Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Here's a thought: Secure the borders, end catch and release programs, and open new paths to legal immigration. Pass that bill first, and then lets talk about providing a life line to the illegal aliens, who are willing to pay taxes in order to receive the benefits offered to American citizens.

Posted by Leland at May 23, 2007 02:03 PM

Interesting. 29% is also Bush's current approval rating at least according to a recent poll.

Posted by Offside at May 23, 2007 02:36 PM

Rand: He's no Bill Clinton, when it comes to governing by the polls.

Bush only cares enough about public opinion to lie.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at May 23, 2007 03:16 PM

I think we should end birthright citizenship and make people like Leland have to work for their citizenship just like all the immigrants. Why is it if you are born lucky, that is born here, you get to stay. But if you are born unlucky, that is born somewhere else, you have to bust your ass to prove why you shouldn't be deported?

Why not establish some criteria for citizenship that everyone, whether native born or not, should have to meet. If you don't meet it then you can be deported. We could have some sort of exchange where if you don't make the cut you would go to the nation of an immigrant who does make the cut. I think that would be much fairer overall.

We could make having a job one criteria for staying. Education would be another criteria. Having a job or skill in a critical shortage area would earn extra points toward citizenship. Welfare dependency would be a significant criteria for deportation. If you have big money to invest you could stay. If you don't then you have to meet other criteria. Think of all the great people who could stay and all the bums, idlers and ignoramuses we could get rid of.

Posted by Jardinero1 at May 23, 2007 03:20 PM

Actually, I'd be in favor of that. I think that citizenship should be earned. But that's an entirely different issue from whether or not people should be allowed to live and work here.

I mean, where would we send people who were born here, and didn't earn citizenship? Where would you propose to deport them, and why would that place accept them?

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 23, 2007 03:33 PM

I agree with where I think Rand is going on the last comment. We could have two classes of people: citizens and residents. The only difference would be that only citizens would get to vote and hold public office. Sort of a Starship Troopers thing, where there would have to be some sort of qualification to be met in order to become a citizen, such as public service or something, but the chance available to all. Of course, there would need to be strong Constitutional protections to keep the citizens from voting themselves the resident's wages.

So it might not be workable, but what we have doesn't work so well either. Might be worth a shot.

Posted by John K Berntson at May 23, 2007 04:22 PM

George Bush always said he was a uniter.
e's united everyone against him

Posted by at May 23, 2007 05:29 PM

Making citizenship contingent on merit for everyone would be disastrous over the long-term, eroding the foundations of American identity in favor of two separate and increasingly divergent subgroups. Even if the requirements are relatively easy at first, the precedent would be established for future generations to make it progressively harder and themselves increasingly more privileged. That creates a problem illustrated by late Sparta, where the number of citizens dwindled by the high cost of obtaining the status, and those with a stake in the system became swamped by workers with only expedient interests in the state.

At first, the "residents" would be culturally little different than the half of Americans who don't vote, and the "citizens" those who do, with a significant but not terrible financial gradient. A lot of people simply wouldn't bother, just like with voting registration, and the initial consequences would seem so minimal that a significant majority would lack citizenship before problems became apparent. Many politicians today, while largely ignoring the working class, understand that they have to put in some minimal effort to avoid bringing them to the polls in anger; but if even the ability to vote required efforts in excess of registration, the vast majority of that bloc would be wiped away.

Over time, the citizens would leave, and the powerless residents would concentrate in specific areas with increasingly poor conditions, turning decent neighborhoods into ghettos and ghettos into third world shantytowns. A few generations down the road, the majority of people living in America wouldn't consider themselves Americans, breaking down along race lines and neighborhoods, and the "citizens" would be an increasingly insular, arrogant, and entitled minority with little regard for the others living in "their" country. Give it two centuries and you're talking hereditary nobility.

Citizenship by universal birthright helps cement "American" as an identity, and makes it something more than a political classification. You may be proud of a status you earn, but that doesn't really have the same personal impact as something viewed as a birthright, as something fundamental to one's character. That's the reasoning behind requiring that presidents be born in the United States--it isn't that an immigrant's loyalties are questionable, but that no matter how loyal, talented, and patriotic they are, their character was not formed by this society. Making everyone earn citizenship would objectify it--immigrants naturalize so their children will be Americans, which they themselves will never fully be, and so that would become the case for everyone in a tiered system. To the "citizens," it would just be a status to be held, not a foundational aspect of their character; and to the "residents," it would be a symbol of their alienation. America itself would come to be identified as the state of the arrogant elite, and would ultimately be rejected by the people living on this land. Like post-Empire Europe, you might have one or a few small states called "America" or some derivative name, but most of this would be gone.

It's a good idea to look as far ahead as possible when considering radical proposals.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at May 23, 2007 06:08 PM

Rand,

You send the deportees to the immigrants' home countries. It's a 1 to 1 exchange.

Posted by Jardinero1 at May 23, 2007 06:09 PM

Brian, the whole point of earning citizenship was to allow those who have demonstrated placing the good of all above themselves to be in charge. Not be an elite class but serve in addition to their daily lives. I'm glad I don't have your morose, pessimistic view of my fellow citizens.

Posted by Bill Maron at May 23, 2007 06:24 PM

You send the deportees to the immigrants' home countries. It's a 1 to 1 exchange.

You miss my point. You propose that we no longer grant citizenship by birth, and that non-citizens be deported. That means that, had such rules been in place at the time, you wouldn't have been a citizen at birth, and accordingly, had you not met the standards of citizenship at whatever time you think was the limit at which a non-citizen should be deported, that you should have been deported.

To what country should we have deported you? And why would they have taken you? And if they wouldn't, assuming you've gotten this far in the logic, what then?

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 23, 2007 06:38 PM

Rand,

If I had to be deported I would gladly swap with someone from Fiji or Vanuatu. Forget about their own customs and immigration. Just drop me off nearshore, I'll swim for it.

Posted by Jardinero1 at May 23, 2007 06:44 PM

If I had to be deported I would gladly swap with someone from Fiji or Vanuatu. Forget about their own customs and immigration. Just drop me off nearshore, I'll swim for it.

That's great. Now do you have a serious response to my serious question? Or were you just fooling around?

Where would you expect the government to deport you, had you been born under whatever circumstances you were born under, and hadn't earned your citizenship?

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 23, 2007 06:49 PM

Has anyone actually read the bill?

There is a section right near the top, where it says the rest of the provisions dont take effect until there's a certification that a number of metrics (dare we say "benchmarks"?) are met. Among them that the border security parts of the bill have been implemented.

(Heritage has the actual text up on their site).

I must admit, i was pretty anti-bill until I read it, based on what people said about it. however this may be the best bill we can get (from a controlling immigration point of view). When the Dems get in, they'll blow up the border checkpoints to let everyone in, after all...

-jcp-

Posted by Joe Pistritto at May 23, 2007 07:20 PM

Has anyone actually read the bill?

Joe, I doubt if even the people who are going to vote on it have read it...

My understanding of that provision is that it measures inputs, not outputs (e.g., miles of fence, numbers of additional border security personnel hired, etc.). It's like any other government program, such as education (counting how much is being spent, or how many teachers have been hired).

That's not the same thing as measuring how many fewer people are coming across the border unhindered. When they make that a benchmark, and provide an objective measurement for it, I'll be impressed.

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 23, 2007 07:27 PM

No Rand, the point I am trying to make is that I think it's hypocritical to impose a standard for residency that many native born citizens could not meet. All the standards I suggested above are, in fact, standards used to evaluate the residency status of immigrants today in the USA. Personally, I think you have met the standard for residency if you elect to come here, struggle and fight to get here, and find gainful employment.

Posted by Jardinero1 at May 23, 2007 07:55 PM

I'm glad I don't have your morose, pessimistic view of my fellow citizens.

My views are neither morose, pessimistic, nor limited to the American people. It is simply a fact of human nature that the more of a privilege something is, the more those who have it will work to protect and increase its value. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it must be taken into account when making decisions. We already have citizenship, ergo it is our instinct to increase its value by applying stricter standards for obtaining it; and even if we submit ourselves to testing, we are intelligent, educated people completely confident in our ability to pass such tests.

To get these tests approved initially, all we would need is the approval of enough people to enable a Constitutional Amendment, meaning they could be hard enough to disqualify anywhere from 10% to 30% of the population. In subsequent generations, it would be the instinct of the citizens to continue improving the value of their status, and since the constitutional threshold had already been passed, they would only need enough support to get it through Congress. Hence, it would be in the interests of most citizens to knock off another 10%-30% of those currently in their ranks, and those who would be disqualified would be outvoted. Eventually an equilibrium would be achieved, but there's no way of knowing how many "citizens" would remain once the cycle of increasing requirements ended--5% of the population having voting and electoral rights wouldn't be hard to imagine. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and various other tactics were used in the past, but of course modern innovations like credit ratings, genetic history, or nomination by elite organizations could easily be included.

Were that to happen, our civilization would more resemble a Frank Herbert creation than a free republic founded on Enlightenment principles. The privileges already enjoyed by the rich--such as more than fair criminal trials, unlimited access to the civil legal system and political officeholders, and being held in greater respect by law enforcement--would in all likelihood become legally enshrined. Meanwhile, the rights of everyone else, whose existence would diminish the importance of citizenship privileges, would erode due both to neglect by the majority and active attacks from a minority of those in power.

The Founders designed our system a certain way for reasons they clearly stated, and which make as much sense then as now. We should keep to those principles not out of faith, not out of ancestor worship or tradition, but simply because we know their reasoning is sound, we know it works, and based on the above reasoning, we know at least the alternative in question is a bad idea.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at May 23, 2007 07:57 PM

No Rand, the point I am trying to make is that I think it's hypocritical to impose a standard for residency that many native born citizens could not meet.

I agree. But you still haven't answered my question. Where should we deport you to if you don't meet the standards? Coventry?

My point is that citizenship and residency are two entirely different animals.

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 23, 2007 08:20 PM

Joe Pistritto,

The benchmarks are vapor ware. The first link gives the reason why.

Reading The Fine Print, Part 1: Does The First Exception Swallow The Triggers Whole?

The second link gives a detailed description of what a disaster this bill is. The description is broken into parts so it is not to bad to get through

Summary Of The Fine Print Read, And NZ's Easy To Use Text

This bill is a complete and utter fraudulent wreck.

Posted by TJIT at May 23, 2007 09:06 PM

In this case standard libertarian doctrine is correct. The reason that some immigrants are illegal is that immigration law isn't fair. Most Americans want a crackdown on illegal immigration just like most Americans want a crackdown on illegal drugs. But the war on (some) immigrants is an even bigger failure than the war on (some) drugs. Since America is at least as capitalist as it is a democracy, immigration caps will generally get weaker, not stronger, over time.

A few people here have floated the myths (or lies, really) that illegal immigrants don't pay taxes. In reality, they do pay taxes --- the IRS has handed out millions of "temporary" Social Security numbers to immigrants, just choosing not to find out whether they are legal immigrants. I'm sure that there are tax deadbeats among these people, but on the other hand, at their salaries, income taxes aren't all that high anyway. The IRS is missing vastly more tax revenue from unreported small business income than from illegal immigrants. There are tax deadbeats at all levels of society and the illegal immigrants aren't a crushing IRS problem. Besides, immigration opponents are against the IRS registrations.

No, the real issue is jobs, and the Spanish language. It's the unlibertarian instinct that prior American citizens deserve to cut off the job market if wages would just be too low otherwise. It's also the unlibertarian instinct that the democratic majority can impose one particular language, English, on everybody, with a border patrol if necessary. America is libertarian enough that these unlibertarian urges will simply fail, popular though they may be.

Meanwhile Rand has forgotten libertarian theory and sided with conservative Republicans. (And yes, I give Bush credit for showing some real humanity by not doing so.) Which could indicate what "neolibertarians" generally are --- libertarians with Republican Alzheimer's disease.

Posted by at May 23, 2007 10:04 PM

No, the real issues are a) the culture (willingness to join the melting pot, to be changed even as you subtly change America, willingness to uphold the laws of your new country, willingness to trust and worthiness to be trusted by your new fellow countrymen, etc.) held by the immigrants (notice that those who follow the rules are more likely to do the above), and b) the fact that mixed in with people who want to work but don't want to bother with paperwork or laws are terrorists who would gladly kill us all.

Posted by Big D at May 23, 2007 11:48 PM

the culture

Well, yeah, except that language is a big part of culture. Which is why people are kicking around English-language provisions and amendments in Washington right now.

Besides, whatever kind of "culture" it is, from the libertarian point of view, culture is a matter of your personal liberty unless you commit a crime with a victim. Even if someone else who shares your culture commits a crime, you're still entitled to your culture if you had nothing to do with it.

the fact that mixed in with people who want to work but don't want to bother with paperwork or laws

They do want to bother with paperwork and laws, within reason. That's why they pay taxes and want drivers' licenses. The only "paperwork" that they don't "bother" with is the system designed to throw them out of the country.

are terrorists who would gladly kill us all.

Sure, whenever you want unlibertarian laws, you can always sound the alarm of terrorism. But the discussion about immigration sounds exactly the same today as it did before 9/11. It's about Hispanics, not Arabs. The biggest Hispanic terrorists around these days are Cuban counterrevolutionaries who keep getting let off by Republicans. The only Hispanic they have in the war on Islamic terrorism is Jose Padilla, except that he's from Puerto Rico.

On second thought, there were also some Iraqi Christians caught trying to enter the US from Mexico. They claim that they were fleeing head-choppers in their home country. So they sit in American jail while the immigration courts figure that one out. Paperwork, you know.

Posted by at May 24, 2007 01:07 AM

No Rand, the point I am trying to make is that I think it's hypocritical to impose a standard for residency that many native born citizens could not meet

And what's wrong with that? The US after all is there for the citizens of the US. The laws of the US are there for the citizens of the US. The process for adding new citizens should as well benefit existing US citizens. Surely, that means that the new citizen must be better than existing citizens, otherwise the naturalization process doesn't sufficiently benefit existing citizens. Hypocritical? Yes and it should be.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at May 24, 2007 01:59 AM

I haven't "sided with anybody," anonymous idiot. I haven't expressed an opinion on immigration.

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 24, 2007 05:28 AM

A few generations down the road, the majority of people living in America wouldn't consider themselves Americans, breaking down along race lines and neighborhoods, and the "citizens" would be an increasingly insular, arrogant, and entitled minority with little regard for the others living in "their" country. Give it two centuries and you're talking hereditary nobility.

I rarely agree with Brian, but in this case I do. Most people do not want competition. If one has certain priviledges that others don't, he has much greater motivation to ensure he and his children remain in the priviledged position than to enable those without the priviledge to gain them. So yes, citizenship based on merit would eventually degenrate into what is effectively hereditary nobility -- even if "noble" children must pass some test to earn their position, and theoretically that test is available to everyone.

But didn't the whole thing get completely off-topic?

Posted by Ilya at May 24, 2007 05:50 AM

the point I am trying to make is that I think it's hypocritical to impose a standard for residency that many native born citizens could not meet.

Fair enough, a natural born US citizen in the United States does not violate US immigration laws, but then that is why Jardinero1's analogy is moronic. Yet, if the US citizen violated Mexico's border or stayed in country for 180 days without a visa, they will have violated Mexican Immigration laws and be treated accordingly.

Yet, let's expand on Jardinero1's thought (feeble as it is): a natural born US citizen is not allowed to make a living mowing lawns and cleaning houses while refusing to report income and pay taxes to the US government. If caught doing this, they would be forced to pay back taxes and face time in prison. A natural born US citizen cannot operate a motor vehicle without a valid license and can face fines and jail time for doing so. A natural born US citizen that uses government services and fails to pay proscribed fees will be sent to jail. In many causes, the fact that prison time was served may cause a natural born US citizen to lose certain privileges enjoyed by law abiding US citizens.

All the standards I suggested above are, in fact, standards used to evaluate the residency status of immigrants today in the USA.

Here's some fun to be had... take Jardinero1's "standards", and consider yourself a fully legalized (any manner) citizen of Texas (my home) or Florida (Rand's home). Now go to Arizona (home of Senator McCain) or Massachusetts (home of Senator Kennedy) and earn a living for 6 months and don't pay income taxes then see what happens.

Posted by Leland at May 24, 2007 07:32 AM

Most people do not want competition.

I'll disagree. Competition is what drives us as a species. Competition is what drives corporations to innovate. I would agree that people would like to choose what competition they engage in, but to say that people don't want competition at all is not correct. Maybe most people don't realize they require competition, I could agree there too.

Posted by Mac at May 24, 2007 07:44 AM

The decision-makers in this country generally believe that imposing requirements and limits on those seeking U.S. citizenship is immoral. When the public demands such limits, the elites ignore it, or if they can't ignore it, they hold their noses, pass laws they intend not to uphold (like the "enforcement" provisions of the current bill), and then sit on the sidelines while nutty federal judges invalidate the laws.

We all know the overt rationales for this. There's the libertarian rationale (borders are an affront to human liberty), there's the "proposition nation" rationale (anybody can be a U.S. citizen if they just sign up to our principles), there's the capitalist rationale (open borders are good bidness), and there's the multicultural rationale (restricting immigration implies cultural distinctions and is therefore wrong).

Whether you agree with the rationales or not, the end result of unregulated immigration for the U.S. will be that it'll start resembling an international airport (except with all the amenities of a bus station). It's like that already in the big coastal cities. Your neighbors? Many do not understand your language. They worship strange gods, beat their wives, and do not know what a home run or a touchdown is.

That prospect bothers most people. It is an aspect of immigration that has always been with us, but whereas in the past, it was a temporary state limited to small enclaves, today, it's permanent, because society isn't allowed to force people to stop being Somalian or Guatemalan or whatever and start being American. Plus, there'll be an endless supply of new immigrants, so there will always be a large unassimilated population.

If you like living in that kind of world, I guess you're going to get your wish eventually. Personally, I'll resist it as long as I can.

Posted by Artemus at May 24, 2007 07:55 AM

Most people do not want competition.

I'll disagree. Competition is what drives us as a species. Competition is what drives corporations to innovate.

Sure. I know that. You know that. Almost all Westerners know that -- in abstract. Now, leaving aside how many non-Westerners know that competition is good even as an abstract concept (and I suspect not that many), even people who fully understand economic usually prefer that no one competes against them personally. There are exceptions, but most individuals, as well as most corporations, secretely (and sometimes openly) wish they had no rivals -- whether in market, love, or grant proposals. Which is where trade tariffs come from, among other things.

Posted by Ilya at May 24, 2007 08:11 AM

Ilya,

You're right.

Posted by D Anghelone at May 24, 2007 09:22 AM

Mac: Competition is what drives us as a species.

Competition is a default result of individuals pursuing needs and desires, and excluding others from power is one potential form. If you try to exclude someone, they will try to remain included, and "competition" in the broad Darwinian sense ensues, although not in any way a fair playing field in the free market sense.

Competition is what drives corporations to innovate.

It's also what drives them to engage in illegal, predatory business practices that exclude competitors from even reaching the market. I agree that the "citizen" elite in an exclusionary state would be driven to extreme heights of achievement to protect their power, at least for a while, but their "innovations" would only be things that served that agenda. There would be little or no middle-class to buy consumer products, so the economy would consist of luxuries for the "citizens" with no price pressure to encourage efficiency, and everybody else would primarily be living through local flea market/bazaar shopping.

Maybe most people don't realize they require competition, I could agree there too.

That's another good point. Although the elite would be driven to achieve for a few generations, eventually the "competition," consisting of non-citizens and weaker citizens, would be wiped out so thoroughly that later generations could coast on the power infrastructure of their ancestors, becoming decadent and foolish. Whatever pathetic remnants of our society remained would be torn apart by feudal wars, uprisings by the non-citizen mob, or foreign predation.

Competition is beneficial on a level playing field, but pursuing a course of all-out struggle by tampering with the rules to exclude competitors results in wilderness evolution--reducing human beings back to the level of daily survival, and their accomplishments to things that directly address that. Meanwhile, an entrenched elite would be too busy pursuing luxury and protecting their power to make innovations that serve the species, which is why manorial economies are static and moribund. The long-term survival of mankind requires that the right to compete remains a right, and that previous successes (i.e., the wealthy and/or powerful) not limit future ones.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at May 24, 2007 04:53 PM

Competition is a default result of individuals pursuing needs and desires, and excluding others from power is one potential form.

Yes it is, since to win you usually have to stop the other guy from achieving his goal, or just achieve it before he does.

It's also what drives them to engage in illegal, predatory business practices that exclude competitors from even reaching the market.

Competition drives a great majority in innovating business practices that do not involve illegal means. This is a case of a bad apple ruining the barrel for you Brian. There are companies that engage in illegal practices and they eventually get caught and punished, but can't we focus on buisnesses that do their thing legally? There are a lot more of those to focus on.

Although the elite would be driven to achieve for a few generations, eventually the "competition," consisting of non-citizens and weaker citizens, would be wiped out so thoroughly that later generations could coast on the power infrastructure of their ancestors, becoming decadent and foolish.

Driven to succeed, yes, but as soon as they feel they've achieved their goal, they stop competing at the same level and "weaker" citizens displace them. Coasting would eventually lead downward. As long as there are successful people and business, there will people striving to achieve wealth, a non-ending cycle of competition. That's a good thing in a free society.

Posted by Mac at May 25, 2007 05:41 AM

Post a comment