ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND GOVERNMENT PATERNALISM

By TEMPLE LI

WE ARE A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS!  All of us are descended from someone who came from someplace else.  This is the argument that you hear time and again from the Dems who are doing nothing about the disaster looming on our southern border and are advocating open borders and an influx of illegal immigrants.

However, there are some major flaws in their rationale.  It is true that for most of us, with the exception of Native Americans, we are descendants from Europeans, Asians, and Africans who came here either as early American settlers; or later, as slaves, indentured servants–particularly the Irish and Chinese–or other poor immigrants from other countries .   When these ancestors arrived on the American continent, they were pioneers that settled the land despite numerous hardships; toiled in the fields of the south as slaves or paid for their transportation to the New World by working as servants for the settlers that came before them.  Once slavery was outlawed, there was no government for either former slaves, indentured servants or other new immigrants to provide for them and, like the original settlers, they relied on their own resilience and hard work to make their fortune.

Fast forward to the twentieth century, 1933, the election of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt as President and the implementation of the New Deal.  The programs and projects, including the WPA, CCC, TVA, which comprised the New Dea,l were designed to restore jobs to the many Americans who had suffered as a result of the Great Depression, principally by providing funding for public projects and subsidies to farmers.  This, along with the passing of the Social Security Act in 1935, was the beginning of government paternalism, changing the relationship between the Federal government and its citizens.

World War II intervened and was followed by unprecedented prosperity in the 50’s.  But, in 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican, expanded the Social Security Act to include the disabled and their dependents.  On July 30, 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrat, signed a bill, creating Medicare and Medicaid, the beginning of the end of “rugged individualism” which had created the America of our ancestors, ensued.  Government paternalism had firmly taken root.

What is paternalism?  It can be defined as “the system, principle, or practice of managing or governing individuals, businesses, nations, etc. in the manner of a father dealing benevolently and often, intrusively, with his children.”

Our immigrant ancestors did not expect or receive government benefits such as medical care through community health centers and hospitals mandated to provide charitable care, free education for their children and other government sponsored assistance programs paid for by U.S. citizens’ taxpayer dollars. Yet this is the “benevolence” which Dems seem to want to bestow upon illegal immigrants; while other individuals wait their turn through the legitimate immigration process.  So what makes these illegal immigrants special?  They are the perfect victims for those who espouse government paternalism as a policy and seek to control those who are vulnerable under it.

History does repeat itself.  In the Old South, prior to the Civil War, paternalism was a concept used as a justification for slavery, with the owners portrayed as the protectors of their slaves.  Sound familiar?

Temple Li is the news editor for Empire State News, where she frequently authors her own editorials (just because she feels like it). She graduated at the top of her class at a mediocre college, infuriating her professors with her conservative wit and sultry charm. Empire State News allows Ms. Li to make a living, and to have a platform to tell people what she thinks. What could be better than that?

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