Harvard University law professor Larry Lessig has been complaining about political corruption and pledging to do something about it for years. Yet, he's never gone after the biggest, least popular example of political corruption around: massive illegal immigration. As will be discussed in this post, the "Lessig Equal Citizens Exploratory Committee" - Lessig is considering running for President of the U.S. - is clueless about real corruption.

A couple of days ago I tweeted this to someone else: "the biggest, least popular example of political corruption is illegal #immigration. @lessig2016 won't pursue that. Ask why." For nearly a decade, I've been trying to get Lessig to oppose illegal immigration without luck.

Lessig's Exploratory Committee replied:

We're focused on fixing the $-in-politics corruption that blocks reform on immigration & other issues first.

That's clueless in at least three major ways.

1. The Committee doesn't understand which side big money is on. Almost no major donors to the GOP or the Democratic Party oppose comprehensive immigration reform. It's not like George Soros or the Koch family give to candidates that oppose massive/illegal immigration. There's no GOP or Democrat candidate who accepts large donations (i.e., all but Donald Trump) who truly opposes massive/illegal immigration. Now, obviously, pro-amnesty leaders and the pro-amnesty liberal media try to pretend otherwise, but that's only a show designed to make their audience think their candidates are different from the GOP. In fact, there isn't too much different between what Hillary Clinton and any of the GOP candidates (aside, maybe, from Trump and Rick Santorum) would do on immigration. Even Trump and Santorum would allow illegal aliens to eventually become citizens over time. Bernie Sanders has a clear picture of the situation, but even he supports amnesty. There's no nationally-known candidate who supports attrition and who'd like illegal aliens to permanently return home.

The only reason comprehensive immigration reform has been blocked is because it's unpopular with the voters, not because there's any sort of money against it.

2. The Exploratory Committee thinks that any issues with political donations are greater examples of corruption than illegal immigration, when that's not the case. A lot of people - most likely including the Exploratory Committee - are tricked by propaganda efforts such as those discussed on the PIIPP, false compassion, crops rotting in the fields, and crooked town story pages. Those propaganda efforts are designed to mask what's really going on: very wealthy forces in the U.S. are in effect paying off politicians to look the other way on massive illegal activity. Ironically - given Lessig's bete noire - those pay offs usually consist of political donations (although they might consist of other things including sinecures). For a tangible example, a company that sought to profit from illegal immigration (Western Union) tried to unseat U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo due to his opposition to illegal immigration. Growers, food processors, the US Chamber of Commerce, WalMart, McDonalds, Big Banks, and many other corporations have made it quite clear that they at least support comprehensive immigration reform if not illegal immigration. See immigration banks, Federal Reserve, Western Growers, and all the companies listed here. All of those forces aren't about to donate to politicians who truly oppose massive/illegal immigration, and in some cases it's obvious that donations are related to a politician willing to turn a blind eye to massive illegal activity.

3. The Exploratory Committee assumes that comprehensive immigration reform is a good thing, when it clearly isn't. As discussed at that link and in the entries on the immigration wage floor page, "reform" would among other things harm lower-skilled American workers. It would be great for the wealthy forces mentioned above like McDonald's, but it would be bad for those who want or need to work at McDonald's.

In case anything above isn't clear, feel free to contact me at @24AheadDotCom_ and I'll go into more detail.