Thursday, January 8, 2004
I'm with Wind Rider over at Silent Running on this. Silent Running: Wait and see on this one I didn't see the President's speech, but what I've actually read about it and the policy so far doesn't make it sound half as bad as the talk-radio fallout I heard immediately afterward. Disclosure: I consider myself a the "close the borders, enforce the laws" person, and have been agravated at both party's inability to do either. If the laws don't work properly, then that's a reason to reform, not ignore. A guest worker program of some sort makes sense.
I acknowledge that this is an extremely deep and complicated problem, and I'm willing to give a little patience to the administration for taking a stab at it - enough that I'll hold off final judgement on it until I see some really good explanation/analysis - if such a thing is even possible with such a horrificaly charged issue.
Update: Andrew Sullivan seems to like it. Jeff Jarvis says it's about outsourcing in a way. Kathy Kinsley thinks the fact that both sides are angry shows the plan may just be pretty balanced.
Update2: Citizen Smash has his own thoughts, as well as an extensive link roundup.
I agree: GWB deserves some credit for at least attempting a start at a solution. The debate on what to do about our borders has been bounce around for several administrations, and this is the first time anyone has actually had the guts do something, good or bad.
I think that this may be only step one in a broader plan, so a little patience is in order (something sadly lacking from the uproar talk radio has been blasting over the air).
I say immigration is ,in some ways ,the same as any other sort of recruitment. It should be on a pro-ability basis; an all-merit system. To put it on a compassion for evil basis is liberal in a very negative sense of the term; the politics and jurisprudence of compassion for evil. A pro-ability society will not choose the criminal above the meritorious; no matter how pitifully the anti-merit activists cry that they couldn't help it.