Dear Dirty America

Not that you should care at all about what Jeb Bush recently said to an audience at his father’s presidential library, but you should know that he’s greasing the skids for his 2016 presidential run. I’m already sick of it. Bush was talking about illegal immigration with the kind of soft heart that can only result from a lifetime of eating marbled beef steaks and a healthy assortment of animal fats:

“There are means by which we can control our border better than we have. And there should be penalties for breaking the law,” he added. “But the way I look at this — and I’m going to say this, and it’ll be on tape and so be it. The way I look at this is someone who comes to our country because they couldn’t come legally, they come to our country because their families — the dad who loved their children — was worried that their children didn’t have food on the table. And they wanted to make sure their family was intact, and they crossed the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family. Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family. I honestly think that that is a different kind of crime that there should be a price paid, but it shouldn’t rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families.”

What Jeb Bush might as well have said is,

“Hello, my name is Jeb Bush, and I’m trying ahead of time to gain favor with the burgeoning Hispanic voter bloc by saying surprising things about how I feel about illegal immigration. If my plan works, I will be a real contender among the 2016 Republican candidates, who will probably not have had the foresight to appeal to voters who will, it seems, vote mostly Democrat.

“This is not unlike what my father did when he went from running the CIA to being president. He appealed to Christian conservatives everywhere. He talked about God and family and country, and the power of the Christian faith. Nobody realized he worships Satan. But it worked, kind of like it worked for my brother, W, too, who is too stupid to worship Satan. So he ran on that ticket. Being stupid. Americans everywhere wanted to have a beer with him.

“So now I’ve got to find my area of manipulation. So I’m calling illegal immigration an act of love, because really, the GOP is a dying breed, and we have to say whatever we can to get elected. It worked for Obama. He opened the floodgates for deception and lying. A skill and trait so inherent to his nature that even my family was impressed. Satan gave him a nod. Actually, Satan is a pejorative term. I mean Lucifer, the Angel of Light.

“Anyway, I’m Jeb Bush, the younger and fatter brother of George W Bush, the 41st president, and while I’m a slimeball in every sense of the word, I approve of this message.”

And wouldn’t we love to see another Bush in office? From Prescott to W, we’ve been assailed and raped by the Bush family. America’s vision and the Bush family’s vision is hardly distinguishable. Do we want a Bush dynasty? But just wait, we might get another crack at electing another. He can pick up right where Obama left off. Except this Bush is a new, softer, more sentimental one, as is apparent by how he’s packaging himself lately:

“Hello, Jeb Bush here again. I’m back and appealing to the usually left-leaning vote of the swelling minority population of the United States. Listen, illegal immigration is an act of love. Just because the International Monetary Fund and NAFTA devastated Mexico, and now that devastation is spilling into America and is costing its taxpayers billions of dollars a year and countless jobs and falling wages, doesn’t mean we should enforce our immigration laws and deport those who have come here illegally.

It’s hard to get voted in with that kind of mindset. Also, let me remind you, illegal immigration is still a huge boon for Big Business. As you might know, my family has always been tied to the wealthiest global corporations and families, and that’s who we protect when we’re in office. Without dirt cheap labor stomping into America from the south, we’d have to struggle with the world’s largest corporations, many of which began in America, having to pay wages that are far too high to keep corporate profit levels at their soaring heights.

So, do you see why I say illegal immigration is an act of love?”

USC did a study and found that around 1 in 10 people living in Los Angeles is an undocumented immigrant. The costs to American society are tremendous. LA County taxpayers have to deal with $1.6 billion in healthcare and public safety costs for illegal immigrants each year. That does not include education costs, food stamps, housing aid, and childcare. Nor does it take into account the costs that Californians suffer from unemployment, falling wages, and heavier competition for work.

Of course there is a human element to this, and it’s hard for liberals to deport families. Yet, there is a practical element as well. It is dangerous to have millions of undocumented, uninsured people who don’t pay taxes and will do anything for work. The American worker should be able to depend on his government to secure the borders and run a tight, legal immigration program once. If we decide there should be different laws on immigration, then we can change them as we, as a nation, see fit.

Unfortunately, Americans and those who travel here illegally are exploited. The entire society and economy is undermined because of the basic greediness that relies on cheap labor and sees humans as an expendable army that is better in surplus, because it is more easily manipulated when desperate.

[Bush family photo, 1964, from George Bush Library; Jeb Bush photo by George Armstrong, from FEMA Library]