“Just change ‘amnesty’ to ‘bribery’”

This is a letter in the April 12th Arizona Republic:

President Bush is proposing that a fine be paid for a shorter path to citizenship.

That appears to be the first time the government openly admits that these people are criminals. Only lawbreakers pay fines. The fine is nothing more than another word for “bribery.”

Bottom line: “Bribery” replaces “amnesty.” And all the time I thought it was against the law to bribe government officials of the United States.

The world sure has changed.—Gregory Munn, Phoenix

Mr. Munn is really onto something here. Let’s try to state his idea more precisely. If the illegals were paying the money as a penalty, and if the payment of that penalty simply put them right with the law and removed further penalties, that would be a fine and there would be nothing necessarily wrong with that. But in the world as President Bush thinks it oughta be, lawbreakers pay money to the government in exchange for an invaluable benefit they never possessed before, permanent legal residence in the United States, and, further, they are only in a position to get this benefit because they broke the law. To pay money to the government in exchange for an illegal and improper benefit from the government is, indeed, as Gregory Munn points out, bribery.

Thanks, Mr. Bush, for the devotion you’ve shown to the honor and dignity of the presidential office—and of the United States.

Indeed, other than the regard he shows to military personnel (whom he uses mainly as cannon fodder for universal democracy), has GW Bush ever said or done anything that conveys genuine love and appreciation for this country? I can’t think of one example off-hand. Can anyone?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 12, 2007 10:33 PM | Send