"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or wickedness of government may engage it?" he demanded. That was the end of that idea, until the Civil War.
Two Wars and We Don't Feel a Draft - Reason Magazine
Showing posts with label National Security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Security. Show all posts
Monday, October 18, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The Tea Party & Illegal Immigration
Those wishing to defend the premise that the only legitimate function of government is the protection of individual rights may defend laws against illegal immigration on very simple, straight-forward national security grounds.
Does the man next door to your apartment have an indefeasible right to keep a nuclear weapon on the premises? Some might argue he has; I would argue for a rule of reason and common sense. Clearly we have a right to keep ourselves safe from a potential terrorist, and a man with a nuclear bomb is not likely to be acting from the self-defense motive of a man keeping a Sig-Sauer 9 mm at the ready.
We must look to intent to decide questions of this sort. All abstract propositions become conditional propositions when applied to matters of fact. Some facts are these: that illegal immigration into the USA permits terrorists into the country. It therefore follows a rational country needs an ordered procedure to determine such questions as whether to permit a foreign national from crossing our national borders. By what principle would one argue that he had a "right" to enter the United States?
Therefore I see no rational, factual, or moral basis for the belief that the US is violating that man's rights. Until we know who the man is, what his background is, what his beliefs are--indeed, everything about him--we have no moral obligation to permit his entry into our country. The first order of business for the federal government is the protection of our individual rights from threats or potential threats created by those who wish to make war on the US. Until we can determine whether he is an enemy of the US, he has no right to be here.
On that basis I am completely with the Tea Party people and others who oppose illegal immigration. That our immigration laws may need reform is another conversation. I think it is to our interest to have guest worker programs, on the principle that we do honor individual rights of those who wish only to trade values on a non-coercive basis, but that is an important condition and one that is not met by Mexicans crossing our borders at night in the desert, murdering, kidnapping, or otherwise endangering the lives of Americans.
It is true there is a collectivist premise in the thinking of those who oppose illegal immigration on the grounds that illegals are abusing the welfare system we have established in this country. Actually, they have a point. Illegals are abusing the welfare system, in the sense they are obtaining benefits at the expense of taxpayers. But then so are those Americans who avail themselves of those same benefits.
What is overlooked in this argument is that the primary abuse is of the taxpayers. But their emotional hostility is completely understandable as the present American regime has just enacted legislation that will vastly intensify the abuse by indirectly extending taxpayer-funded benefits to millions of illegals. The Regime understands its actions will further divide Americans and wishes to exploit such divisions for partisan advantage, as has been demonstrated in its cynical--and shamefully ignorant--handling of the recent law passed in Arizona to protect its citizens from threats to their lives and property.
Americans, by and large, do not oppose legal immigration, nor do they oppose a rational, liberal immigration policy, but the laws as imperfect as they may be should be followed, they should be enforced by constituted authority and at present and for many years have not been enforced. Presently the people of Arizona are facing a catastrophe. We already have parts of California becoming a wasteland of socialist and open-borders sentiment, such as the school district of Los Angeles, electing to teach the students in public schools that Arizona's laws are the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany's concentration camps and urging an economic boycott of the state and of the people.
We are in serious trouble when we have political districts in our own country thinking and talking as if they were citizens of another country, and one that clearly has an interest in solving the problems of its own socialist economy by encouraging its people to "migrate" to the US illegally and then to lecture us on our responsibility to protect the individual rights of Mexicans!
I have a further point to make. Our culture has been so degraded--intellectually, morally, culturally--that intelligent political discourse is all but made impossible both by the lack of intellectual ammunition on the Right and the militantly anti-intellectual political tactics of the Left. It is true that Illegal Immigration may become a hugely symbolic issue that will "carry the emotional freight" of the public's gut-level antagonism to the Regime's heavy-handed collectivism on many fronts. Illegal immigration, tax increases, irrational spending--these are issues Americans can all understand and relate to, and therefore, it is to be expected in such an emotionally toxic political environment that nativist sentiments will also become part of the mix, as I am also certain racism will too.
But such sentiments must not be allowed to dominate the discourse and the political campaigns, for the Left will attempt to make these legitimate issues seem to be nothing but illegitimate racist and nativist anger. They are already following this tactic, as we have seen in the campaign the Left has conducted against Arizona. Expect much more of that sort of thing.
The tactic, however, is a lie and a cheat, and if we can keep the focus on protection of individual rights, and the right of the American people to be secure in their lives and property from those who would make war on us, then we should be able to defeat the Left.
I have not mentioned the recent oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Probably the biggest issue now will be the Regime's gross incompetence. If I believed in God I would definitely find the guiding hand of providence in these events, and while the pain in the short term is very great, I am tempted to believe that the election of Obama will prove to be America's Great Secular Awakening to both the evil and the inherent incompetence of Big Government.
Does the man next door to your apartment have an indefeasible right to keep a nuclear weapon on the premises? Some might argue he has; I would argue for a rule of reason and common sense. Clearly we have a right to keep ourselves safe from a potential terrorist, and a man with a nuclear bomb is not likely to be acting from the self-defense motive of a man keeping a Sig-Sauer 9 mm at the ready.
We must look to intent to decide questions of this sort. All abstract propositions become conditional propositions when applied to matters of fact. Some facts are these: that illegal immigration into the USA permits terrorists into the country. It therefore follows a rational country needs an ordered procedure to determine such questions as whether to permit a foreign national from crossing our national borders. By what principle would one argue that he had a "right" to enter the United States?
Therefore I see no rational, factual, or moral basis for the belief that the US is violating that man's rights. Until we know who the man is, what his background is, what his beliefs are--indeed, everything about him--we have no moral obligation to permit his entry into our country. The first order of business for the federal government is the protection of our individual rights from threats or potential threats created by those who wish to make war on the US. Until we can determine whether he is an enemy of the US, he has no right to be here.
On that basis I am completely with the Tea Party people and others who oppose illegal immigration. That our immigration laws may need reform is another conversation. I think it is to our interest to have guest worker programs, on the principle that we do honor individual rights of those who wish only to trade values on a non-coercive basis, but that is an important condition and one that is not met by Mexicans crossing our borders at night in the desert, murdering, kidnapping, or otherwise endangering the lives of Americans.
It is true there is a collectivist premise in the thinking of those who oppose illegal immigration on the grounds that illegals are abusing the welfare system we have established in this country. Actually, they have a point. Illegals are abusing the welfare system, in the sense they are obtaining benefits at the expense of taxpayers. But then so are those Americans who avail themselves of those same benefits.
What is overlooked in this argument is that the primary abuse is of the taxpayers. But their emotional hostility is completely understandable as the present American regime has just enacted legislation that will vastly intensify the abuse by indirectly extending taxpayer-funded benefits to millions of illegals. The Regime understands its actions will further divide Americans and wishes to exploit such divisions for partisan advantage, as has been demonstrated in its cynical--and shamefully ignorant--handling of the recent law passed in Arizona to protect its citizens from threats to their lives and property.
Americans, by and large, do not oppose legal immigration, nor do they oppose a rational, liberal immigration policy, but the laws as imperfect as they may be should be followed, they should be enforced by constituted authority and at present and for many years have not been enforced. Presently the people of Arizona are facing a catastrophe. We already have parts of California becoming a wasteland of socialist and open-borders sentiment, such as the school district of Los Angeles, electing to teach the students in public schools that Arizona's laws are the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany's concentration camps and urging an economic boycott of the state and of the people.
We are in serious trouble when we have political districts in our own country thinking and talking as if they were citizens of another country, and one that clearly has an interest in solving the problems of its own socialist economy by encouraging its people to "migrate" to the US illegally and then to lecture us on our responsibility to protect the individual rights of Mexicans!
I have a further point to make. Our culture has been so degraded--intellectually, morally, culturally--that intelligent political discourse is all but made impossible both by the lack of intellectual ammunition on the Right and the militantly anti-intellectual political tactics of the Left. It is true that Illegal Immigration may become a hugely symbolic issue that will "carry the emotional freight" of the public's gut-level antagonism to the Regime's heavy-handed collectivism on many fronts. Illegal immigration, tax increases, irrational spending--these are issues Americans can all understand and relate to, and therefore, it is to be expected in such an emotionally toxic political environment that nativist sentiments will also become part of the mix, as I am also certain racism will too.
But such sentiments must not be allowed to dominate the discourse and the political campaigns, for the Left will attempt to make these legitimate issues seem to be nothing but illegitimate racist and nativist anger. They are already following this tactic, as we have seen in the campaign the Left has conducted against Arizona. Expect much more of that sort of thing.
The tactic, however, is a lie and a cheat, and if we can keep the focus on protection of individual rights, and the right of the American people to be secure in their lives and property from those who would make war on us, then we should be able to defeat the Left.
I have not mentioned the recent oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Probably the biggest issue now will be the Regime's gross incompetence. If I believed in God I would definitely find the guiding hand of providence in these events, and while the pain in the short term is very great, I am tempted to believe that the election of Obama will prove to be America's Great Secular Awakening to both the evil and the inherent incompetence of Big Government.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
