AN OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER

Don't get me wrong here. I like you. I figure you might even have a career ahead of you in movies after you leave politics. Maybe you can take a few acting lessons; change your name to something more manly, or at least to something we can all spell, you know, stuff like that.

Anyway, I caught your piece in the LA TIMES the other day and I wanted to tell you that I think you have to try a little harder with this politics stuff. It sounded like your column was written by one of those neocon shills over at Fox.

Your column even had a whiff of that grade school level cliché stuff where one slams both sides on an issue and then looks for middle ground. Then it's hugs and kisses. It's silly. There really are rights and wrongs. No, we can't just all get along when one side has no respect for our laws--including the very first American law that they meet--don't cross the border.

Well, Arnie, that statement implies that we shouldn't round up any of them. Now, if that's your reasoning, then why not stop the California Highway Patrol from giving tickets to speeders on our freeways?

The correct answer is that stopping some sends a message to many others. There's always the fear that you may be stopped next. Also, it sends a message to all of us that there are speeding laws and that they are enforced. Without any enforcement, even law abiding citizens will figure it's just a law that no one cares about and they'll begin speeding also.

See, Arnie, the notion here is one that implicates the social fabric. If we all hold up our little part of the bargain, society is orderly and works for the common good. We do the right thing and we expect others to do the right thing. It makes the social fabric strong. It's First World thinking as opposed to Third World thinking. We obey the little laws and we obey the bigger laws. We don't cross the street except in the crosswalk. We don't speed. We don't steal social security numbers. We don't live off welfare if we can help it. We work hard to make better lives for our families in our very own nation of people who mostly uphold their end of the bargain. We have their backs and they have ours. At least that's the way it's supposed to be, and still is, in First World societies.

If we start rounding up some of the 12 million illegal aliens (actually there are probably many more, but I'll use your number here), others will get the message and then through attrition we'll find that many will self-deport. Hey, who wants the hassle of being arrested. It's just easier to go with the flow and head back to your own country and not have to look over your shoulder all the time.

Arnie you also wrote that those who are opposed to illegal immigration should tone down the rhetoric and that we should distinguish "between those who break our laws to do us harm and those who break our laws to find freedom and prosperity."

Now, Arnie, with all due respect--because I do like you--I think your speech writers have been watching too much Sesame Street with George Bush. How else can we explain their use of simplistic and child like examples that are simply absurd?

Let me put this in different terms, Arnie. First, however, one really has to realize that these noble sounding things such as "freedom and prosperity," are words invented by humans to make their basic desire to find places where they are comfortable sound noble. Humans are always pontificating and intellectualizing about very basic things, found throughout nature, to make them sound uniquely human, when they're not.

Arnie, ALL living things try to go where they are comfortable. However, the problem is that there are usually other living things already there who also want to be comfortable. If the others come in, their very presence may cause harm to those who are already there. Who has the right in a cosmic sense to occupy that place and have it remain comfortable? First in? Nope. Why would that make them right? See, my argument isn't that we citizens of the U.S. have a right to the place because we were here first. There is always someone or something in a place before others move in. In our case, the Indians were here first. Before them...well...who knows? Read on.

You see, there really is no cosmic right or wrong in this. The ones that struggle to keep the place comfortable as they want it to be comfortable have the right to it so long as they struggle to keep it theirs. Yes, Arnie, I know that's the so called law of the jungle and is simply a version of might makes right, but that's the way of nature. We all can't occupy the same space. Those who want that space the most and who are willing to keep it are the winners. And, in the long view of history, they're the ones who are right. It's no more complicated than that.

Look, germs that invade your body are just doing it because they want a comfortable place to live--your "freedom and prosperity"--they don't want to harm you. What's the point of that? If you die, they die. Unfortunately, their very presence harms you. Okay, now I know some numbnuts are going to say that I'm comparing illegal aliens to germs, but I know that you're smarter than that and you can see the principle that I'm trying to illustrate. Yes, illegal aliens are humans. No, they are not germs. Okay? Happy?

We citizens of the U.S. have built a place that is pretty comfortable. It doesn't matter if those sneaking in here don't have the intent to destroy what we've built--their very presence can do that. As they take what is not theirs--our nation--and try to build better lives for themselves, they drive down the better lives we've already built for ourselves. Why should we give up what we've built? What are we, a bunch of weak girly men who won't fight to keep what we have?

Also, you do realize that by saying that they're just coming for "prosperity," you're really saying that they're avaricious money grubbers? Think about it, Arnie. You're saying it's okay for people to sneak into our country because they want more money. That's the same philosophy used by bank robbers.

Now, Arnie, I supported you in my own small way in the last election. You may have seen some of my columns in your favor. Maybe they got a few voters to vote for you. Or, maybe, they chased away a few voters. I don't know. I just wrote as the muse moved me and let the chips fall where they may. I'm also probably going to vote for you in the present election.

Your opponent Phil what's-his-face looks and sounds like a creep to me. The guy's too skinny. Has no muscles. Looks like he's on the verge of a nervous breakdown with no fat to insulate his firing neurons. You know what I mean? Kind of a shrill, castrati voice kinda guy. Maybe the guy's an hysteric or something. Anyway, what's a Greek guy like him doing looking like a beanpole? Might have some errant mutated genes or something. Looks like a spritzer salad eater. No olive oil in his diet. Not exactly Zorba, if you know what I mean. He makes Dukakis look buff.

Anyway, Arnie, I know you got burned on those initiatives you tried to pass last year, but that doesn't mean they were wrong. It just means you got some bad political advice on how to push them. I know at the time it seemed like a good idea to push them all at once, but I'm sure you'll admit now that it just allowed the opponents of the individual initiatives to form a united front against all of them. Bad strategy on your side.

I thought I read someplace that you got rid of your advisors in that initiative mess, but after reading your Times column, I wonder if some have maybe snuck back into your office--you know, looking for freedom and prosperity by hanging out with you. Deport them out of your office, Arnie. They're not doing you any good. Round them up, no matter how many there are, and if you miss some, the others may leave on their own accord. Say, that's just what I wrote above about....

Now, Arnie, looking at the long range of history again, just for a moment, the argument is often made that we need illegal aliens to do our entry level labor. This is nonsense. We're a nation of almost 300 million people. Do you think we can't generate entry level workers from our own wombs?

Well, naturally, the mention of wombs opens up something else. By allowing in a constant stream of low level workers, we're crowding our citizen population and helping drive down our own natural birthrate.

Now, our conscious minds don't say: "Gee, we sure do need some entry level workers to pick crops and work in the fast food joints, so let's go have a bunch of kids." Nevertheless, our subconscious minds do say similar things and they cause a natural rise in birthrates and at the same time spur on development of new machinery to do some things that humans used to do.

Yup. Bringing in millions and millions of people acts as a disincentive to America moving forward and it'll weaken our nation in the long run just as not pruning a rose bush will weaken that bush.