Apropos Peggy Noonan’s “The Big Alienation”, the recently adopted immigration law in Arizona is a monument to the dysfunction of Washington and a perfect illustration of the “systematic misunderstanding” that exists between our government and the people it purportedly serves. Remember the definition of systematic misunderstanding? This is a condition wherein the frame of reference of the two parties in a discussion is so fundamentally different that the gap cannot be closed by providing more information. Well, we have plenty of information, but a huge void in political courage outside of Arizona. Not only is it “a law Arizona can live with”, as George Will has written, it is made necessary by the demands of a sovereign people to fill the void left by the abdication of their government. Further, it does nothing more than codify in state law the enforcement mechanism for an almost 60-year old federal statute providing that every alien shall carry registration information at all times. What else is new? I am asked for my driver’s license every day. I realize that radical libertarians and the open border crowd want no immigration laws or border control of any kind, and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce wants the continuing supply of labor, but our national sovereignty demands that we control who is in our country. No one who is not a citizen has a “right” to be here and our citizens should have the right to determine who can enter. I have written extensively about this issue and I won’t repeat the points here. They are all available in the archives; just search “immigration”. Suffice to say, there are reasonable solutions to all aspects of this problem, but they start with border control, and nothing should be done until our southern border is secure.
