Drinking and Driving and Naturalizing and Voting…
by John F. Di Leo
January 25, 2018
Have you ever driven when you were drunk?
I mean, I haven’t, so don’t worry about me… I’m just asking about you. I’ve never driven drunk, Never.
According to my driving record, anyway.
I have never been jailed or prosecuted for drunk driving.
Heck, I’ve never even been ticketed for drunk driving. Never.
So if there were a provision in the law to reward people who always drove sober, I’d qualify for it, right?
Sounds reasonable, right?
Only, here’s the problem, and I’m not remotely proud of admitting it: I HAVE driven while I was drunk. It’s been a long time… a very long time… and I’m certainly ashamed of it… but when I was in my early to mid twenties, I went drinking a lot, and that means, by definition, that I went home after drinking, a lot.
I often had no business on the road… Through amazing luck – which really means, through God’s infinite kindness and endless protection – I never got in an accident and never got ticketed for it. I never got caught. And I straightened up wnen I got married and I never drink to excess anymore.
I would bet that an awful lot of friends of mine, an awful lot of good people, could honestly say the same – that sure, they’ve been drunk drivers on occasion, but their driving record doesn’t reflect it.
I share this embarrassing personal reminiscence for a reason.
We appear to be coming to a critical point in the discussion of “the status of the dreamers” – which means, we’re going to see how far we cave, on one of the critical issues of our time.
The “dreamers” are described as a very hard case in politics: these are people stuck here without legal status, through no fault of their own, because their parents brought them here as little kids. They have no criminal record, they went to school, they have jobs, they’re good folks.. .or so we’re told.
And there is absolutely no doubt that this is true of many of them. I personally know someone whose parents brought him and his siblings here as little children, illegally, and he’s a wonderful, wonderful guy, who works hard, studies hard and obeys the law. So I certainly know that there are SOME so-called “dreamers” who meet the definition we’ve been given… well, at least one, anyway. If I thought they were all like him, I’d be more likely to support the path-to-citizenship cause.
But we must also remember that none of the measurements we’re talking about here are clear and absolute across the country.
There are schools where attending, and graduating, actually means hard work, real dedication to educational achievement. And there are schools where attending and graduating just means you met up with your gang every day, had the free (taxpayer-funded) hot breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria, and never really learned a thing except how to make little WIC card recipients of your own.
There are towns where if a person dealt drugs, or mugged an old lady, or robbed a store, that person gets prosecuted, convicted, and jailed… but there are also cities where tens of thousands deal drugs, mug old ladies and rape young ones, and rob stores, homes and cars all the time, and never get caught, just because of the sheer overwhelming volume that the police have to contend with.
There are young people who say “I have a job” meaning they’re working as junior engineers at a manufacturing company… and there are young people who say “I have a job” meaning they help out part time working for the alderman’s midnight basketball league, to build political connections so they can become ghost payrollers or minority business contractors or aldermen themselves someday.
The definition of “dreamer” is therefore a very slippery thing.
Believe me, I’m a decent, charitable person. I’d love to say “let’s welcome, and forgive, the “dreamers” who meet the definition of having been educated, having worked hard all along, and having been good, decent law-abiding kids their whole lives.
But then I think back on my own record. And I know that drunk drivers ARE usually caught, eventually…. but the kinds of crimes we’re talking about here simply aren’t.
So not only is it hard to believe that the total number quoted is anywhere near as homogenously wonderful as they claim, but in addition, we have to think honestly, and recognize a very difficult truth:
No matter how hard we try, really rigorous, effective vetting is extremely difficult in this area. We’re largely talking about notoriously crime-ridden cities and immigrant communities where crimes are never prosecuted because the illegals circle the wagons around each other. This isn’t bigotry, it’s fact. Ask any prosecutor or big city cop you want. They’ll confirm it.
This is not an issue to try to resolve quickly for political purposes.
The Right is trying the best we can to be fair, and logical, and thoughtful. We are trying the best we can to look out for the interests of not only the illegal aliens and their kids, but also of all the other groups affected by this issue – the American citizens (like workers displaced by low cost competition for jobs, and taxpayers overtaxed to pay for the immigrant community’s benefits), the potential victims of criminals (remember Kate Steinle, and thousands of other nameless, faceless victims like her?)… and the honest foreigners abroad, waiting years for a slot in line to come in the right way, who are pushed ever farther back by the massive numberic burden of illegal aliens.
The Left, on the other hand, makes it clear every day that they are only interested in growing their voting base. Nothing else matters to them.
In fact, it’s difficult, in retrospect, to believe that anything else ever has.
copyright 2018 John F. Di Leo