Monday, June 7, 2010

It's not an "immigration" problem; it's a criminal invasion problem



It's not an "immigration" problem; it's a criminal invasion problem



June 7, 2010



By Julie Kay Smithson
propertyrights@earthlink.net



If you get caught driving too fast, you're a speeder, not merely an illegal driver. You've broken a law that is in place to keep our highways safe.


If you get caught invading my country by entering it illegally, you are an illegal alien, a criminal, and not someone that belongs here.


Why, if you invade my country by entering it illegally, should anyone give you the coveted title of immigrant?


Immigrants I know have become naturalized American citizens. They don't skulk about, bent over under a bale of marijuana, entering my country via the paid assistance of lawbreaking criminals engaged in international terrorism that are nicknamed "coyotes." What is so honorable about paying one criminal to get you across an international, sovereign border into a country, just so you can skim its cream, send money home to another land and trash its border with your waste products?


I will never refer to you as "immigrants." You are not. You are what you know you are: In America illegally, with malice aforethought and no intention of becoming Americans. You drop "anchor babies" in the "harbor" cities whose leaders have had their allegiance bought with the promise of cheap labor and other favors.


Harboring an alien is a crime. Harboring an invading, illegal alien is a crime, too. Stop pretending to be something you're not. Either come here legally, honorably, with the intention of becoming an American citizen, or go back to the country of your birth -- and stay there.


Just because America, like your own nation, is rife with crooked politicians and faceless power brokers who trade in human labor, blood, sweat, and tears, does not mean Americans will welcome you.


Sure, there are jobs here that you can do, but you're not a migrant worker.


You don't work in the fields, tending and harvesting crops. You seek out places where you will blend in with others and where you buy false "papers" or steal the papers of others. You boldly harvest the spoils of your time here, knowing if you get caught, you can blithely just turn around and infiltrate my country again. We both know that the census will not county you, because you exist below the radar of such things.


America is a melting pot of a country, but it became great through the blending of people from other countries that sought our shores to become Americans -- not "hyphenated" Americans, but real Americans. These legal, honorable, hardworking, honest, Christian people immigrated to America to become Americans. They renounced their citizenship with their lands of birth. They were no longer Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Japanese, Italian, Sudanese, Moroccan, Brazilian, or Polish.


They became -- and were proud of the hard-earned honor of being called -- American!


God bless our naturalized Americans, our born-and-bred Americans, and those working to achieve that status. To the others: go away. Don't come again another day. Stop murdering our border ranchers, our Border Patrol and other good people who do honest work for a living.



505 words.


Saturday, June 5, 2010

The Difference between man and plants/animals

The Difference between man and plants/animals


Tis the blending of bone and sinew,

Brain and the use of said,

Which make man, man,

And plants/animals, thread,

The interwovenness that makes,

Of earth a heav'n or a hell,

In man's brain alone

Doth those two dwell.



- Julie Kay Smithson, June 5, 2010

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The wonder of weeds and weeding


The wonder of weeds and weeding



June 1, 2010



By Julie Kay Smithson
propertyrights@earthlink.net



People often refer to undesirable things as the bane, or harm/ruin of their existence. How weeds came to be so loathed is beyond my understanding. Weeds, after all, are simply plants that grow where we would rather they didn't. When weeds sprout and thrive in our flower beds or lawns, they actually offer us positive opportunities!


The view when one is bent over or on one's knees, weeding, is different. Things may be seen at that angle or level that are invisible from the standing position, be they insects, tiny new leaves, or the colors of the dirt in which we are working. Fragrances, too, offer a smorgasbord for our sensory sniffer, as some weeds smell pungent, others aromatic, and still others, sharp or without discernible smell.


There is something about sitting on the ground that replenishes a corner of the soul. Though we don't usually see it thus, part of us is kith and kin to the earth: our physical makeup. We are spun of wonderful cloth, but our feet are still bound to the clay and firmament. Is there an essence given us by the very act of finding and plucking weeds? I don't know, but it soothes me and gives my all a time of calm, when the frenzied pace of highway or shopping area are as removed as if on Mars. Weeding helps my body remain supple, keeps my fingers and eyes in sync to work as a team with my muscles, bucket and helper tools at hand. My fingers, no longer young and straight, but sculpted by living, offer themselves to me to consider and appreciate as I weed.


As children play in the mud and dirt, we often see only future laundry contributions and cleanup duties. Should we contemplate the connections that bring children to their knees, eyeing something from that special vantage point that we return to when we weed? Weeds bring us chances to glimpse -- or revel in -- moments of peace and harmony with nature. To enjoy our gardening time may be our best times to "go child" again and find the wonder of weeds!



355 words.