Geek Empire

in which i solve the immigration debate

This should not be such a complicated issue. It only got this way thanks to the world's largest natural source of hot air, American Politicians.

First, before there can be any discussion of amnesty, guest worker programs, whatever, somebody needs to lay out a definative plan to stop, or at least severly curtail, illegal immigration. Anything else is pissing in the wind. If this requires a big f'n Jurrasic Park style electric fence, so be it. Hang a few signs reading "PELIGRO - CERCA ELÉCTRICA - ESTA MATANZA DE LA COGIDA DE LA VOLUNTAD DE LA COSA USTED", and Darwin will take care of the rest.

How there remains any oppostion to this completely eludes me. It's a humongous security problem. It isn't "Racist", it's the opposite of racist: 325 people died crossing the border in '04. If one of the primary functions of an object is to keep more people of a particular demographic alive, it is categorically not racist. It is anti-racist. It is pro-race. It is whatever the word for the opposite of racism is.

Okay, so tommorow morning everybody in the country wakes up and finally realizes I'm right about everything, and the border is magically secured. What now? There's two problems remaining: what to do with all the people living here already, and what to do with people that want to come here legally?

As to the first problem, honestly, if we got the border secured, I'd be willing to damn near grant them citizenship on the spot. How 'bout a few months of required basic English and Civics courses, maybe some time on a citizenship-parole , raise your right hand, now go get a job and start paying taxes.

Anybody who wants to try to throw out every illegal immigrant is being silly. Not only is it a logistical impossibility, a political non-starter, and an economic nightmare, it dosen't accomplish anything useful. There's no positive effects in the long term, and while I'll grant that amnesty has its downsides, at least it's a workable situation.

Which brings me to another problem: lots of righties point out that illegals take up a huge percentage of the welfare and prison problems in southern states. This is true, but it isn't an immigration issue, it's a social and fiscal one. Of course, if we let people work legally and earn a decent living, try to improve themselves and their futures, these problems would likely be greatly diminished (That's conservatisim 101 for you, right there). But telling able-bodied people to get a job and quit breaking the damn law isn't an immigration issue, or an issue unique to immigrants, it's a seperate debate.

I'm getting on a tangent, but I also want to address the "Immigrants do work Americans won't do" line. This is true. Why? Because I can make better frigging money working at McDonald's, or perhaps just collecting welfare, than I could at the wages immigrants make doing manual labor. That line implies that Americans are lazy, but it isn't really right: We aren't necessarily lazy, but we aren't stupid, either, and we aren't going to take a slave-labor job for bullshit money when we don't have to. Immigrants don't have the option of taking a better job, and frankly, that pisses me off: what good has the past hundred years of civil rights and unions and everything been if we just give a wink and a nod to people paying garbage for hard, honest work? Immigrants should be given the right to peruse the job market as any American, and employers shouldn't be allowed to skate on paying wages that your average American would starve to death on. Does bringing fair competition to the workplace hurt lots of businesses? Yep, it sure does. What do I say to that? Karma's a bitch, baby. You've been cheating the system and screwing people over for years now, time to adapt and overcome or join the plantation owners of days past.

But back on topic: the second part of the question above was, what to do with people that want to come here? Now that they aren't busy drowning in the Rio Grande, we need to reform the process by which someone can come to this country to work. I don't pretend to know all the details here, but I do know that the current situation sucks a big one, and most of the suggestions out there are almost as bad. It shouldn't take a hundred years of lost paperwork to come build houses in America. I know this is a radical idea to bring to the bureaucracy of government, but the process should be streamlined. Alot.

I mentioned above the idea of a Citizenship parole. Basically, this would be a set period of time where one's only goals would be to hold a job and stay out of jail. If you frig up on either one, you are permenantly denied the right to ever work in this country again.

So, some time of that, the aforementioned civics and english basics, you're good to go. See how easy? Again, there's details to be worked out, but at least it isn't as asinine as some of the stuff coming out of Washinton or, worse, LA. What is with the $1000 application fee? You want to stop the problem of illegals working off the radar by...charging them money? That is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Then the "If you've been here less than two years, you have to go back; If you've been here two years, you have to run back to the border, tag a border agent, and run back; If five, you have to run to the closest Taco Bell and bring me a Chalupa; blah de blah blah blah." None of this shit makes any kind of sense, it all just depends on which particular interest group a politician is pandering to and how hard.

UPDATE: Ace of Spades is plagiarizing my blog!

Well no, not really, of course, although we do seem to be in agreement; I simply have the advantage of insomnia.

Posted by Francis at April 6, 2006 03:32 AM | TrackBack