The United States has been in feverish consern about immigration recently. It’s entirely too emotional a discussion for me to have felt comfortable weighing in.

Immigration is a logical system. We always talk about it in emotional terms, but it really is a rational process which is easily predicted and regulated. If we want everyone to follow the rules, we can do that. But we have to ENGINEER it carefully and pay attention to the Iron Laws of the system.

I’m still deciding if I want to take on policy and what I think we ought to dobut I’ll cover some of the events of the debate.

The protests. A May Day wildcat strike by a million unorganized workers and students. Cool. I support that. I support the businesses which were so cool about it, and let their workers take the day off.

Cardinal Mahoney was right about HR 4437. He was protecting the interests of his church to worship without threat of prosecution. I don’t think it’s a good idea to mess with the 1st Ammendment.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to mess with the 14th Ammendment either. So the Anchor Baby law’s a lousy idea. If a child is born in the United States, it’s a citizen. Deal with it.

The national anthem in Spanish. You can sing your love for this country in any language you like. Having heard the new Spanish version of the Stars Spangled Banner on the radio, I can say I’m opposed to it. It’s attrocious. It’s just as bad as the techno version of the Australian national anthem (mp3). If it wasn’t the Stars Spangled Banner, it would still be painful to listen to. I dare you to listen to it all the way thru (RealAudio).
I disagree with President George W. Bush when he said

“I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”

I agree with Australian Prime Minister John Howard:

I have a very strong view that the national anthem should be sung and played in a way that facilitates maximum audience participation in its singing,” Mr Howard said.

“Most importantly it should encourage and allow people to sing along – and nobody can sing along to that, can you? The public wants to sing it, but they can’t sing it if its not easy to follow, and nobody can follow that. It’s better not to play it, it is after all our national anthem and I don’t think it should be played around with. Most of us are pretty inadequate singers at the best of times, and trying to keep pace with that, I couldn’t.”

That covers all the recent outrages, right?