What’s the point of holding a Congressional committee hearing if no one in attendance is going to bother to read the proposed legislation beforehand?

That’s exactly what happened at the April 22 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the immigration bill.

Our government has gotten so out-of-control that it is now commonplace for massive legislation to receive almost zero serious scrutiny. Recall that with Obamacare, members of Congress placed their vote and then later admitted that they had not bothered to read the contents of the bill.

We’re just now finding out what a complete train wreck that legislation is.

These politicians defended their actions with gibberish about the bill’s designers “having their hearts in the right place.”

I say that’s a crock.

These bills come straight from the ultimate arrogance of pity — and pity destroys its object. Pity says to its object, “You are useless and need me to even survive.”

If you question that statement, have a deep look at the psychological destruction done to people by our welfare state systems. They become belligerently angry shells of the human beings they could have been had they been given respect instead of pity.

The proposed “immigration” (read amnesty) legislation will affect every aspect of American life, including our national security, our welfare programs, taxes and spending, and our health care system.

Let us remember that this entire piece of legislation deals with amnesty for 20 million people who are — by the very definition of “illegal aliens” — criminals; trespassers here stealing our jobs and resources.

Are we to blindly welcome millions of criminals mostly destined to become people who vote for their living instead of work for it? Our welfare systems have already generated enough angry parasites of our own, thank you.

We have plenty of work to do to help our own people create productive lives that generate self-respect without adding 20 million criminal trespassers to the load.

The stakes are very high, and the American public should be given enough time to learn the truth about what is actually in this 840-page bill.

We need to remind Sen. Sherrod Brown and Sen. Rob Portman that the government works for us, and we demand an open and transparent process for this bill.

Jeff Smith

Cleveland

(formerly of Ironton)