As the newest round of insults are being flung between the two
major political parties in this country - not unlike monkeys flinging their sh –
I mean “poop” at one another, I find myself wanting to stop talking to people altogether. It amazes me when people don’t
know that they’re covered in poop themselves, before throwing a handful at
somebody else.
But poop aside, I can’t resist commenting on a certain topic
that was touched upon by the (currently) most famous politician in our country.
The reason why is because of how morally reprehensible it was, but more than
that, it wasn’t factual in the least. I can’t in good conscience not
acknowledge the cruel and inaccurate message that the leader of our country
tried to instill into the hearts of immigrants who came to our country for a
better life. Most of them don’t have expectations of grandeur, they simply want
to live in a place that has access to clean water, healthcare, and where they
don’t have to constantly worry about a violent end to their lives and the lives
of their children.
Immigrants are not a blight on this country – in fact, they
are quite the opposite. And you don’t even have to take my word for it! After
all, who am I? I’m not a scholar, I don’t have a position of power. I’m your
friend from across the hall, your cousin that you see every few years, that one
coworker addicted to caffeine. I’m an average American with average opinions.
So, if you’re looking for facts to support my claim, there are numerous
academic articles from college professors, politicians, business owners, research
market analysists, and more on the topic. I think that’s the primary problem
with our opinions today – a lot of our opinions are just that: they have no
facts to back it up with. Your brother’s best friend’s cousin works for ICE and
they say immigrants are bad, and they obviously know what they’re talking
about.
Just the other day I was reading a book called “The
Millionaire Next door”, by Thomas J. Stanley. It was published in the 1990’s,
which means that there are more updated resource materials you could look at.
However, the reason I bring this particular book up is because it is so well
supported by research. Stanley and a group of other well-educated analysists
were hired by a corporation to interview millionaires in the United States.
They wanted to know what millionaires were actually like, outside of how the
media portrays them. They interviewed a wide selection of millionaires and
found out some surprising information. For example, did you know that the
majority of millionaires are first generation? Most of them come from a
background of poverty, and they built themselves up from nothing. They also
never spend money on flashy cars, a huge house, a fancy suit. Very, very few
millionaires today received their money from inheritance, because most inheritance
millionaires are from decades past. Most of those prestigious families already
spent all the money they had, because they never had to understand the value of
a dollar.
Why am I talking about this? Because another interesting fact
is that a high ratio of millionaires in America (at least in the 90’s), are
immigrants. That’s right – those “lazy” immigrants the president is referring
to started with no money in their pockets and built a future for their
children, and their children’s children. And do you know how they did it?
Through hard, honest work. By getting up at five am and coming home at seven pm
every day. They are entrepreneurs, owning gas stations and sheet metal scrap
businesses. When it comes down to the number of people in this country whose
ancestors came over on the Mayflower, there’s a lot. But when you calculate how
many hundreds of thousands of non-immigrants there are by the percent of those
non-immigrants who are millionaires, guess what? The immigrants have it. They
are hard-working, they are industrious, they are our future.
So, if you want to prevent immigrants from coming to our
country, just remember that a lot of the businesses that are the backbone of our
society are a result of their hard work, not yours. Immigration is not a “pick
and choose” program. Let’s just see how this plan works out for us, huh?
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