Guardians Of The Secret

About three years ago, a friend of mine told me she was a fan of Jackson Pollock's work. I asked if she'd ever seen the movie about Pollock starring Ed Harris. She said she didn't think there really was a movie like that because, if there was, she would have seen it. This presented me with a golden opportunity. By purchasing this movie for my friend, I got to do something nice and be right about something at the same time. That's a perfect storm for me, so I went to Amazon.com, got the movie and gave it to her.

Since then, without fail, Amazon.com sends me an e-mail anytime something new goes on sale that's related to Jackson Pollock, or artists, or art, or colors, or really anything that can be connected in any way to my one purchase. I always laugh a little when I get the e-mails. How do they decide who gets what e-mails? Do they just send me an e-mail every once in a while that tells me about whatever new things are closest to my previous purchase, even if they aren't that close? Or are there certain parameters, and I get an e-mail whenever something new falls into those parameters?

I don't know, and I don't really care either, but I thought of those questions when I heard about the new immigration reform law in Arizona. As I understand it, Arizona law enforcement will be able to ask anyone for identification, specifically proof of U.S. citizenship, if they have a reasonable suspicion that the person might be an undocumented immigrant.

How will they define reasonable suspicion? What will the parameters be? Will they post a Spanish language billboard for free dinero at the police station and arrest anyone who shows up? Will they just stop anyone who seems muy caliente? How exactly does one go about acting like they're here illegally? This seems like a poorly thought out idea. I'm not here to complain about Arizona though. I'm a states rights guy and if they want to try a terrible idea, that's their problem.

On a related topic, Congress is talking about taking on national immigration reform. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has threatened to make it the next issue after financial reform. Alternatively, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is all but begging Reid not to do it. Yesterday, I heard Senator McConnell say that we currently have very high unemployment and we have serious border security issues, so this isn't the time for immigration reform. Wait, what? That sounds like a great time for immigration reform.

Democrats don't really care about immigration, they don't even want a bill. They just want the argument so they can call Republicans racists. It might work too, because some of those guys are racists. Republicans don't really care either, and a lot of them would probably support a bill on immigration reform, but they don't want the argument, because it'll give the Democrats a chance to call them racists.

I think Republicans picture a future time when the mood of the country is different and they can win an immigration reform argument by accusing Democrats of being hippies and leaving the borders open in the name of rainbows and moonbeams, but they know that time isn't now. I also think both parties have a secret. There's actually not a whole lot we can do about illegal immigration from Mexico. Here are some bad ideas that won't work:

#1 That idiot-ass border fence
When I was a kid, there was a fence between the house my family lived in and the neighbors' house. It was literally ten feet out of my way to walk around it. How many times did I climb the fence just for the hell of it? Hundreds, maybe thousands, I don't know, I lost count by the time I turned seven. I know we're building a better fence then the one I climbed as a kid, but unless we're building a magic fence, I'm pretty confident the clever Mexicans will find a way around our super awesome fence technology.

#2 Armed rednecks patrolling the border
I know, if America has a problem that can't be solved by armed rednecks, we may be in trouble. I didn't say I had good news, I'm just telling you what I know. Putting the actual military at the border might work, but they're busy trying to restore order to countries we invaded.

#3 Laws that allow police to ID anyone with brown skin, or a nice tan
I expect the Arizona law to get destroyed in a courtroom somewhere before it ever goes into effect. I hope they televise the case just so I can see if the judge laughs at the people defending it. You never know with judges these days, but I wouldn't get my hopes up for that law.

It's an equilibrium problem. Living in America is awesome, everyone wants to be here, plenty of room to succeed. Mexico, not so much, lots of pressure to leave. So, people will keep flowing from Mexico to America until we reach some kind of equilibrium. This is why you don't see thousands of undocumented Canadians running around putting syrup on everything and robbing people in Minnesota at hockey stick-point. Life in Canada is pretty cool. That leaves us with two things we actually could do...

Possible Solution #1: Fix Mexico
This is the better of the two solutions, but it isn't going to happen. I don't know how much money it would take to make life in Mexico comparable to life in the U.S., but since we're, ya know, massively in debt, I know we don't have it. I guess we could borrow money from China and Japan and give it to Mexico, but I'm not sure how much overall good that would do. This brings us to...

Possible Solution #2: Break America
There are plenty of ways to do this.
-We could do away with our currency and switch to an entirely cheese-based economy (that sounds delicious, doesn't it? Different cheeses would be worth different amounts. It would actually be pretty awesome at first, but eventually it would fail because we'd eat all the money).
-We could genetically engineer an army of killer zombies and unleash them on ourselves.
-We could allow the big banks to use campaign contributions to control both political parties, and therefore the government, leading to an endless cycle of economic failures at the hands of the economic equivalent of war profiteers. (wait, we're already doing that one? Uh oh). I probably won't get a lot of support for possible solution #2.

(Sidenote: I don't really have anything against actual bankers. I interned at a big bank in grad school. Everyone has to make a living, there are plenty of good, regular people working in the financial sector and it isn't their fault that the system is a mess)

I guess there's a third possibility. We could invade Mexico. If you wait around long enough, I'm sure you'll see some intrepid young President come up with an excuse to invade Mexico (manifest destiny!), but until then, like I said, there's nothing we can do.