Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
In a comment to an earlier thread, Emery wrote:
“The free movement of capital.
The free movement of goods and services.
The free movement of ideas and media.
The free movement of people.
The protection of private property.
I’m not a starry-eyed idealist, but I like to think that there is a liberal ideal that we should keep our eyes on, not necessarily as a realistic objective for today, but as a goal to strive for.”
My response is that all that free movement stuff sounds great in theory but I’m wondering about it in practice. I just poured myself a cup of coffee and dumped in a packet of sugar. I haven’t stirred it, yet. The sugar is concentrated in a heap of sweetness on the bottom of the cup. That’s America. The coffee in the rest of the cup is bitter. That’s the rest of the world. If I stir the cup, the sweetness will be distributed everywhere, but that also means it will be diluted everywhere. No one place will be super-sweet, all will be equally semi-sweet.
Wouldn’t free movement of people and money lead to the same result? If you took all the money in America and distributed it to people across the rest of the globe, they would be enriched but we would be impoverished. If we fling open the borders to let everybody from everywhere in the world come here, will they add to the sweetness of America by bringing prosperity and stability or subtract from it by welfare and crime?
I can see why people in the bitter lands would want their lives to become sweeter. I can’t see why people in the super-sweet lands would want their lives to become more bitter. As I cannot be guaranteed the glorious result would obtain, a conservative would eschew the experiment.
Joe Doakes
Perverse incentives? I get it.
Perverse wishes? Not so much.
I don’t believe that Emery was serious. How do you square the free movement of ideas and media with intellectual property laws? What is and what is not private property is not always clear. If I have money in the bank, it is just a number. Capital is just a number. Free movement of people conflicts with freedom of association. If the service I provide is mowing lawns or giving guided tours of the Grand Canyon, how is it even conceivable that these services can be moved?
The founders must have been on to something when they included the bill of rights in the constitution; look at how eager some people are to repeal or restrict them.
Free migration of people will be the great liberal debate of the 21st century. By forcing people to remain within an arbitrary political boundary we create economic hardships and inequality that would be totally unacceptable if those people were fellow citizens. When rich countries enforce strong borders and prevent economic migration they create economic ghettos beyond those borders, poorly run by corrupt leaders with little respect for their people but with quiet support from their rich neighbors to prevent total breakdown of order. How is that morally different from the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa? The right of free migration towers over all other human rights issues; how can I oppress a man who can pack his bags and leave?
How many vagrants hang out at your house all day, Emery?
You lost me at “arbitrary political boundary”, Emery.
Most national borders are not arbitrary. They formally recognize real differences in political jurisdiction.
Penn Jillette makes an argument similar to yours — he says borders are silly, and a border fence is useless because the illegals will use ladders to cross the fence.
Here is a photograph of Penn Jillette’s house in Vegas:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/trending/knowing-vegas-what-s-weird-house-southwest-valley
Note the fence.
It seems lots of well-to-do liberals/leftists enjoy their privacy and private property, and are just as NIMBYful as much as anyone else.
(Altho Penn has often categorized himself as a fiscal conservative…”When it comes to money, go right; everything else, go left”)
Penn is one of those “social liberal, fiscal conservative” frauds. Unless he really believes that if a woman has five kids she can’t afford to raise, the kids should starve. Taking her kids away from her or forcing her to use birth control are hardly “socially liberal” positions.
A common belief among libertarians is that charity should be the job of churches. There are at least two problems with this idea. First, Libertarians aren’t known for their financial support of churches, and second, churches have limited resources. They aren’t going to support a family of drug addicts. A lot of society’s socially conservative rules are intended to prevent the looting of the commons by stupid or selfish people.
“The right of free migration…” Where’s that one written down? Can my poor cousin migrate to your basement?
That’s the great hypocrisy of libidiots. They want to allow open borders, but want everyone else to pay for them. I wonder how many of them would become Republicans over night if someone with guts made a statement that since Democrats thought that this was such a great idea, they could pay for it.
The shitty coverage of the illegal immigrant situation continues:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/09/14/woman_arrested_at_ob_gyn_office_her_crime_being_an_undocumented_immigrant.html
Marcotte is hysterical. Slates’ reporting is simply wrong. The headline of the article is “Woman Arrested at OB-GYN’s Office for Being an Undocumented Immigrant.” The article states that she was arrested for using a fraudulent ID, not for being an illegal immigrant. The article begins with the phrase “amid increasing levels of anti-immigrant furor . . .”, which is another lie. Things have never been easier in this country for illegal immigrants. Obama’s government has stated that it will not deport anyone or charge them with a crime for being in the country illegally. This is marginally more favorable than even Bush’s pro-illegal immigration policies.
The woman in question was arrested for using a fake ID to get medical services. Good God, is this minor crime now? Doctors can go to jail for billing insurance companies or the government for non-existing patients. A fella could make a decent living by using fake ID’s to get multiple prescriptions for pain killers.
Marcotte is a certified member of the intellectual elite. She believes Americans are too dumb to make important policy decisions without the “guidance” of people like her.
These sentiments expressed on this thread are as old as humanity. They’re very easy to understand.They have majority support. I just wish all of the hypocrites would stop claiming their motivations were somehow different. Hating immigrants has always been a symptom of the United State’s problems; immigrants have never actually been the problem.
There will be tremendous pressure to “do something” every time a new wave starts, and it is at those moments of crisis that liberalism can be abandoned. I find some of the comments on this page chilling in their willingness to abandon liberal principles and standards hard won over centuries, particularly the 20th century. Too many people are willing to dismiss what makes Europe (or the US) peaceful and tolerant as “political correctness”. Erring on the side of tolerance and mercy helps to defend the system that makes our civilization what it is more than any wall or fence.
Emery, you should crack a book open once in awhile.
The current level of immigration to the US, legal and illegal, are greater than they have ever been in the history of the country. During the most liberal era of the United States, the New Deal years, immigration laws were highly restrictive.
And quit bleating about “tolerance and mercy”. No one is less tolerant of different opinions on immigration than Amanda Marcotte (or yourself). Mercy, these days, means giving other peoples’ stuff away or stomping on their values.
Hate immigrants? Hate my own ancestors? Hate my relatives? Did you corner the market on smugness and self-regard?
Fuck you.
You are just blathering at this point, Terry.
“People who are not capable of presenting a sound argument resort to blathering”.
Emery: “There will be tremendous pressure to “do something” every time a new wave starts, and it is at those moments of crisis that liberalism can be abandoned.”
Me: “During the most liberal era of the United States, the New Deal years, immigration laws were highly restrictive.”
That’s what is called an “argument”, Emery. You aren’t very good at arguing, mostly because you seem to want things to be true that aren’t true, for example you want immigration to be good for everybody.
It is not good for every body. Other than the immigrants themselves, it mostly seems to be good for the elite (check out who wants more immigration. It’s big business and powerful politicians, not the average person). If you want to screw your fellow citizens over to make yourself feel better, at least admit that is what you are doing. Don’t give me this moral high ground crap.
In a way, the illegal immigration controversy reminds me of the forced school integration schemes of the 1970s. The elites decided that it would be good for racial equality if minority students were bused from urban school districts to mostly white suburban school districts (Boston seemed to be ground zero for this experiment). Politicians and the media depicted the parents of the suburban students as being bigots and racists. Of course, the politicians and lawyers who dreamed up the busing scheme, and the journalists who covered the story, didn’t send their kids to public schools. They were willing to screw over middle class and working class people so they could feel better about themselves and the country.
Zuckerberg and Gates make millions off of H1B visa holders. Their attitude towards immigration, legal and illegal, is going to be different from the suburban home owner who discovers the neighboring house has become a flophouse for male day laborers from Guatemala. Yes, this happens, Emery.
Apples to Oranges, Emery. Immigration to American in 1815 is not the same as immigration in 2015.
Then, America needed unskilled labor to tame a frontier; now, we don’t.
Then, immigrants who couldn’t support their children gave them up for adoption rather than take their neighbor’s earnings by force; now, the capable pay taxes to support the children of the incapable/unwilling.
Liberal online periodical Slate:”Amid increasing levels of anti-immigrant furor . . .”
Liberal newspaper LA Times: “L.A. Touts Itself as “Northern Capital of Latin America” for 2024 Olympic Bid”
The truth is whatever they need it to be. Disagree, and you are a bigot.