Sloppy Thinking = Bad Legislation

"Sloppy language breeds sloppy thinking." One of my professors told me that years ago and there is hardly a moment in my day when his words don't ring in my years. Linguistic precision is not the mark of a snob. It's the end result of a trained mind and make no mistake, a mind must be trained if it is to be useful and productive. Case in point is the recent demonstrations organized by immigration activists called "A Day Without Immigrants."

A more honest title would have been "A Day Without Illegal Immigrants." The thing is, the organizers know better. What they are trying to do is create linkage between illegal immigration (which has negative connotations) and legal immigration (which is mostly positive). It's amazing to me how many people have come out in favor of breaking the law.

Immigration is a serious issue that needs to be resolved by serious thinkers. Personally, I'm new to the debate but just a cursory view of the various positions show most if not all to be unwieldly, unworkable, or just plain stupid. We cannot resolve this issue be pandering to an election base or cozying up to a particular constituency. The questions are really quite simple.

1. How do we control our borders better?
2. What do we do with the illegal aliens currently inhabiting the U.S.?

That's it. Not too complicated, right? But this isn't an abstract question as people try to make it. It's a question of functionality. There will be no point to all of this if we enact a bunch of new laws that we either refuse to enforce or are de facto unenforceable.

I don't have a solution yet but like I said, I'm new to the game. But I do know that the first thing we must do is be precise with our language for the ideas born from these stark words will frame the debate for good or bad.