As Jonah's article and Peter's post demonstrate, many conservatives seem to feel that the presence in America of millions of illegal immigrants, and the extreme unlikelihood (or perhaps undesirability) of their all being deported, is a powerful argument for the Bush amnesty.

Let me start by conceding that under almost any policy regime there will be some illegal immigration. I do not believe in an immigration policy that matches "every willing worker" with "every willing employer"--a policy that would, theoretically, be compatible with an inflow of 20 million people a year. (As would Jonathan Adler's policy of letting in every person who wants to work here, but nobody who wants to kill us--even assuming such a policy could be implemented.) But any policy that seeks to block a voluntary transaction is going to create a black market.

But the numbers matter. As it stands, every year 400,000 illegal immigrants are deported, leave the country voluntarily, or get green cards and become legal. Every year another 800,000 illegals enter the country. So we have a net increase of 400,000 to the illegal population. Are we really convinced that it is impossible to increase the 400,000 departures or reduce the 800,000 entries?

We are told that we have tried control of the borders, and it has failed. What we have not seriously tried is enforcement of the immigration laws in the interior. What if we stepped up deportation? The alternative here is not "deport 8 million people." It's deport a bunch more. Make other illegal immigrants who are here less eager to stay, and Mexicans considering it less eager to come. Let's try some sort of worksite enforcement, which we never really have--even something as simple as allowing the IRS and the Social Security Administration share information about known illegals more widely. If you reduce the inflow and increase the outflow, you will stabilize the situation. You will still, to be sure, have plenty of illegals still here. Maybe then will be the time to talk about an amnesty.

Finally, Jonah: The existence of an "unholy mess" does not preclude the possibility that the mess can be made worse. Conservatives of all people should know that.

Lots of VERY interesting posts on the differences between California and
Texas in attitudes to illegal immigration. I am now convinced, at any rate,
that the difference is real. (The last word in my previous post should have
been "Texas," not "Mexico," by the way. Freudian slip.)

Several readers believe that the actual Mexicans coming in are different in
the two places, with the Texas-Mexicans much more conservative and
assimilationist, the California ones much more inclined to buy into the
Aztlan/La Raza race-grievance racket, much less inclined to assimilate, or
even to bother learning English.

If this is right it raises the uncomfortable question: Which type of
illegal immigrant is more representative, country-wide? Is California the
anomaly, or Texas? If Texas is the anomaly, and if the background to Bush's
proposal is the Texas experience, then he is attempting to set national
policy based on the experience of an unrepresentative state.

A reader from Virginia said this more forcefully at the end of a long and
thoughtful e-mail:

"I left California for Virginia because of illegal immigration, and there
are millions like me. It turned California from a moderate state with
forward thinking policies into a third world hellhole run by crazy leftists
(and I mean CRAZY -- Barney Frank is quite literally a centrist Dem by
California standards). Bush's policies are informed by his experience with
Texan Hispanics. He needs to take a good hard look at California, because
that's what his proposals will turn the country into."

The entire region will succumb and fall into the basket like a ripe fruit once the dust settles and the benefits begin to materialize and they will, have no doubt. The main thing is that this neo-imperialism is quite different from the old. Rather than aiming at subjugating and enslaving people it aims at freeing and raising their standard so that they may be eligible to join the family of civilized people. The tables are indeed turned (eloquent Lisa); almost every meaning is reversed. We should not be afraid of names. Occupation is liberation; Imperialism is benevolent; Resistance is sabotage and directed against the people and their livelihood and has no clear objective and no future; The Right is revolutionary and the Left is reactionary; The Conservatives of yesterday are the optimists who believe in the ability of eastern people for freedom and democracy and the Liberals and Leftists of yesterday are pessimistic and skeptical and even racist about it; and we could go on and on citing this remarkable reversal of things.

The USA and Allies have two choices with not third to them: ignominious retreat and ensuing isolationism leaving the world at the mercy of the forces of darkness and reaction; or glorious triumph that would indeed inaugurate the American century of enlightenment and hope, and free the long suffering peoples of the “twilight zone” and bring enormous benefits both cultural and economic to everybody. The choice is yours, Oh, democratic people of America and the West.

There’s no doubt that the most persuasive argument in favor of the Bush amnesty (and, for all the feverish – and rather insulting - denials coming out of the administration, that’s what it is) is the one being made on NRO (and elsewhere) that the US will not solve a problem – the presence in this country of some ten million ‘undocumented’ aliens - by hoping that it, and they, will go away. Given that there appears to be no political will to deport these folks the only sensible approach, it is claimed, is to somehow integrate them within the American system – and that is exactly what the President’s proposal is designed to achieve. It has to be admitted that there is something to be said for this, but only in the context of a wider policy that showed that the White House was capable of constructing an immigration policy that could allow the US to regain control of its borders.

So far there’s no sign of this. On the contrary, what we have instead is cockamamie mixture of politically correct pieties, embarrassingly incoherent leaks, vague promises of tougher enforcement and, with the nonsensical suggestion that all jobs that “Americans won’t take” (by the way, there’s no such thing) should effectively be open to the world, an initiative of such stunning economic illiteracy that, by comparison, Treasury Secretary Snow’s blundering forays into the currency markets look like the efforts of a financial genius.

Jonathan points out that “in the past 24 months, there has been an unprecedented crackdown on various immigration violations, such as visa overstays, as, as well as a general slowdown in the processing of visas and citizenship applications.” True enough, there has, but these measures are the result of administrative fiat, and could easily be reversed. Remember Al Gore and all those citizenship applications that were rushed through on, basically, bureaucratic whim? In the absence of more lasting legislative change, that’s something that could easily happen again under a subsequent administration with different priorities. In sizing up where they stand in this debate, Americans would thus be unwise to take much comfort in the current more aggressive policing.

What they have to contemplate instead is an amnesty that is the centerpiece of immigration ‘reform’ designed by a president who believes, apparently, that America’s “current limits on legal immigration are too low.” As such, if there’s anyone who believes that this amnesty will really be the last such free pass, I have a bridge to sell them.

Like all of us right-thinkers, I applaud the President’s tax cuts, his uncompromising prosecution of the War on Terror and the return of character and the rule-of-law to the executive branch. However, I wish Bush were inclined, or at least constrained [by having control of Congress in the hands of the other party], as Clinton was, to proclaim that “the era of big government is over.” Big government is certainly on a roll right now. The Medicare bill is a near-total disaster (medical savings accounts being the only positive). Overall federal spending is out of control….

As for a manned mission to Mars, well, I think another president might say, “There you go again.” As with [Bush’s] immigration [proposal], the effect is to implicitly reward undesirable behavior. Let’s see, the current NASA bureaucracy is manifestly unsuccessful in managing travel to low earth orbit. But the poor guys running the place are all depressed because they have nothing exciting to do. So let’s increase the agency’s budget and give it an exponentially bigger job to manage. That’ll do it! I suppose Karl Rove will tick the box next to the Star Trek voting demographic or some such.

From Steve Sailer's homepage:

"Showing how carefully the Bushies have thought through this whole immigration thing, the two 'senior administration officials' who briefed the press on Tuesday announced that when the no longer illegal aliens emerge from the underground economy, 'They'll pay sales taxes when they buy things.' Hmmmhmmhm... What do they do now? Do they show their Illegal Alien Card to the cashier and get a rebate? Obviously, legalized illegals will continue to pay exactly the same amount of sales tax as they do now.

"The other administration poobah said, 'As they rent property, they'll pay property taxes.' No, they won't. How do I know? Because nobody pays property taxes when they rent. They pay rent to the landlord who pays the property tax.

"Do these guys know what they're talking about?"

There's a lot more there on the amnesty worth checking out.

First off, my qualifications as a lifelong aerospace fanatic: I'm an instrument-rated pilot, fly a Cirrus SR22 regularly, and I was, briefly, an astronaut candidate (I wouldn't have made it but it sounds impressive! In any event, my interview was cancelled after Challenger blew up, so I decided to go to business school.) In short, I love this stuff.

NASA, at least as currently configured, is a colossal waste of money. We have a classic example of the organizational structure outliving the mission. A massive, command-and-control program to beat the Soviets to the moon made sense, especially given the direct application to ICBMs and control of earth orbit for military purposes. However, the same organization is now dedicated to what? supporting - poorly - a couple of lonely souls trapped in low earth orbit in seeming perpetuity [in the space station].

A better approach is to privatize much of the program. [The Department of Defense] can purchase launch services from private vendors, just as booster rockets are currently procured for NASA to launch. If DOD needs manned launch capability, I'm sure that private vendors can supply a product here as well (see next paragraph). This will allow a streamlined NASA to focus on the almost hidden part of its current mission - awarding small grants to jump-start promising new aerospace technologies to be commercialized by private industry (e.g., new aviation powerplants, more efficient wings, improved rocket engine technology). I agree with my fellow Cirrus pilot James Fallows that the government has a role in awarding such grants. Fallows' book Free Flight provides a good example of this under-appreciated - and inexpensive - side of NASA. I think that, in this way, we can spend much much less money on NASA and get a whole lot more R&D output.

By way of example, the most exciting space flight developments of late are coming from Burt Rutan's scaled composites. Rutan is flight testing the first privately developed manned spacecraft. Rutan's suborbital craft returns to the 1950's and 60's Air Force vision of a relatively simple, flyable space plane - think X-15 - rather than NASA's ground-controlled capsule - think "spam in a can."

From a reader:

"However, if Dean gets the nomination. And then he's crushed like a bug by Bush and if Bush has coattails, don't you think many Democrats will see that the hardcore lefty-populist stuff is a loser?"

Remember the Goldwater debacle? Many, many people in the GOP did not see serious conservatism as a loser. When the arch-liberal Nixon was nominated in 1968, many conservative Republicans supported him reluctantly. In fact a Dean blow-out would likely cause the left to do what conservatives did in the GOP after 1964. Which would down the road present the country with a Democratic Party significantly to the Left of
where it is today.

Worst of all, all the bad legislation heaped on the nation by the victorious LBJ and his coattailed followers is still with us today and no one in the GOP is suggesting that it be repealed. This is not a good thing if you want to do long range planning for 2020.

From a reader:

"However, if Dean gets the nomination. And then he's crushed like a bug by Bush and if Bush has coattails, don't you think many Democrats will see that the hardcore lefty-populist stuff is a loser?"

Remember the Goldwater debacle? Many, many people in the GOP did not see serious conservatism as a loser. When the arch-liberal Nixon was nominated in 1968, many conservative Republicans supported him reluctantly. In fact a Dean blow-out would likely cause the left to do what conservatives did in the GOP after 1964. Which would down the road present the country with a Democratic Party significantly to the Left of
where it is today.

Worst of all, all the bad legislation heaped on the nation by the victorious LBJ and his coattailed followers is still with us today and no one in the GOP is suggesting that it be repealed. This is not a good thing if you want to do long range planning for 2020.

I had posted that Dean losing the nomination would marginalize the left and make it easier to enact conservative legislation in 2005. Jonah responds that if Dean loses the nomination now it will be taken as a rejection of the man rather than of his ideas. A good point. But there is some reason for thinking otherwise. The flame-out of the Republican revolution was taken as a rejection both of Gingrich personally and of small-government conservatism; neither explanation crowded out the other. I know the media doesn't play these things symmetrically, but the rejection of Dean might be taken as an embrace of centrism. Also, Dean's "personal" traits--especially the alleged "anger"--are tied up with leftism and obstruction of the Bush agenda.

But here's another point. If Dean loses the nomination, we may get to do this whole thing over in 2008. Republicans are unlikely to be as well positioned for victory in 2008 as they are this year. Let's face a leftist that year, instead of a party that has decided that Dean failed in 2004 and it needs to move to the center. Even better: Let's have four years of intra-Democratic feuds and leftist seething brought on by Dean's rejection. Then the general-election defeat of Gephardt or whoever the nominee is will be attributed by Democrats to insufficient leftism, just as 2002 was, setting them up to make future mistakes when they will come in more handy.

I'm catching up with the Weekly Standard, and ran across a "Scrapbook" item in the December 29/Jan 5 issue. According to the item, someone at NRO criticized the drug war on Dec. 19, assuming that the war was being lost. The same day, the drug czar's office announced "an astonishingly good piece of news": Drug usage among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders has dropped 11 percent over the past two years. (The 9th graders were conspicuously absent from the list--maybe they're hoarding all the other students' drugs?) A big factor in changing the kids' drug use was that office's controversial ad campaign. One reason that campaign was controversial was that it linked drug use (and, indeed, advocacy of legalization) to terrorism. The same day as the drug czar's announcement, and NRO's anti-drug-war commentary, "[t]he Navy announced . . . that it had intercepted a boatload of hashish in the Persian Gulf. Three of the men on board were believed to have al Qaeda ties." Both announcements show the good reasons, the Standard concludes, for continuing the drug war.

The Standard does not provide enough information for a full evaluation of its argument. Has the decline in drug use been a decline in casual use, or a decline in hard-core addiction? What is the evidence for concluding that the ads were the reason for the decline?

But its argument is also a little beside the point. Does anybody really think that the major argument against the drug war is that it never succeeds in bringing drug use down? Actually, we have to qualify that further: Does anybody think that the major argument against the drug war is that it never succeeds in bringing drug use down for some period of time among some segments of the population? That would be an absurd argument. We have had a federal drug prohibition for ninety years, and a metaphorical war for at least two decades. That prohibition is enforced more and less harshly at different times, and drug use goes up and down--partly, no doubt, in response to changes in enforcement. It is not crazy, however, to suggest that the policy has overall been a failure.

Also, not many people argued that the problem with the drugs-and-terror ads was that they would not be effective at reducing drug use. The point legalizers made, which I've never seen a good or even half-good refutation of, is that the drug trade would not be providing terrorists with cash if not for the drug war.

According to Drudge, Maureen Dowd has returned. To be honest I hadn't noticed she'd left. But man, I'd like to know where she went if this is the sort of thing she writes when she gets back.

One of Jonah's correspondents suggests that if I'm for legalizing pot because the law against it is unenforceable, I should also be for legalizing illegal immigrants because the immigration laws are unenforceable, too. Yet there I was on the Corner yesterday, criticizing the argument that legalization was a solution to illegal immigration.

It seems to me there are two different kinds of arguments here. I was criticizing an argument for amnesty for illegal immigrants that, if applied to drugs, would take this form: "Legalizing drugs would send the crime rate way down, because buying, selling, and using drugs would no longer be illegal." It seems to me that this argument would be fairly stupid, and is not an important argument of drug legalizers.

Here are two other possible arguments: 1) "Legalizing drugs, or amnesty for illegal immigrants, would free up law-enforcement resources and prison space to fight more serious offenses." 2) "Laws regulating drugs or immigration are difficult to enforce, and a serious effort to enforce them would entail unacceptable costs, so we should get rid of them." These arguments are, I think, much more reasonable and require a refutation. Also, obviously, our judgments as to the validity of either type of argument might vary depending on whether we are talking about drugs or immigration. I am very sympathetic to argument two with respect to marijuana.

One more from a reader:

Dear Mr. Goldberg:

If you can tolerate yet another response to the "bolder" correspondent: I find his wish that Dean beats Bush so a "real conservative" can take over in 2008 to be shortsighted and shrill. He's got far too much in common with the Democratic Underground types who want the U.S. to be defeated in Iraq -- even at the cost of U.S. soldiers' lives -- because they oppose the war. Bush won't be all things to everyone, but he's done pretty well by the conservatives. I can assure your bolder reader that conservatives won't get as much consideration in a Dean administration. As my grandfather used to tell me, accompanied by a smack on the back of the head: "Don't be stupid!"

This dog has endorsed Joe Lieberman. Cosmo, meanwhile, is withholding endorsing any candidate. But Lieberman's a longshot given the fact that he doesn't eat pork. As best I can tell, Coz supports Bush -- mostly because he would love that ranch. But he's made no commitment as of yet. Indeed, the last political statement I heard from him was along the lines of "we need to bring back the Czar."

From another reader:

Jonah,

Perhaps you could inform your reader who hopes Dean will be our next president that there is a difference between "lawbreakers" who are illegal aliens and "lawbreakers" who commit crimes like murder and assault. A large portion of the population believes that there are doctors who murder unborn children and should be punished for their crimes. Within our legal framework, people who flee the poverty of their countries with the hopes of a better life here in the US are criminals; but doctors who perform abortions, are not criminals. Ask some of the NROnicks if they think it's wrong to legalize pot because it legalizes an act that had previously been illegal, therefore allowing potheads to smoke pot in the US legally. Those same potheads have been BREAKING THE LAW, much in the same way illegal aliens have been BREAKING THE LAW. Ask Ramesh or Stuttaford if it's wrong to legalize pot on those grounds. Ask them if it's wrong to legalize something on the grounds that the crime they want to legalize is silly and unenforceable, which I believe is their rationalization for legalizing marijuana.