WSU Trumpet

I have a problem. It's kind of a big problem and it seems to only get bigger with each passing day. The problem that I have is with this illegal immigration issue. It keeps getting attention, but coming up short on an actual solution. I would love it if someone would explain to me what the problem is with enforcing the laws of the land.

Illegal immigration, as you may or may not be aware, is not a new problem. People have been coming to this country illegally since the constitution was ratified in 1787. People will continue to come to this country illegally. What blows my mind is how it seems that every time we try to enforce laws regarding illegal immigration, there is someone at the other end countering that law. It makes it seem like there is no way to protect ourselves.

I was watching a news report this evening about a town in Utah where the citizens are fed up with the illegal immigration and want the city to do something. They feel that the city is encouraging illegal immigration by not cracking down on the businesses that hire illegal workers. The report goes on to say that the city's hands are tied because this is in the domain of the federal government and that cities have been sued because they have tried what the citizens are requesting. I'm sorry, but how does someone who is living in the U.S. illegally have the ability to sue a U.S. city because they were caught residing and working here illegally? That makes absolutely no sense. An illegal immigrant is just that: ILLEGAL! They have no rights. They have no legal protection in this country. I can claim fairly certainly that if I were to be living in Mexico or in pretty much any other country in the world illegally, they would not have any qualms about throwing the book at me. And guess what! They would be totally justified in doing so. So why is it that we can't seem to do the same in the United States? Why is it that so-and-so illegal alien has more legal protection than a law-abiding citizen? It makes no sense. And to put the maraschino cherry on top of this little dessert, a representative of the Hispanic community stated that he had concerns about discrimination if new laws were to be enacted. Excuse me? These laws are not put in place as tools of discrimination. They will punish illegal Germans, Brits, and Canuks just as fast as they will Hispanics. It just so happens that a vast majority of the illegal immigrants in this country are Hispanics. So, if the laws are going to be discriminatory, then what, pray tell, would you suggest we do?

I would really like to get more information on this. It's driving me crazy. I live and work in the United States. I have done so all my life. I am proud of this land and believe it to be the best land in the world. I am now seeing the greatness of this country being eroded away by the massive influx of foreign nationals. I can hardly go to the grocery store without reading everything in both English and Spanish. There are now more Spanish-language radio stations in my area than English-language ones. When did my country suddenly drop south of the border? And you know what's even worse? I feel that if I try to complain too much about all this, I'll be labeled a supremacist or racist or a bigot or something along those lines. I just don't get it. When did I become unwelcome in my own country? When did standing up for and defending our freedoms become so unpopular?

I would like to talk about rights. I know, I know, the world's all abuzz with political talk as President-Elect Barack Obama prepares to take the most powerful seat in the world, but I feel like certain things need to be clarified.

Rights, as it were, are opportunities afforded to Man that generally cannot be revoked. We often think of rights as things like life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness. There are other rights out there, but they generally all revolve around those three tenets: that a person can expect to live, be free to make decisions, and work to earn property. Now, just because a person has those rights does not necessarily mean that everyone has to agree with that person all of the time. I have the right to make my own decisions, but with that right also comes the responsibility for the decisions I make. Also, I have the right to work and earn property, but I do not have the right to any particular job. That is up to me to make myself a good fit for a job.

So, now we come to this idea of marriage that is so hot in the press these days. There are people all over clamoring about whether or not gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry. Those for allowing them to marry do so in the name of equal rights while those opposed say that it has nothing to do with equal rights. I happen to be one of those opposed, but it is not just that simple. Since this is a discussion about rights, I beg the question: who has the right to get married? Nobody. It is not a right. It is what we call a privilege. Marriage can be taken away if either of the parties chooses to do so or if there is sufficient evidence for the state to do so. It's kind of like driving. In fact, since you have to have a license for both, it is very much like driving. Certain things that we enjoy in our society are considered privileges. Many people would initially think that they are rights, but they are not. Consider the following: watching television, having dinner with your family, enjoying a movie. Rights? No. They are privileges. They are pretty freely available privileges, but to someone who breaks the laws of the land, they can be considered unattainable luxuries.

Now, there are certain rights that come along with certain privileges, but that is a discussion for a different time.

So, as I have described it, gays and lesbians have exactly the same right to marry as heterosexual couples - that is they have none at all. Marriage is a privilege afforded to those who can demonstrate their willingness and ability to treat each other and their offspring well.

Now, I feel that I need to clarify my earlier comment as to being opposed to gays and lesbians being married. I mentioned that they have the same right as heterosexual couples, but that does not mean that I would condone them getting married. The reason is simply semantics: the word marriage has for thousands of years meant a legal and lawful union of a man and a woman. If we redefine it to mean "party A" and "party B," then it loses its sense of sanctity. I am a religious person who believes in traditional family values. I am appalled by the corruption of certain words and symbols in our society. For instance, the word gay used to mean happy and cheerful, but this is no longer the case. The rainbow, once a symbol of peace and deity, has been reduced to a symbol of godless homosexuality. I feel that corrupting the word marriage to mean a union between "party A" and "party B" will cause that word to be one uttered under the breath and in secret conversation. It will no longer be a symbol of stability and unitedness in our society. The family (read: father, mother, children) is the essential unit of our society. Without it, society will tear itself apart. Liberalizing things to a point of no control, even though it be in the name of "civil rights," creates more problems than it solves.

When I was eleven or twelve years old, my dad taught me to run our nice self-propelled Toro lawn mower to cut our 1/2 acre yard. We always had really nice thick grass and some of the yard was on quite an incline. Now, my dad is a wise person and told me "Let the mower do the work for you" when he saw that I was having some trouble getting the machine to do what I wanted it to do. He saw that I was fighting against the mower. Now, lawn mowers and 85lb boys shouldn't get into fights because lawn mowers tend to win. Once I decided to back off and let the mower do the work, I discovered that mowing the lawn could actually be enjoyable and didn't take nearly as long as it had before.

Now, I find myself in my dad's shoes from time to time when I see people using computers. I see this tendency for people to misunderstand the ability and design of computers to work together. A computer by itself really doesn't do a whole lot other than just idle. I mean, when you buy a computer and just use it for word processing and browsing CD-ROMs, it really defeats the purpose of the computer. Computers are capable of so much more. Even simply attaching it to the "Internet" is really just scratching the surface. People need to "let the machine do the work."

Sometimes when I work with people and their computers, they will comment that they have a document, but it is on that other computer. Drat! So, dejectedly, they fire up the other machine and save the document on some physical device and transfer it to the computer they are working on. This results in several versions of the document floating around. I have to bite my tongue a bit here because this could have easily been solved by networking the two computers and simply accessing the document remotely. When some people see this, they are blown away that they can access something remotely. But, this feature is one of the greatest strengths of computers and the networks that support them.

Sometimes people set up home networks with three or four computers hooked to them. What's funny is that these computers just act as Internet portals, almost completely unaware that other computers exist on the network. Some people will set up each computer with its own printer and gigantic hard drive. That's a waste of money and resources. That's trying to cause the computer to be an island, which it really is not. The strength of the network is that printers and storage can be spread across multiple nodes for simplification and redundancy. The network can act as its own backup. Software packages can be installed that periodically back up files on one computer to another computer in the event that one computer fails.

One really cool thing that I would love to see on my personal network is the thin client concept. This really emphasizes the previously mentioned network strengths by completely removing those big clunky client computers and replacing them with diskless clients that do all their computing over the network. For example, a family could have a terminal server set up that runs constantly. This server would have to be a very fast, powerful machine with lots of storage. Then, each member of the family could have a cheap, simple thin client that boots up very quickly and does nothing more than log into the terminal server. This scenario aleviates many of the problems of conventional "thick" clients that have their own memory, disk storage, processors, etc. If a problem happens, it can be more easily tracked down and resolved. No one would have to worry about their hard drive crashing because the clients have no hard drives. All this is made possible through the network.

So, I hope that I have been successful in illustrating how to let the machine do the work. Computers should not be viewed as isolated appliances for doing mundane tasks. They are high-precision instruments capable of great things. We should never cease to be amazed by what our computers can do. We just need to allow them to do what they are designed to do.

Next: Real computing power: virtualization.