Sometimes I just want to find some nice quiet out of the way place on some island and move there to escape the madness which seems to be spiraling out of control each and every day. Take today for example.
A court in Arizona decided that a rancher who had mistreated a couple of illegal aliens he caught on his ranch back in 2003 had to forfeit his ranch to the couple. The details are pretty simple. These two aliens, from Mexico and El Salvador were caught entering the United States illegally and ended up on a ranch to be held until they could be transported back to their respective countries. Now, the details of how they were treated once they got transported to the ranch would lead you to believe they were mistreated or abused. Whether that happened I couldn’t tell from the article and I don’t have the transcripts of the trial so I wouldn’t want to venture an opinion.
Anyway, the two aliens filed a civil suit against the ranch owner and as a result, the court gave them the title to the man’s ranch.
Now, I’d be the last to condone any abuse to anyone, no matter alien or not. You can’t do that. However, the punishment should have been criminal for the ranch owner if in fact, he was guilty. How can the court justify a civil action in which the man loses his property to two people who are breaking the law just by being here in the first place?
Where is the justice in this? Where is the outrage over what caused this event in the first place? If these people had not been breaking the law in the first place then the event would not have happened. Where is the punishment for their violation of the law? This flies in the face of common sense. It seems that those of us who want to protect the things we’ve worked and saved for are subject to punishment of the severest form for defending our property. In some states you can be fined and prosecuted for harming a burglar who breaks into your house to rob and steal from you.
A number of years ago, I hired a man from Michigan. It was that time in our economic cycle where everyone was leaving northern states and moving down to the south. Now, this fellow worked for me a number of months, never missed a day, never complained, and never gave anyone any trouble. Just happy to have a job and a paycheck. We had a change in the job he worked on and this change required him to get a security clearance in order to keep his job. When we ran the background check on him we found he had been arrested in Michigan for stealing some meat from a grocery. Not a really heinous crime. He paid the fine and that was pretty much the end of it. I asked him about it and he told me that his family was hungry when he was out of work and he stole some meat to take home to his wife and kids. I sent in his paperwork with an explanation and his clearance was denied.
I got on a plane and flew up to see the head of the agency giving out the security clearances to plead this fellow’s case. No good, the rules are the rules, the director told me. I pointed out that their applications they hand out do not allow for us to ask if the applicant is a legal resident of this country. I was told in no uncertain terms that we were not allowed to ask this question and legal status could not be used as a condition of employment.
In other words, the person who breaks the law to enter this country and who is living here illegally can have a job and get a security clearance, but a legal United States citizen who makes a minor mistake is prohibited from having the same job?
I’ll never forget her words to me that morning….
“Yes, I suppose you could look at it that way.”
I got up and walked out in disgust. As Kenny Rogers once said…”you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em”
Things are sure looking harder to hold as far as I can see.
