19/06: Immigration Reform 2007: A Coda
Category: American Culture
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Tying up some loose ends:
1. For weeks now, I have been calling on the President to end the current immigration reform debate, as it is unlikely to produce a workable compromise and more likely to precipitate the destruction of the Republican coalition.
2. I officially pronounced Immigration Reform 2007 dead on June 8th. I stand by that call. Although the President and the Senate leadership seem determined to resuscitate the ill-fated patient, the bill is brain-dead. Keeping it alive by unnatural means will only prolong the tragedy.
Moreover, I have grown tired of talking about this particular incarnation. No more posts from me on this bill.
A big problem remains, however, which will continue to fester. We will need to address it in the future, which is why I have continued to talk about the important issues and ideas surrounding the greater question.
In the spirit of the next debate, I do want to leave you with this brief explanatory note from Football Coach in aid of his excellent post, "California: Still the Promised Land," from a few days ago (review here):
Why am I more fearful of the "solutions" than the problem?
Quoting Coach:
• Building a wall will make it harder to get in illegally, but it won't stop it. Desperate people will take desperate measures. Remember the Haitians and Cubans?
• Sending all the illegal aliens back to their countries will seriously impair our economy. A significant amount of the work done in the service, food, and agriculture industries is done by these workers.
• If some kind of “guest-worker/visa” system is put in place, I shudder to think what kind of bureaucracy will be set up to accommodate it. The social security administration and DMV are bad enough, and they deal with people who are motivated to come forward and get something done. How inefficient and expensive will a “Dept. of Guest Workers” be?
End Quote.
One other note: Immigration and Gay Marriage
Although it may not look like it, we are moving toward a renewed discussion of gay marriage (at least on this blog we are). I see an analogy between immigration and gay marriage.
As you know, I believe the most exigent problem in American culture is the loss of a unifying narrative. That is, we no longer celebrate the distinctiveness and elevating elements of our national history, which causes all sorts of problems--not the least of which is a nagging sense that we are an amoral, self-interested imperial force promoting evil and destruction in the world. We are in a civil war over how we will perceive ourselves. A hint: we will be what we decide we are.
I am frustrated with cultural conservatives who have allowed us to slip into this crisis of uncertainty, seemingly willing to accept this moral sickness as a permanent condition. On the other hand, these same cultural conservatives, desperate to fight the fight on some level, pounce on the issue of illegal immigration, suddenly awake and convinced that our cultural survival turns on the ability to turn away and deport illegal aliens. The irony: so many cultural conservatives want to blame the influx of new arrivals for a national crisis of belief, decades in the making, and one that we have allowed to take root.
How is that analogous to gay marriage?
We have a separate moral crisis in America concerning marriage and families. Cultural conservatives have allowed the dangerous deterioration of family values, again, leaving our national community in critical condition. But, now, cultural conservatives, seeking to avoid accountability for their own actions and poor stewardship, seek to blame proponents of gay marriage, at best a fringe movement, for the crisis we confront.
Again offering a hot-button issue as a magic bullet to place our collective souls on the road to recovery, cultural conservatives are doing mental gymnastics to avoid responsibility for a crisis we tacitly helped to create. Let's begin our revival by removing the motes from our own eyes.
May God Bless America—and may he grant us “firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, [and] let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.”
Other Bosque Boys conversations:
Immigration. Click here and scroll down.
Same-Sex Marriage: Click here and scroll down.
1. For weeks now, I have been calling on the President to end the current immigration reform debate, as it is unlikely to produce a workable compromise and more likely to precipitate the destruction of the Republican coalition.
2. I officially pronounced Immigration Reform 2007 dead on June 8th. I stand by that call. Although the President and the Senate leadership seem determined to resuscitate the ill-fated patient, the bill is brain-dead. Keeping it alive by unnatural means will only prolong the tragedy.
Moreover, I have grown tired of talking about this particular incarnation. No more posts from me on this bill.
A big problem remains, however, which will continue to fester. We will need to address it in the future, which is why I have continued to talk about the important issues and ideas surrounding the greater question.
In the spirit of the next debate, I do want to leave you with this brief explanatory note from Football Coach in aid of his excellent post, "California: Still the Promised Land," from a few days ago (review here):
Why am I more fearful of the "solutions" than the problem?
Quoting Coach:
• Building a wall will make it harder to get in illegally, but it won't stop it. Desperate people will take desperate measures. Remember the Haitians and Cubans?
• Sending all the illegal aliens back to their countries will seriously impair our economy. A significant amount of the work done in the service, food, and agriculture industries is done by these workers.
• If some kind of “guest-worker/visa” system is put in place, I shudder to think what kind of bureaucracy will be set up to accommodate it. The social security administration and DMV are bad enough, and they deal with people who are motivated to come forward and get something done. How inefficient and expensive will a “Dept. of Guest Workers” be?
End Quote.
One other note: Immigration and Gay Marriage
Although it may not look like it, we are moving toward a renewed discussion of gay marriage (at least on this blog we are). I see an analogy between immigration and gay marriage.
As you know, I believe the most exigent problem in American culture is the loss of a unifying narrative. That is, we no longer celebrate the distinctiveness and elevating elements of our national history, which causes all sorts of problems--not the least of which is a nagging sense that we are an amoral, self-interested imperial force promoting evil and destruction in the world. We are in a civil war over how we will perceive ourselves. A hint: we will be what we decide we are.
I am frustrated with cultural conservatives who have allowed us to slip into this crisis of uncertainty, seemingly willing to accept this moral sickness as a permanent condition. On the other hand, these same cultural conservatives, desperate to fight the fight on some level, pounce on the issue of illegal immigration, suddenly awake and convinced that our cultural survival turns on the ability to turn away and deport illegal aliens. The irony: so many cultural conservatives want to blame the influx of new arrivals for a national crisis of belief, decades in the making, and one that we have allowed to take root.
How is that analogous to gay marriage?
We have a separate moral crisis in America concerning marriage and families. Cultural conservatives have allowed the dangerous deterioration of family values, again, leaving our national community in critical condition. But, now, cultural conservatives, seeking to avoid accountability for their own actions and poor stewardship, seek to blame proponents of gay marriage, at best a fringe movement, for the crisis we confront.
Again offering a hot-button issue as a magic bullet to place our collective souls on the road to recovery, cultural conservatives are doing mental gymnastics to avoid responsibility for a crisis we tacitly helped to create. Let's begin our revival by removing the motes from our own eyes.
May God Bless America—and may he grant us “firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, [and] let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.”
Other Bosque Boys conversations:
Immigration. Click here and scroll down.
Same-Sex Marriage: Click here and scroll down.
Clay Williams wrote: