-By Warner Todd Huston
Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg recently wrote a piece headlined, Arizona, immigration and the welfare state, in which he ruminated on the state’s never-ending desire to track its citizens, sometimes resulting in the implementation of a national ID card. Goldberg is, of course, against a national ID and laments that our government “bequeaths so many benefits” to citizens and non-citizens alike which might require such an effort.
Naturally the proper solution, the best way to prevent a national ID card, is to be rid of the “liberal welfare state,” the Tyranny of Clichés author notes.
After a summation of the history of intrusive, overbearing statism, Goldberg says that most conservatives aren’t necessarily against “large-scale immigration,” but the Arizona law reveals a serious flaw in our country nonetheless. He concludes with the following:
But what I wish liberal opponents would understand is that in a society where the government “gives” so much to its citizens, it’s inevitable that the state will pursue ways to more clearly demarcate the lines between the citizen and the non-citizen.
Most (but by no means all) conservatives I know would have few problems with large-scale immigration if we didn’t have a welfare state that bequeaths so many benefits on citizens and non-citizens alike. I myself am a huge fan of legal immigration. But if you try to see things like a state for a second, it’s simply unsustainable to have a libertarian immigration policy and a liberal welfare state. Ultimately, if you don’t want cops asking for your papers, you need to get rid of one or the other.
This is a sensible conclusion.
Still, a nagging question persists: Why do we give illegal entrants into our country so many benefits in the first place? Especially when many of those benefits, like free schooling or cheaper in-state tuition costs, even free healthcare, benefits so freely given to illegals, aren’t bestowed our own natural born (or even naturalized) citizens. As most of us are denied these handouts they are oh so quickly extended to illegals.
In large part, the problem is that these overly generous social benefits being extended to people that have broken our laws to get here and break our laws to stay, act as a magnet, an actual inducement, to come here.
The recent reports of a temporary lull in illegal immigration now being seen is actually proof that curtailing inducements works. Many illegal immigrants are either returning home or not coming here in the first place because of the bad economy. The jobs they were taking are just not as plentiful as they once were.
Imagine if we also eliminated all those undue social benefits? Then we’d really see illegal immigration at a low ebb.
Goldberg correctly notes that a national ID card would make life easier for those statists that want to categorize us all — something we should not encourage, to be sure — but the solution is to eliminate the inducements first, not impose larger state control on all of us.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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