One Reason We Might Kinda Like to Vote for Kinky Friedman (A Continuing Series)

… Aside from his foursquare stand against the pervasive wussification of Texas, a position that most right-thinking citizens of all political persuasions can get behind. And aside from the spiritual and health benefits we'll realize by “saving” ourselves for Kinky and thus relieving us of what has become the increasingly dreary chore of voting for a bunch of people we know nothing about in either the Republican or Democratic primary.

No, one thing that caught our eye early on about Friedman is that he, alone among Texas politicians, seems willing discuss illegal immigration as if it were actually a serious problem warranting a serious remedy. Or at least he was, not too long ago. Not that Friedman seems to have any serious suggestions on what to do about it, but at least he’s given notice that he recognizes the burdens it’s placed on the state’s public health-care and education systems.

Back before he "formally announced" his candidacy, we caught Friedman on Imus proposing that Texas construct a Buchanan-esqe wall on the border, and he even had a cute one-liner about it: “President Fox, help us put up that wall.” More recently, he was promoting some silly “five Mexican generals” bounty-hunting scheme to cut the cross-border flow. (We like the idea of the Kinky campaign, at least the giant-upraised-middle-finger spirit of the endeavor, but eventually it has to evolve into something more than one of his books --- that is, a string of one-liners with a barely discernible plot. And lesbian jokes.)

We realize illegal immigration is a sensitive and complex topic, one that gives rise to a good deal of ambivalence among the thoughtful portion of the citizenry. That ambivalence is reflected in most proposed federal legislation on the subject --- crack down harder at the border or on employers while making some usually convoluted effort to legalize the illegals already here. Yet we suspect that a larger percentage of the population (blacks, whites and Hispanics) than the media picks up on is generally more sympathetic to the goals, if not the DIY tactics, of those creaky old Minutemen dudes, and far less supportive of the let-the-good-times-roll philosophies of both the Wall Street Journal editorial page and that local “immigrant advocate” lady we’ve seen a lot on TV lately (y’know, the one who named her daughter after Stalin).

It’s a local problem but a federal responsibility, and we’re not even sure what a governor can do (is Friedman?) But it would be nice, for a change, to have some unfettered, old-style and unwussified Texan dialogue on the matter.

In other news: An Associated Press feature on the upcoming expulsion of Israeli squatters from the Gaza Strip quoted one Irit Tsvaig, a resident of a fundamentalist community there that had figured (wrongly, it appears) that the Messiah would arrive in time to prevent their imminent 86-ing from the premises. The reporter noted that Tsvaig spoke to him “while watching her children play with a set of Gaza settlement collectible cards” (emphasis added). We usually refrain from offering investment advice here at Slampo’s Place, but we urge you to snap up any Gaza settlement collectible cards (complete set or not) if you run across them at a garage sale or on eBay.