November 14, 2006
Hugh on Immigration
A friend of ThreeSources sends this link to Hugh Hewitt.
As soon as the House and Senate GOP have their leadership teams in place, and soon after the lame duck session ends, the 250 House and Senate members should repair to a conference center somewhere for a long conversation on illegal immigration leading to a consensus position. Certainly there will be outliers, but an ongoing bloodletting over the issue is the only major obstacle in the path to return to majority status. An ongoing focus on the issue is found at Powerline, and though I am unwilling to simply credit Tamar Jacoby's take on the subject, she is generally correct that the issue of illegal immigration did not deliver a wave of support for GOP candidates who thought it would.
It's a thoughtful piece as I would expect from Hewitt. The link arrived without comment from one of my many detractors.
I sense that even Hewitt is humbled by the loss. He admits, in this piece, that he was never certain it was a winner and now concedes to being close to Tamar Jacoby's position.
I was very disappointed when Hewitt changed his "12 words" from his excellent book, Painting The Map Red, to "15 words" by adding "seal the border." The original twelve:
Win the war.
Confirm the judges.
Cut the taxes.
Control the spending.
Those would have galvanized all the GOP-leaning ThreeSourcers, WSJ, Weekly Standard, National Review, maybe even George Will and David Brooks on a good day.
When Hewitt released a T-Shirt, it was up to 15 and I feared the next week would be 18 with the addition of "Queers Cain't Marry!." I will credit Hugh with learning from the vote totals. But I sense he is ducking the complicity of the talk radio movement in fueling the border hysteria.
JK, it seems to me that we are all in agreement that we want this to remain the land of opportunity for those who wish to come here and abide by our laws, work hard and contribute. We also seem to be in agreement, at least for the sake of argument, over JGVII. So what is left to argue about but "seal the border?" You said in an earlier post that you want a "lawful and regulated" border. Fair enough. To me that means a closed border with a combination of concrete fencing and electronic surveillance. It also means a military presence. What would you do differently to provide for " a lawful and regulated" border.
Posted by: sugarchuck at November 14, 2006 2:04 PMI would also add that I know we are vulnerable in other places, but twelve million plus came into this country illegally across our southern border so I think that is a good place to start placing limited resources.
I want to change the situation from being illegal and chaotic to being legal, moderatable, and auditable. That will make it more fair and humane, and make America more secure. I think we really do agree there.
I don't think that we either can or want to do it by enforcement only. Hugh (I think) says Let's close that baby down, tight as a drum. Then we can talk about how many to let in and how. I think the ThreeSources naitivist wing is pretty close to that and I say "No, baby, not gonna work!"
I really see it as an engineering problem. Put up the fence, yes, but without a guest worker program or increased visas, the pressure will be too great for the fence to contain. Companies, citizens and farmers up here want labor That's a vacuum on the North half. Workers down there want employment, that's pressure on the South wall. If you don't provide a valve to moderate that pressure differential, the wall is going to blow over. I've tortured that analogy but I mean every word of it.
The part of the status quo I do like is the generous amount of labor it has made available. A fix that breaks this does not appeal to me. I'm not being evasive on purpose. I want to fix it, but I don't want to spoil the economy. I get the sense Bill Kristol is in my camp there. The status quo sucks but is better than a bad solution. My mind is drawn to Sarbanes-Oxley here...
Posted by: jk at November 14, 2006 2:26 PMStop Swift Boating me!
Posted by: jk at November 15, 2006 4:05 PM | What do you think? [3]