An immigrant is an immigrant

In a recent Just Thinkin’ I suggested a solvent and prosperous Mexico might be a solution to the immigration difficulty along our southern border. I do believe tired and struggling immigrants, clinging to their last bits of currency, would find an affluent Mexico quite appealing.

I suggested a slogan hinting Mexico was once great and acknowledged it might be necessary to go back to the Aztecs to find a great Mexico. A friend put forth the belief that Mexico must have been great about 1821 when American citizens immigrated from a number of Southern states.

What do you mean that is different? How so? Some folks wanted to add Texas to the Union as a slave state.

If an individual of Mexican descent encounters a person of American descent on the streets of San Antonio, who is the descendant of immigrants? I don’t know, but it sure is fun to think about.

This whole immigrant thing gets tricky. One of Oklahoma’s favorite sons, Will Rogers, famously said, “My ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower but we were there to meet the boat.”

Columbus Day, in many states now Indigenous Peoples Day, was recently observed. Now Columbus Day was originally intended to honor the discoverer of the “new world”. On the day, I read a political cartoon that ask the question, “How can you discover a place that already has people living there?”

I don’t know. Do we have a Speaker of the House yet? I didn’t know that it was legislatively so hard to do anything in our Congress without a Speaker. And I struggle to believe that our Founding Fathers had in mind a system of government that could be held hostage by a tiny minority. Maybe our Constitution doesn’t have anything about electing a Speaker in it.

Maybe some people are just better at functioning in a non-functional environment than others. Huh.

Back in the 1970’s two books came out that were wildly popular because they had great titles. Games People Play by Eric Berne and I’m Okay, You’re Okay by Tom Harris. Both promoted examining human interactions using a method called Transactional Analysis. These interactions are referred to as games. Given my profession, I got familiar with the game of uproar. The idea is there will be people who function better in a state of conflict than others. Uproar. If the individual can pull you into conflict, into uproar, they will have a distinct advantage. The bottom line is they are just better at operating in a dysfunctional environment than the rest of us. They are better at playing the game of uproar than the majority of us.

From my back porch, gazing through cola fizz and seeing squirrels chasing each other in circles, I ask myself, “Do you believe we have actually sent some dysfunctional types to Washington?” “Really!”

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. – Abraham Lincoln Hal McBride writes a column, Just Thinkin’, published each week.