The Double-Standard Test

Illegal President George W. Bush is promoting what amounts to an open-border policy with Mexico. Why hasn't it occurred to most people (liberals, independents and other common-sense Bush haters) that if he is for it then there are probably a thousand reasons that we should all be totally against it? That embarrassment of a human being cannot possibly have a noble motive in promoting such a policy. He has never had a noble motive in his life (check out the definition of a sociopath; if that doesn't describe George W. Bush, then nothing does). He clearly has an ulterior motive, and he is tricking liberals in this country (using their ideals against them) into giving him exactly what he wants (keep in mind that I am a staunch independent who leans ever so slightly to the left in most situations). His chief aim is almost certainly to help corporations by replacing high-wage American workers with low-wage foreign workers. He is probably using those foreigners to lower our own wage standards, so that we will all eventually have no choice but to work for the same low wages if we want to put any food at all on the table. The richest of the rich (one percent of the population) will then get to add a big portion of that ten-percent of America's wealth that they don't already control to the remaining ninety percent that they do control. Of course, as immediate citizens, these immigrants would also get to vote right away, and one wonders who they would vote for in grateful numbers (Jeb Bush? or George again, if he breaks the law and chooses to run again?). Of course millions of them would settle in California. Would they be enough to turn California into a Bush state? There may be more sinister motives behind Bush's immigration policy, but that remains to be exposed.

For the record, I am not at all against people immigrating legally to this country or even staying on extended visas or green cards. Throughout most of my life, if there has been someone from another country in the same room with me, I will invent any excuse I can think of to visit with that person. My brother even dragged a Norwegian tourist home with him once because he thought I would want to visit with him (I was actually head-over-heels in love with an Iranian woman in college, and, yes, she was head-over-heels in love with me too; to be truthful, though, I fell in love with her before I was fully aware of her foreign status). However, I do know that there is a limit to what our job market/economy can handle, and an endless stream of people immigrating here illegally is not sensible. Paul Craig Roberts, a conservative economist who hates Bush with a passion (he thinks, as I do, that Bush is the most dangerous, destructive and incompetent leader this country has ever seen) wrote the following a few months ago. The numbers are very sobering: Nuking the Economy. Roberts says it far, far better than I can, so I strongly encourage you to read his editorial (or at least the first four or five paragraphs if you are pressed for time). In fact, I strongly encourage you to read all of his editorials (most of which don't involve economics). They can be found at the same web site, as well as at two or three other sites.

Think of It This Way
Imagine two lifeboats on the open sea. Both are filled to capacity with passengers. Adding a few more passengers to either boat would cause it to sink. The first boat suddenly springs a slow leak. It may well be moral and instinctual for some of the passengers in the second boat to invite the passengers from the first boat to join them (I would probably be among those doing the inviting), but is it realistic? Wouldn't it be a lot more sensible for all concerned in both boats if those passengers in the first boat took some initiative and fixed the leak instead of abandoning their boat? Wouldn't Americans fix the "leak" if it was in our own boat? Isn't that what we've done a number of times in the past 230 years?

In fact, let's think about that for a moment: What if the roles were reversed? What if the United States was suffering from the economic "troubles" that Mexico is now experiencing? What if millions of Americans just abandoned this country and their moral responsibility as citizens and crossed illegally into Mexico or Canada and then, to add insult to injury, started demanding (while waving thousands of U.S. flags at huge protest rallies) that those governments give them full citizenship? Would Americans really have the audacity to do that? What would the world say about those millions of us who participated in those invasions and rallies? I suspect the general consensus would be negative -- AND RIGHTFULLY SO. Most liberal and independent Americans would probably be doing the loudest screaming, saying such things as, "How dare we impose our will on any foreign government! Those are sovereign nations! We have no right to invade their countries and then demand that they give us what we want!"

Yet when the shoe is on the other foot, and it is the United States that is being illegally invaded by the millions, we are demonized for not giving in to the invaders' demands. Why do other nations, and even tens of millions of our own citizens, hold the United States to a different standard?