Illegal Immigrants, The Boston Tea Party and the Law
I’ve been thinking about the assumption of many people that illegal immigrants and their supporters in the United States must be anarchists who have no respect for the law. While for some of them this might be true, it would be a very small portion of them. The problem I have with this generalization is that as a culture, our history does not recognize this view. Instead, we have normally recognized that a bad law has no moral authority, and people who have a love for the law might find reasons to rebel and commit acts of civil disobedience when the law is out of order.
Is this not the way the Boston Tear Party has been portrayed? Certainly the protesters broke the law. Would most Americans suggest that they had no respect for it?
While we have been led to believe that the Boston Tea Party was a good event, and so we do not question the people involved, looking back we have to admit the motives of many involved were questionable at best. Yet, we have a general good will to them and what the Boston Tea Party did that we are willing to overlook anything objectionable to the event. Why then do we find it difficult to accept the hardships of those who suffer from unjust immigration laws and give them the benefit of the doubt as to their normal stand on law on order?
The very revolutionary spirit in which the United States was founded provides the means by which civil disobedience can be understood. We know, from history, and from those involved in the Boston Tea Party, breaking the law does not always come from those who have no desire for law an order. Often, it is done by those who support a greater law than the positive law of the land, and the order of justice requires disobedience from bad laws.
Beyond the question of immigration, what laws, as they are found in the law books today, do you think need to be actively rejected by civil disobedience?
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Laws that force us to buy insurance that subsidizes abortion, bubble laws around abortion clinics and hate speech laws that prevent us from presenting the truth of the gospel.
And I am not sure what you really mean about ignoring unjust immigration laws. Do you mean we should be free to immigrate to Mexico or Candada and ignore their sovreign laws? Don’t get me wrong, one of the largest charities I donate and volunteer at in LA aids a clientele that is at least 50% illegals. It is right and socially just to help anyone in need. But as far as I know there are no laws in the US that makes this illegal.
Where I struggle with immigration law is that to carry your thought to its logical conclusin (or what I think you are alluding to as this vague) are no borders. Do you favor no borders? Or just greatly increased immigration levels?
Kimberly
I suggest you look to the Vatican’s website and see the articles they have on immigration. As an example of the issues they bring up: immigration laws often work to separate families, or work to hinder people who are trying to escape extreme abuse in their native land. The first often happens with Mexicans, but the second has had a long history (recount, for example, Jews who were turned away during the Holocaust). This is not to say there are to be no borders, but to realize their moral value is not absolute, which is what the Vatican has said.
Laws that force us to buy insurance that subsidizes abortion, bubble laws around abortion clinics and hate speech laws that prevent us from presenting the truth of the gospel.
What laws are there that force anyone to buy insurance that subsidizes abortion?
What hate speech laws prevent presenting the truth of the Gospel? In fact, what hate speech laws do we have in the United States?
Depending on your theory of civil disobedience, I am not sure bubble laws are valid targets. The usual theory of civil disobedience is that unjust laws may be violated in an effort to get them changed. Bubble laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court as constitutional. To whom would an argument be made that they are unjust? I would see violating bubble laws as simply violating the law, not as civil disobedience.
If we really believed in human rights, it seems to me we would open our borders to Mexico at least to some extent, not to drug traffickers or terrorists, of course, but to people who simply want to work for a living. This was one of the view areas where I supported President Bush and John McCain.
I’m not sure of specific laws, but as a general rule I think it’s obvious that we should oppose laws that would intentionally separate families or hinder people trying to escape extreme abuse. You would think our law would be able to accommodate for people in these circumstances.
That said, should we have a law that says you have to ask to become a citizen of the United States? I think so. I’m not sure it’s conducive to social order and the common good to simply allow people to cross our border and setup camp without informing anyone of their arrival.
Certainly the moral value of the border is not absolute. But to say that we value the border is I think a statement that is not consonant with reality. By and large, I think it’s the case that most of the time we do not strictly enforce our borders. But do we need a more personal immigration policy? Probably, yes.
The answer to these types of questions is unfortunately never simple. This is why I advocate active participation in local government, where the people who are most familiar with these issues can bring their experience to bear in solving these problems.
As to immigation I am not sure the immigration laws themselves are unjust on the whole. Though we could point out examples.
The problem is how to deal with a Just solution to those that broke the law. A problem comoplicated that the law breaking has been on both sides but some proposed soluions just want to punish one particular side. That is where it complicated. If such a solution is not balanced one can have backlash from all sides that might in the public’s anger make more UNJUST LAWS. Thus the public angst over immigration reform because they think if they go for the deal that no one will enforce the future immigration laws and we shall be in the same pickle 20 years later.
There have been at times CIVIL Disobedience against Unjust laws. Though I think this the far more the exception than the norm.
The Fugitve Slave Act, The Civil Rights movement, things related to the womens right movement (early suffrage) and some cases dealing Union organizing
I am having a hard time thinking of a lot of unjust laws on the books right now. Though certain laws related to sexual offenses come to mind especially those involving minors in the 15 to 17 age range and other parties (offenders) under 21.
Of course with States and the Federal Govt making criminal an amazing amount of conduct I suppose we could find some.
I find the unjust factor mostly in Sentencing. State legislatures and the FEDS have taken so much discretion out of the Judges hands that we see injustice there. I am not really talking about the common THREE STRIKES and you are out laws that in some cases can be justified. I can recall the reasons for this. However that application has been abused.
I find the Federal Sentencing Guidelines increasingly unjust in that it has taken discretion away from Prosecutors and Judges.
However the problem is how do you do Civil Disobedience against any of this.
If I had to pick one unjust law it would be perhaps TEENAGERS getting Life with parole. Which the Sup Court might remedy somewhat or at least recent oral arguements makes us think it will. Yet that is not something that is easily cured by Civil disobedence either
I don’t think the analogy holds water. The Tea Partiers were not just breaking a law, they were rebelling against what they perceived to be an unjust and illegitimate authority. They were not attempting to cheat the British system, the were rebelling against it. Illegal immigrants, on the other hand, are taking advantage of the American system without following the rules of the American system, because they know it offers better opportunities. They cheat. And because they cheat, Americans who have no choice but to play by the rules have less opportunity to earn an American living wage.
Steve
Much of the Boston Tea Party was motivated by merchants. You know how to spell merchant in the late 18th century? S m u g g l e r. (In other eras, it would at times also be P i r a t e.)
Steve writes:
Illegal immigrants, on the other hand, are taking advantage of the American system without following the rules of the American system, because they know it offers better opportunities. They cheat. And because they cheat, Americans who have no choice but to play by the rules have less opportunity to earn an American living wage.
This despite the fact that every analysis of the economic impact of illegals has determined that illegals *increase* the value of the American economy; they pay far more into the system than they take out. Illegals are scapegoated by our plutocracy as targets for a populist rage that should rather be directed at (1) wall street; (2) the military-industrial complex; (3) big pharma and insurance industry. It is laughable that the current plight of the average American worker is the fault of poorly educated, highly discriminated-against, hispanics, as opposed to the real power structures in our society
I would like to see this analysis, and who funded it. I don’t claim to know the economics behind alien workers, and am open to how illegals are actually helping our nation despite everything I perceive. All I know is that there are many people (including myself – and alot of unemployed Americans,) who would much rather be earning a living as a landscaper, painter or farmer but can’t because there are two or three Mexicans employed in a job that used to provide a single American family’s living wage.
Steve, wj:
My understanding is that there is not a lot of research on the economic effects of illegal immigrants in particular, because those effects are hard to isolate. Most studies of the net effects of immigrants (both legal and illegal) have concluded that the net economic effects are positive, and that they contribute more in taxes than they use in public services.
Here is a link to a paper that makes this case strongly:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=881584
Another, and probably very balanced view, comes from a paper put out by the Congressional Budget Office. They conclude that the net economic effect of illegal immigration (over the whole country) is positive, but that the benefits may be very unevenly distributed amongst states, and that economic losses may be experienced on the state and local level.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/87xx/doc8711/12-6-Immigration.pdf