A New Life Awaits...

As anyone who read my last entry knows, I had been having some trouble with the music school letting me keep my money while allowing to me major in something I actually enjoy. Most of the rage of that was taken out on a certain Townsend Plant, the asshole who works for the music school admissions and the lovely man that gave me my scholarship in the first place. (Fickle...what the fuck are you talking about? Fuck off!) Well, without his help, or extreme lack thereof, I found a nice little loophole in the system that suits me just fine. From now on, I am a BA (bachelor of the arts), meaning that I do whatever I want for the next four semesters and graduate with a degree and three minors, in english, writing, and politics. Haha, what a loophole, huh? That is more than I ever could have asked for. Hell, it is easier than switching majors completely, I still get what I want, and I am, apart from theory, done with music school. WHAT NOW?! Thus, upon my return to Ithaca, a new life begins...one where I am in college and not hating school, where I am learning something that interests me, and where I don't feel a need to shoot everyone around me and, in prevention of such, revert to my age old policy of escapism.

Now, going with the theme of "A New Life Awaits...," I would like to talk a bit about the recent protests that went on across the United States regarding immigration policy. What I am about to say shows off very nicely my conservative streak, so I know that a lot of my friends, dear as they are to me, might not like it. I have to, however, say it because it has been bothering me.

The protests took place because Bush is considering changing immigration laws in the US, a country that for all intents and purposes might as well have an open door policy. Beefing up border patrols along Mexico is a good idea. I'm sorry to say it, but we cannot just have an open door. If you are latino, that's great, I am glad you made it to the US. If you made it there by somehow outsmarting the coast gaurd or border patrol then you deserve to be in the United States. But I am sure no one wants a million Somalians just making their way into the US, Latinos, Asians, whoever. Not that I have anything against Somalians and, believe me, I support a multicultural America. But think about this: If we let everyone in, as our nation rapidly outsources everything (I read an article about how McDonalds has been outsourcing the drive through order takers....wtf) and our job growth rate plateaus, where are we supposed to get jobs for all these people coming in? I don't care about my jobs (lie) but I am talking about their jobs. In any country in the world, if you do not have authorization to be there you cannot get a job. It is an international law. The same people that want everyone to be able to come across the border don't want those people working less than minimum wage but they are not here legally. We are a sovereign nation, and if we want all of those progressive things we all talk about so much, like better health care and social security reform and whatnot then we cannot go spending every last dime we have on a group of people that doesn't pay taxes!!! Finally, there is a great hypocrisy I hope to expose with this as well, and that is when people say that we shouldn't go out and remove leaders from power that do their own people harm. What are we supposed to do, then, offer every single opressed person in those nations a place to stay? Shouldn't we be working towards a world where each country works not only independently, a spinning cog in the great machine that is humanity, but together. No mooching. No threats. No more need for war. No degradation. No hunger. Unfortunately we take away any chance of that happening. If every Chilean doctor moves to the US because they are the only ones who can afford to do so, who will take care of their sick? If every Namibian lawyer comes to the US, who will uphold their own laws. Allowing a million people to just waltz into the US hurts not only the US but the countries from where they are waltzing. That is not progress, that is escapism, and as I have learned from Freshman and Sophomore year...it sucks and it doesn't work.

I'm sorry to anyone I've offended but think about what this says. It makes more sense and while so many of us are wrapped up in being considered "very liberal" on facebook, sometimes we have to realize that what we think of as being good now is gonna suck in ten years, because not only will things be no better than they are now, but they will be worse. The US cannot support every person who wants to live there. It can barely support the people that do live there, because, believe it or not, the quality of life in the US should be the quality of life worldwide. That's progressive.