Don, you got that no vacancy sign yet? a response

It seems like I've gotten this from a couple of what I will assume are well-meaning folks...but frankly these little xenophobic rants annoy me...please don't send me this stuff and assume that I want to receive it. I don't.
Why? The primary reason would be that the whole basis of the argument is flawed. As a conniseur of rational thinking, I hate illogical reasoning. The secondary reason is of course that it contradicts everything I have experienced in my own life. They say experience dictates your reality, and my experience has obviously been profoundly different from that of most in a lot of very important ways.

On a related note, it's endlessly annoying how everyone assumes that as a white person, I automatically would be inclined to agree with this stuff. I can't tell you how many times some closeted racist person would come up to me and feel like I'm some kind of safe space for them to dump whatever's been on their chest...it gets real old. And while we're at it, I'm not impressed with people who think it will impress me when they make fun of people who can't speak English. Also people who make fun of people with cognitive or neurological disabilities tends to piss me off too. In life we tend to deal with our uncertainities in some very unproductive ways. If yours happens to be making fun of things you don't get, it makes you look like that much less of a person.

So on that note...

The whole premise of the analogy is that the author basically equates immigrants with "people who are breaking into HER house". She assumes that I would not want "immigrants" living in my house. That by not opposing immigration, that I am thus required to let "immigrants live in my house and personally provide them with all the services which I currently consider myself entitled to.

That all sounds quite nice, but here's the heart of my problem with this analogy. I don't personally consider ALL of the United States to be "MY house". The only place I consider to be "my house" is the space I am currently leasing. I don't begrudge my neighbors the right to live where they do. I don't care who lives dowtown, in the countryside, in LA or NY. It's no concern of mine. In fact if my neighbor happens to be a crack dealer but isn't personally bothering me in any way, then we're cool. Perhaps the author of the piece DOES consider ALL of the United States to be their house. In which case I better be careful or I might walk out into my kitchen and see them digging through my refrigerator or helping herself to my socks. Seriously. I think most of the rest of us figure out by the middle of elementary school that only certain things belong to us, and others do not.

Problem number two is what do we consider the United States to be? The continental United States (which we all know is a huge land grab)? Or all of the territories and possessions (an imperialistic land grab). Hmm when you add the latter category this line of reasoning is easily inverted and one could rightfully say that Americans have a bad habit of coming into other people's homes and taking their shit. For a really extreme example of this, let's briefly consider the recent Iraq war. Install dictator. Depose dictator. Take oil. Repeat.

Problem number three which I personally find most interesting is that there's a 99% percent chance that the author of this lame analogy is an immigrant as well. There's an annoying human tendency of conveniently forgetting that sometimes you share a lot in common with the very same person you are vehemently lambasting. For anyone in a country of immigrants to claim to be anti-immigration is a rather confusing position from a logical standpoint. I don't care how long you've been here, you still came from somewhere else originally (unless you have a tribal membership). Assuming the vast majority of people currently dwelling in the continental United States have origins elsewhere, if you find you don't like the state of things, feel free to go back to whatever place it was that you or your father or your great-grandmother came from, learn that language and live happily in a community full of people who look and talk exactly like you. Otherwise get over it. Cultural difference won't kill you.

Problem number four: The list of services that I am presumed to be unwilling to provide to immigrants are remarkably similar to the services I currently expect to receive myself just by virtue of falling out of bed every morning. In fact, there is nothing special about this list of "special treatment" options. It is the basic list of all things one is entitled (or should be since in fact we fall short in many ways of meeting our own needs in this country) to when one comes to live in the United States:
1. A place to live. A radical assumption in some circles but I happen to be one of those who does believe shelter is a basic right.
2. Public health. Again here we fall short in practice but we do assume most of the time that we won't be left to die in the streets.
3. Education. Is there any obvious positive benefit to denying anyone education? If so, please name one. I'll be breathlessly waiting for your response.
4. Public Assistance. Most people who assume immigrants use public assistance are clueless. They are ineligible. They have to take care of their own business unlike the native born who are free to accept handouts from my tax dollars.
5. Social Security: Am I the only person who has figured out that this is the obvious solution to our so called Social Security problem? An entire cohort of able-bodied workers paying into social security who currently are more likely to return to their country of origin than stay on to retirement age and collect benefits. Duh. I don't know why I'm the only person who sees the obvious benefit here.

I think that's enough soap boxing for today, but as a person who has spent lots of quality time in foreign countries, and working with and socializing with recent immigrants, I think some of my native born peers need to check their attitudes at the door. Personally I think people (especially Americans) need to get out more anyway and broaden their horizons. It doesn't hurt you any.