Can We Tell Those Huddled Masses to Scram? Immigration and the Constitution
In 1873 some Presbyterians in Kentucky invited a young Canadian to be their pastor. Tensions in the border state were still high following the War of Southern Independence, and the congregants hoped that a neutral outsider could pacify folks not only within their own church but even across denominations.
Rev. A.B. Simpson succeeded so well that he was next called to the 13th Street Presbyterian Church in New York City . Once again his Biblical preaching resonated not only with the wealthy Americans of 13th Street Presbyterian but also with the Italian immigrants thronging the neighborhood. About 100 of them were soon clamoring to join the church. An immigrant himself, Rev. Simpson was delighted. His church, however, was not. The man who had reconciled Yankees and rebels was unable to convince his fellow Christians to welcome poor foreigners. Rev. Simpson left the Presbyterians and eventually founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Today the denomination numbers approximately 2.5 million members in 40 countries (see “What Is the Alliance Doing Today?” www.cmalliance.org/whoweare/whoweare-present.jsp).
Immigration has pitted Americans against one another for over a century now. Intriguingly, that’s about the same amount of time the federal government has presumed an interest in the issue. Its interference has turned the debate over immigration into a toxic brew. But when we strain the emotion and rhetoric from it, it boils down to a simple question: should the state regulate our comings and goings?
From the beginning colonial governments have involved themselves with American immigration. Sometimes that involvement was as total as the French and Spanish kings’ spending their subjects’ money to export colonists to the New World and then ruling them. Other times there was less picking of poor people’s pockets: the British Crown preferred to grant charters.
On April 10, 1606, for example, King James chartered the London Company, a group of merchants and noblemen, to settle Virginia. Charters may have been “traditional legal instruments,” as Gordon Wood puts it in The Radicalism of the American Revolution, but they were fishy enough to stink. They allowed a government to “harness private enterprise and private wealth to carry out desirable public goals, such as founding a colony. . . . In return for the public service, such corporate grants gave to the recipients certain exclusive legal privileges, including the right to govern an area. . . .”
Other immigrants came without any government support at all. The Puritans emigrated despite—and because of—the Crown’s opposition to their ideas. Famously fleeing government’s corruption and persecution for a better, freer life in the New World, they were some of America ‘s earliest immigrants and the archetype of most who would follow.
As these newcomers transformed the eastern strip of the American continent from a wilderness into 13 British colonies, the Crown continued to influence immigration by unloading its “criminals” there. People were convicted of capital crimes in England on a depressingly regular basis, not because they were more vile than folks elsewhere, but because a man, woman, or child could be hanged for any of 300 felonies in the seventeenth century. Fortunately reprieves were almost as common as hangings—providing the victim left for America . This was essentially a life sentence to house arrest: convicts were closely guarded until their ship sailed, “put in irons” once aboard, and sold as indentured servants when they landed.
The government shipped these unfortunates exclusively to its chartered colony, Virginia , from 1619 to 1640; its excuse was that disease had depopulated the place. Actually it didn’t need an excuse: charters privileged certain citizens over others only if they agreed that the government was in ultimate control. And so the waves of convicts lapped the next century: 4,500 sailed for America, primarily Virginia and Maryland, from 1661 to 1700; in the 50 years before the American Revolution 30,000 more did too, accounting for about 15 percent of immigrants during those decades.
Along with the convicts went the beggars and con men swarming England. They too were often rounded up and shipped against their will to the colonies.
Naturally the upright and industrious colonists already flourishing in America objected to this influx. Both Virginia and Maryland passed laws by the end of the seventeenth century that barred this dumping of humanity; as Virginia’s House of Burgesses explained, “the complaints of several of the council and others, gent. Inhabitants . . . representing their apprehensions and fears lest the honor of his majesty and the peace of this colony be too much hazarded and endangered by the great numbers of felons and other desperate villains sent hither from the several prisons in England . . . ” (Page Smith, A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution). The “gent. Inhabitants” had apparently forgotten who was boss. Parliament reminded them by overriding their legislation with its own in 1717.
And the convicts kept arriving. The Virginia Gazette of May 24, 1751, carried the following lamentation: “When we see our Papers fill’d continually with Accounts of the most audacious Robberies, the most cruel Murders, and infinite other Villanies [sic] perpetrated by Convicts transported from Europe, what melancholy, what terrible Reflections must it occasion! What will become of our Posterity? These are some of thy Favours, Britain ! Thou are called our Mother Country; but what good Mother ever sent Thieves and Villains to accompany her children; to corrupt some with their infectious Vices and murder the rest?” Perhaps this early animosity to “Thieves and Villains” lives on in the hostility confronting immigrants today.
Germans Discouraged
On the other hand, government discouraged the sort of settlers the colonists wanted. People from the German principalities had a reputation for working hard and for loving liberty. The latter trait prompted the Crown to discourage their immigration in ways Jefferson noted in the Declaration: “[King George III] has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”
It seems, then, that whether dumping or discouraging, the government got it wrong when it came to immigration. The Founders took a lesson: their Constitution gave the federal government no authority to control an individual’s movement into or out of the country. They did allow Congress “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” (Article I, Section 8). Thus though the Founders distrusted government to regulate immigration, they permitted it to set requirements for citizenship. Power over mere procedure, rather than over practice, was all that men steeped in natural law confided to the state.
This libertarian stance was tested during the new nation’s first years, when the French Revolution with its animus against aristocracy sent refugees running for America . Their titles rankled Americans, who feared “aristocratical principles” as much as some modern Americans fear terrorism. But they didn’t plead with the federal government to violate the Constitution by limiting immigration. Instead, Congress tinkered with the format for naturalization, raising the years of residency required before an immigrant could apply for citizenship, while adding an oath of allegiance and the renunciation of noble titles. Importantly, the impetus for citizenship still came from the immigrant. He went to a courthouse and took the oath because he wanted to, not because federal agents cruised the country checking papers and arresting those without the right ones.
No Such Word
The Constitution never mentions the word “immigration.” The closest it comes is “migration,” which it uses only once, in Article I, Section 9: the Feds are prohibited from interfering with “the Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit. . . .” This applied specifically to slavery, though some folks take it out of context to justify controlling immigration at the state level. That, of course, is a philosophical dodge: it merely shifts power over immigrants from one governmental group to another without answering the question of whether any litter of bureaucrats and politicians should dictate other people’s movements.
A final constitutional reference to immigration comes with the requirements for holding elective offices. Presidents must be native-born; representatives and senators must have resided in the country for seven and nine years, respectively.
Apparently, then, the Founders considered a man’s movements far too integral to freedom to surrender to government. They did share one concern about immigration with modern Americans, though: assimilation. They worried that people coming from monarchies (which is to say, people coming from almost anywhere in the late eighteenth-century world) would, like the French aristocrats, neither understand nor value freedom. Jefferson warned that “Our [government] . . . is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural rights and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of government they leave, imbibed in their early youth. . . ” (Notes on Virginia , quoted at www.cis.org/articles/cantigny/fonte.html#II).
Jefferson was not alone in pondering the difficulties of assimilation; many of the Founders, including Washington and Madison, did too. Their conclusions are often quoted out of context, making them seem opposed to freedom of movement. If they were, it’s odd that they neglected to list “oversee, regulate, and control immigrants” among the government’s constitutional duties.
Assimilation has gnawed at Americans throughout our history. Many viewed newcomers with suspicion—enough Americans with enough suspicion that they formed the Know-Nothing Party in 1849. Later reincarnated as the American Party, the Know-Nothings espoused other planks besides nativism, most notably anti-slavery; still, their platform tried to rewrite the Constitution by declaring, “Americans must rule America ; and to this end, native-born citizens should be selected for all state, federal, or municipal offices of govern-ment. . .” (quoted in Smith). But for every Know-Nothing there were other Americans happy to widen the field of potential employees, employers, customers, and friends.
So far neither group had been able to compel the other to its opinion by force of law. Indeed, as Paul Johnson writes in A History of the American People, “No authority on either side of the Atlantic was bothered with who was going where or how. . . . An Englishman, without passport, health certificate or documentation of any kind—without luggage for that matter—could hand over £10 at a Liverpool shipping counter and go aboard. . . . If [the ship didn't sink but] reached New York he could go ashore without anyone asking him his business, and then vanish. . . . There was no control and no resentment. . . . In the five years up to 1820, some 100,000 people arrived in America without having to show a single bit of paper.” Those were halcyon days for the Fourth Amendment and its prohibition on government’s unreasonable searching of papers and effects. In fact, if the Amendment were still respected today, no bureaucrat could demand an ID, a green card, or other documents from anyone, citizen or not.
The early 1800s fortunately lacked exclusive unions, a minimum wage, OSHA, a Department of Labor, an IRS, and most licensing. So immigrants found all the work they wanted on arrival, despite their large numbers: from 1815 to 1860, more than 5 million people came from Europe to the United States. And yet, Johnson writes, “what all observers [of American life] recorded was the absence of begging. As one of them put it in 1839: ‘During two years spent in traveling through every part of the Union, I have only once been asked for alms.’ ”
Free movement remained the standard until after Civil War convulsed the country. In 1875, just a few years before Rev. Simpson would ask his American Presbyterians to welcome foreign converts, Congress passed unconstitutional legislation to keep convicts and prostitutes from entering the nation.
No doubt the Congress was jaded after all the assaults on the Constitution generated by the late war. What were another one or two—or hundred? And who could argue that convicts and prostitutes should be allowed in the country anyway? Surely if the Founders had been as enlightened as their Victorian descendants, they would have excluded such miscreants. Their grandchildren kindly remedied their oversight.
After convicts and prostitutes were proscribed, increasing numbers of folks failed to meet with congressional approval, and the government denied them freedom of movement as well: ex-convicts in 1882, along with Chinese laborers, lunatics, and idiots. Paupers, polygamists, and people with infectious diseases were added to the list in 1891, as were the so-called insane, while 1917 saw the illiterate barred from the country.
This high-handed legislation sparked lots of litigation; a few cases even landed before the Supreme Court. Curiously, when upholding the decisions of the new “superintendent of immigration” against foreigners who mistakenly believed themselves in the land of the free, the Court appealed to national sovereignty, congressional edicts, international norms, democracy—anything but the Constitution. Chae Chan Ping v. U.S. concerned a “subject of the emperor of China , and a laborer by occupation. He resided at San Francisco . . . until June 2, 1887 when he left for China . . ., having in his possession a certificate in terms entitling him to return [to the United States]. . . .” Unfortunately for Mr. Chae, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act on October 1, 1888. This act not only invalidated his papers; it also imbued Congress with an authority heretofore unsuspected: the Court thundered, “Congress has power, even in times of peace, to exclude aliens from, or prevent their return to, the United States, for any reason it may deem sufficient.” In fact, so “established” was this power that only a portion of the decision discusses it; the Court muses far more about a treaty then current with China , debates whether treaties are “of higher dignity than acts of Congress,” and finally concludes they aren’t.
But where did Congress’s previously unknown “power . . . to exclude aliens” originate? The Court took a stab at explaining:
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 . . . was followed by a large immigration. . . . [L]aborers came from [ China ] in great numbers . . . . [A]s their numbers increased, they began to engage in various mechanical pursuits and trades, and thus came in competition with our artisans and mechanics, as well as our laborers in the field. . . . The competition between them and our people . . . and the consequent irritation . . . [were] followed, in many cases, by open conflicts. . . . It seemed impossible for them to assimilate with our people . . . . [Californians] saw . . . great danger that at no distant day that portion of our country would be overrun by them, unless prompt action was taken to restrict their immigration. The people there accordingly petitioned earnestly for protective legislation. . . . So urgent and constant were the prayers for relief against existing and anticipated evils, both from the public authorities of the Pacific coast and from private individuals, that congress was impelled to act on the subject.
A pity Californians weren’t as agitated about the “existing and anticipated evils” of large government as they were about “large immigration.”
Argument from Authority
The Court bolstered its appeal to raw democracy with another august argument, the “because the government says so, that’s why” theory.
When once it is established that congress possesses the power to pass an act, our province ends. . . . That the government of the United States, through the action of the legislative department, can exclude aliens from its territory is a proposition which we do not think open to controversy. Jurisdiction over its own territory to that extent is an incident of every independent nation. . . . As said by this court . . . speaking by Chief Justice MARSHALL: “The jurisdiction of the nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute. . . . All exceptions, therefore to the full and complete power of a nation within its own territories, must be traced up to the consent of the nation itself. They can flow from no other legitimate source.”
Including, apparently, the Constitution.
In the absence of constitutional recourse, the decision also quoted such luminaries as “Mr. Marcy, the secretary of state under President Pierce,” who opined, “Every society possesses the undoubted right to determine who shall compose its members, and it is exercised by all nations, both in peace and war.”
The Chae Court threw a sop to the supreme law of the land in the decision’s last pages: “The power of exclusion of foreigners being an incident of sovereignty belonging to the government of the United States as a part of those sovereign powers delegated by the constitution, when, in the judgment of the government, the interests of the country require it, cannot be granted away. . . .” But “sovereignty” as an excuse for curtailing freedom of movement is an alarming argument given the crimes governments claim as their “sovereign” prerogatives. War, plundering and taxation, fiat money and inflation, imprisonment of political opponents, torture—these are just some of the evils governments call sovereign rights. It follows that if the Feds have sovereignty to restrict movement, they also have sovereignty to torture, to dispossess dissidents, to rule by whim rather than by law.
The Court didn’t flinch from these implications. It clearly concluded, “Whatever license, therefore, Chinese laborers may have obtained . . . to return to the United States . . . is held at the will of the government, revocable at any time, at its bleasure [sic].” Under sovereignty rather than the Constitution, other freedoms are no doubt “revocable at any time,” at the government’s pleasure too.
This dictatorial dialectic has distorted cases contemporary and modern. In Lem Moon Sing v. United States (1895) the Supreme Court circuitously proclaimed, “The power of congress to exclude aliens altogether from the United States, or to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which they may come to this country . . . is settled by our previous adjudications.” The echoes reverberated in 1972, when the Court rehearsed history in Kleindienst v. Mandel: “Until 1875 alien migration to the United States was unrestricted. The Act of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 477, barred convicts and prostitutes. Seven years later Congress passed the first general immigration statute. . . . Other legislation followed,” among the most revealing that of 1940, which barred “aliens who, at any time, had advocated or were members of or affiliated with organizations that advocated violent overthrow of the United States Government.” Now we come to the Feds’ real interest in immigration: screening immigrants for their political ideologies. Not surprisingly, “The pattern [of power over immigrants] generally has been one of increasing control. . . .”
Inhumanity went hand in hand with this anti-constitutionalism. In 1882 the overfed U.S. government began robbing people who were often wearing everything they owned by assessing immigrants an entrance fee. Nine years later it rewarded the victims with their own bureaucracy: the Office of Immigration would henceforth harass them full-time. Originally part of the Treasury Department (talk about barking up the wrong tree: exactly how many of “the tired, the poor, those yearning to breathe free” were promising pickings for Treasury?), it eventually immigrated to the Justice Department and was a forerunner of the current Center for Immigration Services—a bureaucracy whose idea of “service” coincides with that of the IRS.
Inhumanity has in fact always characterized the state’s approach to immigration. The more power government gains over immigrants, the more cruelly it treats them. Even if one is unpersuaded by philosophical or constitutional arguments, one must favor freedom of movement out of simple compassion.
Migrant Travel, Then and Now
When the Crown “mercifully” reprieved convicts from immediate death in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was often condemning them to one by slow torture while crossing the Atlantic . (Paying passengers didn’t fare much better.) The trip took anywhere from four weeks to three months, during which passengers grappled with impossibly crowded quarters, fatal fevers, and rancid rations. The wonder is not that the mortality rate was shockingly high but that it wasn’t higher.
Travelers must have suffered from acute thirst every hour they were at sea. Fresh water had to be carried on board and stored, and storage soon turned it brackish. Aggravating their thirst was the fact that folks subsisted “on salt”—their rations consisted almost entirely of preserved meat and ship’s biscuit (hard, thick crackers). The meat spoiled despite its salt, and insects infested the biscuit. Scurvy and malnutrition’s other maladies added to the suffering and deaths.
Tragically, the trip to America can be as torturous and fatal for modern immigrants as it was for their colonial counterparts. Despite quantum leaps in technology that put jumbo jets with meals, bottled water, reclining seats, and comfortable temperatures within the budgets of many immigrants (some of whom pay hundreds and thousands of dollars to illegal “guides”), many still spend weeks, months, or even years arduously traveling to the United States . They languish on homemade rafts and die in unventilated trucks and trailers; those who survive are often sick, scared, and starving when they finally arrive. The U.S. government and its unconstitutional control over them are almost entirely to blame for this monumental misery (the rest of the credit goes to the tyrannies immigrants are fleeing).
Because it has abandoned the logic and morality of natural law, U.S. policies on immigration are as senseless as they are cruel. For example, Cuban refugees risk everything, including life itself, to flee their island gulag in whatever will float. Yet under 1995′s “wet foot/dry foot” agreement between Fidel Castro and Bill Clinton, Cubans who reach U.S. water but not U.S. soil are forcibly returned to Castro’s clutches. As they near the end of their 90-mile voyage from Cuba to Florida, when they are most vulnerable, the Coast Guard “interdicts” these refugees, sometimes dousing them with pepper spray and shooting them with water cannons to prevent their wet feet from ever becoming dry.
Allowing government to control immigration guarantees that barbaric and baffling policies will continue to kill people and ruin lives. It also means that the state decides who gets in; the country’s character and composition are determined by a handful of bureaucrats rather than the decisions of millions of individuals. And each restriction government imposes on immigrants, each limit it sets to their freedom, limits ours as well.
When immigrants have to show papers proving they belong here, we do, too. When the State is permitted to brutalize them, it practices tactics it can turn on us. Perhaps most frightening of all is the reflection that a government strong enough to keep others out is also strong enough to keep us in.
As always, those who ask Leviathan to shackle others often wind up wearing the chains themselves.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 8 June 2009:
Ms. Akers,
I appreciate the reply.
I examined your other article, “Can We Tell Those Huddled Masses to Scram.” (Scram) and I find the same problems with that paper as with this one.
You mention that Congress has the power to control naturalization in the first portion but minimize the importance of this and go on to talk about “Unconstitutional” laws based on the concept that Article I, Section 8 (AIS8) is somehow insufficient or doesn’t control immigration because the word “immigration” is never used. “Naturalization” means “to admit to citizenship” and is conceptually interchangeable with the word “immigration” so the Founders clearly and intentionally put this power in the hands of the Congress.
Rather than being some unimportant afterthought, this power was so important it is defined before the power of Congress to coin money, establish courts, and declare war so it isn’t quite as insignificant as your Scram article would lead the reader to believe.
The Constitution is not overly verbose by design. Entire powers are defined in a handful of words throughout the entire document. For instance the power “To provide and maintain a navy” is outlined in those six words exactly so it is counterintuitive to think the Founders would dedicate entire paragraphs to immigration specifically in anticipation that their intent would be subverted in the future.
“To establish a uniform rule of naturalization …” was sufficient for their needs and desires. They didn’t expect someone to argue “Freedom of Movement” applied to foreign nationals entering this nation any more than they expected the word “militia” in the Second Amendment to be used to undermine an individual’s right to bear arms.
Freedom of Movement describes my ability as a US citizen to move from State to State not to cross the boarder with Canada or Mexico for a visit, much less to work and take up residence, without the hindrance of paperwork.
Even if I were to concede the point that national boarders somehow conflict with a basic human right to migrate wherever (s)he sees fit, international legal precedent holds this assertion to be false. Ergo, if the US is going to allow unlimited undocumented immigration the reverse is not true for any other nation. The concept of doing this unilaterally is every bit as unworkable as unilateral disarmament.
For instance, Mexico may advocate open boarders when it comes to emigration of their citizens into the US but they don’t recognize my “right” to enter their country and illegally take up residence. If I were go into Mexico in the same manner as hundreds-of-thousands of their citizens enter the US every year, I would be detained and deported to my country of origin, even if I came from the US. In fact, Mexico jealously guards its southern boarder while ignoring the north. As such “Free Movement” would be one way.
I would also point out that none of the free immigration policies you outlined in Scram predate the early 1900’s. While interesting this does not wound the concept that Congress had the authority to act to reduce immigration in the 1800’s only that they decided not to.
At the time the US had made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 representing more than 800,000 square miles of territory as well as winning the Mexican Cession in 1848 representing another 500,000 square miles. So the US had an extra 1.3 million square miles to fill but the 1850 census put the population at a little over 23 million. Illegal immigration wasn’t a concern because we had scads of territory to fill, less than a tenth of the population we currently have, and very few nations were bursting with excess populations except in times of famine or drought (Ireland). On a prima facie level the situation in 1809 or 1859 and 2009 are not even remotely similar.
In addition to this our society has also changed drastically over this same period. Social programs were almost nonexistent in the 1800’s. Education wasn’t costing $6,000 or more per child per annum. Medical and Medicaid didn’t exist. Emergency rooms were not required to treat anyone that crossed their threshold. In the past 150 to 200 years we’ve become far more governmentally altruistic.
Regardless of if we agree with the existence of these programs the fact is they do and they represent a significant drain on the infrastructure. Contrary to what some have posted above, an increase in the number of poor and unskilled workers does not enhance the economy of a nation, especially one that offers nearly unlimited social programs.
What’s worse is when these “entitlements” were introduced they were supposed to be privileges for citizens not foreign aid used to finance and support a subclass of workers that are exploited by the rich. If you want an historical analogy, this is indentured servitude or share cropping revisited which is the antithesis of freedom.
There are over 6 billion people on this planet. It is impossible for the US to absorb even a fraction of that number unscathed regardless of where they originate. If the people in these nations want the liberty and prosperity the US offers it would be better for everyone if they transformed their country into a nation that offers these same opportunities rather than expecting unlimited access to the “American Dream.” We’ve set the precedent all they have to do is find the courage to follow.
It would be far better for Central and South America if we helped them become copies of the US rather than allowing uncontrolled immigration to turn the US into a copy of these countries.
It is much wiser to share prosperity rather than poverty.
Comment by Wise Immigration on 20 August 2009:
When supporters of illegal immigration – be they Republican heads of industry or Democratic welfare merchants – deliberately conspire to blur the vast expanse separating those who came here legally with those who broke down the front door in the middle of the night they insult the generations of legal immigrants who built this country over the past two centuries.
The article began with a mention of a Canadian preacher and a church, so perhaps this comment should end with a biblical reference as well. There is a biblical model for immigration, found in the Old Testament book of Ruth. “Your people shall be as my people, and your God, mine.” Today, far too many people are encouraging the importation of people who would demand this of the legal citizens already here.
Pingback by Immigration Divides Arizonans | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 26 April 2010:
[...] Timely Classic “Can We Tell Those Huddled Masses to Scram? Immigration and the Constitution” by Becky [...]
Comment by James on 26 April 2010:
Contrary to popular belief, Mexico has very strict immigration laws which are enforced by every police agency in the country. The Bureau of Immigration can call upon any law enforcement officer to assist in their mission. Citizens from the United States traveling in Mexico without proper documents, work permits or non immigrant visas are subject to arrest as illegal aliens.
To immigrate to Mexico you must:
1. Speak fluent Spanish
2. Have a trade or skill that is in demand, or be an investor. No unskilled labor is allowed
while in Mexico as a foreign born citizen, you may not:
1:Receive any public assistance – that is for Mexican-born citizens only
2: Hold any elected/public office
3: Participate in any public protest or strike
4: Own any waterfront property- That is for Mexicans only
If you are in Mexico illegally, you will be jailed, then deported. If you attempt to re-enter Mexico, you will go to prison for 10 years.
It absolutely amazes me how often someone will try to use the Constitution of The United States, and pretend to be able to read the minds of dead men to advance their twisted logic.
No Shame !
Comment by John W Yeomans on 26 April 2010:
Outstanding article…when are we “the American populace” going to take back our country from this so-called government. The Congress and Senate and Presidency is nothing more Tories of old. They do not represent a free nation. Basically this is a police/military contolled nation.!!!! Naziism budding.
Comment by Lynn A. Bloxham on 26 April 2010:
Dear Ms. Akers;
As all of your articles on immigration, this is excellent. There are other writers, also who are trying to explain the many reasons for at the very least, a much more lenient policy on immigration. I have been writing and giving speeches on this subject for years, but feel I am walking against a hurricane. This past year the escalation of hostilities has been so rapid, I am, sadly, more convinced that we will see problems as great as during the fifties and sixties. Your efforts and those of the other authors who speak up bravely as you do, are critical at this time. I look forward to more of your articles on this subject particularly.
Sincerely, Lynn Atherton Bloxham
P.S. I read what I had written to my husband Roger, and he also wanted say thank you for your wise words.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 26 April 2010:
Ms. Bloxham,
You provide a jingoistic note to the “immigration” debate without actually admitting the issue is about – illegal – immigration rather than immigration. I would offer that your failure to note the difference might be contributing to the “hurricane” you keep encountering.
I have a friend from Greece that has been trying to immigrate here since 1986. Ironically this is the same year Simpson-Mazzoli passed which I naively voted for. I would note that none of the three amnesty bills (Simpson-Mazzoli, McCain-Kennedy, and Graham-Schumer) has addressed immigrants that have tried to follow our laws.
Perhaps you, Ms. Akers, or someone on your side of the debate could explain why we should give citizenship to someone that illegally broke into our country 25 years ago while keeping someone that knocked on the door waiting for a quarter century? Seems to me thats like giving dinner to the burglar while leaving house guests on the porch.
Comment by Lynn A. Bloxham on 26 April 2010:
At the least, I did suggest a much more lenient immigration entry process. I would prefer open borders, but the hostilities are so great and there is increasing animosity on both sides. I am over seventy years old, husband 83, Over many years we have seen and experienced hostilities toward friends,in the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s, of various races and ethnic backgrounds. I have delved into the history of immigration, so this is not a casual off hand remark. For the defender of individual liberty, the current legal situation is terrible and is an negation to a principled position of the very concept of unalienable rights. To the defender of a voluntary exchange process, a free market, it violates every precept. It is NOT fair that people wait years to get admitted. Nothing about the present system is fair. The present system is based on inequity and bureaucratic decree. So at the least a total overhaul; at the best, erase all government regulation to entry and exit. This is a few sentence synopsis of fifty years of study and thought.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 27 April 2010:
Perhaps you could explain where my inalienable rights end and the illegal immigrant’s rights begin? Your side of the issues wants to see open boarders and anyone that disagrees is hostile, racist, etc. but the moment someone breaks into your home you’re going to call the cops without a second thought regardless of if the guy is Black, White, Latino, or pink with purple polka dots.
The excuse I constantly hear is that all the illegal immigrants want is to build a life, where’s the harm? That’s like saying that all the burglar wants is to eat leftovers, drink beer, and watch TV, where’s the harm? I don’t care why someone breaks into my home. It is my home. Not theirs. I don’t care why someone breaks into our country. It is our country. Not theirs.
Personal property rights are inalienable but when it come to our inalienable rights as US citizens to regulate who has access to the market and infrastructure we built and paid for with money as well as blood you want to give priority to foreign national’s right to wander from land to land over my right and my daughter’s right to have access to something my great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents have been investing in for more than a century.
The rest of the world is not the United States and an immigration process allows people we want to enter this country a process where they learn about our history, learn to speak English, become familiar with the culture, and become vested in an ideal we take for granted – All Men Are Created Equal. This concept is new to world history and many cultures do not embrace this. It allows us the opportunity to weed out the criminal element that currently plague us such as the membership of MS13 based in Guatemala that currently plagues California. It allows us to ensure that population growth does not overwhelm infrastructure so we end up with gridlock of freeways, increased unemployment, crowded class rooms, and similar issues that plague other countries with uncontrolled population growth such as India.
PEW estimates that at least 2 billion people would immigrate to the US if restrictions were removed. If only half that number actually succeeded it would quadruple the population of the US. Housing is already absurd; Freeways are already at their limits; Schools are already crowded; The nation is already nearly bankrupt. And you want us to service the needs of another billion poor and uneducated?
Tell you what. I agree to open the boarders when you agree to house 3 immigrant families in your living room. Every time I suggest this the opposition gets hostile. I just think they don’t like the idea of a couple families from Guatemala, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe roasting a goat in their fireplace. Racists.
Comment by Lynn A. Bloxham on 28 April 2010:
1. I have had immigrant families live with me temporarily, and enjoyed the benefits I derived while they had a temporary home. They are all quite successful now.
2. The principle of inalienable rights did not state, “only for those currently in our borders”. The libertarian principle is; as long as one does not violate some other individual’s rights.
3. Your personal property is yours and no one should violate it. But you do not own all the common property, and as of this time we have common property. Therefore my wish to have people come here and peacefully shop, trade, work, visit,live is as much my right as yours. You do not own the right to decide who can walk about on common property, only your own property. Nor does a majority have the right to take away my right to invite them here.
4. The foundation of a free market is the voluntary exchange process based on the free flow of capital, labor, goods and services. People who support a “free market” should not want to encourage and petition for further encroachment of the State in this process, but rather to undo it as it is damaging to all people.
5. The current system is based on the collectivist concept of admitting people, not as individuals, but as groups. Quotas are decided by bureaucratic fiat, instead of the market process.
You raised many issues that I cannot answer now as work calls. I suggest that for the next month, you spend spare time studying the immigration issue, but from the perspective of the Austrian economic, libertarian authors. Search out the articles and commentary with which you disagree and keep notes. If at the end of a serious study, you still disagree, then I would think it is not because you are a racist (I don’t believe I ever said that) but rather that you sincerely believe that government should control individual’s private decisions and also economic decisions. That then is an entirely different argument.
Sincerely, Lynn
Comment by James Madison Fan on 28 April 2010:
Lynn,
Do you see how your offering that my opinion is based on ignorance and your opinion is educated and enlightened might be considered a bit condescending? Do you think that might contribute to the hurricane of hostility? I would appreciate it if you didn’t assume that I don’t have a firm grasp on Objectivist Libertarian views on immigration and free movement. I understand them and I disagree in much the same way I’ve read the Bible cover to cover and still favor Astronomy and Evolution. I don’t need to be ignorant to disagree with you. I’m a Constitutionalist and a firm believer in the rule of law because anarchy is a special type of tyranny where the mob rules. The men that forged the Constitution on which this nation is founded believed that you can have liberty as well as law and I agree with them.
Please let me apologize for y inferring that you called me a racist. My intent was to explain that calling opposition angry, racists, etc. is a common tactic I have had to deal with when debating this topic with pro-illegal-immigrant groups such as La Raza and MeCHA. While 75% of illegal immigrants come from Latin America the other 25% are of every race, creed, color, and religion. Illegal Alien is not a pejorative for “Latino” it is a legal definition of foreign nationals that enter this country without consent. I want to make it clear that you do not need to be a racist or tyrant to favor enforcing laws regarding immigration than you need to be a racist or tyrant to favor enforcing laws that range from parking citations to murder.
Please let me address the issues your raised:
1. A squatter is not the same thing as a house guest. You invited these families into your home. They didn’t take up residence without asking, invite friends and relatives to come live in your home while forcing you to work to keep them and their children fed, clothed, educated, and medicated then demand that you put their name on the title because they “immigrated” into your living room. You had control from the moment they asked to enter your home to the time they left. When you first met them you could have said no. If they started acting poorly you could have had the cops remove them. You reserve the right to set rules as to who enters your home so you can protect your life, liberty, and property. The People reserve the right to determine who enters this nation for the same reason.
I would also point out that even if it wasn’t legally mandated it is a common courtesy to ask before you enter someone’s home or take someone’s property even if the door isn’t locked or the property isn’t secured. At least that’s the way I was brought up.
I would also point out your use of the word “temporary.” Please understand that we allow foreign nationals to enter this country on a temporary as well as a permanent basis if they ask, just like your house guests. We give them visas and citizenship if they follow proper procedures.
2 & 3. It violates my right to partial control of a mutually owned property. If you and I own a home together and we rent a room I cannot lease it to someone without your approval and the reverse is true. Imagine returning home to discover a stranger in your living room that you do not feel comfortable living with. Wouldn’t you find it arrogant for me to say, “It’s my property too. If you don’t like it too bad.” That is especially true when the renter happens to be a drug dealer, gang member, child molester, etc. As a mutually owned property I have a moral and legal obligation to seek your approval and perform a certain level of due diligence – before – I allow him to move in so we can secure our life, liberty, and property.
Don’t you think it would be the height of absurdity for us to rent the room to someone that broke in and established residence without our permission while rejecting perfectly good renters that submitted to the interview process? Even if the person in residence is a perfectly good tenant his seminal act of occupation is Breaking and Entering and that says a great deal about his ethics compared to the people that knocked on the door and filled out the forms.
I live in a common interest development (CID/Condominium) and the only people that have the legal authority to be on our property are homeowners and those specifically invited onto the property by homeowners. Trespassers can be prosecuted. This does not mean some homeless guy gets to pitch a tent, live in the exercise room, wash in the laundry room, or rent the club house because 1 of the 290 members feels bad for him. In fact, if a homeowner rents property to an undesirable the Association has the legal right to fine the homeowner until the tenant complies and eject the tenant if the homeowner fails to take action because it infringes on our rights to be confident that our life, liberty, and property are secure.
This is not my country exclusively but it isn’t yours either and that’s why we have laws. If you want to invite someone over that’s fine with me. All he has to do is follow the law so I can be confident that he’s going to be a benefit rather than a burden or a burglar.
4. The “free market” is an economic concept not a legal or moral code. John Smith did not advocate anarchy in Wealth of Nations. He did not argue against taxes. He advocated government intervention only when necessary and warned of the dangers of monopolies and oligopolies. Libertarians throw around “free market” because anyone that’s against anything that’s “free” is a bastard by default. The US does not want a free market because that means the standard of living in the US will have to equalize with the markets in China, Vietnam, Mexico, Guatemala, and a horde of other third world nations where the average yearly income won’t pay for a pair of sneakers. US kids are complaining that they can’t get entry level positions because they are filled by people that never move on to higher paying positions because they don’t have any job skills. The pay rate for Trade positions has consistently lagged behind the economy especially since the late 80’s/early 90’s. Now what happened around that time which might have contributed to this?
Economics 101: Decrease in scarcity of labor means a decrease in wages. If we are going to allow our market and a foreign market to interact freely and this market has what amounts to an infinite supply of labor then wages will plummet and our standard of living will as well.
5. Quotas are implemented to prevent population growth from overwhelming the tax base and infrastructure. You can only build houses, schools, roads, freeways, libraries, etc. so fast even if we had infinite resources, which we don’t. The rich and middle class can only support a finite number of poor on their backs before our backs are broken and we join them in poverty. Is that the future you want for your children and grand children? The US being pulled into an economic abyss by the third world rather than helping them control their rampant population growth and joining us in the 21st century? The US is already financially polarized where the supposed pyramid looks like an upside down Y. How many more poor people do you want me to feed, cloth, educate, and medicate? 3 to 4 billion people live in poverty how many of those “huddled masses” do Ms. Akers and you want to join us?
I’m sorry Lynn, I’m not some heartless bastard that doesn’t feel bad for children starving in the streets in nations from Mexico to Honduras to Haiti to Liberia to Ethiopia and around the world. I am not numb to the human rights issues that grip the majority of the world. However the cure for this isn’t allowing them to flee their nation in an unending and unregulated stream of ignorance and poverty. The cure will take decades. It means adjusting entire cultures so they abandon a set of rules that haven’t worked for millennia in some cases and introducing them to science, education, equal rights, and concepts we take for granted on a daily basis.
Comment by Lynn A. Bloxham on 29 April 2010:
To James Madison Fan
Goodness, you must really type fast! I used up most of my spare time reading all you had written. So I will answer a couple of points and perhaps, delve into more later.
One of your points is the amount of infrastructure, proviso of services etc. This is a point that many conservatives are making and which I think is based on a false premise.
The concern of an admirer of Madison, I would think, should be about the increased welfare and services that government at all levels now provides. This destruction of private business and even private charity that increased governmental “aid” regulation, control,and usurpation caused is at the center of our economic problems, you might agree. (There is a whole library of Austrian thought on just that one sentence, I realize)
However, with great hostility many are speaking as if immigrants (legal and illegal) are the sole cause of the economic problems we face. That hostility is the “hurricane” to which I referred and reminds me of the time of riots and racial strife. I hear much of the same hostility as I heard then.
Also, I recognize that frustrated people (on both sides) can erupt.I am sure you realize that many of the statistics about welfare and prison population currently making the rounds are inaccurate. These inaccurate statistics, posing as facts, should be of great concern to all honest people, as they create a false climate of fear out of proportion to the problems that really do exist.
I am sure you do know that historically, in every era, the fears that the newcomers would over run the country, not assimilate, not appreciate freedom, bring in a bad culture, take away jobs and cause rampant crime, have proved incorrect. Many people who have worked here take back home the ideas and opinions they learned for the betterment of their country (as you said, a long process,and I would add, made more difficult under a totalitarian regime).
Another point I think is important.
I would hope that instead of making the immigrants the scapegoats for our economic problems(and this time it certainly is now directed at Latinos)far greater value could be derived from sincere, quiet, sensible discussion. A much more just and simple system could be devised. Although that is more than those of us who want no governmental interference for exit and entry desire, at least it would eliminate the bureaucratic mess we now have and hopefully defuse the intense hostility. If the primary issue if that the people did not follow the proper procedure, why allow a government bureaucracy to have such a disastrous procedure. It is a gross injustice to blame people for not “standing in line” when there is no line and probably would never be for many people. Although not perfect it would be a vast improvement and much more appropriate for a country based on the principles of individual freedom.
Above all, it should not be a system as it is now, through an Administrative Agency. Arguably even worse than allowing immigration to be set by congress, is allowing an Administrative Agency to decide procedures and set quotas. These quotas are based on an attempt,through Administrative Law, to regulate and to pre determine who will succeed and who will fail. This idea is collectivist and anti individualist at its core. It truly is a travesty of the natural law principle of each of us being a unique human.
Oops, must go now, realize many points not addressed. Sincerely, Lynn
Comment by James Madison Fan on 29 April 2010:
Lynn,
I’ve been a touch typist for a quarter century so my fingers put what I’m thinking on the screen almost as fast as I can say it. Unfortunately sometimes that means my replies are more lengthy than I would like or even notice until I look back at the novella. Sorry.
Of course there is also the issue that you seemed to think my opinions are based on ignorance and I tend to rise to a challenge. If you think I haven’t researched this I’d be happy to investigate any aspect of the illegal immigration issue you want to explore.
I don’t see why the hostility surprises you? When a group of people pass laws and another group of people intentionally violate those laws it tends to make people cranky.
You and Ms. Akers see the boarder as an arbitrary line in the sand. I see it as a threshold to a country that millions of men and three generations of my family fought to protect. Rather than discuss the issue rationally and coming up with a compromise millions of people are crossing the boarder illegally and demanding citizenship then calling people that protest the violation of our national sovereignty racists, tyrants, and other names. People on my side of the issue feel that our rights are being violated as well as the law and to add insult to injury we’re getting pilloried for speaking out. Can you see why this might be a little annoying?
Back in 1986 Simpson and Mazzoli told me that if I voted to allow the 8 million illegal immigrants already here to stay that we would control the boarders and make everyone follow the rules until we hammered out a solution. So I did what they asked. None of that happened besides the amnesty. I really hate being lied to. How about you?
Your point about entitlements is good but not only am I a Constitutionalist I’m also a realist. Even if I thought 100% of these entitlements were inappropriate I doubt they are ever going away so I base my opinions on what is, not what isn’t. It would be nice if everyone that wandered into a Social Services building didn’t get food, housing, and other subsidies but they do and rather than being the “safety net” programs they were intended to be they have become a way of life. While I have little enthusiasm for providing these programs for US citizens, giving them to non-citizens is entirely intolerable.
Mexico’s second largest source of income behind PEMEX is money sent home by immigrants to the US. While Mexico jealousy guards entry into their nation they encourage emigration into the US by publishing pamphlets and comic books on where it is best to cross, what supplies are needed, where and how to apply for US social programs, and information on support groups that help illegal aliens in the US. PEW puts the percentage of illegal immigrants coming from Mexico at approximately 57% so one nation is sending more people here than all the other nations on the planet combined. This isn’t about Mexican concern for human rights; It is about siphoning off billions of US tax dollars and getting rid of a population excess that is growing faster than China.
Meanwhile Mexico has laws that prevent anyone besides Mexican citizens from owning property within 20 miles of the coast and they seized property based on this law retroactively, costing US investors millions. If you enter Mexico illegally they will deport you the first time and you will spend 8 years in jail the second time. Amnesty International condemns Mexico’s harsh treatment of illegal aliens but Mexico expects the US to welcome millions of their citizens with open arms. If Mexico really wants open boarders they should show their dedication to this concept by giving US citizens access to their nation. I don’t think a little reciprocity is too much to ask.
Of course this still doesn’t address the infrastructure issue. Even if we eliminated all the social programs and even if we had infinite land and resource to tap there is a limit to how quickly we can build communities and the facilities that service these communities such as roads, bridges, homes, businesses, fire houses, police stations, prisons, water service, etc. This would be true even if the increase were not primarily poor with limited education this simply exacerbates the problem.
In regard to previous immigration booms ranging from the Irish to the Germans to the Italians to the Chinese there has never been an influx of such magnitude that lasted so long. In these other cases the US was a temporary destination in times of war, famine, and oppression that lasted a couple years not half-a-century with an ever increasing volume. The number of illegal aliens currently in the US exceeds the combined total of the other booms combined.
A portion of my extended family came here from Ireland and they were processed like everyone else. Two came here as indentured servants so they weren’t rich. Other family members were sponsored to come over. This means they had to prove they had a job, spoke the language, knew US history, etc. They didn’t just show up on a boat and wade ashore. I’m not against immigration. I’m against illegal immigration. All I’m asking is for them to follow rules, the same rules my family followed, so we know who is coming in and how many. Orderly entry is not racism or tyranny; it’s common sense.
I’m not sure which statistics you are talking about? As Twain said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” In listening to the Left I hear 10 million “immigrants.” On the Right I hear 30 million “illegal aliens.” I split the difference and use 20 Million illegal immigrants.
One thing I have noticed is the prevalence of the “Reconquista” mentality and their attempts to rewrite history by claiming “Aztlan” (mythological origins of the Aztecs) consists of most of the Southwestern US from Texas to California. There is no archeological evidence to support this claim. Artifacts associated with Aztecan culture are not found in Northern Mexico much less the Southern US. The Aztecan Empire ended around the same latitude as Mazatlan.
Others claim the US “stole” this land in the Mexican-American War. The US had actually negotiated to purchase these lands to settle a 15 million dollar debt Mexico owed the US when we supported their efforts to rebel against Spain. Before this could be signed President Herrera was deposed by President Parades who immediate launched a war of aggression against the United States. Even though by all rights we could have claimed their entire country we let them keep it and only took the land offered in the treaty. It was a zero sum gain for us. A war that resulted in naught besides land we paid for and they have the nerve to be angry about it.
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” – George Orwell
So how am I doing so far Lynn? Think my research is a little more in depth than you originally thought?
“Know your enemy as yourself and you shall never doubt the outcome of a thousand battles.” – Sun Tsu
Comment by Lynn A. Bloxham on 1 May 2010:
I have been rather busy so unable to even check my email. I do want to apologize as to my statement that you should read the Austrian economists, (and libertarians and objectivists) as though you had not. Obviously I think they are correct. I am a student of many years and improperly assume if someone will simply read the writings they will immediately agree. Of course I know that is not so, and as you said, you had read and still disagreed.
To answer another question, no, I am not surprised at your knowledge. I have a friend, named Lynn too, who is an archeologist and historian of the Southwest. She has given me much knowledge and many books to read. I lived in Arizona for a short time later in California, Oklahoma, now Missouri,and soon Texas. All of these states have rather large Latino populations. I have also studied the history of the lands and people and, most important, worked with them. The history of the treaties, wars,and lands are subject to some different interpretations, Enough, different to give some credence to both sides of this emotional issue, I think you would agree.
If you recall, I commented that people of bad faith will exist on both sides and exploit whatever small frictions and problems exist and expand on them. Can we agree that this is probable and what we do not want to transpire? My primary objective is to help prevent hostility. You, perhaps would say, “close the border” but I do not think that will help. May I also state, that I do not think the privilege of voting should be given lightly. For all its faults, voting is the system we are using and it carries a power to destroy.
On the other hand, the welfare system in all its concomitant parts is broken and bankrupt. I think it is critical to continue explaining this to people. Those of us who agree, as you say you do, as to its negative nature and many problems it causes need to continue to speak out against it. I would have no problem with laws that forbid welfare to any immigrant, Latinos included; however I have researched this issue and many statements made about illegal aliens receiving different benefits are false. (Actually I would have no problem with a drastic overhaul of all welfare, but I am sure you guessed that. The point is if one knows it is wrong and detrimental in all aspects, to individuals, to corporations, and to immigrants of any type, that should be the primary point, not the few illegals that receive something.
Bear with me on this next point:
I think it is a bad side of human nature that likes to use a scapegoat when things are not as they wish them. History would substantiate that remark, would not you agree? I once wrote a three part article for a newspaper in California that outlined all the groups throughout history that had been made scapegoats. (It is not on line, too old, but I am sure you can imagine the gist of it). At present I see two very different groups that are well positioned to be the scapegoats; the “rich” and the immigrants.
Now wait, I realize I did not say “Illegal” but go to the conservative web sites and read the commentary. The name calling, the hateful descriptions, the barely veiled threats against, to quote, “the greasy-back brown dwarfs” and their “anchor slimy mud spawn.” Also, note the verbal slinging against anyone who tries to write an article from the libertarian perspective. Rational discourse is in short supply and I find that frightening.
As to another huge issue. The War on Drugs has now spilled over and is a primary cause of the violence, not just on the Border, but has been for years in most cities. To blame the illegal aliens for this is really absurd, I hope you agree. The libertarians have been ridiculed, called hippie doppers, and maligned for their Cassandra warnings that this would eventually be the result of that ill conceived “War.”(As an aside,because many times when I state the War on Drugs was a “doomed to fail policy” immediately it is assumed I take illegal drugs. Actually, in the “hippie era” I was married, had four little children and a part time job giving lectures to college classes on Austrian economics. I was not, nor have I ever taken illegal drugs as prescription drugs do me in badly enough.
I just do not think any rules of this nature are within the scope of proper government activity and are an infringement on individual choice. Many of the Austrian economists have gone into this quite deeply and brought out the many economic and social problems caused by this policy so I hope you have read those studies as they cover many different aspects.
Which brings me to another point of yours: the jobs and wages issue. Since you have read the Austrians and their explanations why more people, at whatever level of the economic scale, are all contributing each in their own way, and why the more trade with other countries, rich or poor is good for us, and you disagree, as per your argument, there is not much I can say. You probably already understand my argument. You already anticipate I would say that, yes indeed, as much as we would all like to make more per hour, wages will pretty quickly reflect what the market dictates, not what we wish it would. Of course the flip side is that I sit here with a laptop and many other wonderful things I use but barely understand and could never have invented. I do not subscribe to the what I always called the “One Pie” theory. I really think that the more people working, trading, making agreements voluntarily, the better off we all are and the more pies that are baked.
So to conclude, again only partially answering you, should not our main goal be to calm the hysterics and false accusations. For sensible people to tell the Dems, no, citizenship is earned and no welfare. To tell the Conservatives to calm down, we need to work to actually dismantle the Administrative Agencies and begin with ICE and set up the simplest entry system imaginable. (I argue that would be an truly open border) but at least not the tyranny of the long waits, large amounts of money, bureaucratic fiasco of ICE.
If you speak Spanish well, and perhaps you have done this, go to the militant Latino groups (I know they do not like that name either) but talk with them and try to get them not to enlarge the problems. I did attempt to talk with several Aryan groups, but most of all right now it is the Jewish and Latinos. I have tried since the early 1960′s, (then it concerned blacks and Jewish) but with not much success. Again, I repeat, as it is very important right now to not let the hostilities grow, but to get sensible solutions out there.
Maybe you are a person who can prevent the experience of the riots and problems of the past from repeating themselves.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 5 May 2010:
Lynn,
I agree about the drug issue. Every Czar since Regan has said the war was lost before we declared it. All Prohibition did was turn the Mob into a major player and all the drug war has done is create the Cartels. You would think Capone would have taught us a lesson but learning from history is not this country’s forte.
I understand what you are saying about the anger on both sides of the issue. What I have noticed in my 44 years is that people are apathetic until something lights a fire under them and it is rare for that to happen. To be entirely honest it happens so infrequently it is nice to see something rouse the electorate because I was beginning to think they had gone completely numb. Unfortunately it has been my experience that when people actually get motivated, for good or evil, they seem to lose the ability to discuss the topic rationally. It is easier to sling insults at each other then sit down and discuss economics, culture, and other factors. In many cases these topics are so far above the heads of the typical participant they don’t have the ability to contribute anything rational to the debate. The Illegal Alien only knows that he wants a better life. The American citizen only knows that he is sick of paying to make someone else’s life better rather than his own. Discussing the merits of economic and political theory are as far above them as the Moon.
Rhetoric is about conveying simple concepts to the masses in sound bites, not setting up multi-level debate platforms where a series of facts is used to convince the masses. You will get more from “If the glove don’t fit you must acquit” than with DNA data and that’s directly proportional to the ignorance of the audience. “Hope and Change” won this election not anything substantive behind the slogan including the candidate himself. The man that typically is viewed to have won our presidential debates is the one with the best posture, better groomed, and snappiest catch phrase rather than the best policies. Such is the nature of the plebiscite. I don’t think either of us has any chance of changing that with a whip and a chair much less with words, no matter how wise.
You mention some of the stuff you can find on anti-illegal sites but you might consider that the motto for MeCHA since its founding in the 60’s is: “Por la Raza todo, fuera de la Raza, nada.” For those of the race everything, for those not of the race, nothing. Once translated this sounds like something the KKK but you do not see Latino politicians being held accountable for their associate with MeCHA and La Raza the way politicians like David Duke are crucified for being members of the Klan. If you join a White pride group then you’re a racist. If you join a Latino pride group you’re an activist.
Even in enlightened circles there are still elements that can result in debate degrading into angry exchanges. Mr. Akers and several other authors in the Freeman keep saying immigration laws are unconstitutional and this is factually incorrect. I have repeatedly explained this to her and the same is true for other posters. Even if I agreed with the open boarders policies she advocates I would be annoyed because appealing to a falsehood undermines the credibility of the author and his/her stance. If she wants to argue free movement based on some natural order that supersedes the Constitution that’s something I’m willing to discuss but it is extremely vexing to provide the section of the Constitution that demonstrates she is incorrect as well as case law from the Supreme Court and have her continue offering something she knows is false.
In addition to this is the tendency to lump illegal aliens in with immigrants and say the opposition is “anti-immigrant”, “anti-Latino” or “racists” is disingenuous especially when some of the staunchest of anti illegal immigrants are first generation legal immigrants that waited in line per the rules and don’t want to see people rewarded for breaking the law. If she wants to make a point then do so but have the courage to represent the opposition appropriately and adhere to the truth rather than revisiting points that have been disproved.
Speaking out against Welfare is nice but it doesn’t change the fact it exists and I doubt that is going to change in the foreseeable future. I am also not comfortable allowing the failure of our government to perform one of its constitutionally mandated duties to set policy in regard to other rights and privileges. If the People want safety net programs we should be able to vote to implement them. I may not like it but that’s the will of the People. Failing to implement the will of the People is tyranny. I don’t think I’d be much of a libertarian if I started arguing that the government should act in opposition to the will of the People.
The rich and the illegal aliens may be scapegoats but there is an element of truth in regard to the culpability of both demographics.
I have a Republican friend that once said, “The tax system in this country doesn’t make sense. It is like 10 guys going to dinner where one guy pays 80% of the bill, another guy pays 10%, one guy pays 4%, two guys pay 3% each and the other 5 eat for free. Explain to me how that makes any sense?” My reply was, “If we’re eating a pizza and one guy eats 8 slices, one guy eats one slice, three guys share a slice, and the other 5 are left to pull left-over cheese off the cardboard and chase around errant olives then what exactly do you think they owe? When you own 80% of the wealth you should pay 80% of the taxes. How is that unfair?”
The rich keep complaining about how much they have to pay. I don’t like it but 33% of my paycheck goes to Uncle Sam. Like most Americans I live paycheck to paycheck so when Rush Limbaugh starts whining about how much of his 200 million he has to give away after he works all of four hours blathering every day I get a little cranky. He doesn’t mention that most of that gets invested in tax free shelters so he pays less of his check per dollar earned than I do. The upper 10% of this nation own a larger percentage of the wealth that is created in this nation than at any time since the Robber Barons were deposed. This polarization is the core of the economic problems we currently face.
On the other end the poor keep getting more entitlements and they keep popping out kids. I live in Santa Ana which is one of the most illegal alien intensive cities in the US. When I drive to work I see bus loads of kids that I’m paying for using my tax dollar. The way the system is set up the more kids they pop out the more money they get so we are paying these people to make babies when I can barely afford my own. I would like to have one or two more but I can’t afford it and actually pay the mortgage so I’m financing their reproduction at the cost of my own.
On a macro level California has around a third to one half of the illegal alien population in the US. Even if we use the lowest numbers that means California has around 5 million illegal immigrants. If only half this number are children that’s 2.5 million kids using our schools at an average of nearly $8,000 per kid. That’s 20 billion being spent on education alone. California is running a 24 billion dollar deficit. Take a wild guess where most of that money is going. California is a microcosm for what is going to happen to the rest of the US unless we get our boarders under control. The seventh largest economy on the planet brought to its knees. Freeways in gridlock. Roads degrading. Tuition rising. Infrastructure pushed to its limits. You have more rights as an illegal immigrant in this state than as a citizen immigrating here from one of the other States in the Union. It is completely upside down.
The problem with the economic model you are offering is it assumes parity or near parity in the interacting markets such as between the US and Europe, it does not adequately address disparate markets with exploding populations nor does it take into account unintended consequences such as communicable diseases, ethical concerns, cultural erosion, and other aspects of unrestricted immigration that do not show up on an accounting ledger.
2 billion people cannot carry around 4 billion people (and growing) on our backs and even if we could I don’t think we have the ethical mandate to do so especially when they are not taking responsibility for their own development. They want the US to come in and fix what’s broken or absorb their excess population rather than fixing their problems on their own. If Mexico faces riots due to explosive population growth, failed economic policies, and corrupt politicians and this forces them to make the changes necessary to compete with the US on an equal basis so their citizens are not fleeing North in droves then we will have done them a service. After 50 years of the same failed policies when do we say, “Enough!”? We’ve tried amnesty before and it didn’t work. So we’re going to try it again and again hoping it will be different the next time, or the time after that, or the time after that? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It is time to stop the insanity.
Comment by MeFein on 23 June 2010:
“Economics 101: Decrease in scarcity of labor means a decrease in wages. If we are going to allow our market and a foreign market to interact freely and this market has what amounts to an infinite supply of labor then wages will plummet and our standard of living will as well. ”
JMF, what economics course did you take? You are correct about the decrease in wages, but this means a decrease in the cost of production, allowing a decrease in price. The result is higher real wages and a higher standard of living, not lower. Further, as the cost of labor goes down, ceteris paribus, marginal businesses now become profitable, and more jobs are created. The competition for workers goes up, and wages rise again. The system is self-leveling.
Comment by Drik on 23 June 2010:
Subtle use of spin in the title, referencing phrase “huddled masses” from the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty as though that poem represents either the motivation for the statue, or the basis of the founding principles of our country, or the current depraved state of our republic.
The statue, the gift of Eifel, was to be an exmple to France of how government SHOULD be done, as our republic was set up and as at the time, France was in between revolutions and in a quandry about direction.
Our republic was set up to foster maximum liberty by preventing government usurpation of life, liberty and property. The phrase “pursuut of happiness” was substituted in order that it not be seen as endorsing slavery at the time and resulting in the union of states never going forward to form our republic.
The last item, the “huddled masses” were not envisioned to be coming in to a licentious welfare state, where, per the latest statistics, each and every single illegal alien has an average net cost to the US taxpayer of a little over $19,000 a year. All of the arguements about previous philosophical questions about the squatter’s right, the humanistic moral duty, the “right thing” do not incorporate that ongoing, standing yearly cost that is extracted at gunpoint from the US taxpayer.
Clean up the arguement, then get back to me.
Comment by Roger Strukhoff on 23 June 2010:
What is this “War of Southern Independence” of which you speak? Do you mean the Civil War, you know, the one in which treasonous hotheads tried to destroy our country?
Comment by James Madison Fan on 25 June 2010:
You are focusing on Micro economic theory not Macro. Your description is of a transient event in a single market not a consistent external flow from multiple separate and disparate markets. In addition your model makes assumptions that are undermined by the circumstance.
If your model accurately described reality we could apply it almost universally to any nation on the planet but it doesn’t apply to a single one.
75% of illegal aliens come from Latin America. Most of these from Mexico (57%). So let’s examine Mexico. Mexico has one of the fastest growing populations on the planet but it has one of the weakest economies. If your theory that an increase in labor is good for the economy by lowering prices then Mexico should have one of the strongest economies due to its grossly unsustainable population growth and propensity to export cheap goods. Where does Mexico make money? Pemex is #1. Emigrants sending home money from the US is #2. Cheap goods produced by cheap labor does not even come close driving their economy. US oil consumption, US entitlement programs, and unethical US business men do.
Let us examine India. India has one of the fastest, if not the fastest, population growths on the planet. Their population is more than 4 times that of the US but it has an economy that is a fraction of ours and their per capita standard of living makes the streets of Watt’s look plush. High labor + low cost goods = prosperity? Doesn’t work there either.
China has an emerging economy because it has implemented draconian laws limiting child birth and embraced a limited capitalist model. If they can maintain this rather than returning to reproductive behavior that would make rabbits blush they might join the US, Germany and Japan as one of the dominating economies on the planet. So China proves that an increase in the scarcity of labor results in an increase in the buying power of the consumer which leads to a marginal increase in prices and inflation but a proportionally larger increase in the economic power of the nation and a real increase in the standard of living.
What this proves is we need are richer customers, not cheaper labor. Kennedy knew it. Regan knew it. China is slowly figuring it out. Someone should explain it to Obama because (if you will forgive a brief aside) he seems to think runaway government spending is more effective than cutting taxes which is as absurd as flying to the Moon on a teacup. FDR did not end the Great Depression by spending tax dollars. It ended because we blew up half the planet (not our half) and our businesses and banks got rich rebuilding it. End of aside.
The thing that has made the US and Europe prosperous is the percentage of educated workers producing better goods for less using inventions like the cotton gin, internal combustion engine, computers, and robots, not cheap labor via grossly over productive wombs. We use trucks, bulldozers, and backhoes to build roads and freeways, they use hundreds of men with shovels. Which of these models has proven more productive?
The thing they typically don’t teach you in any Economics class is our economy is essentially a giant pyramid scheme where the lower class and middle class work to make the rich, richer. Occasionally someone breaks through into the upper economic echelons but that’s the exception rather than the rule. The thing that fuels this Ponzi scheme is the rich sharing the wealth in a fashion similar to what Henry Ford called “Welfare Capitalism” (not to be confused with European Welfare Capitalism). As the rich get richer, they share a portion of this wealth with the middle and lower classes thus raising the economic foundation for everyone thus increasing productivity, standard of living, consumer confidence, which is why the typical US worker out produces his ECU counterpart on a scale of nearly 2 to 1.
This model was at its strongest in the 50’s and 60’s when the “rich” owned less than 60% of the wealth in the nation but the US had an economy and production capacity that exceeded the rest of the world combined.
By increasing the number of poor and uneducated by what amounts to an infinite number it stalls the economic engine. The market indigenous are competing with markets that have a lower standard of living. This results in jobs “American’s won’t do” as Baby Bush so eloquently called them. Unfortunately he left out “… for the wage being offered.”
As you may remember from your Macro classes when two disparate markets interact they will attempt to equalize and that’s what’s happening. As Mexico continues to export poor money is flowing from the US into their markets raising their standard of living while ours drops. I think the average annual wage in the US is around $45,000 while it is something like $3,500 in Mexico.
California is demonstrating what happens when two disparate markets try to equalize without regulation. We dropped from the 5th largest economy to 8th and have a deficit that’s somewhere between $19 and $24 billion so Sacramento is trying to supplement the loss of revenue by raising taxes and fees. All this does is drive more business and the richer taxpayers out of the state increasing the number of unemployed on entitlements. The tax base erodes, the number of entitlements grows, and we have a 12% unemployment rate while the rest of the nation is around 9%, we are the highest taxed state, and have one of the highest cost of living on the planet. CA lagged behind in the last recovery and we’ll do so again because our state representatives like Gil Sedillo, Gloria Romero, and dozens of others are more interested in their role as members of the “Latino Caucus” helping thethan their duty to the State of California or the US as a nation.
Comment by No King But God on 29 June 2010:
To James Madison Fan:
“If the People want safety net programs we should be able to vote to implement them. I may not like it but that’s the will of the People. Failing to implement the will of the People is tyranny. I don’t think I’d be much of a libertarian if I started arguing that the government should act in opposition to the will of the People.”
I think that the above quote of yours is the most revealing I have yet seen from you. On this foundation of democracy worship, you have erected an edifice of statism. Don’t get me wrong, I can understand. I too used to fall for the lie that simply because a majority agrees upon it, the resulting decision is right, legal, ethical, moral, etc.
It’s only when you realize the fact that democracy cannot create or negate God-given rights that you can begin to unravel the rest of the statist fallacies. Broadly speaking, where people fall on the libertarian spectrum is simply the extent to which they have accepted or rejected this lie and how consistently they apply their conclusions.
No King But God
Comment by MeFein on 8 July 2010:
“If your model accurately described reality we could apply it almost universally to any nation on the planet but it doesn’t apply to a single one.”
It’s a free-market model. The problem is a lack of free markets. The theory is sound.
“What this proves is we need are richer customers, not cheaper labor.”
There are two ways to become richer: I obtain more money (whereby I become rich and no one else does) or consumer goods become cheaper (in which case real income for everyone increases). Cheaper labor and market competition does the latter. Again, the theory is sound. Government interventionism prevents this from happening.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 8 July 2010:
NKBG,
So supporting a democratic decision is the definition of “statism” now? I had no idea. Is there someplace I can look up these new definitions because I haven’t learned Newspeak yet.
I really don’t see a practical alternative to a Democratic-Republic. A society where men inherently respect the natural rights of other men without coercion in some kind of harmonious anarchy seems as contrary to human nature as Marx’s vision of utopia. As Madison said, “If men were angles there would be no need for government.” If only wishing made it so.
The US Constitution is the best history has to offer as of yet so it would seem prudent to protect it until something better proves itself. I’d hate to give up on it only to discover that Rand, Von Mises and the other Freeman icons aren’t quite as insightful as many on here would like to believe. Freedom and prosperity, once lost, are usually difficult to regain.
Of the four words you use to define your vision, three are entirely subjective (right, ethical, and moral). According to American ideals and, to a lesser extent, European ideals we may well be the very definition of these traits but according to Sharia law our standing is less secure. The quickest way to ensure that what we deem “right, ethical, and moral” are replaced by some other definition is to respect and defend the natural rights of someone that has absolutely no respect for our natural rights. While we’re busy discussing the finer points of philosophy he’s busy taking advantage of our largess and using it to undermine what we value most.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 8 July 2010:
MeFein,
Theory is only sound if it can be proven in practice. In theory cold fusion will solve our energy problems but until it makes the transition from theory to a practical reality we might as well be discussing the energy output of unicorn droppings.
If your theory worked China would have a GNP roughly 4x that of the US. Same with India. Mexico’s GNP would be a third of the US. None of this is true. Arguing government intervention in the free market is an over simplistic dismissal of my post. I didn’t treat you in a cavalier manner so I’d appreciate the same in return.
We have disparate markets, disparate standards of living, disparate cultures, disparate freedoms, disparate government structures, disparate population growth, disparate educational systems, disparate levels of corruption, disparate entitlement programs, disparate infrastructure, and the list goes on. The theory that we should let these markets equalize without regulation is a formula for economic meltdown on an unprecedented level. You can have all the cheap goods in the market you can imagine but it does you no good whatsoever if you don’t have a job or have a job that pays so little that you can’t pay for the goods you wish to purchase.
It doesn’t matter how you define wealth it is axiomatic that you do not get richer importing an unending supply of ignorance and poverty. You don’t need theory to demonstrate that. You don’t even need to take an econ class. Just pick up the newspaper.
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Comment by Federale on 13 February 2012:
Hey Moron. The Center for Immigration Services? What is that? Are you referring to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services? Or are you referring to the private Center for Immigration Studies, which has no power over anyone.
Comment by Federale on 13 February 2012:
Oh, and since immigration is unmentioned in the Constitution, then the 10th Amendment makes it a State issue.