No Fat Immigrant Chicks

A friend weighs in on immigration:

Regarding immigration--I agree with your comments and my evolution of opinion somewhat mirrors yours. The tempest-tossed, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wreteched refuse from those teeming shores, have always represented potential for me.

Genius and ingenuity are rare and the successful exploitation of these attributes is a factor of, among other things, numbers. You're more likey to find one Thomas Edison or Bill Gates among a population of a million than you are in a population of 10,000. Such is the nature of the distribution of human potential. The beautiful thing is that just one Edison or Gates, operating in an environment where risk taking and entrepenuership is encouraged, can lift the standard of living for the other 999,999 slack-jawed troglydites. So my general stance has been to let them in and then sit back and watch the rising tide life all of our boats (grunt).

However, what mucks up this sunny day real estate disposition is the new context in which we thrust our immigrants. Namely, when they can expect to enter a welfare state that guarantees equality of outcome, no matter what the personal effort, and eliminates any consequences for being a lay about, well, that's trouble sir. Onerous regulation and confiscatory, redistributionist tax policy also conspire to eliminate motivation from just those geniuses we're all counting to haul our arses out of the primordial economic swamp.

Furthermore, this environment will tend to attract a different type of immigrant. Instead of this country sounding the clarion call for those who simply want to breathe free, and to be allowed to realize the benefits of their work, away from the dictators and oppresive systems in the rest of the world (see France), we're sending out the message that anyone who simply wants to live a comfortable life should show up and we'll sign them up for cradle to grave government services immediately.

So what am I saying? Immigration itself isn't bad, rather it's the way our institutions have come to deal with immigrants. They're no longer partners in this enterprise of liberty, adding the strenghts of their backs and their minds to the larger effort--rather, they're just more pets to be kept by the federal government. The government promises to feed them and water them and house them--just as long as their votes continue to go to the government party.

You're also quite right in stating that neither of the major parties is adequately addressing these issues. The Democrats are, well Democrats. And George W. Bush is a disaster on this issue.

The minor parties do provide some additional insight--particularly the Libertarians. I watched a rather wonderful speech by Harry Browne a few weeks ago on C-SPAN and he spoke of this issue. I think the video is still available for download on the C-SPAN Web site--I couldn't find a transcription of his comments. But if your computer is advanced enough to view video (mine isn't) you may want to check it out.

The Harry Browne Web site is full of provocative articles. Some of which I tend to disagree with--particularly tactical recommendations on foreign policy, but it's difficult to argue with his philosophy on anything--because he's right (extremely right). He's recently re-posted a column he wrote in 1992 about the LA riots. It's excellent and it has several parallels to what
is happening today:

The Rodney King Incident