a great test-tube for illegal immigration is contemporary italy. entitlements don’t exist for illegal immigrants, but the attraction of a wealthy society has proven enormous for criminal gangs from eastern europe in particular. the italian jail population disproportionately overweight illegal immigrants. and not for petty stuff (the italians often turn a blind eye, or at limit escort them to the border, from whence they often return to reoffend) - we’re talking slave-trade operators in prostitution, home-invasion etc.
now this is counterbalanced to an extent by the countless albanian or philippino baby-sitters, or carers for the elderly, and the tireless illegals who pick the tomatoes under a cruel sun. however, the public mood has turned extremely sour over the massive social change, and sense of physical insecurity.
now of course there are xenophobes who seek to ride the fear of the other, but the penal statistics show there is a genuine problem. the realistic danger is that permissive attitudes over who enters the country can fan popular resentment, providing good wind to the ultra-nationalists sails.
I just heard Ron from some TV show yesterday and he talked about his shifting views on this question. He is on record in favor of wholly free immigration, but now wants some restrictions. He was completely reasonable. He said that if we had the right kind of economic system, we would be begging for immigrants (and in fact in some sectors, we are!). But right now, the welfare state skewing matters to the point that some types of immigrants are a drain on tax dollars. He said no more or less than Milton Friedman and even Julian Simon have said. There was nothing “hateful” about it. He is essentially a free immigrationist who regrets the need to deal with a very real problem by accomodating some restrictions until we can restore liberty. In this, he seems to reflect the views of most all libertarians.
The economic objection is that immigration in its current form privatizes profits and socializes costs. The cultural and political objection is that if you let in enough Haitians, e.g., eventually you end up with Haiti.
It is also significant that the prior waves of immigrants did not have shelf upon shelf of civil rights laws to beat their hosts over the head with. This encouraged assimilation. But the Irish, Italian and Jewish influx were not without their own costs: labor union activism, municipal political machines, gangsterism, cultural Marxism, etc.
Negative consequences do not justify unethical means. Forcibly outlawing me allowing such people onto my property, selling them my property, and hiring them are unethical means that violate the most basic libertarian understanding of property rights. Of course, it’s not as if immigration restrictionism is not without its own costs: more immigration bereaucracy, more executive powers, paramilitary border patrols, more controls on labor, national I.D. cards, tax-payer funded walls that require massive use of emminent domain, and labor union activism (of course, the unions overwhelmingly oppose illegal immigration - see Ceasar Chavez).
The difference is that, while open borders may have consequences you do not like, as a means in itself (I.E. simply not putting political barriers to entry up and not enforcing them) it is not unethical. Forcibly exiling people from the territory for the “crime” of not having legal permission is. Raiding and jailing employers for hiring willing workers is. Shooting people for crossing unowned property is. Taxing people to build berlin walls is. Combined, all of the things involved in strict border enforcement and immigration restrictionism imply quite a flexing of political power and would do absolutely nothing to address the welfare state itself.
You may very well object that OTHER currently existing laws in place are unethical, such as civil rights and welfare legislation, but that only means that there is a problem with those means, not open immigration in itself. Blaming open immigration (which we currently do not have, considering that illegal immigration is a direct consequence of the quasi-illegalization or prohibition of immigration due to the inadequacy of the process and the already existing limits that exist on it) for the problems created by other laws is distractionary and intellectually dishonest. The solution would be to repeal those laws, not restrict immigration to avoid the effects of those laws.
Here is the problem: allowing mass, indiscriminate immigration itself creates a constituency for the civil rights laws and transfer payments to which we both object. Government also has an inherent interest in expanding its clientele. In other words, so long as you’re putting out the welcome mat for social democrats, don’t expect social democracy to disappear any time soon.
Too bad my Canadian friends are flipping out because they’re paying for those goodies and have been for a while, and several local and national US news agencies have documented such goodies being hande out. That the system is being strained I have no doubt, that’s what happens eventually in al socialist systems. But peopel aren’t fleeing there to bust their rumps hauling fruit when they can do that down here in the US with little effort. And I doubt it’s the cold climate that’s attracting them.
And smoking is not a problem either, but if the government has doused the entire US in gasoline it’s not unreasonable to say perhaps people should avoid popping matches and flicking lighters for a while, at least until the gas dries up. Yes, those actions on their own should not be illegal. That principle will hardly be a comfort though to those whose property will go up in flames. We cannot act as if we live in an ideal world. We need to start from ideals and use them to inform practical moves. And a practical move right now is to let up on border enforcement after the incentives for people coming over here to suck on the government teet are reduced or repealed.
Here is the problem: encouraging the state to stop masses of people from entering the territory and taking jobs, as a means in it itself, requires the very transfer payments and central planning to which we both object. The lack of such enforcement, as a means in itself, does not. And I think it’s a bit ridiculous to assume that immigrants must be social democrats. In some respects I view many immigrants as fleeing socialism. So long as you’re all for a paramilitary state in the name of keeping the evil social democrats (who will surely rape your sister and become welfare leeches) out, don’t expect neo-fascism to dissapear any time soon.
Oh yes. Surely they are all disease-ridden, jobless, job-stealing (gotta love opposing claims), welfare-sucking criminal hoodlums who believe in communism. Best we throw our principles out the window for the moment in order to stop this cultural scourge and keep the world safe for anglo-purity and job security. Afterall, so long as evil still exists we should use it for our advantage, lest we be infested with brown-skinned social democrats who dare to commit the crime of crossing unowned land, not signing the proper government paperwork, taking 5 dollar an hour jobs and buying homes. The outrage!
Oh, btw, I may or may not have “spoken” to Ron Paul this afternoon in Facebook. I’ll pretend I did, and he gave a reply almost exactly like I’d expect him to. He doesn’t see the inconsistancy of his position, or, he doesn’t want to recognize it. Oh well. Still a major leap forward.
large numbers of people will be drawn to seek opportunity in a wealthly country, even in the absence of transfer payments.
where there is capital structure growth, immigration can occur without sacrificing living standards. this happened here in australia, post world war two. enormous capital growth generated demand for unskilled immigration, but per-capita income grew. that would no be longer the case, as capital growth is stunted by punitive taxes, and a byzantine regulatory regime. unskilled immigration would only lower per-capita income.
freeing borders without having first pruned away large swathes of government to augment capital investment is not going to fly in democratic societies, people won’t vote themselves a pay-cut.
Yes, some people may lose out if labor is allowed to freely compete, just like some buisinesses may lose out if firms are allowed to freely compete. Whoopdeedoo. It certainly doesn’t justify any kind of protectionism.
Of course, these are all consequentialist, utilitarian considerations. I find them irrelevant to the ethics of the matter. If the means in themselves are unethical, I simply do not care if it’s done in the name preserving people’s per-capita income.
I am not primarily concerned with preserving economic prosperity for certain groups, I am primarily concerned with justice. In the absence of justice, I could really care less about good consequences.
Of course, there is no reason why justice and prosperity cannot co-exist, with prosperity being a consequence of justice. But things such as per-capita income are not a proper measuring stick of justice.
Sometimes we need to take our utilitarian economics hats off for a moment and think about ethics. Utility is not justice.
Although I sometimes wonder if the anti-immigration libertarians are singling out the anglo who lost his job or has to pay for someone’s welfare and are refusing to see the comparative advantages.
Which might be analogous to advocating what amounts to a nationalization of the construction trade, specifically and most notably road building and the private property that is nationalized to facilitate that action perhaps? Your distinction here is a matter of degree, not logical consistency. As for the effect they have on the culture and economy, I’ve seen the negative and positive effects first hand. Well to do Mexican dentists aren’t swimming across the Rio Grand or strapping the basement door to their rear ends to float over here through the Gulf of Mexico. And what gets reported and what actually happened at those ‘immigration’ rallies are two very different things. We are not getting the creme de la creme of Mexican society here. I do HR work for companies that work near the borders, I see first hand the people who come across for work and they aren’t Rotary Club members.
Pray tell then, what natural right empowers them to the portion of my paycheck that pays for their housing and medical bills and their kid’s educations? That is the reality of what goes on. I do oppose the welfare state. I also oppose making the problems the welfare state fosters worse by allowing more dependents on the dole than there otherwise would be while I’m working to dismantle it. Just as if I were putting out a fire, I’d attempt to stop those who for whatever reason seek to pour gas on it. Without the fire their pouring would not be a problem and certainly none of my concern. With the fire it becomes my concern.
No. But we do not live in an ideal world, and if there is an enemy coming over the hill and I have the choice of quoting the nonaggression axiom at them or paying taxes to support an army to repel them, I’m going to pay the taxes. That’s practical reality. No where did I say all immigrants are a drain on our society, I said quite the opposite and perhaps if you had read my posts you would have seen that. And I do not think it unreasonable that people want to control the flow of gang members, burglars, robbers, rapists, pedophiles, the diseased and infected, the dole seekers, and other assorted low lives coming across the borders into their neighborhoods despite the fact that there are also hard working respectable people who we should welcome coming across as well. There is no false piety in that view, there is a practicality and realism often missing in libertarian approaches to problems. My focus is the dismantling of the welfare state. I’d rather not pay through ass and lose everything that’s good about my culture while doing that because I failed to deal with a more immediate effect the welfare state was having.
Strange, on Maher’s boards you were quite a bit more reasonable. What occasions the change? I offer an easy solution. There are currently a good number of illegals in the local prison here for crimes as various as rape, assault, burglary, robbery, etc. Get a list of their victims and explain to them that the principle of fighting the welfare state outweighs the practical if not ideal concerns of dealing with a flood of criminals, many of who are coming here illegally from other countries.
That is not the issue of immigration. It’s the issue of taxation and national healthcare and public housing and public education. Complaining about that as an arguement against immigration is disingenuous. And, once again, the exact same complaint applies to legal citezens, who attend public education and accept subsidized healthcare. There is nothing exclusive to illegal immigrants about it. The vast majority of people guilty of what you’re complaining about are not illegal immigrants, they are your average voter. So why don’t we see you advocating evicting them from their homes and their deportation? Because this is obviously a matter of personal preference for groups of people, not a matter of principle.
I also oppose making the problems of the police state and federal bereaucracy worse by hiking up paramilitary presence at the borders and creating more immigration bereaucracy and regulations then there otherwise would be while I’m working to dismantle it. Cracking down on immigration and border enforcement will not do anything in itself to reduce the welfare state, but it will increase the police state while the welfare state remains just fine and cozy in place. You will, however, achieve the end of keeping the welfare state a little bit more exclusive then it otherwise may have been - big deal. Not much of a victory for liberty.
You see, I don’t accept increases in political means as a libertarian solution to problems. And I don’t care if not increasing those political means may lead to unutilitarian consequences, even though the bulk of such claims made by anti-immigrationists are nonsensical and protectionist fallacies, as well as mere matters of personal taste (such as what language people speak, as if this really matters).
Once again, where is the gun in the room? Who are the aggressors? People crossing the border, or those in your government? I vote the latter. This is victim-blaming. The state is the aggressor, and then you propose to use that very instrument of aggression to restrict immigration due to the effects of the state aggression. The enemy, if anything, are (sorry to use a cliche) mostly white Christian folks in suites and ties in your government.
Which is a typical idealist answer and the general reason why idealists are mostly ineffective at achieving their goals. A lack of regard for consequences essentially means a complete disregard for an interim plan to transition from reality to your utopia, which is in the end why people usually reject the idea itself. As for justice, how is allowing the continued growth of welfare roles at the expense of private property rights justice? Fighting against such increases does not preclude striking at the root of the problem. And in your utopia of anarcho capitalism, which I too see as the ideal world, there is no freedom of movement guaranteed beyond that which people are willing to permit on their own property anyway. The freedom of travel, of movement, is always limited by what people permit on their own private property, even in your ideal world . How then is protecting that property by restricting movement through the government as an interim plan a problem? Unless of course your view is it’s either the ideal or nothing, in which case you may as well choose nothing anyway, as you’ll never get to the ideal by definition.