The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Not in a Good Mood

4.3.06 @ 12:01AM

SOAP OPRAH
Re: Ben Stein's Better People Than I Am:

I was enjoying the article "Better People than I am" until I came to the entirely inappropriate line, "Oprah Winfrey talks a lot about meaning. To her, it's apparently having her picture on the cover of her own magazine every single month in a different pose."

Why pick on Oprah? She's one of the most generous celebrities in this country. She's constantly advocating on behalf of the poor, downtrodden, war torn, mistreated, medically ill, overweight and abused. She gives away millions of dollars every year. If she wants her picture on the front of her magazine, what's the big deal? How does that gesture counteract all her goodness? Who is more worthy of the cover of her magazine? Should it be another picture of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt? Tom Cruise and Katy Holmes? Ben Stein?

What about all the Hollywood windbags who make bijillions of dollars and do nothing charitable? What has Ben got to say about them?

While so much of what Ben said had merit, in the end the article sounded as if Ben was making an excuse for himself to continue being the same way he is. Now that he has acknowledged the selflessness of others he can go back to being himself. In fact, it totally supports the attitude of his show Win Ben Stein's Money in which he generally gets to keep all the cash himself despite the efforts of the poor slobs who compete with him.
-- Phyllis Laubacher

ILLEGAL EASE
Re: Lawrence Henry's Employee Theft:

Why the heck aren't we tough on Mexico for all kinds of stuff? The illegal folks from Mexico coming into this country are only one of the problems. There seems to be a fear of being dissed in the "world-press" for enforcing our own laws that ensure our survival as America. It also seems that many politicians have a thin skin, and since its O.K. to criticize America, they can be lax in law enforcement too? They may feel good about themselves, but the country will still be stricken.

Screw the historical precedents; it's all about the 15 minutes.
-- P. Aaron Jones
Huntington Woods, Michigan

Across the nation we have heard the cacophony of voices regarding illegal immigration. Please note that this plain speaking Texan calls it what it is...illegal. I am thoroughly tired of inane arguments about how much we need folks that won't even obey the simplest of laws, that being, stand in line and come to the states legally. Our communities are overrun with illegals, our schools are packed, our hospitals pressed beyond measure. And as this is income tax season and we are calculating how much more we have to pay, while we are thankful for the fact we have earned sufficient, there is considerable anger that folks who would flaunt the law and strip community resources saying they cannot pay, are now flying my flag upside down with the Mexican flag on top.

Congress may be listening to the wrong voices. I am certain that folks like our family would not show up for a rally opposing illegal immigration, we are the families that show up to fight for freedom. But Congress better listen to we who are truly the silent majority. Make no mistake. If you do not tackle this issue we will replace you. Congress are you listening? You are replaceable...without a doubt. The louder "voices" in this issue are those that are silent...hear us...we are legal Americans and we vote. We will elect those who tackle this issue. It is time, as my Dad would say, to fish or cut bait.
-- Beverly Gunn
East Texas Rancher, Military mom

I hear over and over again that it would be impractical to try to deport the 11 million (or is it 30 million?) illegals who are thought to be currently residing in this country. While Mr. Henry does not succumb to this argument and, in fact, argues that we wouldn't have to deport anywhere close to all of them, I think that he, along with most everybody else, is missing an even simpler solution: let the market take care of the illegal immigration issue. After all, isn't the market causing all of these people to enter our country illegally in the first place?

Here's my plan. First, set a bounty of say $100,000, payable by the employer, for each illegal caught in their fields or their factories or their kitchens or wherever. Give everybody a 90 or 180 day grace period in which only warnings will be issued. At the end of that grace period, let the fur start to fly. Set up an 800 number and e-mail address to which concerned citizens could place calls/send e-mails to report violations. In order to encourage participation, allow tipsters to collect half of the bounty themselves while the other half goes to fund the program itself. Better yet, allow the illegals themselves to collect half of the bounty if they were the ones who reported their employer. Of course, they'd be setting themselves up for quick repatriation to their country of origin but they'd be at least $50,000 richer (minus the government costs for getting them and their family back home) for their trouble. How long and hard would they have to work to earn this amount of money under the current system? I imagine that kind of money would go a very long way back home for most people.

The beauty of this system is that the employer bears the full cost but the employer can certainly make the decision to opt out of the system entirely by getting rid of all their illegals during the initial grace period then endeavoring to ensure that all future hires are thoroughly vetted for legal status along with the rest of their standard pre-employment screening (drugs, criminal background, educational, previous employment, etc.). And, dovetailing nicely with Mr. Henry’s point in the article, you would only need a relative handful of high profile cases to convince almost everybody to get onboard with the law rather than continuing to flaunt it by hiring illegals who could very well end up costing them significantly more than they are paying today.
-- Mike Leland
Belmont, California

The article caused a few facts to come together in my head.

1. Illegal immigrants use fake Social Security cards (and numbers) where they work. Their employers withhold taxes on the income. The funds flow to the state and national governments.

Letter to the Editor

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