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Friday, 21 June 2013 10:59

Amnesty v. Reason

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Let’s be blunt: Anyone who endorses anything remotely resembling the “comprehensive immigration reform” currently bandied about in Congress is either a fool or a liar.

Amnesty — and make no mistakes about it, “comprehensive immigration reform,” “a pathway to citizenship,” and whatever other euphemisms its apologists invoke do nothing to change the fact that it is amnesty that they favor — is a fool’s errand of epic proportions. This becomes obvious once we consider it in light of an analogy from everyday life.

You’re a married woman. Chief among the obligations inherent in marriage is that of fidelity. Now, your spouse has chronically failed to fulfill this most basic of duties. Finally, you’ve had enough. Upon threatening your philandering spouse with divorce, he acknowledges that your marriage is “broken” before swearing to not only to change, but to change radically. Not only will he stop cheating, he promises to transform himself into the epitome of the subservient, loyal, and loving husband.

While you would doubtless want to believe this, you could not do so. 

No one could.

Unfortunately, none of the good sense on display here is present in this debate over amnesty — even though the reasoning for the latter is identical to the reasoning of the unfaithful husband or wife. 

It is among the most basic obligations of a government to secure its country’s borders. As fidelity is essential to preserving the integrity of marriage, so too is border security essential to preserving the integrity of a nation. Indeed, a government that fails to secure its country’s borders is unfaithful to its citizens.

Now, according to the Senate Gang of Eight’s plan, the government will be expected not only to secure the border, but to see to it that a whole lot of other conditions are satisfied by those who are on “the pathway to citizenship.”

There are a few things to note here. 

First, if the government either can’t or won’t fulfill its simplest and most basic of obligations in securing the country’s borders now, there is zero reason to accept its assurances that it will fulfill this duty as well as a bunch of new duties later. As my old martial arts instructor used to say, you’ve got to learn how to walk before you can learn how to run.

With respect to this issue, our government hasn’t yet learned how to walk, or even crawl. But the Gang of Eight and their accomplices in the media would have us believe that with the stroke of a pen, the federal government will instantaneously become a marathon runner. 

Second, border security is as big a non-negotiable in governing as fidelity is a non-negotiable in marriage. The citizens of the United States should no more have to negotiate with their government to secure its borders than spouses should have to negotiate with one another to refrain from engaging in adultery. Spouses owe it to each other to be faithful. Similarly, the government owes it to its citizens to secure their borders.

However, when Marco Rubio or Chuck Schumer or any other politician favoring amnesty tells us that in order to secure the border we must first place millions of illegal immigrants on a “pathway” to citizenship, what they are essentially saying is that we, the people’s elected representatives, the government, will not discharge our constitutional duty unless you go along with what we want. 

Translation: Border security most definitely is negotiable.

And their accomplices in the media, most tragically the so-called “conservative” media, echo this sentiment. 

Finally, when Chuck Schumer, Marco Rubio, and their allies in Washington inform us that our immigration system is “broken,” they admit, albeit unwittingly, that they, Republicans and Democrats alike, broke it. Only now, after decades of breaking the system apart piece by piece, they expect citizens to trust them to construct a new system that is better than ever — a system that will magically solve all our immigration related issues once and forever. 

To take seriously such a claim is to expose oneself as a fool. To get others to take it seriously is to expose oneself as a liar.

1 comment

  • Comment Link kuudbe Sunday, 23 June 2013 05:10 posted by kuudbe

    I like your marriage analogy, but why don't you finish it? The maried woman is obviously working a 100 hour week, her husband living off of her while spending his time and her money wining and dining other women, and the mistresses enjoying free enterntaiment. But the husband does feel his wife's pain (the mistresses keep demanding more expensive wines too) and, realizing that there is as problem, proposes a "radical" and ''comprehensive'' solution. If his wife lets him bring all twenty women he is now cheating with into his bedroom, (not imnediately, they will have to cook him a dinner first), he will promise not to entertain any additional women. What's wrong with that, wife? Are you a misogynist?

    One real issue is that the term "problem of illegal immigration" is ambiguous. Whereas most define it as the "problem that many people knowingly break laws by entering country ", the government defines it as the "problem that immigration is sometimes illegal". It is this second problem that requires radical and comprehensive change. This explains why proponents link border control to amnesty. Indeed, if the problem of illegal immigration is the first problem, then the two issues have nothing in common.

    The gang of eight, et. al. are playing a clever ruse. They make it appear that they are willing to trade border secuirty for amnesty. As unpalpable as it sounds, it is be\tter than what they are really dong, and that is, they are trading amnesty for border secuirty. In other words, they are willing to delay amnesty in exchange for appeasing critics with the illusion of border security. Given the opportunity, they would open up the borders immediately and grant full amnesty immediately.

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