Help the President with Law Enforcement
I have a metal sign on my wall. It hung on a wall inside a barn in eastern NC for more than 80 years (it's from the 1920s, in other words). I bought it at an auction, and had it framed, because it captures the libertarian solution to a whole lot of problems, including the very real one raised in the post above.
The little metal sign says,
Help the President with Law Enforcement. Repeal the 18th Amendment. For Prosperity .
The coalition that kept Prohibition in place is referred to, in Poli Sci circles, as the "Baptists and Bootleggers" coalition. The Baptists for moral reasons, and Bootleggers for economic reasons, wanted the state to crack down on legal liquor sales. Baptists got their morality, and the bootleggers got a protected monopoly.
We have a lot of problems with "illegal aliens." We have a lot of problems with enforcing laws that make things illegal. The answer is not to get more law enforcement. The answer, just like my little signs says, is to REPEAL THE STUPID LAW!
Help the President with Law Enforcement. Make Immigration Legal, for Law-Abiding Hard-Working Foreigners. For Prosperity.
Because here's the thing: The Baptist and Bootlegger coalition has come back. Lou Dobbs and xenophobic nativist elements of our population want to pull the ladder up. "I've got mine! Screw you!" So they play the moralistic public loudmouth role.
And the Bootleggers? Well, those are the giant ag corporations, and the meatpackers, and all the other companies that depend on KEEPING immigration illegal so they can underpay, abuse, and nearly enslave immigrants. That's the economic part.
Repeal the law, and "enforcement" is a breeze.