Ron Paul, Tear Down That Wall!

Exclusive to STR

November 20, 2007

Crypto-libertarians in the FBI, US Mint, and Secret Service have catapulted Ron Paul into a permanent media presence with their raid on the Liberty Dollar. Paul's fundraising machinery is unstoppable. Gentlemen, ladies, we face the hitherto unthinkable prospect: a tyrannical Ron Paul regime.

Sure, Ron has the perfect libertarian platforms on defense, Aid To Dependent Dictators, corporate subsidies, welfare, education, privacy, the Patriot Act, the Second Amendment, crime, health care, inflation, the Federal Reserve, Social Security, the UN, racism, eminent domain, the national debt, the environment, and the airspeed velocity of unladen swallows. (That's why I've been a Ron Paul contributor since 1988 or so).

But then there's the Ron Paul immigration policy.

Positions from the Ron Paul website:

Physically secure our borders and coastlines. We must do whatever it takes to control entry into our country before we undertake complicated immigration reform proposals.

That sounds great. We don't want any terrorists or spies here, do we? Except that the last terrorists came here on legal visas, and any future terrorist, spy, or politician can always come here on a legal visa. They are the ones who have the time and money to get through agonizing visa hurdles (and if they get impatient, they'll just kill an American tourist and come in on their papers). Meanwhile, millions of legitimate tourists, relatives of American citizens, and workers are kept out.

Bush is paying Boeing and other campaign contributors about $8 billion to line the Rio Grande with camera towers and drones. This new Maginot Line won't keep out one single serious terrorist or spy. (But it might keep US citizens in once things get bad enough . . . .)

Our borders are already secure against conventional military movements. We spend as much as the rest of the world put together on 'securing our borders.' Unfortunately, our armed forces are completely uninterested in securing us against nuclear missiles, providing any sort of civil defense, or defending against any other likely threat. But if Pancho Villa were to try the border again, our troops would . . . well, after they got back from the Middle East , they'd give him what-for, I tell you what.

Enforce visa rules. Immigration officials must track visa holders and deport anyone who overstays their visa or otherwise violates U.S. law. This is especially important when we recall that a number of 9/11 terrorists had expired visas.

I don't think they were going to pull over and say, 'Hey, we can't crash these planes! Our visas are expired!'

No amnesty. Estimates suggest that 10 to 20 million people are in our country illegally. That's a lot of people to reward for breaking our laws.

We're not 'rewarding' anyone by ceasing to use force against them. We're proposing to stop interfering with the work contracts and housing arrangements of people who have been living here for decades. What is Paul saying here? We're going to hire a million blacksuited Blackwater goons and round up 20 million workers into camps?

Of course that would shut down agriculture, construction, our remaining manufacturing, and my half-finished kitchen floor (oops). The Patriot Act would become a forgotten symbol of civil liberties, given the system of biometric ID and surveillance that will be needed to deport over 7% of the US population. And who will sew the yellow armbands if there are no illegals?

No welfare for illegal aliens. Americans have welcomed immigrants who seek opportunity, work hard, and play by the rules. But taxpayers should not pay for illegal immigrants who use hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and social services.

I don't care which layabouts are leeching off me, I want them all off the dole. But this is fine with me . . . while we're at it, we can kick ourselves off our middle-class Medicare dole, which is partly paid for by illegals who will never get that money back. (You say we paid a bundle into Social Security, Medicare, etc.? Yes, we did, but Congress stole our retirement money long ago . . . there's nothing in the 'Trust Fund' but some IOUs. And our trust, of course.)

The welfare issue is a wash. Illegals pay Social Security (at least 8 million of them do), Medicare, sales, property and corporate income taxes (indirectly). We card-carrying Amurricans pay for emergency room services and public schools. The solution is to cut welfare programs, not to add a new Mexstapo.

End birthright citizenship. As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be citizens, the incentive to enter the U.S. illegally will remain strong.

OK, I agree that never made any sense. In fact, we should withdraw the citizenship of anyone born here who lives off government welfare, and deport them . . . Archer-Daniels-Midland, Halliburton, KBR, etc.

Pass true immigration reform. The current system is incoherent and unfair. But current reform proposals would allow up to 60 million more immigrants into our country, according to the Heritage Foundation. This is insanity. Legal immigrants from all countries should face the same rules and waiting periods.

Treat everyone the same, eh? Now he's sounding like Ron Paul again. But what the Heritage Foundation never mentions is that the proportion of immigrants in the US population was a lot higher in the early 1900s than now . . . and the economy grew a lot faster. Immigration wasn't a problem when America was free.

Immigration problems are like Drug Prohibition problems: They were created by government. If 'illegals' could own property and work legally, they would make an even bigger contribution to our country than they do now. If we native-born hadn't voted ourselves into a Welfare State, there wouldn't be 'free' services for illegals to overload. If we hadn't bankrupted our nation with crazy foreign wars and corporate welfare, we wouldn't be dependent on illegals paying Social Security taxes. And if we hadn't given out a few trillion dollars to subsidize socialism overseas since WWII, foreigners could stay in their own countries and work there.

In all seriousness, a tyrannical Ron Paul presidency would eventually cure the problems of illegal immigration. Ron would work to cut off foreign aid to Latin American and African kleptocrat governments on Day One. Without US support, subsidized 'socialism' in the Third World would collapse, and most countries would actually have domestic economies to provide jobs.

Nevertheless: Ron Paul, Tear Down That (Hypothetical) Wall!