Posted on 05/23/2006 8:25:20 AM PDT by Gordongekko909
The immigration bill before Congress has some of the most serious consequences for the future of this country. Yet it is not being discussed seriously by most politicians or most of the media. Instead, it is being discussed in a series of glib talking points that insult our intelligence.
Some of the most momentous consequences -- a major increase in the number of immigrants admitted legally -- are not even being discussed at all by those who wrote the Senate bill, though Senator Jeff Sessions has uncovered those provisions in the bill and brought them out into the light of day.
How many times have we heard that illegal aliens are taking "jobs that Americans won't do"? Just what specifically are those jobs?
Even in occupations where illegals are concentrated, such as agriculture, cleaning, construction, and food preparation, the great majority of the work is still being done by people who are not illegal aliens.
The highest concentration of illegals is in agriculture, where they are 24 percent of the people employed. That means three-quarters of the people are not illegal aliens. But when will the glib phrase-mongers stop telling us that the illegals are simply taking "jobs that Americans won't do"?
Another insult to our intelligence is that amnesty is not amnesty if you call it something else. The fact that illegals will have to fulfill certain requirements to become American citizens is supposed to mean that this is not amnesty.
But let's do what the spinmeisters hope we will never do -- stop and think. Amnesty is overlooking ("forgetting," as in amnesia) the violation of the law committed by those who have crossed our borders illegally.
The fact that there are requirements for getting American citizenship is a separate issue entirely. Illegal aliens who do not choose to seek American citizenship are under no more jeopardy than before. They have de facto amnesty.
Yet another insult to our intelligence is saying that, since we cannot find and deport 12 million people, the only choice left is to find some way to make them legal.
There is probably no category of law-breakers -- from counterfeiters to burglars or from jay-walkers to murderers -- who can all be found and arrested. But no one suggests that we must therefore make what they have done legal.
Such an argument would suggest that there is nothing in between 100 percent effective law enforcement and zero percent effective law enforcement.
The reverse twist on this argument is that suddenly taking 12 million people out of the labor force would disrupt the economy. No one has ever said -- or probably even dreamed -- that we could suddenly find all 12 million illegal immigrants at once and send them all home immediately. This is another straw man argument.
The real question is what we do with whatever illegal aliens we do find. Right now, there are various communities around the country where local officials have a policy of forbidding the police from reporting illegal immigrants to federal authorities.
Why are people who are so gung ho for punishing employers so utterly silent about needing to punish government officials who openly and deliberately violate federal laws?
Employers, after all, are not in the business of law enforcement.
If some guy who runs a hardware store or a dry cleaning business hires someone who shows some forged documents, why should the employer be fined for not being able to tell the difference, when government officials who can tell the difference are not doing anything -- or are even actively obstructing federal laws?
Putting unarmed national guardsmen on the border is another cosmetic move, a placebo instead of real medicine. The excuse is that it is not possible to train more than 1,500 border patrol agents a year. Meanwhile, we have trained well over 200,000 Iraqi security forces while guerilla warfare raged around them.
You can put a million people on the border and it will mean nothing if those who are caught are simply turned loose and sent back to try again tomorrow -- or perhaps later the same day.
Bush and his country club republican buddies think we're stupid. And I guess he's right, because there are people still talking about how we have to keep republicans in office after the massive screwing we true conservatives have gotten over the years the republicans have been in charge of looting and squandering.
Basically what the congresscritters are saying is,"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Dorothy".They have their agenda and the public be damned.Its VOTES, VOTES, VOTES!
Bordering? Very punny but there's nothing borderline about the fraud being perpetrated by this Senate.
BUMP
Sowell is usually so right on. Sad to see his reasoning fail here. If 24% of agriculture jobs are done by illegals, who presumably are paid lower wages than Americans, I would expect Sowell to make some argument about the folly of minimum wage and the *relative* unwillingness of Americans to do the work for the wages offered. That would have been consistent with most of his prior economic analysis.
I find it odd that you have to hunt hard to find any everyday leftist liberal progressives in favor of this.
The pols have some agenda, other than pleasing their voters.
I can't help but think that if we worked on removing some of these incentives, the illegals who are here for the free goodies would go back to where they came from.
Dr. Sowell on immigration ping!
With regard to public schooling, the USSC has ruled that states may not deny it to children of illegals.
The VA dept theft of Social Security numbers suggests that someone is thinking all the illegals coming are going to need some some SS#s as the Senate is set to legalize identity theft.
As usual, a REAL conservative like Sowell is right on the mark.
"How many times have we heard that illegal aliens are taking "jobs that Americans won't do"? Just what specifically are those jobs?"
Jobs slave labor employers want to fill at minimal wage, with no benefits and no chance of ever getting a promotion, in short, jobs that no body except someone coming from a barrio in South America would accept.
After all, they can't ship EVERYTHING to Red China and India.
Is THIS the standard we ant to set for American employees in the future?
I doubt it.
BTTT
This is why I support a fence so much. Kicking people back across the border won't make a difference without one; they'll just try again later. 12 million illegals, honestly, is not that big a deal. That open door that more keep coming through? That's a problem.
I'm going to answer a rhetorical question with the obvious answer. It's because government is empowered by plundering form the hardworking and squandering on the politically well connected (the mouthy lazy poor, the unions, and the corporations). Government isn't ever going to do anything that diminishes it's power - not ever. If you actually ask proof of citizenship, then there might be a lesser need for government with fewer freebies being provided, and we just can't have that!
The sad thing is, its not really the big corporations that utilize illegal labor (I know, Tyson did but...). Its usually independent building contractors, mom and pop restaurants and "family" farmers.
Sowell is right here. Take your analysis a few steps beyond where you stopped.
That we need to eliminate minimum wage? Sure. But it won't happen. Would we be stronger economically if we could dramatically cut down the number of illegals? Not if we didn't eliminate the minimum wage and various other social benefits that create disincentives for taking low paying work.
Is it an "insult" to decide to offer foreign worker status to a large portion of the illegals currently here (because that would sanction law breaking)? No more than it was to end Prohibition back in the 30s when millions of Americans became lawbreakers.
Is Sowell right about having stronger border enforcement? Yes, to a point. But he maybe ought to go back and re-read his own book, Knowledge and Decisions.
A good summation of what we're seeing out of the Senate and this White House vis a vis immigration.
I don't want to hear about "comprehensive immigration reform". The whole notion is a sleight of hand, a way of dressing something up that you would never accept, and selling it to you with a pink bow on it.
Secure the border. Do that, and enforce current law, and the problem will resolve itself. Fail to secure the border, and nothing will work. Fail to secure the border, and the whole "comprehensive" immigration bill is exposed as a con game, and we are the patsy.
We don't need any new law to secure the border. They are selling us on the idea that to secure the border we need this huge new complex of laws, and thats a lie. It could be done today, if there is a will to do it, the volunteers already showed that it can be done.
If they can't, or won't, secure the border, why should we trust them with immigration reform? If they can't, or won't, secure the border, why should we trust them in office at all?
That comparison also qualifies as an insult to our intelligence.
There is no parallel between AMERICANS taking a drink and INVADERS violating our sovereignty and being rewarded for it with one of the most valuable things on earth: AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP.
One solution that has been offered is the "Nuclear Option" at the polls for the House for 2006. (Save the Senate for judicial nominees) Allow the Dems to take the House for the next two years as a message if this passes.
(No harm will be done with all the Dems hearings and investigations. That'll keep em busy for the next two years and they'll show their true colors for 2008.)
"They think you're stupid". -Herman Cain
Great article.He brings up some good points.TS:"Another insult to our intelligence...since we cannot find and deport 12 million people,the only choice left is to find some way to make them legal."That's simply a defeatist attitude propagated by the msm,dims,and pro-amnesty groups.It would take time,but if we secure the border(wall),and begin to deport illegals already here the problem will be solved over time.The big problem is getting everyone from the federal level on down on the same page.
The sad part of all of this is that the Afro-Americans that now do the majority of the concrete and block work and most of the other manual labor in construction will be out of work, replaced by imports that will work for less.
You may think my statement was an insult to your intelligence. But dozens of Freepers have been constantly asking me "what part of 'illegal' don't you understand?" Clearly, for them if not for you, the issue is more one of legality than of economics.
For them, my analogy is spot on. In the 30s they'd have been yelling about the kind of precedent it would set to make alcohol legal again.
Except that if the illegals begin "working legally," they'll have to be paid, I assume, some kind of minimum wage, thus leveling the playing field for Blacks.
I just find a vast difference between CITIZENS taking a drink of alcohol and FOREIGN NATIONALS trashing the sovereignty of the United States and being rewarded for it. Know what I mean?
The answer is they won't and you shouldn't. To be honest, I'm reaching a certain point of disinterest in this topic. They've shown their cards and it's obvious how this is going to go down. Whether a bill is passed or not, the effect is the same: Dems will eventually (sooner than later) take permanent power as a result of changing demographics.
Since the debate about the course of this nation is essentially over, there's better things to do like figuring out how to get a piece of the new pie. As any Calif conservative knows, they are no longer even part of the debate. So the real focus in on golf, fishing & surfing.
It will be interesting to see what leisure/entertainment industries/services emerge as the rest of the country gets used to these facts.
What about Wal-Mart, Target, etc and Home Dept? I reallly don't know for sure about them, just asking.
Tyson shut down that day the illegals demonstrated and I know there other companies, but can't remember them.
Every worker I have met at Targets in New Jersey, New York, or Washington State has at least had the ability to speak basic English, 95% being native born IME.
Not sure about Home Depot, as I never set foot in that sprawling hellhole.
Good for you. But let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that you could somehow be persuaded that having 10 million low wage illegal workers in the country was good for our economy. If that were the case, then you wouldn't have a serious problem with decriminalizing their status, right?
ping
"Not sure about Home Depot, as I never set foot in that sprawling hellhole."
Hey, its a great place to buy concrete and scrap wood.
I don't buy anything else there.
But when will the glib phrase-mongers stop telling us that the illegals are simply taking "jobs that Americans won't do"?
Sowell is usually so right on. Sad to see his reasoning fail here.
Bush has also apparently learned that the word "amnesty" does not poll well. On Monday night, he angrily denounced the idea of amnesty just before proposing his own amnesty program. The difference between Bush's amnesty program and "amnesty" is: He'd give amnesty only to people who have been breaking our laws for many years — not just a few months. (It's the same program that allows Ted Kennedy to stay in the Senate.) -Ann Coulter..
And I'm on the other side of the issue because I take issue with his reasoning. So what?
Our national sovereignty and the value of the rule of law is beyond economic price.
Except that if the illegals begin "working legally," they'll have to be paid, I assume, some kind of minimum wage
The point being that his reasoning is fine. The idea of you taking exception to it has no bearing on wether his reasoning is failing.
It would be like asking Michael Moore to give a balanced view of conservatives in his next movie.
""Even in occupations where illegals are concentrated, such as agriculture, cleaning, construction, and food preparation, the great majority of the work is still being done by people who are not illegal aliens.""
Why are people who are so gung ho for punishing employers so utterly silent about needing to punish government officials who openly and deliberately violate federal laws? ""
Putting unarmed national guardsmen on the border is another cosmetic move, a placebo instead of real medicine. The excuse is that it is not possible to train more than 1,500 border patrol agents a year. Meanwhile, we have trained well over 200,000 Iraqi security forces while guerilla warfare raged around them.
You can put a million people on the border and it will mean nothing if those who are caught are simply turned loose and sent back to try again tomorrow -- or perhaps later the same day.""
Thank you................ Tom Sowell(FOR PRESIDENT)
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Ok, so for you it's the potential social impact, not really the "law breaking," per se. Just wanted to clarify.
I am going to take the time to send a copy of this article to my Senators and Congressman. They somehow have to understand that we understand what is happening here.
Oh, well now you're just being an ass. Or a "Sowell-bot."
Judges, Judges Judges. Sorry but your Moveon.org direct Democrat Party lies about "Betrayed Conservatives" is nuked by the difference in Judges appointed by the GOP vrs Democrat Judges. Only a complete political idiot or liar would talk about "Screwed Conservatives". GW Bush has done MORE for the Conservative movement in the Judges he appointed then all the Democrat mouthpieces pretending to be "Betrayed Conservatives" have or ever with with their Perpetual Bitching. Adults understand 60% of something is better then 100% of nothing. Only spoiled brat children throw tmpertantrums because they do not get only 100% of only what THEY personally want. Wander back to DU now, your DNC direct propaganda fools no one here.
Keep up the fight Tom!
Precisely.
Except one would think it was being created by Senators suffering from Borderline Psychosis.
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