Illegal Immigrants in the U.S.

Righty: Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to see America overrun with hordes of unskilled immigrants who conveniently refuse to learn English. I’m not exactly keen on seeing them move into my neck of the woods and turning our downtown into a teeming barrio. But I’m realistic enough to recognize that the American economy needs all the able-bodied help it can get. Let’s be honest: we need uneducated, low-paid workers -- and plenty of them -- who are willing to perform the grunt-work that we overpampered Americans have grown too proud and soft to do for ourselves. Who else is going to pick our crops, stock Wal-Mart’s shelves, weed our lawns and scrub our toilets? First we need to make sure that all those illegals have a fair chance to become legal. Then we need to enact immigration laws that encourage hardworking people to enter this country and keep our economy booming.

Lefty: I’m loath to admit I agree with you on this one, Righty, but I do -- for completely different reasons, naturally. America is a nation of immigrants, and we should stay true to our historic role as a welcoming beacon of opportunity and freedom from oppression. The inscription on our Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." How can we turn our backs on those huddled masses? We need to ensure that everyone who wants to start a new life in America has a right to live here. Anything else would amount to a betrayal of our national purpose. By what moral authority do we determine that some immigrants are "legal" (i.e., desirable) and others are "illegal" (i.e., undesirable)? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the color of their skin, would it?

The New Moderate:

I might be a little obtuse, but how is it that our friends on the right and left conveniently overlook the word "illegal" attached to the aforementioned immigrants? Illegal immigrants are, by definition, lawbreakers. They’ve entered the U.S. on the sly, find work on the sly, elude Uncle Sam at tax time but readily accept his generosity when they need a benefit or two. And their numbers just keep growing like some radioactive behemoth from a 1950s sci-fi flick.

That the illegals are predominantly Hispanic is almost irrelevant. The only Latino-specific issue that should concern us is the apparent reluctance of many Hispanic immigrants to learn English -- along with our own feeble-minded attempts to support their Anglophobia by establishing Spanish as our unofficial second language. (See BILINGUALISM.) The New Moderate would be equally peeved if the illegals were Swedes or Hungarians who stole past the border guards and settled en masse in cities and towns across the republic, enjoying government benefits and straining our resources without contributing to the public till.

The recently proposed solutions to illegal immigration should strike any thinking moderate as outrageous and even nonsensical. Building a wall along sections of the Mexican border is a wasteful and ultimately absurd enterprise. Not only does it send a spiteful message to everyone south of the border, but it can only tempt the more resourceful outlaws to perform end-runs around our defenses.

The newly minted Bush-Kennedy gradual amnesty bill (when these two gentlemen collaborate, be very afraid!) must rank among the most shameless examples of governmental hornswoggling in American history. Formulated behind closed doors, the program essentially winks at the past transgressions of the illegals if they take a few cursory steps to legalize themselves over the next few years. (We have stiffer penalties for parking-ticket scofflaws.) The bill disguises itself as a moderate solution, yet it blatantly caters to special interests on the right and left. It serves Republicans who salivate over the prospect of low-wage workers flooding the land; it serves Democrats who covet the affections of all those brand-new Democratic voters; it totally ignores the will of the people. Our partisans ignore the will of the people at their own peril; Americans will ultimately rebel against a government that repeatedly snubs them. (Mr. Jefferson gave us permission, after all.)

So what do we propose as a moderate solution to the illegal immigration fiasco? It’s relatively simple: enforce the law. Nothing extreme about that. Impose penalties on illegal immigrants and those who shelter them. Deport all illegals with criminal records. Set term limits on "guest" workers the way we do for houseguests and congressmen. Make life considerably less inviting here for immigrants who sneak past the border guards.

Some would argue that we should sympathize with the plight of any people who want to make a better life for themselves in the U.S. We agree. Let them enter the country through legal channels, pick up a Social Security card, work and pay taxes like the rest of us. Then you can talk to us about sympathy.

Summary: Illegal immigrants flood the job market, depress wages, pay no taxes and consume a disproportionate share of benefits. They’re harming our country, a fact our lawmakers conveniently ignore. Just as important, they’re lawbreakers and should be treated as such. The solution: simply enforce the law.

Moderates

Righty: I've reached the conclusion that a moderate is just a liberal without a backbone. Of course, we never know what moderates really believe because they're too jelly-legged to stand up and say anything worth remembering. At least Lefty knows the issues and can pack a good wallop. I suspect that the average moderate is just a namby-pamby quiche-eating yuppie who never thinks about anything more important than the newest trendy restaurant to open up in his neighborhood. You know why there are no political magazines for moderates? Because moderates don't care about anything. Most of them probably don't even know that they're moderates -- that's how pathetically apathetic they are.

Lefty: The world must be coming to an end, Righty: I actually agree with you on this one! I might detest your views, but I admire your willingness to take a stand and debate it. Moderates? They're bland, unenlightened political nonentities who are chronically oblivious to the world's problems. Someone needs to wake them up with a good spray from the garden hose of reality.

The New Moderate:

I have to concede that Righty and Lefty make some painfully valid points. We moderates do need to wake up -- fast. We need to rouse ourselves from indifference, come together and develop a coherent platform that can propel our ideas into the limelight. I'm tired of occupying a vacuum between the push and pull of extremist ideologies. I'm tired of getting no respect from the right or the left. If you're a moderate, you should be tired of it, too.

Moderate ideas are the most lucid, the fairest, the most practical, the most sensitively reasoned, and the most representative of society as a whole. (That's why I consider myself a moderate, and why I believe so fervently in our cause.) So why are we moderates, to this day, a vast and voiceless nothing between the two constantly flapping wings that dominate the public debate?

The majority of Americans characterize themselves as moderates. But where's the passion, the camaraderie, the inspired rhetoric? Where's the traffic on this site? Is anybody home?

Being a moderate means more than adding up the ideas of the right and left, and taking the average. It means being brave enough to stand up and shrug off the crossfire from the opposing trenches. It means being reckless and resolute enough to declare that, for example, the pro-life and pro-choice factions are both equally rigid and equally wrong... that the abortion issue will never be resolved until more nuanced and moderate minds prevail.

American culture has been dominated by dueling extremists since the McCarthy era, and the strife has grown nastier than ever under the polarizing reign of Bush II. The U.S. has essentially split into two nations, red and blue, implacable and apparently irreconcilable. Why do we stand around and twiddle our thumbs? Thinking moderates everywhere owe it to themselves and their country to wake up and forge a radical middle that can influence public debate, win votes and stitch a sundered nation into the strong and happy union it was always meant to be.

Summary: Moderates have the best and fairest ideas, but nobody will know it until we form a movement to thrust those ideas into the public consciousness. Let the movement begin NOW.