Monday 3 May 2010

Just a bigoted state [update 4]

The only honest line British Prime-Minister-in-absentia Gordon Brown has ever been heard to utter  came last week when he told aides that a women who had just taken the opportunity to confide in him about the evils of Eastern-European immigrants was “just a bigoted woman.”

And so she was.

Cross the Atlantic now to Arizona, where a bigoted state now requires everyone to carry around their birth certificate, just so they aren’t mistaken for someone who’s living and working in the state without big-government’s blessing.

If Gordon Brown’s apology for his momentary rush of honesty was the shot heard still being heard around the British electorate, then Arizona’s attack on personal liberty is the shot against individual freedom that’s being heard right around the world.  It’s a reminder that it’s not just the left side of the aisle that are big-government bullies--and a reminder too that neither side has a monopoly on taking advantage of those stateless souls who leave their homes in search of a better life.Cartoon by Henry PayneJust so we’re clear, This Is What Arizona Republicans Want America to Be Like—a place where people of a certain race can be arrested dragged off to jail at the whim of a policeman for the crime of not carrying their papers.  Only Godwin’s Law precludes me from pointing out a particular police state of which that might remind you.

The police-state crackdown is bad enough.  But what it’s demonstrated all too clearly is that for many people apparently committed to individual liberty and small government are anything but.  Scratch the surface of too many small-government conservatives, and what you find there is nothing more than stinking, ill-informed authoritarian racism.  (Just one reason I’ve taken the likes of Andrew Bolt off my blog roll).

I say ill-informed, because it’s the only possible defence people like Bolt might have for being bigoted men and women themselves.

Because the facts confound the bigots. The fact is that in a free society, more people are a boon, not a burden.

That as author Robert Heinlein suggested, successful immigrants demonstrate just by their choice and gumption in choosing a new life that they are worthy of respect.

And as James Kilbourne says, “God damn you if the only two words you can find to put together when talking about people who leave their homelands to seek a better life for themselves and their families are ‘illegal aliens.’”

The fact is—and let me say it again just to stress the point—that in a free society, more people are a boon, not a burden. You think that’s hyperbole?  Well, it’s not.  Look at the American experience—the country’s wealth was built upon open immigration—on the melting pot that was the result of the open immigration of the nineteenth-century. But even in more oppressive times of today, the facts are clear that that the freer the country, the more immigration is a boon for everybody—and that immigrants themselves are overwhelmingly more productive and better behaved than most of the bigots are.

Just consider the litany of facts the bigots need to contend with regarding American immigration:


  • The runaround needed to immigrate legally to the US is one prime reason so many do it illegally.
  • 'Illegals' are not milking the government; if anything it is the other way around. The National Research Council found for example that most immigrant families "contribute an average of $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume over their lifetimes."
  • Immigrants generally earn more than they receive.
  • More than 60% of illegal immigrants pay income tax, and two-thirds kick in to Social Security (and most get nothing back).
  • Immigrants help sustain economic growth and cultural dynamism.
  • Immigrants "are generally less involved in crime than similarly situated groups," and crime rates in border towns "are lower than those of comparable non-border cities."
  • Crime rates in the highest-immigration states have been trending significantly downward.
  • Even economists who favour restrictive immigration policies admit low-skilled immigrants are a net plus to the economy.
  • Unemployment is low and crime is down everywhere, especially in places teeming with immigrants.
  • Immigration gives you the benefits of geniuses who were born elsewhere. Google, Yahoo! and Sun Microsystems were all founded by immigrants.
  • Immigrants are more likely than 'natives' to be self-employed.
  • Immigrants tend to create their own work -- when they're allowed to.
  • The power and reach of Spanish-language media in L.A. for example shows supply of productive people creating its own demand.
  • Immigrant labour makes work easier for all of us, and brings new skills to the table.
  • Immigrants and low-skilled American workers fill very different roles in the economy.
  • Immigrant labour makes all businesses easier to start, thus spurring 'native' creativity.
  • "Some argue that we should employ a more restrictive policy that allows in only immigrants with 'needed' skills. But this assumes the government can read economic tea leaves." - Tyler Cowen and Daniel M. Rothschild
  • New arrivals, by producing more goods and services, keep prices down across the economy -- the net gain to US from immigration is about $7 billion a year.
  • There's no reason that the North American Free Trade Agreement (or NZ's own free trade agreements) shouldn't apply equally to people as to widgets.
  • Even in the halls of Congress, economic arguments against immigration are losing their aura of truthfulness, so pro-enforcement types are focussing on “national security.”
  • "The only way to actually prevent terrorists from slipping in is to legalize as much 'illegal immigration' as possible. If one is looking for a needle in a haystack, as the saying goes, one has a hell of job. Finding that needle on a relatively clean floor, however, presents an achievable goal." - James Valliant
  • Immigration is good for the immigrants themselves. . . .
Those facts were extracted from the following articles, which provide whole magazines full of ammunition against the bigoted and the ill-informed:
And of course there are the two classic Harry Binswanger articles which are 'must-reads' for the moral and practical case behind open immigration (note, open immigration, not open borders.):
The fact is that there is neither fact nor right on the side of the bigots.  As George Reisman explains for America:
    “The philosophy of individual rights and capitalism implies that foreigners have a right to come and to live and work here, i.e., to immigrate into the United States. The land of the United States is owned by individuals and voluntary associations of individuals, such as private business firms. It is not owned by the United States government or by the American people acting as a collective; indeed many of the owners of land in the United States are not Americans, but foreign nationals, including foreign investors.     “The private owners of land have the right to use or sell or rent their land for any peaceful purpose. This includes employing immigrants and selling them food and clothing and all other goods, and selling or renting housing to them. If individual private landowners are willing to accept the presence of immigrants on their property as employees, customers, or tenants, that should be all that is required for the immigrants to be present. Anyone else who attempts to determine the presence of absence of immigrants is simply an interfering busybody ready to use a gun or club to impose his will.
The fact remains that the only possibly human objection that well-informed people might have to open immigration is that immigration is a drain on the Welfare State. That they object to being forced to pay for people they’ve never met. This much is understandable. (That is the dark truth at the heart of the whole Welfare State—far from offering charity, it sets man against men.)   Again, George Reisman makes the argument: in summary, that Immigration Plus Welfare State Equal Police State.
    “Illegal immigrants are overwhelming the resources of the Welfare State: government–funded hospital emergency rooms are filled with them; public schools are filled with their children. On the basis of such complaints, many people are angry and want to close the border to new illegal immigrants and deport those who are already here.     “They want to keep new illegal immigrants out with fences along the border. It is not clear whether the fences would contain intermittent watchtowers with searchlights and machine guns. The illegal immigrants who are already here would be ferreted out by threatening anyone who employed them with severe penalties and making it a criminal offense not to report them.     “This is a classic illustration of Mises’s principle that prior government intervention into the economic system breeds later intervention. Here the application of his principle is, start with the Welfare State, end with the Police State. A police state is what is required effectively to stop substantial illegal immigration that has become a major burden because of the Welfare State.”
And Tibor Machan makes a similar argument, that the biggest problem with the welfare state is not that it might lead to even greater control by government, but that in providing a pseudo-moral argument to treat other human beings like cattle, it habituates people to the sort of easy brutality seen now in Arizona, and in sundry other cases of inhumanity.

But far from being a reason to abandon open immigration, the problems that state-enforced welfare cause for open immigration are reason instead to abandon the short-lived anti-human experiment that is the Welfare State.
    “The philosophy of individual rights and capitalism implies that the immigrants do not have a right to be supported at public expense, which is a violation of the rights of the taxpayers. Of course, it is no less a violation of the rights of the taxpayers when native-born individuals are supported at public expense. The immigrants are singled out for criticism based on the allegation that they in particular are making the burden intolerable.
    “The implementation of the rights both of the immigrants and of the taxpayers requires the abolition of the Welfare State. Ending the Welfare State will end any problem of immigrants being a public burden.
    “Of course, ending the Welfare State is much easier said than done, and it is almost certainly not going to be eliminated even in order to avoid the environment of a police state.
     “But the burdens of the Welfare State and the consequent resentment against immigrants could at the very least be substantially reduced by means of some relatively simple, common-sense reforms in the direction of greater economic freedom. . . .”
And they could be reduced too by the simple and easily-introduced expedient of allowing existing citizens to sponsor and take financial and legal responsibility for new citizens.

But this would require a basic humanity that too many of the bigots seem to lack.

In the meantime then, you want an immediate solution to the 'problem of illegal immigration? Then here it is":
    “The problem of ‘illegal’ immigration can be solved at the stroke of a pen: legalize immigration. Screen all you want (though I want damn little), but remove the quotas. Phase them out over a 5- or 10-year period. Grant immediate, unconditional amnesty to all ‘illegal’ immigrants.”

There endeth the problem.

UPDATE 1:  More good anti-bigoted commentary here [hat tip Thrutch]:

  • THE NEW CLARION: The Rights of Man, the Privileges of Citizen
    This is the end-of-road for conservative anti-immigrationists:  the selective  degradation of the liberty to live in a particular place from a right to a “privilege”.  As a hostile commenter put it sarcastically…

        “Nothing says freedom from government interference like ‘show me your papers.’ Of course, limited government only applies to people who are real Americans, not to Mexicans.”

    Let us examine the conservatives’ trip down the anti-immigration road, and see how it ended there — and what it means for conservatism’s purported fealty to Americanism….
    Read on to see many more anti-immigration shibboleths summarily dispatched.

  •  PAJAMAS MEDIA: Treat the Cause, Not the Symptom: Welfare State Is Draw for Illegals
    While I commiserate with Arizona voters [says Gus Van Horn] public services are the problem, not ‘illegals.’
        …SB 1070 is wrong for Arizona for reasons far beyond civil rights issues.
        SB 1070 deserves only one fundamental criticism: It would fail to protect the individual rights of American citizens — even if it hermetically sealed our borders and the police never touched a single American hair in the process of enforcing it. This is because the biggest headaches attributed to illegal immigration are not caused by it at all…

UPDATE 2: I’m starting a list.  And in ‘tribute’ to Gordon, I’m calling it “Just Some Bigoted Arseholes.”

First on the list is Blair, for this . . .

To which you can add Silent Running, run by a New Zealand blogger advertising “strong right-wing views” on his banner, who thinks “Mexico is polluting us”; Cactus Kate, who has “sanctimonious” on her banner (and bigotry in her waters); and Crusader Rabbit, who has “liberty” on his banner, and black thoughts about Mexican crowds being “a target-rich environment” in his heart …

UPDATE 3:  Says an editorial in the Arizona Republic:

    “We need leaders.
    “The federal government is abdicating its duty on the border.
    “Arizona politicians are pandering to public fear.
    “The result is a state law that intimidates Latinos while doing nothing to curb illegal immigration.
This represents years of failure. Years of politicians taking the easy way and allowing the debate to descend into chaos…
    “Comprehensive [immigration] reform will make the border safer. When migrant labor is channeled through the legal ports of entry, the Border Patrol can focus on catching drug smugglers and other criminals instead of chasing busboys across the desert.
    “Real leaders will have the courage to say that.”

UPDATE 4: Reason magazine, whose superb 2006 issue on immigration was the source of many of those linked articles above, has four online articles on the current melee that deserve the attention of everyone not already blinded by bigotry:

  • Immigration Isn't the Problem, David Harsanyi, May 3, 2010
      “For the most part, the controversy we face isn't about immigration at all. It's about the systematic failure of federal government to enforce the law or offer rational policy. There's a difference…
      “The uplifting tale of the hard-boiled immigrant, dipping his or her sweaty hands into the well of the American dream, is one thing. Today we find ourselves in an unsustainable and rapidly growing welfare state. Can we afford to allow millions more to partake?
      “When Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economist Milton Friedman was asked about unlimited immigration in 1999, he stated that ‘it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both.’”
  • Mysteries of an Immigration Law, Steve Chapman, April 29, 2010
      “The worst-case scenario is that Hispanics will face possible police harassment anytime they venture out of the house. Not to worry, says Kris Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who helped draft the text.
      “He told The Washington Examiner that cops can ask for immigration information only when they have ‘lawful contact’ with someone—when ‘the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he's violated some other law.’
      “In fact, the law doesn't define the crucial term. One of the dictionary definitions of ‘contact’ is ‘immediate proximity,’ which suggests that anytime a possible illegal immigrant comes in sight of a cop, the cop has a legal duty to check her papers.”
  • How Immigration Crackdowns Backfire, Steve Chapman, April 22, 2010
      “It's no surprise that Arizonans resent the recent influx of unauthorized foreigners, some of them criminals. But there is less here than meets the eye.
      “The state has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants. But contrary to myth, they have not brought an epidemic of murder and mayhem with them. Surprise of surprises, the state has gotten safer.
      “Over the last decade, the violent crime rate has dropped by 19 percent, while property crime is down by 20 percent. Crime has also declined in the rest of the country, but not as fast as in Arizona…”
  • Don't Let Obama Touch Immigration Reform, Shikha Dalmia, April 13, 2010
    ”America's immigration system is badly broken and in desperate need of fixing. And that is precisely why President Barack Obama should not be allowed to touch it.”
  • Immigration & Crime, Steve Chapman, February 22, 2010
      “From listening to the more vigorous critics of illegal immigration, our porous borders are a grave threat to safety. Not only can foreign terrorists sneak in to target us, but the most vicious criminals are free to walk in and inflict their worst on innocent Americans.
      “In xenophobic circles, this prospect induces stark terror. Fox News' Glenn Beck has decried an ‘illegal immigrant crime wave.’ A contributor to Patrick Buchanan's website asserts, ‘Every day, in the United States, thousands of illegal aliens unleash a reign of terror on Americans.’
      “Sure they do. And I'm Penelope Cruz…
      “A 2007 report by the Immigration Policy Center noted that "for every ethnic group, without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated. This holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented population…
      “[Ron] Unz points out that in the five most heavily Hispanic cities in the country, violent crime is "10 percent below the national urban average and the homicide rate 40 percent lower." In Los Angeles, which is half Hispanic and easily accessible to those sneaking over the southern border, the murder rate has plummeted to levels unseen since the tranquil years of the early 1960s.
       “This is not really hard to understand. Today, as ever, most foreigners who make the sacrifice of leaving home and starting over in a strange land do so not to mug grandmothers or molest children, but to find work that will give them a better life. Coming here illegally does not alter that basic motivation.
      “In other words, they want to become full-fledged Americans, and they're succeeding. Is there something scary about that?”

Well, is there?

47 comments:

Blair said...

I have to strongly disagree, for numerous reasons:

1) It's not draconian to ask for ID. Everybody carries ID on them... except for illegals.
2) I think it's entirely reasonable to keep someone out of your country if they are a criminal in their own country, or have no tangible means of support in yours, such that they will need to either seek welfare, or conduct illegal activities to survive.

3) Defending your borders is one of the first and few roles of government. And if it ain't working, I don't care how liberal you think the immigration laws SHOULD be, you have to successfully enforce the ones that exist first.

Peter Cresswell said...

@Blair: I have to strongly disagree, for reasons already clearly stated in the post.

1) Well, yes it is. Take a look at video is you find plain words too f'ing abstract for you.

And God damn you if the only word you can find to talk about people who leave their homelands to seek a better life for themselves and their families is ‘illegals.'

2) This is a straw man with horse shit on it. A) Open immigration does not mean opening borders to criminals. (See 'Open Borders, Non; Open Immigration, Si.') B) 'Illegals' are not milking the government or taxpayers; if anything it is the other way around. The National Research Council found for example that most immigrant families "contribute an average of $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume over their lifetimes."

3) If you can't tell the difference between defending your borders against invading armies and defending them against peaceful people crossing them, then Lord help anyone near you when you're holding a gun.

Frankly, your knee-jerk comment looks like you can neither read nor think.

Anonymous said...

A wonderful post PC.

I have a personal story which backs up your points... members of my extended family who are in the boutique wine business have had to pack up and go back to the USA; mainly because of the cost of labour here. You have to pay $15 per hour to get people to pick grapes for crying out loud, and by the time your product is in the bottle you have priced yourself off the NZ market by a significant margin. Heaps of small vineyard owners are going bankrupt here for this reason alone.

Back in California the family always employed illegal immigrants, and cannot speak highly enough of them. They work hard, and you don't have to pay them above what the market will support. So they are packing up and going back there.

Sorry to say this, but I think it is overwhelmingly the white trash/trailer park demographic who hate on illegals trying to better their lives.

Anonymous said...

PC, you quote "That as author Robert Heinlein suggested, successful immigrants demonstrate just by their choice and gumption in choosing a new life that they are worthy of respect"
All things being equal this would be so.
This does not seem to be so for the endless numbers of boat people heading into Australia. Why do they not head for closer and easier to reach countries such as China. Well Australia has such a generous welfare state compared to that of China, why would you pick China over Australia??

David

Peter Cresswell said...

@David: "Endless number"? You are talking, if I may quote the link to which I invite you to go, "pig ignorant bullshit."

Cactus Kate said...

As a foreigner in my home state of Hong Kong I am required to carry far worse than that - I have to carry a government issued HK ID card with my personal data on its microchip. That would blow your libertarian mind PC.

The Government is kind enough to even pay for its issue as it is compulsory.

The only people who object to this are people who shouldn't be here - mainlanders and overstaying domestic helpers.

I have been stopped several times as a token white woman (to prevent Libertarians cries of racial profiling) by the constabulary and asked for ID. While irritating and often humourous I can see their point given like Arizona, if we opened the border to China millions of Mainlanders would flood HK.

Like Blair is in his new home this is not the place where I was born, but I can completely see the logic behind the exercise and therefore do not have a knee jerk reaction to it being wrong.

I am also used in the USA as a single white non-American woman travelling alone by authorities frequently at airports to avoid accusations of racial profiling (the "SSSS" on the boarding card). Again, irritating, but again a necessary evil in an otherwise evil world we live in.

Blair said...

Sticks and stones.

Asking for ID is legitimate to prevent people from lying about who they are, which is fraud. Prove you are who you say you are. How else do you describe someone who breaks the law by being somewhere they shouldn't be? "Illegal" is just fine.

And it doesn't matter if you are illegally crossing a border for for all the most wonderful noble reasons in the world. Some people will not be. Which makes the new law in Arizona not only legitimate, but it should be de rigeur for any state. How else do you stop criminals or bludgers from coming into your country? Other than questioning them, asking for ID, then sending them back when they don't have it?

It's a basic principle of property rights that people are only on your property AT YOUR INVITATION. An uninvited guest may want to bring you flowers, they may be there to tell you you've won the lottery, they may even decide to mow your lawn just because it's a neighbourly thing to do. Maybe you even think that anybody should come onto your property if they want. But in the case of a nation, that is why we elect governments. And this is not a debate about who should or shouldn't be let in to the United States. This is a debate about whether the law should be enforced. So lets enforce it, because even under the most libertarian government there will still be such a thing as illegal immigration. Why not enforce the law?

James Stephenson said...

I don't disagree on the whole but I do think that there is a distinction to be drawn between someone complaining about the _fact_ of immigration and complaining about the _effects_ of the rate of immigration.

Peter Cresswell said...

@Blair: Once again, Blair, your knee-jerk reply looks like you can neither read nor think.

Because answers to your bleating are already provided.

1)Arizona is not "your property." You have no more right to tell anyone in Arizona whom to emply, or whom to invite into their homes or workplaces than a chimpanzee.

Read again, if you can read: “The philosophy of individual rights and capitalism implies that foreigners have a right to come and to live and work here, i.e., to immigrate into the United States. The land of the United States is owned by individuals and voluntary associations of individuals, such as private business firms. It is not owned by the United States government or by the American people acting as a collective.... “The private owners of land have the right to use or sell or rent their land for any peaceful purpose. This includes employing immigrants and selling them food and clothing and all other goods, and selling or renting housing to them. If individual private landowners are willing to accept the presence of immigrants on their property as employees, customers, or tenants, that should be all that is required for the immigrants to be present. Anyone else who attempts to determine the presence of absence of immigrants is simply an interfering busybody ready to use a gun or club to impose his will."

The last sentence describnes you perfectly, doesn't it.
20

2) "Asking for ID is legitimate to prevent people from lying about who they are." Because nothing says freedom from government interference like ‘show me your papers,’ does it.

3) "This is not a debate about who should or shouldn't be let in to the United States." Well, yes it is. If you really think it isn't, then you really are dumber than a bag full of rocks. Which is what your comments lead me to think, quite frankly.

Peter Cresswell said...

@James: Perhaps you could make the distinction a little clearer, James, because it's not so obvious to me.

Peter Cresswell said...

@Cactus: A necessary evil? No.

Frankly, you and Blair sound like someone who's got their cream, and who now wants to make sure no-one else can.

"People who shouldn't be here..." What a disgustingly totalitarian way to talk about other human beings.

To paraphrase another comment from the post, the biggest problem with the anti-freedom measures already adopted in the name of this anti-human, antit-immigration vice, is not that it might lead to even greater control by government, but that in providing a pseudo-moral argument to treat other human beings like cattle, it habituates people to the sort of easy brutality seen now in Arizona, and in Hong Kong.

And your applause and apologies for it disgust me.

Blair said...

Peter, your increasing vitriol and abuse as a replacement for sound argument shows me that you are backed into a corner on this.

The role of government is firstly to protect the border.

Do you think criminals should cross that border?

Do you think those with no means of support, who can only find support by seeking welfare or engaging in criminal activity, should cross that border?

If you say yes then it is you sir, who are dumber than a bag full of rocks. This is what we have governments for. It's the whole point.

And if we keep other people with better intentions out, then I would rather err on the side of caution. They can wait in the queue at the consulate like I did.

You are correct that it is not my decision. But neither is it yours. It is for the people of Arizona and their elected government. And they have decided. And they are correct in that decision - to decide, as owners of the property of their state, whom should be let in - ie. people who are legally entitled to be there according to Federal law.

Blair said...

Furthermore - it is a simple matter if any individual property owner wishes to import labour - sponsor them for a legitimate green card. Individuals actually do decide who gets let in to the United States, and that is how it is done.

James Stephenson said...

@PC - perhaps this post by Devil's Kitchen will clarify better than attempting to frame my own words:

http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/04/immigrants-and-social-contract.html

Peter Cresswell said...

@Blair: My vitriol is a measure of my contempt for your justifications for bigotry.

Justifications for which are already debunked in the post, and the links provided in the post.

"it is a simple matter if any individual property owner wishes to import labour - sponsor them for a legitimate green card"

Yes, but it's not so simple. Read 'Stand in Line & Wait.'

"The role of government is firstly to protect the border.
Do you think criminals should cross that border?"

Read 'Open Immigration, Si! Open Borders, Non.'

"
You are correct that it is not my decision. But neither is it yours. It is for the people of Arizona and their elected government."

No, it's not. Arizonans don't won Arizona. They only own what they own. Read Reisman again, and 'The Rights of Man & the Privilieges of Citizens.'

Now may I invite you once again either to read and rebut those sources, or to take your now oft-repeated bigotry elsewhere.

Peter Cresswell said...

@James: As long as the welfare state exists, I'd have no problem with that as a transitional measure.

And hasn't the Devil's Kitchen become so much better since the Devil married an immigrant. :)

Cactus Kate said...

Peter

I am in Hong Kong at the kind invitation not of the HK people but of their Labour Department,a government department where they judge under criteria that it is beneficial to their SAR that I am here.

If I wasn't I have a right to be in Hong Kong for 90 days at a time as a visitor under their law, but not to work or stay.

Annually I have to apply to stay and work here. Just as you do if you go to any other country where you have no automatic right to live.

With your bombastic shrillings about liberty and freedom of movement I am surprised you bother with a passport, you seem to think that arguments cloaked in Libertarianism and capitalism gives you the right to work and stay where you like in another country.

As for this "The philosophy of individual rights and capitalism implies that foreigners have a right to come and to live and work here, i.e., to immigrate into the United States".

It doesn't imply anything as is not an automatic right, you have to apply before gaining that right and be chosen by that country as suitable to live and work there.

Foreigners arriving in Arizona can come, but as legal immigrants who have the paperwork to prove they are allowed to work and stay there.

The entire debate has been hijacked by the powerful Hispanic movement who have turned it into a race issue for their own political benefit. It is not. It is simply one about obeying US law and process or circumventing it and gatecrashing the party on the basis of this misconception the person has a "right" to work and stay in the US. Unless they have the paperwork they do not.

To argue otherwise means you don't actually believe in the sovereignty of a country to make its own laws and rules. Which I know you believe firmly in.

Cassanova said...

I support the idea of open immigration for good looking chicks. Ugly chicks visa applications should be declined or if they lied when they applied (ie, by using someone else's beautiful photo) then they also should be turned away at the border.

Blair said...

Read 'Open Immigration, Si! Open Borders, Non.'

Well then we are left to discuss angels on pinheads. The Arizona law is not about the open immigration but the open borders. It is about enforcing the law as it stands. Arizona has no jurisdiction over "immigration", but it can protect its borders. And that is what it is doing.

Perfect worlds and States from Scratch can afford to make such distinctions as you do. Real live countries do not have that luxury.

Babylon and On said...

If the people of AZ expect the federal government to enforce its own law, and the state not have to spend time, money and resources on a bunch of people who aren't legally entitled to be in the USA, then they a bigots.

That is exactly the lame argument the left is putting up.

That's the trouble with big L libertarianism overall . . perpetually deceived by Gramscian untruths, but too smug, arrogant and chocked full a sense of virtuosity to realize it.

"Perfect worlds and States from Scratch can afford to make such distinctions as you do."

Another common trait with secular religionists - objectivism is but one more example of it.

Peter Cresswell said...

@Blair: "Well then we are left to discuss angels on pinheads."

So your answer is that you can't be bothered making an argument.

Which leads me to believe there certainly is a pinhead here, but certainly not any angels.

KG said...

That biased and dishonest post--and your abusive responses to perfectly reasonable objections to it-- illustrate perfectly why the Libz will remain an obscure and irrelevant curiosity on the fringes of NZ politics for the forseeable future.

You and Ruth give 'liberty' a foul taste. No wonder the voters spit it out.
But then I guess they would, being "white trash" and all...

Tim Johnston said...

As you say, most immigrants just want a better life for themselves and their families - but (and this does not really apply to Mexicans), some come to change the society they move into and have little respect for it.

PC, my question to you is, how would you distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' immigrants, if there is indeed any way to do so?
Perhaps it does not apply to the USA or even NZ, but in Europe there are many 'welfare tourists'.

Is there a non-bigoted way of preventing this?

Julian said...

PC

Thank you for this post and for countering the racist bigotry from Cactus Kate and Blair. It is necessary every now and again to observe such bile in order to concretise the inhumanity of those who oppose open immigration.

Many people have dreams that they wish to pursue. They dream to improve their lives and that of their families, and they know that the only way these dreams can be achieved is by leaving their country of birth (a terribly hard decision for many) and moving to a country run under the British system of common law and property rights. For many this was, and is, the United States. For some it is New Zealand. But for all, they are leaving behind their culture, family and language. These journeys have been made for hundreds of years by people from all countries. Dreams have been realised and fortunes made, and we are all better off as a result. There have been millions who have made this journey, including many famous people, who arrived in the US with nothing but a dream. Ayn Rand was one of those whose first sight of the US was that of the Statue of Liberty as she sailed into the harbour of the country that didn't care what skin colour you had, the colour of your passport, or the what language you spoke.

And this is the way it was, and should be.

But Lady Liberty is no longer so inviting. Anyone with a dream who comes from a Spanish speaking country, for example, is lucky to get a 5-minute interview at the US embassy in their country, and more than likely will be told at the end of the interview that their application is declined. They wanted nothing but the opportunity to go to the US and find work. But their dream is over. Now the tears can begin. I lived in one of those countries and it happened to many friends. And you inhumane bastards support such policies? Shame on you!

Some refuse to give up, and instead of sailing under Lady Liberty, they must rely on gangs to smuggle them into the United States under dark and risky circumstances. They arrive without documentation, but they persist since they are human beings like all of us, and they have a dream. But the suffering they must endure due to their status is terrible. Women are mistreated and employees exploited. And you, Cactus and Blair, support this? What a disgrace! They have as much right to be there as any person who, by an accident of birth, was born in that great country which, for many years, welcomed those seeking a better life with these famous words:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Julian

Peter Cresswell said...

@KG: "That biased and dishonest post..."

There was a time when men of honour back up their statements with some kind of argument.

Clearly, those days are now gone.

Blair said...

Where did "racist" come from? You fools can't argue without hysteria and baseless vitriol can you?

This is why you Libertarianz folks are destined to remain in your own echo chamber and irrelevant to real events and political discourse.

I don't care what race or ethnicity you are, if you have the right to be in a country, that is that. If you don't, the police should put you on the next flight out. And even if the United States had the most liberal immigration laws imaginable - you would still need this law. What other way do you propose to not have criminal elements immigrating to your country? You can't answer, you just have baseless slurs left.

Robert Winefield said...

Goodness. Such incivility!

As an American immigrant who has gone through the immigration system on his own dime let me say this:

1/ Nearly every native-born American I have met has no idea of how labyrinthine their immigration system is and is shocked when I spell it out to them.

2/ Nearly every native-born American I have met would give you the shirt off their back if they thought you were in genuine need.

3/ What Americans are most pissed off at is the palpable perception that these immigrants are a protected class. Trespass on someone else property in the US if you are native-born - regardless of color - and the Police will jail you, the courts will prosecute you, and the politicians will revile you. Remember, most of the land on the border is privately owned. There are Ranchers there in fear of their lives. But woe betide them if they attempt to defend their lives and property with a gun.

If every man is created equal as the Constitution says, then it should include immigrants too.

But if you do the same as a Mexican immigrant and certain municipalities will look the other way. They write statutes that prevent Police from enquiring about your origin and immigration status - even if they have you dead to rights on a capital crime.

Politicians will argue that you deserve the right to vote in an attempt to fraudulently gerrymander themselves into perpetual incumbency.

And this last one pisses me off. I don't get to vote until I apply to become a citizen - that is, I commit to becoming a permanent American and pay the price for it in terms of time and effort spent in this country keeping my nose clean.

The PERCEPTION is, and given the nature of ACORN - I'd believe it, that many immigrants have been illegally registered to vote. That IS a crime.

You are correct about the benefits of immigration. You are correct that the problem lies with the welfare state that screws everybody.

What you have missed is the fact that the Democrats under Obama appear to have the machinery in place and the hutzpah to ram an Amnesty & Instant citizen bill down the throats of Americans and thus guarantee themselves another decade of Super Majority status.

I'm in favor of open immigration policies. I'm not in favor of that being done by this Congress and this President.

Miguel said...

PC, your argument is contradictory. I agree with what Blair is saying here. You said, that the Arizona state (or US government) doesn't own the whole of Arizona but privately owned by individuals.

You have posted in the past, saying that the state (or any country) should welcome (all) immigrants who can show that they're capable of self-support, but criminals & terrorists should be prevented from entering.

If a former terrorist who had done his time for whatever crimes he committed in the country of his birth, wanted to go to the US on the invitation of a private property owner (perhaps a relative or a friend) from there.

According to you, such person with criminal past should not be allowed? Tell me that on what basis, you’re going to establish this immigrant (with a criminal past) of who he/she is, because he/she will not truthfully & voluntarily tell you (the authorities) information about him/her self? I bet that you're going to require some form of ID from him/her in order to establish of who he/she says he/she is first and foremost. And here is a contradiction. Why should the authority be trying to vet or establish the identity of such a person, when in fact this former criminal immigrant has been invited by a private property owner to move in with his/her family on their invitation? As you said, Arizona is private owned by individuals. What's the state's (& authorities) business here in trying to establish if this immigrant had a criminal past or not, since the immigrant him/herself had not committed a crime yet in his/her new country that he has entered?

You cannot answer this as Blair had challenged you above; because you know that you've been cornered.

Ms. Cairo said...

>>The problem of ‘illegal’ immigration can be solved at the stroke of a pen: legalize immigration

Here's the thing. Immigration *is* legal in the good ol USA. We let in a certain - large - number of people every year. That's as many as we can absorb in a year. People who can contribute to the country. What's illegal is people coming in without filling out papers, without us even knowing they're here (except in the aggregate.) But when they start getting those welfare payments, boy do we know about it.

The ironic thing is, Mexico, where most of these illegals come from, has much more draconian laws than the US does. Mexico deports more illegals in a year than the US does. If a *legal* immigrant in Mexico protests aobut a policy he or she doesn't like, he or she is deported toot sweet. Not so in the US, where we have "freedom of speech", even for illegals.

Ms. Cairo said...

>>B) 'Illegals' are not milking the government or taxpayers; if anything it is the other way around. The National Research Council found for example that most immigrant families "contribute an average of $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume over their lifetimes."

Common sense alone should tell you this isn't true, and that the "National Research Council" is lying. Perhaps they have an agenda, eh?

Why is Arizona taking this step at this particular time? Because the're "bigoted?" Or because their crime rate has skyrocketed. Because Phoenix is the "kidnap capital of the world." Because drug cartels walk through our borders as if they aren't there. Because illegals are now paying these drug cartels to get them into the US. They have no money, so what do they pay with ? Why, their bodies.They are drug mules.

Arizona has to do something. I suggest before you condemn the state, you go live in Arizona - specifically a city on the border - and Arizona has the longest border with Mexico than any other state, which contributes to the problem - and see how you like living there.

Just brush up on your Spanish as well as your English, because it might save your life if you get lost in the wrong part of town.

Blair said...

Arizona has the longest border with Mexico than any other state

LOL actually everything is bigger in Texas, including the border with Mexico.

Anonymous said...

At least I don't think illegal immigrants would make good target practice KG.

You are no liberty lover - more like a neo nazi thug.

Link: http://crusader-rabbit.blogspot.com/2010/04/of-course-media-will-be-all-over-this.html

Peter Cresswell said...

It seems some of you are upset that you can't come here just to tickle all your usual prejudices.

You know what? Tough. If you just want your prejudices tickled, then head over to Crusader Rabbit where you can fantasise with him about shooting up a crowd of human beings.

But if I may speak frankly here, it seems I wasted my time and energy providing and linking to abundant evidence or arguments to counter the rank prejudice on display here in the comments, since none of you bigots have bothered to counter anything, argue anything, or even read any of the linked arguments or evidence offered. Nothing that might counter your own undiluted enthusiasm for treating some human beings like cattle--which, when all all your own comments are stacked up, is all they amount to.

Cactus, for instance, whose inability to distinguish between might and right tells us all we might need to know about her commitment to human freedom--and whose apologia for might walking over right is a frankly odious and transparently thin justification for treating people as cattle.

Ms Cairo for another instance, who feels that the National Research Council is wrong when they show that "most immigrant families "contribute an average of $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume over their lifetimes," who feels it be unnecessary to offer any other evidence than her own feelings, so therefore she can keep right on hating those Spanish-speaking 'illegals' living in the wrong part of town.

Or Blair, who feels so confident in his own righteousness that he still blithely continues to not read the arguments answering his creaking objections about criminals entering the States, including specifically 'Open immigration, Si! Open borders, No!' and 'Fighting terrorism requires legalizing immigration.' Instead he (who it seems can neither read nor think) accuses me, who's provided arguments aplenty, of not answering, and offering only "baseless slurs."

Or Miguel, who can't even be bothered reading past Blair's own apologia for the inhuman, or to consider the points already offered against them (that, for example, I'm talking open immigration, not open borders), or offered in those pieces I suggest above. Anything, it seems, rather than have his antediluvian prejudices challenged.

And even Robert, I'm astonished to say, who is unable to accept seeing would-be Americans raised from the status of catttle to human being if it's a Democratic Administration that does it--and unwilling to read 'Treat the Cause, Not the Symptom' which, I suspect, would answer his objections.

And finally KG, who seems to think that a group of Mexicans constitutes nothing more than "a target-rich environment."

Frankly, is it any wonder I'm struggling to talk to some of you as if you are human. I offer you arguments and evidence, and you offer only an effusion of odium in return.

Disgust is the most civilised thing I feel about it at the moment.

twr said...

I think the two sides here aren't really listening to each others' points of view.

As a very short response to some of the points raised by the objectors to this article:

- "Immigrants cause crime" and "we don't want their criminals"
Much like non-illegal immigrants, and those born in a country, if they commit a crime, then punish them for it, ideally by making them pay back the full cost of their crime and/or preventing them from doing it again.

- "They'll go straight on welfare"
Don't let them (or hopefully anyone else who hasn't made private provision for it) have access to welfare.

- "I don't like the thought of Mexicans in my neighbourhood".
Get over it. The best neighbours in our street are the ones who come from other countries, and the worst and most inconsiderate are the locals.

- "There aren't enough jobs for them."
Well presumable they'll go home if they can't afford to eat won't they?

If immigrants didn't ruin the US (or any other country) when they used to be freely allowed in, then why should they now? If people's freedoms are adequately protected by laws and law enforcement, then all the points raised by the objectors are moot. The place someone is born should be irrelevant to whether they can support themselves or not, and it seems that most objectors just don't like poor people.

Tim Johnston said...

twr is correct.
In an ideal society, immigrants who could not find work, or who over-estimated the availability of jobs, would simply return home again rather than stick around and rely on crime and welfare to take care of them. There are bigger issues involved, and as one of the links suggests, we ought to deal with the causes and not the symptoms.

anyone who pretends that no immigrant comes for the freebies is delusional at best (some have told me to my face they come for benefits). These might be a minority, even a tiny one, but they exist.

Of course, this should not scandalise us more than a citizen doing the same thing, but it does, for whatever reason.
In the US context, what might ask why Mexico is poor?
Making Mexico a better place should be first priority. Were the Libertarian goal of creating the free flow of capital and goods achieved, this might negate, rather than create, the need for free flow of people. The latter is in fact no solution.

Robert Mugabe, dictator of Zimbabwe, takes advantage of neighbouring South Africa's lax border controls to make it a dumping ground for potential opposition to his regime; all the MDC voters are washing plates in Cape Town.

The fact is, immigration is a symptom too, of wider problems, as it always was. America and other nations grew from immigration, and that immigration was caused by suffering and persecution in the migrants' home countries. Europe's difficulty was America's advantage; America was a great dumping ground for the troublesome Irish in the 19th century.

The idea that immigrants come for a 'better life' and to work hard and live the 'American dream' is a fantasy reminiscent of Hollywood's most naive moments.

The truth remains that there as many reasons for emigration as there are immigrants (and I have emigrated twice over the last few years for various reasons).

There are also Americans who want to employ them, and are willing to pay them, so who is the government to say they cannot?

Even if they do overwhelmingly vote Democrat ;)

Robert Winefield said...

"who is unable to accept seeing would-be Americans raised from the status of catttle to human being if it's a Democratic Administration that does it"

Actually I said "Democrats under Obama." I'll assume that your misquotation was accidental given your passion. Let me expand on why I don't like these 'Democrats:'

I did briefly read that article. So in the spirit of it, may I point out the obvious?

THIS administration just enacted a WELFARE bill that just nationalized 1/6th of the US economy. And they did so in a way that raped the parliamentary process. Corn-Husker kick-back ring a bell? How about Gator-aid or the Louisiana Purchase? How about the fact that no Congressman or Senator appears to have read the bill?
How about the fact that much of the regulatory power in the bill devolves to the HH secretary awarding her a personal fiefdom based on the ability to directly control national health policies that directly impact 300 million Americans?

And it is into hands such as these that you are recommending Americans place their immigration woes?

Sure Obama has constantly plugged Amnesty (with a fine) and a rigorous 'path to citizenship.' But I've never heard what exactly he meant. On the other hand, I have heard this man tell bare-faced lie after bare-faced lie.

Others, perhaps even your good self, have perceived in him an innate hatred of America and an intrinsic power-lust.

I ask again: and it is into hands such as these that you are recommending Americans place their immigration woes?

And I didn't see you comment about the manner in which Ranchers on the border are having their property destroyed and their lives threatened by the people smugglers?

How are they to proceed?

Await for the great libertarian enlightenment or lobby their local government (because the Feds aren't listening) put some Law Enforcement between them and the tidal wave. Neither came quickly enough for Robert Krentz (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/30/illegal-immigrant-suspected-murder-arizona-rancher/).

You call Arizonans (and presumably Robert too) bigots. I believe them to be sorely tested and searching for any form of relief.

Robert Winefield said...

And may I point out one more thing.

By accident or by design, the federal nature of this country affords States to do pretty much as they please.

Chris Kobach is a Kansas based Constitutional lawyer who helped draft the bill in AZ. According to his radio show the other night, the AZ law does one thing only: it forces AZ law enforcement to follow the FEDERAL statutes.

Why is this important? Because the Status Quo in the US has thus far been to ignore that statute. Hence the existence of Sanctuary cities - a time honored trait in America since the days of the Underground Railroad.

Your argument is that I'm a bigot for wanting to remain with the Status Quo until we eject this Marxist from the Whitehouse.

I would like to point out that the Status Quo -- while not ideal -- does permit immigrants to live in certain states and cities as freer as they would be if the Democrats passed their proposed immigration law -- one that includes a NATIONAL ID card...

From the Huffington Post:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100430/cm_huffpost/557721

Better the devil you know?

Robert Winefield said...

Other highlights of 'The One's' Immigration solution:

2. More Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, worksite inspectors, document fraud investigators and drug-war agents

4. More prosecution of drug smuggling, human trafficking and unauthorized border crossing

8. The bill would create "a broad-based registration program that requires all illegal immigrants living in the U.S. to come forward to register, be screened, and, if eligible, complete other requirements to earn legal status, including paying taxes."

Mmmm mmm mmm. Yes we can. And these are the basic proposals. Imagine the crap that will come with them once the horse-trading starts.

If you want a revolution Peter, it needs to start in people's heads. I get why you are pissed. I'm just saying that the Washington politicians are even less enlightened than the folks you are swearing at.

Then again, maybe not. Obama's plan to turn the US to Venezuela may solve the immigration problem at a stroke. Hopefully the last one out of the People's Republic of America will shut out the lights.

Peter Cresswell said...

@Robert: You ask, essentially, what should be done?

My answer would be to direct your ire at the system that has caused the problems, not at those who are caught by it: at the system of tax-funded welfare largesse and educational indoctrination that everyone talks about but no-one wants to fix); at the war on drugs (the elephant in the room no-one wants to talk about but everyone knows is at the root of so much of tehviolence and exploitation); at the tangle of ill-thought-through immigration restrictions and compromises (that make it almost impossible to 'follow the rules' even if thse rules would allow you entry); at the poor and struggling Mexican economy that barely knows freedom even in the abstract (and the Cuban non-economy that militates against it)--direct your ire, I say, at those who set up and administer all those atrocities, not at the stateless, defenceless, utterly powerless folk who risk everything to cross the deserts around Douglas, Arizona and the shark-infested waters north of Havana, and upon whom (despite their very powerlesness) you direct the blame for all that is wrong.

Peter Cresswell said...

@TWR: "If immigrants didn't ruin the US (or any other country) when they used to be freely allowed in, then why should they now? If people's freedoms are adequately protected by laws and law enforcement, then all the points raised by the objectors are moot."

Thank you for that breath of sanity.

@Julian: "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
"

And thanks for that reminder of what helped build America, back when it knew what freedom was.

Blair said...

I am still waiting to find out why, if a country is not to have an open border, it is not necessary to track down people who crossed that border without permission and expel them!

Which is all that Arizona is doing!

Yes, let's have as much immigration as is safely possible for countries to have. Let's eliminate the welfare state, and the drug prohibitions which cause so many of the problems. But my God, let's not, when faced with a border that for all intents and purposes IS open, just shrug our shoulders and say "oh well, that's how it should be anyway". The reality is that illegal immigration, for whatever reason, causes huge social problems in the United States. You could solve a lot of that by changing the drug laws, the welfare laws, and the immigration laws themselves, but if you're not in control of whom you let in in the first place, then it is right and moral to get in control.

What Peter is doing is saying that it is "bigoted" to want to be in control of who comes over your borders. And that is utter utter nonsense. And bizarre to think that individuals collectively forming governments do not have the same rights as individuals defending their own property.

Peter is saying that trespassers have no rights, but uninvited (is that a better word?) immigrants should be allowed to go where they please? No, no, that makes no logical sense at all, and if "bigot" and "racist" is all you have in response then I feel sorry for you.

Robert Winefield said...

Peter:

You talk of redirecting my ire. I can think of nothing more worthless. My ire isn't going to do squat and neither is yours.

Quite frankly, the charge of racist and bigotry has been leveled so often by the left over every-bloody-thing that it no longer has any sting.

Most likely, the folks you are ranting at are going to tell you to shove it up your arse. And if you are unable in doing that, they will be more than willing to assist you.

These people are pissed off. They need the leadership that the editorial you posted speaks of. What they have at the moment is opportunistic and statist. Neither the Democrats nor the Republican are advocating open immigration - far from it.

Finding the leadership described in the editorial will be what I occupy my time with.

And unless I can see the bill before it is signed, there is no way in Hell that I'm going to trust anything that this Congress or President comes up with.

As you can see from my previous post, their solution will solve nothing.

And I reiterate, the AZ law does nothing other than enforce Federal laws that are already on the books.
AZ could easily have effected this change without the fanfare by a simple directive to the State level Law enforcement.

Nothing fundamental has changed. Other than the sense of frustration. That is palpable.

Peter Cresswell said...

@Blair: "I am still waiting..."

Waiting will do nothing to help you. However, reading the links supplied might at least answer your question(s).

I commend that action to you.

Mike said...

The idea that immigrants come for a 'better life' and to work hard and live the 'American dream' is a fantasy reminiscent of Hollywood's most naive moments.

its a fantasy in your own mind and the minds of those who cry about an unpopular group like illegals when they have their own parasites feeding off welfare and producing anti-capitalist sentiments about immigrants "stealing their jobs"

but keep up the old drivel. Its amusing to watch here and on other blogs

Tim Johnston said...

Mike

It is a fantasy, or are you saying that ALL immigrants want those things? All?
What about Faisal Shahzad? Mohammed Atta?

See, when Americans talk about illegal migrants they usually think of Mexicans and other Latin Americans. We Europeans can't understand what the fuss is about. Here is a largely Christian immigrant group, whose home country has a not dissimilar history to the United States and is usually well-disposed towards it. They want to work and people want to employ them.

Sure, there are exceptions and troublemakers, criminals etc., but compared to much immigration in Europe, Americans are blessed.

Many immigrants in Europe are members of a medieval religion, and originate in dysfunctional countries with zero respect for human rights, and certainly none for Capitalism.

Many of them hate our way of life and openly say so. These kind of immigrants would rather reduce our countries to the level of their own. The US does not have to deal with this problem on the same scale, which is why Arizona's law missed the mark completely.

Sheryl Parsons said...

Interesting that you ask for people to respond with polite and intelligent comment and yet you use foul language to back up your ideology. Having lived in Arizona,and having seen what the Mexican Mafia can and does do, I say amen to Arizona and their stand. Thank you Blair for being a voice of reason.
In Utah we see what happens across the border as Nevada's casinos hire primarily Hispanic/illegal workers. They pay less than minimum wage. They know that they are hiring illegals; how many Mexicans do you know with the name April Evans, and they look the other way. I worked for Head Start and saw the double identities the parents had, as well as the lies they were able to perpetuate because HS has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Most of the families were signed up for welfare services through us. They qualified by lying about how many people they had living with them, and we couldn't ask for proof. One family owned a Cadillac Escalade, and another a BMW convertible, yet they qualified for services. Every time I go to the post office there is a line of people purchasing money orders to send back to Mexico. My husband's school has a demographic of 85%+ Hispanic speaking students. Some of these children are left to fend for themselves while their parents work night shifts, so they stay up late, sometimes until 4AM and then come to school so wired and tired that they have a hard time concentrating. We are supposed to educate these children and have them perform at the same level as the children in say Park City, Utah or Newport, Connecticut. Perhaps you would like to try and live in our shoes before you say things you know little of. We are in the trenches, how about you?

Anonymous said...

Some of these children are left to fend for themselves while their parents work night shifts, so they stay up late, sometimes until 4AM and then come to school so wired and tired that they have a hard time concentrating.

That comment surely shores up PC's post.

Immigration is the bailiwick of the Right - and a true litmus test for free market libertarians.

You know what - I've never *once* seen anyone in the conservative movement talk about the issue of immigration in terms of the free market system they endorse -- ie. creating a market for non-citizen labourers willing to work for low pay and outside of normal labour laws.