On illegal immigration:
I noticed in the news today that a small city in Pennsylvania has passed some of the strictest anti-illegal-immigrant laws in the nation. The article quotes a police officer as saying that the new legislation would reduce crime rates.

This saddens me. I've had the fortune to meet some very smart and hard working small business people who were, at least for some small time, illegal immigrants. It's my belief that the source of America's strength and her success is that she has always attracted the best and the brightest, the strongest and the most restless from every country. If we lock our doors to the world, we'll become weak and inbred.

The problem isn't illegal immigrants, in my opinion--it's those who don't bother to immigrate. We need to pursuade the most talented artists and hardest working masons from China and Croatia, the smartest scientists and entrepeneurs from El Salvador and from Equitorial Guinea that their best chance of success is if they can find a way, any way, to be an American. Building walls and passing restrictive laws doesn't make us safer, it thins our blood and dims our luster.