| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Captain Compassion" |
| Date: |
27 Mar 2006 11:38:35 PM |
| Object: |
Guests or Gate Crashers? |
March 28, 2006
Guests or Gate Crashers?
By Thomas Sowell
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/guests_or_gate_crashers.html
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.
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
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