End hand-wringing, enforce immigration laws

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The issue of illegal aliens is reaching the parody stage, if only because politicians, communities and activists are stuck between elementary laws and their sense of humanity.

The Herndon Town Council has decided to set up a facility in response to the day laborers who have overtaken a 7-Eleven near the Dulles Toll Road. The day laborers, some illegal, are being rewarded with taxpayer money because of their bad behavior.

If you are of a certain age in America, you probably are puzzled. For if you attended Catholic school back in the day, bad behavior often resulted in a ruler to the knuckles from one of the discipline-minded nuns. Now, of course, educators are not permitted to say even a harsh word to a misbehaving student. If so, lawyers, grief counselors, shrinks and parents descend on the school to soothe the traumatized student and have the educator fired.

It figures that this mushy thinking is infiltrating the rest of our culture. Everyone agrees that the day laborer who loiters around a 7-Eleven all day is a problem, and even more of a problem if he is drunk, obnoxious to women and has a bladder that is out of control.

Yet we should not ask the day laborer to abide by the norms of our culture and the laws of our land. That is just impolite, even rude, and we do not want to be impolite or rude.

So why not come up with funds that allow the day laborers to congregate at a specific site? No, it does not work that way in the countries that encourage their have-nots to flee to the United States. If you or I showed up unannounced in Mexico or El Salvador or Guatemala, the authorities would burst out laughing before handcuffing us and leading us to a cell in one of their fine prisons.

They would not argue about coming up with a facility that met our gringo needs. They would not argue about whether we should be able to obtain a driver's license or social services or educational support. And they would not have a tear in their eyes if we wanted to stage a Gringo Cultural Pride Day from our wing of the prison. Why, they probably would not even provide us with a miniature U.S. flag to wave.

No, they just would enforce their immigration laws, and that would be that, and no one in America would feel our pain, because we were stupid enough to break the laws of another nation, and that is the way it goes.

We do not play it that way here. We play the cultural-sensitivity game, which is a nuance-stuffed, ever-contradictory exercise.

Let's say you are the average working stiff out and about one day, when all of a sudden you come down with an overwhelming bladder-control situation. Do you find the nearest wall of a building, or do you seek out a bathroom? That is a dumb question, but dumb questions are necessary around the illegal-alien dialogue.

The day laborers merit a facility partly because of their weak bladders, while you get a court date because of yours.

And if you took to loitering around a business establishment, you probably would not be more than 30 minutes into your new career as a professional loiterer before someone would come up to you and say: "Can I help you?" Not that the person really would be interested in helping you.

All this hand-wringing would be unnecessary if we merely embraced the antiquated notion of enforcing the law.

Instead, Virginia legislators are imploring Gov. Mark Warner to declare a state of emergency to stem the flow of illegal aliens into the state, while the Culmore community of Fairfax County is looking to adopt the day-laborer solution of Herndon.

It is as if we are becoming a nation of spin doctors who can politicize almost anything, including illegal aliens with ultra-shaky bladders.