Referring to the hordes of immigrants marching toward the American border, a meme says the following:
“Imagine if these people marched on their own government and demanded change instead of marching toward ours and demanding charity.”
Is it fair to assume all immigrants want government handouts?
Of course not. But one thing is sure: That’s the message our government sends them. “Come and get it!”
For decades now, our government has done two things. One, we give handouts to everyone. More and more handouts all the time. Two, we indiscriminately let anyone and everyone into the country. If we didn’t have the handouts, letting most people in would probably be fine. It would be like the immigrants who founded the country. But we don’t get those kinds of immigrants any longer — not totally — because we don’t select for them. The reason for that is our relatively unlimited and always growing welfare state.
Most Americans are still pretty well off. Most are middle class or better, and those who are not (the younger, for example) have a reasonably good expectation of becoming middle class or better in their lifetimes. So it’s hard for us to relate to the immigrant point-of-view. They come from countries that are authoritarian or totalitarian in nature. Countries like that do not grow economically. They stagnate or, in cases like Venezuela, they slide into despair despite the promise of great wealth that only capitalism could deliver.
The benefits our American government offers are small from the typical American’s perspective. But for people living in places like Venezuela and Mexcio, the prospect of free school, free groceries, open-ended welfare, and free medical care represents quite a rich prize indeed. Even if they come to America hoping not for handouts but for liberty, it stands to reason that most of them will succumb to the heroin-like tonic of freebies, especially given the poverty they have always known.
The socialistic Democrats and other statists in our country know this. And it’s precisely why they assign unearned guilt to people who protest the migrant caravan. Nobody wants to name the real issue. And the real issue is we have brought this on ourselves, by permitting our government to provide goods, services and freebies our Constitution never permitted.
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