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 | Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 18:29:23 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Neil Parille
E-mail: neilpar100(at)yahoo.com
URL: http://objectiblog.blogspot.com/
If America had an immigration policy "consistent with individual rights," it is likely that America would not exist as we know it. Tens of millions of people who care little for limited government would probably flood the US and demand that the "Anglo" majority (soon to be minority) provide them with jobs, welfare and affirmative action. Parts of the US (such as Mich.) might become Moslem. As things stand now it is virtually impossible to determine if someone from a different country has a criminal record.
Yes, I know, Objectivists will say the problem is the "welfare state" created by intellectuals, but most of these immigrants would likely support the welfare state, and swamp what little is left of America's individualist heritage. |
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| Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 18:55:17 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: madmax
While Neil has raised interesting points, I would like to point out that judging from his blog, Neil is sympathetic with racialist/racist (a distinction without a difference) arguments and claims and may be a racialist/racist himself. Why do I say this? Because he links to Larry Auster's View From The Right blog. Auster is a White Christian Nationalist and an all around religious fanatic. He is obsessed with the racial makeup of America and labels all non-race-realists as "liberals." IMO, no lover of individual liberty would ever link to such filth. As I said, Neil raised interesting points that are very relevant to the immigration debate but I doubt that he will have any individualist answers. Not so long as he considers Larry Auster a worthwhile social commentator. |
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| Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 19:44:19 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: Jasmine
E-mail: uslifemag(at)gmail.com
Today's WSJ (12-16-08) has a report on how Sweden is actually opening its borders to let more immigrants in. The Swedish Welfare State is concerned about how it will provide all the services it has promised and probably taxed citizens over the years for with an aging population -therefore it now needs new sacrificial fodder to pay for all its past largesse in the shape of immigrants, who will pay with their effort. (This of course has a parallel in how our Social Security system is working with present workers paying for earlier generations, since the govt. has already blown all the SS taxes from previous generations -our SS is just as much bankrupted).
However, for those immigrants arriving from countries where the conditions are lot worse in terms of dictatorships, , starvationa and destitution, Sweden would definitely be a huge improvements to their lives. But one should not fail to point out the financial bankruptcy which is probably leading to this move by Swede govt., i.e. it is not a sudden recognition by the Swedish govt. of rational political principles for opening borders, or enlightenment of economic principles or what leads to prosperity in free, civilized societies, based on individual rights, recognition of property rights, division of labor, indirect exchange and free market economies. That is this is actually is only a continuation in the political principle that welfare and statist govts recognise -that all men are sacrificial fodder for one another. They would never be able to recognize the fact that men live in the absence of sacrifices, as traders working to mutual benefit.
Interestingly the same article mentions that Britain has created an even more convuluted, pretzeled point system to reduce number of immigrants. The reporter states that it remains to be seen which country fares better. The reporter is probably working on the premise that in this global economic downturn, opening borders is actually a policy of a crazed govt! (it will only make unemployment numbers worst, I guess is what is being assumed). |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 3:29:51 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: Neil Parille
E-mail: neilp100(at)yahoo.com
URL: http://objectiblog.blogspot.com/
I am not a racist or a "racialist." I think a country is entitled to restict immigration to protect its cultural heritage. |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 4:19:55 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Paul Lin
Neil,
I think it is important to understand the causal relationship between welfare state and immigration policy.
The cause of the problem is welfare state and its effect is that it attracts immigrants who want good welfare
system from around the world. If there were no welfare state, then the United States would attract ambitious
immigrants not welfare lovers, because of tax consequences of a welfare state. So, getting rid of the welfare
system is the cure for the threats of losing America's heritage.
If you don't believe me, then you might want to take a look on the marketing literature around the word.
Many of them convey the messages that the United States have good welfare system and the government
gives out lots of benefits to the needy, ie minorities, handicap, lower income, etc... When a new immigrant
benefits from those benefits, they will surely tell their friends and relatives, and their friends and
relatives will most likely follow his path. |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 10:22:55 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: Jeff
There is an important distinction to be made between immigration and grants of citizenship. It is perfectly justified to have some basic requirements for citizenship, such as place of birth or a citizenship exam, but it is not justified to place these requirements on immigrants. Against whom, there should be only a check for past criminal record or association with enemy governments or organizations. |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 12:01:33 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://borntoidentify.blogspot.com/
The belief, that more than an insignificantly small fraction of immigrants come to the United States to sponge, is totally false - as anyone, whose work brings him or her into daily contact with immigrants, will immediately tell you.
The university where I teach has a student population that is about half immigrant. But the most demanding courses draw around four-fifths of their enrollment from immigrants. On the other hand, there are some students who leave my courses as soon as I announce that their grades will depend only on their performance - no credit for just showing up and filling a seat - and those leaving are, almost invariably, native-born.
My physical therapist mostly works with people who suffered on-the-job accidents. He tells me that he has a 100% accurate way to tell natives from immigrants among patients recovering from serious injuries. The natives ask, "How long before I can qualify for disability benefits?" The immigrants ask, "How long before I can go back to work?"
I suspect that the myth of the welfare-sponging immigrant arises not from any observation or measurement of reality, but only as a delusional rationalization for xenophobic bigotry. |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 12:33:14 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: Jason Head
I think if you had a country founded upon the strict recognition of individual rights, and a constitution without loopholes to open it up to welfare statism, you could have both very strict guidelines for citizenship as well as free immigration for non-citizens.
As a matter of practical methods of getting from here to there while stemming the tide of statism, is it moral/practical to use the state to violate individual rights in certain spheres in the short-term to increase individual rights in more spheres in the longer term? Short of a violent revolution, I'm not sure it is possible to get from here to liberty without political compromises. Actually, I'm not sure it is possible with political compromises either.
Thoughts? |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 13:13:50 mst
Comment ID: #9
Name: Jim May
E-mail: seerak(at)gmail.com
"I am not a racist or a "racialist." I think a country is entitled to restict immigration to protect its cultural heritage. "
Culture is a function of an individual's choices; State sovereignty does not extend to interfering with any individual's chosen way of living, except where such choice involves the use of force against others. Culture is thusly a function of the marketplace of ideas, which ought be as free as any other marketplace.
In fact, the very concept of State involvement in culture violates the spirit of the Establishment Clause, which is implicitly a recognition of the fact that the State should not be involved in the realm of ideas. Period.
Such cultural protectionism, therefore, is no different from the labor protectionism that is usually advanced to justify border controls -- and is immoral for the same basic reasons.
Nice try, but the fact remains: immigration controls necessarily involve legal discriminations, usually racist in implication, of the sort that a free State has no business making. |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 14:27:59 mst
Comment ID: #10
Name: madmax
Excellent points Jim especially this: "...immigration controls necessarily involve legal discriminations, usually racist in implication, of the sort that a free State has no business making."
I would add that for many Conservatives especially those of the "traditionalist" variety like Larry Auster and Steve Salier, culture is a function of race. These types rely heavily on IQ scores and the "science" of men like Phillip Rushton who supposedly has "proved" that blacks and latinos are not as intelligent a demographic as whites and therefore not possessed of the same "civilizational abilities" to use Auster's term. The solution for these people is to "build strong fences" and have a white, Christian, European only culture. The traditionalists will point to Japan and S. Korea as examples of non-multiculturalist and closed societies with thriving economies and say we should do the same. The policy obsession with these people is to restrict Hispanic and other non-white immigration. They feel by doing this the welfare state will shrink.
By linking to Larry Auster, Neil has proclaimed an affinity with these people and ideas. No doubt, like many other traditionalists that have some respect for Rand, Neil would argue that Rand's philosophy is flawed because it doesn't take into account the latest science which "shows" different IQs and moral dispositions among the races and therefore is not "race-aware." There are a number of paleo-libertarians that express these sentiments regarding Rand. The Last Ditch website I believe is one.
The traditionalists and cultural protectionists as Jim calls them are the ugliest elements on the Right. As much as I hate the Left, nothing disgusts me more than a race-realist Conservative. They are just downright ugly. |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 14:33:44 mst
Comment ID: #11
Name: madmax
"I think if you had a country founded upon the strict recognition of individual rights, and a constitution without loopholes to open it up to welfare statism, you could have both very strict guidelines for citizenship as well as free immigration for non-citizens."
I think this is very possible. But it would require a culture to be built on and to have internalized an individualist philosophy.
"As a matter of practical methods of getting from here to there while stemming the tide of statism, is it moral/practical to use the state to violate individual rights in certain spheres in the short-term to increase individual rights in more spheres in the longer term?"
This is an excellent question and I think some Objectivists have argued that open immigration should not be the highest priority in terms of intellectual activism. I think that if there were to be a laissez faire revolution then as that society became freer, immigration could become progressively more open.
"Actually, I'm not sure it is possible with political compromises either."
The sad reality is that it may not be possible to rescue America and the question of immigration in the context of a destroyed America therefore becomes irrelevant. |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 15:27:08 mst
Comment ID: #12
Name: RT
Here's a tough case though: should the state of Israel uphold completely free and open immigration? Presumably this would be the Palestinians' dream -- just move en masse to Israel, wait 5 years or whatever to get citizenship, and then vote it out of existence. |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 15:39:30 mst
Comment ID: #13
Name: madmax
RT,
I think that your scenario shows that immigration is contextual. If Israel did that it would be suicide. Open immigration, IMO, needs to be advocated in a proper context namely a rights respecting individualist, capitalist nation that is free from the threat of direct invasion. Even if Israel were a 100% capitalist nation with no Welfare State, it would still need to monitor who enters its borders given the fact that it essentially exists in a permanent state of siege. |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 19:20:45 mst
Comment ID: #14
Name: Sajid
>>If America had an immigration policy "consistent with individual rights," it is likely that America would not exist as we know it. Tens of >>millions of people who care little for limited government would probably flood the US and demand that the "Anglo" majority (soon to be >>minority) provide them with jobs, welfare and affirmative action. Parts of the US (such as Mich.) might become Moslem. As things stand now >>it is virtually impossible to determine if someone from a different country has a criminal record.
In response to Neil:
People earlier on in this thread have already discredited the notion of immigrants collapsing the welfare state. In fact the very OPPOSITE is true. A good reason to limit immigration is not that they will demand too much from the welfare state. It is that they will demand too little. Since immigrants are used to living on less they can do the same job as members of a developed nation for less money. I have Indian graduate student friends (a standard stipend is 1600 dollars/month) who will live on 4-500 dollars a month because that is just what they are used to. So they graduate with a Ph.D. with 50,000 in the bank. Not kidding. While America was industrializing in the late 19th century it was common to work 70 hours week. Even if the welfare state did not exist Americans would probably work less (depends on the person) so they could pursue other interests. I don't think Americans would consider it fair for them to be subject to the same cut throat competitive lifestyle that immigrants value out of necessity.
As for culture changing due to the influx of immigrants, note that in a free society you are free to preserve your own culture. The Jewish people have successfully preserved their culture for 2000+ years in mostly non-free societies. Even if immigrants move to America, white people will still be the dominant economic, socio-linguistic and cultural class. Even after they are a minority. So I am not really sure what there is to fear.
As for a criminal record, Restriciting immigration on this fear is the same as saying most immigrants are criminals. I personally am an immigrant and of all arguments against immigration I find this the most distasteful. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty. Also, remember that the gold rush in California was quite a wild time. The wild west was the wild west for a reason. Australia was founded as a prison colony and today they are a nation of laws on par with the US. I think everybody would agree that Amerians know how to deal with criminals. I guarantee you it is much easier to be a criminal in Russia, India or Mexico than it is in the US. Thus logic dictates that most immigrants will be the honest hard-working variety, not the sly criminal types even though we may get some of those to.
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 22:48:32 mst
Comment ID: #15
Name: Freddy Ben-Zeev
E-mail: benzeev(at)comcast(dot)com
Neil writes "I think a country is entitled to restrict immigration to protect its cultural heritage". What valid moral principle gives the government such a right? Do you want the government to be the arbiter of ideas, determining which ideas are acceptable (i.e. part of the heritage) and which are not? Unfortunately, Americans managed to damage and forget their cultural heritage without the help of immigrants. |
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| Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 20:33:59 mst
Comment ID: #16
Name: Jim May
E-mail: seerak(at)gmail.com
RT asks:
"Here's a tough case though: should the state of Israel uphold completely free and open immigration? Presumably this would be the Palestinians' dream -- just move en masse to Israel, wait 5 years or whatever to get citizenship, and then vote it out of existence. "
What I left out of my comment for brevity's sake, was that there is one and only one context where immigration can and should be controlled, and that is from the standpoint of security.
In this I disagree with Harry Binswanger, who holds that border checkpoints are completely unnecessary and potential immoral. I say that without those checkpoints, how are we to exclude carriers of disease and individual enemy agents? I think it is proper and correct for a free State to require that an individual establish peaceful intent in some sort of friend-or-foe process ("who goes there?"). This is because an intending entrant is not yet inside the civil realm, by which I mean the geographical space where civil law applies, where the police have jurisdiction, but is instead "in the wild" outside that space. Thusly, what prevails is not civilian law -- including the principle "innocent until proven guilty" -- but military law. IMO border guarding is properly the purview of the military.
How in-depth should that "friend or foe" process be? That depends on context. The border with a friendly society, such as with Canada, during a time of peace, could have minimal checks. A border with a hostile nation during time of war might be fortresslike, as we see with Israel. The government would even have the right to seal the borders completely for short periods, if the circumstances warranted it.
But such actions are only morally permissible to the extent that they serve to protect the rights of all within its borders. Nothing else does. When a person intent upon entering the country is considered non-threatening, there are no moral grounds for the State to interfere with, set conditions upon or prevent his entry -- and once he enters, he is in the civil realm, and possessed of the same rights as all other residents. |
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| Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 22:02:52 mst
Comment ID: #17
Name: Anthony Mirvish
E-mail: amirvish(at)hotmail.com
Jim,
As you may remember from some of our previous exchanges here on immigration, I disagree with you over the "open borders-immigration as a right interpretation" of this issue. Without wishing to re-open that whole subject, I will say that I agree with your last comment:
"But such actions are only morally permissible to the extent that they serve to protect the rights of all within its borders. Nothing else does. When a person intent upon entering the country is considered non-threatening, there are no moral grounds for the State to interfere with, set conditions upon or prevent his entry -- and once he enters, he is in the civil realm, and possessed of the same rights as all other residents."
...and think it exactly one of the points I'd raised earlier. I would add, though, and emphasize, that who makes the judgement of whether a person(s) is non-threatening is an inherently political decision that will be made, in a free society with an elected government, according to popularly (majority) established criteria for estimating a particular threat. Those criteria may or may not be objective, depending on the society in question, but they will reflect a political decision over which there will be disagreement. The right of the citizens of a country to collectively establish those criteria, based on their estimate of the national security situation, is also political decision within the proper purview of and a consequence of the government's responsibility for protecting the individual rights of those already within its borders. No right of a foreigner to come here (and yes, I remember that you are an immigrant) supercedes that. |
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| Friday, December 19, 2008 at 2:31:47 mst
Comment ID: #18
Name: Ted Coxhead
E-mail: tedcoxhead(at)yahoo.co.uk
Neil Parille wrote: Yes, I know, Objectivists will say the problem is the "welfare state" created by intellectuals, but most of these immigrants would likely support the welfare state, and swamp what little is left of America's individualist heritage.
But I thought it was the case that refugees and asylees are eligible for benefits only 7 years after their dates of entry and that benefits for others are allowed at each State's discretion only after 5 years. If so, I think this rather nullifies Neil's fears on that score.
When Dr Binswanger spoke in defence of open immigration at the NYU Objectivist Club in 2005, he circulated some of his notes to HBL members. Among some points I noted were that the USA is vastly underpopulated today. If half the entire population of the world immigrated to the United States, it seems that the population density would be less than it is in England where I live and considerably less than in New Jersey. Further, if the entire population of the planet moved to Texas, and the rest of the world was turned into a theme park, Texas would then be as crowded as the Borough of Queens, NY.
So they can get only limited welfare, if any, and they can't do any swamping. But immigrants could enormously boost the wealth of the country. As a landlord in England with 25 per cent of my tenants being Polish immigrants, my only regret is that I don't have more. If we did have more immigrants here there would be greater demand to rent properties like mine and therefore greater demand to buy property for rent - thus ending the housing slump. |
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| Friday, December 19, 2008 at 7:20:06 mst
Comment ID: #19
Name: Steve D'Ippolito
"But I thought it was the case that refugees and asylees are eligible for benefits only 7 years after their dates of entry and that benefits for others are allowed at each State's discretion only after 5 years. If so, I think this rather nullifies Neil's fears on that score."
No it does not--because the agencies that dispense the benefits are in many cases not allowed to ask for proof of citizenship. |
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| Friday, December 19, 2008 at 8:10:52 mst
Comment ID: #20
Name: Andrew Dalton
E-mail: andrew.s.dalton(at)gmail.com
URL: http://witchdoctorrepellent.blogspot.com
Anthony -
There are three separate questions that it is important to distinguish here:
1. What should the law be? (This question recognizes that the law is a man-made fact and therefore subject to evaluation and change by men.)
2. What are the acceptable procedures for making laws? (The Founding Fathers of the USA properly recognized this as a *procedural* issue separate from question #1.)
3. Given the laws we have, should people obey them even if they disagree? (The context here is a free or semi-free/mixed government that is not a dictatorship.)
One cannot substitute the answer for any one of these questions for the others. The debate in this thread has been over question #1: What should our immigration policy be?
The fact that we elect representatives to make our laws (an answer to #2, which most Objectivists would say is the right answer) has no bearing on a proper evaluation of whether those laws are good or bad. While representative government provides a useful check on the government's potential to abuse its power, the majority can still be wrong.
As far as question #3 goes, I think that most Objectivists have taken the view that the rule of law is such a value (in contrast to the arbitrary rule of men, however well-intentioned) that existing bad laws should be obeyed. But this can be done even as one works to change those laws. Again, the normative evaluation of the laws (question #1) is separate. |
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| Friday, December 19, 2008 at 10:26:04 mst
Comment ID: #21
Name: Ted Coxhead
E-mail: tedcoxhead(at)yahoo.co.uk
Steve: "No it does not--because the agencies that dispense the benefits are in many cases not allowed to ask for proof of citizenship".
And would the comparatively small number of immigrants who would jump through hoops to seek and get welfare benefits really outweigh the huge productive advantage of the myriad others who do not? Surely these working immigrants would help pay for all the home grown American welfare moochers.
It seems to me that America was built by immigrants and given its current sparse population could do with millions more to re-build it. The tragedy of the economic slump in the UK is that we are no longer attractive as a destination for sufficient numbers of immigrants. |
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| Friday, December 19, 2008 at 17:18:26 mst
Comment ID: #22
Name: Steve D'Ippolito
....Also anyone can get free medical care at an emergency room, anywhere in the US, due to a law known as EMTALA.
In the absence of social welfare programs and laws like EMTALA I wholeheartedly endorse immigration with only restrictions against terrorists, criminals, and disease carriers. But with these, we then have a different situation. What, in this situation, would an Objectivist want to do with immigrant non-citizens (if he were not allowed to shitcan the programs and stupid laws)? Restrict access to citizens only, would be the only possible answer in that case. But back to the real world, there are two principles to consider: 1 (and true) you cannot deny rights to a non-citizen just because he is a non-citizen and 2 (false) these programs are considered "rights" Therefore in today's environment simply trying to deny access to welfare, EMTALA, schools, etc. to non-citizens whether they are "illegal" or not is a non-starter.
Thus I conclude that UNTIL the apparatus of the welfare state is dismantled and/or the presumption that people are entitled to these programs by "right" disappears from our legal culture we must try to keep unproductive or parasitic immigrants out--regardless of what "color" they are. Even given this I think our current immigration policy is wrong; it is too hard for people with extremely useful skills (software, surgeons, etc.) to immigrate, and others are being allowed to immigrate solely because they have relatives already here. Again, I wouldn't care about *any* of this were it not for the welfare state, which in turn is the result of a dysfunctional culture. |
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| Saturday, December 20, 2008 at 3:07:48 mst
Comment ID: #23
Name: Ted Coxhead
E-mail: tedcoxhead(at)yahoo.co.uk
Steve: "Thus I conclude that UNTIL the apparatus of the welfare state is dismantled and/or the presumption that people are entitled to these programs by "right" disappears from our legal culture we must try to keep unproductive or parasitic immigrants out--regardless of what "color" they are".
I have read figures which indicate that since the passage of Clinton's Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), approximately 935,000 non - citizens lost benefits. When the Act was passed only 15 per cent of all welfare recipients were immigrants. This figure dropped to 12 per cent within a few years.
Now, I think that if an American individual wishes to contract with a non-American individual (exempt of infectious diseases and terrorists), to have that non-American work on his property, that no government quota should stand in the way of that transaction. After all, each individual has rights as an individual not simply as an American individual.
So, since America is under populated and Texas is big enough for the population of the entire globe to be quite comfy in, the US government might even solve the economic crisis pretty quickly by issuing an appeal for the world to move to the USA. Most immigrants will want to be part of the American Dream and will work their socks off for it. The few that don't would easily be outweighed by the vast boost to the wealth of the nation produced by the others.
You never know, you might get more immigrants like Ayn Rand, more Wafa Sultans and more Ayan Hirsi Alis who would shift the culture sufficiently to create a political climate where the welfare state could be abolished. There are currently enough home grown American moochers who do not yet have the philosophy to make that possible. Some more hard working immigrants of the type that made America in the first place could be just what is needed. |
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