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February 21, 2008
Lawrence Downes "Power" Lunches with Sweet Lou Dobbs
Lawrence Downes has a fun column today about his lunch with Lou Dobbs -- and their discussion of "broken borders." Click here to read it.
KJ
February 21, 2008 | Permalink
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"My point to Mr. Dobbs was that the little-little guy — the “illegal alien” crossing our “broken borders” — was the wrong target. His overriding emphasis on solving globalization’s many ills by urgently sealing the borders strikes me as populism gone astray."
Dobbs actually targets La Raza, the ACLU, the SPLC and pathetic advocate rags like the New York Times moreso than the little-little guy, for these are the people that seem to have forgotten that it is the welfare of this nation that our Constitution was written to protect. The so-called "little-guy" is not a citizen, and by acting contrary to our laws in entering this country illicitly is disruptive of law and order. The ACLU, et al advocate charity-first to our foreign neighbors over rule of law that's served this country well for over 124-years. This philosophy should outrage every citizen who values the set of rules that differentiate our form of government from that of a dictatorship.
"First, it’s ineffective, because the country will never be ziplocked as tightly as he wants it to be. The price of trying is too high, and it ignores the millions who enter the country legally but overstay. Most shamefully, it does nothing to resolve the fates of the 12 million undocumented already here."
Tough employment enforcement and making the cost of crossing the border high to those who would do so will reduce illegal immigration to a minimum. The price of not preventing illegal immigration: the infiltration of criminal gangs, fugitives from justice, the entry of terrorist agents, drug smuggling, etc is too high to ignore. At least the overstayers have had some kind of background check prior to entry. The fate of the 12 million has always been in the hands of the countries to they hold allegience and the illegal immigrants themselves. Downes shows his insulting patronizing nature here. The shame is with Mexico and its people, for if they had been competent in ruling their democracy, the economic conditions that cause their people to move north would not exist. Mexico is one of the richest nations in the Central/South American region, but all they can do for their people is blame the U.S. for their predicament.
"Second, the obsession with enforcement dovetails with the agendas of some nasty people: the nativists for whom immigration is a simple case of brown and white, of preserving “American” culture by keeping Latinos out."
Everyone who's argued the sacredness of our sovereign right to determine our own destiny by advocating orderling control of our borders is considered a nativist by these people. People like Downes would like his readers to ignore that we permit more immigration into this country than the rest of the world combined, yet they would still deny us the smallest measure of control and insult those who would advocate an orderly rational plan in accordance with law.
"Third, it does too little to attack the evil corporate elites that are Mr. Dobbs’s sworn enemy. What makes illegal immigrants so delectable to big, bad business is their illegality — their willingness to work cheap and under the table. So why not legalize and tax them? Assimilate the good guys, as this country has always done, and save law enforcement for the bad ones."
"But that’s “amnesty,” a Dobbsian expletive. It’s the opposite of the crackdowns endorsed by him and the hard-liners he praises, like the Minutemen."
Yes, that is indeed amnesty. It gives the transgressors exactly what they want with little incentive for others to obey our immigration laws, inviting contempt ad infinitum ffrom those who would do the same in the future. Ignore the law, come in number sufficient to make it near impossible or too expensive for the citizens to deport, and an amnesty will be their reward, just as occurred in 1986. Downes would ask us to commit the same stupid act again and again, with the same negtive results. And this who the NYT thinks is wise enough to give the public good advice. I don't think so. Even the GAO believes that CIR would only reduce illegal immigration by 25 percent.
Posted by: Horace | Feb 25, 2008 11:28:11 AM
"The ACLU, et al advocate charity-first to our foreign neighbors over rule of law that's served this country well for over 124-years."
Change sentence to read "over 218-years."
Posted by: Horace | Feb 26, 2008 9:28:10 PM
