A-holes: The 'A' is for 'Amnesty'

The history of American politics is a protracted and sordid story of two supposedly opposing factions tripping over one another to stake out attractive and expedient positions in order to get elected. We saw it recently in the last two rounds of Presidential debates, in 2000, with Bush and Gore nodding, bobblehead-style, at each others' vague remarks, and then two years ago when candidate Kerry insanely attempted to posture himself as a rough-and-tumble cowboy and terrorist eradicator.

What's different about the current scenario unfolding in the halls of Congress over immigration is the utter betrayal of American citizens in favor of illegal immigrants. The alleged dialogue taking place regarding immigration is a nearly-unanimous selling out of American interests by our elected representatives. With the voting population increasingly hardened and stubborn in their partisanship, the two major political parties recognize that the only method of gaining a formidable electoral advantage is to create a new bloc of voters out of thin air, and this is precisely what our legislature is about to accomplish.

On this issue, the crassness and arrogance of the government is astounding. The idea, repeated ad nauseam, that Americans will not lower themselves to the level of performing manual labor presumes that the current mean levels of quality of life and personal comfort will only remain constant or improve. But given simple facts like the regularites of market fluctuations and economic downturns, this is a dangerous assumption to make. Add to this the fact that the existence of an undocumented labor force drives down wages across the board, and that the recent "compromise" immigration bill in the Senate will allow a minimum of 64 million "guest workers" into the country over the next 20 years, and we see that this current ploy by the Congress is little more, and nothing less, than systematic sabotage of the American people in order to fatten party voter rolls.

With only a brittle and weak manufacturing base remaining in the country, and the unstoppable outsourcing of its technology work to south and east Asia, the United States, by inviting millions of foreigners into the aboveground job market, courts fiscal disaster. In the inevitable event that the economy stagnates or shrinks, and unemployment rates rise, the American worker will wake up one morning to find that his government has pulled the floor out from under him by guaranteeing a job, which he had heretofore been able but unwilling to perform, to a foreigner. Perhaps overall government tax receipts will increase, but wages will plummet, the housing market will collapse, and national resources in general will be stretched to a perilous degree.

The ordinary American citizen is being sacrificed to appease the twin-headed idol of power-hungry politics and money-hungry business. Given a choice between a natural-born American with a high-school education and a union card, or a Spanish-speaking immigrant with little understanding of, or care for, work safety rules, wage laws, and grievance processes, who will a bottom-line conscious manager hire?

What's more, the conflation of support for tight border controls with xenophobia is a distasteful, but unfortunately effective propaganda device which demonizes low-wage Americans for wanting to maintain for themselves what the illegal immigrants want: steady work with a decent wage. Many of our representatives in the House and Senate have, amazingly, been duped into parroting this slander during the course of this debate. But illegals already enjoy several perks of American life despite their status, such as emergency medical care, schooling for their children, and, in certain cities, welfare benefits, all more than an American illegally living in Monterrey would get from the Mexican government. What more must a country do for millions of people who are not supposed to be there in the first place? Oh. Right. Blanket amnesty, of course. But guess what? We've already tried that.

A little sensible nativism would go a long way toward a reasonable solution to the immigration concern. No other nation in the world is asked or expected to tolerate unrestricted immigration from a neighbor state, and the U.S. government, like any other, should be focused first on the needs of those who were born and live here legally. Lou Dobbs and I may continue to fight the good fight, but it sure seems like greed and political expediency will win the day.