The answer to these questions may not come by so easily because it seems much depends on our various interests and different views. For example, if we asked the first thousand people we came across in the street what they meant by justice, we would be sure to get a thousand thumbnail definitions as assured as the slick first-rate, highly paid shyster. Yet it took arguably the greatest philosopher of all time, Plato, a whole book, The Republic, to answer that very question. Just shows how little we can trust less knowledgeable “experts” trying to answer difficult questions with simple answers.
While we all have the right of opinion, it hardly means that we all have the right opinion. Many are bound to clash with others. And when we are so adamant about clinging to our pet interests, they, too, will clash with those held by others. In the instant case, we see todAay how our state laws differ and our Congress does little to soften the obduracy of the differing sides in trying to reach a reasonable solution to the benefit of the entire nation, while each side wants and expects to prevail.
To complicate matters, the exploding numbers of illegals and the numbers of their interested legal advisers, who see gold in defending them and find places in the political system now have more power in determining legislation that favors the illegals and the definition of what is “legal” itself, rendering the question we asked at the start all but moot.
On the side of the illegals, we hear and can empathize with them in part, when they say, “this nation was founded by and is a nation of immigrants,” “this nation has been made strong and great by its diversity of immigrants,” “we seek a better life, like anyone else – and willing to work for it,” “we pay taxes, like any other American and are not a burden on the State,” “we love this country and will be good American citizens,” “we are human beings who don’t deserve to be discriminated against or to be profiled anymore than any other person,” etc.
There are many who defend the employer and our country as beneficiary of the work the illegals contribute to our economy. Among the employers there are the landowners, farmers, restaurants, salons, hotels, resorts, parks, zoos, garbage collection, and construction industries: homes, commercial, streets, expressways, sweat shops that fill our department stores, etc. Their chief argument is that “it is work that no one else will do,” which means invariably legal [especially “white”] Americans, and it is indispensable work to our economy.
The first white man who set foot upon the western hemisphere [as unwelcome as he may have been] was surely an immigrant, as were the millions of Europeans who continued flowing upon these shores. And there was a time when immigrants were in fact greatly needed to work the land and build our infrastructure. But then came a time when the flow of immigrants had to be stopped, because it was no longer desirable to have endless immigrants bulking our population, for we had reached the point of diminishing returns. In short, the unneeded, unwanted immigrant was no longer welcome. The fact that this land was founded by and is made of up immigrants is totally irrelevant to today’s issue of illegal immigration.
Lawyers who defend illegals do our country a disservice, since they should know better, however much they argue for the “inhuman” hardships the illegals suffer because they are not given the benefits of legal Americans. They may be human beings, but they are illegal ones. A murderer is a human being, but that doesn’t make him innocent of crime and eligible for rewards and special privileges. That they should make good American citizens is more than slightly dubious, since they were ready to abandon their country for “a better life.” It seems rather that their eagerness to abandon their country makes them opportunists, hardly material for loyal American citizens.
To say that we need 12-13 million illegals to do the work that “no one else wants to do” is pretty much putting the cart before the horse, is it not? According to latest figures, there are millions of American citizens out of work and some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, considered “homeless.” Now, supposing we eliminated those 12-13 million illegals AND closed all the havens for the homeless, would we still have jobs that “no one else wants to do?” [There would always be some kind of haven for the proven infirm.] Forgive me if I can’t hear for the deafening silence.
It’s more than high time that we stopped fooling ourselves and made some sense of the kinds of messes we are quite geniuses at consistently creating for ourselves. Let’s go back to the “indispensable concept” we proposed for making a start at trying to solve our immigration crisis. We mentioned the next thousand people we met would give us a thumbnail definition of “justice.” Yet, arguably the greatest philosopher of all time, Plato, needed a whole book, The Republic, to define the term. That’s how much we can depend upon slightly less enlightened people to present us with easy answers to such complex problems. Without going into Plato’s book, as a working concept, we can at least say, what few would disagree with, that justice cannot make sense if we do not have at the same time reward and punishment: we reward those who obey the law and punish those who disobey [break] the law. How very simple even if not so easy. All we need now is to determine, as our Constitution enjoins us: a reward or punishment that fits the deed [the patriotic duty or the crime]. We also need honest [patriotic] judges, prosecutors, and legislators. [Where might we find such creatures, or as we remember how Diogenes went around in daylight with his lamp looking for the honest man?]
We can well empathize with anyone who is seeking the better life, like the rapist, holdup man, mugger, or white collar crooks who bilk people [associates, clients, friends, the company, and our nation] out of billions of dollars when they create a world financial crisis for their pleasure, that is, “seeking the better life.” A wetback is not normally seen as either a rapist or white collar crook, fleecing the country of billions of dollars, chiefly because we picture him wading across the Rio Grande mostly in the evening or night alone or sometimes with a couple of family members. We even feel a tender sympathy for them when we hear of their hardships if they get caught, get raped or robbed by the coyote, or die from thirst and hunger trying to drag themselves across the burning deserts of Arizona Texas
If we are not entirely brain dead and decide that punishment should fit the crime – breaking our federal laws [if that means anything anymore] – we should consider the crime of illegal immigration as we do rape, or carrying a female across state lines for sex or prostitution. What do we do in such cases, offer the rapist free education, medical care, food stamps, etc.? Don’t we slam him in the hoosegow and hand him a hefty prison term? Why haven’t we done that with the wetbacks? One of our quickie solutions is to deport them. Another is to offer them amnesty, as some lame-brained politicians have suggested more than once. How much would it cost the tax-paying American to ship back 12-13 million illegals? That’s unadulterated insanity. Amnesty is tantamount to announcing to the world that it is perfectly correct to break our federal laws – at their pleasure.
Sanity and reason would demand that all illegals, past, present, and future, be slammed into prison for the same amount of time a rapist would get. Since he had no legal right to be here, he has no legal status. Therefore he must pay as he goes in the same way as if he were living in Mexico , China
There has been a misplaced sympathy for the separation of families. These are not our concern but that of the family involved. They are the ones willing to take the risks; like any gambler, they must pay the consequences when they lose. If he is dragged into jail and leaves his family behind because they are “not guilty,” they will not stay here only because they are not guilty. They, too, have no legal status in this country, because they were not supposed to be here legally in the first place; hence, they will be taken back most economically in a bus to the border and left on the other side. It is the concern of the affected parties to make preparations before they come to violate our laws as to the care of family if left at the border.
With such inflexible procedure and expectations on the part of those anticipating an illegal venture across the border, there should be more contemplation by future adventurers before any attempt, because there will be no free ride back home, which they almost invariably take advantage of by making repeated attempts until they succeed – at the American taxpayer’s expense. Rigorously sweeping them out of sweat shops, restaurants, salons, hotels, etc. will leave prospective lawbreakers scant opportunity for employment and be more than a little discouraging for future illegals, less burden on the American taxpayer, and more employment for Americans in need of work, even those who think today that they would not do that kind of work, because to fill that loop hole, we can save even more tax money by closing all havens and feed bags for the homeless, and then produce plenty of jobs available with 12-13 million less illegals on our premises, and reducing the unemployment rates within our borders. (There would be havens for invalid homeless.) [See a fuller discussion on this subject in my Missing in
Of course, if we can’t be bothered with doing things right because it’s too much trouble, too cruel, too much to think about, we can always leave things as they are. Why not? We love letting things “just happen.” It’s easier that way, isn’t it? But, then, would we have a right to complain?
David Hernandez, Ph. D. Labels: Illegal Immigration
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