The Sunday L.A. Times has an editorial ("Maywood's Mean Money Machine" link) which purports to be about the attempts of a small L.A. suburb to increase revenues by impounding cars at a traffic checkpoint. However, it soon turns into a pro-illegal-immigration essay. The editorial's author, Frank del Olmo, promises Part Two of the editorial on Monday. However, through the miracle of the Internet, I'm going to give you Part Two today.

Firstly, let's examine Part One of the editorial. About half of it is about Maywood's attempts to increase revenues through the rush-hour checkpoint. However, the other half concerns our protagonist, Flor Cervantes, who "[falls] victim" to the checkpoint and gets her car taken away because she doesn't have a driver's license. You see, Ms. Cervantes is an illegal alien, and doesn't have a driver's license. In a perfect world (as opposed to the L.A. Times' Bizarroworld), everyone would recognize that Ms. Cervantes shouldn't be here in the first place. That's why we call her an "illegal alien." I don't support taking her car away just because she's here illegally. However, whether she's got a job, house, home, family, pets, children, whatever here, she shouldn't be here in the first place, and we should recognize that and at the very least encourage her to go home.

In the editorial, Flor is truly presented as a victim. Using language that an NLP practitioner would envy ("Any working mother can envision herself [in this situation]...") Ms. Cervantes is presented as a hard-working mother of kids, just taking a shortcut in order to get home as soon as possible. She's an "immigrant," not an illegal alien. Just a hard-working mom. Someone most people can envision and even identify with, right? (Perhaps the L.A. Times could even provide a MIDI loop of violins to accompany their editorial).

Frank del Olmo could certainly have concentrated on Maywood's checkpoint. He could certainly have found a (real, as opposed to quasi-) citizen who had been affected by the checkpoint. He could have discussed whether there are legal problems with the checkpoint, or a safety issue with holding it at rush-hour. He even makes a slight attempt at some real reporting, making a phone call to the tow company involved.

But, apparently none of that is what del Olmo and the L.A. Times were after.

Instead, he wants to turn this checkpoint into - wait for it - a call for either a) driver's licenses for illegal aliens, or b) a full amnesty. (Along the way, for good measure, he complains about a traffic sign being only in English.)

Certainly there are problems with this checkpoint. And, there are legal solutions. For instance, challenging it in court. Or, even easier, just boycotting Maywood businesses. Apparently, however, that was too straightforward for the L.A. Times.

Instead, we're implicitly presented with a Rube Goldbergian solution. If the cars of illegal aliens are seized, why don't we just ignore federal laws and help those illegal aliens avoid the federal laws and implicitly change their status so they aren't illegal aliens? Certainly, that would be a way to avoid poor, sympathetic illegal alien working mothers from having their cars impounded, no?

So, looking in my crystal ball, I'm going to guess that tomorrow's editorial will be all about illegal immigration. It will most likely contain several attempts to blow smoke up our collective asses. Frank del Olmo will support the "regularization" and further importation of millions of poeple, all of whom quite coincidentally are of the same ethnic group as he is. And, also quite coincidentally, most of whom would be customers for the L.A. Times' sister rag La Opinion. Tomorrow's editorial will most likely feature several specious and misleading statements, such as that old chestnut: "they take jobs that (real, as opposed to quasi-) Americans won't do." Lord knows, no American citizens have ever worked in fast-food restaurants or upholstery businesses.

Hey, maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe del Olmo and the L.A. Times will report on this issue like an unbiased, real newspaper would.

We'll soon see.

(LAT link via Hit & Run, reason . com/hitandrun/002348.shtml)

For the truth about driver's licenses for illegal aliens, see this post.