{"id":885,"date":"2013-06-19T14:43:09","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T18:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=885"},"modified":"2013-06-19T14:43:09","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T18:43:09","slug":"amnesty-nonsense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty Nonsense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s be blunt: anyone who endorses anything remotely resembling the \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d currently bandied about in Congress is either a fool or a liar.<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty\u2014and make no mistakes about it, \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform,\u201d \u201ca pathway to citizenship,\u201d and whatever other euphemisms its apologists invoke do nothing to change the fact that it <i>is <\/i>amnesty that they favor\u2014is a fool\u2019s errand of epic proportions.\u00a0 This becomes obvious once we consider it in light of an analogy from everyday life.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re married.\u00a0 Chief among the obligations inherent in marriage is that of fidelity.\u00a0 Now, your spouse has chronically failed to fulfill this most basic of duties. \u00a0Finally, you\u2019ve had enough.\u00a0 Upon threatening your philandering spouse with divorce, she acknowledges that your marriage is \u201cbroken\u201d before swearing to not only change, but change <i>radically.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>Not only will she stop cheating, she promises to transform herself into the epitome of the subservient, loyal, and loving wife.<\/p>\n<p>While you would doubtless <i>want <\/i>to believe this, you <i>could <\/i>not do so.<\/p>\n<p>No one could.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, none of the good sense on display here is present in this debate over amnesty\u2014even though the reasoning for the latter is identical to the reasoning of the unfaithful wife.<\/p>\n<p>It is among the most basic obligations of a government to secure its country\u2019s borders.\u00a0 As fidelity is essential to preserving the integrity of marriage, so too is border security essential to preserving the integrity of a nation.\u00a0 Indeed, a government that fails to secure its country\u2019s borders is unfaithful to its citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Now, according to the Senate Gang of Eight\u2019s plan, the government will be expected, not only to secure the border, but to see to it that a whole lot of other conditions are satisfied by those who are on \u201cthe pathway to citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are a few things to note here.<\/p>\n<p>First, if the government either can\u2019t or won\u2019t fulfill its most basic and simplest of obligations in securing the country\u2019s borders now<i>, <\/i>there is zero reason to accept its assurances that it will fulfill this duty as well as a bunch of new duties later. \u00a0As my old martial arts instructor used to say, you\u2019ve got to learn how to walk before you can learn how to run.<\/p>\n<p>With respect to this issue, our government hasn\u2019t yet learned how to walk, or even crawl.\u00a0 But the Gang of Eight and their accomplices in the media would have us believe that with the stroke of a pen, the federal government will instantaneously become a marathon runner.<\/p>\n<p>Second, border security is as big of a non-negotiable in governing as fidelity is a non-negotiable in marriage.\u00a0 The citizens of the United States should no more have to negotiate with their government to secure its borders than spouses should have to negotiate with one another to refrain from engaging in adultery.\u00a0 Spouses <i>owe <\/i>it to each other to be faithful. Similarly, the government owes it to its citizens to secure their borders.<\/p>\n<p>However, when Marco Rubio or Chuck Schumer or any other politician favoring amnesty tells us that in order to secure the border we must <i>first <\/i>place millions of illegal immigrants on a \u201cpathway\u201d to citizenship, what they are essentially saying is that <i>we, <\/i>the people\u2019s elected representatives, the government, will <i>not <\/i>discharge our constitutional duty <i>unless <\/i>you go along with what <i>we want.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n<p>Translation: border security most definitely <i>is <\/i>negotiable.<\/p>\n<p>And their accomplices in the media, most tragically the so-called \u201cconservative\u201d media, echo this sentiment.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, when Chuck Schumer, Marco Rubio, and their allies in Washington inform us that our immigration system is \u201cbroken,\u201d they admit, albeit unwittingly, that <i>they, <\/i>Republicans and Democrats alike,<i> <\/i>broke it. Only now, after decades of breaking the system apart piece by piece, they expect for citizens to trust them to construct a new system that is better than ever, a system that will magically solve all of our immigration related issues once and forever.<\/p>\n<p>To take seriously such a claim is to expose oneself as a fool.\u00a0 To get others to take it seriously is to expose oneself as a liar.<\/p>\n<p><i>\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s be blunt: anyone who endorses anything remotely resembling the \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d currently bandied about in Congress is either a fool or a liar. Amnesty\u2014and make no mistakes about it, \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform,\u201d \u201ca pathway to citizenship,\u201d and whatever other euphemisms its apologists invoke do nothing to change the fact that it is amnesty&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Amnesty Nonsense<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Amnesty Nonsense\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Let\u2019s be blunt: anyone who endorses anything remotely resembling the \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d currently bandied about in Congress is either a fool or a liar. Amnesty\u2014and make no mistakes about it, \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform,\u201d \u201ca pathway to citizenship,\u201d and whatever other euphemisms its apologists invoke do nothing to change the fact that it is amnesty&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-06-19T18:43:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Amnesty Nonsense","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Amnesty Nonsense","og_description":"Let\u2019s be blunt: anyone who endorses anything remotely resembling the \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d currently bandied about in Congress is either a fool or a liar. Amnesty\u2014and make no mistakes about it, \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform,\u201d \u201ca pathway to citizenship,\u201d and whatever other euphemisms its apologists invoke do nothing to change the fact that it is amnesty&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2013-06-19T18:43:09+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html","name":"Amnesty Nonsense","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-06-19T18:43:09+00:00","dateModified":"2013-06-19T18:43:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/06\/amnesty-nonsense.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Amnesty Nonsense"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jack Kerwick","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5","name":"Jack Kerwick","description":"I have a Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University, a master's degree in philosophy from Baylor University, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy and religious studies from Wingate University. I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":886,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions\/886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}