The Necropolitan Sentinel

People who think laws won't stem the tide of illegal immigrants feel gun control will stop crime. Other people think principle-abandoning pandering will make the nation less safe and more broke at the cost of surrendering any semblance of reasonable opposition. Either way, it turns out a sieve is not an effective method for protecting a border. Let someone boss you around and wonder why they're not then willing to be your friend.

The desire to ensure no voter is ever offended allows squishy Republicans to show bipartisanship at its worst. In that vein of naivete, they support making everyone who broke the law to get here to now start obeying the rest, as if such conditions will actually be put into place. You may as well wait for Barack Obama to show you his skeet trophies.

Like the stimulus and Obamacare, the triggers will never, ever be met, which is Rule Number One about any government promise. In fact, the missed expectations already happened with… immigration, but feel free to assume that something will take place because Washington says so.

America is the special place where citizenship is a reward for cheating. High school kids think buying beer makes them adults, but breaking adult laws gets tiresome within a few years. As for the alleged grownups running the government, they want to make life a bureaucratic mess for everyone except those who skulked in here. It's easier to enter illicitly and wait for “no punchbacks” to be declared the new legal standard. And yet people will still be surprised when the continent's tectonic plates tilt our way even further.

And they'll totally put death lasers on top of the razor wire tomorrow. The promise to secure the border is as valid as an IOU from a tweaker. We're opening the entrance, not bolting it. Any deal reached will be the first step toward encouraging crossings that raise enough dust to obscure the border. The stampede is not going to stop anymore than the next trillion in debt will be the last.

The logic behind opening the border is that breaking laws is acceptable if enough people do it, so call your friends. The only counter is the threat of prosecution. Some from differing political tendencies may scoff at the concept of self-regulation, but potential punishments always factor in behavior. Humans responding to disincentives is at the core of conservatism, unless strong laws against any action don't lower the commission rate. Instead of limiting the rights of the law-abiding to arm themselves, Congress should focus on punishing trespassers.

We can't pretend furtive residency is okay regardless of how many immigrants' status can be modified with the word “illegal.” Surrendering to demographics isn't going to make the victors like Republicans, so I guess it's back to selling national strength and personal liberty as virtues. On that note, it's wrong to hop the line no matter what, as amnesty remains nothing more than a reward for lawbreaking. Enforcing reasonable restrictions should continue despite how people keep breaking them.

But the disrespect for our rules and strain on our system pales to how sob stories are the best thing around which to base policy. Gently reply that illegals shouldn't put their children in that position so you may hear the accusation that you're heartless. It's a charge that you expect and crave, anyway, at least as vindication.

Any immigration plan that doesn't address how serious a crime it is to cross the border without permission is as useless as the present barrier. Nonchalance about entering the nation displays contempt for poor American workers most politicians attempt to lionize, too, as migrant workers depress wages and weaken the lower-tier job market for struggling citizens.

Straining entitlement services is an odd approach for liberals who would presumably want to preserve them, but chalk that up to the delusion that the government can buy whatever it wants for eternity without ever reaching critical mass. In that way, it's just like immigration.

It's not quite as heartwarming to ponder the percentage of expatriate convicts who wanted to come to America and make a better life for their families by stealing things or harming citizens. Oh, and we still apparently need to bring up the visa violations of hijackers. But it's all about dreams.

Racist! Of course, this is all about hating people with dark complexions and not rooted in opposing rewards for illicitly-caused chaos. Still, perhaps the real bigots are patronizing separatists who want to let immigrants set up their own Second World here in America. There's no melting in this pot, as oh so tolerant liberals encourage new arrivals to remain both mired in poverty and completely alienated from the opportunities available to the mainstream. That will again prove how much they really care for the underclass.

And even we heartlessly cruel people who dare prefer to avoid mayhem understand the desire to be here. I'd want to sneak out of Mexico, at least before 2009. But unchecked criminal crossings drag down both sides of the line. The strategy of weakening America enough to make potential sneakers stay where they are is a novel method of stopping clandestine residents, but telling people to go home and fill out the paperwork might be better for us. That's only important if what happens on our side matters.

Anthony Bialy is a writer and “Red Eye” conservative in New York City. Follow him at http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy. Download a free ebook of his 2012 columns at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/270599.

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