Sunday, June 03, 2007

Bad Laws and Community


"Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?"
- Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish. I warn you that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches -- its upholders as well as its defiers.
- Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, Inherit the Wind

Isaiah 10:1-4
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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of the approx 16,000 babies born at Parkland Hospital, 70% are born to illegal immigrants.They get free care, they do not have to provide valid I.D. or proof of income. They only need to claim to be poor and the hospital must take them at their word. They are treated much better than an American citizen who has to go through almost insurmountable red tape to get free care. In addition, immigrant patients complain when the staff cannot speak Spanish so now medical students are required to take Spanish classes.

I agree with Thoreau, unjust laws do exist.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the unjust law is the one that makes it difficult for poor American citizens to get proper treatment.

Larry James said...

Chris, thanks for the post.

I'd love to see your "footnotes" that would document all of your statistical claims--you make them often, but never provide sources. I would also like to know how you came to know what Latino patients complain about.

For now, let me just say that had Jesus been born today, it is very likely he and his parents would have been welcomed at Parkland for they were very poor Galileans.

Anonymous said...

I received it via mass e-mail today but I checked it out to make sure it wasn't an "urban legend." To check it out google "Parkland Hospital, illegal immigrants" It was widely reported last year in the Dallas Morning News and on TV.

Larry James said...

Chris, thanks for the info. That helps me. It doesn't settle our "argument," because the two of us have personal philosophies that couldn't be more opposite.

Hispanic folks living in Dallas aren't just "soaking up all the benefits." They make a huge contribution to our economy every day, just ask construction, service, restaurant and custodial vendors, to mention but a few. They all pay taxes--sales, indirectly via property taxes on the properties they rent, social security that they will never collect, etc.

They buy products and services. Remove them and our entire economy takes a huge hit.

In my view--no surprise to you, I am sure--poor folks are entitled to quality health care. Caring for everyone is an investment in the future health and well-being of our community.

Dr. Ron Anderson is a good friend. So long as he is at Parkland, the policy will be to care for all. I'm thankful for that, even if you are not.

Anonymous said...

I often wonder about those who spend what seems like a majority of their time thinking about the wrong that 'they out there' are doing. How productive might they be if they spent an equal amount of time examining their own wrongdoing and looking into their own hearts?

Golly, do we want our headstones to read, "Ain't It Awful?" And doesn't it, somewhere, say something along the lines of, "Judge not, lest ye be judged?"

Anonymous said...

By the way, in case it's confusing, the above is meant in support of Larry, not the opposite, as you, Larry, are clearly highly productive and have done plenty of soul-searching

Anonymous said...

A little humor:

What a nerve those Mexicans have in bringing up the war of 1848. We stole California fair and square but they seem to want it back, or at least they want to complain about it. I think that when something is stolen it should remain stolen. A great many problems in the world happen because the victim of a crime always pressed for justice or won't stop squaking about it. Look at Israel for instance. Israel threw out a lot of Arabs from the lands they had around Jerusalem and the Arabs have not forgotten. What a problem this has caused. Of course the flip side is that the Jewa were persecuted in Germany and they didn't forget that either. They needed a place to call their own. Why can't these people in Mexico simply forget and let us enjoy the beautiful state of California without all these illegal immigrants, the losers from Mexico?

That being said, (a favorite blog phrase) each low-skilled immigrant household receives an average of $19,588 more in benefits than they pay in taxes each year. Multiply this by a 60 year adult life and the cost to the taxpayer will be 1.2 million per household. Then consider if this amnesty thing goes through, there will be millions more immigrants. It boggles my mind. This is from the Heritage Foundation.

Larry James said...

Chris, I'm not feeling the humor here in any of your examples. Sorry. The history behind each of your examples is too painful, too important. . .I don't see it at all.

And, regarding your sources, surely you don't regard the HF as an objective source of information, do you?

Anonymous said...

Yes, I do!

Larry James said...

Chris, thanks for the answer.

I expect you and I will seldom agree on these matters, but I'm glad you keep posting.

Anonymous said...

Larry, I still have very mixed feelings on illegal (that being the main word) immigration, but I certainly appreciate the information I get from your website. It's put a "face" on a story and given me much to think about and consider.