I have some thoughts on birthright citizenship over at PJM today.
[Update a while later]
For those who haven’t read the book
77 thoughts on “The Real Anchors”
Comments are closed.
I have some thoughts on birthright citizenship over at PJM today.
[Update a while later]
For those who haven’t read the book
Comments are closed.
Illegal workers are virtually non-existent in Australia and it’s not because we have water borders. It’s because we have bureaucrats that get in everyone’s business. You can’t legally hire anyone without appropriate documentation. The “temp agencies” and “day worker” stuff you guys have in the US, we used to have that too, but our grossly empowered tax agents stamped them out. The introduction of a widespread general sales tax was their most recent power grab. About the only under-the-table employment left in Australia is the unregistered fruit pickers, and people coming into the country specifically to do that work are getting caught more and more at the border.
So, as they say, be careful what you wish for.
Thomas, just no. As I said, agriculture is only around 5% of the labor market in most first world countries (countries that also tend to be net food exporters) – farming it is just not very significant labor wise.
Further, as many other countries without significant illegal immigrant populations demonstrate, farming is not dependent on low wage rates. Yes farming in the US has adapted to a low wage workforce and the low productivity it enables, but as many other countries demonstrate, it did not have to – the US has done this by choice.
Scott Noble,
During the 1950’s you also had the Bracero Program which brought in nearly half a million workers from Mexico a year for both agriculture and railroad work, while states like Texas opted out and practiced an open border policy on migrant labor instead. Both contributed to lower labor costs for agriculture. Labor unions put an end to the Bracero Program in 1964 creating the current problems of illegal immigration since the demand for the workers never waned.
Andrea Harris
[[[Yeah, I hear that the lawns of Japan have become really unkempt since they quit bringing in illegal Mexicans to mow them.]]]
Actually the consequences of Japan’s anti-immigration attitude is much worst….
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090823x1.html
Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009
Japan’s creeping natural disaster
Age-old farming methods helped to cultivate this country’s wealth of plant and animal species. But now, as rural areas empty of people, that rich biodiversity is put at risk
By WINIFRED BIRD
[[[But most of the houses are empty now, and most of the fields overgrown. Where rice once grew along the river, tall Japanese cedar trees now stand. All but three residents have moved away or died. What remains is a tiny ghost town slowly dissolving back into wilderness.]]]
[[[Cutting weeds is a constant refrain in the recollections of old folks in the area, and for good reason: That simple act is what stands between the village and the forest that presses relentlessly in on all sides.]]]
[[[One mountain over, in the hamlet of Ikari (now incorporated into the city of Kumano), 93-year-old Chiune Matsuda and his 82-year-old wife, Atsusa, are still holding back the creeping return of the forest.
One blazing afternoon in July, Chiune could be found steadily weed-whacking the terraced fields of the village where he has spent nearly a century.]]]
Yep, they could sure use a couple of million immigrants from Mexico to save their agriculture system.
Pete,
[[[Thomas, just no. As I said, agriculture is only around 5% of the labor market in most first world countries (countries that also tend to be net food exporters) – farming it is just not very significant labor wise.]]]
Actually, in the U.S. its only 0.7%, but those are the folks that keep your belly full and make everything else possible as a result 🙂
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
And from the viewpoint of national security its a good thing the U.S. is a food exporter rather then a food importing nation. Which is why its far better for the U.S. to import labor rather then food.
“Yep, they could sure use a couple of million immigrants from Mexico to save their agriculture system.”
Sounds like a plan!
By the way, you DO know the difference between “legal” and “illegal,” don’t you? I’m beginning to wonder.
The 1950 fed tax levels didn’t affect the average Joe much
Doesn’t look like they do now either, at least for about 45% of the population.
As for the size of government. The graphs I seen suggest that in the early 50s spending went from 20(ish)% of GDP up to 30(ish)%, having dipped much lower after WW2. Then jumped again in the early 80s to 35%+ in the early 80s. This trended down in the 90s before jumping again in the 2000s and spiking in the last 2-3 years. So spending jumped from the post-war slump in your wonderful 1950s but at least they had a tax structure to deal with it.
That’s ignoring all the other “lovely” stuff about the 1950s, like an average life expectancy that has you conveniently dying about the time you would get a pension, all those nasty boring civil rights, pesky women staying at home to raise kids, blah blah blah…
Lovely times I’m sure. Halycon days.
(wanders off to shout at the kids on his lawn)
[yes, I am being sarcastic]
Andrea Harris,
[[[By the way, you DO know the difference between “legal” and “illegal,” don’t you? I’m beginning to wonder.]]]
Do you know the difference between moral and immoral laws? Based on comments here I am beginning to wonder.
To start with, do you really know what the revolution in 1776 was all about? I know schools teach slogans like taxation without representation, but that was only a symptom. The fundamental difference was if laws were subject to a higher power then government. After all, all of the revolutionaries were “criminals” by definition since they broke the laws of England, laws that they say as unjust. In short, its about not just blindly following laws, but also about the morality of the laws. What they were basically arguing in the Declaration of Independence was that the laws being imposed on the colonies were immoral and therefore not valid. Its also why they gave the Supreme Court the power it has, including life terms for the justices, to ensure they had the freedom to make decisions based on what was morally right.
The lack of morality has been the basic issue with immigration laws over the last 135 years. Just saying they are illegal, and that is that, is no different they saying the law says they are slaves and, that is that, in the 1850’, as you cheerfully ship runaway slaves back to their owners.
Perhaps a bit of history will put it into perspective. I will skip the links as it tends to trigger some kind of spam protection on Rand’s website.
Prior to the Page Act of 1875 there were no restrictions on foreigners entering or working in the U.S. It was the first immigration law passed. The Page Act was passed to keep “undesirables” out of the country – i.e. Asians. It’s restrictions were expanded in the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1880 and 1882, all driven by a couple of Californian organizations, the Supreme Order of Caucasians and the Workingman’s Party. Yes, keep California and the U.S. for Europeans.
The next round of immigration laws, and the ones creating today’s problems, came in the 1920s following the furor created by a new book written by Madison Grant called “The Passing of The Great Race” (1916). The book discussed how the immigration of inferior races to the United States, basically Jews and the various Slavic and Mediterranean races, (including my grandparents from Poland…) would result in the destruction of the Nordic Race in the United States by both interbreeding and out breeding them. Grant Madison advocated that the solution was to severely limit their immigration to the U.S. As a result of a public campaign caused by the book, Congress did so by setting quotas in a series of immigration acts based on the percentage of the races in the U.S. in 1890 Census, thereby keeping the U.S. a “Nordic Country”.
BTW, if that rhetoric sounds familiar it should. Grant Madison’s book inspired a certain German Corporal to embark on a quest to preserve the Nordic Race in Germany. Indeed, Hitler thought so highly of the book he referred to it as his “bible” and made it required reading of all those who were in leadership positions in the National Socialist Party. (NAZI…). He also praised Grant Madison as a genius. Incidentally, the race based immigration laws of the U.S. were also praised by Herr Hitler as being an excellent preventive measure to preserve America’s Nordic roots. I don’t know about you, but I would have serious reservations of supporting a law, or declaring someone a criminal for breaking a law, that da Führer praised. One touchstone for telling moral right from wrong is seeing who agrees with your position and who opposes it.
BTW, in the 1965 the Civil Right laws required the immigration laws be revised and they were to an extent, to a very limited visas divided between the Eastern or Western hemisphere and then an unlimited amount based on having family in the U.S, which of course help to preserved the racial bias built in the previous 40 years of laws but in a less obvious way. the Bracero Program under which hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers entered the U.S. to work in agriculture was also eliminated, a program that basically covered the very those “illegal workers” from are doing today.
As to my solution? The only moral one that would undo the racial injustice from the past, and stop perpetuating the racial quotes da Führer loved, would be to give them amnesty and a clear path to citizenship, reinstate a new Bracero Program without the paperwork of the current guest worker program and make it much easier to immigrate to the U.S. by greatly raising the quota. BTW, as a side benefit, the resulting boom in immigration will stimulate a new economic boom.
As a side note, I suspect that the vast majority of the illegal workers here, especially from Mexico, actually have only a limited interest in citizenship. They would be far more interested in just having the right to continue doing the work in the U.S. that their forefathers have done for generations, long before a law in the 1960’s made it “illegal” for them to do so.
Thomas, you are absolutely right that there are immoral laws and terrible injustices. The solution is not to ignore laws but to change or abolish them. You create a problem when you say laws should be ignored because then everyone gets to choose which to ignore… which kind of defeats the point of having any in the first place.
You’re probably tired of people harping on legal vs. illegal, but does anything I said make sense to you? You make sense to me.
It’s immoral to want foreigners to apply through proper channels before they move here instead of taking advantage of our compassion (“I’ve just had this baby here so that means he’s a citizen! Surely you won’t throw this helpless newborn out of his own country just because his mother doesn’t have papers!”)? Okay.
I do agree that a law that is so vague or badly written as to allow people to take advantage of loopholes in it is something approaching immoral. But what do I know, I just lived most of my life in Miami, a city that is a hub of immigration, both legal, illegal, and in between. I’ve seen both the good and the bad effects of large numbers of foreigners on a community of people with a different lifestyle. I’m all for giving downtrodden people a chance at a better life but at what point does it stop? At some point maybe we have to say “You know, maybe you should fix your own countries instead of picking up stakes bringing your problems to mine.” And like as not spending most of the time grousing about how much better things were in the Old Country.
As to my solution? The only moral one that would undo the racial injustice from the past… would be to give them amnesty and a clear path to citizenship
That will solve everything. After all, the key to the morality of a law is whether or not it addresses past wrongs. Once you’ve accomplished that, the wronged peoples will be sufficiently grateful, and… milk and honey (or whatever).
You are so full of it I’m thinking it must be leaking out of your eyeballs.
Ken,
Anne Frank and her family were “illegal” under the laws of their day. Would you have turned them in? After all, it was the law.
Ayn Rand was a illegal immigrant for part of her life in the U.S. Would you have sent her back to the Soviet Union? If so where would your Libertarian movement be?
And would you have turned in a runaway slave in the 1850’s. It was the law you know, approved even by the Supreme Court.
Dictatorships are ensured once folks both start to accept immoral laws and support them without question. The comments about illegal immigrants make me wonder if the population of the U.S. has indeed fallen so far from the ideals and spirit of the Founding Fathers that they are able to fall under the spell of those whipping up the immigration issue for their own political gain.
Andrea,
[[[I’ve seen both the good and the bad effects of large numbers of foreigners on a community of people with a different lifestyle. I’m all for giving downtrodden people a chance at a better life but at what point does it stop? At some point maybe we have to say “You know, maybe you should fix your own countries instead of picking up stakes bringing your problems to mine.”]]]
So you no longer agree with the famous poem posted on a certain statue in New York harbor?
[[[The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “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!”
Emma Lazarus, 1883
When should America stop welcoming the downtrodden people looking for a better life? When we want to decline as a serious player in the world economy.
BTW I grew up in Chicago, in an immigrant neighborhood. The doctor I had as a child had a serial number on his arm. The neighbors were full of stories of the old country, and how glad they were they came to the U.S. And all worked long hours to make their American dream come true, which is probably where I got my work ethic from.
Based on your comments here, it appears you believe the difference is your opinion of what some “higher power” wants.
If you are really curious about the difference between a moral and immoral government/society, check out John Rawls. I’ll stick with his works vs. anonymous blog commenter.
Yes, a society has a right to close its borders if it so chooses. (As much as you like to compare the two, it’s not the same as invading the Netherlands, Mr. Godwin…) There’s nothing “immoral” about it.
No, Thomas. None of your examples addresses what I said, if a law is wrong change or abolish it.
I’m a well known scofflaw Thomas. I never where my seatbelt. Do you imagine I would betray someone to the goon squad? Do you imagine enforcing our borders is the equivalent? That’s ridiculous. We have laws (poorly executed I agree) about people coming for asylum.
I just don’t like the lies and hand wringing that there’s nothing we can do when there certainly is. We can enforce laws so the 12 to 20 million or more self deport. We can adjust our laws so there is no incentive to come here eight months pregnant so you can have a baby in America.
We need to have an immigration policy that makes sense. I went through the process to bring my wife here. I screwed up the paper work and it took forever to fix it. The whole process was just stupid.
We have companies where most of their employees are H1b visas which nobody intended.
You think being lawless is the answer?
Another point… if we reduce illegal immigration there will be less cover for actual bad guys who will more easily be discovered. I don’t know what all the threats are, but I’d like to think we’d find the suitcase before the bad stuff happens.
When should America stop welcoming the downtrodden people looking for a better life?
When they intentionally ignore the book she’s holding in her other hand.
We will always welcome immigration. It’s people that think rules apply to you and me, but not to them that we have a problem with.
Why is that such a difficult point to get (and it must be so because many keep ignoring it.) How loud do we have to shout?
Titus,
[[[If you are really curious about the difference between a moral and immoral government/society, check out John Rawls. I’ll stick with his works vs. anonymous blog commenter.]]]
Excuse me, but who is hiding behind a fake name and who is using their real one?
Ken,
[[[You think being lawless is the answer?]]]
You just don’t get it. I guess you have just been watching too much of Fox news. Giving them amnesty is not lawless but simply a recognition that the current immigration laws are a failure and have been failing since there were created in the 1920’s. Its the first step to fixing the problem. Adding additional restrictions is not going to fix, its will just make it worst, as the restrictions that were added in the 1960 on foreigners coming to the U.S. not to immigrate, but merely to work, was a major factor in creating the illegal worker problem.
The problem of illegal workers exits because of the law making the foreign labor force that has been working in American Agriculture since the 1800’s illegal one day. It didn’t eliminate the need for them. Just made them illegal. Just as certain law made beer illegal one day even though the demand for it continued. And yes, then you had a problem, organized crime, created not by the demand for Beer, but because some fool lawmakers, driven by special interests, decided Beer was illegal. When you give the workers amnesty , just as when you made Beer legal again, the “problems” associated it with it disappear.
All the enforcement in the world will not “fix” a bad law, as Prohibition showed. The solution is getting rid of the original bad law, not using it as an excuse to create more bad laws.
“So you no longer agree with the famous poem posted on a certain statue in New York harbor?”
Good Lord, I can’t believe you actually asked me that question. No, I don’t in fact agree with a soppy, sentimental piece of doggerel that is used to subvert the meaning of the Statue of Liberty! And I can’t believe that you had the audacity to compare Jewish refugees who had been in concentration camps with freeloading illegal aliens who come here to take advantage of our good nature.
I’m done with this conversation.
At least he stopped abusing the world “immoral” momentarily.
the “problems” associated it with it disappear.
Some perhaps, not all. Who says we have to replace bad law with more bad law. Is there no possibility of getting it close to right?
Again you are suggesting that America, unlike any other nation on earth, should not have laws with respect to it’s border and immigration. You haven’t made a case yet that would allow me to agree.
Andrea,
[[[And I can’t believe that you had the audacity to compare Jewish refugees who had been in concentration camps with freeloading illegal aliens who come here to take advantage of our good nature.]]]
You need to check your history again. The immigration laws with quotas that applied to Eastern Europeans were created in the 1920’s. The Concentration Camps ran from 1939 to 1945. The main wave of Jewish exodus from Germany was a trickle until 1937, but President Roosevelt, under pressure from opponents of non-Nordic immigration like Charles Lindbergh and Father Coughlin refused to raise the quotas, using many of the same arguments foes of immigration are using today. As a result only a few tens of thousands of Jews were able to immigrate to the U.S. from Germany. This was in contrast to the nearly 2 million Jews that escaped from prosecution in Russia in the period from 1880 to 1924 before the quota laws to protect “Nordic America” went into place.
A good source book on this was written by David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945
It should be noted that the poem that is ON the Statue of Library was written in 1883 by Emma Lazarus, one of the early supporters of the Zionism movement. And its sad that so many Americans no longer believe in it anymore, one more sign of the decline of this great nation.
In terms of the current illegal immigrants. The majority represent a migrate work force that has been traveling north to work on ranches and farms in North America since the late 1700’s, when the entire Southwest was owned by Spain. The migrations continued after Mexican independence, and then after the U.S. took over the Southwest in the 1840’s. It was only in anti-migrant furor of the 1930’s that laws regulating it were passed, then it was made illegal in 1960’s. Note, the demand never disappeared, just that a coalition of labor unions combined with opponents of civil rights laws to make the supply of labor needed illegal one day, creating the current problem. That is why Prohibition is a good model. The demand for beer never disappeared, only it was now illegal to supply it. When beer was available to all and there were no major criminal issues with it. Then a bunch of zealots decided that allowing people to drink beer was not good for the country and made it illegal, creating a host of problems.
When Mexicans entered the U.S. before the end of the Bracero Program in 1964 there were no criminal issues. They crossed at the border check points, took transportation to where they would work and did their jobs. They went home for the holidays since most had no interest in becoming citizens. And there were no border problems.
It was only after this normal labor migration pattern was made illegal as part of the horse trading to get the Civil Rights Act passed that the problems you see today emerged, as the immigrants now had to cross deserts and hire coyotes to reach the work they needed to feed their families, work their forefathers had been doing for generations. And now we have border problems.
And no, you are not going to fix them by passing stricter laws on immigration. The work needs to be done and the workers wish to do it. New laws will not stop the migration, short of turning it into a 2,000 mile long Berlin Wall with tens of thousands of guards manning machine guns on it. What stricter new laws will do is make is easier for the terrorists and drug dealers to enter the U.S., both because border protection is spread thin and because the flow of labor north will find the necessary channels across the border and provide cover for them, as it is doing now.
As a side note, during World War II Hitler tried to slip saboteurs into the U.s. believing the German immigrates would hide them. The opposite occurred and they only too gladly turned them in. Keep in mind the vast majority immigrants, both legal and illegal are not against the U.S. Its the exact opposite. They are here because they believe in the America dream. Perhaps more so them many Americans do, which brings as back to the start of the thread. What should be the criteria for the right to vote. I expect a lot more immigrates will be willing to work for it then native born. And a lot more anchor babies, if it will make it easier for their parents to move here.
Ken,
I have offered information and history to support my views. All you offer is the repeated line, its the Law. You remind me of Barney Fife when he messed up, especially in the episode when he arrest most of the town, including Aunt Bea and Opie for “breaking” the law and he just kept repeating, “The Law is the Law Andy”. Like Andy, I will just roll my eyes now and let you think about your position…
Yes that was a great episode. Let me try a different approach.
And no, you are not going to fix them by passing stricter laws on immigration.
I understand your assumption of stricter, but how about these clowns that we elect actually doing their jobs and debating the issue like adults with the public watching? You are steadfast in assuming that any laws regarding immigration are bad laws. Your solution seems to be no laws at all. This isn’t just about migrant workers and you’re too smart not to know that.
In order for me to legally get my wife here I had to prove I was capable of supporting her so she wouldn’t just become another welfare case. Is that unreasonable? Or do you think it would have been right for me to bring a wife over and then get on welfare? Multiply that by twenty million.
Again, it’s not about migrant workers. Those 12 to 20 million are living here, causing huge disruptions to society. I just came from the emergency room today (another ambulance bill to pay, next time I’m hiring a limo. It’s cheaper.) Sitting in the waiting room waiting for my ride back to my car I noticed something that was pretty hard to miss. I was the only white patient. The staff had to speak spanish to many of the other patients. How many were illegals? Quite a few I’m sure.
Then I sat outside looking at the parking lot. Lot’s of nice cars I can’t afford myself. I know people with two or three new cars getting food stamps every month (actually, it’s a debit card these days.) They actually trade for other things and their is a huge drug trade. These aren’t migrant workers.
The government has one priority over all others, national security. Regardless of what we do about migrant workers, that issue can not be ignored. It is their primary responsibility and duty. This isn’t prohibition. This isn’t even about laws. This is about doing what’s right; which is actually your argument except for the manner in which you want to do it.
short of turning it into a 2,000 mile long Berlin Wall with tens of thousands of guards manning machine guns on it.
Talk about eye’s rolling. Umm, which direction would the guns be pointing mr. brilliant?
This isn’t just about migrant workers and you’re too smart not to know that.
I see scant evidence of that. Entertaining maybe, but that’s about it.