Posted on 07/05/2006 11:42:38 AM PDT by Spiff
First let me thank Mr. Brian Johnson (no relation) for thoroughly reading my earlier criticism of Rep. Mike Pence’s not-an-amnesty immigration proposal, and believing it was important enough to dedicate a response to it.
Now let me respond to several of the points in Brian Johnson’s article.
1) I was wrong to reject Rep. Pence’s proposal so quickly, especially given his bona fides as a conservative legislator.
As the debate over late-term abortion shows, it is sometimes important to kill things quickly, lest they take on a life all their own. Rejecting Mr. Pence’s misguided proposal was a similar case. I stayed up writing way past my bedtime the day Mr. Pence launched his public relations campaign specifically because I wanted to publicly reject the notion that Mr. Pence’s plan was “the conservative plan.”
It may be a plan by a conservative, but it is not a conservative plan. Good people sometimes do strange things during the heat of a debate they wish to bring to a premature close. And to borrow a phrase from our friends, the insane left wing kooks, “not in my name” did Mr. Pence speak. Also, unlike wine, cheese or catfish bait, Mr. Pence’s proposal seems unlikely to me to improve with age. It is what it is, and it’s bad.
2) More than any other proposal, Pence’s plan goes further toward bridging the gap between the liberal Senate immigration bill and the enforcement-first House immigration bill.
Much like the English Channel in 1942, some gaps are best left un-bridged. The negotiating position of the House of Representatives is NOT improved by Mr. Pence breaking ranks before the negotiations have even begun. Mr. Pence’s unsolicited and ill-timed Rodney King moment (“Can’t we all just get along?”) has made it much more likely that a bad bill, containing a de facto amnesty and a guest worker provision, will result. Mr. Pence, build back up this wall.
3) Mr. Pence’s plan to have immigration criminals briefly return home, with a guarantee of readmission, before receiving their guest worker amnesty is more than just a cheap political stunt, but will have real psychological effects on those aliens that choose to ride the trans-border merry-go-round.
If it’s psychological effects you’re after, try deportation without a guarantee of readmission. Punishment should feel bad. The amnesty for tourism scheme will just make immigration criminals feel good about finally possessing legally what they at first only stole. Giving a car thief the title to the car may give him pride of ownership, but who cares?
4) Mr. Pence’s plan is in tune with “political realities.”
See, I knew it was bad. More mischief has been facilitated in the name of “political realities” than in any other name, except “Kennedy.” Political realities gave us the Medicare prescription drug boondoggle, Bush’s record expansion of domestic spending, our current illegal immigration fiasco, a response to Hurricane Katrina that looked like Huey P. Long wrote the relief bill, and, oh yeah, Harriet Miers.
As the last example teaches, political reality is what we make of it. Sticking to your guns and being willing to take a fight to the bitter end often wins you more than quick compromise. If ever there was a case in which a fight to the end was merited, the immigration debate is it. We could lose our country in this debate. The original plan coming out of the Senate would have brought in hundreds of millions of new immigrants within just 20 years.
There is one point in Brian Johnson’s response that I wholeheartedly agree with, however: “the tendency of nearly every stakeholder to hold hostage the one supposedly agreed-upon necessity—border security—to their own narrow interests.”
It is time for this to end. And there is only one bill that proposes to increase security markedly, without entangling the security measures in debates over amnesty, or legal immigration quotas, or guest worker plans -- and that is H.R. 4437. This is the bill passed by the House that Mr. Pence seeks to compromise upon, by entangling it with other nonsense, such as a guest worker amnesty.
It would be better to pass no bill than to pass a bad bill. If some senators want to explain to people that they did not pass increased border security (H.R. 4437), because they wanted to continue to hold it hostage to pet projects and amnesty, then let them. Mr. Pence’s approach is not to issue an ultimatum that we can no longer hold border security hostage to other matters, but instead to simply try to negotiate a better ransom price.
Therefore, his bill, however well intentioned, remains wrong.
Mr. Johnson, a writer and medical researcher in Cambridge, MA., is a regular contributor to Human Events. His column generally appears on Mondays. Archives and additional material can be found at www.macjohnson.com.
The common wisdom is that Congress needs to "do something" about illegal immigration. But instead of passing another law, how about we enforce the laws we already have?
Ouch!
---But instead of passing another law, how about we enforce the laws we already have?---
We're getting more cheap foreign workers, legal, illegal, whatever. That's the only thing our leadership is into enforcing.
The fringers, of course, are the hard-liner Tancredoites.
With a 23 seat majority and a half dozen "republicans" who vote reliably with the opposition I doubt they would be so stupid.
However, I do believe they are trying to finesse the issue to squeeze it past a skeptical majority conservative base and should be watched very closely.
sounds familiar:
The philosophy of 'gun control': Teenagers are roaring through town at 90 MPH, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20.
You guys were calling Pence a "fringer" when he was constantly grilling Bush on his piss poor performance when it comes to spending, and when this is over y'all will go back to disliking him.
It's a 15 seat majority, effectively, and the tide is turning toward the Pence plan.
When Frist gets on board, Boehner and Hastert will as well.
The House will be unified when the fringers are fringed.
Do you support the Pence plan? If you do, then think about the irony of your position vis-a-vis mine.
Not that this will silence the congenital bellyachers.
the MEME is that they need to do something.
This "need"
was BS'ed from the absolute need to build the fence on the border. McCain and Kenedy usurped border security in order to UNDO the republican lead immigration reform of 1996.
The 1996 reform which made it MUCH HARDER for illegals to whitewash themselves into legal status.
I don't mind it. I'd prefer the House bill. However, I'd rather see no bill than the Senate Bill, but I could livew with the Pence compromise. There is a lot of misinformation going around FR about it.
I can support Pence as well. If you and I can come together on the Pence plan, those who can't would seem to be extremists, to me.
Yep. Separating the wheat from the chaff as it were. It's been a long time coming.
Senate bill rewards illegals for breaking into our country; Pence rewards illegals for breaking into our country.
Senate bill drives down wages; Pence drives down wages.
Senate bill is logistically unworkable and ripe for fraud; Pence's proposal is unworkable and ripe for fraud.
Senate bill would expand the population by millions; Pence will expand the population by millions.
WHERE IS THE COMPROMISE?
A simple "I'm against it!" would have sufficed. It would have still be devoid of facts.
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