Posted by
Jason Cunningham on Friday, June 08, 2007 8:20:40 PM
With America seemingly becoming more divided in recent years over social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, people in certain circles have been sounding the call for compromise. But when a situation involves opposing viewpoints that are as far from each other as can be, I find that the idea of compromise is difficult, perhaps impossible, and the proposed immigration legislation seems to support my conclusion.
Illegal immigration is a polarizing issue. On one hand you have illegal immigrants and their supporters, who are ardent in their belief that illegals should be allowed to remain in this country – without penalty – and receive all the benefits of being American citizens, while on the other hand are those who believe that immigration laws already on the books should at long last be given some sharp teeth, our borders secured, the proper pathway to citizenship followed to a T.
The way I see it, there is no middle ground here, and perhaps that’s how it should be. For a law must be either obeyed or disobeyed, and people are in this country either legally or illegally – and if illegally, they have broken a law and thus deserve to be punished, just as I should be punished if I’m caught stealing from the local convenience store.
But the proposed immigration legislation has muddied the waters considerably. How, for example, can we expect illegals to pay a $5,000 fine when, in order to do so, they must first continue working illegally to be able to save up that much money? And how can we expect future immigrants to follow the rules after they’ve seen us give 12 million lawbreakers a virtual “get out of jail free” card?
What this compromise immigration legislation portends for the rest of American life is more of the same illogical, reason-defying nonsense. Consider the issue of same-sex marriage. Some want it, many don’t. Whatever your position on it, I hope you can at least see that there is no middle ground: We must either allow it or not. (Civil unions, in case you’re wondering, are not a legitimate compromise, for it is simply marriage by another name – something that folks such as myself will reject.)
And how about abortion? A fair number of people are strongly for it, and a fair number are strongly against it. But I hope you can see that there are only two choices: abort, or don’t abort. An effort to compromise would probably produce something like the trimester test – allowing abortion during the first (and possibly second) trimester – but we would be forced into that excruciating gray area, for who are we to decide when life begins, and, therefore, when the process can be aborted?
Yesterday’s newspaper did bring some good news on the compromise front: Scientists have figured out how to turn the skin cells from the tips of mouse tails into cells that are “virtually indistinguishable” from human embryonic stem cells. If this discovery can be applied to human cells – and scientists are optimistic that it can – then we have found a suitable middle ground in this debate: stem cells that are as effective as those from human embryos but entail (pardon the pun) no thorny ethical situation. I find this to be quite amazing.
Despite this encouraging news, however, Americans still need to re-learn that there are some things that defy compromise, that right and wrong still exist, and that sometimes we need to draw a line and say, “No more.”