Because They Only Talk of Money

Kim DuToit lays out very well in this piece what the White House, the traitorous GOP Senate RINOs, and the pro-amnesty forces trying to ram amnesty for 20 million or more illegal immigrants down our throats have been missing. These people are so tone deaf and out of touch because all they see is money...more campaign contributions from big business, lower corporate costs and higher profits, and, and, well, that pretty much ends the inquiry for them. Living in the isolated bubbles they inhabit means never having to press 1 for English, never having their kids be neglected in school because a full third of the class only speaks Spanish, to have their loved ones unable to get medical care because the ER is crowded with illegals who have head colds (or worse, are giving birth to anchor babies), and/or to have the lives of the people most important to them snuffed out in a moment by an illegal immigrant drunk driver, rapist, or murderer...and the list could go on for pages. As Kim astutely points out, it ain't just about the money folks. It's about America, who we are, what we've built, and what we've stand for...and if the Rockefeller wing of the GOP and the socialist loonies running the asylum on the Democrat side think they are going to sell our hard-earned status as a shining city on a hill and the hope of the free world to keep their pampered butts in power a few more years, they need only pay attention to the backlash over the now-stalled shamnesty bill to see how well THAT plan will work for them.

Wal-Mart Nation

"This is not a dig at Wal-Mart the corporation, but it is a (related) dig at their business policy.

Someone once said: ”[These people]know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.” It has since been changed to several variations of the same sentiment (eg. ”A true cynic is one who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing”, sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde).

Ambrose Bierce once noted: ”When politicians speak, no matter what the topic, they’re talking about money.”

We are a capitalist nation, and that is a good thing. But along the way, we have become a Wal-Mart nation, where only money (price or cost) matters.

This was brought home to me most forcefully when I read the comment of Reader Aggieactuary to Thursday’s post about the (now-stalled, thank goodness) Senate amnesty bill.

What is the economic impact of virtually eliminating immigration and removing illegal immigrants who currently work in the U.S.? {Emphasis on WORK.}

It seems to me that many of our basic goods and services would become quite a bit more expensive. That’s basic supply and demand, with human capital being an important resouce (or input) into the supply of goods and services.
...
I don’t believe any argument saying that our healthcare, social security, welfare, income tax costs will be reduced. At least not enough to offset the increase in cost of goods and services.

And herein, I think, lies the fundamental flaw in the entire illegal immigration issue.

This is not an exercise to examine the cost/benefit ratio.

Yes, of course there are costs and benefits. Of course there will be consequences to the costs of goods if the labor pool suddenly becomes more expensive. Of course there will be savings if medical and education benefits are drastically curtailed among the twelve million or so people who are currently using those benefits without contributing towards their costs.

None of that is important: it’s a red-herring issue.

What is more important, far more important, is the soul of this nation and of our society, and it is this soul which is being undermined.

What do I mean by that?

It’s quite simple. In the past, we have always had this compact with immigrants: you are welcome to come here, but you must assimilate into our society. In order for our nation to continue to be this “shining city on the hill”, and a beacon of hope for the rest of the world, it is not only important for us to maintain those societal values, but to strengthen them.

That’s why for decades we refused to allow known Communists to enter the country—because we knew that they would subvert the very society which allowed them in.

What are those common values? A culture of self-reliance, a culture of freedom, a culture of “fair play”, a culture of honest hard work and fair compensation, a culture of law and law-abiding citizens, and a culture which could communicate with each other freely—because without that easy communication, a society will inevitably fragment and, eventually, balkanize.

So when we see people breaking the law (entering the country without our permission), relying on the State to provide taxpayer-funded State benefits (medical care, education) without contributing to the cost, refusing to speak our language, and taking our currency out of the country to support the economy of another country—what on Earth is surprising about the backlash against illegal immigration?

This is why Congress (and, it should be said, the White House) has been blindsided by the popular hostility towards amnesty and capitulation in the illegal immigration issue—because, as Ambrose Bierce noted, they only talk of money.

But it’s more than money. It’s a great deal more than money. Hell, the money’s nothing. We could afford to give free benefits to double the number of illegal immigrants (just by, for example, by curtailing $30 billion of funding to “solve” the AIDS problem in Africa—to give but one example of wastrel spending thrown at an insoluble problem).

What is at stake here is the very thing which makes America strong: one nation, indivisible. Note that I did not say, “one nation, indivisible / un pais indivisible”, either.

And what will divide this nation is having many cultures instead of one culture; many languages instead of one language; a culture of dependence instead of a culture of self-reliance; and a culture of disobedience to our law instead of a culture of the law-abiding.

When we concentrate only on money, we leave ourselves open to the accountants and financial nitpickers. It’s not the money. It’s our culture and our values that are at stake.

If those huddled masses from Central and South America (and indeed from the Middle East and elsewhere) want to come and live here, to share in the bounty which we produce, that is fine. We are a nation of immigrants, and we are all the stronger for it.

But they may only immigrate here on our terms, not theirs. We are the host nation, and we have created over two centuries a nation which has caused the downtrodden, the fearful and the persecuted to see us as their last hope, the hope of the entire free world.

We are not a nation of handouts and libertines; we are a nation of hard-working, law-abiding and self-reliant people. That is what has made us great, and we should be arrant fools if we allow that ethos to be undermined by criminals, no matter how heart-rending their motives may sound.

That is the beginning and the end of it. That is what is at stake, not the higher cost of strawberries in the supermarket."