What is the Difference?

Let’s look at the following statements:

We must stop the sun from coming up in the morning.
We must stop illegal immigration.

In what way are they the same? In what way are they different?

Their similarity is their impossibility. They are different in that the impossibility is far less obvious for the second statement. That we cannot stop the sun from coming up in the morning is trivially obvious. But we should be able to enforce laws against illegal immigration. But in reality we can no more stop illegal immigration than we can stop the sun from coming up. So long as life is perceived as better on our side of the border people will try to cross it even if they must do so illegally. So long as the jobs are better on our side of the border people will try to cross it. So long as they have family members on this side of the border they will try to cross it. We cannot stop people from illegally crossing the border. No matter how much effort and resources we put into the effort there will still be illegal immigration. We can no more stop illegal immigration than we can stop the sun from coming up in the morning.

This is why rational people support amnesty. This is why rational people support guest worker programs. This is why rational people support giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses. We just have to make the best we can of a situation we are powerless to change.

There is one other important difference between these two statements. If one is serious in wanting to be the Republican nominee for President in 2008 one had better believe it is possible to stop illegal immigration. The voters in Republican primaries expect and demand no less. If a candidate were to dare to even suggest the impossibility of enforcing laws against immigration that candidate would fine he has no support. So we can continue to hear Republican candidates for President speak as if stopping illegal immigration can actually be done.

This is why the rational people of this planet are looking for a planet to immigrate to. Reason is clearly a lost cause on this one.