Rush, you disappoint me

I am disappointed in Rush. As I was listening to his program yesterday, he and a caller were discussing the theory that illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans just won't do, and that, for that reason, we should have an amnesty program.* The caller pointed out that he, as a single father, was laid off, he needed a job right away. He had tried to get a job and was told that 'they' (the illegals) were better workers. Rush jumped on this and then started saying that that made it clear that, rather than taking jobs that Americans don't want, illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans.

Then today, someone called in saying essentially what I recommended here. He wanted to seriously loosen up restrictions and modernize the whole process making it a reasonable process to enter the country legally, rather than a years long process that encourages people to try to behave illegally. Rush responded to this by saying "so, you don't want to change anything, you just want to call these people 'legal'."

One of the reasons why it is so hard to convince the public to have real outrage over illegal immigrants (rather than just annoyance over the problem) is that we know that most of these people are not bad people. Many Americans know an illegal immigrant personally. They are people seeking a better life for themselves and their children. We have tremendous sympathy and empathy because they are just like us. Sure, we don't like the illegal immigration problem...it's big, it's costly and it is dangerous because the bad people can get in just an easily.

But for me, there is a more important issue.

Freedom.

I don't believe we should alter our immigration policies because I think it is good economic policy.** I believe we should alter our policies because I believe in freedom as a good in and of itself. Even if it has some bad effects, I believe that freedom is worth it.

So talking about jobs and who has them*** is beside the point. Because I believe in freedom. I believe in the freedom of who to hire and who not to. I believe in the freedom of which job to take. I believe in the freedom of where to live.

And I don't believe that that freedom is only for Americans.

We can't fix the world. It's too big and it's problems are too hard. But we can let people who were not lucky enough to be born here to have a share in our freedoms.

After all, America is the place where our ancestors came to have freedom.



*A seriously flawed theory...there is no such thing as job that "_____s won't do", basic economics tell us that there are only jobs that people won't do at a particular salary. Which is another issue, that I plan on addressing soon.
**which I think it is
***and I don't believe there are "American" jobs that "Americans" are entitled to which can be "stolen" by non-Americans