Let's Pretend We're A Family

When one is not directly confronted with a national issue day in and day out, it's easy to lose sight of common sense, get caught up in philosophical arguments, and throw up your hands. Most seemingly complicated politic arguments should be reduced to analysis in the setting of a family.

Let's say, your family comes home from a vacation to find a group of strangers in your living room. You ascertain that they are not violent or an immediate threat to your safety. When you ask how they got in, they admit that a hired hand brought them to your house, picked the lock, and let them in.

They explain that the last neighborhood they lived in made it almost impossible to support themselves. There were few jobs, poor schools, and food was hard to come by. When these strangers heard that you had plenty of food, income, and health care, they decided to move into your house.

In your refrigerator, they found plenty of food and felt totally satisfied. The steaks you had been saving for a special occasion had been consumed, as well as the ice cream that was supposed to be tonight's treat. One of the strangers had badly injured her leg and taken the remaining antibiotics and Vicodin you had left behind from your trip. The strangers said they would happily move into the garage or backyard and let you keep your bedrooms.

The strangers did have a few demands though. They made it clear that they would need you to add them to your health plan and pay the premiums for them. If not, you'd eventually end up paying anyway because they'd have to go to the ER for things like the flu, bee stings, cuts, and as they wouldn't have the means to pay, they'd have the billing passed on to you. Also, until they could find suitable jobs to buy their own place, they'd need you to provide them food, toiletries, cosmetics, car insurance (if you're not willing to get their car insurance, again, they'll just have any accidents passed on to you), and over the counter pharmaceuticals.

Now what I didn't clarify at the beginning is that all of this is being communicated by an interpreter for whom you will be expected to pay, as the strangers don't speak your language. They make it clear that they are not willing to learn it either. From now on, all communication in your house has to occur in both your language and theirs. And incidentally, they will need you to pay for special instruction for their children - in their native language. Oh, and they almost forgot: your children will not be allowed to progress at an educational rate they are capable of achieving. See, that would put your children ahead, and leave their children behind - at a social disadvantage. So until their children catch up, you need to get an extra job to pay for special programs for their children while yours are kept from moving too far ahead.

Questions
1. Is it cruel to tell the strangers that your income is dedicated to your family and that you cannot afford to maintain your standard of living and pay for the strangers to have the same?
2. Do you have the right to tell these people to leave?
3. Do you have the right to expect the law enforcers - who are paid with your tax dollars - to remove these people, and arrest them if they resist.
4. Do the law enforcers have the right to see their identification?
5. If the strangers break in a second time, should the law enforcers do something more dramatic than simply take them back to their old neighborhood and let them go again?

In my book, this is not a complex problem. Simply ask yourself what would you consider fair if this was a daily occurrence in your own home, and there you are. And by the way, it is happening in your own home. It's called America.