There are a few comments on my heretical post I want to address.
First, yes, I know the difference between keeping people in and out. It doesn’t make any difference. I have a negative gut reaction to it either way. But the really stupid thing about the fence is that it won’t do a damned thing. If people want to get over it, they’ll get over it. So what are you going to do then? It’s a waste of money that could go to beefing up the border patrol.
Mister Snitch sez:
Visit New Jersey, where election fraud is routine. We NEED Voter IDs, for at least a modicum of fairness in elections. Cops stopping you on the street and demanding IDs, hat’s a different matter. But here in Jersey, there’s simply no stopping election fraud right now.
Whoa, back up. Who said anything about Voter ID? I was referring to National ID cards — a completely different issue. As it happens, I’m strongly in favor of Voter ID.
Then about penalizing employers for hiring illegals, Charles sez:
Gotta disagree with you here. It’s conservative because it is simply a matter of enforcing the laws that are on the books – and have been there for a very long time.
If you think this is what the immigration hawks are demanding, you aren’t paying attention. First, if it’s a matter of enforcing laws already in place, there’s absolutely no reason to pass any more laws. Second, the immigration hawks don’t want enforcement; they want automatic penalties. If I’ve got a SSN for my employee, it sure as the hell isn’t my job to hunt it down and make sure it’s not somebody else’s SSN. Employers are not police agencies. When Mike Pence made these very points, all of the immigration hawks started screaming SHAMNESTY! RINO! RINO!
They also want to expand the lengths employers have to go to verify citizenship. That’s making businesses an arm of law enforcement, and it’s bullshit.
The problem with the whole illegal immigration issue is that you can’t discuss it rationally with these people, because they aren’t rational. They’re also not honest. If they were, they wouldn’t try to paint it as throw them all out or “open borders.” Well okay, they could just be simple minded, but I don’t think that’s the case.
Enforce the laws on the books? Sounds great to me. Automatic penalties? That’s horseshit — and it’s also unconstitutional. No penalties without a trial. I might point out that current law requires, as it must, that the government prove that the employer knowingly broke the law. This is precisely what the immigration hawks want to change, and it’s why they’re assholes.
If you want to bring me up on charges that I knowingly hired illegals, then you have to prove it. In court. In front of a jury. Provided, of course, that I don’t plead guilty and pay a fine.
As far as that addition on my house goes, I’m not going to check anybody’s papers. That’s the contractor’s job. And I’m still waiting for immigration hawks to tell me they’ll reimburse me out of their own pockets (not from tax revenue) for the thousands of dollars I’ll be throwing away just to make them happy.
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As an small businessman and employer, I can smell a crook a mile away and have never hired an illegal alien with fake ID but I still resent being told that I have to do a police job by having to check a database to make sure that the SSN that I have been given is real. It gives me the creeps and makes me feel like I’m beholden to Big Brother.