Rod Dreher linked to a First Things web article on the morally corrupting effect that illegal immigration has on all of us, describing Mexican indentured servants working at what is likely a Chinese restaurant in Tennessee. Both the author and Rod suggest that our greed is part of the reason we, as a people, have permitted illegal immigration to continue, and they may be right. The irony is that actually enforcing immigration laws — and reducing immigration overall — would have only small and short-lived effects on prices.

The piece reminds me of something Vaclav Havel said upon the fall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia to the effect that people shouldn’t be too eager to wreak vengence on the collaborators with the regime because everyone in the country acquiesced to it and thus made it possible. I’ve looked long and hard for that quote since (it may have been in the Washington Post, but maybe not) and haven’t found it — does anyone know it? If so, please send it along.