Good Friday

I hope your having a good Friday, especially on Good Friday. Thanks to everyone who has commented on my posts. Its encouraging to know someone is reading them and its not completely wasted effort. Please feel free to respond with a comment if something piques your interest.

The photo below is of Missy & Tinkerbelle, our dogs. I have no understanding of why anyone would want a cat. I mean, look at those faces, how can you resist? And they're lap sized.

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A couple weeks ago Ashley and I went to see "Amazing Grace", the movie about William Wilberforce and the abolition of slavery in Britain. The film itself was OK. I mainly wanted to go because I love history and wanted to know more about him and the story. What struck me most however, was that the same arguments being used for continuing slavery are the ones being used to allow illegal aliens to continue to cross our border, e.g. "goods will cost more", "companies will lose money". The latest argument is these are jobs United States citizens won't do. However, because of the influx of cheap labor (companies can pay illegals below minimum wage) law abiding citizens can't afford to take these jobs. The wages are artificially lower than they would be with the availability of the illegal labor.

Obviously this isn't slavery, but I do believe that these people are being taken advantage of. Unions were formed to protect laborers, laws are passed to protect workers, and taxes are assessed to provide infrastructure and services. But, these people work in uncontrolled conditions, aren't paid a fair wage, and aren't taxed (even though they benefit from our tax dollars). I believe our nation will pay a price for taking advantage of this situation in the future just as we did in the past for slavery, and I mean beyond the security risk of having a porous border.

The Declaration of Independence affirms that "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal". If we truly believe this we can't treat these people as a servant class, and without the protection of the law. Some would argue to give them amnesty or to immediately grant them the rights of a citizen without the process of becoming one. But this isn't treating them equally either, this treats them as a special class of people above the law. I believe that we as a nation do believe that all are created equal, and to treat these people as equals we need to close the border and bring these workers across in a legal way to be apart of our society.