"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." --  Ayn Rand, The Nature of Government

I have no desire to get embroiled in the current tangled debate on immigration, either legal or illegal.  However, I have watched with interest the intense campaign for President Bush first to intervene in the trial of two border patrol agents accused of shooting a suspected Mexican drug dealer as he fled, and then to pardon the agents for the crime after they were convicted.

CNN's Lou Dobbs has led the crusade against illegal immigration for the past several years, and seems to be in the camp that believes if you're an immigrant and you're illegal, the gloves come off.  You deserve what you get.  I agree with Dobbs that our borders must be secured and that Mexicans entering our country legally should be welcomed as they have been throughout our history.  However, those like Osvaldo Aldrete Davila who slip across the border illegally should be stopped and sent back home -- not shot as they are trying to escape.

The agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, entered prison last week amid shrieks of injustice, to begin serving sentences of 11 and 12 years. They were convicted not only of shooting Davila, who was unarmed and running away, but of destroying evidence, covering up a crime scene and filing false reports concerning the circumstances.