Weekend Update, Part Two

If you’re in to photography, or more specifically, the photography of Ansel Adams, then you need to go over to Gerard Vanderleun’s place and check out “Ansel Adams' Lost Los Angeles Found.” In addition to some uncharacteristic Adams’ work (i.e., not landscapes) there’s also a good detective story about how Gerard came upon these photos. Good links to lots of Adams photos. And while you’re at American Digest, be sure to read Gerard’s narrative of his trip into Washington’s Olympic Peninsula and his photos of the Hoh Rain forest. Good stuff!

I read The Anchoress’ essay on the immigration issue a couple of days ago and thought about posting a link but for some reason I didn’t do it. Well, after more than a few second thoughts: here’s that link. And here are a couple of excerpts:

People are gassing away on both sides - some are sure they have the answer, and the answer is “Ship them all back to Mexico, every one of them.” (That means go up to Boston and out to Montauk Point and ship the illegal Irish immigrants back to Eire, too, right? Illegal is illegal!) There are others saying, “let ‘em all in!” There are suggestions of walls rivaling the Great Wall of China (with 40-foot footings sunk into the ground to prevent tunnels?) There are suggestions of amnesty, suggestions of felony.

Let’s get real. There are millions of illegal immigrants here, and some of them have been here for decades. If you’re telling me that the solution is to “arrest and ship out every one of them,” I have to disagree with you. While the “ideal,” of course, is that illegal immigrants don’t immigrate illegally, the fact is, our government, our “leaders” have ignored this issue and refused to enforce existing law for 30 years - hence, genies out of bottles don’t get put back in. Some of these people have made lives here, respectable lives, wherein they have worked and paid taxes, contributed to church and community and raised families - are we going to round them up and “ship them back?” How, exactly? How do you prevent them from coming back, when NOTHING is in place to prevent them? When it is unlikely that our feckless, dispassionate and distracted political “leaders” cannot see this situation as anything but political fodder - ammunition for the season - and are lacking in both ideas and courage.

More importantly - for the soul of America - Are we going to put together massive trains and - at gunpoint - load these people and head them south? Is this what we want America to be?

We have to think long and hard about what it means - and what it will FEEL like - to gather people together at gunpoint and put them on trains to send them to a place they do not want to go. Our intentions could be the purest and most noble in the world…that scenario still still smacks of history we don’t want associated with us. It sets a precedent we dare not embrace. I don’t want to see such pictures in our history books. That is not America. That cannot be America, if she is to survive.

…

I am coming to the conclusion that all of the noise and handwringing and the certainties that all will be well if “only the right POLICIES are put into place” is horse manure. Focusing on public policy is helpful, but I don’t expect the government to suddenly, magically be able to solve an unweildly problem it has steadfastly ignored since the 1970’s. The government is not going to get us out of this anytime soon. If I look to them, I see insincerity, confusion and political opportunism, on both sides.

The solution is going to have to come from inside of us, the can-do, pragmatic, realistic, problem-solving American people. And I hope our better natures manage to overcome our baser ones.

What changed my mind about posting the link? I’ve read more than a few xenophobic, bordering-on-racist, knee-jerk, “deport ‘em now!” posts on this subject this week. Plus a couple of “do something or I’ll take the law into my own hands” type of posts. Will I link to those posts? No. Find them yourself, I’ll not be a party to rhetoric that comes a little too close to White Supremacist or Neo-Nazi rants for my liking. Frankly, I’m amazed at the vitriol I’ve read on this subject this week. I cannot, for the life of me, understand what motivates that sort of thinking. Is it fear? Is it resentment? Is it simple ignorance? Whatever it is, and forgive me for the value judgment, it is, above all else…wrong. I like to think Americans are better than that. The Anchoress reinforces my faith in the good nature of Americans. And she links to others who share that goodness.