Why Don’t We Just Bring Back Slavery? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: www.intellectualconservative.com
May 28, 2007 Author: By Phillip Ellis Jackson



Here’s a quick guide to the current debate on illegal immigration, and a practical solution that transcends all the major points.

There are four basic camps to the current Illegal Immigration debate:

1. The Geraldo Rivera/La Raza/Democrat Party Position.

Borders? We don’t need no stinkin’ borders. America is the land of opportunity. We owe it [insert reason here] to the people of the world to let them come to this blessed land and make a decent living for themselves and their extended families, as well as vote for the Democrats in the next election. How they get here — legally or not — is just a detail.

2. The Wall Street Journal/U.S. Chamber of Commerce/George Bush Position.

9/11? What does controlling the borders have to do with national security? There are jobs in this country that American workers simply will not do . . . for the wages we want to pay them. So bring on the cheap labor, and don’t hold American businesses accountable for hiring illegal aliens and/or paying under-the-table wages. We need these people to pick our crops, cut our lawns, and build our homes at a price we are comfortable paying them.

3. The Uber-Conservative Position.

Immigration? Legal or Illegal, there are too many people in this country already with a vowel at the end of their name, who pray at the wrong church (or no church at all) or don’t need SPF 50 sun block to keep from looking like a fresh boiled lobster on a sunny July afternoon. Close everything down and return this country to its original state. Er, I mean the original state after we got rid of the Indians.

4. The Build a Fence, Deport ‘em and Re-admit ‘em legally Position.

Logistics? You say we can’t find 12 million illegal aliens, and even if we did, we don’t have enough prisons to lock them all up? So, we give it a try anyway, and see how many we can catch and deport. And as we’re doing this, we see how many will leave voluntarily once we start putting a few dozen CEOS in jail for hiring illegal aliens in the first place. Whatever number is left over becomes “the problem.” We keep hunting them down while we secure our borders, and re-introduce some sanity into the legal immigration process.

These, I believe, represent the four main positions from which other subsets flow (the McCain codicils, the Rudy exceptions, the Hillary position-of-the-moment, and so on, and so forth.)

All four are destined to fail, because none of their core positions address the three main fundamental issues of (a) security, (b) the need for a sufficient pool of reasonably priced labor, and (c) addressing immigration not as a legal issue but a matter of personal conscience. Those that highlight security make it impossible to keep paying subsistence wages, or under the table wages without the corresponding state-mandated obligations and benefits. Those that continue the free flow of cheap labor make it impossible to adequately control the borders and/or keep track of the immigrants and their extended families flooding into the country. And those that address both security and labor fail to consider matters of personal conscience that supersede the law, whatever it says.

But I have a solution to the problem that addresses all three needs. The answer is found in the distant past of American history, and is in fact an acceptable practice today in many parts of the developing world. We can have cheap labor, protect our security, as well as pick and choose the laws we want to obey if we simply repeal the 14th Amendment, and bring back slavery.

For those who focus on cheap labor as the most important issue, there’s nothing cheaper than free labor. Four walls and a ceiling, some ratty old bedding to sleep on, and a communal outhouse is all one needs to provide for the basic necessities for this new labor force. As far as feeding them, there’s enough government surplus cheese and other subsidized programs to sustain these new workers without cutting into the all-important profit margin. Health care isn’t needed, because when they succumb to the ravages of nature there’s a never-ending supply of new recruits to replace them.

As for security, a few strands of concertina wire around the ole compound is all the security we need. If that fails, there’s always the “Toby” solution as the mini-series Roots illustrated. Ten toes are not strictly necessary unless you plan on running away, and there are plenty of jobs where walking and sitting will do just fine. Moreover, the absence of a few toes will have the additional salutary benefit of reducing the individual’s foot size, which saves on shoe leather and thus helps the environment. Al Gore should be pleased.

For those who resent the fact that the U.S. government might in fact want to control its own borders, and thus control immigration, slavery returns this decision to the individual. Government no longer tells us what we can or can’t do; we’re now free to follow our own hearts. Allow as many people to cross the Rio Grande as you want, then round ‘em up and take them to their new home. There may still be some laws on the books that require schooling for young children or minimum sanitary conditions for the new American workforce, but these can be ignored just as easily as the old immigration laws were.

Now, I know this all may sound a little draconian, but I’m sure if you think about it for a while you’ll see that re-instituting slavery is the only way to touch on all the elements everyone insists are important. The alternative approach, which is to actually treat this subject seriously instead of as a political football, clearly hasn’t worked. Since Position #4 doesn’t seem to have any real support on Capitol Hill, it’s time to propose a new solution that will capture the imagination of our elected officials. Upholding current immigration laws, deporting illegal aliens, penalizing employers and sanctuary workers who hire or harbor illegal aliens — all these are clearly unacceptable positions to our lawmakers in Washington. Since these antiquated notions are no longer valid in today’s world, it’s time to get creative. Re-instituting slavery may not be the best solution, but it’s certainly one that is in keeping with the needs and requirements as defined by the current debate.

So, I’m hoping you all can get behind my proposal. It makes about as much sense as anything being discussed seriously today.

[*Arabman]

[America is the land of opportunity.]

Correction; America is the land of opportunism.