Flibbertigibbet

Actividades Bancarias de la Inversión y Trabajos en la Física Nuclear

I've been thinking more about the "discussion" that is going on around immigration.

In my last post on this topic, I said, "People are fussing and fussing about what to do with the illegal immigrants, those people who sneak into our country and get subversive jobs like picking fruit, flipping hamburgers, cleaning houses, investment banking, nuclear physics, or whatever else it is that doesn't pay enough money to lure unsuspecting Americans into sustaining the near constant verbal abuse and assault from Naomi Campbell's or Russell Crowe's flying phones."

I was being silly and hyperbolic, of course, but I was in the shower thinking about this and I realized that I have heard people use part of that as an argument supporting looser immigration policies.

They say things like, "Why should we stop people who want to come into this company and do jobs that Americans don't want to do?" The implication here is that it's OK so long as they're doing jobs Americans want to do, but if they suddenly started getting cushy jobs like web developer, QA analyst, client engineer, governor of California, or whatever, then it would NOT be OK.

The problem with the immigration policy isn't that it's keeping people from picking oranges or splitting atoms for us. The problem is that it is keeping people from exercising and experiencing freedom. There are lots of things like that around here.

It's my business if I want to hire someone to work for me. And if they want to accept low wages for it, that is their business. If they don't want to accept what I want to pay them, they don't have to accept the pay or do the work. That's how business works. And it doesn't matter what the job is -- assuming it's a non-criminal activity, of course. It's my right as an American to do that.

Naturally, our government is not here to protect the rights of Byelorussians, Danes, or South Africans. But neither should it be acting to violate the rights of those people or any other. The American government is here to protect the individual rights of Americans, but in setting up these tortuous immigration policies, it is preventing me from exercising my rights. Further, it is taking active steps to violate the rights of other individuals.

Who sits around thinking up these obnoxious plans for our government? I bet it's Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter.