Why amnesty is so selfish
[originally posted at blogforcox.com]
Every nation on the planet has one of two things: freedom or abundant resources. Only one nation clearly has both: The United States.
The vast majority of Europe enjoys freedom but with roughly twice the population of the US packed in less than half the space their resources are fairly limited.
Most of the rest of the world suffers from despotic governments, tempestuous politics and/or unpredictable politics. Most of those, however, have a rich wealth of resources, but lack the freedom and stability to use them.
Europe's want of resources is not altogether a big problem. Japan is an example of how successfully a nation can compensate for the lack of natural resources. Ultimately they depend on the resources of other nations, but in a fair economic balance of trade. And when it comes to problems of illegal immigration, we don't generally have to worry about people from free, developed nations trying to sneak across the border.
The problem comes from the third group of nations, the resource rich, but politically oppressed. The term "third world" actually refers to the division of Capitalist West (first world), Communist East (second world) and the rest (third world). The former distinction is now fairly anachronistic since the demise of the Soviet Union, especially since China has more in common with the "third world", than the rest. They also suffer from an inability to fully utilize their resources due to the lack of freedom.
So what's the solution?
What rule number one when you have chicken pox?
Don't scratch!
It itches, it's what you want to do, it's what seems the right thing to do, but doing it just makes it worse. The body needs to heal itself and scratching aggravates the problem and can even lead to infection, making things much, much worse.
When we see people suffering in third world nations due to oppressive governments, we wish they could be free like us. We even feel guilty because we enjoy freedom and prosperity. We want to do some thing to improve their condition. But more often than not the knee-jerk response causes more harm than good. We want to scratch, but that's the last ting we should do.
America is free because some very brave men and women risked their lives to establish a nation, free from oppressive laws. It remains free because brave men and women continue to risk their lives and livelihoods to maintain that freedom. The foundation of our freedom is the knowledge that freedom is obtainable. Without that confidence we'd be as chaotic as any third world nation.
The reason so many nations with abundant resources remain enslaved to corrupt government is that the people there have no confidence in their own power to establish and maintain freedom. They want to abandon the ship, flock to the most promising lifeboat (the US) and more than likely overturn it instead of simply repairing the ship.
As long as we are soft on illegal immigration and taunt people in third world nations with talk of amnesty for illegals, they have no reason to solve their own problem, only shift it to us.
We cannot hold the world's oppressed without being oppressed ourselves. We must stop scratching the itch, and let it heal. Just as we found freedom, so can they, but in their own nations, in their own cultures and in their own way. It is inevitable, as long as we don't give them a reason not to. Amnesty is the reason not to.
Amnesty prolongs the suffering by delivering the false hope that rather than fight for their own freedom they can simply escape to the United States. But they can't all do that, and unless the people in those nations are united in their fight for freedom they will never achieve it. Too many of their resources is spent trying to escape the problem rather than fix it. All because the carrot of Amnesty is dangled so temptingly before them.
Amnesty is selfish because it's real goal is to make silly people here feel they've accomplished something, while actually making the real problems worse. Why do you think the Mexican government is so vigorously against our own immigration policies while enforcing draconian ones themselves. They know that as long as the Mexican people are so focused on escape to the US, they won't lift a finger to actually make Mexico a better place, so the corrupt politicians can continue to exploit the people of Mexico.
Remember the opposite of love is indifference and when a policy like Amnesty serves only to coax the ego of those giving it, it's isn't compassion, it's cruelty based on indifference for the suffering of others.
Posted by Danny Carlton at March 14, 2008 9:13 AM