"Whooo-Boy..."

I've been really busy the last six months dealing with a Department of Defense Property Audit. Sure, they're annual and everything, but it's kind of like running a re-election campaign every year... constantly proving to the Government that your company is worthy of the trust and responsibility that is placed on its shoulders. Every Year you have to physically verify that every single item that is attached to your contract liability is where it's supposed to be, and that you have the right quantity on hand reflected in your records. And then you have to cover all your bases on whether or not anything has been used during the year; from the shiny F-16 Jet to a tiny bag of screws that sits in the back of a dusty storage area.

Many people probably think that my job would be dull, and for the most part, they'd be right. 99% of the job is all in your head; remembering which form you're supposed to use for this or that, which file to put that documentation in for the next time the Auditors show up, which part of the FAR is used as validation for what Function Segment... it starts to feel like it's sucking out your will to live. Adam, my co-worker on base said to me, "Y'know Todd, your job seems very bureaucratic, and you don't seem to be much of a paper-work guy." I chuckled to myself, and he asked me what was so funny, so I said,"The funny thing is that I hate bureaucracies... they're criminally inefficient. All that paper-work solves nothing but to support a broken system on it's last legs. But, it's all part of the job... so what can you do?"

And that was when I started to ask myself: Am I turning into that guy on the other end of the desk at the Death and Birth Registry Office; asking you if you have any ID to validate you getting a copy of your own Birth Certificate?

I have four forms of ID, two of them are Federal photo ID's (to get on base and walk across the Flight Line), one is my State Drivers License (to drive, buy cigarettes, beer, prove who I am so that I can use my Debit card, access my bank account, get into a club or allow myself to masturbate), and the fourth is a Digital Federal ID (to receive shipments)... that's a lot of proof simply to say that I'm Todd N. Tobin, U.S. Navy Veteran, born 10-28-1977 on USMC Base Camp Pendleton, CA to Calvin and Michele Tobin.

That's the biggest thing that pisses me off in California nowadays: way too much fucking reliance on State and Federal ID to prove who you are... we've damn near developed into a Police State, for Christ's sake. Whatever happened to just asking someone who they are and taking them at their word? All that I'm waiting for is a cop to pull me over and ask, "Jawohl, vere are your papiz?" There is a time quickly coming my friends, when your kids will be playing outside in their Hazmat suits (since the O-Zone will be gone) and a new kid in the neighborhood will run over and ask them if he can play with them and your kids'll say, "Sure, you can play with us Billy... but first we're gonna need to see some ID."

Also, I have a question in regards to California drivers... how is it that we can have Millions of people (10% of the nation's population) living in this state, being a big commuter state, with no public transportation, and Millions of people with Drivers Licenses who don't know how to fucking drive?! The mind reels at the idiocy that you see on a day-to-day basis; no one stopping at stop signs, cops pulling you over for going 4 miles over the Speed Limit as morons going 30 miles an hour over the Speed Limit whiz by, people yapping into their cell phones in giant SUV's while driving in a manner that would only be appropriate in a Drifting race for stunt car drivers in Mini Coopers... it's insane!

Sorry, folks... I haven't been able to vent for a while, so forgive me if I seem agitated.

Whew... okay, one final thing and then you can go.

There was an Amendment put forth this week that will encourage Illegals to become American Citizens that is pretty ridiculous in it's requirements. I believe that the Illegals that do step forward will become citizens, but they will be required to:

1.) Pay all the back taxes that they should have paid from when they first started working in this country to the day that they were granted citizenship.
2.) Limit health care access to strictly emergency care.
3.) Limit state education access for children.
4.) Require that schools monitor the student's immigration status.
5.) Require that the children learn to speak English.

Paying all the back taxes was the main one that I thought was a bit harsh. I mean, what if you've been in this country for twenty years and you finally come forward? That's a lot of bread, man.

I have no problem with Illegal Immigrants, really... aside from it being Illegal, I don't think that Immigrants are the problem here. The problem is one of logistics. We have an estimated 11 Million Illegal Immigrants living in this country, the vast majority of whom are working in this country and not paying their taxes... my big question is one that applies to the INS Border Guards: When is the US Government going to start doing it's job and hire more Border Patrol personnel? We have the entire length of the Mexican border that runs from the Southern California coast-line to the Southern Texas Gulf region that is largely unprotected; open for whoever feels like running across the border in search of a better life here. Or maybe Canada. Who knows? Maybe the Illegals in this country were really heading for Canada, but stopped at Nebraska and said, "Aw, fuck it... Canada's too fucking far... and Jesus, it's fucking cold! You know what?! A National health-care system just isn't work it."

The main thing that I think that most of the White people that bring this up have in mind isn't whether or not you're taking migrant farm-worker jobs... hell, most White people don't even know how to aerate their soil properly in their front yards during the summer to stop it from drying out in the heat, so I doubt that they want those jobs for themselves. It's Xenophobia in the thinly-veiled guise of patriotism, and most of us Whities that grew up in neighborhoods or cities that are fairly mixed-up as far as ethnicity goes can see that as clearly as anyone else. I grew up in Southern California, so my view of Illegal or Legal Immigrants is: "Yeah?! And?!" I understand that there may be Illegal Immigrants who are using the system in a way that, being Illegal Immigrants, is a big No-No. But the same can be said of Legal Immigrants and American Citizens, too. I had a friend named Dave in Northern California, who used to claim 5 Dependents on his Federal Taxes every year, just so he wouldn't have to pay his taxes. Now that's bad.

The main thing that I can ask in the case of stopping Illegal Immigration is this: Can you stop trying to pin everything that's wrong with your community on the Immigrants? After all, Illegal Immigrants aren't turning your children into Heroin Addicts, or forcing them to join gangs. And, more importantly, could you try to enforce the fucking Immigration laws that we have on the books already by hiring people to actually watch the borders from end to end? How much money is wasted annually on "The Department of Fatherland - Oops - Homeland Security"? Isn't that the big thing that they were created to fix - Terrorism and Immigration - and they haven't even made anything better?! Man, I would kill to have that kind of job stability.

I'm going to wrap this usp with a quick story for you...

When I worked on the Night Shift at the 7-11 in Castaic, CA in 1999, there was an INS bus that would come from Northern California that would stop and get coffee at around 3 AM on their way to the border. I asked the guys that were getting the coffee (oddly enough, they were Mexican Americans) how they liked their jobs. The main guy said, "It's like being a cop, since you get to carry a gun, but unlike the cops, we're stretched too thin. Me and my guys here catch and detain these Illegals, take 'em to the border, drop 'em off and hope we don't see them again. Problem is, there's an older dude on the bus who I've escorted to the border several times, and each time I see him, I'm reminded why my family came here." I asked him why, and he said, "Because Mexico is a shit-hole, holmes."

All I'm saying is, maybe instead of just kicking people out, we should try finding out why they're here in the first place, and try to help.