Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Thursday, May 17, 2007

The Rantings of the KnowNothings

My usual political allies seemingly are up in arms about the immigration deal reportedly reached in the Senate. But the source of the outrage, to me, remains entirely obscure. Does anyone---anyone at all---actually believe it possible as a practical matter to put 12 million people on buses to be driven south?

And even were such a monstrous action possible, the inevitable news clips of such family misery would destroy public support. Far better to get rid of the disincentives to assimilation: bilingual education, bilingual ballots, welfare for the native-born children of illegals, ad infinitum. Even with such policies, the evidence is strong that substantial assimilation in the form of English language skills and the like is the norm by the second or third generation.

And let us not forget that people who come to America to work do us no harm in the aggregate, while the substitution of a wall in place of the Statue of Liberty as the symbol of America is hardly salutary. The rantings of such as Michelle Malkin---who, as I believe I have mentioned before, does not appear to have had any ancestors on the Mayflower---are devoid of analytic content, curiously analogous to the rantings of the ineffable Al Gore, Laurie David, and Cheryl Crow in the context of purported anthropogenic climate change, and thus are fundamentally religious in nature.

Yes, a nation is far more than a labor market. But the labor market is not irrelevant, and it is leftist multiculturalism that is the real threat to a nation united around the ideal of equal opportunity. That "conservatives" now are rallying around an outlook so destructive is deeply disturbing.

5 comments:

Pascal said...

Recommending that your readers give in to any apparent fait accompli of law breaking seems strikingly out of place at a site dedicated to societal reform.

But what weight does my opinion carry here? I'm just a guest; perhaps less so after today.

I can listen to Establishment media and a handful of "rightwing" talkers (such as the Medwitts) if I wish to hear more efforts to anaesthetize any groundswell of public outrage on this subject.

Tom Van Dyke said...

I'd just like someone to explain why this is better than doing nothing. Me, I'm a big fan of doing nothing.

There are many cracks in society's floor that are best left uncaulked, and absent any real reform, this is one of them.

Mike D'Virgilio said...

I can't seem to muster the rage I've heard from some conservatives over this. I certainly do not condone law breaking, but laws are societal standards made by human beings. And not all laws are created equal.

Breaking the law by murdering someone is a whole lot different than breaking the law by jaywalking. And when a law has been broken over and over again and the authorities have basically turned a blind eye, it is problematic to all of a sudden turn absolutist on that law.

With illegal immigration it is even more so. We have in this issue a simple matter of supply and demand. America needs low skilled labor and people are willing to break the law (both employers and employees)to fulfill that need. I wish it were not so, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

For me this is more of an issue of national security, and border security, like a fence. Deporting 12 million people just ain't gonna happen. But border security needs to be a priority, and if that is compromised just to make a deal one that deal will prove to be a tragedy.

tbmbuzz said...

20 years ago the U.S. granted amnesty to 6,000,000 illegal alien lawbreakers. Nothing was done to secure the border. Now greedy American politicians are granting amnesty to 12-20,000,000 lawbreakers. Again, nothing will be done to secure the border. How many tens of millions of future illiterate lawbreakers will be granted amnesty next time, given the huge incentive they're being awarded?

Great. Let's continue to kick the decent folk trying to go through the legal immigration process. Let's continue to perpetuate the ignorant economic nonsense that we need illegal aliens to do jobs Americans "won't do". Let's allow liberal Democrats to solidify their death grip on the nation's political class with a huge new voting bloc that will increase theft by socialist government. As gringos, why don't we just turn over our 401Ks and IRAs to these illegals now? We'll be forced to do so sooner or later! Let's continue to accept the canard that it's "impossible" to deport millions of illegals, even though it hasn't actually ever been tried. Let's ram this legislation through without allowing the unwashed non-political class even to read it.

We may as well live in a Stalinist 3rd World country. That's what my 11 y.o. daughter and her children will experience. My dad, legal immigrant and survivor of Nazi and Communist concentration camps and prisons, is better off in his grave.

Evanston2 said...

I second Tom's motion to "do nothing" -- particularly compared to the "solution" presently offered.