Ed, We disagree on a few points. You said, Those who complain that illegals broke the law because they didn’t even try to go through the dysfunctional American immigration system should direct their anger at the system, not the immigrants.
Laws should exist or not, and if they are valid laws (i.e., should exist) then they should be enforced. It is very hard to get a bank to just give you money because you want it, but that isn't justification for robbing the bank, and it wouldn't make sense to get mad at the banks obstruction of your desires, or to get mad at the laws that further frustate taking any money you want.
---------------- In a prior article you wrote: ...the reason so many immigrants come to this country illegally, especially from Mexico and Latin America, is that the federal government has failed for decades to provide an easy means for legal entry for those who want to come here to work.
But it could be said that the reason some criminals rob banks is because the banks won't just give them the money voluntarily. That skips the issue, which is, "Should there be laws that control entry into the country?" (I happen to be in favor of a easy to use guest worker program to go along with a tightly secured border. And I agree that the current immigration system needs major reform, but that isn't the same thing as saying it should be ignored, or that no immigration system is needed.)
-------------------- Obama rightly points out that it’s unrealistic to expect the government to round up and deport millions of illegal immigrants. Something must be done.
That is like a bank guard that lets robbers walk into the vault and help themselves to money and walk out, saying, "It is too late now to do anything about all those robbers. There are too many of them because it has been going on for too long. We should declare amnesty and start over some how." Actually there are methods of enforcing a degree of self-deportation. And, it is really an opportunity to pick and choose to some degree who will be good for the country and who won't. Obama is pretending to be doing that to a degree with his "longer than 5 years and no criminal record." But the people can get around the 5 year thing with phony documents, and the criminals will still come in illegally and just won't register. The system will be more broken. Progressives don't really care about the immigrants We should keep the good ones and deport the others. But, the real issue is about securing the border against the future millions who will otherwise walk over the border. That is the first "something that must be done." The alternative is an open border and I think that is nonsense in today's world. The Dems say this is for 4 million people and just temporary. But in fact it will be for as many as are willing to find false apartment rental receipts dated 5 years ago. And it will be for the next 10 million or so that stream across the border in the next 3 years or so because they too are willing to use false reciepts. And it is a temportary stay of deportation so that they will be energized to vote for the Dems who will promise to make it permanent. And they will all have legal IDs after they register so they then can vote. ("But that wouldn't be legal!" Gee, that's true, but they came here illegally, so it isn't very far fetched is it?) It is a nasty bit of political manuvering designed to achieve an unstoppable majority for Progressives so they can achieve the transformation of the country into the particular form of socialism they seek. And along the way it will be used to demonize the Republicans and make them look heartless, to increase acceptance of the principles of elites doing what they say is right, and an a desireable altruistic goal, and diminishing the remaining status of the Constitution, and shifting power from the legislative branch, and eroding the checks and balances.
---------------------- Republicans are wrong and, indeed seem meanspirited to deny the virtues of immigrants.
That strikes me as hyperbole. Each immigrant has their own set of virtues as they are all individuals. Some of them are viscious criminals and some of them are honest, hardworking folk, and the bulk of them are neither undesireable or especially desireable if you are thinking of who would you like to come to this country. But all of them broke a law. They weren't invited into the country, and just like someone who isn't invited into my house, I would be getting them out (unless I decided I wanted this one or that one to stay) and I would set the terms on which they could stay, and I would be fixing the locks. Just because someone is very poor, and wants to come into a nice home and provide adequat shelter for his family doesn't constitute justification for breaking into my house.
---------------------- In that prior article you wrote: Republicans and conservatives should get beyond denouncing “amnesty” and seek ways to welcome those who want to come here and stay in this country that was, after all, founded by immigrants.
I'm just curious. Is there any limit to how many we are supposed to welcome. What about a billion over the next decade? There are two points I'd make here. First, because our country was founded, in part, by immigrants is not in itself a compelling reason to have open borders, or to declare amnesty. Second, there is a difference of opinion as to what is being welcomed. As I've said above, some immigrants make a welcome addition, and others we would be better off without. Also, there is the issue of what happens to a culture when it is flooded with people from an entirely different culture where the educational standards, the political beliefs, and the levels of skills and knowledge are much lower. If the rate of the influx is too high, then there will not be assimilation and the change in our culture will not be desirable. Let me put it this way. If there was a large nation somewhere, lets call it Atlantis, and it is populated by people of different races, ages, and ethnic backgrounds, but they tend to all be better educated than the average American, and most were stanch Objectivists, and most of them even had a delightful sense of humor... Well, I'd want to have as many of them come in as possible and I'd hope that the flood would be so great that we would end up assimilating their cultural characteristics.
------------------------- I'd like to see citizenship separated from being born in America, or to an American parent, as the only requirement. There should be two kinds of permanent status - An American Permanent Resident, and an American Citizen. Identical in all legal rights except for one. If you aren't a citizen, you can't vote or hold national office. I'd like to see citizenship become the end of a long process where the person has to learn American history, the Constitution, and the nature of individual rights and free enterprise. After all, look at where we are going with the current crop of voters. Which do we choose to see as sacred? The right to vote even if one is ignorant as dirt, or the right of all individuals to have a nation whose voters have been exposed to all the key political principles that liberty requires?
------------------------- Here is where we totally agree. That the gravest danger we face is in how Obama is doing his immigration reforms. We are a constitutional republic. The constitution is there specifically to ensure we are a nation of laws, and that the power of the government is limited - by that constitution. And we see the individual as the soveriegn power who delegates his power to the state. This is given form with the popular election of the representatives and by the constituion that restricts the making of all laws to those elected to the legislature. What Obama is doing with his executive orders is to destroy the concept of a nation of laws, of the protection of the constitution, and to deny the individual's legal rights to have the laws made by the legislators they chose. In one strike he wipes out the very nature of our form of government and puts in place the arbitrary issue of edicts from someone who is choosing not to answer to the people, the constitution of the laws of the land. If this continues the flood of new immigrants to this country may one day wake up wondering if they didn't leave one corrupt dictatorship to find themselves in another.
| 
