I have been thinking about the recent uproar surrounding the immigration debate and the anger being generated by the far right about how them illegals are ruining the country – I am looking at you tea-baggers. But, sometimes in the same hate-filled rants, they tout how the free market is the savior of all our problems and that the government just needs to step out of the peoples business.

My first question is this: how is it, far righters, that you are able to so gracefully speak out of both sides of your mouth like that?

You do know that illegal immigration is a direct result of the free market? Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are a result of the very basic free market principals of supply and demand. On the producer side, the owner of a company demands labor at the cheapest price possible and, in many cases, that demand is supplied by immigrant labor.  On the consumer side, we demand our products and services to be as cheep as possible, and this is only made possible due to the cheep labor immigrants provide regardless of their citizenship status.

Next question: is it possible that your dogmatic thought has no thought behind it?

Then, if that logical fallacy isn’t enough, the vitriol is often followed up with some sort of statement about claiming that the founding fathers, through the Constitution, are the solution to all of our problems and that this is evidenced by the fact they included the 10th Amendment to ensure that the states would be able to regulate certain powers and that the government would not be able to stop the states from protecting themselves.

Problem is that, naturally, these zealots probably have not read the 10th Amendment and/or are unfamiliar with the Constitution. Here is a brief recap of the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Now the funny thing is immigration is, indirectly, delegated to the United States by the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 states that:

(The Congress has the power) To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.

Now it is true that immigration rules are not directly naturalization rules, but, thankfully, the Supreme Court has said that it does not make sense for the government to make laws regarding how an immigrant becomes a citizen, but can’t regulate how that person came here in the first place.

I will grant you that the U.S. government has not done a bang-up job regarding immigration, but it is still their job.

Lets recap: the free market will fix everything, except for immigration and that the government is too big to handle this issue even though it is expressly written into the Constitution as is never wrong.

So my last and honest question to the far right: how do you reconcile these obvious flaws in your thinking?

Is it possible that this is a more complex issue that requires more thought than just kickin’ em’ out?