Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on Ayn Rand and GOP Restrictionists

Last week was Ayn Rand's birthday, the Russian emigre who did more to restore the faith of Americans in America than any contemporary figure, regardless of where one stands on her philosophical ideas. But Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia notes in her latest column, if anyone from the current field of GOP candidates had been president then, Rand would have likely been booted out of the country. Why? Because Rand lied and bent every rule to gain entry into the United States.

What this shows is just how intellectually and morally bankrupt the restrictionist case is. Writes Dalmia:

The restrictionist rhetoric is so out of whack with ordinary common sense that most people instinctively recoil from it. They sense that visa violations are victimless crimes that won't usher in anarchy if not zealously prosecuted. Murder is always and everywhere wrong; no one needs the government to make it so. That's not the case with an act like crossing the border, which is legal under one set of policies and illegal under another. Cubans escaping political oppression, for example, become legal the minute they set foot on American soil. But Mexicans fleeing economic oppression should be regarded as criminals forever?

Read the whole thing here.