Posted by
Jabra on Saturday, July 05, 2008 8:58:01 PM
As we turn the page on yet another 4th of July one cannot ignore the sad fact that in these United States of America this sacred occasion which represents hope in freedom and liberty, the main principles that we should be celebrating on this day are trampelled upon while the day has just become nothing more than an opportunity for hypocritical indulgence, I feel, in loud, useless fireworks that produce nothing but bad odors and lots of smoke in the air, much like our politicians.
The issue of illegal immigration is such an issue; lots of fireworks and smoke but that is it. Is the illegal immigration issue really about 'securing the borders' or protecting the country? or is it an issue of people having become addicted to their entitlements and big government spending? I believe it is the latter, and has always been the latter. Republicans and Democrats, their operatives and voters are defending an entitlements system and government bureaucracy that is falling apart under its own weight. Even if illegal immigration is stopped to a halt it is a fact that I predict with surety that none of us in this generation will see a dime of what we paid into social security or Medicare.
If the American people really want honest and decent politicians then they should start being honest about what they really want. Fixing social security and Medicare has become a code word for feeding the ailing beast through the tube in a struggle to keep it alive, ignoring the living will, that it dictated when it started as a program to combat poverty under the great depression, to be dissolved soon as the depression was over.
Illegal immigration is such an issue. What happened is that politicians, under the guise of patriotism and security, supported by interest groups on both the right and left, have stigmatized a decent and honest group of people who for the most part want nothing more than to have the freedom to use their labor to produce value for themselves and this society as well. It has also stigmatized a group of employers and business people who want the same for themselves (producing value and profit). Value and profit are great things. Many people, like sheep, blinded by stereotypes and false patriotism and zeal, forget that value and profit generated by these immigrants and their employers is what keeps the wheels of the American economy spin.
This economy is ailing under the heavy burdens which big government has imposed and continues to impose on the private sectors and entrepreneurs in the form of taxes and regulation. Let us not forget that out of this value and profit things such as social security and Medicare taxes are paid in addition to other revenue that the government makes which helps prevent the quick demise of this ailing Leviathan. Let us not also forget that these 'illegals' buy stuff here in the US and this money keeps some communities ticking.
The force of free immigration to the US made this country what it is to start with. People who were oppressed or hungry or deprived from the freedom of work or starting their own business fled to this country and started businesses, worked the land and even supplied the soldiers for a civil war that freed millions of people. Shutting down this great machine of immigration will reduce the United States to another Europe where the demise of the economy was accelerated not by immigrants but by the facts that immigrants came were prevented from practicing their work ethic to the maximum due to the addicting drug of welfare.
Immigration to the US and open borders even should be encouraged and welcomed by the American people and not become the pitiful campaign issue that it is. The real solution to America's economic problems lies in abolishing welfare in all of its forms and allowing the people who want to come here as well as the people who live here to enjoy the fruits of their labor in full and making the best return on what they can contribute to the progress of this land. That was the original premise of America. A premise that we seem to have forgotten 242 years later.