Like I Would Know What To Do In The Majority
I never said my immigration opinions were widely held here in Arizona, but apparently they are not popular nationally either:
The new poll finds 61 percent of voters nationally think Arizona was right to take action instead of waiting for the federal government to do something on immigration. That's more than twice as many as the 27 percent who think securing the border is a federal responsibility and Arizona should have waited for Washington to act. . . . Significantly more voters think the Obama administration should wait and see how the new law works (64 percent) than think the administration should try to stop it (15 percent).
Oh well. Its not like being in the minority is a new thing for me.
What I would really like to understand is: what drives these folks?
I will take them at their word that it is not racism.
If its violent or property crime, the stats are pretty clear that immigrants don't really contribute to these crimes disproportionately.
If its gang violence at the border, I am wondering what people see in the law's rules that allow easier harassment of day laborers and brown-skinned people with broken turn signals that they think is going to deter gang members supposedly armed with AK47's.
If its competition for jobs, well, I encourage folks to learn how the economy actually works (hint: it's dynamic, not static), and further, encourage them to figure out why they feel they can't compete with unskilled, uneducated laborers who don't speak the native language.
Finally, if it is, as many of my emailers claim, just a matter of the rule of law -- "THEY ARE ILLEGAL" as I get in many emails, inevitably all in caps, then why not just legalize their presence? After all, I lament all the hardships associated with marijuana law enforcement but you don't see me advocating new rules to incrementally harass potential possessors -- I am grown up enough to know form history that such efforts are never going to work as long as their is an enthusiastic supply and demand. I advocate legalization.
jdt:
Don't most governments have a say in who comes into their country?
I generally do not trust the government but one thing I do expect them to do is make reasonable attempts to keep the bad out and only let the good in.
Actually as I type this I am starting to see your point. Right now they aren't doing too well keeping out the bad or letting in the good, are they?
May 9, 2010, 9:13 amScott:
In my observation of the issue, I believe you'll find a large percentage of the objection is this. Large numbers of illegal immigrants put a financial strain on government provided services such as health, schools and emergency services. The presence of millions of illegal immigrants has right or wrong become somewhat to blame for economic troubles, particularly in state budgets.
May 9, 2010, 9:25 amdavidr:
When someone decides to leave their country and go to America, they have a choice in front of them: Do they enter the country legally, or illegally?
Should they choose to enter it illegally and act on that choice, they've already committed a crime. You can go ahead and support people who choose criminal options, but as you can see, the idea is not very popular.
May 9, 2010, 9:31 amuclalien:
As a California resident, I can fully understand Arizona's plight. I also agree with you that marijuana use should be legalized. Based on the data that I've seen, legalizing the sale and use of marijuana would eliminate much of the violence that results from a forced black market.
With that said, illegal immigration is a very different animal. Immigration results in negative externalities that would not be seen with marijuana legalization. You ignore the elephant in the room: the cost of social services. In today's world, our government insists that the taxpayers provide an ever increasing amount of handouts to anyone and everyone that crosses our boarders.
In the absence of a welfare state, I'm all for opening up our boarders. But unfortunately, this isn't the world we live in.
May 9, 2010, 9:39 amuclalien:
I should amend my statement by saying that I believe the illegal immigration issue is somewhat of a cop-out by state officials. While illegal immigration is a contributing factor to states' fiscal woes is one of policy and inept public officials.
davidr brings up an interesting point. The current immigration policy of halfheartedly keeping out illegal immigrants results in fewer law-abiding immigrants and a greater number of immigrants who tend to ignore the laws that we are governed by.
May 9, 2010, 9:51 amMark:
You forgot the cost of government services for these folk who are coming over the border illegally.
Libertarian views work best if you have at least a vaguely libertarian society. If you are going to force people to pay for services for these illegals, then I think they should be kept out.
May 9, 2010, 9:55 amRob:
I think illegal immigration offends most peoples sense of fairness.
May 9, 2010, 9:58 amastonerii:
Some days I think on immigration Coyote you have too much pride in your ignorance. Such as this statement "“THEY ARE ILLEGAL†..., then why not just legalize their presence?"
You already know the answer why not. We already did this back in 1986, we already know what happens when you do this. You emboldened a significantly larger number of people to decide to break the law. We are not ever going to erase our border, to even contemplate is simply crazy talk. No border means no property rights. Africa kind of sort of works on a no borders philosophy, not by individual nation's choice of course, but when the new migrants move in, they take what they want, by force, and throw in lots of raping and murdering along with it. So, your position is simply ignorant or completely a false face you use to prove just exactly how totally libertarian you are, like a badge of honor or something. I am quite certain that if you got your wish with laws and government, your company would not be yours, and you would likely be dead in the end, and maybe you would heroically have taken out five or ten of them before you were finally overwhelmed, but I believe you really do care enough about your own personal possessions that you would stand and fight to keep them even though you care not one bit about the ownership that Americans have of a bit of land between The Pacific and The Atlantic that 234 years ago our founding fathers started a government to ensure for our prosperity and for that prosperity worked hard to protect the borders of our homeland.
Go be a freaking founding father and start your own little open borders fiefdom in some isolated part of the world, let us know how that works out for you. There are plenty of little dictators around the world that treat people far worse than we do here in America, get a million of your libertarian friends together and go overthrow that leader and then try and live there with declared open borders.
May 9, 2010, 10:20 amBill Nelson:
1. Perhaps immigrants do not disproportionately contribute to crime. I can accept that. But how about the next generation; i.e., their children? Fact is, "Hispanics", as a group, have among the highest crime rates.
2. Do you believe in markets? Then what do markets say about living in "Hispanic" areas? It says that housing is pretty cheap -- even when all other factors are controlled for. Why? I suspect crime -- but then, who knows? I don't have to know; the pricing mechanism tells the story for me. That is, when people put their money where their mouths are, they pay a premium to avoid living in "Hispanic" areas -- as I bet you do, too.
3. Once they have the means, you will find that even "Hispanic" people choose to pay that premium to avoid living among their "group".
All that said, there are good arguments to be made for "Hispanic" immigration. However, I also believe that the above three points start to answer your question.
Incidentally, I doubt that anyone is against all immigration. That is, if the immigration were from Finland or Japan, I doubt that the objections would be nearly as popular.
May 9, 2010, 10:23 amJames H:
Another problem is that now that there are so many here, they seem to have a strong political voice even though they can't even legally vote. Politicians seem to feel that the key to winning races now is winning over these groups, and that the first party to legalize all of the illegals will win their votes for the long haul. Imagine 10-20 million votes gained for the party that legalizes them.
I understand the other side of the coin, where we all benefit from having more labor available. I think that there are other solutions that no politicians seem to want, such as allowing people without advanced degrees to work here on a visa and have the same opportunities for permanent resident status and even citizenship. I don't favor a one-time fine payment and then citizenship for folks that completely disregard the law, though.
May 9, 2010, 12:04 pmJames H:
I forgot to add also that I find it very irritating to have people sneak over, break the laws, and then march down the streets making demands as if I now owe them something since they are here. There was always some tension around here, but that definitely woke up voters and local politicians and many of these laws were developed. I know that there are plenty of racists around, admitted or not, but for me I would feel the same if it were a group of our northern neighbors or Europeans, or whatever.
May 9, 2010, 12:09 pmNate:
There are a finite number of low skilled jobs available. Why would we allow millions of unskilled laborors to come here to compete for jobs that don't exist? Then set up unemployement and welfare programs to support people that supposedly can't find jobs becuase we allowed new immigrants to come in and take them?
Where do you want to draw the line? The first time 8? million were legalizied and now we are talking 20 million? Even after that America will still be a better place to live then South America or Africa so are you ok with 100 million more comming over the next decade? China has 800 million poor roughly, are you ok taking all of them in tomorrow as well?
When you finally do decide enough is enough what standard for admittance are you going to use then?
When we need doctors, nurses, teachers, and scientist why do we block them and allow unlimited day laborors? We already have a large enough underclass, we need to shut it off and allow skilled and educated immigrants en mass.
May 9, 2010, 12:20 pmMJ:
There are a finite number of low skilled jobs available.
That is not true. To find out why, read Julian Simon's The Ultimate Resource. Or just re-read this blog post.
May 9, 2010, 12:27 pmastonerii:
"There are a finite number of low skilled jobs available."
There is not a finite number, but when the ones that are available are overwhelmed by an influx of third worlders who are willing to work in very poor conditions for very low wages, then the ability of those in this nation to get these jobs in order to grow their skills and value is diminished tremendously. How many people actually can say that their neighborhoods any longer offer the ability of their children to start a lawn care business, snow shoveling business or any other small business that teenagers in high school would benefit from? Is it any wonder that the children of the 90s and 00s are the entitlement generation as opposed to the prior generations?
May 9, 2010, 12:47 pmTom:
As most have already remarked, there are two main issues at work in explaining the support for enforcement of existing laws regarding illegal immigration.
The first is that of basic fairness: Illegals are essentially jumping the line, and in doing so, are putting those who abide by the law at a disadvantage. By issuing an amnesty, we are, in effect, rewarding bad (or criminal) behavior. That appears to be illogical, as far as enforcement and legal immigration efforts are concerned. One could reasonably argue that the bar has been set higher for legal immigration in the US precisely because of the existing large numbers of illegal immigrants.
The second is that of social support for illegals in the US. As they do not usually do not pay income or property taxes, they tend to contribute a relatively small amount to federal, state, and local taxes. However, there is a perception (which may be fact, depending on location) that illegals tend to be more likely to avail themselves of social services that were established for citizens. It is an added cost to taxpayers that, in times of economic downturn, we are increasingly prone to resent.
One would be foolish to assign racism as a primary cause of resentment. I have seen no evidence of such in El Paso, a city with a high hispanic population and a growing illegal population. I am reluctant to believe that hispanics who are US citizens resent illegal hispanics based on issues of ethnicity.
May 9, 2010, 12:51 pmChe is dead:
Why is it so difficult, for some, to see mass illegal immigration for what it is - a cynical ploy by the Mexican government to transfer the costs of providing for their poorer citizens onto the U.S. taxpayer. Once these people are in the U.S., they receive generous public services denied them in Mexico, including welfare, education and health care. Further, their employment opportunities improve dramatically and once employed, they send money back to Mexico. In effect, the government of Mexico is being paid to send their poor to the U.S.. In order to keep the gravy train flowing the Mexican government discourages assimilation, working tirelessly to convince immigrants that they owe their loyalty, not to the U.S., a country that provides support and opportunity, but to Mexico. Our own institutions, sickened by the disease of multiculturalism, actually work to reinforce this idea with predictable results. This strategy has worked so well for Mexico that other countries are starting to copy it.
Those who advocate the loudest for illegal immigrants are often their greatest exploiters. Employers who want their cheap labor. Politicians who cynically create and exploit a sense of alienation and grievance in hopes of gaining their future political support. The Mexican government which hopes for continued remittances and the ability to exploit ethno-nationalist loyalty to influence U.S. policy. If anyone needs to provide evidence that their motivations do not include racism, it is these people.
May 9, 2010, 12:59 pmBob Hawkins:
Why won't the Feds even attempt to control the borders?
Because both established parties want to use immigration policy to shape the electorate to their advantage. (See "UK Labour Party.") The reshaping of society and culture that goes with it is collateral damage and of no interest to them.
The Democratic Party lost the Solid South, bought at the cost of propping up Jim Crow for decades, when LBJ tried to trade it for an improved legacy. They're losing the Social Security generation that will always vote D in memory of FDR because of the limits of the human lifespan. Legalizing many millions of illegal immigrants would give them a replacement bloc of grateful automatic votes.
The Republicans would like such a bloc themselves. W had hopes of using Hispanics this way until California voters passed Prop 187 and derailed the plan.
The people who suffer most of the early collateral damage are naturally the ones most opposed. But since the long-range purpose is to render the votes of current citizens less relevant in the future, people who figure out what is going on and aren't in the political class that benefits, will tend to be opposed as well.
May 9, 2010, 1:01 pmdave smith:
OK, why all the passion about this? There are lots of things that are unfair, and no one gets worked up over them. There is lots of lawlessness, too. "when you get in a car, you can choose to operate it legally or illegally. (I speed all the time.) But we don't want to take licenses away from people who break those laws.
When someone who will be on welfare has a baby, we don't scream that they are mooching off the system in their faces, do we? I mean, if we don't like moochers, what does citizenship matter?
This is a color coded debate, pure and simple.
May 9, 2010, 1:10 pmTJIC:
I'm in favor of high levels of immigration, low levels of government, very few laws, and good respect for the laws that exist.
I like the culture of the US, and don't want the 350 million American citizens swamped with 1 billion new immigrants over a two year period. Would I like everyone in the western hemisphere to be American citizens someday? Sure! Pick a rate at which people can be educated on American history, English, the free market, and the constitution, and bring all 6 BILLION humans into the American fold!
...but that's not the same thing as wanting to throw open the borders today.
...nor is it the same thing as having an evil-but-incompetent bureaucracy making life difficult for immigrants.
I'd like to see (a) a wall along the Mexican border; (b) far fewer laws about immigration ; (c) more immigrants; (d) actual enforcement of whatever laws we have.
May 9, 2010, 1:50 pmastonerii:
dave smith:
May 9, 2010, 2:47 pmseems to be unable to separate fact from fiction. We actually did have a falling out with the welfare state, and the result was welfare reform. We kicked many of the welfare queens off the welfare dole. There is more that should be done on this front, but it is something that we do in fact get in the faces of those on welfare, and our society does not condone welfare queens. I personally in fact do say they are mooching off the system. Octomom outrage seems to come to mind. The rage against the bailouts, which includes the irresponsible home buyers, not just the corporate welfare it included. So, if the only thing you see in the hearts of people is racism and prejudice, like many people say, if you go through life and everyone you meet is an asshole, you might want to think about that and look in the mirror. If you go though life and the only thing you see are a bunch of racists, it is much more likely that you in fact are the racist than everyone else.
Bill Nelson:
How about accepting ten million Mexican immigrants in exchange for ten million "progressive" citizens?
May 9, 2010, 2:48 pmDr. T:
Warren Meyer asks: "What drives these folks [into liking Arizona's new law]? Go back and read my posts on this issue. Here's a summary:
1. Mexican illegal immigrants flout our laws, establish themselves "under the table," and take advantage of our better economy. Yet, many of them spit on the USA and its culture and have no intention of becoming good citizens. Worse, they demand special treatment from the government and from businesses.
2. Mexican illegal immigrants in our border areas flood our hospitals and crowd our public schools. The costs of these actions are borne by taxpayers, hospital owners, and paying patients (and their health insurers).
3. In some areas, illegal immigrant communities are crime-ridden and getting more dangerous. The illegals' fear of law enforcement personnel results in the innocent illegals doing nothing to get the criminal illegals arrested and deported (or imprisoned).
I strongly favor easy immigration via a guest worker program (with guest workers being ineligible for government benefits or entitlements). I also strongly favor deporting the bad elements among our millions of illegal immigrants. Those two positions are not incompatible. Arizona cannot change federal immigration laws and policies, but it can try to get rid of illegal immigrants. I don't expect the program to make much of an impact, though it might encourage future Mexican illegal immigrants to settle in a different state.
May 9, 2010, 3:18 pmDr. T:
In response to David Smith:
1. Comparing illegal immigration to speeding is not appropriate. It would be more appropriate to compare illegal immigration with reckless driving. And, yes, I do want reckless drivers to lose their licenses.
2. "When someone who will be on welfare has a baby, we don’t scream that they are mooching off the system in their faces, do we?"
I have screamed about that for decades. I despise the welfare entitlement mentality that has plagued our inner cities and poor rural areas for generations. (I saw a lot of that mentality when I was a medical student in Brooklyn and saw 11-year-old girls having babies who would be cared for by their 26-year-old grandmothers or 40-year-old great grandmothers. All were getting welfare, of course.)
3. "This is a color coded debate, pure and simple."
You cannot make a sound argument for your opinions on illegal immigration, so you toss out irrelevant comparisons and then call those who disagree with you racists. Go take a course on rhetoric before making any more worthless and insulting posts.
May 9, 2010, 3:31 pmNate:
MJ and astonerii, if you were correct why aren't these illegal aliens at home working? Africa, Latin America, and every other country with poor education and low skill workers show Julian Simon is wrong.
To say we have the capacity to absorb 100 million unskilled laborors or even half that is silly
May 9, 2010, 3:36 pmNate:
"“when you get in a car, you can choose to operate it legally or illegally. (I speed all the time.) But we don’t want to take licenses away from people who break those laws."
What state do you live in Dave? In ever state I know of speeding tickets count as points on yoru record and around 12 points you lose your license.
May 9, 2010, 3:39 pmgadfly:
Amnesty is not the answer. Reagan did that in 1986, resulting in an even larger horde of illegals.
Permitting a protected 'minority' group to live outside the law does not work for the good of the United States any more than treating Muslims with kid gloves in France and Britain is working. La Raza is getting bolder and nastier with the passing of time, so we can soon expect our own resident terrorists.
Big Government (read Democrats in power) is stirring this pot with their over-generous welfare giveaways in order to gain long term control. Welfare and lax border control do not mix. Matter of fact, the mix is nothing short of volatile.
Our present situation will soon encourage the same shadow economy that has brought Greece down. Did you know that 30% of the economic translations in that country are conducted in the shadow of the black market or unchecked bribes.
I have always believed that Libertarians were the first advocates of limited government with strong adherence to protecting individual rights using the rule of law. Now it seem that Warren would have us alter the laws to favor a single group, who just happen to be living outside the law.
May 9, 2010, 3:56 pmGil:
Thank you Nate! Julian Simon is wrong - humans are not productive per se, intelligent moral people are productive and they're a minority. The majority is poor to mediocre is because the majority are dullards and more dullards means more poverty. There's a lot to be said that the Capitalism produces wealth creation because without a welfare state there's no incentive to be poor nor for the inevitably poor to make babies thus leaving the smart to get rich and makes babies leading to the betterment of society.
May 9, 2010, 7:16 pmastonerii:
Nate:
I think you are mistaking my argument for some other person's argument. My argument is that there is not a finite number of low skill jobs, there are as many low skills jobs available as the capitalist system can make. If it were cheaper and faster to build cars with 50 times as many low cost laborers, you could create 50 times as many jobs, it is all up to creativity, imagination and so forth. So there is not some finite set in stone number available. What prevents this kind of human devastation though is scarcity, a scarcity of human capital. If there are only a certain number of people to look for hiring what happens is that the companies that can produce the most value out of people will hire the absolute most qualified paying them huge sums of money. We see this in sports, movie production, corporate CEOs, lawyers and doctors. Because people who can make companies the most money get paid a huge amount of money to fill those positions. As skill becomes less and less important in the productivity, so too does the amount of money a person is willing to pay the person to fill the position. We find this with respect to janitorial, crop picking and other jobs that have a very limited skill requirement of their workers. Any job that can have an employee be trained to be productive in 2 days or less is going to get the lowest wages. People who have skill that have to come naturally and no amount of training or schooling will ever teach are going to be well paid for, if their skill also produces value. Basketball stars, runners, golfers and many sports require a natural ability to perform along with many years of practice. Business CEOs many times have to have some special quality that allows them to be able to pick between hiring winners and losers and see what choices today will lead to as far as sales tomorrow. Strawberry pickers on the other hand have to know which strawberry to pick and can be shown this in about 10 minutes with some additional time training to do it quickly. So, what to do with labor? How big of an increase in the number of low skill people vying for very low wages do we allow? Do we allow the limited number we currently have along with a varying introduction of work visa permits to keep the number relatively scarce enough to keep human value high enough a person can work and live off his work, that employers will have to insure a good work environment, that when possible employers will upgrade technology and practices to improve productivity and safety, or do we create an endless river of nameless inhuman bodies to be thrown at the job of getting it done regardless of whether we could do it better, safer, with more productivity that will allow either lower prices or higher wages?
The number of low wage low skill jobs is not a finite number. Some people sell fruit on a corner, kids make lemonade stands, babysitting services, lawn mowing, and if the price of human labor becomes low enough what high earning person would not want some huge staff of laborers to do all the little things for them. I think there was a time in our country when this was also the case. In 1875, the nation passed its first immigration law, that time frame happens to be very close to another humans rights correction in our nations history, one that severely limited the ability of these high earners to have a stable full of the lowest wage lowest level of human laborers. The first slaves that came to America came as indentured servants, I wonder if some kind of open borders would bring a time like that back to America. Maybe the laws are strong enough to prevent that, but by the same logic that open borders comes from, so too comes the logic that if a human being is willing to barter a period of his life away at some extremely low value, it is their right to do so, and what business is it of the government's if two consenting adults want to make such a business agreement? Hey, not saying that Coyote thinks this, despite his hard core never say die libertarian position, but it is well with in the logic of open borders.
May 9, 2010, 7:38 pmMichael Miller:
While I do not favor open borders, I believe that immigration is vital for the future growth of the US economy. If we restrict immigration, the economy will flounder in the long term, and this will have extremely serious social and political consequences for the American people in the coming decades ahead.
That is what precisely what Mayor Bloomberg of New York City was referring to, when he said last week, that if we cut off immigration, we will destroy the country.
Very few seem to understand this.
May 9, 2010, 7:49 pmEric:
Michael Miller
Who said anything about cutting off immigration?
Those of us who support the new Arizona want the border secured and the flow of illegal aliens stopped.
Then we can work on fixing and streamlining the immigration system so that we can have more LEGAL immigration from all countries including Mexico.
May 9, 2010, 8:52 pmMichael Miller:
Eric,
Here is a partial answer.
I don't disagree with the idea of Arizona's attempt at controlling immigration at the border, but the issue is really national in scope. Since the 1980's the nation's "immigration policy" has been to look the other way as immigrants illegally entered the country in response to demand for entry level workers in the national labor market. Most of the illegals came up through Mexico and crossed the border from Texas to California. Some stayed near the border, but most fanned out all over the country. They went where the jobs were, as the market itself was determining immigration policy, as without the jobs the illegals would have no choice but to return home. There was an amnesty early on. Now there are a lot of illegals all over the country, and most of them are working. The ones who get laid off have no alternative. They must return to the countries of their origin, as there is no safety net here for them.
This is what has happened. Now, we seem poised to block the flow of immigrants just as the economy begins to shows slight signs of a recovery, and Texas may very well follow Arizona's lead, and enact it own strict laws against "illegal" economic migrants. If these laws prove effective, I believe that when the economy finally does throttle up, it will be choked off by labor shortages down the road.
So please tell me how we are to go about streamlining and adjusting this process which has been functioning all on its own for approximately 30 years? Will President Obama appoint a cabinet level Czar to establish a new bureaucracy to handle the clearing of new immigrants, or will the Congress, in its infinite wisdom, set new laws guiding the process? If either does so, they will almost certainly botch the job.
I personally believe that the invisible hand of the market should continue to set the nation's immigration policy, and that government should stay on the sidelines and referee. Weed out the criminals, and the slackers, I am all for that. No more. I do not trust government to do anymore than that.
I believe in free markets, in a free country, so let the immigrants come. It is in our best interests to welcome them with open arms, but that is not what we are doing. Now is it?
And what are we going to do with the 20 million or so "illegals" who have been living here with their American children for decades now?
Boot them out?
May 9, 2010, 11:17 pmnate:
"My argument is that there is not a finite number of low skill jobs, there are as many low skills jobs available as the capitalist system can make."
Your contradicting your argument in the same sentance your making it. "As the capitalist system can make" That is my argument, our capitalist system can't make an infinite number of jobs for every unskilled person in the world that wants to sneak into America.
The cost of labor, its efficiency, and value has nothing to do with the jobs being available. If your argument was at all true there would be no such thing as unemployement.
If there is unlimited capacity for jobs why do we have people without jobs?
May 10, 2010, 5:21 amGaryP:
As a thought experiment, assume the following:
May 10, 2010, 6:52 am1. Everyone in the world living in countries with a lower standard of living decided to move to the US to have a better life (understandable).
2. This doesn't make them bad people, just hopeful and human (we all want a better life, for ourselves and our children).
3. Could the US accomodate say 3-4 billion immigrants? Would it still be America (as many of these people would have no desire to assimilate, only to live better lives, and keep their own cultures.) Could we afford to educate their children, subsidize their medical care, provide them jobs, provide them housing?
Obviously, America would quickly look like their home countries, impoverished and corrupt, and both the newcomers and Americans would be ruined.
If we can't manage 3-4 billion, how many can we manage? 1 billion, 500 million, 100 million?
Wouldn't we be better off to make it hard enough to get into America that only very motivated people who really want to be Americans and had skills and financial resources to be an asset, not a drag on our economy, could get in.
I understand why many people want to come here and maybe it is selfish of me but why is their desire for a better life for their children worth more than my similar desire?
Frankly, my experience with Hispanic immigrants is that they are just like Americans, many good people, some bad people. However, very few I have encountered care about being Americans. They just want to live here. Can America maintain its culture (rule of law, democracy, the four freedoms) against the onslaught of socialism, much less a submergence in a foreign culture?
That is ultimately what, I think, many Americas fear. That their home, their place in the world, their identity will be lost. It may sound corny, but "the land of the free, and the home of the brave" still resonates in many breasts, but I think mainly American breasts.
Matt:
I generally agree with your opinions or can at least understand them, but why is it so hard to get that a sovereign country has a right to control it's borders? What other country in the history of the planet has not done this?
The fact that they are breaking our laws is enough of a reason to kick them out, but there are many others as well.
Would you expect people who flagrantly, and often billigerently, disobey our border laws to be model citizens otherwise. I sure wouldn't. Are they following our other laws, pay taxes, etc. Fat chance. Then there is the strain on public services, hospitals, schools, police, etc. which falls on the law abiding taxpayers to cover. You also have the fact that illegals tend not to even try to assimilate into our society, learn the language, etc. In fact, many seem to be openly hotile to our country and culture. It can be hard to understand why they are so eager to come here if they love waving the Mexican flag so much. Just how do you think an amnesty would work anyways? Do you really think millions of under-educated, barely employable people from Mexico are going to embrace libertarian ideas. And of course all these new "citizens" will be voting. Do you think they will vote more or less the same as mainstream Americans? Talk about a fast-track to socialism. The welfare state is exploding fast enough. I see legal immigrants as Mexicans who want to become Americans, and I openly welcome them. Illegals are Mexicans trespassing in our country to collect inflated under-the-table wages and exploit a bloated welfare state because their own county is so disfunctional. They don't want to be Americans, they just want to live in a different Mexico.
In a libertarian fantasy land where everybody is responsible for themselves, your position would be more defensible. But in the Obama nanny state where the wealth gets redistributed with a backhoe, it would be economic and political suicide. I hope it is a very small minority indeed that feels uneducated, low income, non-english speaking foreign nationals with no respect for our laws or culture should be able to pore across our border by the millions at will.
May 10, 2010, 10:40 amADiff:
Actually if the border could be secured, then "just legalize them" is a great idea. Until then all that would do is exacerbate the problems resulting from the inability or unwillingness of the Federal Government to secure the border effectively.
It's a very challenging task, yes. But it's certainly not impossible. And the fact is, it's key to any positive resolution to this set of problems.
At this point I tend to advocate imposing a 'zero passage' program, blocking ALL travel across the U.S. Mexico and U.S. Canada borders until effective management of such can be designed and implemented.
But then I'm a bit of a radical too, since I tend to agree with Ed Abbey who suggested anyone apprehended attempting to immigrate illegally should be given a rifle and sent back home with it.
May 10, 2010, 11:12 amXmas:
From a human rights standpoint, why do we want a large number of underpaid workers at nefarious businesses that take advantage of their legal status in order to place them in dangerous jobs? (E.g. Meatpacking and day labor construction).
Hooray, we get cheap meat and dry wall hanging, who cares if George Smith *wink* loses his hands in a band saw, it's not like he can file a worker's comp claim.
I'm more concerned about this illegality begets illegality angle than anything. It would be better is we had a sensible guest worker program that took the pressure off of the sneak here and stay illegal workers. Legalizing labor movement and drugs would probably do more to end illegal immigration than any strict enforcement policy.
That said, Arizona is well within its rights to write a law that encourages the enforcement of existing Federal law. It's not like Arizona can't have laws about the legality of drugs, or enforcing working conditions, or water conservation, or mining, or wages, or any other number of areas that the Federal government is involved with. To be sure, Federal law will preempt Arizona's laws if Arizona had a different standard for what is an illegal immigrant. But Arizona didn't do that, it simply requires a check of someone's current immigration status. Legal immigrants and visitors are required to have their documentation at all times anyway.
Finally, this does make me worried about abuse, profiling, and any number of horrible things police on a power trip can do. But that problem already existed, this law isn't changing anything on the front end.
May 10, 2010, 11:20 amastonerii:
Nate:
May 10, 2010, 11:50 amYou are wrong. We can make an unlimited number of jobs, it just depends on how low of a wage you are willing to live with. Some countries have incomes as low as less than a dollar a month to live on. Do you think America could not come up with some sort of job where 500,000,000 people earning $12 a year could actually make the employers more than that? It is not a limit on the number of jobs. It is a limit on what we as Americans are willing to allow be the lowest value of job. Right now we limit it to somewhere near $7.25 an hour of labor, I am not going to look up the ever changing minimum wage, but it is somewhere near there. At that price, there is a limit to the number of jobs that can be made, At $5.00 an hour it might be twice as many jobs, at $2.00 an hour it might be 10 times as many jobs, at $0.25 an hour it could be 100 times as many jobs. Just imagine how clean your house windows would be if you could afford to pay 1 person to spend 12 hours cleaning each and every single one of your windows every day. Just imagine how nice your lawn would look if instead of having it mowed it was manicured. How nice and shiny your car would be if you could have it waxed by 25 hands all at once every single day for the price you pay for it to be done once a week or month. There is no limit to the number of jobs that can be created, the question is how destructive of the American Ideal you want to be and how much closer to slavery you want to go.
morganovich:
in the presence our large amounts of cheap foreign labor with rapidly increasing productivity, our quotas for "cheap labor" are not going to hold up the price labor. we'll just ship jobs overseas. are no wages better than low wages? is it better to have a factory in china paying their taxes and driving their service economy with the wages of its workers, or would you rather have it here, paying US taxes and driving our economy? this choice between letting unskilled labor in and keeping wages high is a false one.
all these other problems are easily addressed by changing the immigrant status to "registered guest worker" and not providing entitlement services to them. if you have a productive employee that costs you too much eating all the food out of the free company cafeteria, isn't taking away cafeteria rights and keeping the worker producing a better answer than just firing him? it's the services to resident aliens that need to be changed, not how many we allow.
finally, i hear a lot of folks arguing to "secure the border". what on earth makes you think it's possible? have we succeeded in keeping drugs out? build a wall and they'll take boats and planes, or come through canada, or hide in crates, or get better documents forged. you simply cannot shit off the supply of something for which demand is so high while still being an open society. every crackdown in drug enforcement has made the drug barons more powerful. it will do the same for the people smugglers.
these guys are coming. get used to it. it's not going to change. people flow inexorably from low wage ares to high wage ones just like air flows from high pressure to low. nothing short of martial law is going to stop it.
we'll be better off here with a ready supply of cheap, legal labor. we could start producing clothing and footwear again. the knock on effects as the workers pay taxes and spend money will drive growth. the taxes can fund the services they need.
it is our behavior around entitlements that is turning the benefit of immigration into a social services problem. fix the bad policy, not the good one.
May 10, 2010, 11:54 amnate:
"Nate:
You are wrong."
Then why doesn't latin America and Africa have unlimited employement opportunities?
Changing the argument to where you are now eliminating minimum wage laws does increase the number of potential jobs but there is still a finite number. At a certain point you would still reach a point where the labor had value but there was still no work to be done.
I'n not sure you understand how businesses run or have ever ran one.
"There is no limit to the number of jobs that can be created,"
While, as a business owner, unlimited supply of cheap labor sounds great, I am also experienced enough to know 25 minimum wage workers need at least 1 or more managers to oversee them. 25 people washing my car does no good if they steal it when left unsupervised, something that would be very likly when my car represented 4 generations of income.
Your analysis is the difference between academic theory and reality, in theory you can have unlimited employement if there was no minimum wage, in reality the trouble of managing those people wouldn't be worth the hassle no matter how cheap. 14 employees, with 3 managers and I'm already on the verge of killing some of them every day. 25 more, even less skilled workers wouldn't be worth it if they were free.
May 10, 2010, 12:03 pmDmon:
So far, pretty much everybody is overlooking the elephant in the closet. People of hispanic background are eligible for affirmative action, along the lines of minority set-asides, government contracts to disadvantaged small businesses, extra points on civil service exams, etc. My daughter is graduating high school this year with a 4.6 GPA and a 2250 SAT score. A hispanic classmate was admitted to the same school as her with a 3.6 GPA and an 1800 SAT score. In addition, her classmate was awarded financial aid (for which my daughter was not eligible). I find the entire concept of affirmative action constitutionally impermissible (under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment), but in the case of an ethnic group which has migrated here voluntarily, it is particularly outrageous. As long as we are going to have Supreme Court decisions like Grutter v. Bollinger which establish that we owe reparations to everybody on the planet in perpetuity if they can manage to sneak in and pop out a kid in the parking lot of San Diego General, then it is only self-preservation that we attempt to protect ourselves by limiting the influx. Hispanics like racial profiling when it results in preferential admission to the University of California, they just don't like the flip side.
May 10, 2010, 12:28 pmenoughalready:
Why do I continue to keep this site on my favorites list? Yes, I know, he does have useful observations about government and business relations. And, frankly, understands that government interference in matters of private association is almost always counterproductive. But, on the other hand, he can't seem to grasp that the only real function - the core function, if you will - of government is protection of the populace from foreign and domestic actions which might reduce the nation's citizens unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The people, i.e. citizens and legal residents, have passed laws at the local and national level to manage the inflow of immigrants into the country in terms of quantity and quality, consistent with internationally recognized rights of sovereignty. Then how to respond to - as Article IV, Section 4 sets forth - the responsibility of the federal government to protect each [state] against invasion. And if the presence of up to 20 million persons who have not respected U.S. law and solicited legal entry into this country is not an "Invasion," then what is? The U.S. Supreme Court has so far rejected the logic of Article IV, but any reasonable person can see that the Federal Government has been noticeable by its absence in this regard. Apparently, the guy that writes this blog thinks that not only should efforts by Arizona to recoup the costs to the state for the lack of border security (1997 court filing) be rejected, but that Arizona should be prohibited from even enforcing applicable national immigration law within its state borders! Unbeluckinfeebable. Oh, and "what drives these (note the sneer here) people?" The Rule of Law and the U.S. Constitution. How about you? No, I'm serious. What drives you - beyond the iron grip of ideology - to reject the duly enacted laws and regulations of the elected representatives of the people? Please, we demand an answer. Call me irresponsible, but if I wanted open borders - which seems to be your objective - then work to elect the politicians who will change the laws and rescind the concept of citizenship. Otherwise, stop the hyperbole and name calling. BTW I've had enough and this site is being removed.
May 10, 2010, 3:34 pmastonerii:
Nate:
You know what, I agree with you on everything except the fact that there is not some finite number of jobs. Any number of reasons can change the number of jobs available. Increasing minimum wage, a change lowers the number of jobs available for low skill workers, because they do not produce enough to pay for their skills at the new higher wage. A new regulation requiring extra expenses on a company changes the calculation. There are hundreds if not thousands of inputs that have to add up to profit in order for there to be a job. At least, outside government employment that holds true. Unlimited unregulated border crossings most certainly will cause many additional changes to the laws of this country, and it will most certainly affect the compensation package for which workers can bargain for. Many jobs will go completely outside the law, under the table day laboring which already exists and is primarily filled with illegal alien labor today. Increasing the number of people available always reduces every worker's bargaining power, no matter how far up the food chain you are. Since each person must have a way to live, each person will find some job or position in society to accomplish this, think about road side stop light orange sellers, stop light newspaper sellers and so forth. Is there a minimum wage you can pay yourself for doing your own thing as a boss? The unlimited total open borders fantasy would drive out the concept of minimum wages, because effectively each person becomes a private consultant day laborer at the bottom of the social status group. As such if I drive up to a place where 50 of these people hang out and I need a tree cut down, I can say I need 5 people to help cut a tree down and remove it from my property, and I take the 5 lowest bidders that also appear to be physically able to do the job. I just made 5 jobs that did not exist 2 minutes ago, I could have always removed the tree myself. I also just took away the jobs of maybe two or three professional tree removers in the process. Maybe I pay the day laborers $25 each for the contract position. If it takes them two hours they get more than minimum wage, if it takes them 5 hours, they get less. Will I be prosecuted at a private citizen asking some "friends" or "amigos" I know from the 'hood to help me? Not likely.
Maybe instead of day laborers, I just have a few "friends" who live at my house who also happen to be people I imported, I mean helped pay for passage across the ocean from their oppressive native lands. For this all I ask is that they spend a few years residing at my house. I just happen to have a big acreage where they can just happen to grow all the food the household needs and they like to do all the house work.
You seem to also have a really screwed up idea of what a job is. Do you really think the people in all those countries do not have jobs? How naive and wonderfully ignorant of you. They all have jobs. Whether is stay at home mom, father, farmer, son of the farmer, village idiot, village mayor, village sheriff, beggar, blind man, war veteran. They all have jobs, and they may not get paid for their jobs in money, but in barter, but it is still a job and position in their society. Those may or may not be enviable positions to you, but there might be even worse positions, yet they seem to have made it paste the 3 month mark. I did some humanitarian work back in the 90s. I was on a grain ship that went to Eritrea Africa, one the poorest places in the world. 7 year olds had fully automatic weapons and demonstrated an ability to use them. Some people's jobs were to be guards, some to be permanent refugees. They all seemed to make a living at what they did. We unloaded some 50,000 tons of wheat for them. The reason their lives are so bad is not because of racism, being taken advantage of, lack of education or anything we really blame it on. It is because they choose to live in a society much like what Coyote is saying we should have here. Open borders, totally limited government, every man woman and child for themselves. That is the life you get with that. You got a house, an acre of land, some crops mostly grown, nothing stops 20 7 year olds from coming along and taking it from you at gun point. When this happens on a large scale, the crops go bad, the land erodes and your left with nothing to restart from. Africa, a continent perfected with libertarianism, the only ism that is actually worse than communism and socialism in creating creating a functioning society. Darwin would be proud.
May 10, 2010, 3:39 pmastonerii:
Nate:
You know what, I agree with you on everything except the fact that there is not some finite number of jobs. Any number of reasons can change the number of jobs available. Increasing minimum wage, a change lowers the number of jobs available for low skill workers, because they do not produce enough to pay for their skills at the new higher wage. A new regulation requiring extra expenses on a company changes the calculation. There are hundreds if not thousands of inputs that MUST add up to profit in order for there to be a job. At least, outside government employment that holds true. Unlimited unregulated border crossings most certainly will cause many additional changes to the laws of this country, and it will most certainly affect the compensation package for which workers can bargain for. Many jobs will go completely outside the law, under the table day laboring which already exists and is primarily filled with illegal alien labor today. Increasing the number of people available always reduces every worker's bargaining power, no matter how far up the food chain you are. Since each person must have a way to live, each person will find some job or position in society to accomplish this, think about road side stop light orange sellers, stop light newspaper sellers and so forth. Is there a minimum wage you can pay yourself for doing your own thing as a boss? The unlimited total open borders fantasy would drive out the concept of minimum wages, because effectively each person becomes an independent contractor day laborer when you look at the bottom of the social status group. Such as, if I drive up to a place where 50 of these people hang out and I need a tree cut down, I can say I need 5 people to help cut a tree down and remove it from my property, and I take the 5 lowest bidders that also appear to be physically able to do the job. I just made 5 jobs that did not exist 2 minutes ago, I could have always removed the tree myself. I also just took away the jobs of maybe two or three professional tree removers in the process. Maybe I pay the day laborers $25 each for the contract position. If it takes them two hours they get more than minimum wage, if it takes them 5 hours, they get less. Will I be prosecuted as a private citizen asking some "friends" or "amigos" I know from the 'hood to help me? Not likely.
Maybe instead of day laborers, I just have a few "friends" who live at my house who also happen to be people I imported, I mean helped pay for passage across the ocean from their oppressive native lands. For this all I ask is that they spend a few years residing at my house. I just happen to have a big acreage where they can just happen to grow all the food the household needs and they like to do all the house work, what? I should stop them?
You seem to know what a job is. Do you really think the people in all those countries do not have jobs? They all have jobs. Whether it is stay at home mom, father, farmer, son of the farmer, village idiot, village mayor, village sheriff, beggar, blind man, war veteran. They all have jobs, and they may not get paid for their jobs in money, but in barter, but it is still a job and position in their society. Those may or may not be enviable positions to you, but there might be even worse positions, yet they seem to have made it paste the 3 month mark in most cases.
I did some humanitarian work back in the 90s. I was on a grain ship that went to Eritrea Africa, one the poorest places in the world. 7 year olds had fully automatic weapons and demonstrated an ability to use them. Some people's jobs were to be guards, some to be permanent refugees. They all seemed to make a living at what they did. We unloaded some 50,000 tons of wheat for them. I learned the reason their lives are so bad is not because of racism, being taken advantage of, lack of education or anything we really blame it on. It is because they choose to live in a society much like what Coyote is saying we should have here. Open borders, totally limited government, every man woman and child for themselves. That is the life you get with that. You got a house, an acre of land, some crops mostly grown, nothing stops 20 7 year olds from coming along and taking it from you at gun point. When this happens on a large scale, the crops go bad, the land erodes and your left with nothing to restart from. Africa, a continent perfected with libertarianism, the only ism that is actually worse than communism and socialism in creating a functioning society. Darwin would be proud.
May 10, 2010, 3:47 pmastonerii:
Nate:
They do have unlimited work opportunities. But because of the large number of workers, the poor government they choose to live under, and the lack of property laws being enforced there is no money to pay them. It is a dysfunctional system which Coyote seems to like.
morganovich:
May 10, 2010, 3:50 pmI'm done talking with you, you are insane or retarded. Either way it is a wasted effort to try and make you less than completely ignorant.
morganovich:
stoner,
then it should be all the more embarrassing that i demolished you so totally in the last argument, and did it without acting like a petulant name calling child. ad hominem and name calling is the sign of a weak mind and a weak argument.
you have yet to produce a single valid argument for your position.
admit you won't argue because you can't, and just be done with it.
it'll make you feel better...
May 10, 2010, 5:28 pmRJP:
Coyote wrote: "If its violent or property crime, the stats are pretty clear that immigrants don’t really contribute to these crimes disproportionately."
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu says: "Last month alone, just in one patrol region, we had sixty-four pursuits. That means people who were driving a vehicle, failed to yield, took off like a bat out of hell, running red lights, creating traffic wrecks, numerous people were killed in these wrecks over the last several months, and who are these people? Not one of them was a U.S. citizen." (Interview with Phoenix’ KFYI, radio host Terry Gilberg, http://bigjournalism.com/sright/2010/05/10/media-take-note-in-arizona-county-of-64-highway-chases-last-month-not-one-perp-a-u-s-citizen/)
Interesting stats.
-RJP
May 10, 2010, 8:34 pmScott:
This guy seems to think he has a handle on why some want to keep immigrants out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGqPo5ofk0s That's enough to warm any libertarian's heart, if that doesn't, this will: http://sonoranalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/AntiSB1070illegal.jpg
May 10, 2010, 9:01 pmastonerii:
You demolished me? Ad hominem? You got attacked not one bit. The fact that you cannot process valid information is why you feel attacked.
"in the presence our large amounts of cheap foreign labor with rapidly increasing productivity, our quotas for “cheap labor†are not going to hold up the price labor. we’ll just ship jobs overseas. are no wages better than low wages? is it better to have a factory in china paying their taxes and driving their service economy with the wages of its workers, or would you rather have it here, paying US taxes and driving our economy? this choice between letting unskilled labor in and keeping wages high is a false one."
Labor costs are not the reason jobs are going overseas. Regulation is the reason why jobs are going overseas. The factories can claim any reason they want to. But, because it is something that people can actually relate to, they use the wages as the culprit. Unionization, EPA, OSHA, tort cases, all part of the cost of doing business. When you have to jump through all the hoops, it becomes far easier to hire someone in another country to just do the job and ship the product to you to sell. While labor cost would be a portion of the reason, it is not the main reason. We do very little leather tanning int he united states, the EPA rules are impossible to follow, the actual limits on some contaminants are so low that nature provides those levels frequently. The bleaching, the coloring, the processing chemicals, the creation of artificial materials are not a labor cost problem, but an EPA problem. Unionization rules amplifies the cost of labor, so even if employers can make it on the going labor rates, the union negotiations, which are slanted towards unions through government constriction on employer avocation of non union benefits, like actually having a job at all is better than no job, is not allowed. Yes, wages play a role, but a far more damaging role is over regulation which also includes labor costs.
"all these other problems are easily addressed by changing the immigrant status to “registered guest worker†and not providing entitlement services to them. if you have a productive employee that costs you too much eating all the food out of the free company cafeteria, isn’t taking away cafeteria rights and keeping the worker producing a better answer than just firing him? it’s the services to resident aliens that need to be changed, not how many we allow."
We have a registered guest worker program, and up until the obamacare legislation they were not allowed to use the entitlements. I personally do not want to discuss entitlements on this subject anyways, because there are far better reasons to not let unlimited border crossings occur. Entitlements are a whole societal problem, and should be addressed on their own merits and should be gotten rid of period, except for state and local versions that are with in the constitutional bounds of the perspective state and local.
I will confess though that I am certain that the illegals do and have been using our entitlements, because as in many cases where government regulation gets involved, the people paying the bill are not the ones in control of making the bill. In other words, the money is paid for by some government agency and not directly out of the local funds. So they actually have a perverse incentive to grant the welfare to those not qualified. It is like that out of state/county speeding ticket tax, get the money from somewhere else. But I honestly never actually have had a problem with this, because I simply already hate the welfare state and illegal aliens are not the reason I do.
"finally, i hear a lot of folks arguing to “secure the borderâ€. what on earth makes you think it’s possible? have we succeeded in keeping drugs out? build a wall and they’ll take boats and planes, or come through canada, or hide in crates, or get better documents forged. you simply cannot shit off the supply of something for which demand is so high while still being an open society. every crackdown in drug enforcement has made the drug barons more powerful. it will do the same for the people smugglers."
It is not just about securing the border. You seem to have some problem with things. I already made it clear that a large number of the illegals in this country actually are from the roles of previously invited guests who have overstayed their welcome. It requires a very efficient regime of enforcement. You have already made the case for the fence, that they will just find other ways around it. So that already proves that a fence works. The other steps are workplace enforcement. Frequent raids with stiff fines and prison time for repeat illegal alien hiring would cut off a very large amount of the calling for this demand. The demand is not from companies for workers, the demand is for extremely poor people to get into America where the poorest of the poor who are not deliberately worse off have two TVs, cable, A/C, cell phone, a car if not two, own their own home and eat 2500 calories a day. That is the what makes the demand. Notice we have 10% unemployment? Always have 5%. Have a permanent underclass of welfare recipients. We have enough workers in this country to get by on a diet of illegal aliens for ten years. Lock the borders, workplace raids, verification of all criminal contacts with police of legal residence, and huge fines with prison time for employers of illegal aliens, including people who hire an illegal nanny, lawn care worker, or day laborer. If you could go to jail, would you hire someone that does not have proof of residence status? Get rid of the demand creation device which is nothing more than anything better than some chinese or african living on a dollar a day in their home country.
"these guys are coming. get used to it. it’s not going to change. people flow inexorably from low wage ares to high wage ones just like air flows from high pressure to low. nothing short of martial law is going to stop it."
Um, no, I will not just get used to it. This is my country, and the country of another 270 million Americans and we get to decide as a whole who we let into the country and who we do not. Will there be some leaks, sure, but 20 million people is not a leak, that is busted dam. Amnesty as you propose, even if it is not citizenship, would bust the dam even wider and deeper and people will still try to fill that demand you say we have. Double, triple quadruple the numbers and there will still be 100 times more people who want to come through our borders and live the poor American lifestyle than put any effort into fixing their own countries. This will remain true until the only outcome of such a drive will take us, to the point that our poor are equal to the poor of the native homes of those who would come. Everyone wants a better life, not everyone is going to get it, that is just part of life and a part of the fact that these people are simply not deserving. What we should tell the world is that that if you can make it in your own country, we will invite you to ours. But if you remain a poor person in your home country, do not expect a ticket to ride the train to a better life here. That might motivate people to make changes to their home countries, changes like India is doing, and Taiwan and Japan did.
"we’ll be better off here with a ready supply of cheap, legal labor. we could start producing clothing and footwear again. the knock on effects as the workers pay taxes and spend money will drive growth. the taxes can fund the services they need."
Yeah, sure we could. What company is going to invest money into the American Economy to create these EPA and OSHA broken jobs? With the current cost of adding money to the price of a laborer for health care to be a minimum of $2000 a year. The cost of energy about to go through the roof, the coming Carbon cap will destroy any dream of those jobs ever being affordable in this country again. It is not the labor costs, it is the regulatory cost that drove them away and the only thing that would make them possible would be $3/hour labor. Until then, the $1 to $5 labor costs with no cost for regulations in other countries is a lower cost even with shipping for these products. Also, it has already been shown that migrant peoples do not have beliefs in things that are required to allow a society like ours to work. They do not believe in private property, they have the right to that which they can use and take that is within their reach. It is why Africa is such a screwed up continent.
"it is our behavior around entitlements that is turning the benefit of immigration into a social services problem. fix the bad policy, not the good one."
Yeah, which problem do you think is going to be easier to solve? The entitlements or the border? I say fix the border because it is something we can do on the cheap, will save us lots of money, will make America a stronger country and one more respected in the world. Entitlements fixes are on the horizon, something that will be forced on us in the near future when the world has run out of other people's money. I do not an unsecured border as a good policy and I never will. It is about the illegal aliens, but it is also about national respect and nation security. If the people come over by boat, ship themselves in a cargo box, board a plane to get here, one thing is sure for all of that, the number of people getting through will be magnitudes lower than current land border crossings, and we reduce the chances of nuclear weapons crossing the border.
All this has been hashed out in my prior posts. So tell me again just how you destroyed me? My argument is sound, my argument is based on empirical evidence as found in the real world. Your argument is based on some fantasy world where people act and react in liberal progressive feel good positive ways no matter how negative the real world impacts on the situation requires.
Lets ask a few questions.
Is there a limit to allowed worker visas in your plan? If so, what is it?
If there is a limit, how do we ensure that those working are in fact allowed to work in the USA? What is to prevent triple the number of people coming in?
If there is a limit, and no check to be certain those legally allowed into the country are in fact the only ones working, what is different with your policy and the status quo?
If there is no limit, what prevents the workers from overhwelming the nation and like La Raza has stated as its goal, taking America from the gringos?
If there is no limit, where do people apply for work permits; In their home country or once they arrive?
If there is no limit, then what restrictions are allowed in who we allow into the country; can we say no people from terrorist countries, people with criminal records, what if the country in question will not release criminal records, what if the country in question particularly likes to export their criminals?
What rights are granted to guest workers?
How long is a guest worker allowed to remain in the country?
Under what circumstances should a guest worker be required to go back home?
What if the guest worker did not save enough money for a plane ticket home, what happens then?
If a guest worker pays taxes, should he not also be allowed to vote? (This country was founded on the principle of no taxation without representation.)
If allowed representation how much representation should they get?
Will minimum wage laws be enforced? How? If not enforced, what jobs are exempt from the minimum wage laws?
What other labor laws can we ignore with guest workers we cannot with citizen labor?
If they cannot vote, have lower protected status with respect to labor laws does this sound like two classes of citizens?
Can guest workers bring huge sums of cash with them and buy out large portions of land?
As land owners, can they be deported? If so, what about their right to property?
What if a million Chinese come and the government of China funds the purchasing of whole states with the hundreds of billions of dollars of debt America owes them. Can they then leave the nation?
Where exactly do you find these people's right to work in this country from? Is it just a human right granted from God for just being a human? If so, then why do they even need government permission to come here? Where are the rights of a sovereign people to have a sovereign land protected by a sovereign government instituted by the people, for the people and of the people?
So tell me again, where exactly did you destroy my argument, or me? Cause I just am at a complete loss to find one single thing that you wrote that damages my argument.
May 10, 2010, 9:38 pmMercy Vetsel:
> What I would really like to understand is: what drives these folks?
Partly it is our tendency to recoil at the appalling racism exhibited by Coyote and others who seem to think of our brown-skinned brothers as children who don't deserve to be treated as adults and held to the same standard as everyone else.
Sure it's fine for Coyote if Europeans enforce laws affecting Europeans, but in his Kiplingess version of America's burden we should treat brown-skinned people as sub-humans who should be held to standards of animal kindness rather than the law as applied to full humans responsible for their own actions.
What Coyote forgets is that not all Mexicans are illiterate migrant workers. I personally have worked with many extremely-talented law-abiding Mexican immigrants who are here legally and their effort to comply with the system should not be punished. I recently saw a Univision poll showing that 60% of HISPANICS were in favor of deporting illegals.
I suppose Warren may have some other reason besides racism for motivating him to advocate such positions and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, I've yet to hear what that reason might be, if not racism.
It's also extremely annoying to hear Coyote ironically trot out racism again and again to defend his own irrational belief that the filter that we should use to select whom to allow entry should be a willingness to break the law. I wonder if Coyote selects dinner guests that way.
-Mercy
May 10, 2010, 9:48 pmMikeinAppalachia:
This report seems cntrary to our host's opinion as to the effect on crime and danger to the citizens.
This weekend on Phoenix’ KFYI, radio host Terry Gilberg interviewed Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. The Sheriff’s message to Contessa, Katie and all the rest? "Come ride along side me in the patrol car. You’ll see the real story."
During the interview, he conveyed a remarkable statistic:
"Last month alone, just in one patrol region, we had sixty-four pursuits. That means people who were driving a vehicle, failed to yield, took off like a bat out of hell, running red lights, creating traffic wrecks, numerous people were killed in these wrecks over the last several months, and who are these people? Not one of them was a U.S. citizen."
May 10, 2010, 9:48 pm