02/19/2005
The writer of the engaging blog The Epic of Gilgamesh has turned his attention away from guns, literature and daily life on an Appalachian mountain and back to the impact of immigration:
Why Georgia’s HOPE scholarship is running out of money –February 18 2005
In the mid 1980’s, Georgia started a statewide lottery, the proceeds of which were to guarantee a college education to every Georgian who wanted one. It was not means tested…In 1993, when we sold our business in Appalachia, one of the primary considerations that kept us in Georgia was the availability of the HOPE scholarship for our kids…Then, in the mid 1990’s, politicians in Georgia began pressing for inclusion of those who couldn’t claim resident status in the program. Why? Because the big poultry companies, like Fieldale, Purdue, Gold Kist and others wanted the kids of illegal immigrants to be eligible…Unfortunately, the money from the lottery wasn’t enough to cover this big new influx of ’students'…next the plan is to 'means test' which means if you are middle class, you are out. So the money that should have paid for my kids college will now go to pay for illegals kids
I have no insurance, and I pay. Illegals have none, the state pays with my tax dollars — February 18 2005-02-18
When I was injured and in the hospital, a lady working there told me that the hospital passed on the costs of treating illegal immigrants to local people. If the person had insurance, then the insurance got stuck. If they didn’t, then they just had to pay on a weekly basis. The hospital knew who the locals were and where they lived, and they never saw or heard of the illegals again once they left the hospital.
Reading these and the two other stories Gilgamesh posts I am struck by a pair of thoughts:
(a) The savagery of the redistribution burden of immigration — from working Americans, to the owners of capital and, of course, the immigrants.
(b) While America has thinking men like this, all is not lost.
The WSJ is mostly subscription only, but their OpinionJournal webzine seems to always feature their most vicious and stupid pro-illegal immigration editorials.(The countervailing facts of the matter, from the news side, are kept safely behind the subscriber wall.)
Their latest shovelful of opinion, delivered to subscribers on the 17th, was posted today. The WSJ comes out strongly for States Rights (Not!):
Wrong. The whole point of driver’s licenses for illegal aliens is that it’s a way for the state governments to aid and abet illegal immigration. State governments have no right to help illegal immigrants gain entry to the entire country, any more than they'd have the right to side with Mexico in an actual war.
Other false claims:
No, they came on tourist visas, obtained by fraud, which they overstayed, because of lack of exit tracking. Other Arab terrorists have legalized themselves during by falsely claiming to be agricultural workers.
And finally, (self-refuting, just click on the links:
Homeland security is about taking useful steps to prevent another attack. It’s not about keeping gainfully employed Mexican illegals from driving to work, or cracking down on the imagined hordes gaming our asylum system.
Wrong again. They're acting on the assumption that no illegal immigrant would ever kill anyone; and they will continue to ignore or mock evidence to the contrary.
Moved by personal stories of violence and repression, President Bush has lifted the 911 cutbacks on refugees that were put in place to protect Americans. As a result, the State Department will admit an additional 20,000 refugees next year, bringing the total to 70,000, after the more manageable 29,000 in 2002 and 2003. The agency claims to be taking more care to keep out terrorists and criminals, but State’s track record has not been good, either for individuals (e.g. Marko Boskic, a known war criminal who used his own name when applying for refugee status) or in their choice of ethnic groups.
If history is any indicator, the additional 20,000 people will be from cultures hugely inappropriate for resettlement into any highly complex modern society. The United States government will admit more illiterate tribal peoples who do not grasp the nature of doorknobs, are frightened by kitchen stoves and require training to use a light switch. But if refugees could adjust easily into daily life that increasingly requires familiarity with computerized techno-gadgets, then they wouldn’t need the assistance of well paid "experts" from the Refugee Industrial Complex.
But if we must have more refugees, why not welcome thousands who are in genuine physical danger and could assimilate rapidly into American life? I refer to French Jews, who increasingly are being attacked by the growing numbers of Muslims that are now metastasizing through the French sector of Eurabia. (In a LittleGreenFootballs blog poll, France was overwhelmingly voted as the European nation most likely to be the first to institute Islamic sharia law.) Anti-Semitic street violence is now a common occurrence, to the extent that thousands of French Jews have moved to Israel, even during the height of the brutal intifada.
This idea is a winner all around. First, designating French Jews as refugees would annoy and embarrass Frankistan, a fine thing to do all by itself. More seriously, America could give refuge to some truly threatened people, and most of these educated Europeans would rapidly become contributors to the country rather than lifetime welfare users. Refugee policy needn’t be a masochistic exercise in accepting the world’s most unsuitable immigrants to demonstrate our multicultural bona fides. Admitting paleface Europeans would show that America’s refugee system isn’t a racist jobs program and is open to all in need. [Vdare.com note: The late Sam Francis had an alternative suggestion.]
(In case there is any question, writer Brenda Walker is a Presbyterian-American.)
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.