Rush Limbaugh has been criticized for raising the issue of whether or not Haitians will be subjected to the same kinds of limitations on assistance to be imposed on Americans such as the proposed healthcare review boards popularly referred to as "death panels" because of the powers these regulatory bodies would be granted to deny life-saving treatment to those deemed of marginal socioeconomic utility by government bureaucrats.
Why isn’t this question raised by the broadcaster considered a valid concern?
If the first purpose of the United States government is to provide for the general welfare of its citizens however one might decide to define the scope of that notion, shouldn’t foreigners irrespective of the desperation of their circumstances be subject to at least the same rigors?
While the victims of the earthquake in Haiti deserve sympathy and charity, engaged patriots must not allow elites to use this tragedy as an excuse to blunt the discerning criticism of good citizenship.
Some might respond that many of the victims of this cataclysm are innocent children. And that is true enough.
It is one thing to allow passage for a given number of youngsters who have caretakers and provision eagerly awaiting their arrival. It is quite another to grant charity willy-nilly without question.
The Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that up to 200,000 undocumented Haitian immigrants would be granted Temporary Protected Status upon application approval. According to the Miami Herald, temporary protected status is reserved for undocumented migrants displaced by natural disasters, armed conflicts or other emergencies; and Haitians seeking this authorization must prove they were in the United States prior to the day the quake struck.
In other words, the privilege to remain here is being extended to those that shouldn’t even be here in the first place. And, though they might have family on the island impacted by the quake, since those applying for this status were here in America at the time, they themselves suffered no physical injury or dislocation.
Since those here improperly are in violation of the law, Americans must naturally question the character of these migrants to begin with. However, it is doubtful frontline immigration personnel will be given the time necessary to make the proper assessments since pressure is being applied to officials to make urgent, expedited decisions.
Thus, in all the administrative confusion, in all likelihood our government will end up extending the blessing of its approval to be here to a number of shady characters most upstanding Americans would not otherwise want to be around. The tolerancemongers among the readership will no doubt fly into their usual histrionics about how dare anyone say such a thing.
However, if these individuals are possessed of such a stellar character that they make Mother Teresa look like a Hooter’s girl, perhaps those wanting the Haitian illegals to remain here will permit the Haitians to housesit for the duration of the work permit (after the expiration of which these migrants are not going to leave anyway and anyone that claims otherwise is so bereft of commonsense that they’d take their brain out their brain and play with it if they had one). Better yet, if these new arrivals are good enough to roam freely about American streets, perhaps some should without benefit of background checks be appointed to watch the Obama children. Frankly then, if these Haitians aren't good enough to be around the Obama's, then we definitely don't need them around the rest of us.
This attempt at immigration reform has the added caveat attached that, if you are not for it, you are opposed to assisting the adorable Haitian whelps trapped under slabs of concrete. The effort is also couched in the usual terms that everybody benefits when illegals are brought out into the open economy. But is that really so?
For if the Haitian illegals are made legal, won't that require employers to pay at least minimum wage once these workers are on the books? And if that is the case, what incentive then does a business have to hire a Haitian rather than an individual of a more traditional American background or from an immigrant culture less prone to tropical proclivities of indolence and shiftlessness such as showing up at work late without much concern for temporal precision.
Obama's Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel is credited with saying that the government should never let a good crisis go to waste. By this, the False Prophet to Obama's Beast means that as many tragedies and misfortunes as possible should be used to accrue power to the state irrespective of whether or not the proposal under consideration is actually going to alleviate the problem in the long run. Thus, the first thing the discerning citizen should yell is “STOP” or at least “SLOW DOWN” whenever a politician of any party insists that a new program must be created or any additional money must be spent at this instance.
Frederick Meekins is an independent theologian and social critic. Frederick holds a BS in Political Science/History, a MA in Apologetics/Christian Philosophy from Trinity Theological Seminary, and a PhD. in Christian Apologetics from Newburgh Theological Seminary.
Cover
•
Commentary
•
Books & Reviews
•
Climate Change
•
Site Links
•
Feedback
