Oops, I Guess I Should Explain

My brain works in peculiar fashion.

Sometimes it's a lot like frozen peanut butter. It's thick and hard to do anything with. Other times it's like thin jelly, spreading hither and yon until stopped by a boundary of some sort.

Yesterday and Thursday were peanut butter days. It was hard figuring out what I wanted to say. First I had one thought, then another, then a third. None were pleasing. None were satisfying. I started a rant because of passwords, which we probably share as a pet peeve, and decided it was too ranty to start off a new year, so I stopped. I went in another direction.

I started in on New Year's resolutions, beginning a post explaining that I used to make New Year's  resolutions but never kept them. Explaining my experience is that Resolutions are an exercise in self-directed failure.

When I used to make them, I did the normal things a lot of people do: "I resolve to..." followed by a promise to Self. It doesn't matter if it's eat less, exercise more, lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking or something else entirely. People make these promises to themselves, perhaps in public or to a close friend or relative, and start off with good intentions.

For myself, the first few days were pretty easy. I would be "good". I would keep to my guidelines but, sooner or later, I would slip. My foot would inadvertently tip off the edge of the curb. I'd scramble to find my balance, but the spell was broken. Within a day or two or three I would slip again, only this slip was more planned. It wasn't a matter of error or chance. It was usually more of, "Oh, just once. Then I'll be good again."

By February 1st all of the resolutions I had made were lost far behind in the cloud of dust filling my rear view. By then guilt had also passed and I was resigned to having failed again. As a result, I stopped making resolutions. It's easier that way. I have no guilt, no shame, no sense of failure.

With all of that said, I noticed while re-reading Friday's post that I do use some words a lot. I use them a whole lot. A whole lot more than I should. I throw them in like salt, or like confetti spewed into the air by a machine at New Year's or at the end of a football (American football) championship game. Like this:

My confetti words are 'hope', 'so', and 'now' and I hereby mostly swear them off.

I'm not going to resolve not to use them. It's a habit and I probably will use them from time to time, but I'm going to try not to. If I do (when I do, more like) I am not going to feel guilty. I am not going to give into the urge to go back into a posted post and fix it. That's a resolution, too, and one that might be harder to keep.

That's the reference I alluded to at the end of this morning's post.

Yesterday, as part of my peanut-butter-brain-day, I started writing a post about resolutions, drifted over to the words I use too often, and my determination not to use them. Then, without posting that post, I started a different post which I put up this morning, In that, at its end, it refers to something unreleased - resolutions.

There's that jelly-brain at work. The one that spreads and doesn't stop until it finds a boundary.

So now I hope that's clear (winking at you because I did that with deliberation!).

Wishing you a lovely day - resolved or not!

Best~
Philippa

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What's the Problem? The Meaning is Clear, Instantly Recognizable

It flabbergasts me. All of this discussion about the offensiveness of the term “Anchor Baby” and so on during which one bright mind suggested we say “American-born child of an undocumented worker”. Really? I mean, really? Is that brain trust serious that every time the subject of children born here to an illegal immigrant mother comes up we’re supposed to say, “American-born child of an undocumented worker”?

How stupid is that!?

Say it like it is. Stop the politically correct bullshit, stop the nonsense and just be honest for a change. Who doesn't understand what's meant when that term is used? It's not ambiguous. It's not vague. It's clear, concise and accurate. In short, it is precisely what language is intended for: to communicate what's meant.

Just for the sake of crystal clarity, let’s posit a probable, or at least a realistically possible scenario.

“M” doesn’t know she’s pregnant when “E” comes home after losing his job somewhere in Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala or wherever they live. There’s no money, no hope, but “E” or “M” or maybe both have family that crossed the border ten years ago without benefit of documentation. “J” and “A” have been asking “E” and “M” or “M” and “E” to come north for years.

What the heck? Why not? There’s nothing here, right now. Maybe the grass is greener, so let’s go. They get what money they can, get their stuff together, and head off.

Somewhere along the way “M” realizes she’s knocked up… sorry, that’s offensive. She’s with child. (Better?)

They make it into Arizona or California or Texas or New Mexico, whatever. A few months later, wherever they’ve ended up, she goes into labor and boom there’s a new baby.

According to current precedent, that baby is an American citizen, which means that that baby, just 30 seconds old, has all of the rights and prerequisites other American citizens have. The right to collect welfare benefits and all the rest of it.

Not one member of that family has contributed a single penny to the welfare system, but Mom is entitled to child support, a child tax credit if she files for taxes, food stamps, housing benefits and everything else – all because she has a 30 second old child. When it's old enough to start school, it will get a free education - all of it - benefits and education - at the expense of the American taxpayer.

What other country in the world does that? Name one, just one that gives automatic citizenship to the child of someone in the country illegally. I mean, we are not even talking about someone who came here legally on a visa. If she had been here on a work visa, the child does not qualify. If she's here on a student visa, the child does not qualify. But! Because the mother is here illegally – against the law – her child is a citizen.

How does that work?

Oh, yeah. There’s a lot of chatter about the Fourteenth Amendment right now. Well, just what does that Amendment say? Let’s look…

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, Okay, so far, so good. It’s clear. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof Now, this for me, is where it breaks down. ‘Subject to the jurisdiction thereof’. If the parents aren’t American citizens, they are not subject to the U.S. Constitution – unless they commit a felony. For misdemeanors, like being here without a visa, they get rounded up and deported. They have no more rights than that. The parents aren’t subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. As a minor, that child has no rights except those given to the parents. So how does that child suddenly become a U.S. citizen? are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. Straight boilerplate in this section that just benefits the politicians, as everything always seems to do. The more people in the state – legally or not – the more seats in the House of Representatives.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. Again, boilerplate that doesn’t mean a whole lot.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. This comes straight from the time this Amendment was drafted – following the end of the Civil War when the question of the freed slaves and their rights to citizenship were being addressed and discussed.

Now, that said, those people or their forebears were forcibly brought here. They didn’t raise their hands and volunteer. Big difference in that. Some redress, for being kidnapped, stolen, whatever you want to call it isn’t unreasonable in that case. But when an individual makes a conscious choice to break another country’s law… No. You don’t reward them – whether or not they drop their anchor baby… Oops, sorry. That’s harsh so let’s call it what it really is: “Child born in the United States to an undocumented female worker in the country without permission from the Federal Government because she couldn’t be arsed to follow the law and get in line behind everyone else who is trying to work through the process honorably.”

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. So here’s the rest of it. This doesn’t have to go to the Supreme Court. This can be dealt with by Congress – HOPEFULLY, after we get some real, honest to God ball-bearing conservatives in there.

In the meantime, I guess we’ll have to come up with some pronounceable acronym for these children. One that’s acceptable to the left who sees no problem with people breaking the laws of this country. Unfortunately, “ABCUW” doesn’t flow smoothly whereas “anchor baby” does, which is the purpose of language – to communicate meaning. Say it, everyone gets it.

Which raises another question: how many of these liberal lefties who lift their nose at the nation’s laws call the cops every year? Since these scofflaws see no problem with lawbreakers, maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to call the cops. Just think how much money that would save.

So – use the term as you will. Don’t get your knickers knotted over it because it is, just as bullshit is, offensive to some but instantly recognizable in its meaning.

Have a linguistic day.

Best~

Philippa

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