The next time I hear some congress person or some senator or some loud mouth talk radio moron express outrage about the 12,000,000 undocumented/illegal aliens we have in this country, I think Ill shove a red hot poker in my eye or push a cattle prod through my ears. It would give me something more important to focus on, rather than the idiotic babble that creases my brow and knots my neck. These knuckleheads act as if the immigrant laborers arrived suddenly under the cloak of night. Its like that joke by heavyweight comedian Louie Anderson about being grotesquely fat, do you think I woke up one day, walked by a mirror and in shock asked, Oh! When did that happen?.

For decades, through all combinations of Washington political power, this blister of cheap labor has festered. The same people doing the high octane complaining now, along with yours truly, all had a piece in this action. If you had a house built, if you had your lawn cut, if you had your home cleaned, if you had your car washed, if you had your hair washed, if you ate a breakfast, lunch or dinner at a restaurant, if you bought vegetables or fruits or cheeses or milk from a grocery store, if you had a nanny for your darlings, if you participated in any of these without regard to whoever provided the labor then you have given cause in part for these immigrants.

You knew it. I knew it. Now we really know it.

And today the troubled troubadours of outrage want to call them all law breakers. They exclaim, Im not against immigrants. Im against illegal immigrants. Well were they against illegal immigrants when their new house was roofed? Were they against illegal immigrants when their restaurant table was cleared of plates? Are they against illegal immigrants every time they saut onions? Are they against illegal immigrants when their hotel rooms are cleaned up? If they are so against illegal immigrants, why dont they boycott all those businesses and purge themselves of those services that are a part of the economic machine that creates the jobs and illegal wages that entice folks from neighboring poor countries to risk everything to do better for their families while maintaining cheaper services and goods for the savvy American consumer. But in the unlikelihood these empty headed complainers will give up their free market ways, I have a better idea: shut up!

We knowingly fed this 12,000,000 pound elephant for years, and now the usual suspects are shocked at the size of the poop. The arrogance and shallowness of their words leave me shaking my head. I can only surmise that somewhere along the way each of these poor saps obtained a head injury, possibly atrophying the portion of the brain used for thinking while enlarging the portion used for speech.

Do we have problems? We sure do. In a post 9/11 America, our borders need to be secured, something that should be done already. In fact, it sounds like a great job for the National Guard, if they werent holed up in Iraq birthing democracy or taking it to the terrorists or babysitting a civil war or whatever the reason de jour is. In addition to disrupting terrorist movement, tighter border security will put a temporary lid on the labor migration, buying us time to figure out what to do with those undocumented workers already here; you know, the 12,000,000.

I almost never agree with the President, but he has it right on this, as does the McCain Kennedy Bill he supports. It seems reasonable to document those here and offer some kind of assimilation plan. How to document and how to assimilate is no easy proposition and will take some creative, imaginative thinking, which, given our current band of political brothers, is almost non-existant. As far as those numskulls who want to yell No Amnesty, again, shut up; you are complicit in this mess. You want no amnesty? How about no amnesty to businesses who continue to pay illegal low wages to their workers? We need to move the lowest wages to a level where the poorest Americans can compete for jobs. If this means increasing the minimum wage, do it. I know that translates into higher prices for houses, food, and services. So be it. To not do it avoids fixing the underlying inequity which feeds the revolving door of workers from poorer nations who come here, earn dollars and return home where the dollars go a lot further.

With a system as broken as this, what did we expect?

The party is over. Its time to ante up and pay the piper for decades of looking the other way. And anyone who wraps the flag around feel good illegal alien rhetoric needs to take a look in the mirror. Ask Louie Anderson, we didnt gain 12,000,000 pounds overnight.