Posted by
CW on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 10:32:24 AM
According to the NYT Eliot Spitzer is rescinding his proposal of driver’s licenses for illegals, saying, “Part of leadership is listening to the public’s opposition. Having heard that, and assessed the realities of implementing this policy, part of leadership is realizing that getting results is more important than sticking to what may be a principled position.”
Pardon me, but what is “principled” about giving driver’s licenses to people who are here illegally? The fact is, by proposing to give driver’s licenses to illegals Spitzer was going against what most would consider to be the principled thing to do, and this is substantiated by his own words in an interview on Hardball:
"As a governor, I‘m trying to deal with the security reality, with the million people here who are undocumented. From a security perspective, we need to know who they are, what they‘re doing. If they‘re going to drive, as many do, I would rather they be licensed, so we know who they are, where they go, and they can get insurance. As a pure security matter, all the security experts agree on that."
Whenever someone says that they are just trying to “deal with reality” (as in giving birth control to sixth graders, giving clean needles to drug addicts, giving more welfare money for new babies born to welfare moms, etc.) it implies that principle must be put aside to achieve some other goal that is perceived to be more urgent. Spitzer’s own words clearly suggest that the driver’s license proposal was a way of dealing with security issues. That notion in itself is arguable but what was clearly missing was any suggestion that giving illegals driver’s licenses was the RIGHT thing to do.
So, just as we should not be encouraging sixth-graders to have sex, or drug addiction, or more babies for welfare moms, so should we not be encouraging people to live here illegally. THAT would be the principled stance.