A while back I was carrying groceries in from the car when one of the bags broke, causing the contents to crash onto the garage floor. It was a mess as pickle juice, mingled with salad dressing caused a smelly river to flow wherever it wanted as I rushed to clean up the mess after a few angry thoughts directed toward the sacker at the store. You might say, “He didn’t know.” Really? He didn’t know that putting heavy glass jars and bottles into a single layer paper bag would break. Logic alone should have told him it would happen and another bag needed to be added for security’s sake.
Having cleaned up my mess I watched as the TV cameras filmed a group of 32 illegal immigrants making their way across the muddy Rio Grande River and I wondered what their ultimate goal was. My mother’s heart tells me they are seeking freedom and a better life for their children, yet to be born. That is reason enough to make a dangerous journey of thousands of miles – supposedly on foot – cross a swiftly flowing river to surrender to ICE on the other side – the safe side. But is it?
Do they, the illegals – or I guess the politically correct term is ‘undocumented’ people – have any concept that their intrusion into our country may create the same effect of a single layer grocery bag, overloaded with breakables. When it is a matter of survival, or feeding your kids, or making money the immediacy of the moment does not give thought to the overloading of a system already beginning to rip.
No one really knows the true number of illegals entering our country on a daily basis, nor do that know for sure how many countries are involved in this intrusion. Do they care? No, those in Washington don’t care. If they did, they would stop it. But they don’t so nothing is being done about it and the trickle has turned into a stream into a raging river overflowing its banks. Where will it end?
Will our country turn into another third world country? No one ever thought that could or would happen to Venezuela, but the proof is in the photos that are smuggled out. Empty grocery shelves. Gasoline so high that even the once elite can afford it. People of all socioeconomic strata are begging for food and desperately fleeing their country in search of a better life, of freedom.
Compare them with the people of Ukraine. Instead of fleeing their country when it came under a vicious attack, their men – and some women – have remained to fight. Many have died in the onslaught, but they died as heroes protecting the country they love. They didn’t run. Sure, most of the women and children were sent to neighboring countries temporarily. The majority of them want to return to their country even though it has been reduced to rubble. Some will not make it home, but many will and they will rebuild that which the enemy has destroyed.
There have been endless numbers of young, hard bodied men and boys coming across our borders. We don’t know yet what their being here will do to our country, but I cannot help but wonder how their country might have changed if they had been like the Ukrainians and stood to fight for that which they longed for. Freedom. Freedom comes through the bloody hands of those who were willing to pay the price – it does not come through illegally invading another country. In the end, the invaders will lose but at what price to the freedom of the country they chose to invade.
Whether it’s a river of pickle juice and salad dressing or a muddy river, the mess has to be cleaned up. It is time to do that before there is more loss and a greater price to be paid. Our shelves are already empty. Our gasoline prices have skyrocketed. There is no baby formula. It is time to clean up the mess before it is too late.
Heartland Heartbeat 
Well done and I liked the added pictures.
A very good reading, we are in overload.