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.
So, it's not an open and shut case that the illegals are taking jobs away from Americans. Perhaps it's good for the jobs to disappear. But as I suggested in an earlier post, we miss very much many of the jobs that used to exist in this country but are gone now because of minimum wage laws.
If they can't, or won't, secure the border, why should we trust them with immigration reform? If they can't, or won't, secure the border, why should we trust them in office at all?
You say it best. Nothing more needs to be said. Both parties think we're all stupid and they can pacify us simply by passing laws with the fine print full of holes that effectively negate those laws. Both houses can then claim they're doing something while working to undermine the intent of the laws.
There may be some good guys in congress but if in doubt or if you're uninformed the best approach is to NOT vote for the incumbents in '06.
Our national sovereignty and the value of the rule of law is beyond economic price.
Great words above. Now if only we can find leaders who believe the same.
Meanwhile, we have trained well over 200,000 Iraqi security forces while guerilla warfare raged around them.
You forget however that Iraq doesn't have President Fox as opposition.
There's something else at play here. We've been told for how long that the Social Security system is broke. Yet we're giving Social Security to millions of illegal immigrants. Are we planning on forming an American Union (or Alliance) with the countries to our south? Or are we looking for millions of workers to pay into our broken Social Security system, or other broken systems? I heard someone mention Medicare. Something that we're unaware of is going on. And naturally nobody will tell us the plan.
Love Sowell. I especially enjoy him when Walter Williams is subbing for Rush.
The globalist economic money-worshippers will gnash their teeth at you for saying that, but it bears repeating and and big - BTTT. - OB1
Making them gnash their teeth is half the fun!
;-)
They're out there.
We just gotta keep finding 'em and working until they're in office.
Can't let up.
BILL SALI VICTORY A HUGE WIN FOR IDAHO FAMILIES
I know Bill Sali, and he gets it.
Kudos to Idaho on the outcome. The rest of us appreciate your important contribution to the real conservative cause.
You are correct.
IMHO Sowell's logic is, well, just what you expect from Thomas Sowell - flawless.OTOH it doesn't address - nobody seems to address - the real issue. The real issue is how immigrants are brought up. We don't want Islamists, to take the most obvious example.
But even without that concern, there still is a difference between a Canadian and a Mexican. Although both countries inevitably (in the nature of things) define themselves partly by not being American, they still are quite different from each other. A Canadian emmigrant to the US will almost inevitably be a native speaker of English, albeit with a Canadian rather than an American accent. And Canada is not noted for the absence of a middle class, as is essentially true of Mexico.
And not only do Canadians speak English and belong to the middle class, Canadians don't come from a culture which still resents being defeated in war and dreams of reversing the decision of that war.
IMHO Thomas Sowell is nearly always not merely right, but frequently presenting a thought which is new to me - and right. You find yourself disagreeing strongly with Thomas Sowell, your first thought should be to ask, "What am I overlooking?"His observations are typically that astute. If that makes me a "Sowell-bot" to you, why then, so be it. I think most of us at one time or another have been called something worse than that.
All true, except that I am uncertain how that contrasts with Sowell's point. He says,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.. . . because what they already have is de facto amnesty; the US simply does not enforce its immigration law when it comes to poor Mexicans. Against Britons, yes - the government moved to deport the widow of one of the fallen in the WTC attack because she as a British citizen no longer had an American husband to justify her staying. And there was no talk that her American-born children were "anchor babies;" she could have left her children in America since they were American citizens by birth - but she, the INS insisted at the time, simply was no longer welcome under US law.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.
She was too much like an American to be allowed to stay, whereas Mexicans are poor, downtrodden masses and it would be heartless to discriminate against them. Again, Elian Gonzales made it to the US but the provenance of his arrival was too anticommunist for him to be allowed to stay. He would have been raised by a bunch of Republicans!
Tom Sowell(FOR PRESIDENT)I wish he'd run so I could vote for him!
I didn't know of Thomas Sowell back then, but Reagan shoulda nominated him for VP . . . and then to SCOTUS. That's really where he has belonged, all these years - SCOTUS. Whether or not he has a law background. Face it, with his IQ (couldn't possibly be less than 150 or 160) he could pick up what he didn't know, in a week or two on the bench! And teach the legal beagles a thing or two about wisdom.
You need to read the whole exchange. "Sowell-bot" was my sarcastic way of describing someone who felt that Sowell's words ought not even be challenged. I'm a great admirer of Sowell and have read most of his books. I believe he's not entirely right on this for the reasons I've pointed out here.
I saw that in your early post, but I also saw what seemed to me that you were slightly misrepresenting his argument.He did not make the particular argument that you would have made, and you jumped from there to the idea that he was actually wrong. Which, IMHO, was incorrect. And, as someone who also has read a good many of his books (how does he write so many?), IMHO that is ordinarily a terrible bet. Not that I hold that in principle it couldn't happen . . .
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