Letters

From the December 2006 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Matt Ryan
Bremerton, WA

Illegal immigrants are hated because they are poor, because they work too hard, and because they're illegal.

Americans have always secretly hated those poorer than ourselves. We want richer people to pay for our children's education; we don't want to pay for poorer people's children. We want to live and shop among the rich; we seize and destroy poor people's homes and businesses ("blight"). As the former denizens of low-rent districts become homeless, they lose their humanity and become stray dogs.

Illegal immigrants do take jobs Americans won't do, but that's only part of the picture. They take jobs because they will work harder than Americans. Our affluent laziness becomes resentment, then spite, and finally hatred.

Immigrants are illegal in the sense that someone lost in a blizzard who breaks into an unoccupied cabin to save his life is illegal. He doesn't hurt anyone, he pays for the damage, and his illegality is forgiven. He had no choice and no criminal intent.

The cure for their illegality is obvious and easy: Make them legal. These people have taken great risks and endured great hardships to become Americans, in fact if not in name. Ayn Rand said it best: "What did you do to become an American, just get born?"

Tom Porter
via the Internet

Happy 40th Birthday, Star Trek

I was surprised to see seven-and-a-half pages of kudos to Star Trek in Reason ("Happy 40th Birthday, Star Trek," August/September). Star Trek is a massive cultural phenomenon. But at the risk of dragging out the favorite dead horse of the pimply and pasty everywhere, I feel Star Wars fits your "free minds and free markets" moniker better.

Star Trek, in which the massive Federation can fulfill society's needs and wants through a replicator, sends out government agents to meddle in the business of others. Star Wars is the story of Luke Skywalker, who must fight back after the highly centralized Empire kills his family, mere farmers trying to live their lives on Tatooine. His journey from his home planet is made possible via private contract with one Han Solo. Along the way he learns of the ways of the Jedi, an oppressed minority religion sitting close to extinction due to Imperial genocide. We also meet Lando Calrissian, whose private mining operation is unjustly coerced by the Empire into meeting its leader's arbitrary will. Eventually the Rebels, a multicultural volunteer army, defeat the fascistic Empire, amid much celebration across the galaxy.

Jared Barber

Richmond, VA

Thanks to Tim Cavanaugh for pointing to the new fan-produced Trek on the Internet. This stuff is a form of community theater amateur, to be sure, but with modern technology even amateurs can put on a decent play. This could well herald the future of indie film production. Once again we Trekkies are early adopters who lead the way into uncharted space.

Sam Coppock

Chandler, AZ

Reason news

Cory Maye, the subject of Radley Balko's investigative report "The Case of Cory Maye" (October), is no longer condemned to die. On September 21, Judge Michael Eubanks ruled that Maye's original attorney was incompetent during the sentencing phase of the trial, and that he should receive a new sentencing hearing. Balko put Maye in touch with the lawyers who handled his appeal. At press time, Eubanks had yet to rule on several other defense arguments; at the very least, Maye is temporarily, and perhaps permanently, off death row.

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