Posted by
voice_of_reason on Friday, June 15, 2007 12:56:31 PM
America was built on many good Judeo-Christian values .. but a couple of Trojan Horses snuck in along with all those 'good' values and forever affected our thinking on political issues.
Case in point: our religion-inspired predisposition to revere altruism sets us up to favor the 'have-nots'. Whatever else illegal immigrants might be, they definitely fit the description of 'have-nots'.
For the record: I happen to agree with the 'mainstream' conservative opinion that:
* we should enforce our laws,
* illegal immigrants should not be granted amnesty,
* we should build a wall and secure our borders for all the right reasons.
I weigh in on the topic of illegal immigration only to illustrate that it is difficult (and inconsistent) to take an anti-illegal-immigration stance while still adhering to the tenets of charity and sacrifice as 'virtues'. A politician who articulates such positions can be demagogued to death for his seeming insensitivity and lack of compassion.
Note: I don't claim to understand the ideological motivation or political calculus behind President Bush's support for this Immigration bill. Can any TH pundit explain if it is just plain foolishness, or is there some grand triangulation or strategery being attempted?
That said, let's return to the subject of those darn Trojan Horses!
Our moral code extols altruism, so we lack moral ammunition against the illogic of illegal immigration. Although it is the right thing to say, it just sounds so mean-spirited and selfish to sit here, surrounded by our well-earned affluence, and say "send 'em all back to their Socialist cesspools. Let them take a couple of centuries to create a Capitalist society in their countries, if they want to succeed like us".
Politicians use our religion-inspired predisposition towards altruism against us. If a politician can couch his support for Illegal Immigration in charitable terms - and enough of us buy into this nonsense - then the Trojan Horse has been successfully deployed. Of course, this applies on both sides of the political spectrum.
The Left has made compassionate conservative an oxymoron; and now the Right is skewering President Bush for being compassionate (but stupid). Observe the strenuous back-pedalling of Religious Conservatives away from President Bush once he showed his compassionate support for illegal immigration. Many Religious Conservatives voted for President Bush because he passed their social litmus tests. But now that he failed them on illegal immigration (an issue that involves economics and American self-interest), they are bitterly disappointed.
Sorry folks, but its that altruistic Trojan Horse that got us into this!