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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
John Stossel :: Townhall.com Columnist
Simplify the Rules
by John Stossel
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The Obama administration says it will propose immigration reform next month.

I wonder what they'll do.

As a libertarian, I'm for open borders. But America has become a welfare state, and as Milton Friedman pointed out, you can't have open borders and a welfare state. Terrorism provides another reason. We can't have open borders when some people want to kill us.

So what should be done?

"Put troops with guns here." Says Robert "Little Dog" Crooks, a self-appointed border policeman. Crooks leads the Mountain Minutemen, a vigilante group that tries to keep illegals from entering America.

"These borders have to be secured. We're at war," he told me on my ABC special "Bailouts and Bull.

Congress decided that the best way to protect America is to build an expensive fence. When complete later this year, it will extend 670 miles along the Mexican border. But the fence won't stop the illegals. After all, the border is thousands of miles long.

"The smart smuggler's ain't gonna go to where the high security's at," Crooks points out.

We watched as he walked through an unguarded tunnel into Mexico and back.

"Where's the Department of Homeland Security? Hello! Anybody here?"

The fence does make it a little harder for some illegals to cross, but San Diego Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher acknowledges that they still get past the fence. Some climb over the fence. We found dozens of abandoned ladders near the fence. One group of illegals even built a ramp to bring a truck across.

They also cut holes in the fences. It doesn't matter how high a fence is if you can cut right through it. The place I visited had holes every few feet.

So despite all your tax dollars spent, there's no evidence the fence has reduced the number of illegals who cross. A survey of thousands who came to the U.S.-Mexico border to sneak into America found that nine out of 10 did enter eventually. Continued...

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About The Author
John Stossel blogs at http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/ is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.
 
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To John Stossel:
I'm not sure that libertarians are for open borders. Reason magazine certainly is, but I don't know if Reason speaks for all libertarians. Reason also takes no position on the Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life controversy, even though Pro-Choice would be the obvious libertarian position.

Drastic problem demands drastic solution
1. Eliminate welfare programs--period; if Americans can't stomach that, at least use some common sense when it comes to dispensing govt goodies--like for citizens only! As Stossel pointed out, we can't have open-borders AND a welfare state.
2. Consider anyone trying to cross the border at unauthorized points to be a dangerous invader subject to being shot on site.
3. Don't deport illegals--sentence them to death and confiscate any property they have.
4. Stop the IDIOTIC practice of mandated multi-lingualism! Private folks can speak/advertise/etc in whatever language they want, but the govt should cease printing official documents in anything but English, and cease mandating that ANY person/business must cater to non-English speakers.

Simple
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