Everyone has a border awareness tipping point.
For some it was when illegal labor, imported from points south, depressed wages and made jobs a matter of culture instead of citizenship.
For others it was when they lost loved ones to criminal or drunk-driving illegals.
And for still others it was the adolescent invasion of Texas last summer that raised awareness of borders as something other than the gravel at the edge of the community garden that prevents crabgrass from crossing over.
But for the hypocrites who lord it over us from Washington, D.C., the awakening came on Halloween night when unaccompanied and uninvited minors arrived on their doorstep looking for a handout. Non-residents ask for a Twizzler and people in the tony neighborhoods of Georgetown, Takoma Park, Chevy Chase, and Friendship Heights start sounding like Sheriff Joe and the Minutemen.
Petula Dvorak — the journalistic heartbeat of bien pensant D.C. lefties — complains in The Washington Post, “Take a look at those license plates — these Halloween carpetbaggers are clearly not from the neighborhood.”
They might not even be from the hemisphere, but previously that didn’t bother the compassion-at-our-expense crowd.
But now they’re asking, “Is it OK to go trick-or-treating in another neighborhood? That’s the Halloween soul-searching we are collectively doing this year.” But it’s not their souls that are being searched. They want to know the motives of the interlopers and because “… it can get old. The residents of these neighborhoods have to buy about 50 bags of candy — and those last only if they parsimoniously hand out just one piece at a time — every year.”
What will Eric Holder say? Or do for that matter?
Are these neighborhoods going to be reduced to emulating Arizona of all places? Is demanding some form of documentation the only solution for this jack-o-lantern claim jumping? How much more would the neighborhood’s armed security company charge to check proof of residency? It goes without saying there should be options. Maybe demand a utility bill, or an Organizing for America fundraising solicitation with address or the Prius title.
These grudging Ebenezer Cruzes, passing out the M&Ms one at a time, is quite a mental image for the rest of the country when one considers how generous they are with our tax dollars.
Their hero, Barack Obama, is asking Congress for an additional $3.7 billion to cover the cost of raising the Central American children Central America doesn’t want to raise. And that’s on top of the extra $300 million the State Department wants to spend in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador to create better economic conditions.
Presumably in the form of shovel-ready stimulus spending to convert all those abandoned children’s bedrooms into man caves or B&Bs.
Dvorak quotes one mailing list that wails, “It went from being a local neighborhood party where you saw your friends’ kids, caught up with old friends, and occasionally offered them a beer — to being a big “free candy festival” for up to 300 people from outside the neighborhood. If you drop your kids off at my door, but there is no intention of reciprocity, then you’re a user.”
Which must mean dropping your kids off at Uncle Sam’s door, with no intention of ever taking them home again, places one in an entirely different greed league.
Previously the elites were ready to move heaven and earth while sparing no expense to meet this human crisis because they knew none of the humanity was going to wind up in their neighborhoods. It’s too expensive to live in Georgetown for long-term citizens, to say nothing of the still moist.
Those huddled masses yearning for legal representation and EBT cards would be sent to rural areas full of redneck Republicans and the dormitorio communities outside blue metropolitan areas.
The fact the country was footing the bill for illegals housed in resort-like settings — that cost upward of $316 per child, per day for Juan and Juanita to enjoy petting zoos, fish farms, miniature ponies, and guitar lessons — was just so much background noise that was hard to hear over the soft tapping of backs being patted for taking a courageous moral stand.
But when goblin overflow from outside the neighborhood meant the leftist elite would have to spring for another bag of $5 candy, it was too much to bear. The talk wasn’t of amnesty. It was of family reunification as in get your kids, take them home and keep them there!
And that’s the outrageous irony. The Halloween neighborhood crashers and the border crossers have the exact same mentality: Take advantage of the success others have built.
Unfortunately for the rest of the country, the problem doesn’t stop the day after Halloween.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher (for the League of American Voters), and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)." Read more of Michael Shannon's reports — Go Here Now.
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