No shades of gray – Aug 5, 2008

0 Responses to No shades of gray – Aug 5, 2008

1. Mike Honcho says:

   August 6, 2008 at 7:53 am

   A bit of a stretch, don’t you think? When people break the law, they should be subject to appropriate punishment.

   So the kids who downloaded music illegally will likely be sued by the RIAA to make compensation for the music they stole. The punishment is mostly appropriate, though I believe the RIAA goes too far in their lawsuits in an effort to make an example of someone.

   Depending on the age of the child, a minor drinking alcohol would receive a citation for minor in possession/consumption. However, in the case you have portrayed here, I believe it would be far more likely that that the parent would receive a citation for procuring alcohol for a minor…again, appropriate punishment.

   People who break traffic laws are required to pay fines. I’m seeing a theme here…appropriate.

   So…wouldn’t appropriate punishment for those who enter the country illegally be to send them home and have them re-enter via legal means? Now, before you go off, know that I realize deporting all the illegals would be a monumental task and a huge strain on government resources. I do not support amnesty, but I do think simplification of the process is probably in order. I would like to see the process simplified a little so that the illegal immigrants with otherwise clean criminal histories could become citizens and we could begin weeding out the true criminals of the lot.

   The important thing is this…no matter how difficult compliance with a law may be, and no matter how much we disagree with a given law, there is no excuse for knowingly breaking the law. And because ignorance is not an excuse in the eyes of the law, there truly is no excuse, period, for breaking the law. If I fail to signal and get ticketed, or I procure alcohol to minors, or I illegally download music, then I will pay the appropriate fine and/or do the appropriate time because I broke the law.

   Just as you might expect, I see no ‘shade of gray’, no “yeah, but”, at least on the issues you touched on in this illustration.

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2. neal says:

   August 6, 2008 at 8:20 am

   Haha, I actually thought of you when I was drawing this!

   I remember over at the LJS blog when you said “Legal and illegal are not relative terms” in your defense of an absolutist response to illegal immigration. But to react in such a fashion is to deny that there is relativity to the severity of various infringements. You acknowledge that relativity, and those shades of gray, when you speak of “appropriate punishment” for the examples in the cartoon. If there were no shades of gray, there would be no discussion of “appropriate punishment” — there would be one punishment for doing something illegal, regardless of the illegality.

   Given that you do acknowledge there are shades of gray (in spite of what you say) the discussion then becomes whether or not deportation is “appropriate punishment” for coming to the United States illegally. The illegality is not disputed, but the appropriate punishment is. As illegal immigration opponents point out, some people who come here illegally engage in other criminal acts. I don’t think there is any dispute that things like robbery, drug dealing, etc. have their own appropriate punishments. But they’re completely separate from the act of immigration, and so the two should not be confused or deliberately intertwined.

   I know it’s my bleeding heart leaking through, but there’s no way you can convince me that moving somewhere to give one’s family a better life is as bad as robbing someone’s house or stealing someone’s car. I don’t think you believe that either, yet you’re willing to forget how subjective your view of the law is when it comes to those people’s situations. Some people definitely come here to exploit what’s here for their own selfish and additionally illegal purposes. Some people from here do the same thing. Like I said above, it’s disingenuous to connect the two.

   Besides, it’s not like stealing someone’s stuff was part of an American tradition (you know what I mean) and then suddenly it become illegal one day.

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3. Mike Honcho says:

   August 6, 2008 at 12:14 pm

   Let me clarify by saying I see no shades of gray in the illegal vs. legal distinction…but yes, there are most certainly shades of gray in determining the appropriate punishment.

   I have a difficult time separating illegal immigration from the latter crimes committed by felonious illegal immigrants. I don’t wish to draw a link between illegal immigration and criminal activity, but our lax enforcement of border laws IS allowing a relatively large number of criminals to enter our society.

   I know that the majority of the illegals are simply seeking a better life for their family, and I certainly can’t fault them for that. I would not liken robbery or theft to illegal immigration, but I also think that many of them aren’t as squeaky clean as it may seem. I don’t know how anybody gets a job anymore without a social security number, and about the only way for an illegal immigrant to get one is to commit identity theft. I know, the argument can be made that, if they were legal, they wouldn’t have to do that…which brings me back to the point that there is no good excuse for it…and identity theft is certainly NOT a victimless crime.

   I doubt we’ll ever see eye-to-eye on this issue, but there is one matter I would like to briefly discuss. In the city of San Francisco, an illegal immigrant ‘safe haven’ law was put into effect to protect illegal immigrants from deportation. Recently, an illegal immigrant murdered a father and his two sons. The illegal immigrant had a prior record of criminal history, but was not deported because of the safe haven law. Had the law not existed, the three men he killed may still be alive today. Now, to relate this to the debate of deportation…would you find it reasonable to deport every illegal immigrant with a felony in their criminal record? I believe such a measure would be reasonable, but it would require giving the state and local law enforcement agencies a little more authority…authority the feds have been hesitant to give.

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4. Mike Honcho says:

   August 6, 2008 at 12:15 pm

   BTW, is there a reason the guy in the truck looks kinda like Ken Svoboda? I’m guessing it’s purely unintentional…but it got me wondering.

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5. neal says:

   August 6, 2008 at 12:21 pm

   As a knee-jerk reaction, deporting immigrants with a felony record seems reasonable to me. To oversimplify things, I’m fairly okay with turning a blind eye to the immigration thing on the meadow-skipping flower-sniffing belief that people want to come here for opportunity. That hand-holding, love-thy-neighbor optimism stops with people who want to break those property and safety laws that (nearly) all of us agree upon.

   In response to the Svoboda thing, it came to mind as I was inking this guy (who is not Svoboda), so I tried to make the guy’s face longer and pointier so people wouldn’t think that.

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6. Mike Honcho says:

   August 6, 2008 at 1:52 pm

   Yeah, it’s only a very slight resemblance…I suppose by my standards, any man with combed-back hair and a mustache looks like Svoboda…lol

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