The Goode Position
561 words.
Virgil Goode and his supporters apparently want to keep the immigration debate on the front burner. So let’s take a peek at it.
I don’t write about immigration too much myself because I admit my position is not completely set in stone. I last looked into it last Spring, but I was sufficiently repulsed by Michelle Malkin’s hysterical screachings about Reconquista that I moved immigration off my radar and Malkin out of my news reader. I understand that illegal immigration is bad for society, but I can also see plenty of good reasons why poor or oppressed people would want to come to the United States. It’s hard for me to judge people too harshly for wanting a better life for themselves or their family, especially when they can’t get that life in their own country and there are bureaucratic obstacles to moving to a better country.
Anyway, despite my ambivalence, I shall press onward to discuss “the Virgil Goode position on immigration.”
From a national security standpoint, Rep. Goode’s assertion that we need to stop illegal immigration and “reduce” legal immigration doesn’t make sense to me. Let’s consider what effect his policy would have on terrorism, for instance, by using 9/11 as a benchmark. In my opinion, stopping illegal immigration won’t help, because we know that the 9/11 hijackers were here legally. Therefore, if we assume that all foreigners are a threat, then to stop a future 9/11, we would need to entirely eliminate immigration by any foreigner into the United States.
But that doesn’t seem to be Goode’s position. He said he only wants to “reduce” immigration, which would still leave a vulnerability. Perhaps he was only being coy and politically correct when he discussed “reducing” immigration, and in fact he wants to reduce it all the way to zero. Yet I doubt even a total ban on all forms of immigration could prevent future terrorism. Without a Berlin Wall- or Korean DMZ-style barrier across our borders, there would still be plenty of ways for foreigners to get into the country illegally. Just ask any of the southern border states.
So it seems clear to me that Goode’s position on immigration isn’t going to prevent terrorism.
That only leaves one logical alternative: Goode must be trying to stop Muslims from building a new Caliphate and subjugating the infidels in America. (I don’t doubt that some radical Muslim leaders really want to do that.) So Goode must be thinking that, by reducing immigration, fewer Muslims will infiltrate our society and spread Sharia in the coming generations.
Yet again, his plan would only slow the impending Caliphate, not stop it entirely, and it doesn’t account for Muslims that are already American citizens. (It also doesn’t account for the fact that the vast majority of Muslims are not evil, but that’s a different topic.)
So, since his plan won’t achieve either the goal of stopping terrorists or the goal of stopping a Muslim Caliphate in America, it seems to me that Goode’s immigration plan would only serve to deny well-intentioned people the privilege of entering the United States.
Maybe other people would be okay with looking down on the misfortunes of the rest of the world, but that’s not a plan I could get behind.
Thomas Krehbiel writes The Krehbiel Strikes Back, a generally centrist commentary on news, media, politics, and culture.
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