A Succinct History
Immigration is what created the country as we know it, whether your ancestors were on the Mayflower or you bundled up your life and came here yourself, it is undeniable that this country wouldn’t exist without it. After independence, immigration (like most things in this country) was relatively ungoverned, but in the early years it was also barely a trickle. It wasn’t until the 1840’s that things really got started, and more and more immigrants entered the country. The foreign-born population reached its zenith circa 1910 at 14.7%. Unsurprisingly, as the foreign-born population rose higher, more and more people found it objectionable and worried about the loss of cultural and political unity in the country (sound familiar?). Restrictions increased up until around 1965 when restrictions were significantly loosened. This was palatable to the public because the foreign-born population, around 5%, had reached a low not seen since shortly after the founding. The preceding waves of immigrants had seemingly melted into the fabric of the country. New and different waves of people arrived on America’s shores and the foreign born population exploded (sometimes literally) to 13.1% by 20131. Almost half of these are naturalized citizens2, meaning only approximately 7% of the US population are not considered Americans by the US government.
Current Immigration System
This is the confusing part. We only let in certain numbers of people from each country on certain visa categories, and have overall limits on each category as well. The wait for a highly qualified Indian or Chinese national on an H1B (skilled worker) visa can be tens of years while a Nepali (who is culturally similar to many Indians) can get in right away without any special skills. There are categories for every type of situation, I am not an immigration lawyer so I won’t pretend to know them all, but I will mention a few I’m familiar with. Student visas (F-1) allow people to stay here to study, these expire after their education ends. Holders of F-1 visas can apply for what is called OPT, Optional Practical Training, which allows them to stay in the country for 1 year to work a regular job related to their degree. Typically they do not pay all the payroll taxes (like SS/Medicare) and thus make attractive employees where industries are able to employ them economically without much training/pay or they expect to get them an H1-B visa after the F-1 visa expires.
Speaking of H1-B visas, this is a contentious visa which allows employers to petition for skilled workers they ‘couldn’t’ otherwise employ among the native population at the prevailing wage. The definitions of all these things (skilled worker, prevailing wage, couldn’t hire) are all points of contention between restrictionists and their critics. These visas are most famously given to ‘Tech’ and healthcare workers, my own wife was a recipient. It is by no means a sure thing for those who apply for them as the whole supply (the government limits the total number given out) is usually used up in a few days after the application process opens. There are also unskilled and migrant worker visas. I don’t have much experience with these, or much to say about them. There are also visas for highly skilled persons, who can provide something which no one else in the country can. I usually think of these as visas for professors with specialized fields of study.
Lastly are the family-type visas (ignoring tourist visas, which obviously aren’t immigrant visas). The so-called fiancee visa allows Americans to petition for their intended to stay in the country for just long enough to get married and apply for the spousal visa. These are given out to basically anyone who can show a legitimate relationship, maybe the complexity of this process can be best illustrated through an anecdote…
How the Sausage is Made, An Anecdote
My anecdote is to some extent second hand, but also my personal experience. I am a natural-born US citizen, but my wife is a relatively recent immigrant. She was able to take advantage of the relatively easy entrance to the US after gaining acceptance to a US university. Thereafter she spent 2 years on an F-1 student visa. As explained previously, these visas allow one to continue on OPT, ‘Optional Practical Training’, for a year or two. We became engaged soon after she graduated, but she took advantage of this OPT period to continue to work and live in the US. In February of the next year we were married, the timing of the marriage allowed us to file for her Permanent Residency. The so-called Green card is available to anyone who has been married to a US citizen. The process is confusing and costly, even if performed by oneself. I have a folder on my computer dedicated to this process and it contains over 120 documents, including financial statements for all my accounts for the year prior to application, photos of us together with family, and affidavits from the same testifying to the veracity of our relationship. The two main forms are i-864 (9 pages) and i-130 (2 pages), I needed an additional page (form g-325), because they asked for every place I’d ever lived or worked, which is a substantial number of locations for someone my age at the time (25). We also needed to file i-485 for her (18 pages) which queried similar information, and felt like a lot of duplicative effort, and was equally confusing.
What is least understood about this process is that it has to be initiated by the immigrant’s ‘sponsor’ or petitioner. All the forms were things I was doing to get her status in the country. Between form i-130 and i-864 I was vouching for her both in the sense that she would have a legitimate connection to this country (marriage to a US citizen in this case) and that she would never fall below 125% of the poverty line – any benefits she collects are a liability I need to pay back to the government. After all the work of decoding the forms and their instructions, finding and printing all the required documents and bugging relatives for their affidavits all I had to do was send them out to the correct office along with the low, low fee of ~$865 and wait (this fee is now $1,225). And get finger printed. And wait. And send more documents in. And wait. A few days before the deadline when my wife would have been eligible for deportation her temporary permanent resident card arrived in the mail. Valid for 2 whole years. Thats right, temporary permanent resident.
Things went well for 18 months, then we had to file to renew her green card. This application cost us something again, I’m not even sure how much. No, you cannot file to renew more than 6 months out. Yes, they are almost guaranteed to need more than 6 months for them to review your renewal application. We received two temporary cards so far since applying to get her permanent status renewed. By now she can apply for her citizenship, but once you start the application you cannot leave the country until this process is completed.
That was the complex and confusing process for two relatively well educated people to perform without the help of staff, and is also likely one of the easiest routes to permanent residence.
The Rights of Immigrants (Libertarianism and Immigration)
Libertarianism (well, my form of libertarianism, and thus the One True Libertarianism) recognizes the right to self ownership, and all the rights resulting from that right. Among these rights it is recognized the right to travel, as anything you own, you are typically allowed to transport, this is typically called freedom of movement when applied to persons. If you do not recognize this right, then one can be arbitrarily detained. That is tantamount to saying one can be imprisoned without trial. This line of thinking strongly boosts the case for a complete freedom of movement between and within countries, to stop someone, don’t you have to abridge their right to freely move, and thus their self ownership?
Arguments Against Open Borders: The Constitution
‘Aha!’ one says, ‘what about the constitution? That gives the government the power to enforce immigration laws.’
When questioned, proponents of this point of view often cite Article 1, Section 8 and 9. The relevant excerpts are as follows:
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
-US Constitution Article 1, Section 8
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
-US Constitution Article 1, Section 9
Between the power to establish rules of naturalization and the implicit allowance on the prohibition of migration or importation of persons seen in section 9 there seems to be a solid enough constitutional foundation for restrictions on immigration, especially given the loose interpretations favored by most constitutional scholars.
Now, if the question was one merely of legality, I would find this convincing. However, when did legality mean morality to a libertarian? We’re almost exclusively whining about all the things that the state does which infringe on our rights. Yes, when something is both immoral and unconstitutional that is worse, but mere legality should never be sufficient justification to a libertarian (or indeed, anyone of moral standing).
Arguments Against Open Borders: National Sovereignty
I also call this one the practicality argument, and I am sympathetic. My ideal world would crib some notes from Mr. Lennon:
Imagine theres no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no one but Catholics too
Imagine all the people living in peace
Okay, but we all know that isn’t going to happen, right? At least not in the immediate future. The National Sovereignty argument says that we don’t have a country if literally anyone can enter. It is entangled with the fact that we are a democracy and thus, anyone living here will likely be able to vote eventually. I also feel it is closely related to a different, but similar, argument that we are culturally different from other areas of the world, and that letting unlimited immigration would effectively destroy the American culture (cue references to ‘magic dirt’). Proponents of both these arguments worry that immigrants will destroy the country either through their foreign cultural practices or their bad voting habits.
Typical concerns related to new immigrants are their attitudes towards: religious tolerance, free speech, voting for the public purse, gun rights, pot, ass sex, and well, not Mexicans.
The problem with this argument is that it flies in the face of our previously stated principles. Some will say that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, I will admit to never understanding the appeal of this statement. Yes, smart people can use convoluted logic which induces cognitive dissonance, it is rather a question of should you? People who hold inconsistent or non-existent principles are normally called SJWs and we rightly make fun of their lack of principled thought (If they didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all). This position is also dangerously consequentialist or utilitarian, both things typically abhorrent to libertarians who base their moral and political views primarily on principles and reason. Of course, if you are the type who is a libertarian because of your utilitarian calculations, I think this is probably a pretty solid argument for you to use, if one can safely assume that (some) immigrants do have a negative effect on the country, and that you want to be collectivize the populace, aka be a nationalist (to be clear, I am not using this as a slur).
There may be other routes to a similar conclusion, I’ve heard some people float the idea of a national HOA, whereby it is assumed all property owners agreed not to let in certain people based on whatever the law may be, when the land was acquired. This is little more than an argument for the social contract, which I reject out of hand. No one really signed on to that, with the potential exception of the signers of the declaration of independence.
Conclusion
I cannot reasonably cover any and all arguments for or against open immigration here, but I think I’ve done a fair job presenting a few positions which I chose not only because I’ve heard them on this site or elsewhere, but also because I have held such views in the past. I wrote this up not because I am certain about my position (pro-open borders), but rather because I find myself torn in multiple directions on this issue. My gut says that our borders should be practically closed except to exceptional candidates, as this would have several net beneficial effects for the country (raise wages of lower income earners, reduce demand on food, power, water and housing, depressing the cost of living, reduce pollution, reduce welfare state, increase national cohesion, etc.), but I also am willing to let the consequences of supporting freedom be the deaths of tens of thousands in order to retain individual rights in other areas (gun ownership for one). As such I cannot with good conscience support unfettered restrictions on immigration, maybe some sort of process to screen out diseased people and those with obvious ill-intent would be moral. I am also not sure what a reasoned, rights-based argument in favor of such immigration enforcement looks like.
References:
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/foreign-born/cps-2016.html (Table 1.1)
H1-B visas – I find these to be stupid
Harkening back to our founding era and indentured servitude.
This line of thinking strongly boosts the case for a complete freedom of movement between and within countries, to stop someone, don’t you have to abridge their right to freely move, and thus their self ownership? – I do not agree to this. There is a lot in between not being detained and getting to go everywhere. As long as states exists borders will and states need to exercise some control over them
When relying on John Lennon’s bird-brain-droppings for a political/philosophical point, well you’ve already conceded the argument. No, there is no point in imagining no countries any more than there is imagining there are no [other] languages, or cultures or religions. This annoyed me because it pushes the libertarian-as-ethereal-nonsense right to the forefront over and above any otherwise sound points.
I actually think its a stupid song, I was just trying to lighten the mood… I am serious about cleansing the world of all heretics though.
This position is also dangerously consequentialist or utilitarian, both things typically abhorrent to libertarians who base their moral and political views primarily on principles and reason – I find this untrue. There are plenty of consequantilist libertarians
I meant to say that to those libertarians who are not consequentialists, this should be abhorrent.
Yup.
My argument is this: if you are not anarchy, you have a government. For a libertarian that governments number one priority is to defend the rights of *those under it’s jurisdiction*. As such you cannot allow immigration beyond the capacity of the state to absorb while being able to keep the peace. There is off course debate about what this is.
“you cannot allow immigration beyond the capacity of the state to absorb while being able to keep the peace”
The thing I find interesting about this is that it seems like most of the localities immediately absorbing large numbers in the southwest strongly support immigration.
This is not contradictory. depends on immigration. you can absorb a lot of honest people who come to work. Not so many illiterate criminals. So it will differ from place to place. Also on culture of both sides. France can take more Spanish immigrants than lets say Pakistani.
Citations needed. When California had a referendom in the 90s, they voted overwhelmingly to restrict the flow of immigrants. A Judge casually overturned the referendom.
You think a similar referendom wouldn’t pass in Arizona or Texas?
I would say that is kind of backwards….I had relatives in a border town in TX for a bit, and having no chance to get into an ER, etc without lining up 30 deep was a bit angering. Especially when they were the ones paying for it.
“most of the localities immediately absorbing large numbers in the southwest strongly support immigration.”
Only if you believe what the media cares to tell you.
I find the same group think amongst academics/media/bureaucrats/politicians in Tucson as I have seen anywhere. The actual residents show more diversity of opinion, including skepticism about uncontrolled immigration.
Yeah, I see the same phenomenon in my blue city. I talk to enough shopkeepers and other business owners to know that the prog mentality is nowhere near as univeral as the media would have you think. The fact that Team A has successfully turned us into a one-team jurisdiction for all of eternity says a lot less about the average Joe than they will ever admit.
I think that is a decent place to start to find a compromise. I am quite strongly (civic) nationalist, so, as long as we are to have a state, it surely should be putting American interests first, as much as is possible, without violating anyone’s rights.
“but I also am willing to let the consequences of supporting freedom be the deaths of tens of thousands in order to retain individual rights in other areas (gun ownership for one)”
That’s one hell of a misinformed assumption on guns.
“As such I cannot with good conscience support unfettered restrictions on immigration, maybe some sort of process to screen out diseased people and those with obvious ill-intent would be moral.”
This brushes against the elephant in the room. People want to move the bar around on what and how, but the bar doesn’t mean anything unless you have a direct barrier to all of the people who fall below the bar. In other words, anyone not arguing for completely open borders should be in support of the wall. Without a direct barrier to anyone who wants to get into the US who falls underneath wherever you place that bar, illegal immigration will continue.
I don’t care one way or the other about a wall. What I want is all military bases moved to the borders, like in a good game of Civilization.
“That’s one hell of a misinformed assumption on guns.”
Make it car ownership then. There are deaths directly attributable to either right, that doesn’t mean they need to be restricted. Often there are good reasons to allow rights which could be misused. That doesn’t mean there are no down sides to those rights.
Ok I am done
*squints questioningly*
I usually think of those as visas for sports figures.
Doctors.
Uffda, you just made me flashback to the days I was filling out all those forms for my wife. Every form has the same start (name, address, etc.). You’d think that you could fill that out once and be done with it.
My horror story for immigration is dealing with the Memphis INS office. We wanted to get married in Korea. We stopped by the Memphis iNS office and went over our plan and asked for advice. They told us that we shouldn’t file any paperwork while in Korea. If we did, the wife would have to wait for all the paperwork to clear before she could come into the country. Since her student visa was still valid, she should come back using that.
So we did that. Then when we were having our interview, they told us that since she hadn’t gone back to school coming into the country on the student visa was technically visa fraud. I nearly lost it. The person who was telling me I had to pay another $200 for a waiver for visa fraud was the same guy who we had talked to before leaving. The same guy. When I pointed out to him the fact that we had run our plan by him, he said that as a INS officer he would never have told anyone to break the law.
Fucking INS.
And if you acted that way to the FBI, they’d have you in a rape cage for lying to them.
Yeah, but ICE will put you in a rape cage THEN deport you.
That drove me bonkers too. But I think it is because they send each form to a different person to approve. Just guessing.
You got lucky in that it was only a $200 fine.
We need UnCivil to make the case for closed borders
Fucking foreign bastards bringing their fancy spices and crazy recipes!
California.
Sweden. Germany. There are plenty of places discovering the flaws of welcoming all and sundry.
Imagine 1,000,000 UCS’s showing up, demanding entry into Romania…
FTW!
Since we don’t speak foreign, We would also require the locals to provide services in English.
But would the UCSs vote as a bloc, or is the contraryanism so deep that they would vote to spite each other?
I suspect they would be driven out, by an outraged and exasperated citizenry.
Like, full on torches and pitchforks?
When I argue about immigration with “normies” who have never had to deal with INS, I always tell them that any immigration reform has to basically abolish ICE and start over. The entire institution is fucking rotten to the bone. Which shouldn’t be surprising. They have more power than the IRS. If you complain about ICE they can send your ass back to some shit hole country, so basically customer complaints are swept under the rug.
If I were dictator, I’d make it a requirement that every citizen has to go down to the local ICE office and get a yellow post it note. By the end of the week, people would be losing their shit. I guarantee that the ICE office would have created some crazy process that requires you to submit multiple sets of applications (all of which needs a fee to file) and then they’d still fuck it up. From not opening an office on time or simply losing paperwork.
If you can’t tell I really hate ICE/INS.
Amen Pope Jimbo! ICE is a nightmare. Three of my four grandparents immigrated as teens and became citizens in time with very little muss or fuss. Both my kids have married people from EU nations and dealing with ICE is every bit as bad an experience as Lack in the article and yourself point out. Makes a group of government drones jobs dependent of administering a system, add some time, then stir. You get the ICE, an institution which makes you praise the DMV for customer service and accountability. For both spouses lost paperwork, ICE missed deadlines, giving up and hiring lawyers is the common experience.
The irony is one of my kids obtained their EU nation 2d citizenship in less than a year after applying with only normal bureaucratic hiccups. They encountered less pain and hassle than trying to pay a toll on the NJ turnpike using Dollar coins.
My experience with INS was relatively painless but I went thru the first part in Montana and the second part with an attorney. But this was pre-9/11 AND the bureaucracy was still nuts.
Was talking to a non-thinking prog the other day who recently married an EU citizen. She was bemoaning all the bullshit they had to go thru and blamed Trump. I gave her the bureaucracy argument but not sure she bought it.
Saint Deep State Bureaucrat would never!
She should have waited until our long national nightmare is over and the Democrats have finished draining the swamp.
If only she could have reached Comrade Obama to make him aware of the injustice! [Fucking idiots]
Interesting post. Thanks for sharing.
Getting old sucks. Comfy recliner, quilt, fire burning, nice glass of bourbon, binge watching The Orville… Yeah, I woke up in my chair about 0400 and went to bed.
The only appropriate thing to do was start the New Year with an Irish coffee. Gonna be a slow day of bowl games and booze.
Irish Coffee….yes!
500k worth of Patron stolen.
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/u-s-world/deputies-find-half-a-million-dollars-in-stolen-tequila-4-arrested/1681695968
First they ban Sargon now this
Where is everybody?
Hung to the rafters?
And they was right!
I was off making low carb zucchini walnut muffins.
sounds dismal
They are actually pretty good.
I made a delicious lucky New Year’s dinner.
My New Year’s dinner will probably be the leftover ribs from last night. They were brined for maybe 36 hours, hot-smoked over hickory for three hours, and moved into the 250° oven for two more hours. At that point, I sliced them, dunked them in sauce and broiled them to get it caramelized, then poured the rest of the sauce over and kept them warm for another hour or so.
They were fucking RIGHTEOUS. Falling off the bone.
We went out to a farm to look at [another] horse. This is what I get for buying my wife the first one.
why is Lackadaisical not commenting?
Only vampires comment on their articles… Or maybe i’ve got that backwards…
I was at the temple when this was posted, don’t worry I’ll get to you.
A lot of women, many who look like their parents might have been immigrants:
https://thesexier.com/sorry-blondes-but-the-brunettes-have-my-heart-71-pics/
I prefer the chive really pics seem more natural
I would violate the national sovereignty of Nos. 1, 11, and 17.
The American Spectator has their own issues. But they did recently publish this severe take down of neo-conservatives and defenders of the Weekly Standard.
https://spectator.org/polishing-jonah-goldberg/
It’s nice to see the noe-cons greeting torn to shreds by conservatives. Goldberg is such a smug cuck.
Me-ow.
Conservatism is only monolithic to the idiots of the left.
In the past, immigrants were supposed to assimilate to American culture. They might add a little flavor to it in the process but the onerous was on them to fit in and make a living.
Now, we are expected to assimilate to and tolerate whatever savage shithole culture they come from. And smile while they collect welfare and bitch about the benefits.
Not surprising that a backlash is brewing.
The melting pot was a good concept, much better than whatever the hell its been replaced with.
It’s been replaced with a war on Whitey. Immigrants are now seen as reinforcements for the Left.
Sure, that’s why the left loves them so much. If South African Boers or Old Believer Russians were flowing in they’d be singing a different tune.
I strongly support this view, otherwise it won’t work well long-term. Things can get really, really bad. I like to think I did my small part by going through a bit of immigration hell.
This seems a bit strong, but there are those with that sort of view.
The daily lectures about the evils of whiteness has made me a bit bitter.
I have to admit that there’s one thing I’m not totally clear on with regard to the calculus of rights with regard to immigration. A government, if it is to be considered legitimate, must be seen as the agents of the public for the country its a government of. The U.S. government, for example, is legitimate in that it serves to protect the rights of the American public (and I’ll include resident aliens here, since they pay taxes and are subject to U.S. laws). If that isn’t the case, the American public would have a pretty good case against its government for failing to collect all the taxes owed by all those foreigners. But, if that’s the case, how is it the responsibility of the U.S. government to protect the rights of non-Americans? That is to say, it may well be the case that it is a violation of the right of free movement for the people the U.S. government denies U.S. residency to. But, isn’t that an issue for their government to take up with the U.S.., rather than the U.S. government to take up with itself?
I think I made a similar point in my immigration post a while ago
Yes, you did, and better than I did. I’m sorry I’d missed it.
I think your framing is more clear.
It isn’t and I wouldn’t make that claim. It isn’t a question of protecting their right to free movement, rather not actively impeding it.
Could be, and it often works in that way.
This line of thinking strongly boosts the case for a complete freedom of movement between and within countries, to stop someone, don’t you have to abridge their right to freely move, and thus their self ownership?
Within, yes. Between? No, I don’t buy that. But movement =/= immigration. The latter is a subset of the former.
One more utilitarian argument for basically unrestricted immigration, the sort that let in my grandparents before slamming shut in a spasm of nativism and dooming the rest of their families to horrible deaths: unrestricted immigration can be the cat’s paw for sharply reducing the welfare system.
Okay, but why?
What is the magic sauce that makes that not a right?
Hawt.
What is the magic sauce that makes that not a right?
What’s the differentiation between immigration and invasion?
… and won’t somebody think of the poor squatters?
Invasions are by people coming over with the intent of using force on the populace.
Such as by extracting their wealth at the point of a gun?
Thanks, Lack: yours was one of the best articles I’ve read here; it’s a great blend of fact/history, philosophy/conjecture, and personal anecdote . . . and perfectly articulate.
I might not be the textbook libertarian on some things, and I might not be consistent, but I don’t mind being open and have my views shot up by better ideas. With no intention to offend a soul on this planet, here goes:
I’m ScotsIrish, a Southerner, and my folk have haunted these hills for three centuries. My main notion of borders is simply this: “citizenship” in a “nation” is an asset, a license to enjoy a preserve, an agreed asylum . . . away from others: from aristocrats, from sanction, from opprobrium, from taxes, from papists and protestants, from lords and kingsmen. My forebears came here and displaced, manipulated, and killed off the Muskogeon fair and square, so this is mine now: I inherited this space lawfully and the pile of stuff that goes with it, and I will kill anybody who tries to take it from me. Mine is not the rants of a crank; nay, I lay square and true to the facts of history and the actual ways of man: action and property; others have prettied up these notions, but I am not shy nor ashamed of my heritage. I live by NAP now, but the lines were drawn many generations of people and technology and law ago, and the facts are what they are; I share where and when it makes sense to me, but the choice is mine: this land is my land.
In certain spaces I have profited from intercourse with others well met as have those who met and retained me. We come and we go, I wish all well and wealth and freedom. But I have enough and am richer than any of my people could have ever hoped, and I don’t want anything to needlessly change. Some of my best friends and wisest partners are recent immigrants, and I am very glad they are here.
But I want the door locked behind these last few. We’re done; we’re full, frankly fuller than I would have it; I don’t want to share the Ozarks, the Tallahatchie, Clingman’s Dome, the squares of Savannah, Overton Park, I-40, or even the pollen with any more people. There is not a single human possibility missing from my future or my economy that requires the importing of a single further soul. The greatness of the polio Vaccine, the atomic energy, and my beloved St Jude Hospital are not taken for granted, but I have at this point no reason to believe that there is a single notion or contribution left that the minds or descendants of 350 million fine neighbors I already have won’t deliver.
5% of the world’s people are here, already, in a place that is nearly perfect, and there is not a single cultural or theoretical benefit to be gained by allowing anyone new. I don’t care what color you are, who you love, what you smoke, and how you pray, but, if you are not already one of my fine and capable neighbors, you are most welcome to visit on a proper visitor or business visa for four weeks and then go back and make what is yours over there as perfect as you know how to make it. Come take Mardi Gras or the Super Bowl with us; contract for the delivery of some trucks; sell us some shoes; and then go away as I have when I worked in many, many grand and artful places outside these borders.
I’m not a GOP-, cultural, or neo- conservative; I’m a property conservative: this is our pile, it is a good and tall pile, and I don’t want to dilute or change it any more than I would throw my stock portfolio in the air on a windy day on the Serengeti. I’m selfish and content, and I hope others find similar contentment in their own place without messing up my contentment.
And I’m sure there is a classy, affordable collection of devices and methods that could be kludged together to manage our borders. I hate Trump and FoxNews infinitely more than I hate Mexicans, but border integrity is an obvious need and a trivial challenge that ought be promptly resolved.
I’ll check back on this thread, but I need to go kiss the ass of a couple of UCF alumni . . . brb.
Me too.
That is a topic the open-boarders advocates don’t talk about. I do not want our population significantly higher. The inability of the Third World to control their population growth isn’t my problem.
I disagree to the closed borders view as much as the open borders one.
there is not a single cultural or theoretical benefit to be gained by allowing anyone new – this is false. There is plenty to ba gained by quality skilled people for a country, especially if there is a need at a certain point.
People move and have moved for a long time. For various reasons. And most people are ok with this. There is a difference between controlling it and stopping it entirely. I find it ridiculous to think no one should ever be allowed to move between borders.
People move and have moved for a long time. For various reasons. And most people are ok with this.
Stipulated. But none of this is a sound basis for policy.
There is a difference between controlling it and stopping it entirely. I find it ridiculous to think no one should ever be allowed to move between borders.
Stipulated. I clearly wrote nor endorsed any such thing.
there is not a single cultural or theoretical benefit to be gained by allowing anyone new – this is false. There is plenty to (be) gained by quality skilled people for a country, especially if there is a need at a certain point.
Love ya bra, but there’s no just reason to believe it. You assert some theoretical need; I see a third of a billion smart neighbors and no yawning lack of goods, services, or opportunity. I have worked all over the world and all over the US and never on any occasion thought: too bad we don’t have any calculus or chemistry guys here . . . why don’t we call our Stuttgart office and see if they can bail us out!? The other is repeatedly true: that H1B asshat needs to be sent back to wherever; punch his little foreign-posting-ticket, goodboy and welldone, and promote him back home out of my way.
Picture a keg of apples, some bad, some perfect; then consider a barge of apples, some bad, some perfect: you simply assert that by unloading both the keg and the barge onto the same pitch that the formerly kegged population will somehow become turbocharged, its few rotten apples evaporating, and the other apples becoming crisper and sweeter than ever. This is just egalitarian utopianism, for which I congratulate you: you are a wonderful and hopeful person who wants the best for all and sees the best in all. But like many lovely ideas, this is one for which the risk/reward profile for a rich American (or even a poor one) is pointlessly steep: there will just be a barge-full of unnecessary apples in the way when I try the on-ramp to I-40.
I just want my keg of lovely apples left alone to eat as I may: don’t tread on my apples. America is to be congratulated: we don’t need anyone, and this is more true than for any country at any time ever. Extraterrestrials would be shocked, shocked to hear any rationale by which the US above and before all others didn’t wall itself off: only the happiest of ideals, theories, and conjecture can compile such an argument.
You assert some theoretical need; – there is nothing theoretical about it. If you claim that no foreigner has anything to contribute to the US that is plain wrong.
I see a third of a billion smart neighbors and no yawning lack of goods, services, or opportunity. – other people may see different. Unless you are the all seeing one.
I have worked all over the world and all over the US and never on any occasion thought – nothing beats a good anecdote
This is just egalitarian utopianism, for which I congratulate you: you are a wonderful and hopeful person who wants the best for all and sees the best in all. – this is a ridiculous claim, I assume you want to be ironic but you failed miserably
Picture a keg of apples, some bad, some perfect; then consider a barge of apples, some bad, some perfect: you simply assert that by unloading both the keg and the barge onto the same pitch that the formerly kegged population will somehow become turbocharged, its few rotten apples evaporating, and the other apples becoming crisper and sweeter than ever. – I have asserted no such thing and have no idea where you get this.
like the he-man-woman-haters-club? Hey, man all the cool kids are already here. Go start your own club somewhere else?
Fuck that. I didn’t choose to be born here. If I had been born in a shithole, I would fight like hell to come here legally and if that was futile, I’d sneak right in the back door. A low end life here beats a middle class life in a lot of places. By a wide enough margin to justify sneaking in.
I can’t even imagine asserting my authority to determine who gets to come here based on their previously accumulated wealth or skills. Above that I can’t even imagine all of the unseen consequences of such a policy. To just pick an arbitrary point in time and freeze all movement into a nation is some seriously elite shit. Like tying the invisible hand behind the invisible back.
I”m the furthest thing from an elite: dad didn’t even finish high school; wells and outhouses were well-visited in my childhood.
It’s the other way around: I trust all these brilliant folk to make their own places even better than America could be whereupon they would be troubled with their own immigration question. They are better than me, I’m told; else why do I need them? #MakeAlgeriaGreatAgain
pick an arbitrary point in time
What is arbitrary about “now?” The past is not an option; delay is not useful given my caveats. If I am correct, now is the time. The only question is whether I am correct.
and freeze all movement into a nation
Again, I wrote no such thing.
The idea that you are in a position to determine how many people should inhabit a nation is by definition elitist, notwithstanding your families social status.
Now is plucked from the sky. You have no idea what might transpire tomorrow or ten years from now. We may find ourselves in any number of situations which could make us regret such a policy.
Forgive me for interpreting your statement “I want the door locked behind these last few. We’re done, full…” etc as meaning you want to stop the flow of immigrants. You can at least understand how I could arrive at that conclusion?
you want to stop the flow of immigrants
stipulated, which is one thing
but you wrote something quite different: freeze all movement into a nation which I clearly did not write
My forebears came here and displaced, manipulated, and killed off the Muskogeon fair and square, so this is mine……I live by NAP now
How very convenient for you.
stipulated
but don’t unravel things to make an emotional score: I’m asserting that citizenship is a property right. Respectfully, sir: if I had inherited a billion dollars and didn’t wish to share it with anyone, would you have any snark to shoot at me for that ?
I’m just being baldly direct about what nations are while rejecting the theoretical incremental value of further immigration. It would be truly chickenshit of me not to admit the evil footings of my wealth, the selfishness of my posture, and the consequences for others. That’s what shitlords do. To assert otherwise is to align oneself with all the other redistributive philosophies: are you also going to dun me 40 acres and a mule for every friend I have who is black? are you giving Tel Aviv to the Syrians? Are you bulldozing all the wrong neighborhoods of Ulster? Who “owns” your house, BTW, according to the way things ought to be based on – reasons.
Having five billion people move into my back yard solves nothing; maybe I’m an asshole for just saying so.
You seem to be jumping between the individual and the collective. Yes, money and property you directly inherited are yours to do with as you see fit. You did not, however, inherit the Ozarks, the Tallahatchie, Clingman’s Dome, the squares of Savannah, Overton Park, I-40. By all means, buy up as much land as you can and put up all the “get off my lawn” signs as you want, but don’t use the violence inherent in the system to keep your neighbor from selling some land to a johnny-come-lately.
Also does your preference for the number of people currently here also mean you would support a zero growth population policy?
You seem to be jumping between the individual and the collective.
Quite right; guilty: what is citizenship otherwise? Again, I am asserting that citizenship is a property right . . . directly: I could not have been more forthright in my first post . . . yes, sir. Yes, I don’t want to share the Ozarks with anyone other than citizens and duly processed visa-bearers. I’m a selfish bastard: I admitted this in writing.
you would support a zero growth population policy?
Absolutely would, of course; why not; what’s my choice: holding a gun on nubile women? Breeding camps? 0PG is a fait accompli in every developed country; maybe that gets changed by some new force, but who cares. If the US died off back about 200 million, I’d be fine with that. All those stupid tract neighborhoods outside Lenexa would rot away and we’d have swell pheasant hunting again.
I got to give you props for your honesty, most people aren’t so blunt about wanting to force their preferences on everyone else.
I’ll play along a little further, but really it would be easier for you to simply reject on the face of it my premise that citizenship is a property right; once you reject that, the details and these dodges are no longer necessary. Just say that everyone has a right to go everywhere (I don’t agree) and be done with it.
wanting to force their preferences on everyone else
That’s the thing about property: you get to keep others off it. But, as for preferences, if you want to go to Nicaragua tonight, I’m not the one in your way: knock yourself out; I don’t care what your preferences are so long as you leave me alone. Consider reading “don’t tread on me” literally.
OT: The divided families premise in a similar immigration spat is equally flawed: the children are separated from papi! No they’re not: they can go back to Mexico any time they want. Family reunited, jobwelldone * claps dust off hands *
I propose that open borders will materially degrade my country and my wealth as an American by diluting my access and enjoyment of the Grand Canyon because I’ll get six technocrats who will replace six Americans who would have discovered whatever anyway and all I get out of it is longer lines.
I’m okay with the folks already here; I love Español in the streets and in the plants; wear your burka; marry a goat, whatever. I could not care less about the preferences of anyone. I’m not a xenophobe or a bigot. I’m simply selfish in the same utilitarian way that all successful and natural systems are.
Just say that everyone has a right to go everywhere (I don’t agree) and be done with it.
I guess you missed the part where I said “buy all the land you want and keep everyone off”
And the preference I was referring to was simply the one for no new people, I wasn’t accusing you of xenophobia or the like. You don’t want more people coming here, others do, there is no “We” so the “We have a right to decide who comes here” argument falls flat.
If I build apartments on my land and I want to rent them to furriners, and some farmer/manufacturer wants them to work for him and some grocer wants to sell them bread and beer, why should our preferences mean less than yours?
FWIW, this bugs the hell out of me as well.
You’re just saying that, but thanks.
Thats the best way to be, especially around here.
I often feel this way too. I think the country would be materially better with fewer people. I like our wide open spaces
I also like accidentally hitting post too soon.
… But as you hinted at, it is a bit of a contradiction, at least as far as I can reason it, with my principles, and thus I cannot with good conscience fully support slamming the doors shut.
I will be down in the brewing room all afternoon. So I won’t get to hang out for this discussion. But that won’t keep me from making a parting comment anyway. 😉
Tall fences; wide gates. {from the old days at TOS}
The state should be involved in prohibiting the immigration of criminals and those with serious communicable diseases (at least until they are no longer capable of communicating that disease).
Any one else should be welcome.
Of course, we need to dismantle the entire welfare state before the flood gates are opened.
Says the dude whose grandfather’s grandfather was born in county Tyrone Ireland.
Makes sense to me… have fun brewing.
Interesting article, Lack.
Thanks.
stuck at a new years day party because power is out at my house. Stuck commenting on my phone. How can you ‘mobile’ peasants stand it?
Peasants? How about broke, stay away from Wal-Mart too
It is self evident that the phone experience is lesser by its nature (nothing the site administrators can change.). Another advantage of the PCMR over other platforms.
Alcohol usually helps.
Oh, you mean the posting? I do it rarely when I’m out and about and there’s nothing else going on. It’s definitely not preferred. Hell, I don’t even like working on a non-mechanical keyboard if I have a choice.
I don’t have a choice…
My phone is for talking, listening to music, and reading books. Occasional emergency browsing if I’m outdoors. Anything else they’re trying to wrangle onto it is painful at best.
Yea, there’s still 15k people without power acvording to the power company site (down from noon). So I’m waiting out the outage. Thankfully the outages are localized, so the cell system is fine.
Every German friend I have laughs that most American utilities aren’t subterranean.
Maybe Pie is right?
oh: how do I unkiss those UCF asses ?
Until the cost of changing something includes the cost of a backhoe and replacing the street. Also, do they bury the long lines that we needed to string over distances longer than Europe?
That’s what irks me about the “be more like Europe” arguments. We’re definitely NOT like Europe at all in terms of geography and population density, so something that might work in Europe* may be totally unfeasible here.
I know someone who is always insisting that the US should copy South Korea’s Internet policy (read: more government) so that we can have super-fast Internet like they do. No mention of the fact that South Korea is a tiny country with an extremely dense population, and we have numerous states that are several times the size of Korea with a widely dispersed population.
* I’m not agreeing that everything actually is better in Europe. A lot of that perception just comes from cherry-picked examples, e.g. we’re told that people in Denmark are “happier”, but they have a higher alcoholism and suicide rate, which tells a different story.
oh, I didn’t agree with them; they just enjoy laughing at Americans
Germans don’t understand individual utility judgment (pardon the pun): the right of the individual or the firm to make bad decisions does not occur to them. They don’t accept our Iron Laws.
I just didn’t want to miss the chance to prove Pie right: all that is needed are a few more Germans and everything in the US will be perfect and UCS will have his sparky service back. Americans don’t know what they need: we are, I’m reading, sitting in the dark both literally and figuratively.
If that cost is less than the cost of re-stringing lines every time a tree blows over, you’re still ahead.
But then you’d have fewer good-paying union jobs “donating” to your campaign.
Given the low frequency of outages, I’m guessing we still haven’t reached the point where the initial capital outlay to bury the lines would have been paid for by that.
Europeans, including Germans, also frequently complain that it takes a week to download a 10G file, and that both the file and the internet costs too much.
Lol It takes like a minute tops. I doubt US has better internet than most of Europe
let me see… you’re making me do math… okay that is slightly faster than my normal download speed, but I have three questions – who provides your internet (govt or private co)? How much do you pay for it (counting taxes)? How widespread is the Romanian supernetwork?
Private co
10 dollars a month
broadband cities towns and maybe a third of villages
I don’t know, Pie. Steam is full of Europeans who complain about games downloading for 3 days that I downloaded in less than an hour. Maybe they’re just bored and like bitching.
But, but, theres a private compant that gives some urban Romanians supet internet. Face it, Euro network speeds are wildly variable.
I have heard complaints from Americans myself…
Euro network speeds are wildly variable. – so are US speeds.
The little village we lived in while in Germany was a fairly small town, but only about 2 kilometers south of one of the larger suburbs of Stuttgart, and about 2 kilometers north of another. Yet the village didn’t have high speed internet for the first two years we were there. I’m talking download speeds measured in Kb/s. Deutsche Telekom basically said it wasn’t worth the effort to put fibre lines into the village for the number of people who lived there. Town finally got fed up and put in the cables themselves, then contracted out for a service provider, and basically let it be known that they would accept offers from anyone BUT Telekom.
I laugh whenever I hear people talking about how much better the access is over in Europe than it is here. Like I said, this village was within a moderate walk from the Mercedes and Porsche headquarters, but until 2012 didn’t have broadband…
Even in Oklahoma, we were smart enough to bury our power lines.
Ofc, between the ice storms, the tornadoes, and the never-ceasing wind trying to keep any sort of post upright is a fool’s errand.
In Hawaii we are too dumb to bury electric, phone, etc. If there was a way to do so I am sure that the unions would string water and sewage overhead if they could get away with it.
On Oahu alone there are over 20,000 utility poles and less than 25 replacement poles in stock. In addition, there is no standing contract for replacement poles with any mainland company. The next good hurricane strike will place Oahu on over a year of home supplied power generation. Kauai got a “meh” strike this year, has a much smaller population and less complicated energy distribution system and some neighborhoods were out of power for 4+ months and one area near the north end of the island still has no power or roads leading to it. Yep, park your car where the road is closed and walk/bicycle for up to 4 miles to get to your multi-million dollar beach house.
I was helping to run a state emergency response exercise and when I found this out I turned pale, more pale than usual.
RE: Don; “In certain spaces I have profited from intercourse with others well met as have those who met and retained me.”
You know who else profited from intercourse?
Ron Jeremy?
Anne Rice?
Planned Parenthood?
Stormy Daniel’s?
Xaviera Hollander?
Tres: I thought of you when I saw the name of a local beer: El Jugoso. Too bad I don’t know Spanish, otherwise I would have probably thought of something else.
Well, its not EARFquake!
Its been some time since I lived in Tejas, but I think Jugoso means “regret”.
“lament” is a Latinish cognate, so probably something like that ?
Jugoso translates to Juicy, at least according to the Googles. Never took Spanish in high school, and where I grew up you were more likely to pick up curse words in Polish or Czech then anything else.
The diversity of Cleveland. Prior to “Jugsy”, the last gf was from up there. She was affectionately referred to as the ‘big, huge, giant, polock’.
There’s no reason to have a debate about immigration until we also have a debate about the welfare state. So, IOW, the end.
There is a lot to that, and there is a certain argument one could make that since letting certain people in would almost certainly result in the abridgement of rights of others (additional taxation) that you can thus bar immigration on an economic basis until that problem is solved. The analysis works ona group level, but not necessarily an individual one, which is where it becomes difficult for me. Should all babies be aborted until public schools are abolished?
I can’t see any serious debate about immigration until we first talk about the welfare state. As it is, immigration is somewhat limited by out current law. So I’m in favor of leaving it like it is for now, plus securing the border.
Open borders is one of the most ill conceived and dangerous ideas I’ve ever heard. Unless we are ready to have a billion desperate people on our border, we should not even be trying such insanity. Yeah, I know, Democrats are serious about this. They’re also serious about giving all of us, plus our billion new friends, free healthcare and college, and turning off our petro powered energy grid to save polar bears.
I disagree, but only because I think waiting to fix the welfare state before dealing with immigration will just mean that neither gets fixed. What you’re saying in terms of the one relating to the other is the real rub with regard to immigration.
Well, the real situation is that we have one political party who wants to let everyone in because they are viewed as votes and who also refused to do anything to boost border security. The other party do not want to give the other party a permanent voting majority and wants to secure the border. Gridlock, what libertarians dream of.
When I was living in DC early in my career I lived in a fairly poor, very diverse neighborhood (only place I could afford as a brand new GS-7 without having to have a roommate). I was probably one of the few US citizens that lived in the place that actually had a job – the rest were on public assistance or were illegals. Living in that place for a number of years I firmly believe the illegals had a better right to be in this country than the US citizens that were on assistance. The illegals were hard working, decent people who other than their immigration status were law-abiding. The US citizens were the dregs of society.
I am somewhere between the “build the wall” and open borders factions, but here’s the immigration reform I’d like to see:
1. Anyone can come in, but they will have to pay all taxes (income, SS, medicare, property, etc).
2. Immigrants will not receive any sort of public assistance.
3. Immigrants who lose their jobs will be expected (and assisted) to go back home after a short period where they can look for new work.
4. Immigrants who are in the country, gainfully employed, and law-abiding for 10 years can then petition for citizenship.
“2. Immigrants will not receive any sort of public assistance.”
We’ll never get past this point.
I know. And it’s why I’m in favor of strict enforcement of the rules right now. I guess I should have prefaced this with “When I become dictator…”
easiest fix, imo: disconnect statehood from geography. As a US citizen, any land I own is part of the US. If I sell it to a Mexican, it becomes part of Mexico.
This solves both the free travel problem and the sovereignty problem.
easiest should probably be inside scare quotes.
Can I buy 100 square feet from you so i can build a huge Dracula statue?
sure. I am about 98% sure my neighbors are vampires, they might donate the land, as that will be 100 sq ft they dont have to mow.
I mean, they atent gonna mow it anyway, but the rest of us would prefer the statue.
Can I buy 100 square feet from you so i can build a huge Dracula statue?
Now there’s something that claws at me spiritually and appeals to my notion of property rights and undermines much of what I wrote above: I want you to be able to own property here; why can’t you buy your part of the US? How is an acre different from a passport?
I’ll meet you halfway: you (anyone!) can buy an acre which comes with an American citizenship and passport, immediately, once you pay two people who have ever voted for open borders to move to France.
*cheers loudly*
I’m thinking about donating this 100 square feet to Pie. The giant Dracula statue will be the first thing of significance that has happened in rural Indiana in 40 years and maybe it will boost tourism dollars. See the Dracula statue, built by a real Romanian! ‘You see that statue, Martha, that was build by a real Romanian!’.
It can be a Hoosier version of Rock City !
Thanks Lack.
My son went through this with his Chinese wife. At the final step she had to go to the INS office in (I think) Shanghai. All the forms filled out, appointment made well in advance. It was a high stress event and she was a nervous wreck. After the interview she called my son tears. She was disapproved because the application was missing a number of documents. Every single one of the “missing” documents was in the interviewer’s hands.
My son ended going through his US rep’s office (who was I think a naturalized or first generation Chinese immigrant). With that intervention the INS “found” the missing documents and everything was completed successfully.
I’m guessing she didn’t bring a handling fee for the agent there. We were lucky enough to do everything from inside the U.S.
Here’s what I don’t get. Why is anyone coming here? Why are they all not going to Europe? Everything there is free and people there are like one gazillion times happier than Americans because everything there is free. Here in the USA, we don’t have healthcare and you will die if you even ask for it. And no one is happy and we all hate immigrants and if we see one, we will mow them down with the machine guns mounted on our giant SUVs. We also have a president who puts immigrant kids in cages and kills them just for fun.
Stated vs. revealed preferences. There was a consultant who I worked with a couple years back who had never heard that phrase used to describe people’s behavior (this was specifically related to how long people were willing to hold to talk to a live person vs. use an automated system).
Or maybe they’re all just Car Wars fans?
So how long are people willing to wait to talk to a real person that may or may not exist because the stupid computer doesn’t understand “Shut up and give me a person”.
Honestly? It depends on the reason for the call, and the industry. This was also without a voice recognition system, so yelling at the phone system would have done nothing.
But in general terms, people will wait for less time for paying bills (least willing to wait), placing an order, issues with the bill, interruption of service calls (willing to wait the longest). Part of it was we kludged together a simple way that customers could place a simple order automatically (well, it would be e-mailed to an agent who would actually enter the order later that day, but good enough for non-emergencies) and one group of management didn’t think any of their customers would use it. So we showed them the percentage of callers to our group that used it, as well as the average abandon time (and percentage) for their callers.
So many of the times I’m forced to call some company, the current gen IVR is set to not even accept tough tone entry. I’m in whatever % goes “No, I am not going to talk to the computer.” I feel sorry for the people answering those calls who only ever get the customer after A: they have a problem worth going through the riagamarole over, and B: have had to get through that godawful computer dialogue tree.
Re: the localities point above. I believe Australia allows states to make immigration decisions based on job needs within their jurisdiction.
…and nobody travels across state lines?
It’s been awhile since I read about it but I think the visa is tied to a specific job for a number of years.
I had only heard about this system in passing, and I couldn’t see the advantage of it over something like H1B, at least there there is a company willing to directly sponsor a particular person.
So what about the obvious facts of our current “immigration” demographic’s voting habits? It’s clear that for whatever reason, they vote themselves into the government coffers and happily vote themselves and us into subject-hood. We’ve seen it in California, Oregon and Washington.
How far are the Open Border Libertarians willing to go to make us extinct? What will it take for them to see the writing on the wall? Illegal immigrants and their children, as far as voting is concerned, are not Pro Freedom.
That was supposed to be what the constitution was for. Too bad we brought it to life ala Frankenstien. In any case, basing immigration policy on potential voting by said immigrants seems kinda authoritarian to me. Especially considering the vast majority of votes cast here are already so anti-freedom.
“In any case, basing immigration policy on potential voting by said immigrants seems kinda authoritarian to me. Especially considering the vast majority of votes cast here are already so anti-freedom.”
The United States was founded on the principals of personal freedom and the rule of law. Expecting immigrants of any kind to observe and respect that is hardly authoritarian.
This gets to the heart of the modern immigration dilemma – the left does not want assimilation as there is no profit in that for them. I have no problem with letting people into this country on the same terms as used to exist: you get the opportunity to make a better life for yourself but no one is going to wipe your ass for you (no matter who you were in the old country). [And at that, I might make an exception to ass-wiping as long as it was multi-culti leftists required to do the wiping.]
Yea, that’s my hangup with it. You can’t craft policy based on how it will affect your chosen party’s electoral chances. It’s really no different than Democrats saying “public sector unions are great and should be promoted because they give money to the Democrat Party”.
However, Democrats don’t follow any principle; they just pursue power and invent lines of reasoning to justify it. They’re more than happy to have a wide-open border because it is likely to result in more voters for them.
Here’s our dilemma: Should we stick to principles even if the other party is steamrolling over us by breaking the rules?
Democrats have not exactly been shy about their motives. They don’t care at all about migrants. They want votes. And they have openly stated that they do not like the current crop of voters. Mostly white, working class, trouble makers. They want to replace us with an easy to control voter base made up of mostly unskilled and uneducated new immigrants. Those new voters will not think about why America is so rich. America is so rich just because it’s America! It will always be rich no matter what, so let’s get us a piece of that sweet pie and we don’t need to think about things too much. Our new overlords, the Democrats can do the thinking and keep the free stuff train rolling.
So if you want to know why Democrats want open borders, there it is, there’s nothing more.
Oh, definitely. I never had any illusions about their motives. They want every single thing in the country monitored, regulated, and taxed, but they are somehow OK with human beings (and anything they’re carrying) coming across the border with no control whatsoever? Get da fuggoutahere.
Democrats: A mass of contradictions.
The LP is (or is supposed to be) the party of principle.
The nickname was originally given as an insult by a republican.
This is definitely the case. A lot of immigrants are hard workers, but at the same time, most do not see free stuff as an issue. They’ve grown up in a culture where the government is expected to take care of people. So they see nothing wrong with that and they will mostly vote leftist. I think it’s probably about 80%. If they’ve been here a couple of generations, then that will even out, but what the Democrats want is to rapidly overwhelm the system with new immigrants who will vote leftist.
Idea: imigration polcy restricts criminals and contagious disease
Lefties count as criminals and also diseased
If retardation is a disease, that is accurate.
Hyperion drives at this above when addressing the welfare state. He’s saying that when benefits shrivel, fewer come, or at least the right folks come for the right reasons.
I’d go further: if the government were as small as it should be, none of us would care who was its president or have any interest in any voting demographics, much less immigrants.
Unquestionably things have changed dramatically over the past immigration years. My experiences were much different from Lack’s, Pope’s and others here. My wife came to the US from Viet Nam on a tourist visa in 1965. After playing tourist for awhile she got a job teaching at the Defense Language Institute and had green card, as long as she had a job. By 1972 with the war winding down the DLI began a phase out and she lost her contract and green card exemption. She was given a certain time (maybe 3 or 6 months) to exit the country or face deportation. She decided to go underground, registered for college and became a student. Since she no longer was reporting her address there was no record of her whereabouts. She was then an illegal.
Anyway, we decided to get married in March, ’74, she applied for her citizenship in San Antonio, somewhat of a hassle but not too much, a couple trips to the INS in SA, a few bucks for various forms and an interview. I can’t even recall a swearing in ceremony but I’m sure there must have been one. She got a BBA in ’76 and a BS in Med Tech a few years later.
Since that time there has been a flood of immigrants of various sorts, certainly that may be part of the problem and also the govmint discovering a new cash cow. I can only sympathize for newcomers today. As was said above, if I was hungry I’d certainly be practicing my swimming.
As the son of an immigrant and a native I can understand both sides of the discussion. I have no idea where the country will end but one thing is certain. The debt will crush us sooner than the immigrants, I’m convinced of that.
I remember going to visit my wife in Brazil when she was on her 8 month detention there because she couldn’t legally get back into the USA until we got her green card approved. We didn’t do the fiance visa because we were already married. We thought about just applying to change her status here but it carries some risk I didn’t want to take.
Anyway, I was coming back and I was sitting on the plane beside a guy and we struck up a conversation. So he asked me why I was in Brazil and we got into the whole immigration thing. He was American and married a Colombian lady back in the early 90s, I think. They went to the consulate in Columbia and he tells them this is his wife and they want to return to the US. An hour later they’re back on the plane and on their way to the USA where she entered legally. I told him, you don’t even want to know how fucked up the process is now. One year and mound of documents, a flight to the consulate in Rio because Rio has the only consulate that processes marriage visas.
another of my useless anecdotes: I’ve never got a visa to work in Brasil because of their capital investment requirement; it’s pay to play down there, and they won’t let an American who knows something possibly displace a Brasileiro who might know the same thing unless they get their claws on $100k in equipment. Okay, fair enough, it’s your party, sweetheart.
But now I can’t make your plant more competitive . . . which would improve the long-run chances that some of you are employed for a longer term; I’m a proven skill-set, not a coin flip, a theory, or an H1B salary dodge. And I wasn’t going to stay but for a few months, and I’m a great tipper. But it’s your party.
Very well put. Here’s my position.
I’m not a Libertarian and no longer consider myself a libertarian in part because of this topic. I favor the “tall fences, wide gates” policy, but am entirely against the concept of open borders. I believe that a state, albeit a small one with limited powers, is a necessity for any kind of society that respect individual liberty, and one of the core responsibilities of the state is the protection of individual property rights. A state’s borders–state being understood as a political unit, so I mean the US as well as Delaware or Anne Arundel County–represent the limits of both services paid for by its constituent citizens and property owned by same, both collectively in the sense of things like roads or parks and individually in the sense of real property. I fully recognize that there is a freedom of movement possessed by every individual, but it is limited by the property rights of others. And I do mean this to refer to public lands, which are ultimately owned not by some disconnected remote bureaucracy–even though the government often behaves that way–but by the body of citizens who pay for its maintenance or protection through taxation.
You have every right to move freely, but you do not have a right to walk through my yard. Nor, honestly, do you have a right to walk down my street, if we’re talking about property rights that mean anything. Now, people typically build roads so that they can make travel easier for people from other places and thus benefit from trade, tourism, and just not being dicks, but that doesn’t mean that a right is conferred. Similarly, we benefit from open travel and immigration, and should encourage both, but solely to the extent that neither violates the property rights of citizens, recognizing that both are privileges we bestow as citizens and not rights we must respect.
Okay, I knew that after the Libertarian Moment I’d need to pay fees to use pikeways, even to go visit the then-privatized Ozarks,
but now I gotta buy a visa to go to Arkansas? and risk rejection of said application . . . by those people? That totally blows and is some elitist bullshit; I have several unique skills that Arkansas cannot possibly know that they will never need. * throws down gauntlet * Little Rock: issue said entry visa with all due speed or I’m taking my skill-set and a Davy Crockett statue to ten square meters of Romania.
Well we hashed all this stuff out about two hundred and some-odd years ago, with a few periodic adjustments as issues cropped up. See: toll roads, the national highway system, the Oyster Wars (seriously, that was a thing), the Interstate Commerce Clause, etc., etc., etc. But the issue you refer to was answered when the Articles of Confederation got scrapped. You’re a Tennessee resident, but you’re an American citizen, and the preeminence of the latter was settled pretty thoroughly around the mid-1860s. To use your example, no, you don’t have to buy a visa to visit Arkansas, because Arkansas agreed to allow people from other states to visit, live, or pass through when it joined the United States of America. You have to obey Arkansas law, and if you violate the rights of a citizen of Arkansas it will be a matter taken up by Arkansas, but, kind of like the EU, member states of the US agree to be held by certain national laws including the right of American citizens to move freely between states.
But again, the reason that is the case is not because Arkansas recognizes a universal human right to freedom of movement that supersedes the right to property but rather that Arkansas ceded a piece of its sovereignty to another political body, in this case a nation-state.
^^^^^^^
To be clear, I think freedom of movement only applies to you moving around in public areas (such as they would (not) exist in libertopia) and on private property where the owner thereof has allowed you to be.
Well yeah, that’s the tricky part. I was thinking this through while making cornbread (unrelated) and there’s a part of me that says no government stooge has the right to tell me I can’t swim to shore and start walking in a direction provided I’m not stomping on someone’s tulips or whatever. And just generally, by what right would someone stop someone else from just walking through a public space? On the other hand, when does “movement” become something else? What if I’m taking my time? What if I decide to stop and sit down? On a bench? And sleep there? What if I put up a tent? If freedom of speech is also the freedom to be silent, freedom of movement has to include the freedom to remain in a place, and when you remain in a place you are effectively claiming some kind of ownership of that place, even if it’s temporary.
It gets down to the idea of public versus private space, yeah, but for me the issue is that “public” isn’t the same as “unowned”. No single person owns the streets in my neighborhood, but they nevertheless belong to us in a sense that the ocean, for instance, does not. And in a sense that the streets in your neighborhood do not, as well.
of course
I just wanted to try on the other clothes, jump through some theoretical hoops, and issue all the open border complaints an my own behalf. We were discussing a ton of ideas that weren’t rooted in the Constitution, so I could easily discard the nation-state as well. Sadly, I really really did think it would be funny, especially the being rejected by Arkansas bit.
Or I could have said ‘pretty much this’^
God article Lack. Well written, informative. I genuinely mean that. I disagree almost entirely. Rather than a long drawn out debate where I keep referencing someone else work I’ll just share a piece that mostly represents my position:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/11/lew-rockwell/open-borders-assault-private-property/
Among these rights it is recognized the right to travel, as anything you own, you are typically allowed to transport, this is typically called freedom of movement when applied to persons.
I’ve never seen a convincing argument for a right to travel from a libertarian point of view. I could see a georgist argument for it, but property rights include the right to prevent trespass. If your “right to travel” includes passing through my land, then your travel is really a right to force me to provide an easement across my land.
I don’t see how “public” land is any different. Government, for all of its abuses, is an (coercive) association. As the owner of certain land, it has the same rights as any other association that owns land. Namely, to set the rules for which non-members of the association can use the land and how they can use it.
The absolute most I could see as a so-called right to travel is some sort of pragmatic right to egress for landlocked properties.
Maybe I should have been more clear. The right to freely move means the government should not impede you from moving around on public or private land where the owner has allowed you on. This is really no different from freedom of speech- the government cannot stop you from saying anything you want, but no one will be forced to listen to you either.
I wouldn’t even go that far.
The right to freely move means the government should not impede you from moving around on public or private land where the owner has allowed you on.
I don’t see why we should make a distinction between public and private lands when it comes to ownership and control.
Walmart can tell me take a hike when I set up my farm stand in their parking lot. Walmart can do that even though many of their employees/agents may be perfectly fine with me being there. Walmart can do that even though they generally allow the the entire public onto their property.
A father can tell his daughter’s boyfriend to hit the bricks, even though boyfriend is invited onto the property by the daughter. The control structure of the family gives the father control of entry and deportation decisions.
The government, for the reason that they are the trustee for properly held in common by the citizens of the nation, should similarly control access to the public land, right? Public doesn’t mean free-for-all. It means held in common by the public (e.g. the citizens subject to the sovereign).
Even if we were to agree that the public lands were acquired immorally, such bad faith acquisition doesn’t just throw the door open to any comer to trespass.
Beef Bourguignon is in the oven. I now remember why I’ve pretty much sworn off of French cooking. It takes forever to put a dish together and you use every dish and utensil in the kitchen in the process.
Good article, Lack. I can’t really relate because of the four lines I’ve researched(grandparents), the last group arrived here in 1738.
I do have a friend who emigrated here from New Zealand 20 years ago. He’s started a number of successful businesses but he was unable to leave the country because he wouldn’t have been let back in. It was just in the last few years that he finally was told he gets to stay and earn citizenship.
No one should be surprised our immigration system is screwed up, it’s run by the government. To my mind, you can thank Ted Kennedy for the current mess. We had pretty much stopped immigration for 50 years to allow those from Europe to assimilate. Farmers could go to Mexico to pick up seasonal workers and then they went home after the crops were picked. In 1965, Kennedy introduced legislation to restart immigration along with a whole bunch of really stupid rules that have done nothing but snowball into our current mess.
It’s not going to get better anytime soon because lobbyists.
To me, nativism is akin to racism. Having white pride, black pride, magenta pride or whatever is mindless and based on nothing whatsoever. We don’t choose our race just like we don’t choose our place of birth. It’s strictly luck that I wasn’t born a Sri Lankan and have all the nightmares that accompany that.
I have some degree of appreciation for the US and I’m very grateful for it’s existence and my citizenship here. If I was born in a shithole I would fight tooth and nail to come here. If some arbitrary law, written by a deep state operative or a partisan hack prevented my entrance, I would likely sneak in through the back door. I don’t harbor illusions of martyrdom to policies enacted by the government. I feel the same about drugs. I am not into using drugs for fun, but if i were, i would have no qualms about violating unjust laws to do so.
I believe the answer is to widen the gates dramatically. I don’t care about welfare. That money will be stolen from me and wasted on whatever the whacka doodle sentiment of the elite politicians dream up anyway. If I were king, there would be no welfare any way. The natural born are plenty prolific at wasting and scamming for tax money either way. If moving back and forth across the border was easy and legal, behavior of immigrants would be far better. They would have something to protect. They wouldn’t feel the hopelessness of knowing that at any time they could be rounded up and caged before being deported. They would tend to get licenses, insurance, stop using fake IDs, just generally be more responsible. They have been coming here for all of recorded history and will continue to. Why create a class of outlaws exactly the same way we did with the war on drugs?
They wouldn’t feel the hopelessness of knowing that at any time they could be rounded up and caged before being deported. They would tend to get licenses, insurance, stop using fake IDs, just generally be more responsible.
Bullshit. This is a shitty argument when deployed against the WOD or against immigration restrictions. People don’t knowingly and continually violate the laws of a country
Dammit, premature submission. Long story short, I don’t buy the “mother Teresa but for being subject to evil immigration laws” theory.
^^^^
Also, a fake ID is one thing, but most of the “fake IDs” being used by illegals are actually identity theft. They’re using a real SSN and real name of a real person who is gonna be really pissed the next time they pull their credit report.
I worked a DACA clinic once, and in the 4 hours I was there, the fraud involved was insane. DACA was not available to anybody who had used a fake (or stolen) SSN. The official policy of the clinic was to ignore identity theft unless egregious, because they wouldn’t have many applications otherwise.
So, you don’t believe that outlawing victimless actions results in reduced respect for the law. People will commit more crimes in order to not get busted for the crimes they already have committed. if you throw a huge punishment at them for something they feel is benign, they are doomed from the start. What’s a little identity theft if you’re going to prison anyway?
People respond to incentives, period. The same applies to over charging/punishing real crimes. If a rapist is going to get 5 life sentences anyway, he’s gonna be more likely to kill his victim to avoid capture. What are you gonna do, give him 6?
So, you don’t believe that outlawing victimless actions results in reduced respect for the law
No, I believe that a heroin addict is still a heroin addict whether or not they can get their smack from a vending machine.
I don’t believe in gateway crimes.
Wait a minute – are you telling me that an additional year in prison for “bringing a firearm on school property” is NOT going to deter someone who is intent on killing dozens of children and then committing suicide?
So Poles, Swedes, Vietnamese, whatever… are rascist for wanting to live in their own country with their own people and culture?
(Being Sinhalese isn’t all that bad. Better than at least half rhe world)
Is it not the borders then, that are the problem? We used to drive over the border at I’ntl Falls, go to the beer store and come back with a case on LaBatt’s. Sure, there were border guards but they just waved us across in both directions. Now there are passports, fear that someone may have a few loose .22 shells in his/her pocket, how long are you gonna be gone, swipe the passport through the reader, etc. I returned twice from fishing tips about a month a part, on the US side they were fully aware that I’d been across recently and wanted to know all the pertinent whys.
If there was no border between here and Mexico could not cash flow both ways? People ? Jobs? Its only after the line gets drawn that problems result.
I disagree. The reasons for crossing the border needs to be taken into account. Driving to Canada to buy beer and then go home is very different than coming to America and staying because other people will financially support you. Thinking that that is okay and the border itself is the problem doesn’t sound very Libertarian to me unless you remove the financial incentives to come here in the first place. Coming across the border does not entitle you to my money.
But had my intention been to provide something of value to a willing buyer, i.e. an employer, then all would have been well? For example, I have a Bobcat on the back of my truck, I am willing to make a road into a lake on the owner’s property for Canadian currency but because I am not of Canadian descent I’m shouldn’t be allowed to do that?
Then I can’t pay a hooker in Mexico? Willing buyer, willing seller. The American welfare users easily cross borders between Illinois and Minnesota now. The welfare incentives are caused by the government. Like Don of TX, I want to work where someone is willing to hire me, whether its Mexico or Canada.
It is perfectly legal to travel back and forth between the three countries. Tens of thousands of people do it every day. It’s just not as easy as it used to be. And it’s also legal to do business.
A sovereign country has a right to know who’s coming in and to keep out those that it doesn’t want coming in. Where it breaks down is those in a position to make those decisions are no longer listening to the people that have them the power to do so.
Eliminating borders is a recipe for anarchy and chaos.
I’ve been jacked by the Canadian Border Nazis twice. They didn’t find anything and eventually let me in, but they ripped my luggage apart and detained me for hours first. Fuck them. And this was pre- 911 paranoia, to boot.
Happened to me once, too. They unloaded my truck, checked the luggage. 4 old guys about 70 plus with a lot of fishin’ equipment and a pocketful of money to pay the outfitter. Left all the gear on the ground. Had to throw potatoes into a bin once as contraband. Must have been trained by Homeland Security
Compare nativism to my position: I’m completely satisfied with the people who are already here regardless of origin, even if they arrived illegally.
But I’m done; it’s enough new people. I’m totally happy to share what we own together with the stockholders today . . . just don’t dilute the stock.
Dave Rubin & Jordan Peterson discuss important Internet policy. We need to pay attention.
Hey, BP I answered (or tried to) your woodworking question from the last thread, let me know if you want any more.
Hyp – saw that. and thanks, I doubt I have the stones to follow through (I wanted to make basses & guitars) so your input was very helpful
Ha, one of my oldest unfinished projects is a Bass, let me know if you tackle it I’ll send you any parts I can find, I think there’s a box of tuning pegs and fret wire around here.
Scary times.
Interesting article by Rod Dreher on the Spanish Civil War and comparing it to the state of the US today.
Long article. Unfortunately, I agree with a lot of what he says. Hopefully, there is a way to dial back the passions and the divisions in this country without going to a civil war like Spain did.
That was far worse than I knew, long read but compelling
Mahalo. That was an interesting read.
In the “olden days” of pre intertubz that wouldn’t have been considered a long read. Today, to most younguns’ it was akin to asking them to read the entire encyclopedia.
Just a thought about other consequences of mass immigration. So, when countries like Honduras and El Salvador are emptied of most of their population, what happens to those countries? Do they just become new Somalias? I mean libertarian paradises? It doesn’t seem that they are on their way to solving all their issues when everyone has just given up and walked away.
The new boat people of Venezuela will be headed for Miami. They may not be welcomed with open arms by the last refugees. A refugee problem has been created there and is quickly becoming a new Somalia.
Two good -at least interesting — bowl games. Kentucky and Penn State are going down to the wire with Penn State having a chance to win it with 5 minutes left after being down 20 points.
The other game is between LSU and UCF. While the game is not completely out of reach at this point, LSU is physically dominating the game. At least 3 ejections, one for a punch and two for targeting (one I kind of disagree with).
This bowl season has sucked. Not very many close games. I was happy to see Penn st come back and make it a game.
Typical Penn State under Franklin – suck in the first half against a team you should easily beat, then rally (or try to) in the second half. They really miss Saquon Barkley and the hype about McSorley being the best PSU quarterback ever is strictly hype.
To be fair, I think he was playing on a torn ligament
Even in losing, UCF proves they belong.
They’re not figurative national champions, but the offices in Birmingham need to consider why they haven’t extended a membership invitation to the largest school in the country. They play big boy pointyball. The SEC should open the wide gate in their tall wall to the folk in Orlando.
They would’ve been a better pickup than Mizzou during their last expansion.
So here’s a discussion I got into over the weekend: UCF should’ve taken Notre Dame’s place against Clemson. I wasn’t necessarily sold on it, although I firmly believe Notre Dame is overrated as hell, but I think it’s a defensible position. UCF is consistently competitive, they should be playing with the big boys.
UCF should’ve taken Notre Dame’s place
My understanding is that the committee is charged with selecting the four best teams at the moment. The problem there is that UCF has never by any model (that I know of) been in the top four in any week ever in the history of football (not attacking anyone, just being very demonstrative in reporting using all the data I can find). The most generous evaluation had UCF as ninth (extremely respectable!) in their recent-games trending model, which predicted a push against LSU, who today bested them by eight.
There are other ways of rationalizing the nominations, but it’s important to remember that several oxen get gored every year no matter the model. What UCF doesn’t want to hear is that LSU is probably the fourth best three-loss team, and they’re still better than them (UCF).
I’m completely comfy acknowledging this even when it advertise’s my own schools’ weaknesses. A few times I’ve posted here lists of the 12 most over-rated teams. It’s shooting fish in a barrel because the ratings are passionate, spastic notions, and exaggerated team ratings exist most weeks; the wildest swings are the most often to be wrong.
The fourth team was never the question for me; Georgia was the third best team in the country most of the year, conference titles and loyalties notwithstanding.
There are other ways of rationalizing the nominations, but it’s important to remember that several oxen get gored every year no matter the model.
Which is why the MBB tourney expanded to 68 teams a few years back. 64 just wasnt enough, and good teams were being left out. (Please read the last sentence as dripping with sarcasm)
The model should dictate the process. If the model is conference focused, then the conference championship should matter and there shouldn’t be major conference champions being left out. If getting the 4 best teams is the model, then thing like strength of schedule and margin of victory should be at the forefront of the discussion.
As a deep math guy, I don’t even care about a playoff at all; we can anoint the champion with no post-season whatsoever.
I usually explain it something like this: if we model Bama as a coin that comes up heads 95% of the time, extending the season that they have already won by any measure to two more flips just penalizes them with two more chances to come up tails.
Bama came up heads 13 times in a row already. So did Clemson; models say they’re two points weaker, but this is not in the model: does anyone lay out of the championship game to protect their pro interests? That and chance.
I’ll watch, but, in my heart, I already voted Bama.
My family is a Bama family, but my aunt went to Clemson.
I put a hunge on Bama to cover. Roll damn tide.
The score is somewhat misleading, LSU completely dominated UCF. They out gained them by 300 yards. They had the ball almost 45 minutes out of a 60 minute game. A pick 6 and a fumble near the LSU endzone kept the score closer than the game really was.
of course
More with the coin flip analogy: UCF hit before the half on an deep, absolutely epic post. That’s to their credit, but if that play (that particular coin) is flipped ten times, it doesn’t come up heads for UCF even twice. Talent and execution happened there for which they deserve full credit, but it’s not a well you can draw at all day against the best teams in the game.
80% of a game is mostly O-line and quarterback. The rest is just turnovers, other freaks, and how a pointy ball bounces.
Well the argument was based on strength of schedule, and largely on the basis of Notre Dame’s independent status allowing them to tailor-make schedules in ways that conference teams like UCF can’t. UCF’s strength of schedule will always be butt simply because the AAC isn’t very strong, but Notre Dame is free to play as many “good” teams as they want to.
There’s no perfect way to do it, though, for sure, and however it gets done someone’s gonna get upset. As I recall didn’t Alabama get into the playoffs with a loss over another undefeated team a couple years back on a dubious strength of schedule argument?
I can be an extremely hospitable host. Really, I can, but only if you knock on the door and present yourself properly. If you dont, if you break in my house, prepare to have your ass filled with buckshot. I dont give a fuck about your freedom of movement. This is my house. I make the rules.
I feel the exact same way. Immigration law is made by the Gov., however. The same one that makes tax law, drug laws, the whole fucking federal register. They don’t suddenly develop a sense of decency and fairness when this issue comes up. If i was in charge of these laws, I would be confident that “illegal” meant illegal. As it stand now, I flatly don’t.
They don’t suddenly develop a sense of decency and fairness when this issue comes up.
I guess I don’t see the same moral issue that exists for vice laws and tax laws. To me, there’s an illegitimacy in the vice and tax laws that doesn’t exist in immigration law.
A property owner has the right to determine who is and isn’t allowed on their property. This is true of individuals, corporations, families, and governments.
We can talk about the legitimacy of public land, but that’s a wholly separate conversation. The concept of Immigration presupposes the legitimacy of public land.
The concept of Immigration presupposes the legitimacy of public land.
Is this correct? I think the ideal implied is that if all land is private, then anyone can go anywhere so long as he pays at each fence; national borders are rendered moot.
Then I’m envisioning hordes making runs on each property; then the small holders group up and hire enough guns to secure their confederated fiefdoms. The hordes then flank the strong and overrun the weak (just as I confess my people have been doing for centuries; the whole scheme is basically Genghis Khan writ small, Comanches I guess).
So in others words, the cycle of humanity over the millennia.
Sounds like you just described the theoretical establishment of the state. One of the theories, at least.
Is this correct? I think the ideal implied is that if all land is private, then anyone can go anywhere so long as he pays at each fence; national borders are rendered moot.
I think we’re saying the same thing. If it’s all private land, I’m not sure that the term immigration has any real meaning.
Anyway, in my initial comment, I was trying to rebut the argument from some open borders types that their belief in the immorality of public land justifies their position in favor of subverting current immigration laws.
If it’s all private land, I’m not sure that the term immigration has any real meaning.
That makes sense: that’s clearly what you meant but it went right past me.
I’ve never pretended to be a clear writer ?
yes: both
My argument has never been racial or political: it’s just that the natural state and urges of man are so, and to this extent I’ve thought my ideas were in harmony with some sort of libertarian, economic reality.
The excoriations drawn have put lots of words in my mouth, which I take as panic; I hoped for clear arguments but all happily avoided addressing my basic premise. . . just emotional stuff, which has value but is not the point. Some replies traveled closely to or implied redistribution: how else to resolve the problem of the shitlord who, with his friends, has no interest in sharing his stuff with you. That’s really it: either the state and property rights are both things that are aligned and defined relative to one another, or everyone’s stuff is up for infringement and redistribution (or, lastly, might makes right). If some other answers exist, I’ve waited all afternoon for someone to tap them out.
I’m all in favor of making the legal process much easier which would help reduce the incentives for illegal immigration. My wife is from Slovakia, but we had to apply for her green card in Prague, because the embassy in Bratislava didn’t handle immigration. Vienna would have been much more convenient, but no, we had to go to Prague. When we got to Prague, suddenly the requirements were different than what I was told over the phone, so we’d have to make at least one more trip to Prague, requiring an overnight stay. In fairness, it’s possible that I wasn’t listening to the requirements as closely as I should have, and the error could have been on my side. Nevertheless, each visit to the embassy was an expensive, time-consuming undertaking, and ours was a fairly simple case because we had been married for about a year and already had a son. It got to the point where I suggested flying to Tijuana, sneaking across the border, and waiting for amnesty.
Similarly when our Mexican neighbors apply for visas for their parents, the parents have to travel to Juarez, which is about 1000 miles from their home, and if you are in the shoes of an immigrant, if you are going to travel that far, you might as well just come illegally.
I think that any immigration reform needs to update itself from the current Cold War perspective. One thing that I would drastically curtail is “chain migration”. A permanent resident upon being granted citizenship should be able to sponsor in a spouse and their minor children. Full stop. What about parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and grandparents? Nope. You can visit in person or on Skype. Or the relatives can apply for their own residence visas based on their own qualifications.
This is no longer a world with paper based communication, bipolar power structure, huge numbers of closed borders, and difficult transportation. Those unfortunate conditions led to a fortunate outcome. When you left the old country it was for good and you had to become American because the only mode was the “American stew” and not the “American salad”. The remaining part of my family in Italy held a wake for my great parents and grandfather when they left. When my Swedish/Norwegian grandmother left her remaining family (including siblings) spoke of her as dead for almost 50 years. Today communication is instant which is good for individuals, but it also means chain migration is not required to maintain family ties.
I would also move to speed admissions to those Iraqis and Afghans who were promised “green cards” for extended honorable employment supporting US Forces in those two wars. Many were killed, targeted especially for working for us. Many times their contributions were critical and they always involved risk for them and their families. It was a condition of employment extended by the USG that they met and the USG should honor. The Obama administration slow rolled this for eight years to their discredit.
As mentioned above the huge (and unknown) number of illegal aliens remains another huge bone of contention for immigration reform. The vast majority are hard workers who are trying to better their lives. But they knowingly and willingly did take actions which are illegal and screwed up the system for those trying to legally immigrate. They are in part the reason that ICE is so fucked up today. I don’t know any method to remove them en masse that would not endanger US citizens rights, so mass deportation is off the table. I also see no reason to reward criminality with one of the world’s most valuable documents, a US passport. I propose that a window be provided for those with a long established presence within the country (7-10 years?) to turn themselves in, admit guilt in a court, pass a background check and receive a large fine that is designed to hurt. In return those who pay said fine and pass the background check would receive normalization papers with no path to citizenship. They could legally remain and work on the US as long as they commit no felonies. This status precludes receiving any remaining “social assistance/welfare/SNAP etc.” payments directly or indirectly from tax dollars. Private or family charity is not impacted. If they wish to become citizens, they can return to their home country and apply on their own merits since chain migration would not be an option. If they don’t turn themselves in during the window, then the deal is off and they remain eligible for deportation. If they turn themselves in and do have felonies they should be provided a speedy appeal, but if they lose they are gone.
Another part of the law should explicitly include a prohibition that from the signing date that birth on US soil confers no US citizenship for children of illegal aliens. If you have one US parent, welcome, you are part of the family. If you were born on US soil without US citizens parents prior to the signing of the law, the current awarding of citizenship applies. This shows an undeserved mercy from a gracious nation. Will the provision be challenged to the US Supreme Court? Of course, and that is the intent. Make the Nazgul directly rule on the meaning and intent of the 14th Amendment. If the provision loses, then the American people can debate whether or not they wish to amend the Constitution accordingly.
I am not sure what to do about Obama’s DACA abortion. I am open to studying various proposals, except for one. One current proposal is citizenship for DACAs if you go to college or serve in the military. The military I understand. We have a long tradition of providing citizenship who have honorably served in uniform for they willingness to accept the possibility of death for the US. I’m good there. I actually served with some of the last “Lodge Act” Soldiers and they were more American than most US citizens. The college option? Nope. It is not a sacrifice to the US and requires no citizenship in return for doing something that should (ideally) benefit the individual. Plus we should be seeking how to remove entire professions from the vice of academic credentialism and government driven non-dischargable student debt. (Entire generations of Americans will thank us for succeeding in this effort.)
I agree with the general idea of “tall walls and wide gates” for an immigration policy. Our country is better off because of migration and the next person with a terrific idea that will improve all our lives may seek entrance from anywhere. We have no way of knowing where they are. But as a nation we get to define who gets to join us, not the UN, not extra-US open borders proponents and not the EU. Listening to the UN or EU is crazy since they have fucked up this issue up everywhere they have touched. I know I won the “life lotto” by being born in the US and not a shithole nation. But unlike a leftie, I don’t seek to try and mitigate any self generated guilt over winning “life lotto” by forcing my fellow citizens to accept those who they wouldn’t otherwise grant admission.
“ the relatives can apply for their own residence visas based on their own qualifications.”
Amen, bro.
And the rest of your statements here. I agree fully.
In the past, immigration was sufficiently difficult that it naturally filtered out nerdowells because they’d never have made it on their own, and they certainly couldn’t expect handouts.
Nowadays we have “charities” rounding up Somalis and stuffing them together into ghettos of other Somalians. Not a melting pot formula.
An interesting and unknown bit of information over the early 20th Century migration is that ~25-30% gave up on the US and returned to their countries of origin.
My family is a case in point. My great granfather’s oldest brother was the first sent to establish roots in the US. When war broke out he returned to “fight for his country” and died his second day at the Tyrol Front. After the war my great grandfather was already married and so was another brother. The brother won the choice and took his family to Argentina, my great grandfather and his two eldest sons ended up in Kenosha. After making enough money and getting established he sent $$ back to Italy to get his wife and daughter. Great grandmom was less than enthused so he returned to Italy and got them shortly before the Great Depression. (Family lore is that he had to physically throw her over his shoulder to get her out of the family house.)
The plan to bring more family in was quashed by the change in US law, the Depression and the rise of Mussolini. Hence I can still visit removed cousins in the family village.
My prescription
1) Open up temporary work visas (and general immigrant visas- the current green lottery for non-connected immigrants is a joke that encourages illegal immigration). These can’t be applied for in this country. Illegals can self deport themselves within the next 3 years, without penalty and apply either in their own country or a third country, just not here. Illegals after that point will receive expedited deportation and not be eligible for such visas.
2) DACA and underage illegals must self deport within 18 months of turning 18. After that, same penalties. So sorry your parents brought you here illegally but after 18, you’re an adult and continuing to reside illegally here is your own responsibility and actions.
3) No public benefits for illegals, limited benefits for legal immigrants.
4) criminal penalties enforced against state and local government employees and officials who illegally continue to aid illegals with both benefits and against being lawfully deported. No more sanctuary states/cities.
Personally, I don’t think automatic citizenship for births here is a problem overall. The flip side of ending it is you potentially end up with a growing population that will never be citizens, such is many parts of the world,, no matter how long their families have been there.
The only thing I may quibble with is #2.
I think that underage illegals should be able to get some sort of relief. I think the amount of relief should depend on when they immigrated and their age at application for relief.
I’m envisioning something where a 10 year old who has been here since they were an infant would get maybe something equivalent to an F-1 Visa and a 19 year old who immigrated at 17 gets a swift kick back across the border.
That would be a good (as much as I hate this word) compromise.
If anyone watches the “Don’t Walk, Run! Productions” channel on YouTube, the guy brought up a good point about children who are brought here as babies and sent “back” to some country that they don’t know at all: It’s a result of not enforcing immigration laws in the first place. People came here illegally, brought small children with them knowing that they wouldn’t have citizenship, and expected to just stay forever. The whole moral dilemma could have been avoided if they had been deported and told to come through legally.
Re your last point. That is why I propose stopping birthright citizenship with the proposal and grandfathering in all the before. It should minimize the number of floating non-citizens in the future.
immigration reform needs to update itself from the current Cold War perspective
Excellent point, as does our entire defense posture. It is absurd that we have combatant commands over wide swaths of territory wherein we are not at war. Can you imagine the ruckus we would raise if China decided to stand up an Americas Command? Goddam Goldwater-Nichols is the justification for the bloat in the GO ranks.
It’s all good as long as we keep them spics out.
http://archive.li/EvZ3g
(this is about the only place I could say that and not get crucified)
Then who’s gonna mow my lawn?
9.
Giddy up 5
I’d be happy to sponsor 10, 15, 20, 27, 32 for H1-B visas. 1 can come too under the freckle exemption.
Well, I’ve already said some less-than-popular things about immigration in this thread, so I may as well continue.
I don’t give a shit about the melting pot theory. I think that Somalis can populate their own enclaves and communities just as much as the Amish can. How do you keep the predominant culture from being overrun? But putting numerical limits on immigration, by importing people who will likely be industrious, and by importing from a wide variety of source cultures instead of importing en masse from a single source culture.
The issue is that the Progressive Era stripped away a lot of the process that “gummed up the works” of government and allowed populist movements to come and go without outsized impact on the long term governance of the nation. With those protections gone, it’s now advantageous to the left to import the immigrants least likely to succeed through the back door.
You’ll hear no arguments from me, I think I agree wth your position entirely.
I think you pretty much covered the consequentialist argument here and the deontological one up thread. The more I think about it I’m not really sure if I’m willing to recognize ‘freedom of movement’ as a natural right. Voluntary freedom of moment is fine. I do not see a case for non-voluntary freedom of movement that does not come directly into conflict with private property rights.
Yeah, I don’t think I have much of an argument against a consequentialist point of view. I am not a consequentialist, so it is kind of moot to me.
I would argue against the idea that the government has a place in immigration though. Granting that a government exists, it’s purpose should be restrained to the protection of individual rights. No one’s rights are abridged when someone comes to this country, no one is harmed, and thus there is no place for government there. Freedom of movement is more a restriction on what the government can do to you, rather than some right that supercedes others, as some here seem to be interpreting it.
I would argue against the idea that the government has a place in immigration though.
As discussed in another thread, immigration is a meaningless concept without government. If the government has no business in immigration, then the government has no business owning public lands. We cant have our cake and eat it too by letting the government overreach by owning land, but hamstringing it from actually controlling the land it owns.
No one’s rights are abridged when someone comes to this country, no one is harmed, and thus there is no place for government there.
I think the infringement is small, but it’s there. If we shrink the scope down smaller, we can see the infringement of rights. Let’s say that there are three lots in my neighborhood. One is owned by me. One is owned by my neighbor. The third is owned by the HOA for the enjoyment of the two of us and for demarcating the neighborhood from other neighborhoods. We set up a playground, a swimming pool, and a fridge stocked with snacks in the common land. We split the costs of upkeep. We also post a sign with rules for entry for visitors and put up a fence around the common area.
If people from the next neighborhood over start hopping the fence, swimming in the pool, and eating the food out of the fridge, that certainly seems like a violation of a property right. Even if they were to leave an envelope with cash every time they hop the fence, it still seems like a trespass.
Increase the scope to 320M people and the principle doesn’t change.
Probably dead but whatever. That pretty much illustrates my position. Public land is collectively (spits) owned for better or worse. (Unless you want to take the view that the government owns it). So when someone uninvited comes onto it or makes use of it they are violating property rights albeit very removed from the individual shareholder. They have no right to the roads, infrastructure and services our tax dollars paid for. Therefore, as long as public lands and property exist and as long as governments exists, it’s within the purview of government to protect the interests and shared assets of it’s citizens.
I’ve been kicking around the idea of a “buy-in” system of immigration. You want to live here, fine, pay the fee, pass the background check and demonstrate how you will make a living (not on the dole). It’s essentially like buying into a HOA like Trashy mentions above.
I told Pie all would be welcome to my instant citizen program: a) buy an acre and b) pay two Californians who believe in open borders to move to France and you’re in!
“those Iraqis and Afghans who were promised “green cards””
It took 10 years after Viet Nam fell for the CIA (US Gov) to admit that many, many Cambodians/Laotians were given that same promise and some were allowed to immigrate. St Paul has the largest Hmong population of any city outside of the Laos. Been a tough row to hoe for many and many of the older generation have had a hard time adapting and still rely on welfare.
Can only hope we do better with Afghans/Iraqis. Its a problem with military adventures.
My only comment to this thread is that the girl on the left in the photo (blue dress) looks identical to Daughter #1.