Posted on 04/13/2006 11:33:09 AM PDT by ConservativeThink
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These words of poet Emma Lazarus served as the welcome mat for tens of millions seeking liberty and opportunity in America — legally. Being a relatively land-rich and labor-scarce nation, immigration has always been good for our country. Plus, for most of our history, there was a guarantee that immigrants would come here to work. The alternative was starvation.
With today's welfare state, there's no such guarantee. People can come here, not work and not starve because the welfare state guarantees that they can live off the rest of us.
At the heart of today's immigration problem is its illegality. According to several estimates, there are 11 million people who are in our country illegally, mostly from Mexico. Many people, including my libertarian friends and associates, advance an argument that differs little from saying that people anywhere in the world have a right to live in the United States irrespective of our laws or preferences.
According to that vision, American people do not have a right to set either the number of people who enter our country or the conditions upon which they enter. Some of the arguments and terms used in the immigration debate defy reason. First, there's the refusal to call these people “illegal aliens.” The politically preferred term is “undocumented workers,” which is nothing less than verbal sleight-of-hand. After all, I, too, am an undocumented worker. My colleague, Thomas Sowell, exposes some of this verbal sleight-of-hand in a recent
column. He questions calling for “guest worker” status for people who, because they weren't invited, are not guests at all but gate-crashers. Sowell argues that the more substantive arguments for flaunting our immigration laws are just as phony.How about the argument that “We can't catch all the illegals”? That's true, but should we apply that principle to other illegal acts? For example, we can't catch every rapist or burglar, but does it follow that we shouldn't try?The base motives for much of the political response to illegal aliens are fear of losing the Hispanic vote and pressure by employers who want to maintain a source of cheap labor. Politicians are calling for “guest worker” programs, but they're really calling for amnesty. They are fearful of actually using that term because they know it's political suicide, but the “guest worker” proposal is essentially the same as amnesty.
The word amnesty comes from the Greek “amnestia,” defined in part as: “the selective overlooking or ignoring of those events or acts that are not favorable or useful to one's purpose or position.” That's what the proposed guest worker program essentially says: Forget that you're here illegally.
In principle, the solution to people being in our country illegally is simple. No one in the country illegally should be eligible to receive any social services except emergency medical services. Efforts should be made to deport illegal aliens. Our borders should be made secure both against illegal entry of persons and potential threats to national security.
Finally, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services procedures for obtaining work permits and citizenship should be streamlined so that law-abiding people around the world can more easily contribute to and enjoy America's greatness.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He has authored more than 150 publications, including many in scholarly journals, and has frequently given expert testimony before Congressional committees on public policy issues ranging from labor policy to taxation and spending.
For Those That Lost Their Lives on 9/11 We Will...
Use the above Hyperlinked Graphic and Please Repost in your MySpace and or Blog Bulletins, Your MySpace and or Blog Comments, Post this On Forums, Your Emails, Your Blog Posts, Just Redistribute this So we can all make sure that We Never Forget...
I wonder if he had to run this by Rush Limbaugh first?
Mumps may have been spread via air travel: CDC
Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:01 PM BST
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Two persons identified by the Iowa Department of Public Health as having mumps may have transmitted the disease to travelers on nine different commercial flights, health officials note in the April 14th issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In December 2005, a large outbreak of mumps began in Iowa, and 515 possible cases have been reported during 2006 as of April 10th. Officials are currently investigating whether this outbreak influenced mumps activity in neighboring states, including Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.
Between March 26 and April 2, 2006, two mumps patients traveled on the following flights:
Northwest Airline:
--March 26, #3025 from Waterloo, Iowa to Minneapolis, Minnesota
--March 26, #760 from Minneapolis to Detroit, Michigan
--March 27, #0260 from Detroit to Washington, DC-Reagan National
--March 29, #1705 from Washington to Minneapolis
--March 29, #3026 from Minneapolis to Waterloo
American Airline:
--April 2, #1216 from Tucson, Arizona to Dallas, Texas
--April 2, #3617 from Dallas to Lafayette, Arkansas
--April 2, #5399 from Lafayette to St. Louis, Missouri
--April 2, #5498 from St. Louis to Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Officials from the CDC and the Iowa Department of Public Health are advising travelers on these flights to see a healthcare provider if any mumps symptoms arise such as swollen glands, sore throat, or fever. Healthcare providers are urged to report any suspected cases to public health officials.
The CDC and state health departments have launched a multistate investigation to alert passengers sitting in close proximity to the index cases of the potential risk.
Mumps rates in the US first fell after a vaccine was first introduced in 1967. The incidence declined further after routine vaccination was recommended for children in 1977 and after a second dose of the MMR vaccine was implemented in the 1990s.
Transmission of various respiratory pathogens during air travel has been reported, but "exposure and transmission of mumps during commercial air travel has not been described previously," CDC and IDPH officials report.
SOURCE: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, April 14, 2006.
Are you going to be one of those posters that tries to spam every thread?
Its a cinch he didn't run it by Ted Kennedy.. or John McRino
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