GOOD INTENTIONS UNDELIVERABLE

—NO SUCH ADDRESS—

To the Editor, Council-of-Concerned-Conservationists Newsletter,

Before we get into the argument, let’s clear something up, because it always comes up.

We: Our pronouns are he, she, I, me, and mine. Which one you hear depends on which of us is talking, which hand is writing, and whether we’re interrupting each other.

We: We’re siblings—brother and sister—conjoined at the head and shoulders. Two bodies, one brain. One left arm, one right. When we write together, it’s not a metaphor.

He: People usually hear me and say, “That’s a Republican.”

She: People usually hear me and say, “That’s a Democrat.”

He: That’s mostly about tone.

She: And which vocabulary you lead with.

He: What we actually share is the same basic worldview: reason matters, individuals matter, rules should apply broadly, and systems can be fixed if grown-ups are willing to run them.

She: Same Enlightenment brain. Different messaging. Which brings us to immigration.

He: From where I sit, this isn’t complicated. We have a labor shortage. Birth rates are falling. Small businesses, agriculture, construction, health care—you name it—are already dependent on immigrant workers. Legal or not, the system is running on them.

She: From where I sit, it’s a human issue. People are coming because their lives are worse elsewhere. Treating them like a problem to be “managed” instead of people to be dealt with fairly is wrong.

We: ((((Different starting points. Same reality.))))

(Echoing each other)

He: What drives me nuts about your piece is the constant hedging—like we need another decade of panels and white papers before we act.

She: “It’s complicated” has become an excuse to do nothing.

He: We already have mass immigration. Let’s stop pretending we don’t. All that pretending does is create chaos—under-the-table labor, overwhelmed local governments, and nonstop political theater.

She: And real people stuck in limbo while politicians score points.

He: From my side, that’s bad governance.

She: From my side, it’s immoral. You keep talking about borders like they’re sacred.

He: They’re not. They’re tools.

She: And tools are supposed to serve people.

We: ((((Exactly))))

He: If a tool isn’t working, you don’t worship it. You redesign it. You also lean hard on “protecting culture.”

She: Everyone says that, and no one ever defines it.

He: Culture isn’t frozen in time. It changes whether you like it or not.

She: The real question is whether our institutions are strong enough to integrate people—schools, jobs, civic expectations.

He: And those institutions didn’t fall apart because immigrants showed up.

She: They fell apart because we stopped investing in them and called it “prudence.”

We: ((((For the record, we argue about this stuff constantly.))))

He: She says I reduce everything to numbers and incentives.

She: He says I lead with feelings instead of policy.

We: ((((We’re both right, and we both know it.))))

He: Bottom line: immigration isn’t “destroying America.”

She: But pretending it can be ignored absolutely will.

He: We can’t be responsible for every downstream effect. What matters is that the system makes sense.

She: We can’t be held hostage by outcomes. What matters is that the position is morally correct.

We: ((((What follows is not our burden.))))

Sincerely,

The Right/eous Leftist

***

Council Response Assigned to the Street (Vito Haeckeler)

Before I get into it, I need to know what to call you. I don’t mean politically—I mean grammatically. Are you a “they”? A “you two”? A “sir-ma’am”? Or do I just say The Right/eous Leftist and trust the whole organism to answer? Because the way you’re arranged, every normal way of addressing a person feels wrong, and that alone tells me something important before we even start.

They handed this one to me because I’m the guy who stands where the sidewalk cracks and the pipes back up.

I read your letter. Hard not to. Two voices, one head, lots of confidence.

One of you eats steak. The other eats a plant-based burger that looks like steak and comes with a pamphlet.

And yeah, I notice your situation. Hard not to notice it. Two bodies, one brain—but more importantly, one gut.

That’s where things get honest.

Food makes a big speech on the way in. Everybody’s got a justification. Ethics. Efficiency. Traditions. Necessity. But once it gets past the mouth, the speeches stop. The stomach doesn’t care why you ate. Same acids. Same grinding. Same long push through the dark.

Different inputs. Same digestive tract.

What comes out the other end? Same result. No labels. No intentions. Just waste. Consequence. Something heavy that has to go somewhere.

Now here’s where I keep hearing people wave their hands and say, “Don’t worry—magic dirt.”

You know the line. Step onto American soil and—poof—you’re American. Like the ground does the work. Like standing here changes what you are, what you believe, what you’ll defend, what you’ll pass on.

That’s not how dirt works.

Dirt doesn’t make magic. Dirt takes whatever you dump into it and turns it into whatever it can. Sometimes that’s crops. Sometimes that’s rot. Depends on what keeps getting added and whether anyone’s paying attention.

On the street, we don’t argue about intentions forever. We deal with outputs. Somebody’s got to shovel. Somebody’s got to decide where it goes. Somebody’s got to live with what grows—or doesn’t—afterward.

You two might argue grilling versus an artisanal grain bowl. Fine. But you’re sharing the same gut, and the rest of us are standing downstream of it. You can’t just keep pointing at the ground and saying the dirt will sort it out.

That’s not magic. That’s abdication.

Anyway, that’s my report from ground level. They wanted someone who sees what hits the pavement.

—Vito Haeckeler,

C-of-C-C Man-on-the-Street,

Council-of-Concerned-Conservationists