While basically a First Amendment absolutist, there may be an argument for making Vox.com – the seemingly brainless brain child of Leftist Ezra Klein – illegal as an act of education, if not compassion, as the crew at Vox doesn’t appear to know what the definition of illegal is, or perhaps that it even exists as a concept.
il·le·gal / contrary to or forbidden by law, especially criminal law.
While the content at Vox generally fluctuates between sophomoric, to the scrawl one might find on the back of a seat on the proverbial short school bus, this entry on Obama’s executive actions with regard to illegal immigration rises, or sinks, if you will, to the level of the genuinely stuporific.
Now, to be fair, presumably, that’s Vox ‘s intent – to induce a level of stupor, or “a state of near-unconsciousness or insensibility” among its readers in which they forget that the population of people being discussed are, by definition, illegal; and or that the concept of illegality even exists.
In fact, a word search of the item for “illegal” turns up only one single instance of the word on something Vox calls a card. I’d hazard a guess that when not in use, these cards can be found pinned to the shirts of the same individuals responsible for the incomprehensible short bus scrawl alluded to above. I defy you to make any sense of this gibberish. It would appear to require a Vox entry all its own.
Scholars who believe DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) was legal, though, believe that expanding the program to millions more immigrants would be legal as well. In other words, there doesn’t appear to be a legal basis for thinking that what Obama’s done so far is legal but doing anything more would be illegal.
Huh?
As for the larger thrust of Vox’s so called “9 facts that explain why Obama is about to help millions of immigrants,” it seems built on fallacy after fallacy, each of which causes the whole to unravel with the slightest examination.
Vox’s Item 1 claims “Executive action is the culmination of a process that began in March.” That’s false. Obama and Congress began an effort to reform our nation’s immigration law in March. The failure of that Constitutional process is not somehow now miraculously the first step in some extra-Constitutional action simply because Vox wants to provide cover for Obama’s increasingly imperialistic presidency.
Item 2 is a bit of a laugher, as well. In short, for decades America wasn’t enforcing the law of the land. So, naturally, that it finally began to do so post 9/11 is somehow … what, … wrong? If anything, Vox makes the case for stronger enforcement by pointing out how lax we’ve been in the past.
Large-scale deportation is a recent development
For most of the 20th century, any given unauthorized immigrant wasn’t at much risk of deportation. The federal government simply wasn’t putting a ton of energy into enforcing immigration laws against people living in the United States (or, for that matter, patrolling the US/Mexico border).
Item 3 is sufficiently idiotic, as well.
3) The drivers of deportation policy aren’t the law — they’re the budget, and bureaucratic priorities.
That’s gobbledygook served up with a side order of poppycock. The law’s that are now being followed are absolutely driving deportation policy. They are and have been on the books for decades. That they somehow magically aren’t driving the policy, as Vox asserts, because the government only recently got around to allocating a proper level of funding to enforce them is just silly. Were the laws not there, the funding would not now be there – unless of course Emperor Barry attempted to decree it.
And on it goes. Item 4 is little more than, blame Bush. Item 5 below means little more than, hey, so what if ICE is finally adequately funded, let’s ignore the law … because we don’t like it. That’s neither Constitutional, nor legal. Recently, some Louisiana police officers have come under scrutiny for failure to investigate, let alone prosecute, cases of child abuse and domestic violence. Would Vox argue that’s it’s okay for them to simply decide to not enforce the applicable law? I would hope not. Yet, that’s precisely what they are advocating here, not based upon law, but simply because they prefer it politically.
If the federal government doesn’t want to spend its resources deporting someone, it basically has two options. One is, simply, not to deport them. When few resources were dedicated to deportations, that was an easy option — few unauthorized migrants came onto the government’s radar in the first place. Now that ICE does have a lot of resources, deciding not to deport someone requires a deliberate action: deciding at the outset that certain classes of immigrants aren’t an enforcement priority, and then sticking with that decision.
The answer is, if you don’t like the law, change it. Unfortunately for Obama – and Vox – they just overwhelmingly lost an election in good measure because of their positions on illegal immigration. To act contrary to mid-term voter’s expressed desires isn’t only un-Constitutional – it’s downright un-democratic.
Number 6 is a hoot, too. “Passive measures haven’t won immigrants’ trust.” That’s but one clear example why Vox needs to disappear the word “illegal” from this rubbish. Forget that we obviously can’t trust the individuals in question as they are not only unwilling to obey American law by coming here illegally – they’re now flaunting it. And what is Vox’s issue? We have to win their trust!! In what alternate universe is that even logical, let alone prudent? It’s not.
Finally, items 7, 8 and 9 are no better. Seven would have us believe Obama “changing his mine” is akin to Constitutional justification for something he previously acknowledged he couldn’t do. That’s not reasoning, it’s an excuse and a bad one at that.
7) Obama’s flip-flopped on the legality of broad relief
Throughout 2011, Obama claimed that by trying to target enforcement resources passively, he was doing all he legally could to protect immigrant families from deportation. He said he didn’t have a “magic wand” that could guarantee protection. In 2012, he changed his mind.
Oh, well by all means, then let’s stop them, shall we?
8) Enforcement advocates believe that “random deportations” are an important deterrent
And 9 is a real capstone of lucidity which once again leaves out that pesky little word, illegal.
9) Not feeling under threat matters tremendously to (illegal) immigrants
If not being under threat of deportation matters so much to them, I suppose they could have stayed in their country of original to begin with. Unfortunately, that common sense reasoning isn’t likely to be found at Vox unless it becomes convenient in pushing their form propaganda based upon little more than false logic and subterfuge to create what amounts to nothing more than political propaganda. If Vox ever folds, Klein and company would fit right in at Pravda.
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