I support open borders, but also think what Trump said wasn’t a bad proposal.
Also I don’t think a government should not give welfare benefits to immigrants.
I oppose welfare in general and it’s particularly evil when one applies it to immigrants.
A halt to all Muslims entering the country, is a valid point, due to the mis-management of government in regards to allowing people into this country. Or it’s the government that is responsible for their part in enabling numerous terrorist attacks upon US citizens- because the government let the wrong people into this country.
So it’s like the shuttle blowing up- you stop launching the shuttle until such a time as one figure out what being done incorrectly.
So a pause in Muslim immigration is within context that government is doing a poor job, and it needs to change what it is doing as not to cause future acts of terrorism.
Or it’s like halting all airline service- not a good idea in general, but it was a good decision to do this, despite the enormous hardship imposed upon the America people.
Now the government being normally quite incompetent, the pause in Muslim immigration might take a lot longer than shutting down airline service for the nation, though it could be possibility be resolved quicker than shutting down the Shuttle.
In terms of general idea of open borders, one has to first get the government so it can deal with people entering the country- one thing have to correct is getting rid of any welfare benefits for immigrants- getting rid of welfare in general would good idea, but in terms getting to a place where we have “open borders” it’s a requirement.
As far as political asylum, one should have private citizen who involved with providing this assistance. And these private need to have degree of liability connected to what kind of criminal activity they become involved with once they enter this country.
Aw, come on. I’m sure my Comrade Jim will join me in pointing out the fatal flaw in this entire tirade. She’s blond. Need I say more?
Racism is easy to fight once you know what racists look like!
Transblonde
I support open borders
What do you think America will be like if a billion Muslims, Chinese and Africans move in?
There are enough problems in America with leftists leaving the mess they’ve created in California to move to other states, where they vote for the same policies that destroyed their previous home. And they’re Americans. What do you think will happen when that’s repeated with people who come from completely incompatible cultures?
-What do you think America will be like if a billion Muslims, Chinese and Africans move in?–
If 1 billion Muslim, Chinese, and/or African people arrived in the US within several decades, it would be a threat to US National Security- among other problems.
And currently it appears that the 100,000 Muslims arriving legally to the US every year, also appears to be a threat to US National Security.
Having 100,000 or more Muslims arriving legally in US doesn’t have to be a threat to national security [whereas a hundred million would be] but appears that perhaps the way US government is governing could be causing it to be threat to National Security.
It seems we need a rational and through review of the process to determine if there is anything wrong with the governmental process and/or if a change in exterior factors requires a different approach to be taken.
“Open borders” is one of those “devil in the details” notions that, as you keep having to add complications to make it work, ought instead to be tossed aside.
I think what you mean when you say “open borders” has morphed far enough away from what it means to nearly everyone else who hears it or says it, that you might want to start calling it something else. May I suggest, “Rational border enforcement”?
. . . Los Angeles (ba-doom boom!)
I don’t know. It would be interesting to see how many tens of thousands of LGBT would have to brutally executed before the idiots on the left wonder if there’s perhaps a pattern to the murders.
Maybe the immigrants would do something really nasty … like refuse to bake wedding cakes.
Let’s have some perspective. Killing people is not the same as not wanting to participate in someone’s ideological ceremony. The state should not force people to participate in ideological ceremonies that they do not wish to.
America is a country where problems arise when our personal freedoms conflict with other’s freedoms. What a great problem to have.
I remember a time when it was no big deal that people had differing views on marriage. Noone thought my progressive friends who thought marriage shouldn’t exist were bigots. And let’s be honest, there are still some differing views on marriage, aside from homogamy, that are still permitted, if they are progressive beliefs on marriage.
“A halt to all Muslims entering the country, is a valid point, due to the mis-management of government in regards to allowing people into this country.”
There’s nothing morally wrong with the idea but I see it as impractical. Another filtering mechanism must be found – again I’m not against filtering. I don’t think any jihadist has any trouble telling the Immigration officer he’s a Christian or Yazidi or Coptic or whatever.
And how is the officer supposed to verify that? There’s no paper trail for these people.
Yes if 100,000 muslims coming in all say they are Christian, you know many are lying…but who?
Why not stop all immigration except business visits, and for a proscribed period of time. This will get the numbers down to a manageable level such that our bumbling government can track them and see that they leave before their Visas expire.
Yes thousands of students will wail and gnash their teeth. And I’m willing to discuss the categories of who can visit.
But I think about the absolutely frightening last few seconds of 14 people’s lives and the wailing and gnashing of teeth of their family members as well as the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the wounded and their family.
No contest.
You can’t stop every murderous nutter. But they have a much harder time operating when they’re alone in a foreign country than they do when they have millions of people there who at least tolerate them, if not openly support them. Just look at the EU, where so many of the recent attacks seem to be linked back to Muslim ghettos in Belgium.
–Gregg
December 13, 2015 at 4:40 AM
“A halt to all Muslims entering the country, is a valid point, due to the mis-management of government in regards to allowing people into this country.”
There’s nothing morally wrong with the idea but I see it as impractical. Another filtering mechanism must be found – again I’m not against filtering. I don’t think any jihadist has any trouble telling the Immigration officer he’s a Christian or Yazidi or Coptic or whatever.–
One does need to be jihadist to have no trouble telling the Immigration officer whatever Immigration officer wants to hear.
If a police officer depended upon what a driver of a car claimed when pulled over said, how silly would that be?
“And how is the officer supposed to verify that? There’s no paper trail for these people.”
Why is it the US problem if someone has no paper trial. Does a banker give a loan, when there is no paper trail.
Do you let anyone in your house because you know nothing about them?
I think if one had huge bureaucracy deciding who gets to come into your house, there is going to problems with who allowed into your house. Basically as reasonable guess, it will evolve into, everyone you want in your house, will be barred from entering and everyone you don’t want will have a legal right to enter your house.
I rather have average random teenager, decide who gets to enter my house, as compared to an unaccountable bureaucracy.
gbaikie,
“Why is it the US problem if someone has no paper trial. Does a banker give a loan, when there is no paper trail.
Do you let anyone in your house because you know nothing about them?”
Ok so are you saying that if a prospective immigrant cannot prove they are what they say they are then you don’t let them in?
–Ok so are you saying that if a prospective immigrant cannot prove they are what they say they are then you don’t let them in?–
No I am saying that untrained human being seems to have skills an immigration officer lacks. Or bureaucratic machine seems to mangle common sense.
Banker developed a system of what to do in order to lend money- and doing this before one had things like a driver license.
It seems to me that government spend a lot time doing things unrelated to what they should spend time on.
Example, NASA should explore space to determine if resource in space can be exploited- explore space.
Instead they think being the first to plant a flag is somehow important- and other nonsense. And the result are decades of getting about $20 billion per year, and we still have not explore the Moon to determine if there is minable water.
So if we want to continue to pretend that government can useful to it’s citizens, rather be an obstacle to freedom. Instead people
proving who they are, why not have the immigration dept prove that they can do there job.
And basic part of the governmental immigration service, is identifying the people permitted into this country.
For example, any one driving on roads in US needs to have identification. And it’s obvious that criminals don’t want to be identified.
And even in hell hole like Cuba they manage to have a lot information on their citizens.
And have a State Dept and they suppose talk to other states, so why not have other states provide accurate information about their citizens which wish to leave their hell hole states?
Or recently about 200 nation agreed to account for CO2 emission and provide plans to reduce CO2 emission every 5 years. Why isn’t immigration as important? Why can’t all nation agree to help other nations by providing information regarding citizens wishing to leaving there country.
Or basically immigration service should trained and be geniuses on what they do, rather than be mindless idiots.
“Banker developed a system of what to do in order to lend money- and doing this before one had things like a driver license.”
But GB, banks were either small town in which case the banker knew the prospective lendee, or Big City in which case there had to be a paper trail to look over.
The point is that there was information available against which t decide, There is no such info available with the immigrants
“And basic part of the governmental immigration service, is identifying the people permitted into this country.”
How do you propose they do that with the guy standing in front of him with zero paperwork and background? I’m saying it can’t be done so he’s not let in. You *seem* to be saying there is a way to do it. If you do, I’d like to know how you think it could be done.
“For example, any one driving on roads in US needs to have identification. And it’s obvious that criminals don’t want to be identified.”
And yet there are many people driving this minute on the road who do not have a driver’s license. The only way that’s discovered is after the accident. We can’t do that when terrorist attacks are the issue.
“And have a State Dept and they suppose talk to other states, so why not have other states provide accurate information about their citizens which wish to leave their hell hole states?”
Ah ok I think I see where we digress in assumptions:
Unless I’m mistaken, you seem to think the vetting is possible.
I don’t think it’s possible. No matter how smart the gubbermint agent is.
It’s my assumption that the information that you’d like to check doesn’t exist. Furthermore, many countries would like to get rid of the rabble and so they will give zero info to us and say it doesn’t exist – even if it did. Which I don’t think it does. As much of a hellhole that Cuba is, I believe it’s more info-savvy than your average ME hellhole.
Plus, how will you vet the info you got from the government? Do you trust what a guy like Assad would give us? I don’t. Recall the Mariel boat lift. Did Cuba give info on those people? No. Why would they? They wanted to get rid of those people.
“Or basically immigration service should trained and be geniuses on what they do, rather than be mindless idiots.”
I don’t think that’s possible for several reasons:
1) Most of them would have to be fired because they aren’t very smart.
2) I don’t think the information to vet the people is available. Either because the country doesn’t have it or they won’t give it
3) I don’t trust the info that a guy like Assad of Syria would give us.
Open borders is a utopian fantasy. Like all utopian fantasies, it’s doomed to failure.
The U.S. had open borders until the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, only closing them out of racism. Argentina has basically open borders today. Open borders aren’t a fantasy.
And now progressives operate an systemically racist government system that discriminates against American Asians. Pat yourself on the back for not being racist against just white people.
We totally get why the party that creates racial animosity between different ethnic groups and actively prevents them from assimilating and interacting with other Americans wants to have open borders.
Argentina has basically open borders today.
Is there supposed to be something of value in this statement? Are you, Jim, suggesting that because some country does something, we should too? If someone were to say “Saudi Arabia basically executes women in the streets.” Are we supposed to think, “well now, if they do it, perhaps we should think about doing it too.” Jim, you might want to rethink your reasoning skills.
Is there supposed to be something of value in this statement?
Larry J wrote that open borders are a fantasy, that they could not exist. Argentina is proof that they can exist. Whether they’re desirable or not is an separate question that I did not address.
They can exist in the short term. As soon as too many people take advantage of the free stuff there will be revolution (peaceful or not) and the borders will be shut.
1882…………
Today…………………..
A few things different between then and now. I wonder if you could think of them.
“There is no doubt that free and open immigration is the right policy in a libertarian state, but in a welfare state it is a different story: the supply of immigrants will become infinite.” – Milton Friedman
Although I disagree with his premise that “open immigration is the right policy in a libertarian state”, as a nation has the right, the duty even, to control its borders regardless of what it’s internal political structure is.
Ctrot,
An interesting point about that Milton Friedman quote is that it can be used to excuse a vast range of government interventions. For instance, you could use it to argue against ending the drug war because we have subsidized medicine for instance. I worry that using current unlibertarian policy as an excuse for not enacting libertarian policy reforms is a great way to guarantee a perpetuation of the status quo.
As for open borders, I’m not sure if I’m convinced 100% it is the right policy, but I’m definitely for a lot more open of borders than we have right now. I know that probably puts me in a minority on this blog, but I think that people should especially be allowed to hire whoever they want, even if they happen to be an evil furriner, and that America is at its best when it accepts the teeming masses yearning to be free.
Are there risks from terrorism from being more open with our immigration and refugee policies? Sure. Will evil and designing people try to take advantage of that openness to hurt us? Sure. If we do a crappy job of integrating and welcoming economic immigrants, could that lead to bad political results? Of course.
But doing the right thing often comes with a finite increase in personal risk. The increase in risk doesn’t necessarily make it stop being the right thing to do.
~Jon
The teeming masses yearning to breathe free I don’t have a problem with. The seething masses yearning to kill and enslave, on the other hand, need to be stiff-armed at the border and bounced back to wherever they came from. Even during the era of mass immigration to the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries, at least 10% of those who made it to Ellis Island were quarantined there because they had communicable diseases and sent back. Jihadis are pathogens in the body politic. They need to be treated as such.
“If we do a crappy job of integrating and welcoming economic immigrants, could that lead to bad political results?”
I kind of disagree with this because this sentiment is often used to say that those that engage in jihad have no agency over their own actions and that the countries they live in are really to blame. It is very Western to put more emphasis on what we did or didn’t do as the cause for things, which is a little arrogant and dismissive of the motivations and desires of individuals different than ourselves. It is a bit like blaming jihad on poverty, when that is clearly not the case.
I also kind of agree with it because we do need to do a better job of assimilating immigrants. IMO, our current system seeks to keep groups from assimilating. Cultural exchange is viewed as a bad thing, appropriation, and discouraged. I go back and forth as to whether this is incompetence or malice. It seems a lot like both. But here again, we must not put all the emphasis on what we do and also expect immigrants to act on their own agency to assimilate.
Agency is important because the guy in San Bernardino was 2nd generation and was very American until he started getting more religious. His radicalization was not because he was rejected by the USA and not allowed to integrate into society.
The generation my Muslim friends came from fled to the UK to escape the Muslim nutters in their own countries.
But, thanks to multiculturalism, they then brought up their kids in the UK as Muslims, instead of Christians or atheists (and, frankly, there’s not much difference between the Church of England and the Church of Atheism these days).
Now they’re surprised that some of those kids turned into the very kind of Muslim nutters they fled their old countries to escape.
To debate the issue with liberals, perhaps it would be more useful to turn the conceptual flow around at frame it as white privilege. Should America force other countries to accept an unlimited number of American immigrants? Should other countries have the right to refuse entry to any or all Americans who demand to be let in?
“Should America force other countries to accept an unlimited number of American immigrants?”
How about a compromise? The US was able to accept immigration at the rate of 1.5% of its population per year in the early 20th century. How about if we insist on allowing a similar rate?
You are aware that that would mean ~5M per year, right?
1.5% of 326 million is about 5 million per year.
And I think this is too many immigrate for the US to accept at the current time.
It’s too many because of various governmental policies which inhibit economic growth.
It might be possible were US to have economic growth of about 5%
per year.
Now adding 5 million immigrates per year would cause more economic growth, but using immigration policy to cause economic growth is not a good idea.
Or adding 5 million people would require adding about say 2 million jobs per year, or work force would have to grow by 2 million per year [at least], and merely adding 5 million people might add a few hundred thousand jobs per year, so it would create a shortage of jobs, and would add decline of America middle class which it’s already been happening for more than decade.
One simple way to increase economic growth is to remove all governmental regulation that been added over the last decade.
Or review all the regulation and remove the worse ones which have highest economic cost and the least amount of benefit to the American people [more complicated]. Another simple way to do this is by completely defunding the federal EPA and allow State’s EPAs to work independently. Or it seems unlikely one find one thing that Federal EPA has done, which has benefited the American people- and being currently run by psychopaths.
So if US federal government stopped oppressing it’s citizens,
one could expect much more economic growth and with 5% yearly economic growth we can allow a higher number of immigration and this immigration will add even more economic growth. And entire result will be increase in total US wealth and turn around the decline in the middle class.
Trump is only scratching the surface. How about America simply enforcing its existing immigration laws first? That would probably mean a moratorium on all immigration until at least 90% of those in the US illegally are deported. Build a wall on the southern border for the same reason that the White House has a fence.
Once those things have been done, then you can open debate on immigration.
How is a nation defending it’s borders qualitatively different from a homeowner defending his property from a trespasser?
Of course the insane leftists who would have us invite the whole world to move in don’t have much respect for homeowner property rights either.
I like to use beer and weed as examples of property rights but many of them are still willing to take beer and weed from people they don’t like.
I just don’t understand why people think libertarians should support Open Borders, as in unlimited immigration. For certain, I don’t think Ayn Rand would. I have seen were people have conflated her support for immigration (after all, she’s an immigrant!) with Open Borders. But they are not the same thing. Further, John Galt didn’t show any support for Open Borders. Galt’s Gulch was protected from intrusion. Immigrants were not allowed to divulge the location of Galt’s Gulch, which means others couldn’t openly or freely go there. To go there, you had to be invited/recruited (unless you penetrated security as did Dagny). That doesn’t seem like an Open Border or even Free Immigration.
I do understand that preventing all Syrians from entering the US would mean a closed border to Syria. But even with immigration allowed from Syria, I see no libertarian argument for accepting refugees. Isn’t accepting refugees akin to living for the sake of another man? Refugees may be “striking” against their former government, but they are not necessarily planning to seek gainful employment and live for their own sake at the new place.
I personally think immigration is a good thing, and I support helping refugees. But I also believe in limits to both immigration and support, based on what can be supported by the “native” population. That’s definitely not a libertarian view, as it means others living for the sake of others. I’m ok with holding that view, as I don’t see myself as libertarian. And the supposed libertarian argument for open border isn’t attracting me to that viewpoint.
Immigration is good for the country only so long as it’s good for the country. For you and I that’s a tautology and we know when it’s bad for the country.
I support open borders, but also think what Trump said wasn’t a bad proposal.
Also I don’t think a government should not give welfare benefits to immigrants.
I oppose welfare in general and it’s particularly evil when one applies it to immigrants.
A halt to all Muslims entering the country, is a valid point, due to the mis-management of government in regards to allowing people into this country. Or it’s the government that is responsible for their part in enabling numerous terrorist attacks upon US citizens- because the government let the wrong people into this country.
So it’s like the shuttle blowing up- you stop launching the shuttle until such a time as one figure out what being done incorrectly.
So a pause in Muslim immigration is within context that government is doing a poor job, and it needs to change what it is doing as not to cause future acts of terrorism.
Or it’s like halting all airline service- not a good idea in general, but it was a good decision to do this, despite the enormous hardship imposed upon the America people.
Now the government being normally quite incompetent, the pause in Muslim immigration might take a lot longer than shutting down airline service for the nation, though it could be possibility be resolved quicker than shutting down the Shuttle.
In terms of general idea of open borders, one has to first get the government so it can deal with people entering the country- one thing have to correct is getting rid of any welfare benefits for immigrants- getting rid of welfare in general would good idea, but in terms getting to a place where we have “open borders” it’s a requirement.
As far as political asylum, one should have private citizen who involved with providing this assistance. And these private need to have degree of liability connected to what kind of criminal activity they become involved with once they enter this country.
Aw, come on. I’m sure my Comrade Jim will join me in pointing out the fatal flaw in this entire tirade. She’s blond. Need I say more?
Racism is easy to fight once you know what racists look like!
Transblonde
What do you think America will be like if a billion Muslims, Chinese and Africans move in?
There are enough problems in America with leftists leaving the mess they’ve created in California to move to other states, where they vote for the same policies that destroyed their previous home. And they’re Americans. What do you think will happen when that’s repeated with people who come from completely incompatible cultures?
-What do you think America will be like if a billion Muslims, Chinese and Africans move in?–
If 1 billion Muslim, Chinese, and/or African people arrived in the US within several decades, it would be a threat to US National Security- among other problems.
And currently it appears that the 100,000 Muslims arriving legally to the US every year, also appears to be a threat to US National Security.
Having 100,000 or more Muslims arriving legally in US doesn’t have to be a threat to national security [whereas a hundred million would be] but appears that perhaps the way US government is governing could be causing it to be threat to National Security.
It seems we need a rational and through review of the process to determine if there is anything wrong with the governmental process and/or if a change in exterior factors requires a different approach to be taken.
“Open borders” is one of those “devil in the details” notions that, as you keep having to add complications to make it work, ought instead to be tossed aside.
I think what you mean when you say “open borders” has morphed far enough away from what it means to nearly everyone else who hears it or says it, that you might want to start calling it something else. May I suggest, “Rational border enforcement”?
. . . Los Angeles (ba-doom boom!)
I don’t know. It would be interesting to see how many tens of thousands of LGBT would have to brutally executed before the idiots on the left wonder if there’s perhaps a pattern to the murders.
Maybe the immigrants would do something really nasty … like refuse to bake wedding cakes.
Let’s have some perspective. Killing people is not the same as not wanting to participate in someone’s ideological ceremony. The state should not force people to participate in ideological ceremonies that they do not wish to.
America is a country where problems arise when our personal freedoms conflict with other’s freedoms. What a great problem to have.
I remember a time when it was no big deal that people had differing views on marriage. Noone thought my progressive friends who thought marriage shouldn’t exist were bigots. And let’s be honest, there are still some differing views on marriage, aside from homogamy, that are still permitted, if they are progressive beliefs on marriage.
But here is your video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgWIhYAtan4
“A halt to all Muslims entering the country, is a valid point, due to the mis-management of government in regards to allowing people into this country.”
There’s nothing morally wrong with the idea but I see it as impractical. Another filtering mechanism must be found – again I’m not against filtering. I don’t think any jihadist has any trouble telling the Immigration officer he’s a Christian or Yazidi or Coptic or whatever.
And how is the officer supposed to verify that? There’s no paper trail for these people.
Yes if 100,000 muslims coming in all say they are Christian, you know many are lying…but who?
Why not stop all immigration except business visits, and for a proscribed period of time. This will get the numbers down to a manageable level such that our bumbling government can track them and see that they leave before their Visas expire.
Yes thousands of students will wail and gnash their teeth. And I’m willing to discuss the categories of who can visit.
But I think about the absolutely frightening last few seconds of 14 people’s lives and the wailing and gnashing of teeth of their family members as well as the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the wounded and their family.
No contest.
You can’t stop every murderous nutter. But they have a much harder time operating when they’re alone in a foreign country than they do when they have millions of people there who at least tolerate them, if not openly support them. Just look at the EU, where so many of the recent attacks seem to be linked back to Muslim ghettos in Belgium.
–Gregg
December 13, 2015 at 4:40 AM
“A halt to all Muslims entering the country, is a valid point, due to the mis-management of government in regards to allowing people into this country.”
There’s nothing morally wrong with the idea but I see it as impractical. Another filtering mechanism must be found – again I’m not against filtering. I don’t think any jihadist has any trouble telling the Immigration officer he’s a Christian or Yazidi or Coptic or whatever.–
One does need to be jihadist to have no trouble telling the Immigration officer whatever Immigration officer wants to hear.
If a police officer depended upon what a driver of a car claimed when pulled over said, how silly would that be?
“And how is the officer supposed to verify that? There’s no paper trail for these people.”
Why is it the US problem if someone has no paper trial. Does a banker give a loan, when there is no paper trail.
Do you let anyone in your house because you know nothing about them?
I think if one had huge bureaucracy deciding who gets to come into your house, there is going to problems with who allowed into your house. Basically as reasonable guess, it will evolve into, everyone you want in your house, will be barred from entering and everyone you don’t want will have a legal right to enter your house.
I rather have average random teenager, decide who gets to enter my house, as compared to an unaccountable bureaucracy.
gbaikie,
“Why is it the US problem if someone has no paper trial. Does a banker give a loan, when there is no paper trail.
Do you let anyone in your house because you know nothing about them?”
Ok so are you saying that if a prospective immigrant cannot prove they are what they say they are then you don’t let them in?
–Ok so are you saying that if a prospective immigrant cannot prove they are what they say they are then you don’t let them in?–
No I am saying that untrained human being seems to have skills an immigration officer lacks. Or bureaucratic machine seems to mangle common sense.
Banker developed a system of what to do in order to lend money- and doing this before one had things like a driver license.
It seems to me that government spend a lot time doing things unrelated to what they should spend time on.
Example, NASA should explore space to determine if resource in space can be exploited- explore space.
Instead they think being the first to plant a flag is somehow important- and other nonsense. And the result are decades of getting about $20 billion per year, and we still have not explore the Moon to determine if there is minable water.
So if we want to continue to pretend that government can useful to it’s citizens, rather be an obstacle to freedom. Instead people
proving who they are, why not have the immigration dept prove that they can do there job.
And basic part of the governmental immigration service, is identifying the people permitted into this country.
For example, any one driving on roads in US needs to have identification. And it’s obvious that criminals don’t want to be identified.
And even in hell hole like Cuba they manage to have a lot information on their citizens.
And have a State Dept and they suppose talk to other states, so why not have other states provide accurate information about their citizens which wish to leave their hell hole states?
Or recently about 200 nation agreed to account for CO2 emission and provide plans to reduce CO2 emission every 5 years. Why isn’t immigration as important? Why can’t all nation agree to help other nations by providing information regarding citizens wishing to leaving there country.
Or basically immigration service should trained and be geniuses on what they do, rather than be mindless idiots.
“Banker developed a system of what to do in order to lend money- and doing this before one had things like a driver license.”
But GB, banks were either small town in which case the banker knew the prospective lendee, or Big City in which case there had to be a paper trail to look over.
The point is that there was information available against which t decide, There is no such info available with the immigrants
“And basic part of the governmental immigration service, is identifying the people permitted into this country.”
How do you propose they do that with the guy standing in front of him with zero paperwork and background? I’m saying it can’t be done so he’s not let in. You *seem* to be saying there is a way to do it. If you do, I’d like to know how you think it could be done.
“For example, any one driving on roads in US needs to have identification. And it’s obvious that criminals don’t want to be identified.”
And yet there are many people driving this minute on the road who do not have a driver’s license. The only way that’s discovered is after the accident. We can’t do that when terrorist attacks are the issue.
“And have a State Dept and they suppose talk to other states, so why not have other states provide accurate information about their citizens which wish to leave their hell hole states?”
Ah ok I think I see where we digress in assumptions:
Unless I’m mistaken, you seem to think the vetting is possible.
I don’t think it’s possible. No matter how smart the gubbermint agent is.
It’s my assumption that the information that you’d like to check doesn’t exist. Furthermore, many countries would like to get rid of the rabble and so they will give zero info to us and say it doesn’t exist – even if it did. Which I don’t think it does. As much of a hellhole that Cuba is, I believe it’s more info-savvy than your average ME hellhole.
Plus, how will you vet the info you got from the government? Do you trust what a guy like Assad would give us? I don’t. Recall the Mariel boat lift. Did Cuba give info on those people? No. Why would they? They wanted to get rid of those people.
“Or basically immigration service should trained and be geniuses on what they do, rather than be mindless idiots.”
I don’t think that’s possible for several reasons:
1) Most of them would have to be fired because they aren’t very smart.
2) I don’t think the information to vet the people is available. Either because the country doesn’t have it or they won’t give it
3) I don’t trust the info that a guy like Assad of Syria would give us.
Open borders is a utopian fantasy. Like all utopian fantasies, it’s doomed to failure.
The U.S. had open borders until the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, only closing them out of racism. Argentina has basically open borders today. Open borders aren’t a fantasy.
And now progressives operate an systemically racist government system that discriminates against American Asians. Pat yourself on the back for not being racist against just white people.
We totally get why the party that creates racial animosity between different ethnic groups and actively prevents them from assimilating and interacting with other Americans wants to have open borders.
Argentina has basically open borders today.
Is there supposed to be something of value in this statement? Are you, Jim, suggesting that because some country does something, we should too? If someone were to say “Saudi Arabia basically executes women in the streets.” Are we supposed to think, “well now, if they do it, perhaps we should think about doing it too.” Jim, you might want to rethink your reasoning skills.
Is there supposed to be something of value in this statement?
Larry J wrote that open borders are a fantasy, that they could not exist. Argentina is proof that they can exist. Whether they’re desirable or not is an separate question that I did not address.
They can exist in the short term. As soon as too many people take advantage of the free stuff there will be revolution (peaceful or not) and the borders will be shut.
1882…………
Today…………………..
A few things different between then and now. I wonder if you could think of them.
“There is no doubt that free and open immigration is the right policy in a libertarian state, but in a welfare state it is a different story: the supply of immigrants will become infinite.” – Milton Friedman
Although I disagree with his premise that “open immigration is the right policy in a libertarian state”, as a nation has the right, the duty even, to control its borders regardless of what it’s internal political structure is.
Ctrot,
An interesting point about that Milton Friedman quote is that it can be used to excuse a vast range of government interventions. For instance, you could use it to argue against ending the drug war because we have subsidized medicine for instance. I worry that using current unlibertarian policy as an excuse for not enacting libertarian policy reforms is a great way to guarantee a perpetuation of the status quo.
As for open borders, I’m not sure if I’m convinced 100% it is the right policy, but I’m definitely for a lot more open of borders than we have right now. I know that probably puts me in a minority on this blog, but I think that people should especially be allowed to hire whoever they want, even if they happen to be an evil furriner, and that America is at its best when it accepts the teeming masses yearning to be free.
Are there risks from terrorism from being more open with our immigration and refugee policies? Sure. Will evil and designing people try to take advantage of that openness to hurt us? Sure. If we do a crappy job of integrating and welcoming economic immigrants, could that lead to bad political results? Of course.
But doing the right thing often comes with a finite increase in personal risk. The increase in risk doesn’t necessarily make it stop being the right thing to do.
~Jon
The teeming masses yearning to breathe free I don’t have a problem with. The seething masses yearning to kill and enslave, on the other hand, need to be stiff-armed at the border and bounced back to wherever they came from. Even during the era of mass immigration to the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries, at least 10% of those who made it to Ellis Island were quarantined there because they had communicable diseases and sent back. Jihadis are pathogens in the body politic. They need to be treated as such.
“If we do a crappy job of integrating and welcoming economic immigrants, could that lead to bad political results?”
I kind of disagree with this because this sentiment is often used to say that those that engage in jihad have no agency over their own actions and that the countries they live in are really to blame. It is very Western to put more emphasis on what we did or didn’t do as the cause for things, which is a little arrogant and dismissive of the motivations and desires of individuals different than ourselves. It is a bit like blaming jihad on poverty, when that is clearly not the case.
I also kind of agree with it because we do need to do a better job of assimilating immigrants. IMO, our current system seeks to keep groups from assimilating. Cultural exchange is viewed as a bad thing, appropriation, and discouraged. I go back and forth as to whether this is incompetence or malice. It seems a lot like both. But here again, we must not put all the emphasis on what we do and also expect immigrants to act on their own agency to assimilate.
Agency is important because the guy in San Bernardino was 2nd generation and was very American until he started getting more religious. His radicalization was not because he was rejected by the USA and not allowed to integrate into society.
The generation my Muslim friends came from fled to the UK to escape the Muslim nutters in their own countries.
But, thanks to multiculturalism, they then brought up their kids in the UK as Muslims, instead of Christians or atheists (and, frankly, there’s not much difference between the Church of England and the Church of Atheism these days).
Now they’re surprised that some of those kids turned into the very kind of Muslim nutters they fled their old countries to escape.
To debate the issue with liberals, perhaps it would be more useful to turn the conceptual flow around at frame it as white privilege. Should America force other countries to accept an unlimited number of American immigrants? Should other countries have the right to refuse entry to any or all Americans who demand to be let in?
“Should America force other countries to accept an unlimited number of American immigrants?”
How about a compromise? The US was able to accept immigration at the rate of 1.5% of its population per year in the early 20th century. How about if we insist on allowing a similar rate?
You are aware that that would mean ~5M per year, right?
1.5% of 326 million is about 5 million per year.
And I think this is too many immigrate for the US to accept at the current time.
It’s too many because of various governmental policies which inhibit economic growth.
It might be possible were US to have economic growth of about 5%
per year.
Now adding 5 million immigrates per year would cause more economic growth, but using immigration policy to cause economic growth is not a good idea.
Or adding 5 million people would require adding about say 2 million jobs per year, or work force would have to grow by 2 million per year [at least], and merely adding 5 million people might add a few hundred thousand jobs per year, so it would create a shortage of jobs, and would add decline of America middle class which it’s already been happening for more than decade.
One simple way to increase economic growth is to remove all governmental regulation that been added over the last decade.
Or review all the regulation and remove the worse ones which have highest economic cost and the least amount of benefit to the American people [more complicated]. Another simple way to do this is by completely defunding the federal EPA and allow State’s EPAs to work independently. Or it seems unlikely one find one thing that Federal EPA has done, which has benefited the American people- and being currently run by psychopaths.
So if US federal government stopped oppressing it’s citizens,
one could expect much more economic growth and with 5% yearly economic growth we can allow a higher number of immigration and this immigration will add even more economic growth. And entire result will be increase in total US wealth and turn around the decline in the middle class.
Trump is only scratching the surface. How about America simply enforcing its existing immigration laws first? That would probably mean a moratorium on all immigration until at least 90% of those in the US illegally are deported. Build a wall on the southern border for the same reason that the White House has a fence.
Once those things have been done, then you can open debate on immigration.
How is a nation defending it’s borders qualitatively different from a homeowner defending his property from a trespasser?
Of course the insane leftists who would have us invite the whole world to move in don’t have much respect for homeowner property rights either.
I like to use beer and weed as examples of property rights but many of them are still willing to take beer and weed from people they don’t like.
I just don’t understand why people think libertarians should support Open Borders, as in unlimited immigration. For certain, I don’t think Ayn Rand would. I have seen were people have conflated her support for immigration (after all, she’s an immigrant!) with Open Borders. But they are not the same thing. Further, John Galt didn’t show any support for Open Borders. Galt’s Gulch was protected from intrusion. Immigrants were not allowed to divulge the location of Galt’s Gulch, which means others couldn’t openly or freely go there. To go there, you had to be invited/recruited (unless you penetrated security as did Dagny). That doesn’t seem like an Open Border or even Free Immigration.
I do understand that preventing all Syrians from entering the US would mean a closed border to Syria. But even with immigration allowed from Syria, I see no libertarian argument for accepting refugees. Isn’t accepting refugees akin to living for the sake of another man? Refugees may be “striking” against their former government, but they are not necessarily planning to seek gainful employment and live for their own sake at the new place.
I personally think immigration is a good thing, and I support helping refugees. But I also believe in limits to both immigration and support, based on what can be supported by the “native” population. That’s definitely not a libertarian view, as it means others living for the sake of others. I’m ok with holding that view, as I don’t see myself as libertarian. And the supposed libertarian argument for open border isn’t attracting me to that viewpoint.
Immigration is good for the country only so long as it’s good for the country. For you and I that’s a tautology and we know when it’s bad for the country.
Others, evidently, do not.