The Straw Man...Fallacy

This is in response to Amy Bingham's article at ABC News: Romney's 47%
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This seems to be a classic straw man fallacy, wherein a person’s position is altered or maligned to cause misinterpretation. Straw men are very popular in political circles. Even though the above quote is not from an opponent, as is commonly the case with straw men, it is generally known that the national media favors President Obama. If heard in passing, one could easily interpret Romney’s “telling” remarks as condescending. However, an alternative interpretation of Romney’s remarks – in the context of this very close election is that is Romney describing the 50% that almost certainly will vote for President Obama no matter what.

            Moreover, other commentators have indicated that a key challenge for Romney, if elected, would be to lift many of those in the “entitlement community” to believe that it actually is feasible to earn a decent living without reliance on government assistance. I do not think Romney was saying (or at least meant to say) that he totally disregards 50% of America's vote, as some in the media portray. No fool in his or her right mind would run for office and meaningfully say something of that nature and expect to win. If I'm wrong, however, and Romney did mean what he said, then he is simply wrong for saying it. Nevertheless, we'll never know for sure what he meant; it's open to interpretation.

            President Obama also had a slip up this week, but how quickly the media has forgotten it. (Obama: 'I actually believe in redistribution') My question is, if Obamacare Tax is such a wonderful thing, why is there a convenient exclusion written into it so that the President's family and Congress don't have to pay or abide by it? Also, how can we have a free market system when we have a president who openly "believes" in wealth redistribution?
           The bottom line is, it is not our job (or the media’s job) to defend Mitt Romney, but it is our job as free citizens to educate ourselves and vet both candidates. Both men have said things they regret. Let us not forget, however, that only one of them has had a four year opportunity to fix things and has failed. Personally, I think it's time to hire someone else for the job. Like I said, though, Romney is probably not going to be able to fix things overnight (nobody is), but at least he will start changing things into a better direction by practicing fiscal responsibility as opposed to raising taxes and redistributing wealth using Marxist policies.

Illegal Aliens

In response to Seyla Benhabib's NYT article:
The Morality of Migration
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First of all, nobody is advocating for a permanent freeze in immigration. This country is comprised of immigrants (with the exception of the indigenous). However, in our young nations history, we have ever used immigrations quotas to help balance out the population and the economy. For example, there was a big quota on Chinese immigrants at the turn of the [20th?] century.

Anyway, this is a very slanted article. The author continually expresses sympathy for illegal immigrants while completely ignoring many of the major effects if has on people who are native to or migrated legally here. Regardless of how these children ended up here, the U.S. government is not obligated to provide anything to the children of illegal immigrants. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Consider the following:

1) A family of 4 comes across 10 orphans. The family lives on a tight budget. They know they can't possibly take in 10 orphans without themselves becoming indigent, so they do their best to support the orphans from afar- working with non-profits and other organizations.

2) A family of 4 comes across 10 orphans. The family lives on a tight budget. They know they can't possibly take in 10 orphans without themselves becoming indigent, but they take them in anyway. Months later the whole family is receiving welfare from the government.

The "liberal democratic society" the author refers to would choose option 2. History has proven over and over again that politicians cannot legislate the impoverished into wealth. It just doesn't happen. In fact, when this is attempted, it simply goes the other way leading to an expansion of the population living in poverty. Money cannot be pulled out of thin air, and the more money the government prints, the less valuable the American dollar becomes.

What about other problems caused by illegal immigration? To name a few:
Pollution: Many illegal aliens crossing the Mexican/American border have absolutely trashed our beautiful country. (Illegals Trash AZ Border) America is quickly becoming the laughing stock of the globe. We can protect the borders of South Korea, but somehow we can't protect our own?

Violence: Drug violence is exacerbated by illegal immigrants. A larger portion of our youngsters are getting involved in drugs. The higher the demand is for the drugs, the more violence is committed. It's relative. Also, over the last year or two there has been a series of vehicle incidents involving illegals who were drunk driving who ended up killing our own citizens.

Economics: There aren't enough jobs for Americans at this time. Why should we allow amnesty for illegal aliens? They have not paid into social security -or any social programs for that matter. How many illegals aliens are we paying for in our prison system? It's true they have worked on farms, but why not replace them with our own teenage youth and keep our currency in our country?

Of course we should not disregard the circumstances these people are living in within their home countries. After all, there is no reason to migrate unless one is living in an uncomfortable situation. As a nation, however, we should be condemning these oppressive/violent governments (Pakistan?)- not rewarding them by lining their pockets with money borrowed from China. Instead, we should have compassion from afar as there are already plenty of Americans who either cannot or will not support themselves and their families.