Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
We all were children once. Most of those of us who are adults either have or have had children. Because we love our children, it is easy to extend our love to the children of others. So it is that when someone tells us “it is for the children,” many of us are already halfway convinced.
Compassion versus reason. We are emotional creatures. We are able to think dispassionately, but we can be convinced with an appeal to empathy. Our minds can use logic and derive relationships between cause and effect. Unfortunately, we too often allow our minds to be overwhelmed by our emotions. Then we arrive at decisions that have little to do with the relationship between cause and effect. Then we hand our fortunes over to people in the hope that they are doing the right thing. They care about children, don’t they?
So it is that the status of children has become a focus of the immigration debate. Consider the posts below. Are these posters making an appeal to your reason or are they trying to jerk your tears.
Below the Beltway is using the stories of youngsters whose parents sneaked them into the country (here). We supposedly should not enforce the law because a child would suffer for a sin committed by the parents. What the author forgets here is that children always suffer for their parents sins.
ANTI-BVBL asks whether ICE is targeting children (here). Given the numbers of illegal immigrants in the country, this is absurd. The question we should be asking is whether ICE is targeting anybody.
Bacon’s Rebellion focuses on how the Washington Post uses children in its biased coverage of the immigration debate (here).
Grumpy Gripes picks up a blogs for borders video that looks at the issue from the other side (here). How does the slavery of children fit into the immigration debate?
Summer jobs anyone? Here is another blogs for borders video.
Do not let people jerk your tears. Compassion may help you determine your objectives, but it is reason, not compassion, that will get you to your objectives.
