DACA, Visa Over-stays, Illegals ... IF ONLY ...

IF ONLY our laws had been enforced all the way down the line.

IF ONLY our judicial system had stepped up to the plate and given a resounding 'NO!', backed up by the House and the Senate when somebody just upped and made a unilateral and unconstitutional decision all by his lonesome (because, you know, he had a phone and he had a pen).

We can 'if only' until the cows come home.

The fact of the matter is that we have been handed a rather daunting situation and somebody's going to have to figure out what to do about it. We cannot go back and change anything; all we can do is the best we can with what we have to work with.

Thankfully, we do have our Constitution. Although it has been kind of ignored in recent years it is still our guide and our law.

Because somebody did ignore it, and nobody stepped up to say, 'Hey, you can't do that; it's unconstitutional!' we've got a mess on our hands. That it didn't have to happen in the first place is entirely moot, except for the unlikely possibility of somebody getting held accountable for what he has wrought. As I say ... unlikely. I think the DACA folk ought to sue him as an individual (not the government), a class action suit, for landing them in this boat. He could have chosen otherwise; he could have enforced the law of our land; he could have insisted that their parents obtain citizenship; he could have made it mandatory that they apply for citizenship upon reaching their majority (or leave at that time) ... they've all got to be going through some powerful anxiety as a result of his actions ... he himself, out of his own pocket (although over a million/year plus a lot more for secret service is coming out of OUR pockets) ought to at LEAST pay any associated fees for them to obtain citizenship as well as any mental health services required for them to cope with their lot. HIS pocket, not OURS. We're the ones who are already lining his pockets; why should we have to pay multiple times for how he chose to use his phone and his pen? Which we also paid for, come to think of it. Uffda.

There are now hundreds of thousands of folks who are not guilty of anything except having had parents who broke the laws (which weren't  being enforced anyway). They are innocent (unless they've broken laws themselves - other laws, not the ones broken by their parents) and do not deserve to be punished for something they did not do. That's a fact.

Because one branch of our government, without being checked or balanced by either of the others, did something that was illegal, We the People have been saddled with the sorry situation of having to look askance at all three of our branches of government. Many of the 'guilty parties' are still right where they were when they failed us as a nation. That too will have to be dealt with.

The issue at hand is poignantly heart-rending. Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives are on the line. Maybe not literally, but they will most assuredly be affected (as will we all) over the course of the next months as the legislative branch of government, who should have been the ones to either deal with this in the first place or at least stepped up to either confirm or deny what the executive branch chose to do unilaterally (AND - I presume - the judicial branch, who also should have come out with a very clear statement about the constitutional validity - as in the lack thereof - of said choice) are at last called to task about the whole thing.

I'm just a little old lady and not personally affected by DACA, except in the sense that as a citizen of the United States of America I am inherently as culpable as anybody else.

So what are we going to do about all these folks who are just living their lives out as best they can, but are suddenly faced with the consequences of the actions of others?

Are we going to turn them out?

I think not.

That they are now adults is a factor that has to be taken into consideration.

That they have been well aware of their status for all this time has to be taken into consideration.

That they have, each and all, had ample opportunity to apply for legitimate citizenship, and could have done so as soon as they reached their majority, has to be taken into consideration.

Some of the culpability here belongs squarely on their shoulders as well as on those of the (now-ex) executive branch of our government, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch - and our own as we didn't step up to say, 'Hey that's unconstitutional, what are you DOING!?!' either.

We're all guilty, when it comes right down to it.

Solutions?

I have no 'solutions', only thoughts on the matter.

I'm thinking that every last one of our DACA folk need to get themselves posthaste to the closest immigration office and get their paperwork started.

I'm thinking the legislative branch needs to clearly and definitively put an end to the continuance of something that was unconstitutional in the first place.

I'm thinking that the judicial branch has got to present a decisive ruling on the matter.

I'm thinking that enforcement ought to be stepped up even more, to clear out the criminal elements.

All of these things ought to have been done long since but 'long since' is long gone.

Now is going to have to suffice.

I looked up the DACA thing and the guidelines are pretty clear. The people affected fall into specific parameters, which does help.

It's not like this is the end of the world, folks. It's just got to be taken care of so everyone can calm down and get on with getting on.

The same goes for those who are over-staying their visas. They can follow the rules about renewing them if that's an option, or they can go home. It's not complicated.

I have a feeling it's liable to come as a shock to some peoples' systems that there really are actual laws in our nation, and that (until/unless duly changed) they're (GASP!) supposed to be followed. I know there has been a great deal of 'flexibility' these past years about that little detail, and it might take a while for the concept to sink in. Hopefully it won't take too long.

When it comes down to it, the same goes for all of the illegals among us. It seems to me that, while our legislative branch is dealing with this one part of the whole they may as well extrapolate and deal with the rest of it at the same time. If your paperwork for citizenship is in the works, and; if you're gainfully employed or enrolled in a bonafide educational/training program, and; if you've been here straight through for five years or so, and; if you have no criminal record ... welcome home. Everyone else, so sad too bad, you had your chance, out you go.

Effective immediately, until we as a nation get back onto our feet and can assess our ability to take on anything more, the doors are closed. To everyone.

That's about the only way I can see the whole thing.

No doubt I'm not being 'politically correct' here but honestly I don't much give a rodent's behind about being 'politically correct'.

It's not the current administration's fault, this mess. It's part of the 'legacy' of the one/s before. A disrespect for the laws of our land, coming from the highest of our governmental positions, has been disheartening for a lot of us. For those who didn't know, didn't care, or welcomed it ... I don't know what to tell you except that now you know. You might still not care, and you might not welcome the return of our Constitution, but now at least you know.

God bless us all, and most especially those directly affected by what's coming down the pike including those whose paths are to enforce what has to be done.

And ... you know ... God bless our President. Mr. Trump's destiny is not one many of us would envy. His is the task of righting the wrongs of others, on our behalf I might add. The least we can do is give him our prayers and not get in his way.

Taking care of our DACA folk is a step.

Our legislative branch has six months to get something done that ought to take a whopping fifteen minutes tops. IF they can't manage to do even that much, I hope they're busy getting alternative careers planned and prepared for. It's too bad they can't be 'recalled', but they sure as heck don't have to be re-elected. None of them, on either side of the aisle. We can't repeal them, but we can most certainly replace them.

Our DACA folks have those same six months to get their rears in gear and get their paperwork started, get a job or enroll in a training program, prove their residency for the past five years, and make sure their records are clean and clear. The ones who can't/won't do those things might want to take this opportunity to vacate our nation voluntarily.

IF (yes that IF is in capital letters and in bold) our legislative branch isn't completely dead, and they know the meaning of the word 'extrapolate', it's not just the DACA folk who might want to be taking care of the paperwork, the job/training, the documentation of residency for five years, and proof of a law-abiding lifestyle.  As for the Visa folks, just get 'em renewed or go home.

Just sayin'.

Ach. But what do I know?

The Authority of the United States of America is WHAT?!?

Me, I think we as a nation have been trying to look through the wrong end of the telescope. 

IMO we ought to ditch that telescope and go with a microscope, start focusing on what we can reach. 

The way things are right now is bass-ackward from the way our nation is designed to be run. No wonder it's not working the way it's supposed to.

Yeah that's kind of a pretty design, but it is NOT the way things are supposed to go.

Me, I cannot believe I'm sitting here on a 'day off' trying to think of how to explain something to people whose educations OUGHT to have drilled this stuff into them years ago. That's a part of the bass-ackwardness I'm NOT going to get into today, not if I can help it.

Mmph.

What I'm hearing from our young folk is that the rich guys have all the good stuff, the government is in cahoots with them, and we poor folk are stuck doing all the work and paying all the bills, with no end in sight. They're torn between getting mad about it and giving up.

Little do they know the whole situation is absolutely nothing new. The whole concept they're experiencing is exactly why there is a United States of America.

So what does it have to do with telescopes and microscopes?

This:

When you look through a telescope from the wrong end, what you wanted to see closer gets further away instead.

The more we of the general population try to get a handle on what's going on nationally or globally, the further away it all seems to get. Even if we were looking through the right end of that telescope, we wouldn't be able to see the whole of the 'big picture'. We're only going to get more frustrated and upset at what we do see. It ain't all that pretty out there these days, folks.

So ditch the bloody telescope for a while. All it does is make us mad and convince us that yeah our government and our world are seriously out of balance. Trying to use it is just going to make us dizzy. Washington and Wall Street are too far away from the reality of our lives for us to fret ourselves about right now. 

True story, folks. I kid you not. 

There's not a damned thing any of us can do in the immediate future to make those things the least bit different, not right now. We can moan and groan and gripe and complain until the cows come home and it's not going to do anything except waste our breath and our time.

So ditch the telescope for the time being.

Grab that microscope and start focusing on things you can do something about. Instead of whining about Big Government and Fat Cats, put your local area under that microscope.

Why?

Because, my friend, the larger picture that we all think we want to have this huge impact on so everything will change for the better is made up of guess what?

Without getting all technical about fractals and golden ratios and all that, I can tell you this:

The whole is but a bigger representation of its parts.

You want to change Big Government?

Look in the mirror because you yourself are a part of it.

Look within your own family.

Look at your community.

Look at your County.

Look at your State.

You know what you're looking at?

Duh.

See, our nation, the United States of America, and its government, is built on the rebuttable presumption that she has a halfway educated populace who KNOW what the heck said government is supposed to be doing, and not doing.

There's a whole lot of rebutting going on right about now regarding that presumption, both here at home and in the world at large. So be it. That's another thing we can't do anything about at the moment. Let it be for now.

We're all at least partway familiar with our three branches of government, right? Legislative, Judicial, Executive.

How familiar are we with another set of three that's even more important than those? Hmmm?

Federal, State, and We the People, which I've listed in REVERSE order of importance for a reason.

The reason is that the above order is the way We the People have been taught about this hierarchy thing. 

For whatever reason, we ordinary folk have become convinced that we're lucky to even be on that list. When it comes to Authority, what do we believe? That the Feds are at the top of the pile, then the States, and then (maybe) us. We really do believe that, have believed it for a great number of years.

That is NOT the design of our Constitution, people. It is NOT the way our nation is built and not the way it's going to function the way it's supposed to.

Back to telescopes and microscopes.

The Authority of this nation doesn't begin out there somewhere, in Washington or anyplace else.

It starts microscopically small, to go with our theme here.

It begins with you. 

And me. 

And all the them people and the us people that make up WE the PEOPLE. 

Think about that for a minute. It's right there in the Constitution that rules our nation, for cryin' out loud. More than once. 

And we aren't only just the starting point - we are the whole of it. 

WE are the ones, you and me and Jane and John over there, and every other citizen of this Constitutional Republic (what? you thought we were a democracy? oh my. well, that will have to be another post I reckon)

Where was I?

Oh yeah, the starting point of the Authority by which this nation is supposed to be governed.

That would be us.

We're also the next point, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Since the outward spiral of Authority seems to have taken a twist somewhere along the way, there's only one way this nation can get herself back into the balance she's designed to have.

We need to quit worrying about telescopes for the moment and turn our focus to the microscope - we have to look at the beginning point.

That would be us.

Quit trying to look 'out there somewhere' for answers and changes. If 'out there somewhere' was going to fix anything, it would have been fixed long since.

And I'm talking to our young folk here. (Us older ones too, but you young folk have a chance of seeing this thing through so I'm passing the buck to you. You'll be the ones to benefit, too - not us old folk.)

YOU are going to look into your mirror. 
YOU are going to look around you at the people you know. 
YOU are going to decide how much of a difference you are going to make.
YOU are going to decide how much of an impact you are going to have on your own Life, your Community, your County, your State, your Nation, and your World. 

YOU. 
The one you see when you look in that mirror. 

YOU are We the People.

The Authority of the United States of America does not rest with the folks in Washington; it does not rest in the POTUS; it does not rest in any of her many branches and twigs and leaves. 

The Authority of the United States of America belongs to her people, the cellular level of the bigger organism.

YOU.

Intimidated yet?

Nah.

All of what we've been thinking about who wields the Authority in this nation is pretty much hogwash.

Me, I don't expect to see any big huge changes, not in what time is left to me here.

YOU, however,  you our young folk, might just find inside of yourselves the 'whatever it takes' to make things get back to the way they're supposed to be.

I can't make it happen. 

The best I can hope for is that maybe one or two of you will have enough common sense to read your own freaking Constitution, think about what it's saying, and realize that YOU ARE THE AUTHORITY OF THIS NATION. 

Yep. And then proceed to exercise that Authority the way you're supposed to.

How?

By understanding that while you all by your lonesome are not the only Authority in this nation, since every Citizen shares that, you can be a darned important part of the whole.

How?

By looking in the mirror.

Huh?

Well?

Are you or are you not committed enough to making things better to step up to the plate and get things rolling in the right direction?

Me? I'm no politician.

Well hallelujah for that! 

We don't want any more politicians. 

It's not anything anybody has ever been supposed to make a career out of. It's something you take time out of your life to do for a while, because you care, because you want to make a difference, and then you get back to your life.

If you aren't 'public figure' material, look around you for someone who is. Then get them voted into whatever office they might be interested in.

Yes.

I said VOTE.

From the microscopic beginnings, the Authority of the people of the United States continues through every step of the way. Those cells are what makes up the whole thing, you know.

Did you know that your County Sheriff, the person YOU your own self voted for (or not) is the ultimate Authority within your County? Well yeah, if you've read recent posts, you know that.

You know WHY said Sheriff has that Authority? Because that person is representing the collective will of YOU and everyone else in the County. THAT's where the Authority comes from. It comes from US, the citizens of the United States of America. That's how come a County Sheriff can kick the President of the United States out of the County, and jail him/her if they refuse to go. Because the Sheriff isn't acting on his/her own Authority but on the Authority of the people who elected him/her.

NOBODY in this nation has any more Authority than anybody else, unless they're acting in accordance with the collective will of the citizens, Authority which has been accorded them BY the will of said citizens. And the Authority so accorded by the citizens can be revoked, you know. By the ones who accorded it in the first place.

That bit of information isn't bandied about much, is it?

If somebody is in a position of Authority, it is because we said so. That makes it our responsibility to maybe take a bit of interest in who and what we have a say-so about.

I tell ya.

We get so wrapped up in trying to look through that telescope at who's in Washington that we totally don't pay much attention to the stuff that actually matters to us on a daily basis.

That 'daily basis' is a whole lot more vital to our health and well-being than whatever we're trying to see by looking through the wrong end of that telescope. 

I tell you this and I tell you true.

Start taking care of things nearby and get that spiral thing going. What happens on a local level, on every local level of this nation, matters a hell of a lot more than anything else right now.

Why?

Because it is from out of the Center of Authority, the Authority wielded by the People of the United States of America, that the Future is going to unfold. 

It is going to be our own local folks paying attention to our own local elections, and choosing folks who are ready, willing, and able to do the job they're elected to do - by the will of their own local folk - that will bring out the leadership we're all looking for.

No, it's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a damn long time, and a whole lot longer than it actually needs to take because we don't realize that we can do it.

'A revolution would be quicker' - and yes I've heard those actual words come out of someone's mouth.

'We need to re-write the Constitution' - that's another one.

'The States ought to secede' - heard that one too.

They're all baloney.

A revolution wouldn't speed anything up any, believe me.

The Constitution is fine just the way it is, which people would figure out if they ever took the time to read it.

States Rights are outlined in the Constitution; when it comes right down to it the States have a lot more say-so than we're led to believe. Not as much of a say-so as We the People, but neither are they the helpless pawns of the Feds like some people seem to think.

Looking through the wrong end of the telescope again here.

Start where you're the most comfortable. That's the way it's supposed to be in the first place so what the heck. 

Pay attention to what you see under that microscope. If there's a problem out there at the other end of that telescope, chances are you'll find the virus or bacteria or germ or whatever's causing it right there in the petri dish of your mirror, your home, your community, your county, your state.

We honestly don't have much recourse at the moment for fixing what ails our nation. That's flat out too big for us to even wrap our heads around.

BUT.

We can start trying to knock out that ailment in ourselves, in our homes, in our communities, in our counties ... do you see where I'm going with this?

The Authority of the United States of America - bottom line - is me. 

It's you.

How are we going to wield it?

Listening to the Elders

Opinions are indeed a dime a dozen. Everyone’s got at least several.

Options really do abound, but options they will remain – sitting right there on the table but so far off to the side that they’re more likely to get knocked onto the floor by somebody’s elbow than they are to be noticed.

Viable Solutions have become rarer than hens teeth. As more and more of those Options hit the floor, unseen and unnoticed, the Viable Solutions they could have been used to both generate and implement are rapidly dying out and disappearing before our very eyes.

What are we going to do about it?

We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, nor to offend – yet what of our own feelings, the offenses directed at us?

Rise above all that, we are told. Reach out to those who are doing the hurting and the damage. We smile rather bitterly, and nod our obedient heads.

Our elders offer a different approach.

We look askance at our elders, appalled at the words coming out of their mouths. I work with lots of elders; it’s my job. When it comes to that, my own years are quickly carrying me into the Elder Zone. I find myself appalled at the thoughts coming into my own mind these days and sometimes look askance at my own reflection.

But nobody’s asking for their opinions, nobody’s listening to the options they’re talking about. Nobody wants to hear that harsh measures might not be so harsh in the long run if you use them with some judicial wisdom and mercy.

No they’re not talking about raising taxes.

 ‘We,’ they say, ‘have enough revenue, enough resources, to meet our own needs.’

‘What we do not have,' they say, 'is enough to carry the rest of the world.’

Well, nobody’s talking about us having to carry the whole wide world here, you know.

It just seems like there are a lot more people here in our land than belong here, and those we have been carrying.

‘Get them out,’ say the elders. ‘They can wait until they’re invited – and those who do the inviting will have them in their own homes – but nobody’s inviting anybody until we get our own messes straightened out.’

It’s like America decided to throw a party and got all kinds of party-crashers showing up out of the blue.

‘Sure we want to be hospitable but for heaven’s sake those people are taking what we prepared. Where’s the respect? Where’s the consideration? Where are the good manners?’

‘Get them out of here. We’d like to enjoy the fruits of our own efforts.’

More voices add their bits, beginning to show some of their frustration.

‘They’re going to eat us out of house and home. Who the heck told them they could just barge into somebody else’s home and help themselves to what they had nothing to do with making? Get them out.’

That would be the reaction of most of us to anyone who crashed any family or community event.

We would send the crashers packing and be rather upset at having to set guards to keep them from doing it again – but guards would be set and invitations issued and checked at the door from then on – at odds with the way things are supposed to be around here, but we would most assuredly do it. We wouldn’t be happy about it but we would do it.

What we spend on illegals in our country ought to be going to an equal number of our own – many thousands of our elders and other vulnerable folk could use that money. Think how many millions could be helped. As many as there are illegals.

‘We don’t want to be mean about it, but really – they’re being the mean ones, not to mention rude - and we just can’t afford them. Get them out and take care of your own, like their folk should be doing. Maybe when things get better some of them can come back, the ones with decent manners.’

‘I heard there’s a bunch who don’t think they even have to obey our laws, that they can just have their own. Who brought these people up to think that’s okay? Really. It is not okay.’

Onward.

The elders also advocate creativity and conservation of resources.

Some of these elders are from times long past, and they remember their own elders’ stories.

‘If we ran out of wood we burned corn cobs.’

‘The windmill brought up our water.’

We’re going to run out of fossil fuels one of these days. We aren’t likely to run out of sunshine, wind, water.

‘We didn’t have electricity. If we were running low on lamp oil we went to bed when it got dark. We had to get up early anyway to do chores. Then we’d hitch up the horse and go to school.’

‘Mama made my dresses out of flour sacks. We used what we had and made the most of it.’

‘We did the wash once a week and hung it out on the line to dry. The sun and wind were our clothes dryer.’

‘One year Daddy bought fancy glass lights for our Christmas tree and they were pretty but couldn’t light up without electricity. Daddy took the battery from the tractor and hooked up the lights. It was only for a few minutes but we had a lit up Christmas tree that year.’

So yeah, these folks advocate finding and using whatever forms of energy can be counted on for the future needs of our people.

‘The little ones fed the chickens and gathered eggs. When we got big enough we could carry the feed pails for the pigs and then could throw hay bales for the cows and horses.’

These are the folk who worked, and worked hard, from childhood on – because that’s just the way it was.

These are the folks we don’t want to listen to.

‘We were too busy minding our own business to pay much attention to anyone else’s – except we always found out, you know, if someone got sick or died or something. If their family needed a hand with the harvest, we’d all just do it. Or building a house or a barn for someone. We made it into a kind of party. And our mothers and grandmothers got together to make quilts. We built and made a lot of our own things. We used to make kites out of sticks and string and paste. We’d get a ball of yarn from Mama, wind it up real tight, and find a good stick to use for a bat – and we played baseball in the yard after we got our chores done. Sometimes we’d go swimming in the creek. And there was always school and church where we’d see our friends.’

Minding their own business, helping friends and family and neighbors when need be, getting their work done, socializing with each other, and just living their lives as best they could sounds like something out of a book.

It hasn’t been so very long, my friend. Only a bare generation or two back these bits of stories were lived by our own elders. Some things endure to this day in some places.

I for one cannot fault our elders for wondering about the rest of us. I cannot fault them for looking around them, hearing the news, and feeling as though a bunch of party-crashers are cashing in on what they spent their hard-working lives building to protect them in these their elder years, and for the future generations of their own families to continue to build on and appreciate.

‘What happened?’

A frustrated elder looks at me, news of terror on the television and a Social Security notice in hand.

‘What happened? Where did all these people come from and what are they doing here? Who invited them?’

‘I don’t know,’ is all I can say, an inadequate response.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well they need to go back to wherever they came from. Then close the doors while we clean house. And get our soldiers home. We could use them to guard our borders – and us. Let the rest of the world fight their own battles for once.’

Many of our elders would give just about anything to be able to go back and work even harder than they did.

‘We should have been able to stop this before it got started. We didn’t even see it coming. Now we’re stuck and so are you.’

‘Well, it is what it is.’

‘But how are you young people going to stop it?’

And I smile because I am not a young person.

‘We have some pretty smart young people these days. They’ll figure it out.’

‘Well, they better hurry up about it. I’m not so sure there are any smart people left.’

I smile again.

‘They’ll figure it out.’

‘They better.’

In my opinion we should listen to our elders.