Logic Times
Ockham's Dull Razor
Commentary by Aslan, 5/20/06, 6:36pm. Comments (0)
William of Ockham would be baffled. The medieval thinker who popularized the idea that simplest explanations are usually the best would not know what to make of our immigration problem. On one hand, there is a fundamentally simple creature known as the "politician." It is true that the politician appears complex as the subtle pressures and influences of political life swirl beneath the surface producing inconsistent behavior that frustrates voters. But in the end, the politician is slave to one easily understood master: public opinion. If the public cries out with one voice that everyone should wear briefs and only briefs, then the politician would immediately introduce legislation outlawing boxers, attend boxer-burning rallies and be "caught" on film shopping for briefs at the local Wal-Mart – if his constituents liked Wal-Mart.
On the other hand, there is a fundamentally simple issue called "illegal immigration," an activity with no redeeming value. Some suggest that certain businesses rely on illegal immigrants, who will do the work that Americans won’t do. Yet that work force is already here; no business owner in the Southwest is so desperate for additional workers that he or she embraces the prospect of societal collapse just to maintain this supply. So the issue remains pleasingly simple in the eyes of William of Ockham: ongoing illegal immigration is entirely without value to American citizens.
The final ingredient in William’s simple stew is consensus. Everyone in the electorate wants illegal immigration stopped – and not "nice" stopped, but stopped in a big way, with walls and guards and deportations and rude gestures at Vicente Fox. Subtlety and partisan disagreement are not in play here, as with almost all other political issues. If the United States were not a representative republic and a referendum were on the ballot tomorrow to construct a massive wall topped with broken glass and razor wire along every inch of the border, it would pass easily.
Surely, these politicians, susceptible as they are to the least gust of public opinion, are out marching, arm in arm, in protest of this abominable problem that nobody – that no voter – likes. Surely, William of Ockham would declare, they are thinking this…
But they are not. At the tail end of many weeks spent ignoring their master (public opinion), politicians continue to defy logic – and Ockham’s Razor – with behavior that makes absolutely no sense…
Illegals granted Social Security
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 19, 2006
The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment -- even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents. (here)
Politicians, eager to please as many people as possible, keep producing immigration nuggets like this, which please almost no one. This is akin to a streetwalker dressing in a snowsuit or an avid fisherman not baiting his hook.
And, please do not even present the idea that politicians are trying to cultivate the present or future Hispanic vote; such an effort would require politicians to look past their current constituents and beyond their own careers for the future good of the party, an alien act of selflessness from a graphically selfish creature. For as sure as Hollywood is brainless, any politician opposing common sense and public opinion on immigration today will be politically extinct tomorrow.
Yet the answer, as William of Ockham would tell us, should be simple. Politicians must be refusing to acquiesce to public opinion because they know something the public does not, something compelling, something that trumps the politician's instinct for self-preservation. To us, the illegal immigration issue is a chip shot; to them, it must appear a dilemma (di·lem·ma: A situation that requires a choice between options that are or seem equally unfavorable or mutually exclusive). There is no other explanation for such un-political behavior as has been on display.
This essay concludes without any idea what the real reason for fearing immigration control might be. One could speculate that Vicente Fox and his conservative National Action Party are critical to high-level U.S. economic and security objectives, and that any over-the-top enforcement action would topple Fox in favor of the communist former mayor of Mexico City, an acolyte of Hugo Chavez, thus placing another massive supplier of oil in unfriendly hands. But why liberal Democrats – an opportunistic group always eager to trash Republicans at the expense of the country – would cooperative is beyond comprehension.
Perhaps the political establishment is aware of impending riots and chaos in the Southwest should certain measures be taken. Whatever the reason, it is likely that William of Ockham would be as confused as are the Betrayed Conservatives.
Copyright © 2006 Dan Hallagan. All Rights Reserved.