The Anger of Compassion

Making Fences Makes Good Neighbors?

Two perspectives on illegal immigration, one from Victor Davis Hanson and one from Penn and Teller.

Without doubt or exaggeration, Penn and Teller are the more intellectually respectable. I am aware that many on the Right worship Hanson, but what are we to make of this paragraph?

The problem with all this is that our now-spurned laws were originally intended to ensure an (admittedly thin) veneer of civilization over innate chaos—roads full of drivers who have passed a minimum test to ensure that they are not a threat to others; single-family residence zoning to ensure that there are adequate sewer, garbage, and water services for all; periodic county inspections to ensure that untethered dogs are licensed and free of disease and that housing is wired and plumbed properly to prevent mayhem; and a consensus on school taxes to ensure that there are enough teachers and classrooms for such sudden spikes in student populations.

"All these now-neglected or forgotten rules," concludes Hanson, "proved costly to the taxpayer...."The government’s attitude at all levels is to punish the dutiful citizen’s misdemeanors while ignoring the alien’s felony, on the logic that the former will at least comply while the latter either cannot or will not."

Well. What far too many "conservatives" of Hanson's stripe refuse to consider is that giving such authority to the state is illegitimate in the first place, that it's all "costly to the taxpayer," and that "punishing the dutiful citizen" is about all most government agencies do today. His contempt for the term "laissez-faire" is telling, and it isn't limited to him.

So it's considered a legitimate discussion to argue over the issuing of driver's licenses or Social Security cards to illegals -- but it's beyond the pale to argue that nobody, not California or Arizona or the United States government itself, should be issuing such documents at all. Meanwhile, it will soon be the case that I, a lifetime citizen of the US and a resident of a border city, will be required to present a passport in order to re-enter the land of my birth and citizenship, if I should presume to spend any time in Mexico. Thanks, all of you "respectable" pundits and educators and politicians, conservative and liberal both. You have destroyed or are destroying the idea of America.

The Penn and Teller bit is from their Showtime series, which I love anyway. It's on illegal immigration, pro and con, and it features (on the con side), Mark "Libertarian Cowflop" Krikorian and (on the pro side) Reason editor Nick Gillespie.

Few more comments: during the third segment, the discussion of racism arises. Mark Krikorian opines that there are some on the pro-immigration side of the debate who dislike white people, to which Penn Jillette responds, "What the fuck?!" But on this one, I think Krikorian is probably correct: there's racism to be found on all sides of this one. I also agree with the show's hosts that the anti-immigrant Minutemen are not motivated by racism. I don't agree with the positions held by the Minutemen, but most of them are probably just (as Penn Jillette says) decent guys motivated by doing what they think is the right thing.

The problem with immigration laws and quotas is the same problem we have with any Prohibition, from alcohol in the Twenties to (some) drugs and (some) immigrants today. And everywhere around us, the results are the same, too.

Bonus at the end. Heh.

Posted by Craig Ceely at April 28, 2007 05:08 PM