In 1995 I was finishing my fourth year of college at the University of Missouri. I won't tell you how long I actually spent in college. Let's just say I'm a strong proponent of education. One of my roommates that year was a young man named Brian. He was, by most accounts, an odd guy but he was also one of the smartest people I'd ever met. We often compared philosophical, religious, and political views and found out that we had quite a bit in common. Not the least of which was our mutual frustration with the United States government.

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The following is a combination of conversations had with various individuals, put together in one account.

On a crisp September afternoon I sat on bench near a local park. A man, close to my age, sat near me and took in the sights of the cool day. We happened into conversation about life, family, and politics. I made the mistake of allowing a stray comment from my lips regarding the war in Iraq. The man turned to me with a sharp look in his eyes.

"Why don't you support the troops? Why do you hate our military? Why can't you just support the President's decisions?"

At that moment, something inside me snapped. My body began to shake and my vision blurred. I had heard these questions before, several times, doing my best to forget the ignorance from which they came. I turned the other cheek when people asked me "Why do you hate America?" or "If it's so bad here, why don't you move somewhere else?" I let them question my patriotism, call me a traitor, because every one is entitled to their opinion. I allowed myself to be marginalized and called a left-wing wacko, though I knew the truth.

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While visiting my hometown of Kansas City over Labor Day, I had a conversation with a couple of old friends regarding a business idea. The idea involved charging a nominal fee for a service in the Bay Area of California that you might normally find in Kansas City for free. One of my friends mentioned that other businesses in KC had tried something similar, and failed.

"Hey man," he said, "Kansas City likes its free parking."

The idea had absolutely nothing to do with parking, but I think you get my point. And it got me thinking.

Free parking.

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It's estimated that 12 million undocumented immigrants are currently living and working in the United States. These are people who take American jobs, use our resources, take advantage of our social services, pull money out of our economy, and send it to Mexico. It can be argued that they force wages down, damaging the income potential of millions of Americans. More pointedly these people are not just undocumented, they're illegal. By coming into the United States via improper channels, they have broken our laws and, therefore, should be deported immediately.

In America, we tend to treat the symptom. We don't worry much about the underlying problem. "I've got this rash, Doc. Can you just give me a shot and I'll be on my way?" We don't want to think about where or who that rash came from. Consequently, there's a question that we fail to ask when discussing the immigration issue - "Why?" For what reason would millions of people leave their homes, families, and even country to risk their lives crossing our southern borders for relatively low wages. Is it just to screw hard-working, yet discriminating, Americans out of all the great fruit picking, motel cleaning, and burger flipping jobs? There might just be more to it than that.

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