who will be able to cast that first stone?

I'd really rather be talking about turnips, and I shall presently, but first I shall have to deal with BIP (Beagles's Immigration Plan).  I didn't even know we had refuge camps.  There are the those prison-like places we hold people stateside, but I haven't heard of gang activity there.  I imagine there is trouble with criminal elements in those places where we make them wait in Mexico, but those criminals are ;local.  There were reports of MS-13 among the caravans (Whatever happened to the caravans?), but the sources were dubious and none of them have been substantiated.

Of course there are some criminals among the immigrants.  There are criminals among every group of people but all reports are that there are fewer among immigrants than there are among US citizens so letting them in will dilute the presence of criminals here.  Well that's assuming that the 'good guys' don't become criminals later.  Under Beagles's loose definition 'good guys' are guys who haven't done anything bad yet.  I don't think any judge is going to be able to look somebody in the eye and see his or her future.

There was a general feeling about guarding our borders after 9-11, but that didn't pertain to the southern border exclusively nor did it achieve its current furor until you-know-how descended that escalator, what was it, about four years ago, but is surely seems like forty at least.


Mere turnips, though tasty and well-known in popular lore as being the kind of truck that rubes fall out of, are not that important, but the issue of sin is.  I think without sin you don't have any religion and even atheists like myself use it to direct our moral compasses.  I have never claimed to be a man without sin, witness my shameful behavior at the Seven Eleven, but Beagles has claimed to be a man without sin, but now when I hear that unlike Honest Abe, when he was undercharged he did not go right back to the store and refund his ill gotten gains.  Looks like sin to me.

Way back when we discussed this earlier (and I can see Old Dog reading this this afternoon and rubbing his sore fingers, not this crap again and wondering why don't we discuss baking (and where is that improved cornbread recipe?)), sin was knowing something was wrong and doing it anyway.  Certainly Beagles did not know he was doing anything wrong when he accepted that extra ten spot in his change.  But later on when the error came to light surely he knew it was wrong not to drive back to the store and make things right, and yet he stayed home anyway.

Back in the day when Old Dog attended seminars I believe I foisted on him the book The Lost City by Alan Ehrenhalt, and maybe I somehow foisted it on Beagles because part of it is about our old hood.  One of the parts I liked was where he was discussing how the people of a parish in Chicago dealt with sin, how they recognized that they were sinners and therefore were more congenial in their behavior towards other sinners than people who thought they were free of sin.  I thought that was a good thing.  I guess that's part of the reason I don't like the good guys/bad guys terminology, because well, we are all sinners Gentlemen.