A good heart doesn't exempt you from obeying the law
Associated Press:
President Bush on Monday renewed his call for a guest worker program for immigrants seeking employment in the United States, saying the Border Patrol shouldn't be chasing "goodhearted people who are coming here to work."
That they're goodhearted people who want to work is true but irrelevant, Mr. President.
On my way into the Texas Medical Center in the mornings, I occasionally see the Metro Police conducting traffic enforcement. Do you know whom the officers are stopping? They're stopping doctors and nurses and other goodhearted people who are just trying to get to work. But that's not an excuse for running a red light or speeding or tailgating -- or even crossing the border illegally.
Even if we have a good heart and an industrious objective, we still have to obey the law. A guest worker program is fine -- our economy clearly needs it -- if it gives people a chance to enter the country lawfully. But if "guest worker program" is just a euphemism for amnesty for the goodhearted but lawless, it will never pass a Republican Congress. Sooner or later, the president is going to have to accept that. They don't call the GOP the law-and-order party for nothing.