Tocqueville points us to the latest essay from Thomas Sowell, who applauds "democracy" for defeating the so-called comprehensive immigration reform bill.

He charges that the "elites" who supported the bill employed "fraudulent procedures to rush this bill through the Senate." This is an accusation that may have been true for the first few days of the "grand bargain" campaign--but it is certainly overblown in the context of what actually transpired: an extended floor fight in which opponents won a very public battle for the hearts and minds of the American electorate.

He also charges the elite compromisers with "fraudulent arguments." He is right on that accord--but, of course, on this issue, he is living in a glass neighborhood. There was plenty of outrageous and unsubstantiated rhetoric from both camps.

Having said that, I do not dispute his catalog of false assertions on the part of proponents or his correctives:

--if we paid high enough wages, we could find citizens to do traditionally low wage jobs

--admittedly, deporting 12 million illegal aliens is impossible--but we should be concerned with the next wave, if we choose to do nothing

--the last bill really did not address the real problems

--elitists like to smear conservatives

All true enough. But my real question for Professor Sowell goes something like this:

If "democracy" saved us from a bad bill, how does he envision "democracy" solving our problem?

In other words, now what?

Read Thomas Sowell's article in its entirety here via NRO.