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Posted on 05/23/2006 8:25:20 AM PDT by Gordongekko909
The immigration bill before Congress has some of the most serious consequences for the future of this country. Yet it is not being discussed seriously by most politicians or most of the media. Instead, it is being discussed in a series of glib talking points that insult our intelligence.
Some of the most momentous consequences -- a major increase in the number of immigrants admitted legally -- are not even being discussed at all by those who wrote the Senate bill, though Senator Jeff Sessions has uncovered those provisions in the bill and brought them out into the light of day.
How many times have we heard that illegal aliens are taking "jobs that Americans won't do"? Just what specifically are those jobs?
Even in occupations where illegals are concentrated, such as agriculture, cleaning, construction, and food preparation, the great majority of the work is still being done by people who are not illegal aliens.
The highest concentration of illegals is in agriculture, where they are 24 percent of the people employed. That means three-quarters of the people are not illegal aliens. But when will the glib phrase-mongers stop telling us that the illegals are simply taking "jobs that Americans won't do"?
Another insult to our intelligence is that amnesty is not amnesty if you call it something else. The fact that illegals will have to fulfill certain requirements to become American citizens is supposed to mean that this is not amnesty.
But let's do what the spinmeisters hope we will never do -- stop and think. Amnesty is overlooking ("forgetting," as in amnesia) the violation of the law committed by those who have crossed our borders illegally.
The fact that there are requirements for getting American citizenship is a separate issue entirely. Illegal aliens who do not choose to seek American citizenship are under no more jeopardy than before. They have de facto amnesty.
Yet another insult to our intelligence is saying that, since we cannot find and deport 12 million people, the only choice left is to find some way to make them legal.
There is probably no category of law-breakers -- from counterfeiters to burglars or from jay-walkers to murderers -- who can all be found and arrested. But no one suggests that we must therefore make what they have done legal.
Such an argument would suggest that there is nothing in between 100 percent effective law enforcement and zero percent effective law enforcement.
The reverse twist on this argument is that suddenly taking 12 million people out of the labor force would disrupt the economy. No one has ever said -- or probably even dreamed -- that we could suddenly find all 12 million illegal immigrants at once and send them all home immediately. This is another straw man argument.
The real question is what we do with whatever illegal aliens we do find. Right now, there are various communities around the country where local officials have a policy of forbidding the police from reporting illegal immigrants to federal authorities.
Why are people who are so gung ho for punishing employers so utterly silent about needing to punish government officials who openly and deliberately violate federal laws?
Employers, after all, are not in the business of law enforcement.
If some guy who runs a hardware store or a dry cleaning business hires someone who shows some forged documents, why should the employer be fined for not being able to tell the difference, when government officials who can tell the difference are not doing anything -- or are even actively obstructing federal laws?
Putting unarmed national guardsmen on the border is another cosmetic move, a placebo instead of real medicine. The excuse is that it is not possible to train more than 1,500 border patrol agents a year. Meanwhile, we have trained well over 200,000 Iraqi security forces while guerilla warfare raged around them.
You can put a million people on the border and it will mean nothing if those who are caught are simply turned loose and sent back to try again tomorrow -- or perhaps later the same day.
That is a lie. Exactly what period was this? What did the immigration laws in place actually say? Our nation has never embraced the kind of open borders policy for anyone and everyone throughout the world who wanted to come here. All sorts of restrictions have applied depending on the number of individuals and the country of origin. They didn't allow the same kind of mass scale immigration out of Asia that they allowed out of Europe during the time of Ellis Island for example. This pragmatic approach has its basis in the philosophy of our Founding Fathers. Even they realized that immigration needs to be undertaken with practical approach based on a combination of economic, social, and cultural factors that produces an ideal process of assimilation. They understood that balkanization was a very real danger and had to be avoided at all costs.
Employers are always crying for more workers. But they are simply looking for foreign born workers that simply do the same job for less money than their native born counterparts. This has served to displace our own qualified native born workforce.
Also, many of the industries would be far better off mechanizing/automating their approach to production rather than simply opening the floodgates and allowing more cheap labor to flood the workforce. Agriculture is a case in point. Aggribusinesses have always screamed that they need more and more migrants. But even now with all the migrant workers many of our growers have discovered that there are foreign countries that can produce the same produce for less money, -even with tariffs imposed on their exports to the U.S.. Brazil can sell oranges just as cheaply as our Florida growers can, and that is with a 20 % tariff slapped on their product. Florida growers now realize that their only recourse is to fully mechanize their approach to farming if they want to "remain in the game". We should have been forcing our agriculture industry to mechanize all along rather than allowing them to become complacent and rely on illegals to do everything.
Also, the issue of "economics" works both ways withregards ot immigration. With 6 billion plus people living on this planet and over 60 % of them living at are below the poverty line there will always be an economic impetus for individuals to try and migrate to this country even if it means doing it illegally and working for a lower wage than what an employer is paying his current employees.
Another casualty in the diminution of the separation of powers.
As the judiciary increasingly steals executive and legislative control, ironically, it is the Senate that becomes insulated from accountability to the people.
No matter how far the Senators move away from the will of the people on immigration reform, we put up with their antics now simply on the hope they will confirm us good rulers in robes.
That strikes a blow to the sovereignty of the people, and our ability to clean house on election day.
Always! :-)
Thank you! :-)
Absolutely.
Perhaps this is an academic point, but the Senate should have some measure of insulation from the people; its members ought to be accountable to the state legislatures, not directly to the people of the state.
The failure of the 17th amendment to provide this insulation has resulted in, I'm convinced, the ever-expanding power of the federal government beyond the scope allowed by the Constitution at the expense of powers reserved for state governments.
Not that the 17th amendment is going anywhere anytime soon.
Danged shame.
The failure of the 17th amendment to provide this insulation has resulted in, I'm convinced, the ever-expanding power of the federal government beyond the scope allowed by the Constitution at the expense of powers reserved for state governments.
Great points. Right on the mark.
The Seventeenth Amendment was a damaging blow to federalism, there can be no doubt.
But as it stands today, Senators are glorified representatives, and we shouldn't compelled to keep them in office simply to appoint "good" judges/tyrants.
Abolishing the 17th Amendment would be one step in the right direction. Our constitutional system is out of kilter, and operates far from its design.
That's true of "We, the People," too, isn't it? :(
To: MNJohnnie Kiss my a$$ bushbot 51 posted on 05/23/2006 9:48:03 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your most dangerous enemy is your own government) [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
There is more going on planet earth than you myopic self center rant!
This has nothing to do with country club republicans, Bush had this on his platform when ya all voted for him!
Some of you are like spoil children if you don't get your own way a 100% you start acting like bullies!
This behavior is repugnant
you know Jim Robinson is a Bushbot!
Bots are real screamers aren't they? It's amazing that even defending liberalism makes one argue with the same tactics of socialists themselves. They are smug, nasty, and self righteous. It's like having our own socialist nest right here at FR.
And who else but socialists would be in favor of 20 to 200 million new Democrat voters?
Something else; Tom Sowell is one of the finest minds of the 20-21st centuries. As a strong CONSERVATIVE, and having read 5 of his books, I must tell you I have yet to disagree with him on any substantive issue.
Exactly!
Please explain?
Was not this on Bush platform when he ran for office did he not try to fill as many things as he said he would?
Some how graditude seem to have a life of a 24 Glow worm, because tomorrow it starts all over what are you going to do for me today?
We're going to nuke Mexico... awesome! ;)
(Sorry for quoting you so out of context, but that's the first thing that popped to mind with the phrase "nuclear Option".)
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