The Immigration Debate and Racism
Exclusionist Conservatives in Arizona are quick to defend themselves against charges of racism. While I tend to be an pro-immigration hawk, I accept that there are issues, such as the conflict of immigration and the welfare state, where reasonable people can disagree as to solutions without any hint of racism charging the debate. I really, really resist playing the race card on anyone.
However, if Conservatives really want to discourage charges of racism, they need to stop playing on fears of immigrant crime as a main argument in their case (example from Expresso Pundit). Such fears of minority group violence are part and parcel of every racist position in history. The out-group is always vilified as criminal, whether it be blacks in the 60's or Italians and Eastern Europeans earlier in the century or the Irish in the 19th century.
There is no evidence either recently or throughout history of immigrant-led crime waves, and in fact as I wrote the other day crime rates in Arizona are improving throughout this "invasion" at a faster rate than the US average. So when Conservatives grab a single example, such as the Pinal County shooting (for which no suspects have been identified) as "proof" we need immigration reform, they are no different than Al Sharpton grandstanding based on the Tawana Brawley case (and possibly these cases could be even more similar, update: or perhaps not).
Stop trying to manufacture a crime spree that does not exist. Sure, illegal immigrants commit some murders. So do every other group. There is no evidence they commit such murders at a disproportionate rate. And yes, I understand there are violent, paramilitary gangs roving Northern Mexico, which currently is in a state of chaos, that we really don't want to spill over into Arizona. But this has been a threat for years, and for all the fear, there is no evidence that they are somehow increasing their activities here. And even if they were, laws that give Joe Arpaio additional power to harass day laborers in Phoenix are sure as hell not going to scare them off.
do you not see the inconsistency with arguing for the enforcement of one set of laws but not another?
you seem to be all for heavy enforcement of a law you like, but not one you don't. that makes it relevant as it makes it clear you are not using any set of basic principles to argue your position, but rather varying your ethics to suit your views on individual issues. that's not a defensible position without resorting to: "this is just the way i like it" which is not rigorously defensible morally, logically, or otherwise.
all i'm saying is you cannot use a "we need to follow the law" argument selectively.
FWIW, i don't think any energy should be subsidized. it only leads to bad outcomes. current solar is nowhere near being able to compete even if you have extremist views on externalities (which i don't). but, betting against technology in the long run is tough. there's a ton of very interesting work going on with micro-organisms doped with things like iridium to form self organizing structures that are suspended in a gel matrix that is beginning to be able to mimic photosynthesis and split hydrogen from water molecules.
it's a good decade out, but the rewards to solving this issue will cause progress to be made.
your last augment sounds a lot like "i've lost this argument, but i'm not changing my mind" you sound a great deal more upset than i am. i just think we're missing an opportunity. you seem to feel like your way of life and livelihood are threatened.
you wall would never work even if we could build it. there are too many other ways in. they go to canada and come from the north. they'll use boats or hide in freight or any number of a zillion other methods. there is too much demand from them to be here for us to shut off the flow while remaining open society. you have about as much chance of shutting off the flow of immigrants as the flow of drugs. pretending it isn't so just leads to wasted time and money.
Um, I see the enforcement of the drug wars. You do not? That is funny because some huge % of those in prison are people busted for drug crimes. Thus there is no need for me to petition my government to perform the duties on this front. On the other hand, I see companies with workforces where 25% of the people do not speak as much as broken English flaunting the laws. I think people who hire these illegals should be punished 20 times more than the actual illegals. The illegals get sent home, those hiring them should be sent to prison and fined in such a manner that if 100% of their workforce was illegal and they were able to get away with it for 20 years the penalties would still outstrip any monetary benefit they accumulated over that time frame. Some honest businessman could then come in a buy the place and hire legal residents and citizens for the jobs and likely increase the wages to the point of it improving the lives of the entire area around that company.
You are so totally for these low cost jobs that I have to ask something, was the civil war and emancipation proclamation the wrong thing to do? Cheap labor you say is a good thing, that I have no idea about economies because I deplore what I consider artificially reduced wages. Want a history lesson on that Mr smart man? The South lost the war because they had cheap labor. They did not modernize in order to reduce the need for physical labor because they had a near unlimited amount for the cost of meager food and very meager housing. The south lost the war because they did not need to improve working conditions since the labor force was easy to force into doing anything they wanted done. The south lost because the north paid full price for labor, the north found this to not be beneficial to their economy and started to modernize and the north was far more productive than the south. They could build guns quickly, build trains quickly, move food from location to location quickly, something the south could not do with slave labor. Today's illegal alien is centuries past slave, low cost and expendable and reduces companies need to improve the jobs by modernization. You can either remain an ignorant or you can learn that your position is flawed, it is your choice, I my self took the time to read up on history so I would not be an ignorant, just a jerk with knowledge. I personally do not care if people like me for my positions, just so long as I know my positions are correct based on full knowledge of the arguments for and against.
my point is that the increase in enforcement hasn't done any good. would you claim that all this effort is "winning the drug war"? why do you suspect that this safe failed strategy will work on immigration? you suggest upping penalties for breaking the law, but hasn't this already failed with drugs? there is demand for cheap labor just as there is for drugs. in the face of that demand, people will break the law. worse, the presence of the law (in both cases) gives rise to violence and tax evasion. in both cases, the law does more harm than good. it's even worse with labor than it is with narcotics.
the south lost the war because it had cheap labor? what on earth are you talking about? you are talking about the difference between industrialization and a slave based agrarian economy (and slave labor was not cheap labor, as the aftermath of the war showed, it had been more expensive than free labor on all all in cost basis.) are you arguing that cheap labor will drive the US back to being a pre-industrial society? are you arguing it will stifle innovation? even if labor is cheap, the drives are still there to make it more efficient. the rest of the world is doing it, so the pressure will be on us to do it too. slave labor does not behave like regular labor because slaves have no incentive to become more productive. they don't share in the surplus. just as moving from feudal farming to farming where farmers own their plots and keep their crops, moving from slave labor to paid labor drives increased productivity and ultimately wages. your example is a non sequitior.
equating low wages with competitiveness is hardly an appeal for slavery. slavery is a stagnant system. nothing evolves from it, but low wages are not the same thing. you sound like one of these guys who cries "nazi" all the time trying to drag in some orthogonal argument for emotional impact. that's not going to work with me. you cannot possibly argue that low wages are not a competitive advantage driving growth in much of asia. what is it about our market that you think behaves differently? it sounds to me like you fear competition for your job. but, as i'll argue below, your safety from reduced immigration is largely illusory.
"artificially low wages" has no meaning. the only way to get artificially low wages is to limit them by law. there's nothing artificial about low wages. they are the norm if productivity is low or labor demand is high. they are the result of supply and demand. that is the natural price, not an artificial one.
you seem to have this sense that we (and you) can keep our wages high by by limiting the supply of workers.
this is not true.
jobs will go where the low wages are. the economy doesn't stop at our borders. a US job making sneakers is threatened every bit as much by Chinese workers as by low wages here. why do you think so much of what we consume is now made overseas?
your desire for high wages for low value work is what's artificial. you are framing the choice incorrectly. the high wages you champion do not create jobs, they send them overseas. there was a time when the US could get away with it because our workers were more productive and had better capital equipment to make their labor more fruitful. that time is over.
the emerging economies are rapidly closing the productivity gap. in many places, asia is already ahead of us. we no longer have the luxury of a superior capital base to protect us.
demanding high wages for low value labor doe s not "protect good jobs" it makes jobs leave.
a low wage job in china pays the US no taxes, nor does it put money in the pocket of a domestic consumer to spend here. it just takes production away and hurts or service and subsistence economy. you can protect yourself from competing with jose here, but not from vijay in india. illusory protection is worse than none at all. your unsuccessful drive to protect yourself does not protect you and harms a great many of your neighbors. that is the very definition of bad policy.
even of you do keep your wages high due to labor protectionism, it still hurts your neighbors more than it help you. it amazes me how the same people who would not dream of limiting imports of steel to be used in production fail to see that blocking labor imports has all the same negative effects. protectionism is protectionism and the price is always the same: a few may benefit in the short term, but most loose.
if you and i both have lemonade stands on the same block and you pay your workers more, i'll under-price you and drive you out of business. now your highly paid worker are unemployed. you may not realize it, but international trade works the same way, it just means that an international border runs down the middle of the block. you are creating unemployment by demanding above market wages because you do not acknowledge that market is international now. pretty soon, your side of the block will be unemployed, and mine will have taken up the slack as a hire another guy to squeeze lemons.
nothing is going to reverse this trend, particularly pretending it doesn't exist.
We have been searching for solutions to the problem of immigration but the problem still persists. I think the administration should take a look at the immigration policy and make a thorough assessment and right after that, make some modifications on the policy to control illegal immigrants. A fair and clear cut policy is necessary and a strong willed-person to implement these policies is needed.