Friday, August 21, 2015

Down to the root

The estimable Thomas Sowell, discussing immigration but in doing so explaining the larger issue:
Even if it were necessary to revise the 14th Amendment, it is sheer Progressive era dogma that Constitutional Amendments are nearly impossible to revise, repeal or create. There were four new Constitutional Amendments added in just eight years, during the height of the Progressive era in the early 20th century.

But it is indeed impossible if you are just looking for excuses for not trying. Republicans who are worried about Donald Trump should be. But their own repeated betrayals of their supporters set the stage for his emergence. This goes all the way back to "Read my lips, no new taxes." 
Indeed.

10 comments:

Brian said...

Sowell is either grossly misinformed or simply lying when he says, "The federal government itself, under the Obama administration, has refused to enforce immigration laws..."

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/02/u-s-deportations-of-immigrants-reach-record-high-in-2013/

Mr. D said...

I would say the Obama administration has enforced the immigration laws in a very selective way. The executive orders and actions that Obama has taken in regard to immigration are arguably lawless, which is why they are tied up in federal court.

Having said that, the point of this post is Republican cowardice and the manifest unwillingness of the putative Republican leadership to oppose Obama's initiatives, not the capricious nature of Obama's directives.

Bike Bubba said...

Brian, courts have ruled that the Obama administration is not enforcing immigration laws. The number of deportations alone does not prove anything except that a lot of deportations have been made. It is only one part of immigration law.

3john2 said...

The Obama administration was absolutely relentless in deporting the German family that came here so they could homeschool their kids.

Gino said...

The admin is cooking the deport numbers. Turn backs,those caught near the border, were never considered deportations before. Obama adds them to his numbers now. A high school buddy who works the border even confirmed this to me.

Brian said...

Gino, that simply can't be true of the data set Pew is reporting on, regardless of what your buddy says. About 2/3 of removals in a given year are those caught at or near the border. The 2013 numbers are of a continuous trend that goes back to at least 1999. If a decision had been made to categorically shift the majority of removals from one category to another, the jump in the numbers would be huge. It isn't.

Gino said...

Brian: ill double check that when i get to my computer.

Bike Bubba said...

Here's comment on turnbacks:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/12/deportations-come-mostly-from-border-dhs-chief-say/?page=all

So there is some truth to this--Jeh Johnson admitted as much. So the increase over the past six years appears to be something of a balancing of (a) flattening of the illegal immigrant population and (b) declaring large subgroups of illegals off limits to deportation with (c) a large portion of those turned back at the border.

(it would have to do with the difference of being turned back "at the border" vs. being apprehended near the border--some semantic games to be sure, but probably a bunch of reality here that Gino's friend could speak to)

To put it mildly, Sowell is vindicated and more here, and it might take a long time to repair the bonds of trust that the current President is brazenly violating here.

Brian said...

"...it might take a long time to repair the bonds of trust that the current President is brazenly violating here."

You clutch those pearls any harder, Bubba, you might break them. The only difference between Obama and his predecessors is that he isn't pretending that deporting 11 million people is a viable option, and has made the prioritization that has to happen in that case a matter of policy.

OK, let's pretend the Moonie Times is a reliable source and run with it for a minute...so then, enforcement has shifted from catching people in the interior (difficult and expensive) towards turning people back at or near the border (less difficult and expensive)...which suggests that not only are they removing more people, but even fewer "illegals" are ever here to begin with as a result over time...and you think that's a bad thing?

Bike Bubba said...

Liberal use of the genetic fallacy is a great way to recognize someone who can not, or will not, make a real argument. Just sayin'.

And you're misreading the Times as well--they also note that Johnson admitted that if you add in the people Bush sent back, the deportation numbers would have been far higher under Bush.

Again, like Sowell said and many judges have repeated (and they are not "moonies" or owners of pearls), the current President is disregarding the law. Seems to me he made a pledge to "faithfully execute" the law a time or two, and that's a pretty big violation of trust. Like a few other things he's done.