Posted on 06/03/2007 7:02:37 AM PDT by gpapa
Conservatism, declared George Will recently, "is realism: about human nature and government's competence." It requires accepting human beings as they are, not as we wish they were, and recognizing the limited capacity of government to transform the world for the better. But in the immigration debate, many conservatives are embracing policies that, by this standard, are anything but conservative.
Just as children are nature's way of mocking their parents' best intentions, illegal immigration is one of those phenomena that show the ineffectuality of laws in impeding humans from pursuing their interests. It would be nice if we could lay down lines on a map and expect people to stay on one side or the other. But when forces bigger than geography are at work, the decrees of nations often prove useless.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Standard propaganda from the “open borders” types. We CAN get control of the borders, AND of immigration. The requirement is to actually ENFORCE our laws rather than let certain parties ignore them.
It is man's nature to commit sin. That does not excuse morality to be cast aside in surrender to evil.
Just because lots of people break laws does not require the lawful people to accept criminality.
Every law could be disobeyed on the basis of "It's just too hard to obey it."
If the American people thought immigration law was unenforceable, they would not be 70% against amnesty.
So we just give up and let anyone in! What drivel, are we ever going to stop it? NO! Can we reduce it to a controllable problem? Damn right we can! Make it damn hard on employers who break the law and most of the problem will disappear.
Instead of yet another fuming thread I’d like very much to see an activist one ... design a basic bill that would draw in enough democrats to get it passed (yes, I know that will involve some unpalatable compromises) and then have each Freeper send it on to their own congresscritter with a list of the other Freepers who sign on.
In other words be activists. I don’t know if there is a democrat website paralleling Free Republic, but if there is go over there, sign up honestly as a conservative and see what can be done to create a bi-partisan People’s Bill.
To get the ball rolling I propose the underpinning of the People’s Bill be respect for legal immigrants and their sacrifices in order to respect and follow our laws.
One (suggested) basic provision to be a clearcut method of securing the border before consideration of amnesty plus achievement benchmarks before any further actions be taken.
This is graft pure and simple. It’s time to start withholding our money; taxes and all. If we don’t they are going to send us all down the toilet.
Armed men and women could control the border. We’ll only have to feed them once or twice, because once word gets back that everybody’s getting shot trying to cross the border, they’ll stop.
Mexican government will probably complain, mentioned something about sovereignty, blah blah blah.
Will is one of the people who thinks conservatism is merely a license for unbridled capitalism without any moral underpinning.
If you have spilled sugar on the floor, rather than exhausting the world’s supply of bug spray and roach motels, maybe you should just clean up the sugar.
Build the 856 mile fence, hire the border agents, fine employers for hiring illegals, no jobs the illegals will go back the same way they got here, no new laws required. Up the temporary worker visa numbers, yes we already have this in current policy, lettuce pickers to high tech workers are covered. Then and only then we can decide in a logical way what else needs doing.
Common sense question, why isn’t the current temporary worker visa system being used, answer it’s cheaper to hire illegals under the table for low wages and no taxes.
Good point. Makes you wonder if new illegals will be needed to replace the ones legalized.
I wonder if this doofus' sophistric article can get traction in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador...
His passinate argument for the illegimimacy of national borders can problably find many points in common with another failed historical document --- The Communist Manifesto.
Nowhere in the debate over immigration is the core reason for this widespread migration addressed - WHY are Mexicans leaving their native land in droves?
The land itself is richly endowed with plentiful natural resources, fertile valleys and what is for the most part a relatively benign climate, ranging from Mediterranean to tropical. To leave this paradise, they must cross one of the most unforgiving deserts on the North American continent, into the face of a considerable amount of hostility.
And for this privilege, they must pay a stranger of questionable ethics, what is an enormous sum of money, and undertake a journey that can become a devastatingly perilous trek, resulting in loss of all worldly goods, injury, or even death.
All the more so, because there is a pathway by which entry may be perfectly legal, relatively safe, and with sure rewards waiting. But the gateway for allowing this particular path is so restricted, in their view, that they may well spend years before this door is opened to them.
Simply throwing open the door to ANYBODY is not an answer either, because who knows who slips in. Yet this is the formula that the US Congress is about to adopt, and apparently has the full concurrence of the President as well.
A modest proposal:
Seize these illegaliens and expel to their home country (OK, most of them are Mexicans, but they come from all over the world). For each one that is sent back, allow one more that is now at the top, or near the top, of the list of those who wish to immigrate from that country and have completed the paperwork, be admitted immediately. End the red tape, expedite the delivery of the visa.
Good behavior should be rewarded. This is the means by which bad behavior is driven out.
And end this “anchor baby” business. It is one thing for LEGAL alien residents to have a child here, and a different proposition altogether for an undocumented foreign national to slip into this country, give birth to a child, then claim a “right” to citizenship. Just because the mother cat has her kittens in an oven, does not make then biscuits.
You can’t expect George Will’s younger trophy wife to scrub her own toilet.
The forces at work that caused the immigration problems were our government's unwillingness to enforce the laws. It really is that simple. If you look the other way from a problem it tends to get out of hand.
“Will is one of the people who thinks conservatism is merely a license for unbridled capitalism without any moral underpinning.”
There seems to be a lot of that going around.
Where does it end?
If morality is trumped by the almighty dollar, who’s to say that drug dealers aren’t just opportunistic entrepreneurs?
Will forgot to mention one thing........THE WELFARE STATE!
Let’s see how long these ‘migrants’ would last making below minimum wage without food stamps, free healthcare, cash welfare for their anchor babies, wic, etc., etc.
I think their incentive to stay here would plummet.
To learn more, simply do a Google search on Eisenhower "illegal immigration".
someone needs to put a black bag over the author’s head.
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