Clark,
I can see that your name is Clark and I don't have a problem with that either...
I also respect your choices as to the actions you would take. You own your own truth. You make your own judgments.
It is not my business to nurture nor condemn your ideas. Heck; I don't believe we have met or that we ever will. But I feel respected
and I hope you feel the same.
As for the lady Nurse, after her visa expired, she remained here illegally. That's unquestionable. After her visa expired, she was potentially
living off our dime. No Med insurance, no job, no taxation. But after carefully evaluating the Con's and Pro's specific to her case,
I thought that our community would benefit more from her professional contributions, buying her own insurance; and paying her taxes.
She benefits us more by staying, than we do from her deportation.
I do take my work seriously, especially when doing it Pro-bono. Just the fact that someone is an undocumented worker,
it is not a trigger for me to advocate their staying in the US.
Indeed, over the past 30 years, there is at least three people who I personally and successfully advocated for their deportation.
One of them twice. Many other such actions were successful through the efforts of my professional colleagues.
To be clear, I too think of myself as a Patriot, although I don't go around reminding my compatriots of it. I just don't find it necessary.
I'm sure that you are not claiming a monopoly over who is or isn't a Patriot. Therefore, we sure do have that in common
with the entire VRCC, as applicable... I'd hope.
NOTE: Let us acknowledge that there are VRCC members who by virtue of their country of residence or birth, would not be expected to
sworn allegiance to our flag... err... you know, the one referenced as the Union flag.
(Oops... don't want to restart the Civil War.)
In reflection, my patriotism is rooted on the facts that my Father in law never came back from WWII and neither did my Uncle.
It is also inspired by the fact that my cousin fought and died in Korea. By the facts that 11 Family members never made it out of Nam;
And by the fact that my nephew is a virtual vegetable... imported from Afghanistan. He will never know that he's a patriot.
He will never know what happened out there... So I take the opportunity to proclaim that he's a patriot and that
his life, although never again productive, did have meaning. But he won't care. He'll never know that.
For some families, these are tragedies that were not necessary. For our family we leave those political debates outside the door.
In our view, our dead (family) soldiers are the common-folk who gave their blood for our collective freedoms.
They offered up their service to the nation w/o question. They never asked who were their presidents...
nor whether their commanders in chief were legitimate. They died and / or experienced injury in the pursuit of your
freedom, my freedom; our freedoms. Were they heroes? We don't know. We just don't know whether they died while performing
heroic acts or just sleeping in the barracks or in the trenches.
Although they all had Spanish Surnames, the family traces its lineage back to the late 1700's... as California natives and as peoples of
Native American Tribes (AKA: "Indians").
If one thinks about it, they never sneaked through the border... the border moved South on them!
When we hear the occasional ethnic slur followed by the worn out "...go back to where you came from..." trust me, we'd love to do that.
But property near the California Reagan Ranch ain't cheap!
Back to the potential transport of these undocumented folks to the border...
Even if I wanted to do that, I would have to first, drop one off at the Canadian border (too-far-North); and fly the other one to England...
can't afford that either! ???
Seriously, the part I enjoyed the most while advocating for these two people's work and immigration status, is the fact that
race nor ethnicity was an issue.
Both young ladies are Caucasian and they both speak better English than I do. Therefore, the foremost consideration was their intrinsic value to our social fabric.
Clark, I thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts.
Respectfully.
"Maybe I had a ‘secret identity’ … but don't we all?
A part of ourselves very few people ever get to see. The part we think of as "me".
The part that deals with the big stuff and makes the real choices.
The part everything else is a reflection of."
Kurt Busiek (Superman: Secret Identity)
