Here are Some Things That Are Stuck in 1984…
The A-Team:
MTV’s Max Headroom:
The Karate Kid:
Van Halen’s “Jump”:
Knight Rider:
The 2013 Immigration Debate in Washington:
The House of Representatives this summer seems to be stuck in a 1984 cycle of debate, getting their briefcases in a bunch over details that were more relevant to the immigration problems of the 80s than the current day.
We have doubled the size of our southern border patrol since 2004 and installed literally hundreds of miles of barriers and surveillance. In fact, the militarization of the border has had a counter-intuitive effect, causing the mostly positive migrant worker flow we had for our entire history as a country to cease, forcing many Mexican immigrants in particular to just stay in the US permanently.
On top of this, while you might get the impression that the southern border of the United States is a sieve with constantly flowing immigration of millions, instead, the reality is that immigration from Mexico is now at net zero–meaning just as many migrate to the Land of Enchantment (MEX) from the Land of the Free (USA) as the other way around.
Let’s be sure to have this debate about immigration dealing with 2013 reality and beyond–not being stuck in the 1980s.
The next time you see a politician talking about the above issues and blowing them out of proportion just think of them doing a Van Halen Jump and roll your eyes. If they somehow defeat the Immigration Reform most Americans want and that evangelical Christians like me are calling for just imagine the Speaker of the House with an A-Team Hannibal cigar deviously saying, “I love it when a plan comes together.” That backward plan will be for the status quo to continue forever, and that’s a plan none of us really want.
