What Really Grinds My Gears
By Tom AdamsMy take on immigration:
We should not have immigration limits even for economic reasons. I believe that simply out of principle because that's how our great grandparents came over, and I don't want to send someone escaping their crappy or oppressive country (i.e. pregnant Chinese women) back to where they came from (which usually leads to them being punished for trying to escape their country). I don't believe that it would cause the negative effects of flooding the work force like in 1900 considering we already have protective measures already in place like the minimum wage and unions. Besides, if we did run out of "opportunity" here, how many more would actually immigrate over?
Now I DO believe that whatever background checks can be done should be done. If someone violated a law in their past country that our country agrees with (i.e. murder, NOT having a second child like in China), then we should deny them access and return them to their country of origin. This check I think would unfortunately have to be done in tax payer supported holding areas so that we would not lose track of them. This might of course lead not so much to limits on immigration as much as a slowing of the process. Someone would have to put some serious thought into how to make this efficient.
Should they sneak in, we kick out any illegal alien and punish monetarily all who profit from their presence here. Should they attempt to sneak in more than once (several times?), then we should jail them for life (execution is probably too harsh) to reduce the cost of trying to keep them out considering their own country won't do it for us.
I think it wouldn't be bad to grant dual citizenship to those who would normally get guest worker status, but you restrict their dual citizenship status to not voting or holding office so that you wouldn't worry about the conflict of interest that comes with dual citizenship. I think that would simplify the ridiculous nature of people's guest worker visas expiring. If they were cleared to get in the first time, why the hell would we kick them out simply cause they were here for too long? That is not a security risk. This also solves the issue of benefits without paying taxes etc considering they can be tracked just like any other citizen.
My rant does not imply a lack of national security. We should check any and every person that attempts to cross our border and restrict the number of access points across our border to simplify our security measures. This may mean a wall, not to keep people out but to channel people. I am the most ardent supporter of national security you might ever find. I spent plenty of time in Iraq with the Marines of Kilo 3/25 thinking about what security to this country means. I don't believe that any right to privacy (a right never actually mentioned anywhere in the constitution) trumps anything necessary to keep America safe. So does that mean invasive searches of every immigrant that comes over? Why not? You're not a citizen yet. Wire tapping all international calls? Wish we had those kinds of resources. Non-yet-Americans not yet on American soil (we'll call the holding tanks "international territory") are not granted US Constitutional rights until they achieve citizenship. We as a country decide when that is. If you don't like that, make a law against it, until then quit using the judiciary to make up "rights".
And for goodness sake, quit turning back those fleeing oppressive regimes because of some weird treaty or international law. Any Cuban refugee who manages to get off that gosh forsaken island should be HELPED by our Coast Guard, NOT returned!
Things that "my" party want that I think are stupid:
Immigrants should be forced to speak English - I don't think anyone in America should be forced to speak anything they don't want to! Now if they want tax payer funded services (i.e. public schools, welfare etc) they will need to learn English as I don't believe in bending over backwards at our expense to meet the needs of every yahoo that enters this country. It is beneficial to society that everyone communicates. So if Grandpa Enrique comes to America to retire in peace, I don't believe it’s necessary for him to learn English. It’s his right to not have to speak at all if he doesn't want to. But his granddaughter, Karina, if she goes to a public school should be taught in English and not Spanish as we are paying the system to teach ALL kids not any particular sect of kids, and these kids need to grow up communicating with each other. If they want Karina to grow up only speaking Spanish, they can pay to send her to a privately funded Spanish school. Not the tax payer’s burden. Why English? Is it because I'm a racist? No, it is because a nation should have a single unifying language for economic but especially for legal purposes. It is insane to think that some town in the south Texas could write a law in Spanish, and if you get arrested there, that your lawyer needs to learn Spanish or have a translator that he can trust to not miss any details help him. It’s just a legal nightmare to have laws written in different languages. Besides, the overwhelming majority of this country already speaks English. Why should we change? That and I am an evil white bigot.
Charitable organizations have to turn in illegal immigrants or face punishment - That sounds eerily close to punishing a priest for not testifying on what he heard in a confessional. If anyone honestly believes in separation of church and state in its true sense, they would understand that organizations like religious charities can not be forced to do background checks before they help the needy. There should never be a law preventing or hindering charitable acts regardless of the recipient.
If I'm not mistaken, it seems that both parties are fighting as hard as they can to get the Hispanic vote with the hopes that it will vote in solidarity like the Black vote. This is shameful trying to pander to those who want to disregard the rule of law in order to get their vote. This is also condescending to think that Hispanics are so foolish as to trivialize their individual votes by voting as a block the way Blacks do. Sorry to offend any blacks, but what in all reality has the Democratic Party whom 93% of you vote for actually done for you in the last 20 years? Lets face it, if you were really downtrodden or oppressed 20 years ago, how has your status changed under a Democrat Congress from prehistory-1994 and a democrat president 1992-2000? Seems like voting in a block only causes that party to trivialize you and expect you to do what your (bribed?) leaders tell you to do. Besides history books show that republicans fought for you during the civil war and the civil rights movement, NOT democrats.
So who am I voting for in November? I don’t know, but considering how much both sides are pandering for the illegal vote, I’ll probably have to choose my candidate based on other issues. (Probably the republican)
That's about all I got to say. In summary: immigrants are good and welcome. Breaking the law and security threats is bad. Oh yeah, and politicians suck.
Immigrants should be forced to speak English - I don't think anyone in America should be forced to speak anything they don't want to! Now if they want tax payer funded services (i.e. public schools, welfare etc) they will need to learn English as I don't believe in bending over backwards at our expense to meet the needs of every yahoo that enters this country. It is beneficial to society that everyone communicates. So if Grandpa Enrique comes to America to retire in peace, I don't believe it’s necessary for him to learn English. It’s his right to not have to speak at all if he doesn't want to. But his granddaughter, Karina, if she goes to a public school should be taught in English and not Spanish as we are paying the system to teach ALL kids not any particular sect of kids, and these kids need to grow up communicating with each other. If they want Karina to grow up only speaking Spanish, they can pay to send her to a privately funded Spanish school. Not the tax payer’s burden. Why English? Is it because I'm a racist? No, it is because a nation should have a single unifying language for economic but especially for legal purposes. It is insane to think that some town in the south Texas could write a law in Spanish, and if you get arrested there, that your lawyer needs to learn Spanish or have a translator that he can trust to not miss any details help him. It’s just a legal nightmare to have laws written in different languages. Besides, the overwhelming majority of this country already speaks English. Why should we change? That and I am an evil white bigot.
Charitable organizations have to turn in illegal immigrants or face punishment - That sounds eerily close to punishing a priest for not testifying on what he heard in a confessional. If anyone honestly believes in separation of church and state in its true sense, they would understand that organizations like religious charities can not be forced to do background checks before they help the needy. There should never be a law preventing or hindering charitable acts regardless of the recipient.
If I'm not mistaken, it seems that both parties are fighting as hard as they can to get the Hispanic vote with the hopes that it will vote in solidarity like the Black vote. This is shameful trying to pander to those who want to disregard the rule of law in order to get their vote. This is also condescending to think that Hispanics are so foolish as to trivialize their individual votes by voting as a block the way Blacks do. Sorry to offend any blacks, but what in all reality has the Democratic Party whom 93% of you vote for actually done for you in the last 20 years? Lets face it, if you were really downtrodden or oppressed 20 years ago, how has your status changed under a Democrat Congress from prehistory-1994 and a democrat president 1992-2000? Seems like voting in a block only causes that party to trivialize you and expect you to do what your (bribed?) leaders tell you to do. Besides history books show that republicans fought for you during the civil war and the civil rights movement, NOT democrats.
So who am I voting for in November? I don’t know, but considering how much both sides are pandering for the illegal vote, I’ll probably have to choose my candidate based on other issues. (Probably the republican)
That's about all I got to say. In summary: immigrants are good and welcome. Breaking the law and security threats is bad. Oh yeah, and politicians suck.
Good response,Joe.
ReplyDeleteThis whole immigration thing reminds me of a historical parallel - the Visigoth "invasion" of Spain circa 300-400 AD. It wasn't so much an invasion as just moving in -- "Nice place; think we'll stay. Try to speak the language (Latin came out Spanish). Salute the Flag. Just don't ask us to pay taxes." Rome was on it's way out and in no position to effectively resist. Anyway, the Visigoths eventually built a great civilization; the only one to regain their nation from Islam ("La ReConquista"). Our hispanic immigrants are generally very hard working, and may do us a similar great favor some day...
- The resident historian.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletetoo many typos
ReplyDeleteOooo! Looky what I found:
ReplyDeleteIf someone gets an ounce of intelligence, they will expand way out of cities, build other cities and just plain grow
As always, I'm way ahead of my time.
(Tried posting this last night but blogger was being stoopid.)
ReplyDeleteOo! Good discussion.
Anyways, time for me to contribute again.
Concerning "artificial prices", I don't think housing prices or soup prices are in any way artificial. The worth of an item is not necessarily related in any way to the cost of producing that item, but instead is entirely based on supply and demand. I think Miss Smyth (our high school history teacher) had the best example of how the worth of an item is determined.
Suppose we are all locked in a room with no way out. There is no food or supplies in this room, just us. I have a sandwich. Everyone else in the room has $1. What is the worth of the sandwich? "About $4," Miss Smyth would say. If you divide it up into anything smaller than quarters, it isn't very satisfying.
So, back to housing. You may argue that a house shouldn't be sold for anything more than the cost of the materials and labor of building the house, plus a small profit margin for the contracter. For instance, a house that's built with $25,000 of material and $25,000 of labor should only be sold for around $55,000 (allowing the contractor to make 10% profit). Anything higher than that would be "artificially high" prices. But what about the land the house is built on? It really doesn't cost anyone anything. No one produced it, no labor or materials were involved, so what is it's value? Well, the value is determined entirely by how much some one is willing to pay for it. In Ohio, you'll only pay maybe $10,000 (made that number up) for an acre of land, because not many people want that land, and there's a lot of it. Whereas in Florida, you might pay $100,000 for that same acre, because it's on the beach, there's a limited supply of land on the beach, and a lot of people want that land. So the worth of the house is very, very relative to things such as location, which influences supply and demand.
Ok, but surely the can of soup which costs twice as much in Florida is "artificially overpriced", right? I'm not convinced. Part of the cost of that can is how much the grocer has to pay the supplier for it (which presumably is the same in Florida as Ohio, assuming you're shipping the same distance), but the rest of the cost is divided up amongst the Grocer's operating costs (such as paying rent/mortgage on the property the grocery store is built on) and the Grocer's employee's wages (which again have to take into account that it costs an employee more to afford a home in Florida than in Ohio). So in the end, prices cannot be based solely on the production costs of an item, because in the end, all prices return, at least in part, to an item that wasn't produced and has no value associated with it other than the costs of supply and demand. So just because two things cost different amounts in different places does not mean that the price is artificially high in one place.
"Artificially high prices" is a term I would reserve for use in describing prices that are significantly higher than the "fair market value". For instance, if I'm charging $100 for an item that others sell for $10, and I could still make a profit by selling it for $10, that's an artificially high price. I'm sure I could come up with an exception to that, though, so don't take that as an absolute definition.
Um... so how did this relate to immigration again? Wages? Artificially high wages? something like that? Dunno.
Oh, too much immigration would lower wages, which is not necessarily a good thing because wages are not necessarily artificially high (but in many cases they are; such as when a forklift operator makes $110,000 a year; on an aside, that's a union that's got awesome bargaining skills).
< /thread hijack >
I agree. That is a good point: Time to adapt would be good.
ReplyDeleteI just think that there are so many things that can negativley affect our economy and cause "hardship" that this could just blend in as one of them. I don't look at this kind of influx as catastrophic, but more like a necessary pain to correct an imbalance like the pain of a shot at the doctors. Remember that people complain that GM car plants were moved to Mexico because of the cheap cost of labor. Well if we could import that cheap labor, those dollars wouldn't have left the US. We can complain about low wages all we want, but the more we prevent businesses from paying low wages without compensating them with harder workers, the more likely we are to lose those dollars all together. So by trying to prevent the pain or shock of allowing a quick influx of immigrants, we might be prolonging other economic ills. Which would truly be worse?
I also personally feel that the private sector does adapt fast enough to handle large movements like that. While the govt would be overwhelmed by demand like for public schools, low cost housing I think would grow like crazy.
(Dave points out that that is not always the case: Flu vaccines, oil supply. I'd point out, the less govt is involved, the more likey the private sector would work. That point I guess is a much larger argument in its own)