Blogger has "retired" its Poll gadget, so I'm just going to wing this, because I really want to know...
I suspect the divide between left/right on illegal immigration is driven by how serious an offense you think border-hopping is. Leftists make their views known by dropping the qualifier "illegal" entirely -- everybody's an immigrant. They invented a linguistic dodge -- "undocumented" which allows them to distinguish between legal immigrants and illegal without having to use the term illegal. Their media enablers have gone along with this.
So, how serious an offence is illegal immigration? Please "vote".
a) Not at all serious or important -- open the borders!
b) about as serious as speeding or illegal parking
c) about as serious as shoplifting
d) about as serious as cheating/lying to the authorities on your income tax
e) about as serious as cheating/lying to authorities AND breaking/entering into someone's home or property
f) more serious than (e) above (explain)
14 comments:
D. It's as serious as cheating on your income tax,which is a far greater crime than any of the others on your list. Illegal Border crossing is not only unfair to Canada as we have to pay their way, possibly for years,but it is most unfair to the immigrants who respected our laws and went through the legal immigration system.
To a potential immigrant who's waited for years to get into Canada, it's like the illegals are spitting in their faces,with the help of the government.
We have Beverley McLachlin and her SCC to thank for this ongoing fiasco,which will get a lot worse in the next few years. The violence that has occurred in Europe hasn't hit Canada yet, but it will with 190 jihadis returning to Canada, and we are not prepared to deal with it.
old white guy asks------------------how many illegal aliens do you allow in before your own culture and society are subsumed by those who have no right to be here. I consider illegal border crossing to be a very serious crime and all should be deported immediately.
DMorris You make good points, that go largely undiscussed. The left likes to blur everybody as just "immigrants". It's like reducing shoplifters to "undocumented customers", who, after all, have the same aspirations for food, clothes, iPhones, etc. as everyone else.
Good to hear from you after all these years! You're the guy that sent me that info on the cross-shaped biological thingy, right?!
Either a border means something, or it doesn't. Most Canadians are very familiar with crossing our border to US and they are also familiar with lineups at busy times, Suppose one doesn't feel like waiting and decides to simply drive around the barrier, or get out and walk across the line. People don't as a rule, because they no full well the might of the law with come down on them quickly and unmercifully. Reasonable Canadians simply want the same rules applied to these economic migrants, but instead they get a lot of bafflegab about how the law prevents application of the rules.
Hi BB, I don't think I was the guy that sent you the info you mentioned,although with my memory..........
There was another DMorris on the blogs a few years ago, he changed his monicker to Dudley Morris,that could be the person you referred to.
e. It's more liking cheating on another person's taxes so they you get the money and doing it by breaking into their home.
Jan - that's an interesting, novel way of describing it. Thank you.
Hm...
The reasons why someone crosses a boarder illegally isn't irrelevant. A Canadian in a car, unwilling to wait their turn in line for a day of cross-border shopping, isn't comparable to someone trying to escape war/poverty/violence in their home country.
Other things to keep in mind:
- all borders are artificial. The location and permeability of a boarder can and does change over time.
- where one is born affects one's chances in life, and no one has any control over where they are born, or to whom.
- John Locke believed in the importance of borders and private property rights, but he starts with an important premise: God gave the earth to mankind in common. If that is true then we need to have good reasons to say that some thing or some land belongs to one person or group and no one else.
The nature of border crossing is different than the nature of the other actions we're talking about here. In the case of cheating on taxes or breaking into someone's home or shoplifting, everyone involved is a member of a single political community, living under a common power. Immigration involves someone leaving their previous political community and entering another. Of course, you are always subject to the laws of the land you are on. But the fact that an "illegal immigrant" is not originally from the country they immigrate to matters in some way.
It is almost as if... an "illegal immigrant" is a unique individual, a full person, who suddenly appears in a country.
Does that remind you of something?
Also: hello again. It has been a long time.
No?
Hello again!
Hi.
When I said "does that remind you of something?" I was wondering if I could make an analogy between someone new, from the outside, suddenly entering the polity, and a child being born (or conceived).
There is a line in... Kant? I think in the Metaphysics of Morals... where he says that a child born out of wedlock is like someone who has sneaked into the country illegally. If I had my books nearby I'd be able to find that right away. Maybe I can find it through other means.
Ha. Joke is on me I guess. I was wondering if one could grant an illegal immigrant, as a new person suddenly in the polity, a fresh start and chance... like a new baby born (or conceived). BUT the joke is on me since Kant mentions the out-of-wedlock birth to make a different point. He says that all murderers deserve death, but there might be some cases where someone has done something that deserves death but where... it isn't quite right to actually execute them. One such case is that of an unwed mother who kills her bastard newborn.
"A child that comes into the world apart from marriage is born outside the law (for the law is marriage) and therefore outside the protection of the law. It has, as it were, stolen into the commonwealth (like contraband merchandise), so that the commonwealth can ignore its existence (since it was not right that it should have come to exist this way), and can therefore also ignore its annihilation; and no decree can remove the mother's shame when it becomes known that she gave birth without being married". (Metaphysics of Morals 6:336).
So... I guess Kant wouldn't help my argument... if I want to argue that people who "stolen into the commonwealth" might deserve equal concern and respect and protection...
That passage in Kant is important though since it shows that, while he is definitely an absolutist when it comes to the nature of morality and moral judgment... he allows for exceptions when it comes to practical policies...
Anyway. I'm just thinking out loud... ideas flying around my head in response to reading your blog post.
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