Tag Archives: guilty

DACA

DACA: (n) Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: a program intended to allow undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as minors to legally remain

Horror stories.

Whenever you find yourself in a conversation with other folks, and one side tries to justify their position by telling you a horror story to reinforce their point, and then the other group equally intends to rationalize their thoughts by relating a horror story from their perspective, you need to realize that both parties have not thought this situation through to a conclusion.

There are so many issues in our country that fall into this category that it would take many essays to isolate each one.

All of these groups are obsessed with extremes. It is a competition to portray that their members are more logical and super-patriotic.

Meanwhile, there are children in this country who are here because their parents brought them from other countries.

The children didn’t plan the trip.

These youngsters were not in on the deception to be illegal aliens.

No matter how hard you may try to prosecute them, they will always be innocent and unable to be proven guilty.

Yet the validity remains that they are not naturalized citizens.

If you wish to insist that they should be welcomed into our country no matter what the circumstances, then I’m sure you can present a case in which frightened young humans are being terrorized by the state with the threat of deportation—a removal, by the way, to a land they have never known.

On the flip side, if you think that it’s completely irrational to have these children receive blanket immunity when their parents were breaking the law by bringing them here, then you will certainly have a cautionary tale about how some of these unwelcome “nesters” have grown up to commit crimes or continue to flaunt their improper status right under the nose of the law.

My feelings on DACA are simple.

No one should be allowed to stay in this country simply because they look pathetic.

But also, no one should be thrown out of this country simply because they look pathetic.

Here’s an idea.

Offer a crash course—a two-month study of our nation, complete with community service to the neighborhood, a test to become Americans, and if these “offspring without a country” complete this journey without bad attitudes or cutting corners, their amends should allow them to become part of “we, the people.”

Appendage

dictionary with letter A

Appendage (n.): a thing attached to or projecting from something larger or more important.

After writing for more years than I dare remember, I often find myself guilty of becoming either too introspective or a bit boggled with silliness.

Not that I have any problem with introspection or silliness for that matter, but as a writer, your goal is to have readers and not just accumulation of work.

One school of thought is that most people want to read something deep and profound while another clown college contends that everything must be giggly and entertaining.

I have come to the conclusion that the true test of writing is working from an idea that is important, and using the best tools possible to carve out a message.

Maybe that’s the problem in our society today–we’ve forgotten what’s important. So what we have is a bunch of dangling appendages seeking homes on which to attach.

If all the ideas proffered in our time were traced back to an origin, they would often be considered homeless.

Therefore everything I write, feel and try to do is grounded in three central principles, and then I allow the ideas to grow like appendages from them:

  1. People are the closest thing to God we have on Earth.
  2. God is the closest thing to hope that we can muster.
  3. So we must muster the ability to get along with people so that we better understand God.

Everything else I do ends up being appendages to these three central themes. Sometimes it’s funny; sometimes it’s serious. Sometimes it’s confrontational, but it is never jaded.

For after all, the day I cease to believe in these three ideas that are important, everything I do will be a mere appendage–unattached to my own reality.

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