Where are the "Defend the Border" Folks When You Really Need Them
There is an unwanted phenomenon happening in California, and Arizona is being pegged to clean up the mess: Chihuahuas -- lots of them.
California is seeing an influx of chihuahuas popping up at animal shelters and it's becoming too much for the state to handle.
Rather than take these unwanted pooches out back, and deal with them Old Yeller style, California shelters are pawning these rat-dogs off on the Grand Canyon State....
Shelter officials are associating the rise in the abandoned pooches to celebutards like Paris Hilton, who popularized the use of animals as fashion accessories. When the reality of having to care for the dogs kicked in, it proved to be too much for a lot of wanna-be heiresses and they dropped the quivering canines off at animal shelters.
According to California shelter officials, more than 100 of the dogs have been driven to other states, Arizona included, for shelters there to deal with because in most states, abandoned chihuahuas are hard to come by.
Instead of stopping human beings from seeking a better life in the United States, maybe the Minutemen can be convinced to fight a real border threat.
morganovich:
well, you could also look at this as refreshingly free market.
take dogs from a place with a gult and move them to where there is demand. (assuming of course that AZ has demand for little taco bell dogs)
December 9, 2009, 1:04 pmmorganovich:
ps. were they born in the US? they may be citizens!
December 9, 2009, 2:13 pmLoneSnark:
I don't see the problem. If Arizona shelters are accepting the dogs willingly, then let them!
December 9, 2009, 2:21 pmroger the shrubber:
ok, i'll bite, warren. since you describe the minutemen's goal as "stopping human beings from seeking a better life in the united states", is it safe for me to assume that you believe:
1) the USA has a moral obligation to allow unlimited immigration
2) conversely, the USA has no right to demand any controls on immigration
3) that, in matters of borders/immigration, the USA has no sovereignty
4) never mind the fact that no other nation-state i'm aware of* (including mexico, which strictly controls *their* immigrants) has to operate under these constraints
5) *with the possible exception of britain, where we see how massive immigration is destroying the country & culture
6) that we have to accept the crime, social costs, and degradation of schools and neighborhoods that follows illegal immigrants without complaint, as a kind of noblesse oblige? otherwise we're heartless racists?
7) the minutemen aren't merely citizens trying to defend their homes & culture by doing a job the government **absolutely refuses** to do, they're hood-wearing racists because the illegal immigrants they target are
overwhelmingly mexican? never mind the fact that's because the *vast* majority of all illegals ARE mexican?
you really think that? really?
if not, how then should we interpret what you wrote?
December 9, 2009, 2:40 pmHighway:
Lesson 101 in "How to construct a Strawman Argument" presented by roger the shrubber.
Your very first item is a huge assumption. It just gets worse from there.
December 9, 2009, 4:30 pmGil:
Actually Roger's first three assumptions are correct about Libertarians - they believe anyone who wants to immigrate should be allowed to, no question asked. Alternatively people generally welcome high-skilled, productive migrants but don't automatically want to risks with unskilled, low productive migrants. I'm sure Libertarians get mental images of some penniless Mexican who snuck in, started out at the bottom, rose to the top and is now a multi-millionaire and has white people grovelling to him for a job when they hear of border-jumpers.
December 9, 2009, 5:32 pmTom Nally:
Highway:
Warren is among my two favorite bloggers at this time, the other being Jennifer Rubin.
But Roger asks Warren a fair question: does the USA have a moral obligation to allow unlimited immigration?
Warren is not disposed to carry on conversations within the comment section of his blog, and that is probably a good policy. Were I a blogger, I would probably have the same policy.
Nonetheless, Roger's question is fair to ask.
If the answer is "yes", then a followup question would be whether there is also a commensurate obligation for citizens to provide financial support through taxation to the unregulated flow of immigrants.
If the answer is "no", then what sort of controls on immigration would be reasonable? And if these controls are codified in law, is it reasonable to ask that they be taken seriously.
Whatever Warren thinks, I suspect it will be very well thought out. It could very well be that Warren thinks immigration should be regulated, but that the process should be allowed to function as a "leaky sieve".
There might be some conditions that are best left in a chaotic state. Is immigration one of them? Darned if I know. But I don't blame people like the Minutemen who are displeased with the chaos, as long as they operate within the law.
---Tom Nally, New Orleans
December 9, 2009, 10:06 pmTim:
Warren's thoughts on immigration should be clear, or at least clear enough from the archives. The basic idea is that the ability to sell your labor (at whatever price you think it's worth) isn't a benefit granted by a state; but an inalienable right that flows from simply being. Thus, a State's boundaries are irrelevant.
With that; certain benefits of the state are only available to citizens.
So, things like government schools (the justification of which is a separate topic, of course) would not be available to non-citizens.
I would also question the whole "Crime, social cost, etc." point. Are these caused by people seeking to exercise their rights, or by their being branded illegal? In other words, is it a problem of immigration, or the fact that the immigrants have to hide from questionable laws?
December 9, 2009, 10:30 pmO Bloody Hell:
> abandoned chihuahuas are hard to come by.
That's because it's exceedingly difficult, as Charlie Brown notes, to resist the urge to punt.
I have to say, a more utterly useless dog than the chihuahua would be difficult to identify.
December 10, 2009, 2:31 amO Bloody Hell:
> Are these caused by people seeking to exercise their rights, or by their being branded illegal?
That sounds like a libtard's dream argument-support.
If you don't like it here, you are welcome to head back south of the border.
I think we have a justification to police the borders if only because that's one way terrorists get here, and the people, even IF you grant the libertarian porous-border argument, have a standing justification to prevent certain types from gaining admittance.
I thing Roger's questions are totally legitimate -- if Warren doesn't want to discuss his own positions in the comments, he should still address something that significant as a thread leader -- both because he can and because it's certainly a legitimate topic for discussion.
And Roger also misses one of those points, which is the #$%#$^$^ "La Raza" movement, which is gaining strength in southern Cali partly as a result of illegal immigration combined with multiculti idiocy.
December 10, 2009, 2:39 amTim:
OBH -- the terrorism argument is another straw-man. Terrorists seeking entry to the country is a signal to noise problem. The terrorists (signal) are completely drowned out by the noise (everybody else). You can either solve this problem by improving your filters; which is still prone to failure, or by reducing the noise.
And the other point -- immigrants cause this long list of social ills -- is the xenophobes appeal to fear. The vast majority of immigrants, including your and my ansestors, were a) subject to this same 'argument'; and b) it's just not true. Are there criminals among immigrant populations? Sure. But do you make the assumption that it's a feature of immigrant populations, is caused by them needing to live outside of the societies structures, or that there's just a small element that gives the vast majority a bad name.
December 10, 2009, 7:52 amO Bloody Hell:
> OBH — the terrorism argument is another straw-man. Terrorists seeking entry to the country is a signal to noise problem. The terrorists (signal) are completely drowned out by the noise (everybody else).
That's a ludicrous assertion -- it could only be true
a) if you refuse profiling absolutely.
b) are incapable of maintaining any sort of "watch list" on people attempting to enter the country whom you KNOW are undesirable.
> The vast majority of immigrants, including your and my ansestors, were a) subject to this same ‘argument’
Do NOT attempt to compare legal immigration to illegal immigration -- talk about straw men...
And the amount of "free space" in the country also affected things in the past, yet isn't the case now.
> Are there criminals among immigrant populations? Sure. But do you make the assumption that it’s a feature of immigrant populations, is caused by them needing to live outside of the societies structures, or that there’s just a small element that gives the vast majority a bad name.
ANNNNNKKKK None of the above. Thanks for playing.
A is pointlessly racist, B is a BS liberal "blame society" excuse, and C is presumption without a statistical basis to justify it.
First off, "illegal immigrants" inherently skew themselves by being people willing to operate outside the law, so the "percentage" applying for "C" is much larger than you grasp. Add to that the fact that they are automatically self-selected from the poor, and finances increase the willingness to take on desperate measures (i.e., criminal ones) and you have a recipe for a substantial problem.
I think a fair percentage are hard working individuals, and many of them are interested in jobs that most Americans don't want to do. There are plenty of arguments under this concept for extended work visas, and a system of patronage, whereby people willing to work come here and get jobs, pay taxes, and are inherently not a burden on the existing system without equivalent recompense to the social structure. Among other things, unions and libtards in general, for all their supposed love for the masses, prevent such a system from being implemented. After all, it's "taking advantage" of them. :-/
One of the biggest tricks to implementing this ties to making sure that people here on visas leave, mind you.
There's also the "congregation" issue. In the past, while there are/were enclaves of various national groupings, the people who came here came here with the goal of becoming Americans. With the modern multiculti PC garbage, though, even ones who come here with that notion wind up getting told (and all too often believing) that America stole everything it has, that America is not the exceptional place in human history that it is, and that they have every reason to NOT think of themselves, or to teach their kids to think of themselves, as "Americans" So what winds up happening is that the "invading" culture takes over the area and displaces the traditional one. Not MELTS into it, as has happened in the past. Displaces it.. This is blatantly self-evident if you visit southern FL or southern Cali. I assume this is partly true of the whole border with Mexico, esp. Texas, but can't say about that. And thanks to the multi-culti PC bs, you have garbage being tossed around by groups like "La Raza" that says that Cali should belong to them. You have police precincts in SoFL where the officers are required to speak Spanish (reasonable) but NOT required to speak English (unreasonable) -- and that was more than 20 years ago.
--- In other words, there is a characteristic difference between immigration NOW and immigration in the PAST. Not only in the underlying attitudes of the immigrants but also in the resulting social fabric, and the latter is getting frayed to the point of ripping, both from this and from other issues.
America is losing a certain cohesiveness of purpose, of shared ideals, which it has had in the past, thanks to flaws in education and socially acceptable attitudes, among other things.
I think it is going to be interesting to see if America exists in 50 or 100 years. I give it medium odds against on the former, long odds against in the latter. I can only hope that the result isn't a chaotic despotism. That would not be pretty.
December 10, 2009, 10:49 amroger the shrubber:
gents - thanks for the responses to my little list o' questions. i'm not looking to start a flamewar here: i guess i'm getting too old for that sort of foolishness. but i *did* notice a couple of points presented that piqued my interest.
@highway: your cutesy but entirely predictable 'strawman' jibe aside, when a blogger writes that "(people attempting to enforce border control and immigration law) are stopping human beings from seeking a better life in the united states" i read that as an inference that those people are doing wrong. that they're doing a *bad thing*. hence, my logical jump from "if you actually think that, then you must therefore also believe the USA has some sort of obligation to allow anyone who wants in to immigrate." how is that assumption a strawman? where's the fault in my logic? had warren written that "cops are stopping poor criminals from feeding their families by arresting them for stealing scraps of bread or selling crank or kidnapping, like back home in mexico", would it not be safe to assume that he believes cops are wrong to enforce the laws? how else could a statement like that be interpreted?
@tim: so, if i read you right, the ignernt racist rednecks who want immigration laws upheld and borders defended are "xenophobes"? is that what teacher drilled you by rote to say, in the fashion of an nonsentient automaton, about this stuff? as for your ridiculous notion that the crime that *always* comes from a large illegal population is to be accepted and understood because "they live outside of societies' structures", well then, that's actually an argument FOR tight and restrictive immigration control. you realize that, right? or are you suggesting that once an illegal gets here, he should be allowed to access all the social services that were designed for the **citizens** of this country? free of charge, as he pays no taxes, never has, and most likely never will? is doing that more 'sensible'; or 'suicidal', would you say? then we come to your "only a small element (of illegals) give the rest a bad name" idea. really. why then is it that the LA county sheriff's office has *banks* of filing cabinets with unserved felony warrants on illegals? why is it that pretty much every house in san diego or el paso or brownsville is festooned with alarm systems and burglar bars and security doors, even in the nice neighborhoods? is it because they think it looks pretty?
as i noted once awhile back, i was born and raised in a city located *precisely* on the mexican border. as such, i'm willing to bet i know more about the effects a large illegal population has on a city and its population than most of you do. the results of such immigration are **uniformly** bad for the city, its residents, the state, and the country. yet wanting my country, a sovereign nation, to control and defend its border with an 3rd-world outlaw narco-state that's currently going through a low-level civil war is somehow a 'xenophobic strawman' argument?
so again, i ask: we either control that border and immigration, or we don't. warren seems to be saying we shouldn't. aside from utopian kumbaya 'we're all brothers' wishful thinking, can anyone tell me why defending OUR borders, protecting OUR citizens, and enforcing OUR existing immigration LAW - as the minutemen are trying to do - is a bad, immoral thing to do?
December 10, 2009, 11:45 amTom Nally:
So, if humans have a right to sell their labor anywhere, any time, are there any circumstances under which a border should be controlled? Any?
Know also that the entrance to an airline concourse is also a "gate". Should the TSA refrain from regulating those, too?
For the sake of argument, let's say that yes, there are indeed a limited number of circumstances under which borders should be controlled. If a legislative body has identified those circumstances, is it wrong to ask the executive branch to take them seriously?
---Tom Nally, New Orleans
December 10, 2009, 1:07 pmTim:
@Roger "[T]hat's actually an argument FOR tight and restrictive immigration control." It could be; but it could also be an argument for an end to this 'illegal' classification, and allow them to immigrate without stigma -- thus becoming an element of society; not living apart from it. This would include, by the way, paying taxes. (But not voting, serving on juries, etc...) As to the access to 'social services'; well, there's a more fundamental argument of should those services even exist in the first place.
@Tom As for the TSA, I would ague that the TSA should refrain from regulating anything; as they're incompetent boobs. Just look at the terrorist watch list, which is edging close to 1,000,000 names.
December 10, 2009, 2:02 pmJohn Moore:
Warren is also one of my favorite bloggers, a heck of a nice guy, and totally wonderful in his work as an AGW skeptic of the most careful kind.
That being said, I'm with OBH on this.
The implication that someone has a right to sell their labor wherever they want carries with it utopian assumptions that do not apply today. Whether we like it or not, we live in a welfare state.
In addition to that, I'm an American exceptionalist: America (USA) is an exceptional nation, that is a treasure we need to preserve. A significant part of that exceptionalism is our culture. A sudden, huge immigration of people of a different culture, one which has failed to provide them adequate economic opportunities, is dangerous to ours. This is especially true because of our welfare state issue.
The Mexican workers I have encountered have all been nice people and hard workers. However, when we look at the aggregate effects, their children and their grandchildren way too often develop in a dysfunctional ghetto culture that is damaging to our country, and damaging to them. The teenage pregnancy rates, crime rates and unwed motherhood rates among 2nd and 3rd generation Latin American immigrants to the US are very high.
We can do without that.
Let's have a return to a program where we control who comes here to work; let's let them earn the right to be in *our* society; let's keep the ones that are the most productive and least dysfunctional.
This isn't a racist view, but it is a culturist view. Multiculturalism, as it is defined today, is a destructive enterprise.
December 10, 2009, 4:49 pmfeeblemind:
Those that want unlimited immigration must love the way things have transpired in California. The simple fact is that immigrants vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrats. Sometime, given the political realities, I would like to see Warren explain how we can have unlimited immigration and avoid a perpetual lock on democratic power. Immigrants vote for dems who implement the very policies Warren rails against. And from a cultural standpoint, I remember what a retired farmer said when a packing plant opened up in his little Nebraska town and the Mexicans poured in. He said, "We've lost our Leave it to Beaver lifestyle." Now some of you may think the Leave it to Beaver Lifestyle is quaint or repugnant but many of us still value it.
December 11, 2009, 11:05 am