Sunday, December 17, 2006

Quid Pro Quo

So much talk about legal and especially illegal immigration and immigrants in the United States. What do we do, what to do, when to do it, how to respond. It all seems simple to me. Treat all immigrants equally according to the manner in which their "home" country treats citizens of the United States. Thus, we in America treat Mexicans in the same manner and rule of law that their home country of Mexico treats (by rule of law and exercise of custom) those citizens of the United States who visit legally or illegally. We would do the same with citizens of Saudi Arabia, France, South Africa, Dubai, Russia, and so on.

Thus, all visiting citizens of foreign countries would know well in advance just what kind of treatment they would be honored with upon visiting the US. All they'd have to do is look around at how Americans are treated, what kind of laws their country has concerning American visitors of all kinds, just how the average citizen honors these laws, and how the visitors are treated by the citizens of their own country. No education required by the United States. No new laws required, we just follow their laws. All we need to do is show our citizens the laws and custom of treatment of the visitors countries and our citizens and law enforcement groups will easily take on the task of showing our visitors just what Quid Pro Quo means and what it means to be treated in return as we are treated. Could be that a few years of this treatment and a lot of laws would be changed in a lot of countries. Might even improve our image quite a bit when other countries find we don't put up with unequal treatment. Right now, everyone sees the American as an arrogant patsy. A target for punishment and mistreatment. Time for a change. Let's be humble and allow the other peoples of our world to tell us how to treat them.

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