Re: LETS SAY I BREAK INTO YOUR HOUSE

I could not disagree more.  First of all, the house analogy implies that European-Americans are the owners of the US just as you own your own house.  If we are the owners then we stole it from someone else (and didn't speak their language, etc).  How many waves of immigrants are allowed to be here?  Natives?  Western Europeans?  Africans? Eastern Europeans? Ukranians?  Each wave has entered the US society at the bottom rung (except some of the Western Europeans) and faced social opposition, so this opposition to spanish-speaking immigrants is predictable.  And just like during past immigration waves, the newest immigrants are scapegoated for economic (social services underfunding) and social (bi-lingualism is hurting schools/society) issues.  This is nothing new, but I would hope that a student of history would not fall for the same rhetotic that supported Indian massacres, slavery, urban ghettos for Jews (and Russians) and Nazism in Germany.

 

But my strongest area of disagreement is around the economics.  Name a closed society in the history of civilization that has thrived.  Japan's economy thrived for only one generation before dying because now their population is shrinking (among other reasons).  The way I see it, the economy grows from four factors: inflation (not a lever to be used to grow faster!), population growth, productivity & technology improvements, and gains from trade.  Moving to an isolationist stance hurts all four of these factors.  Our population shrinks without immigration.  Our universities aren't the envy of the world and if they don't attract top students and professors, those students won't stay in the US and start businesses, and technology innovation suffers (or at least migrates to a more accomodating nation and we become consumers of high technology, not producers of it).  Border control is usually paired with free trade restrictions; and since the US is the most trade-reliant country on Earth, isolation would be damaging.  In the absence of these three factors, the US would need to rely on deficits to fund social programs and an isolated country is unlikely to have as many foreign investors as we do now to fund our deficits (so we get inflation.  Wonderful).  Sure, it feels good to blame foreigners whether they are Mexican-born US residents or Chinese trading partners/investors in US Treasuries, but isn't the blame on the politicians that trade large social programs for votes and the voters that are willing to make this trade?  Isn't the answer to keep our borders open for immigration--both skilled and unskilled--and focus our energy on education.  In a globalized world, the US doesn't have an advantage in labor costs or natural resources, but it is the runaway leader of brainpower.  Especially creative, inventive brainpower.  If we lose sight of that because we want to protect our most disadvantaged economic trait (labor cost) and the manual laborers that would face more competition from immigrants, then the whole country will follow the path of Michigan and its protected-labor strategy.

 

Three other quick points: One: illegal immigrants are actually helping the social security problem because some of them pay payroll taxes yet very few collect any benefits (they are, after all, illegals) or are likely to live much older than 65 because of their economic position.  You can see this in the Federal budget: there is a line item for income tax revenue in excess of reported tax returns. Two: why is illegal immigration an issue in the midwest?  Shouldn't Texas, Florida, California (and AZ & NM) be allowed to dominate this debate?  Here in Texas people (gringos too!) are quite welcoming of immigrants and we have more than anywhere else.  Three: Why is the GOP getting on the "wrong" side of this issue?  Illegal immigrants are very religious, entreprenurial, Southern, non-urban residents.  That sounds like a future Republican to me.  Hispanics are also the fastest growing demographic and they are dominant in the largest electoral college states.  And growth (population, economic, innovation) is more of a GOP ideal than protectionism.  So what gives here?

Ok, since my soapbox isn't nearly as tall as I imagine it to be, I'll stop now.  Here are some appropriate quotes about caring for the lowest rung (not blaming them for our profligacy):

"The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick and the needy, and the handicapped." - Hubert Humphrey

"And the King answering shall say to them, Verily, I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me." - Matthew 25:40

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons" - Dostoyevsky (like a classic Russian, he's a bit apocryphal)

 

Adios,

NickZ