Posted on 10/04/2007 7:11:44 AM PDT by pissant
The Great Immigration Debate remains at full throttle. Never far from the minds of Americans is the ever-present urgency of doing something about the twelve to twenty million illegal aliens now here. Add to that the concern over the hundreds or thousands more entering our country each day, and the disquiet often boils over into heated exchanges filled with charges and counter charges, rhetoric that is at once infuriating, confusing, and -- to this point -- solution-less. The atmosphere has become so charged that resolutions to these issues are fervently presented, sometimes to the point of abandoning our core values.
Well, just one core value -- the rule of law. American laws are clear regarding illegal aliens. They are to be detained and deported, action that in fact has rarely happened since the great wave of illegals began to push into, primarily, America's southwest in the 1970s. By the mid-1980s lawmakers saw the looming threat to American society, responding with the passage of the Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, granting amnesty to 2.7 million illegal aliens and requiring border enforcement and employer sanctions for hiring undocumented workers. It came to be, in Ronald Reagan's own words, his biggest presidential regret. Why? Because virtually none of the provisions were ever, and I mean ever, enforced. The rule of law was simply ignored. The border remained porous, employers continued to hire illegals with impunity, and few aliens were deported, resulting in an incredible nine to seventeen million more illegal aliens flooding into America in the following twenty-one years. Now, it's a real mess.
School systems are failing, courts and prisons are overflowing, hospitals and emergency rooms are closing, welfare systems are stretched to the breaking point, streets in major and medium-sized cities are not safe as gangs and gang violence proliferate, all in no small part due to illegal immigration. The one thing that is universally agreed upon is the need for a solution, but consensus on one or even a set of solutions seems impossible to achieve. Incredibly, the Speaker of the House is on record as opposing a fence along the southern border, the mayors of Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York have flatly stated they will not enforce deportation laws, and even some Republicans, nay, most Republicans refuse to advocate the administration of existing law. Only Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter steadfastly standby the rule of law. This does not bode well for the country or the Republican Party.
In congressional debate and talk-radio chatter, reasons to accept the abandonment of the rule of law proliferate like flies in a cow pasture. We are told there is no political will to enforce existing laws, doing so would alienate the Hispanic vote, and Hillary may be elected as a result. Yikes, the reasoning goes, throw out that damn rule of law! Anything to keep Hillary out of the White House! Such a short-term solution may be ruinous in the end.
Core values are never to be discarded, for political expediency or any other reason. Rather, they always shape policy, always determine courses of action, always provide unerring guidance as we wrestle with tough issues. To cast overboard a core value in the name of electability is to become -- my apologies to Democratic readers -- Democrats! We rail at liberals who flip-flop on critical matters, and whose core values are paper thin to non-existent. To abandon the rule of law for any reason is to abandon our principles, and what sort of governors shall we be when we cashier our values to gain election victories? Do we expect a baptism of principle while taking the oath of office? This is precisely the err Republicans made from 1996 onward. We abandoned principle for political gain, but the voters noticed and the chickens came home to roost in 2006.
Jettisoning the rule of law at this crucial time, over this critical issue, will be a catastrophe for Republicans and the country. The distinction between a valueless, vote-hungry Republican and your average Democrat will fade to obscurity. The political contest will devolve to arguments about the size of government handouts, including amnesty, not the great principles which should inform every decision and policy we advocate. We must take a stand for our core values, or victory will be meaningless and solutions to illegal immigration will remain elusive.
Yep.
Ping
Explains why folks like Hugh Hewitt, Medved, Bill bennett, and Sean are perfectly happy with a Rudy presidency. Idiots all.
ping
1. 2008 has a RINO version of Ross Perot with a legion of true believers ready to tank anyone else nominated.
2. The Pubbie party is terrified at the thought they might appear "mean spirited" to the 'independents' out there who would never vote republican anyway.
3. "Compassionate Conservatism" is still around for use in flogging any republican candidate.
4. Conflicting policies during the Bush years are enough to confuse any observer - and conflict any potential participant.
5. The media has largely ceased to attempt at hiding it's socialist bias and openly exercises it daily.
6. Public school systems - no further comment needed.
Those are the things that bode ill for the country and the party.
(Yep)
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