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Since I was on the road home, I missed all but the last 20 minutes of the Sanity Rally. I watched every minute of the lead up to it, and I have to say my experiences over the past two weeks down through Las Vegas to Los Angeles and up through Sacramento, bits of Oregon and on home have completely supported the concept that most people are pretty sane in their presentation of their views, however wrong or screwed up I may think them to be. And I was surprisingly civil as well. I think the idea is that as an amatuer documentarian I had better learn to listen a tad better. Perhaps I began to approach that path.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
My first political conversation was held sitting on a cement parking barrier at a truck stop with a lovely gentleman trucker from the Midwest. He took the slot next to my set up at about 3 am one morning and in checking that he had backed in as far as possible, he startled Cooper and got a sharp warning bark. The next morning when he noticed I was up and about, he introduced himself and I introduced him to Cooper and friends were made all around. We sat on the concrete barrier sipping our coffees, me smoking while he put a pinch between cheek and gum. It was already quite warm, sunny, and windy. After the obligatory brief conversations about the size of my car versus the trailer I'm pulling and what I was doing out there all by my lonesome, we began to discuss the trucking industry specifically in reference to illegal immigration.
I can't remember who brought up the illegal immigration aspect, I guess it isn't important or I would remember.
"Oh, yeah, illegals are taking over the trucking industry, too," he tells me.
I realize now that I should've asked how that is possible if truckers need special licensing and are supposedly closely monitored. I'm new to this and I have to find a balance between listening and asking questions and making comments. Obviously, all quotes are paraphrased since I did not record anything at that time. I hadn't, and perhaps still haven't figured out how to bring up the idea of someone being recorded either with audio or video. It's one thing to oversee an event or group or scene from overhead, it's an entirely other thing to get in personal and close up.
"Damn straight, they are," he said with a surprising relaxed tone, no anger or passion about the matter, just relaxed conversation, sanity as it were. "And it isn't just for cheap wages and jobs we won't do. It's truckin' and construction, jobs we were doing, we're still trying to do, but how when our costs keep going up and they make our pay go down?" His words harsh, but his tone just ordinary.
"Hell, I know one illegal made so much trucking that he now own 21 houses he rents out. Now how is it he can buy 21 houses, and my wife and I are working are butts off to barely afford one? It burns my ass," he shrugged and shook his head.
After a few more stories primarily with negative connotations towards illegals, and a few that were pleasantly positivie about the character of some, I asked him what he thought should be done about illegal immigration.
"Well, y'know," he said without pondering for even a moment, clearly indicating that he had given this some thought over the years, "I think something like a five year plan for those that are here already to get caught up with their fair taxes, and if they have a clean record, and learn to speak English, ... well, let 'em have citizenship."
I just about spit my coffee all over the place. I was expecting some harsh, hatefilled solution to gently pop out of his mouth because his rhetoric, though civilly presented, was strong with right wing catch phrases and even a few strawmen, mixed in with his own knowledge and experience which seemed to him to generally justify the spin and strawmen.
"You do realize that except for the English part, I'm pretty sure you just suggested essentially the goal of a bill in the Senate that's being blocked by the Republicans, don't you?," I blurted out, "I believe it was also a goal of Bush, one that the Republicans didn't let even Bush have, and they gave him pretty much everything else he wanted."
He didn't really realize that, and I think the fact that I didn't say it was a Democratic Bill, mainly because I honestly don't know if it is or not, but pointed out instead the Republicans blockage of the bill, made an impression and made him sit up and take notice. He definitely sat and pondered that a while before we began discussing our plans for the day and future destinations and other mundanity. But let's be clear, it was in general a civil conversation all the way around elsewise neither my point would've been presented in a palatable way, nor would his mind have remained open to the consideration that his own party was interfering with what he thought a good solution should be.
It was civility and sanity that ruled just as the Rally was trying to point out. Even some with apparently extreme perspectives, average folks on both sides want civil, sane, and reasonable solutions. Next up ... a conversation with a elderly, white, conservative male about California's impending marijuana initiative.
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