Posted on 03/27/2006 9:08:57 PM PST by RWR8189
Immigration is yet another issue which we seem unable to discuss rationally -- in part because words have been twisted beyond recognition in political rhetoric.
We can't even call illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants." The politically correct evasion is "undocumented workers."
Do American citizens go around carrying documents with them when they work or apply for work? Most Americans are undocumented workers but they are not illegal immigrants. There is a difference.
The Bush administration is pushing a program to legalize "guest workers." But what is a guest? Someone you have invited. People who force their way into your home without your permission are called gate crashers.
If truth-in-packaging laws applied to politics, the Bush guest worker program would have to be called a "gate-crasher worker" program. The President's proposal would solve the problem of illegal immigration by legalizing it after the fact.
We could solve the problem of all illegal activity anywhere by legalizing it. Why use this approach only with immigration? Why should any of us pay a speeding ticket if immigration scofflaws are legalized after the fact for committing a federal crime?
Most of the arguments for not enforcing our immigration laws are exercises in frivolous rhetoric and slippery sophistry, rather than serious arguments that will stand up under scrutiny.
How often have we heard that illegal immigrants "take jobs that Americans will not do"? What is missing in this argument is what is crucial in any economic argument: price.
Americans will not take many jobs at their current pay levels -- and those pay levels will not rise so long as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs.
If Mexican journalists were flooding into the United States and taking jobs as reporters and editors at half the pay being earned by American reporters and editors, maybe people in the media would understand why the argument about "taking jobs that Americans don't want" is such nonsense.
Another variation on the same theme is that we "need" the millions of illegal aliens already in the United States. "Need" is another word that blithely ignores prices.
If jet planes were on sale for a thousand dollars each, I would probably "need" a couple of them -- an extra one to fly when the first one needed repair or maintenance. But since these planes cost millions of dollars, I don't even "need" one.
There is no fixed amount of "need," independently of prices, whether with planes or workers.
None of the rhetoric and sophistry that we hear about immigration deals with the plain and ugly reality: Politicians are afraid of losing the Hispanic vote and businesses want cheap labor.
What millions of other Americans want has been brushed aside, as if they don't count, and they have been soothed with pious words. But now the voters are getting fed up, which is why there are immigration bills in Congress.
The old inevitability ploy is often trotted out in immigration debates: It is not possible to either keep out illegal immigrants or to expel the ones already here.
If you mean stopping every single illegal immigrant from getting in or expelling every single illegal immigrant who is already here, that may well be true. But does the fact that we cannot prevent every single murder cause us to stop enforcing the laws against murder?
Since existing immigration laws are not being enforced, how can anyone say that it would not do any good to try? People who get caught illegally crossing the border into the United States pay no penalty whatever. They are sent back home and can try again.
What if bank robbers who were caught were simply told to give the money back and not do it again? What if murderers who were caught were turned loose and warned not to kill again? Would that be proof that it is futile to take action, when no action was taken?
Let's hope the immigration bills before Congress can at least get an honest debate, instead of the word games we have been hearing for too long.
The illegals problem is of such a magnitude that it calls into question our efforts in the Middle East - we're basically offering an open flank to our enemies, and all the skills and efforts of our military men there can't solve the problem over here.
(btw it's "perspective", but sometimes I type so fast that extra letters get stuck in between)
good immigration article by Sowell
I am sure I am older than you are, but I swear I remember when I was growing up that there use to be an annoucement on the radio that all "aliens" (or something like that) had to go and register at their local post office by January 31 of every year.
Have I completely lost my mind?
Bump to 103; do you remember that, or are you young, too? :-)
LOL
'know what you mean - if it weren't for spell-check, you'd not be able to decipher much of what I type (and you can't really rely on spell-check either.)
It would be nice .. but I won't hold my breath on it .. some are using this issue as a PR stunt for November
While other have a sincere want to fix this mess
I dont' recall that, but that doesn't mean you didn't hear it.
"Vision of the Anointed."
To be honest with you, I have never heard of that.
I don't even know when they stopped doing it or if it was done nationally.
(no quotas, though, of course--rolling eyes)
I not only remember that, I also remember notices on Post Office bulletin boards to that same effect.
Thank you!
Why can't we do that again?
Thanks for the ping; excellent article. I guess I'll need to start an immigration file too, although I've successfully avoided it until now. LOL
Yeah, but it's not a "blanket amnesty", nor is it an "automatic path to citizenship", so just shut up and stop bashing the President.
< /republican rhetoric >
Well, then there'd be the usual shrieks of racism, doncha know :-(
Well, if they want to DO something, how about registering? :-)
I also have a too-old-school-for-spellcheck chip on my shoulder ;)
LOL>|
I write a nostalgia column - 18 years now on that one - and I get to use lots of colloquialisms...which I love to feed into the spell-checker. 'Drives it nuts, which delights me. One new-fangled thing that I can still outwit :o)
I do a lot of double entendre, which causes a typical grammar checker to weep hysterically, and I have a really bad problem with run-on sentences, which I can't help because I try to keep continuity between ideas and periods, well, you know, get in the way, and that's not very much fun at all, so I have to disable both spell checkers and grammar checkers whenever I get a new program with those functions which thankfully isn't often, but it happens sometimes, and I always get really annoyed the first time the window pops up, I'm like "F-U I'll write the way I damn please and I'll be damned if I'm going to take lessons from a machine whose first language is Assembler", at which point the boss walks over and tells me to watch my language in the office or else I lose diversity points, or something like that.
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