JS>A. Those acts that I listed as being criminal have been defined by CONG
JS>as being criminal. It's the law. Don't like it? Change it. Until it's
JS>changed, it's the law of the land.
 
        Even working to alter injustices one is not morally compelled
to accept and obey laws which produce them.  Just as none among us woul
d now dare to be critical of those who defied the laws perpetuating
slavery, or the laws denying fundamental liberties to minorities, or
the laws prohibiting women their basic rights as individuals, there
will come a day when we will look back at this era of oppression,
persecution, and denial of fundamental human rights asking not how one
could dare oppose the laws perpetuating these atrocities, but how
anyone could dare obey and defend such laws.
         Defiance is the seedling of reform.  So long as the state is
able to exercise it's power over the lives of men without resistance,
that exercise will not only continue, but expand.  It is only when m,en
defy injustices and refuse to obey unjust laws, only when the wholesale
nature of disobedience becomes unenforceable and produces mounting
atrocities in efforts to enforce such laws, that those laws are called
into question, held up to light of day, and finally placed in their
rightful place atop the trash heap of history.
         You ask that I obey a law merely because it is an law.  I ask
that you defy injustice in whatever form it make take.
JS>B. Imagine what would have happened if Washington and the rest of the
JS>Founding Fathers decided that it was much easier to find "greener 
JS>pastures" somewhere else rather than to stand and fight for what they
JS>believed in.
 
        That is an odd comment about a group of men who either
themselves, or only one or two generations removed, fled to a new land
abandoning their former nations.  
        Those men, however, were driven by a singular fixed ideal which
stands out in every comment they made, ever article they wrote, and
every act they took.  That ideal was liberty.
        Most profound among their works was the American Declaration of
Independence which, for all humanity, stated the causes and reasons
for the birth of a new nation.  In the most prominant of statements
made in that declaration they decalred that "all men are created
equal", not those born in a specific location; "that they are endowed
by their Creator with certian inalienable rights", not granted or
denied them by an act of Congress; "That among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness", without limitations imposed by arbitrary
national boundries, linguistic frontiers, or cultural homelands.  
         In fact, the very purpose of government itself, according to
our forefathers, was "to secure these rights", not deny them. They even
went so far as to say that "whenever any form of government becomes
destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or
abolish it".  
         It, therefore, is not only the duty of this government to
cease obstruction of the liberties which I am critical of it for
obstructing, but to defend those liberties and if not, suffer the
eventual consequence of abolishment.  
JS>IOW, why can't these desperate people remain in their country and try
JS>and improve their lot rather than take the easy way out and abandon
JS>their countrymen?
 
         Is it the "easy way out" to abandin one's home, one's family,
one's cutlture, one's language, and one's country, in search of a
better life?  Is it the "easy way out" to cross nations with corrupt
and armed military and civilian police agencies which routinely prey
upon immigrants passing through their countries robbing, raping, and
even killing them.  Then they face the frontier with armed and dealy
individuals preying upon them, robbing them of the money they have
brought to pay coyotes to get them pass the "migra".  Again they suffer
the most inhumane of indiginities, are preyed upon, and suffer beyond
our comprehension.  Then, this "easy way out", involves an often deadly
crossing of the border itself where they must not only face
geographical barriers such as deadly river currents, but continue to be
preyed upon by criminals and, now, walk into the teeth of tens of
thousands of INS agents armed with every sort of technology imaginable
and backed up by armed military forces.  Even crossing into the US,
this "easy way out" isn't over yet.  The hardest barrier of all to pass
is not even the frontier itself, but the second line created by the INS
int he interior, up to 200 miles from the border.  Again, hundereds
die, more are victimized and even more are injured as they suffer
incredible hardships in an attempt to cross this final barrier manned
by armed agents with attack dogs.  
          All for what?  This "easy way out" only achieves a life of
constant fear and suffering here.  Endlessly pursued by the INS,
endlessly abused by those who take advantage of illegals, denied every
basic human right imaginable by the law, afraid to even call law
enforcement officers when they suffer rapes or are physically abused,
and, at any moment, subject to having their entire lives torn apart,
having their children taken away without word or notice, being taken
away for their homes, their families, and their jobs without notice or
word, leaving all they own behind them...
          You may convice yourself this is the "easy way out".
Maybe it helps justify the destruction of lives, of families, and the
demial of the most fundamental of human rights but I assure you...it is
not the "easy way out".  It is the ONLY WAY OUT.  If it weren't, people
would never tolerate what they must tolerate to come.
JS>Perhaps it's a character flaw? Or is it the easy way out?
 
        What it is is simply individuals exercising their right as
individuals to pursue their own dreams as they choose.  Merely because
a man is born into poverty, raised on an earthen floor, not given the
enjoyment of the childhood pleasures you and I enjoyed, has never stood
in the open as a free man and expressed his beliefs without fear, nor
has never gonbe to bed without hunger nawing at his guts, or just
because a man has no hope of feeding and supporting his family whjere
he now lives...none of these make him any less a man.  None of these
make his dreams, his hopes, or his desires any different from our own,
and none of these make his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness any less inalienable than those we ourselves enjoy.
 
       You ask is it a character flaw for a man to pursue his dreams? 
I ask is it a character flaw for a man to either refuse to, or worse,
seek to deny another that fundamental right.
       You ask if these men are taking the "easy way out".  The "easy
way out" is to bend on one's knee and suffer what one must suffer to
remain unnoticed.  It is not the "easy way out" to rise to one's feet
and act in whatever manner one decides one must act to do one's best to
pursue hope.
JS>C. What you are saying Mike is that this country, unlike every OTHER
JS>country in the world, has no sovreign rights to protect it's own
JS>borders. Or to control who comes or not to this country. Why? Give
JS>me one good reason why this country is different. Please don't give
JS>me the Emma Lazarus clap trap about "Give me your tired, your poor,
JS>your huddled masses yearning to breathe free". Or the "we're a 
JS>nation of immigrants" nonsense. We ARE a nation of immigrants, 
JS>LEGAL immigrants. We are also, first and foremost, a nation of
JS>laws and NOT men or women.
 
         It goes far further back that Emma Lazarus and the noble words
that adorn the Statue of Liberty which we still claim as a natioanl
symbol.  It goes back to Jefferson's "island of liberty in a sea of
servitude", back to Hamilton's "sanctuary for free men", back to
Franklin's "teapot".  
         This nation, unlike any other nation, was created for the very
purpose of preserving the liberties of, and providing refuge and
sanctuary to, the very individuals we now seek to exclude.  
          Our control of our borders is preservation of the integrity
of those borders from assault by a foreign power, not closuer of them
to those seeking liberty.  We ARE differnet.  We were created to BE
different, and evey stated value, every written principle, and every
noted work that went in the foundation and creation of this Republic
states with absolute and unquestionable clarity or complete and
uncompromising dedication to the propostition of liberty and the
defense of the inalienable rights of ALL men.
          What is happening today is an insult to our values and our
heritage.  it is an attempt to fundamentally alter who were are and
what this nation is, to sink this island of liberty and become just
another wave in the sea of servitude...indistinguishable from all
others. 
   
           We are a nation of free individuals bound together by just
laws whose sole purpose is to preserve our inalienable rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Those laws are subordinate to
both ourselves and our rights.  We are NOT a nation of laws.  We are a
nation of men and women with inalienable rights. 
 
           If we forget that.  If we ever forget, even begin to allow
our faith to be compromised, in the propostion of liberty, we are a
different nation.  We become like all other nations.  We ARE unique.
Our values ARE different.  We should never allow this or any other
government to convince us otherwise. 
 
                                         Mike Angwin
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