. While I think they are either too touchy or fail to understand, I was onlly trying to say that Ihave zero problem with Catholics wanting to come to the US, but that I hav great concerns about Muslims, as a good % of them do want to kill me, or force their religion and moral code on me.

Usually, the term "illegal" is to refer to a violation of the criminal code- within which immigration laws are not contained. (Drug dealers, on the other hand, are violating the criminal code, yet we don't call them "illegal pharmacists," so I'm not sure where he's going with that). Even without that distinction, an alien who is in the country without authorization is not, himself, "illegal," as a person cannot be against the law- only their actions can. If Mr. Hall prefers to be accurate, the term "alien whose residence is unauthorized" would probably be the best. It's also a good thing that Mr. Hall isn't "against Hispanics" because (shockingly) there do exist non-Hispanic immigrants.

Mr. Hall can put away his concern about immigrants on welfare, as it's absolutely unfounded. Even immigrants with green cards cannot receive welfare benefits until five years after they've received their resident authorization. Any undocumented alien is ineligible for federal welfare programs. Indeed, undocumented aliens actually pay into the system, rather than taking out of it, as they have Social Security and Medicare fees taken out of their paychecks but can't access those programs. Even a paper as liberal as the Wall Street Journal finds that to be the case.

Finally, thank god Mr. Hall is off the radar of all of us Catholics! Too bad a "good %" of Muslims want to kill him. There are roughly 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. It's a shame that a good percentage of those people want to kill any non-Muslim, which he clearly has evidence of. Incredibly lucky for me that in my time living in a Muslim country I didn't encounter one of this large portion!

I’m tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people then themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years—and still are? Not even close. So here’s the deal. I’ll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we’ll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear. UPDATE: It has rightly been pointed out to me, several times, that I should have included Canadian, Australian and New Zealand troops here. My apologies for slighting these gallant allies of freedom.

Arg! Those Latte Liberals, what with their progressive politics and their penchants for European-style coffee drinks! Who do they think they are? How dare they keep any tabs on the military?! How dare they hold the force that fights under the flag of their country to a standard higher than what the other side is doing?! Thank god no liberal has ever served in the military- that sure would give them credibility, according to Mr. Hall. Graciously, Mr. Hall will prove that being waterboarded and soaked with water and left outside in sub-zero temperatures (which killed a detainee at Bagram Airbase) is a walk in the park (when will that be exactly?). And Mr. Hall can also be commended for going through extensive research on every war (ever) to declare that not at any other moment in all of history did a civilian ask an enemy troop for help. Solid work.

I’m tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers—bums are bi-partisan. And I’m tired of people telling me we need bi-partisanship. I live in Illinois, where the “Illinois Combine” of Democrats and Republicans has worked together harmoniously to loot the public for years. And I notice that the tax cheats in Obama’s cabinet are bi-partisan as well.

I certainly won't disagree with Mr. Hall that corruption is bipartisan. Having lived in Illinois for eight years, I can attest to how disheartening it is to find scandal after scandal break from our government. I can't, however, agree that this means that bipartisanship is the problem. Our system is growing more and more polarized, with parties taking an opposing stance regardless of the subject. This is incredibly inefficient government and wastes both the time and money of the American people (those for whom the government is supposed to be getting things done). Just because both parties have corrupt members doesn't mean both parties are awful, it means that corrupt people, no matter what party they belong to, are awful.