2006-01-26 What Is This Crime
- when: 2006/01/26 (2006/01/26)
- author: Orson Scott Card
- source: The Ornery American
- topics: moralism immigration anti-immigration illegal immigration
- URL: http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-06-25-1.html
- title: What Is This "Crime," Really?
- summary: «I'm sick at heart about the number of Americans, including friends of mine who should know better, who are proud of being exactly like that state trooper, when it comes to the question of illegal immigrants.»
Excerpt
A fifteen-year-old boy -- let's call him David -- has been yearning for his driver's license for a long time.
But today all thoughts of waiting for his license are out the window, because his little sister cut herself and he can't stop the bleeding. His family's phone service was cut off long ago. His parents aren't home. They live far from any neighbors. But they do have one uninsured car that David's been tinkering with. It runs.
So David puts his sister in the car and, holding a towel on the wound to apply pressure, he drives the car one-handed out onto the road and goes as fast as the car can go, heading for the nearest medical emergency center.
The trouble is, a state trooper sees him driving too fast and pulls him over. David tries to explain that he's only driving illegally in order to save his sister's life, but the trooper doesn't listen.
He drags David out of the car and handcuffs him and yells at him that he has no business driving a car without a license, besides which he was speeding and the car is not insured. "You will never get a license, we will confiscate this illegal car. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and you have forfeited that privilege by taking it prematurely."
...
I'm sick at heart about the number of Americans, including friends of mine who should know better, who are proud of being exactly like that state trooper, when it comes to the question of illegal immigrants.
Card offers some excellent counters to anti-immigration rhetoric.