IMMIGRATION BILL DEAD AT LEAST FOR THE MOMENT
IMMIGRATION BILL DEAD—AT LEAST
FOR THE MOMENT: DEMOCRACY
TRIUMPHS—POWER TO THE PEOPLE
by
Ken Eliasberg
Last week we had a tangible demonstration that Democracy—at least the American version—is alive and well. The Amnesty Bill that President Bush and some members of Congress tried to palm off on us as a cure to our illegal immigration problems was shot down—by an irate public who resent being conned. Patronizing and pandering are things that the Dems have to do to attract votes; Republicans resent being treated as too stupid to recognize an AMNESTY BILL when they see one. And, while we’re on this point—AMNESTY—it might be well to point out why many of us view the Bill in this light, and it’s not, as various Senators would like you to believe, because we are all mindless robots in the sway of talk radio (one of the few honest and competent forms of media communication to which the American public can look in their search for the truth). Pausing for the moment, it is worthwhile to point out that a recent Pew study determined that talk radio had the most well-informed audience in America(in sharp contrast to several of our readers who saw fit to comment on my recent discussion on the substantive limitations of liberals). Back to why we see this as an amnesty measure, despite a barrage of attacks on our nativist tendencies for doing so.
One of the definitions provided by Black’s Law Dictionary is as follows:
“A soverign act of oblivion for past acts, granted by a government to all persons (or to certain persons) who have been guilty of crime or delict. generally political offenses — and often conditioned upon their return to obedience and duty within a prescribed time.” Further, it continues:
“Amnesty is the abolition and forgetfulness of the offense; pardon is forgiveness.”
Now one might argue, as the Administration and various members of Congress have, that the Bill did not offer a complete get-out-jail-free card since it imposed certain conditions on access to citizenship, i.e. a waiting period, payment of certain fines or taxes, possibly a brief return to the immigrant’s country of origin, etc.,etc. To me, and to many, these conditions amounted to little more than amnesty will some bells and whistles—a fairly minor slap on the wrist, resulting in the immigrant’s being propelled to the front of the citizenship line. However, it’s worse than that—the Bill was so complicated that it is doubtful that the immigrant could even determine what duties were imposed on him even if he were inclined to assume them (and it is extremely doubtful that he would be so inclined). Moreover, it imposed ridiculous compliance duties on our enforcement people (formerly INS, now Home Security), e.g. to conduct a critical background check in 24 hours. Have any of you ever dealt with the INS? Hell, those guys couldn’t find their way home in 24 hours. In short, the Bill was a complete farce, and, if passed, setting aside for the moment our skepticism as to whether the enforcement provisions would be taken seriously, would result in our sitting here 20 years down the road—as we now are doing with respect to the 1986 Amnesty Bill- with 20 or 30 more million illegal immigrants (and probably a hundred thousand or so terrorists).
However, it was not the amnesty aspect of this Bill that resulted in its defeat—as previously noted, the public might have swallowed the Bill in its entirety if they believed for one moment that the enforcement aspect of the Bill would have been enforced. Based on our history with enforcement the Public had no reason to believe that such would be the case (which, indeed, it would not). Critics, and I certainly count myself among their number, argued—in response to McCain’s request to offer up an alternative if you disagreed with the Bill (the McCain/Kennedy Bill)—that, for openers, how about enforcing existing laws? Or, better yet, how about adopting the House Bill’s enforcement measures in addition to existing law enforcement? And then waiting about 5 years for the public to determine just how serious you were about enforcement. If the public found that you were acting in good faith and had secured the borders, then I strongly believe that the path to
guest worker treatment for the 10 to12 million (which probably is more like 20 million) illegals currently in the country might move right through the Congress. To which Senator Kennedy responds “we can’t ship these people home” the burden would be too great. No one is asking you to ship them home; we’re merely asking you to suspend action on them for 5 years. What’s the problem? They’re living in the shadows, you say. They’ve been living in the shadows for 20 years—5 more won’t hurt them. In short, what’s wrong with separating enforcement and guest worker treatment? NOTHING!!!
Who lost here? Certainly, George Bush gathered no glory on this measure. As I have previously observed, after the 2006 election, Bush has very little political capital left; it was unfortunate that he chose to expend it on this unfortunate effort. They have been trying to dig George Bush’s grave for 6 years; with his support of this ill-conceved measure I believe that he has jumped right into it. Republican Senators, like McCain and Lindsey Graham have suffered considerable damage. And Harry Reid and the Democrat Senate certainly did not gain much in this pathetic effort at muscle flexing. That said, I think it may cost Republicans dearly in the 2008 election, and this, at least in the short run, may prove a very high price for this success—one, that, nonetheless, I believe is worth paying.
Who won? America!! The Public rose up on their heels and refused to be steamrollered by a bunch of legislators who wanted to jam this worthless piece of legislation down their throats. It was gratifying to see the public response to this Bill. It proved that an engaged public is the cornerstone of a real Democracy. I was pleased when the public reaction to the Harriet Miers appointment resulted in her refusing the appointment; in my opinion, she was not a worthy choice. I am more than pleased with the rejection of this Bill for it too is not a choice worthy of America—indeed, if enacted, it might well have proved to be the tipping point of Western civilization.
One final point (for purposes of this column) is the effort of certain legislators and the left in general to blame this defeat on Talk Radio, suggesting that conservatives are mindless robots who march in lockstep behind radio hosts is so typical of the left’s inability to accept the fact that they cannot compete on a level playing field. Talk radio played a role, to be sure, and that was to get the word out to voters as to what was happening; as such it was a catalyst in this very worthwhile American experiment in participatory democracy. But the left is scared of talk radio, and, since it cannot compete with it, in characteristic left-wing fashion it wants to silence it. And this will be the left’s next major push—the Fairness Doctrine, a fairly blatant effort to suppress speech as well as an admission of left-wing intellectual impotence. Tune in next week for an exploration of “fairness.”