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09-12-2012, 07:29 PM #1
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Earth To Conservatives: Immigrant Amnesty Is A Conservative Policy
Earth To Conservatives: Immigrant Amnesty Is A Conservative Policy
Latinos are religious, morally conservative and tend disproportionately to join the military. They also tend to be hard working and entrepreneurial. Do we really have too many of them?
Do we really want to pack them up, forcibly, by the millions in the greatest forced migration in human history? How many are there, 15, maybe 20 million? No one has ever moved 15 million people against their will. No one has ever moved half that many without concentration camps, forced marches of one form or another and mass death through plague.
If there’s another way to do it, please tell me what it is. But I haven’t heard one. What I hear is slogans like ‘what part of illegal don’t you understand’ and attacks on ‘amnesty.’ Slogans move callers to dial in to talk radio, but they don’t move 20 million people voluntarily back into poverty and squalor. Soldiers do that (unhappy ones); box cars full of people do that. Camps surrounded by barbed wire do that. In the end you either let them stay or you herd them out. If you want to call it amnesty, go ahead.
After all, what’s wrong with amnesty? The idea has a well-worn legal tradition, one strongly associated with the Christian faith. It means forgiveness. After the Civil War, Lincoln offered amnesty to rebel soldiers. Was he wrong to do so? They had taken up arms against their own government; they had killed hundreds of thousands. But Lincoln (as opposed to the radical republicans) had the wisdom to offer forgiveness. What about runaway slaves after emancipation? They had broken the law, shouldn’t they have had to pay the price even after the laws were changed? Of course not. Why should immigration laws be any different? If we liberalize them, which seems well overdue, should we still punish the people who violated the law which we later deemed too harsh?
Amnesty is a strong part of the U.S. political tradition. Vietnam draft dodgers received amnesty. Do you think we should track them down and imprison them now? Conservatives often argue for amnesty. Tax amnesties are a favored release for overburdened tax payers.
Supply-siders rightly argue that widespread tax cheating is a sign that taxes are too high, that they are driving productive people into the black market. They argued that widespread violation of the national 55 mph. speed limit was a sign that law was too restrictive. Americans concluded that widespread violation of prohibition laws (not just statutes, but an actual part of the Constitution) was evidence that the law was too strict and that laws like prohibition which are so onerous that otherwise law-abiding citizens broke them, undermine the rule of law.
Ronald Reagan saw it, even if alleged ‘Reaganites’ don’t. He signed amnesty into law in 1986, inviting three million ‘illegals’ to become ‘legals.’ He even defended the idea in his 1984 Debate with Fritz Mondale: “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.” Would he do otherwise now? Would the man who didn’t want to deport 3 million of God’s children, now deport 15 or 20 million of them? Reagan had a completely different idea about immigration and the border from the wall/moat/electrocution/drone model. His diaries show an emotional discomfort with militarized borders with Mexico. He met with the President of Mexico to try to discuss ways to do something better with the border then to turn it into a fence. Reagan was concerned about a fence, while the recent crop of would-be-Reagans spout nonsense about walls with moats topped by electrified fences.
Reagan was influenced by free-market thought in this regard. Milton Friedman believed that immigration, even illegal immigration, was good for freedom. His argument, which was in this regard identical to Austrian economists like Ludwig Von Mises, was that human capital should be free to cross borders just like financial capital should be. Forcible interventions into immigration were really just forcible interventions into the labor market designed to restrict wage competition, just like unionism, just like mandated 30-hour work weeks or forced retirement or wage floors. Von Mises saw that “There cannot be the slightest doubt that migration barriers diminish the productivity of human labor.” – Ludwig Von Mises, Liberalism.
He saw immigration crackdowns as what they are, just another form of protectionism, and, like other forms of protectionism, as dangers to peace: “In such a world without trade and migration barriers, no incentives for war and conquest are left.” – Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action.
Both Friedman and Von Mises had concerns about immigration driven by the welfare system. In “Free to Choose” Friedman nuances his pro-immigration views by pointing out that one cannot have a fully free immigration system when new immigrants can immediately apply for welfare.
In this way, the Friedman position on immigration, as pro-immigrant as it is, falls short of the Biblical one, which not only encourages immigration, but even encourages immigrants to participate in the social relief system of Ancient Israel.
The anti-immigrant impulse also falls short of the vision of the Founders. This is one issue where the TEA Parties have to diligently study the writings of the Fathers to get things right. The Founders wanted a big and growing country with lots of immigrants. In fact, immigration was one of the causes for the War for Independence. Apparently King George wasn’t letting us to get enough of it. Jefferson complained:
“He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”
Healthy and growing nations talk this way and Malthusianism be damned. More people means mostly more minds and hands, not mostly more mouths. It was taken as a given by the founders that population growth is a good, and that policy should encourage it. Healthy nations grow and talk about immigrants as source of hope. Anything else has just too much of the death rattle of empire to it.
What does the Constitution say about immigration? Really only two things: first that it’s generally up to Congress what the rules should be—they can loosen and tighten the standards as they see fit. Second, it makes an exception: No matter what Congress says, children born here (with the exception of those born to families such as diplomats who are not under our legal jurisdiction) are citizens. No amount of torturing the text can change the fact that the children of illegal immigrants are citizens. So what are the family values conservatives going to do, send the parents or grandparents packing, while the kids stay here? This is pro-family?
We need a re-set on this issue. Freedom, growth, assimilation, more freedom, more growth, more assimilation: that’s our heritage. If the Republican Party gets tagged at the anti-Latino party, because we give into austerity economic models and zero sum game theory, we’re dead. And we will have brought it on ourselves.
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Mr. Bowyer is the author of "The Free Market Capitalists Survival Guide," published by HarperCollins, and a columnist for Forbes.com.
Earth To Conservatives: Immigrant Amnesty Is A Conservative Policy - Jerry Bowyer - Townhall Finance Conservative Columnists and Financial Commentary - Page 1
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09-12-2012, 08:01 PM #2Do we really want to pack them up, forcibly, by the millions in the greatest forced migration in human history? How many are there, 15, maybe 20 million? No one has ever moved 15 million people against their will. No one has ever moved half that many without concentration camps, forced marches of one form or another and mass death through plague.
Oh, and how is it that 15 million illegal aliens can be moved and allowed into the US without forced marches under Jerry Bowyers flawed thinking?
Yea, illegal immigrants vote more that 65% for Democrats and over half the illegal aliens are already on some form of taxpayer welfare. They herald from countries that turn a blind eye to most laws including rape and child sex trafficking.
Illegal immigration CONSERVES nothing and the fact that the Open Borders Lobby has paid clowns like Jerry Bowyers to come out and tell such horrible lies does not change those facts.
Someone add Jerry Bowyers name to the list of elites that share responsibility for the murders and atrocities committed against thousands of innocent Americans each year due to their advocacy for amnesty and non enforcement of America's existing border and immigration laws.
WJoin our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)
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09-12-2012, 11:08 PM #3
Latinos are religious, morally conservative and tend disproportionately to join the military. They also tend to be hard working and entrepreneurial. Do we really have too many of them?
Do we really want to pack them up, forcibly, by the millions in the greatest forced migration in human history? How many are there, 15, maybe 20 million? No one has ever moved 15 million people against their will. No one has ever moved half that many without concentration camps, forced marches of one form or another and mass death through plague."
Oh my God! What a drama king! Take away the jobs and freebies and we all know they will go home by themselves.Last edited by Kiara; 09-14-2012 at 12:14 AM.
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09-12-2012, 11:14 PM #4
"After all, what’s wrong with amnesty?"
You mean besides being wrong and allowing illegals to break the law?
Amnesty has been tried. It doesn't work and makes things worse! It encourages even more illegals to come here, invade, drain our system, change our language, pick and choose which laws to follow etc.
What's wrong with amnesty? EVERYTHING!!!!!!
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09-12-2012, 11:14 PM #5
Moved editorial to
Join our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & to secure US borders by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn
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09-13-2012, 08:41 AM #6After all, what’s wrong with amnesty?
So, Jerry let's put the shoe on the other foot. What else do we have on the books in the good old USA that is illegal that the rest of us can partake of? I have needs Jerry the same as any illegal alien. Can I plant my garden on your property, use your water, electricity, tools, etc.? Why not? I have to feed myself and my family? Can I use your credit card Jerry to pay my bills? That is what illegal aliens are doing when they use taxpayer paid social services, be they food stamps, welfare, housing or any other benefit. What gives them the right to do that, Jerry? The question, Jerry, is not "What is wrong with amnesty". The question, Jerry, is "What the hell is wrong with YOU!""We have met the enemy, and they is us." - POGO
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09-13-2012, 01:30 PM #7
Mr. Bowyer owes a big apology to Latinos for equating them with illegal aliens. The vast majority of people of Latino ancestry who are in the USA are here legally and are good citizens. The proportion of Latinos worldwide who are in the USA illegally is miniscule. There is nothing inherent in Latino culture or genetics which makes them break immigration law. The only reason the majority of illegal aliens in the USA are Latino is that the people geographically closest to the USA are Latino. If the USA bordered on a country full of Asians or Africans they would constitute the majority of illegal aliens.
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09-14-2012, 04:45 AM #8
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