GET TOUGH ON THE TOPICS! SOCIAL SECURITY RACE

[by Ross Levine ]

Recently I peered out of the window of my Los Angeles high-rise and was shocked to see a teeming mass of 500,000 illegal aliens on the streets below. I could hardly believe my eyes.  So many people are sneaking into this country without permission!  Obviously we aren't doing a very able job of sealing our borders, even in this era of terrorist threats and homeland security.  The protestors were clamoring against a bill in Congress that would make it a felony to be in this country illegally.  It would also, from what I understand, make a felon as well out of anyone knowingly employing or helping such an illegal alien.

I scanned the crowd of half a million and thought to myself, well, what if we have to put them all in jail? Surely we would need a prison the size of the San Fernando Valley, and that hardly seems like an answer. Now there are those in Congress, along with the President himself, who are calling for a guest worker program, which means that as long as people are gainfully employed, we'll allow them to circumvent our immigration laws. To me, that's like taking a bribe -- if they're working and paying into the economy, then we'll overlook the fact that they broke the law. I don't particularly like this approach either.

And then there's the fact that there are so many of them and they're driving without licenses and many are probably not paying income taxes and they're using public services that they aren't really paying for but if we get rid of them, well, let's face it -- who will cut our lawns, wash our dishes, pick our strawberries, build our houses, maintain our golf courses and clean our office buildings?

So I was mulling this over trying to come up with a more workable solution to the problem of illegal immigration and suddenly I was struck with the perfect answer, one that has historical precedent and, to implement, would only require some minor Constitutional revamping. What I realized was that illegal aliens, who come to the United States to do work that Americans will not do -- because that work is usually among the lowliest of menial occupations -- and are employed by firms and individuals who have no choice but to hire them, since no legal American citizens will apply, would be better off as slaves.

From my understanding of past experiments with slavery, slaves are not citizens, so it is readily apparent that the enslaving of the undocumented would not be an amnesty program rewarding them with citizenship despite their trespasses. And since slaves have no hope of citizenship, that part of the dilemma is dehorned right there for good.

If illegal immigrants were slaves, then they would be obligated to do the work they already do, but we would not have to pay them, meaning there would be no conflict as to whether to collect taxes from them or not.  However, as slaves, they would, of course, be considered property, and their owners, therefore, would have to pay taxes on them. These taxes, however, would not be so punitive as to exceed any minimum wage that might have been paid these illegals in the past, so that the slaveowner -- be he or she a farmer, restaurateur or a homeowner installing a new kitchen -- would not be in a less favorable financial condition due to the owning of these slaves. Given the fact that the owners would be responsible for the care and feeding of their charges, any taxes or fees levied on the ownership of these slaves would have to be minimal.

As for how to efficiently transition these individuals from illegal aliens to slaves, I would propose that the government declare a certain day three to six months in the future as "Enslavement Day," or "Dia de los Esclavos" if you will, giving the illegal population ample time to flee the country if they perchance value their freedom over their economic well-being. Furthermore, this will solve the problem of legal immigrants feeling that it's not fair that those who skipped over legal channels will get to remain in the country ahead of their turn, since this means they will have jumped ahead in line only to end up as slaves.  The legal immigrants will appreciate this and most likely not feel short-changed.

Once the enslavement day arrives, our military, temporarily returned from Iraq for this purpose, will completely seal off the California-Texas border while the undocumented workers still in the country are rounded up.  It will, of course, be hard to identify who is or is not an illegal, which is why all individuals with Spanish surnames will have to be captured, and those without proper credentials enrolled in the enslavement process.  This process will include a health screening and an assignment of a Productivity Integrity Number to be computed based on the alien's age and physical and psychological profile.  This PIN number will be used to determine the subject's price at auction.  The auctions will take place at designated centers throughout the country, particularly in the Southwest and the urban hubs of the Midwest and the East.  Aliens will be grouped according to their professional backgrounds -- farm labor, restaurant work, construction and the like -- and prospective masters will bid against one another so that the best price may be obtained for the government. Money paid for these slaves will be consigned to a lockbox and used to establish governmental slave facilities, such as health clinics and branding stations.   Once an illegal alien has been purchased, the purchaser will be issued papers such as a license, inoculation certification and law enforcement clearance, and voila -- the undocumented immigrant will be undocumented no longer. Similarly, those who need the workers will have them, and the general public, who will probably remain approximately eighty percent non-slaveholding, will no longer feel threatened by a population of unscreened newcomers.

As for those with other than Spanish surnames, the nation may have to stage future round-ups in order for all ethnic groups to be dealt with properly. Eventually, the United States can expect to have a slave population of more or less 20,000,000, which, given the fact that their children would no longer be granted citizenship but instead held in slavery like their parents, is a population that can be expected to grow with time. However, what is guaranteed here is that no matter how "Americanized" this slave population becomes, they will not have the option NOT do certain jobs that the vast majority of Americans reject; they will be forced to do them now and in future or suffer appropriate degrees of corrective punishment.

In summary, therefore, my proposed "legalization" process would consist of three steps:  1) "scaring down" the illegal alien population that we already have; 2) round-ups and classification; and 3) sales to employers. No more undocumented aliens, no shortage of labor, no amnesty, no guest workers, no brainer .

To put it succinctly, only the revival of slavery can guarantee the security and the economic stability of the United States. We've done it before, and it's about time we do it again.

April 04, 2006

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