It’s not that they’re for small government — it’s that they’re inconsistently so:
Consider Indian Americans: More than 85 percent voted for Barack Obama, and 65 percent generally vote Democratic. This despite the fact that, like Jews (another anti-Republican minority), Indian Americans are wealthier and less likely to receive government support than the overall population. What’s more, Indian Americans should be natural allies of limited-government politicians, given how much government dysfunction they’ve witnessed back home.
So how do Republicans manage to alienate nearly every minority? By applying limited-government principles very selectively. During the last 50 years the GOP has opposed welfare handouts, racial preferences, and multiculturalism. Yet the Party of Lincoln has looked the other way when the government has oppressed minorities through racial profiling, discriminatory sentencing laws, and, above all, immigration policy.
America’s immigration laws are an exercise in social engineering that should offend any sincere believer in limited government. They strictly limit the number of foreigners allowed from any one country, largely to prevent America from being overrun by Hispanics and Asians.
We definitely need immigration reform, but not the kind being worked on by the Gang of Eight.
“America’s immigration laws are an exercise in social engineering that should offend any sincere believer in limited government.”
Limited government != anarchy. Open borders = anarchy.
This is like people saying that if you don’t want higher taxes, that you don’t want roads or firemen and want old people to starve and children to die.
“They strictly limit the number of foreigners allowed from any one country, largely to prevent America from being overrun by Hispanics and Asians.”
There is a significant difference between saying the current laws prevent more people from X country becoming American citizens and saying the law is intended to target people from X country. If our country really didn’t want people from Mexico to become citizens, then they wouldn’t be the #1 source of new citizens.
It is one thing to talk about the effects of regulations and another to paint with assumptions of broad brushed racial stereotypes about motives.
“Latin American immigrants can’t even get permits to legally enter the U.S. for work. Uncle Sam is extremely tight-fisted with visas for unskilled non-agricultural foreigners. Even if they manage to obtain visas they have no way of applying for green cards because, unlike H1-B workers, the law offers them no avenues to do so. Unless they have close relatives in America, the only way holders of H2-A or H2-B visas can live here permanently is illegally. ”
This is the interesting part. The nuts and bolts about our system that can be changed. But if the proposed solution is to scrap it altogether, I think it is bad policy. That Republicans haven’t done much to reform the system is also bad policy but that doesn’t mean they haven’t acted out of racism. Democrats also have done nothing and I don’t think their inaction is based in racism either.
“So how do Republicans manage to alienate nearly every minority?”
Parts of it are Republicans own actions but they are not the only players. Other parts are the Democrats who have waged a PR campaign to label Republicans as racist for anything and everything regardless of truth. It does not matter what Republicans do, even if they opened the borders tomorrow, they would still be labeled as racist because the use of racist attacks isn’t about combating racism but in finding whatever way possible to label an opponent as racist to disenfranchise them.
You have Republicans who are minorities, are married to them, or adopt them and are still labeled as racist.
There is much more going on than just what Republicans can change with any policy changes. Ignoring the actions of people other than Republicans is a stupid way to analyze the subject.
Limited government = anarchy in everything that isn’t a proper function of the government.
If you think spontaneous order is preferable to government mandate, you should support open borders.
Please give an example of what you call spontaneous order.
The Mongol Hordes racing across Asia, swords swinging?
If open borders worked, the EU would be utopia, rather than a hell-hole of festering racist nationalism. And that’s not just due to people moving around the EU to soak the benefits system, but unskilled workers unable to find jobs in their own country because workers from other countries are willing to live six to a garage in order to send most of their income back home where it’s worth more than a doctor would earn. Pretty soon they’re voting for neo-Nazis and you’re in a civil war.
I’ve never understood the belief in open borders among some segments of libertarianism; a libertarian society won’t last long when millions of non-libertarians turn up eager to vote themselves other peoples’ money. Look at America today, where the socialists fleeing the destruction they’ve caused in California are busy destroying the previously viable states they’ve moved to.
I’d say America’s immigration system is very much in need of reform, but that’s because it doesn’t serve the country’s interests, not because you should open the borders to everyone.
I’ve never understood the belief in open borders among some segments of libertarianism; a libertarian society won’t last long when millions of non-libertarians turn up eager to vote themselves other peoples’ money.
There are already millions of Americans eager to vote themselves other people’s money. Immigrants are merely a scapegoat.
Libertarians and classical liberals, like the Founding Fathers, recognize that greed is an invevitable part of human nature. You can’t change that just be limiting America to “good” people. That’s why the Founding Fathers created a system of limited government, in which people could *not* vote themselves other people’s money.
Limited government and lassez Faire policies did not lead to Mongol invasions, as you believe. Many people carried swords and knives, but there was not widespread slaughter. Crime rates were lower than they are today. Government enforced the laws, more effectively, because it did not have to waste time prosecuting people whose only “crime” was coming from the wrong country.
Jefferson said, “That government governs best, which governs least.”
Read Von Mises or Hayek.
Or any of the modern mathematicians, who’ve rediscovered it. (They call it chaos theory.)
Go your local office supply store and buy a pencil. How do you think that pencil got to the store? Who created it?
There is not one single person on this planet who knows how to make a pencil. There is no one who knows how grow and fell the trees that supply the wood, harvest and process the rubber for the reason, mill the steel for the ferrule, formulate the paint, and create the graphite. To produce that simple object requires the cooperation of hundreds of people.
Yet, there is no single leader, no commissar, who commands that cooperation and brings it about. It arises through spontaneous order, the result of human action, not human design.
When someone attempts to replace spontaneous order with central planning, the attempt fails, because there is no commissar who has all the necessary information to make the thousands of individual decisions needed to make a pencil.
Likewise, spontaneous order is a better way of determining who should live in a given country/state/city/neighborhood, what job they should hold, where they should go to school, etc. than a government commissar.
Denying spontaneous order is like denying the law of gravity. Economic law does not cease to exist simply because you are unaware of it or deny its existance.
But someone does make the pencil. It doesn’t spontaneously appear. Just because you don’t know anything about pencils doesn’t mean other people don’t either.
Just like there is an entire apparatus that you don’t know anything about that deals with the effects of population growth on water usage, land planning, school construction ect. These things don’t spontaneously appear either.
There is a huge range of activity between the open chaos and authoritarian micro management that you talk about.
But someone does make the pencil.
No, he doesn’t. There is no one who has all the skills needed to make a pencil. You are unaware of all the coordination and bringing together of skills which the free market accomplishes without any planning.
Just like there is an entire apparatus that you don’t know anything about that deals with the effects of population growth on water usage, land planning
Actually, Woden, I am well aware of those things. Advocates of limited government and personal freedom are not stupid as you assume.
I am also aware of the failures of central planning. If you looked at those systems, you would discover they all “cheat” by using market information. The more they cheat, the better they work. The more they plan, the more they fail.
I suppose you think no one ever developed a piece of land or drank water before gov planning commissions were invented?
There is a huge range of activity between the open chaos and authoritarian micro management that you talk about.
No, there isn’t. Von Mises disproved the myth of the “mixed economy” more than 60 years ago. You might as well be talking about phlogiston.
I blame the socialist school system.
Which is why Southern California and the Simi Valley are such heavenly places to live right now!
…oh wait.
The problem with that thesis is that minarchy isn’t an actual option for GOP (or Democrat or even LP) policy.
I completely oppose open borders unless the welfare state is dismantled FIRST.
If we can’t get that, then flat open borders is a disastrous policy, for reasons that should be obvious.
As Forbes magazine stated recently, opening the borders will shrink the welfare state.
Even the left agrees with that. The big outcry in California was based on the claim that immigration <threatened California's welfare system.
That’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
The argument that we can never do anything to reduce the size of the welfare state until after we have eliminated the welfare state is so obviously flawed that even the Left rarely uses it anymore. The fact that the Stupid Party still believes it is telling.
If rational policies are not an option for the GOP, then the GOP is obsolete. We should leave it to Karl Rove and Mary Maitland and build a new party for sensible people.
Limited government != anarchy. Open borders = anarchy.
You are engaging in word-twisting.
The policies and system of government created by the Founding Fathers, and followed for the next 100 years, until the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Acts, were not “anarchy” by any rational definition. The mere fact that you dislike freedom of movement does not anarchy.
Limited government is exactly what you condemn. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the most basic human right. You want the government to decide who should the right to live, work, travel, etc. in the United States and who shouldn’t. A government that can decide that is not limited, in any meaningful sense.
If our country really didn’t want people from Mexico to become citizens, then they wouldn’t be the #1 source of new citizens.
Mexico is not the #1 source of new citizens. The United States is. Yet, you do not call for denying citizenship to those whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower. Anti-immigration laws do target recent immigrant groups, whatever your spin.
It does not matter what Republicans do, even if they opened the borders tomorrow, they would still be labeled as racist
The difference being, the falseness of the charge would be obvious. People are not as stupid as you believe.
“Limited government != anarchy. Open borders = anarchy.
You are engaging in word-twisting. ”
The absence of order is anarchy. And the natural order associated with human nature is why we form societies and laws to constrain the negative.
“The mere fact that you dislike freedom of movement does not anarchy.”
I very much like freedom of movement. I like being about to pop up to Canada for the afternoon and bump into Canadians down here but we both go home. It would be awesome to have the same type of relationship with Mexico but because Mexico is such a crappy country people don’t want to go home. I think many people would love to live in the USA and retain the citizenship of their home country but you want to force citizenship on them. You are not talking about freedom of movement, you are talking about freedom to migrate and forced citizenship.
How is it a libertarian point of view to force citizenship on someone?
“The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the most basic human right.”
But becoming an American is not a universal human right. There are also many cultures who do not believe the same things we do. It is arrogant to assume that everyone is like yourself.
“Yet, you do not call for denying citizenship to those whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower.”
Why would I? Why do you?
There is an established process to become an American citizen. Go through it if you want to be an American. If you want more people to immigrate to the county, then lobby for rules to be changed.
“Anti-immigration laws do target recent immigrant groups, whatever your spin. ”
Laws don’t effect dead people. I am not the one hopping in a time machine to make a point. Why don’t you try dealing with reality as it is today. Make your case for open borders and how it would effect today’s society and not imagine what life was like hundreds of years ago.
“The difference being, the falseness of the charge would be obvious.”
Clearly it is not.
The absence of order is anarchy.
Spontaneous order is not the absence of order.
I very much like freedom of movement.
Even tyrants and dictators like freedom for themselves. It is other people they want to control. You miss the point of freedom.
How is it a libertarian point of view to force citizenship on someone?
No one is advocated forcing citizenship on anyone. Are you still beating your wife on Sundays?
But becoming an American is not a universal human right.
It was pretty close in the early years of the Republic (at least for whites). You still haven’t explained why that was a bad idea, about from your bizarre fear that it would lead to invading Mongol swordsman.
There is an established process to become an American citizen. Go through it if you want to be an American.
That’s like telling someone he shouldn’t get a job, he should just win the lottery. Either you don’t know how the immigration process works or you don’t understand the laws of probability.
You have the fixed idea that people who are willing to put up with pointless, petty bureaucracy and government harassment are somehow more deserving than those who have the gumption stand up to it. We used to call the latter group “Americans.”
Make your case for open borders and how it would effect today’s society
The case has been made countless times, by scores of economists, all of whom you ignore. Along with history, which you seem to hold in disdain.
There is ample evidence that freedom works and nothing else does (to paraphrase a recent book).
Arguments like Dalhmia’s make me really sad and angry, but what can we say about them? I know a Russian/Israeli/Canadian woman – I think her passport’s Israeli, but can’t be sure without asking her, her family’s been in motion since they left the Soviet Union in her childhood – whose green card just came through ten years after the paperwork was filed. I don’t love the nationality-based immigration quotas – hell, Coolidge hated them, which says something about how long they’ve been on the books in one form or the other – but the legal immigration system isn’t particularly good for anyone. Insisting that the current system is racially biased and thus the fault of *Republicans* is just… argh.
I think it’s a false argument. I think new immigrants default to the Democratic Party because they’re in a tribalised, hyphenated mindset and the entire system is set up to encourage that, to make sure that people sort themselves into bureaucratically, politically useful collectives. It’s a self-replicating system, and the natural political Party of collective bargaining units is the Democracy. Republicanism is for people who believe in the melting pot and individualism, as poorly and indifferently those ideals are expressed by actual politicians fielded by the people behind the party. There is no… percentage in allying yourself with the melting pot, if you’ve a useful collective to be enfolded within. The cynical benefits all lie with the historic party of tribalism and government.
But they will offer up justifications, stories they tell the world and themselves to paper over that cynical and corrupt choice. It can’t be their self-interest drives their political choices, it must be subtle racism, xenophobia, bigotry. They’re *good people*, good citizens, worthy, selfless and upright.
What can I say to them, in the face of their righteous self-deception? You’re wrong about yourself, you’re actually quite selfish? We all are, after all. But it’s the other party that believes in the innate Goodness of Mankind. What can the Tragic Party offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat?
This is, after all, why we’re doomed.
I think new immigrants default to the Democratic Party because they’re in a tribalised, hyphenated mindset and the entire system is set up to encourage that.
Then change the system. Milton Friedman said you can have a welfare state or free immigration, but you cannot have both simultaneously. Assuming he is right, I would prefer to keep the freedom and dumpy the welfare state. If you prefer the opposite, please explain why it is preferable.
But it’s the other party that believes in the innate Goodness of Mankind.
Free-market economics does not depend on the goodness of mankind. Again, paraphrasing Friedman, it is socialism that requires all men and women to act like angels for the system to work. The free market does not require angelic behavior. It guides even the most selfish to perform acts that benefit others, while big government guides even the most selfless to enrich themselves at public expense.
Republicanism is for people who believe in the melting pot and individualism
Then Republicans should allow individuals (not the state) to decide where they will live and work, and work to restrict the power of the state rather than the rights of individuals.
“Then Republicans should allow individuals (not the state) to decide where they will live and work’
You are failing to make the distinction between rights that Americans have and rights that people have in other countries.
No, Wodun, I am not failing to do that. I have never proposed kidnapping people from other countries and forcing them to be Americans. I am talking about people who choose to come to America voluntarily.
This is like your previous claim that people who favor freedom what to reinstitute slavery. Making silly arguments does not help your case.
proggtard claptrap. de youts commit de crimes denying reality ain’t going to change the facts
Wodun made a very interesting argument that you blew right past Edward:
Their is a difference between freedom of movement and citizenship.
Thought experiment… Realizing there is a difference, forget movement for a moment. Can you see any reason why the Russians, Chinese, British, or anyone else should stay in their countries, but vote in our elections? Is that a good idea?
Can you see any reason why the Russians, Chinese, British, or anyone else should stay in their countries, but vote in our elections?
You mean aside from the vast amount of money generated by it?
So, now you’re against tourism, too? I am not surprised. The fact that I fail to respond to ever dumb statement you make does not prove your superior intellect has “blown right past me.”
I was about to make a comment about the road to serfdom, but that would be unfair. There was more freedom to travel in the Middle Ages than there would be in your ideal world.
Pig-ignorant claptrap. I happen to be reading a book on the last third of the Hundred Years War. There is more freedom to travel today between South Korea and North Korea than there was in 1431 between Paris and Reims.
“Beware the man who has read one book.”
The modern obsession with passports and restricting freedom of movement is a fairly recent development. The only people who were not free to travel were serfs, who were tied to the land. Even the Czars did not require a passport to enter the country prior to the Russian Revolution.
There are many good histories available. For example:
http://mises.org/daily/5623/Passport-to-the-Total-State
As for the Korean border, both Koreas have immigration policies that are undeniably and openly racist. (Go ahead and scream that calling racism racism is politically incorrect. I expect that by now, but screaming does not change the fact.)
Not to mention that the two countries are separated by a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that immigration warriors would envy.
You haven’t made any case for your policies. All you’ve done is say that you’re “sad and angry” because other people dare to argue for freedom — and call us names. Anyone who disagrees with you is “tribalized,” “hyphenate,” and ‘pig-ignorant.”
That’s not convincing. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson, Ludwig Von Mises, Freidrich Hayek, etc. were mental midgets compared to you, but they offered an intelligent defense of freedom. You have not provided the contrary case.