Maryland Conservatarian

The Washington Post had an editorial yesterday which is just too insipid to pass up commenting on. Their purpose seems to be to excoriate the naysayers of the latest immigration overhaul proposal. Predictably, they throw out the straw man of “deporting 12 million people, including droves of workers on whom the American economy relies”. The Storm Over Immigration - washingtonpost.com

I’d say most critics from the right acknowledge that we’re not going to engage in mass deportation. Instead, many envision an increased border security and not turning a blind eye to those openly flouting our laws. In other words, when our various government agencies – federal and state – are openly presented with an individual who shouldn’t be here, they will do something about it. Such enforcements would have the added benefit of possibly leading to self-deportations by making being here illegally an increasingly uncomfortable status. If, as the Post intimates, that makes us mean-spirited, so be it.

As an attempt at public suasion, this editorial ranks somewhere between “Because I told you so!” and “Oh yeah? Well, so are you…”

“But those who cite the offending sections and insist on the bill's defeat must explain how that would leave the country in a better posture. The practical effect of a defeat would be to leave the country without any resolution to the current non-system of immigration for at least two more years, and possibly for much longer -- an outcome the American public clearly doesn't want.”

This is typical elitist arrogance – why should the onus be on us to explain anything? The defenders instead should outline exactly why they believe implementation of this proposal will improve on the status quo. And in reading the Post’s channeling of Ted Kennedy…

…can someone point out to me where exactly the Post does this? For many associated with Congress, the act of passing laws has seemingly become the singular mark of productivity. However, the rest of us (including the Post) should still insist that passage of a new immigration law be at least somewhat dependent on a showing that it will improve the lives of current US citizens.