Sunday, January 06, 2008
Immigration Rant (or why illegal aliens are like Harvard Students)
What do drugs, alcohol, and illegal aliens have in common? They are all economic goods (yes, labor is a good) that are in high demand in this country, yet their supply has been artificially limited by government fiat. We know what happens when the market is disrupted like this. The good is supplied anyway, but it's supplied by criminals and gangsters in an unregulated underground.
So why do the Presidential candidates keep talking about securing the borders? Common sense and all evidence suggests that it's just not possible. We've been trying to keep drugs out of the country for years, and frankly, I know people that call and order pizza and weed, and the weed gets delivered first. The mighty USSR couldn't even stop a black market in BLUE JEANS, which to my knowledge, were not actively running or swimming in.
Of course illegal drugs and illegal immigrants don't have everything in common. One difference is that the immigrants are critical to our economy.
So how are illegal immigrants like Harvard students?
Both groups of people have gotten in to places that have brutal restrictions and qualifications for entry, and as such, both groups of people are the ones that are the smartest and most talented of their cohort, willing to work like slaves to ensure a better future. Or they were already rich, but either way, we could not DESIGN a better way to select which of the 6 billion people we should let in to this country.
To put it another way, we are saying that the person who risked their lives to come here, the person who is willing to slave away because they believe in themselves and their ability to create a better life for their children, are the people we DON'T want here. We want the people who sit on their sombrero back home and wait in line.
By now I'm sure you're thinking, "wow...I started today being against illegals, but you are clearly right. My remaining concern is that I don't think we can reward law breakers."
They are breaking the law alright! They are breaking the law like the man who exceeds the speed limit to get his pregnant wife to the hospital when she is in labor? They both have broken a law setting an arbitrary limit, and have taken a risk, but have harmed no one, and did so for the health and safety of their family. So I'd say for consistency, we should kick out all the illegals, and then start pulling over ambulances for speeding.
So we've established that illegal immigration is the economic response of our government's forced suppression of a clearing market, and we've established that the illegal immigrants that are here are pretty much the ones we want here, and we've established that they have some justification for committing a victim-less crime.
So what, exactly, is the problem? What is happening that is bad enough to justify Orwellian biometric national ID cards? Because I, for one, don't want to have to say to our friendly government official, "No sir, you cannot see my papers, and you are not my comrade" for the privilege of paying triple for Christmas trees harvested by UAW members.
What do drugs, alcohol, and illegal aliens have in common? They are all economic goods (yes, labor is a good) that are in high demand in this country, yet their supply has been artificially limited by government fiat. We know what happens when the market is disrupted like this. The good is supplied anyway, but it's supplied by criminals and gangsters in an unregulated underground.
So why do the Presidential candidates keep talking about securing the borders? Common sense and all evidence suggests that it's just not possible. We've been trying to keep drugs out of the country for years, and frankly, I know people that call and order pizza and weed, and the weed gets delivered first. The mighty USSR couldn't even stop a black market in BLUE JEANS, which to my knowledge, were not actively running or swimming in.
Of course illegal drugs and illegal immigrants don't have everything in common. One difference is that the immigrants are critical to our economy.
So how are illegal immigrants like Harvard students?
Both groups of people have gotten in to places that have brutal restrictions and qualifications for entry, and as such, both groups of people are the ones that are the smartest and most talented of their cohort, willing to work like slaves to ensure a better future. Or they were already rich, but either way, we could not DESIGN a better way to select which of the 6 billion people we should let in to this country.
To put it another way, we are saying that the person who risked their lives to come here, the person who is willing to slave away because they believe in themselves and their ability to create a better life for their children, are the people we DON'T want here. We want the people who sit on their sombrero back home and wait in line.
By now I'm sure you're thinking, "wow...I started today being against illegals, but you are clearly right. My remaining concern is that I don't think we can reward law breakers."
They are breaking the law alright! They are breaking the law like the man who exceeds the speed limit to get his pregnant wife to the hospital when she is in labor? They both have broken a law setting an arbitrary limit, and have taken a risk, but have harmed no one, and did so for the health and safety of their family. So I'd say for consistency, we should kick out all the illegals, and then start pulling over ambulances for speeding.
So we've established that illegal immigration is the economic response of our government's forced suppression of a clearing market, and we've established that the illegal immigrants that are here are pretty much the ones we want here, and we've established that they have some justification for committing a victim-less crime.
So what, exactly, is the problem? What is happening that is bad enough to justify Orwellian biometric national ID cards? Because I, for one, don't want to have to say to our friendly government official, "No sir, you cannot see my papers, and you are not my comrade" for the privilege of paying triple for Christmas trees harvested by UAW members.
