Friday, June 15, 2007

Pardon our Amnesty

Posted by Mack

Not that it will matter to the rabid anti-immigration forces, but applying the word amnesty to the proposed immigration bill is factually incorrect. According to Wikipedia:

Amnesty
(from the Greek amnestia, oblivion) is an act of justice by which the supreme power in a state restores those who may have been guilty of any offence against it to the position of innocent persons. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the offense. (emphasis mine)

Clearly, imposing fines and other "punishments" for this civil infraction in no way resembles the definition or even the spirit of the word amnesty.

That said, I no longer respond to allegations of amnesty by pointing out how wrong it is to apply the term. No, in fact, I now simply ask "well, why not amnesty?"

What part of the amnesty idea is so foreign to the ideals of America? In almost every case, Americans love an underdog. Our movies and novels typically involve some lone hero, fighting overwhelming odds. Don't we find ourselves rooting for him/her to win? The ideas of fairness and compassion appeal to Americans, in no small part because we identify ourselves as a Faith-based society. I do not think it is unreasonable to assume that Jesus surely would have favored bridges instead of walls, and forgiveness over retribution. Even Secularists believe, in the end, that it is "good to do good."

I think many of us have "signed on" to the proposed bill because we desperately want something to be done. A step in the wrong direction is still a step. It breaks the inertia. It requires less energy to correct a ship's course than it does to begin it's journey.

So, we all wait for our elected officials to get to work on this issue, and find a solution that is best for this country. My hope is that enough will find the courage to offer solutions that may at first seem politically risky. I think time will prove that they were the true leaders.





4 comments:

  1. no longer respond to allegations of amnesty by pointing out how wrong it is to apply the term. No, in fact, I now simply ask "well, why not amnesty?"


    Because true amnesty would not be fair to the people who abided by the law in the first place, waiting years and spending thousands of dollars for the right to live and work in the States.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Then clearly we must ask ourselves how fair it is to make people wait for years and spend thousands of dollars for the "right" to live and work here. We have established already, that this country NEEDS immigrant workers. Lets make the process of bringing them here fairer to everyone.

    How, exactly, does a dirt poor but able bodied person come up with said thousands of dollars in a country where poverty is rampant?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Imagine three passengers on the sinking Titanic. They are looking for a lifeboat together. Which is the most important question: (1) which ones of them have tickets, or(2) whether there is enough room in the lifeboat? (Unfortunately, this is not a hypothetical - people on the Titanic were denied spots on empty lifeboats for supposedly "good" reasons.)

    Could you honestly deny a stowaway a spot on a lifeboat just because of "fairness" related to their being a stowaway, and not ask first whether there was a spot on the lifeboat for them? What about a family, adrift in the ocean from some other wreck, who was picked up by the Titanic the day before it sank? Would a rescue of either the stowaway or the drifters be "fair" to the people who waited years and spent thousands of dollars for the right to sail on (and be saved by) the Titanic?

    Are you really asking that question?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Could you honestly deny a stowaway a spot on a lifeboat just because of "fairness" related to their being a stowaway, and not ask first whether there was a spot on the lifeboat for them?

    You guys are the ones pointing out over and over again that this is a "civil matter" and "the equivalent of jaywalking", etc. So the life-and-death analogies do not apply.

    They've committed a civil crime and are being asked to pay a civil penalty.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...