I've been a lurker on this site for over a year. I have a home in Escondido, California, but I was raised in Dixon, Illinois--hometown of Ronald Reagan. I am a tech worker, out of a job at the moment (but that is due to company downsizing, not an immigration issue.)

I have been trying to come to terms with what has been bothering me a lot lately in the last few years, and so I thought I'd put it out there to you fine folks.

It appears to me that being an American citizen means very little anymore. Same with the constitution. It's almost as if our rights as provided by that document are regarded as "well yeah, that was then, this is now." If you mention our founding fathers, the Framers, in public, you are considered a right-wing whacko-- no different from, say, those Freeman guys in Montana, or Timothy McVeigh.

The government has disconnected from us, telling us to pay taxes and shut up while they pillage the funds from the inside, making themselves very rich while the average joe puts his nose to the grindstone day after day. For instance, what happened to the truckloads of cash, billions of dollars, sent to Iraq in large bundles, and now unaccounted for? Where's the outrage? And even if there were outrage, nobody dares take it to task.

We strip in airports and cower at the orange-level terror warnings, while any nutball can cross from Mexico into Texas with who knows what. and they do.

Millions of people who shouldn't even be here sneer at us and threaten us,
but if we do anything about it we are racist. Groups like MecHa and La Raza are not only accepted, but FUNDED by our government and yet the Minutemen, a group that openly prides itself on tact and non-violence, is considered basically the kkk.

Illegal aliens steal social security numbers at alarming rates, ruining millions of lives, but yet the IRS goes after the citizens who are victimized.

The message? Shut up, these people are good people here to work, they are innocent victims, so let them have their way. Pay up and shut up.

I've had a bank account number stolen by an illegal, and you would have thought I was the criminal, the way it was handled.

Nobody cares whether an election includes illegal votes. In fact, candidates are pandering to them and counting on them. Same with welfare offices, schools, local governments, businesses, etc.

So what do we do? It seems like the only outlet now is to write our frustrations online. Anytime an ordinance is passed to deal with the problems, the ACLU or some other organization beats it down using federal funds to pay the way. The word is shut up, let it happen, you had your glory days as an American, go to the end of the line now.

Well i'm here to tell you, though I'm not doing so bad economically, I'm suffering morally. Why can every other nation protect their own (witness canada) yet we can't. We have to just, yeah you got it, shut up.

Well, my friends, I think it's time for action, not just words.
And with that...I'll shut up now.