Working for logical immigation reform based on a stable population, a recognition of the finite nature of our natural resources and the adverse impact of continued growth on our quality of life, standard of living, national interest, character, language, sovereignty and the rule of law. Pushing back and countering the disloyal elements in American society and the anti-American rhetoric of the leftwing illegal alien lobbies. In a debate, when your opponents turn to name calling, it's a good sign you've already won.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

The Only Way Forward????

A blogsite called "The Firm Center" has advanced what it calls the "Only Way Forward". While not totally devoid of merit, I find it intensely interesting when someone professes to know the only solution or way forward on a complex problem. Some quotes from H. L. Mencken are instructive in this regard:

“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong. In the United States, doing good has come to be a favorite device of persons with something to sell. Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice."

"Firm" accurately describes the great divide in immigration reform over what to do about the 12- 20 million illegals. However, it is presumptuous for him to presume that his ideas are the "only way forward". Firm shows us where his sentiments lie when refers to the process of “repatriation” as “chasing some away”.

Many who oppose granting legal status acknowledge that rounding up all12 million illegal immigrants and repatriating them is not the right approach because it fails to recognize the legitimate needs of employers for foreign workers. Few wish to take such drastic action. A more measured approach is preferable in which employers are forced to provide irrefutable proof that they have made a good faith effort to hire citizen workers at a fair wage before they can hire or retain any foreign workers. This is a workable solution but not the only one.

Firm believes the only way forward is to offer illegal immigrants temporary visas for a long-enough period – say five years – so they would risk paying a fee and gaining legal status, even though there would be no guarantee that Congress would extend their visas. Those who didn’t come forward in coming months would forfeit any hope of ever becoming a legal resident. This sounds a lot like a status quo or amnesty proposal because it rewards the illegals with the object of their illegality, the ability to remain and work in this country.

If government created this mess, as Firm believes, then we need to have ways to hold accountable those who failed in their obligations to the American people. We could begin by declaring any failure on the part of any Administration to enforce immigration laws to be an impeachable offense. Subordinates in the INS, ICE and Border Patrol would similarly be held accountable with the threat of termination for failure to perform their duties faithfully.

No one wants the status quo. To begin with we want more border security and vigorous enforcement of the laws already on the books. Then we need the process for employers in need of foreign workers outlined above; a machine-readable, tamper proof, photo, biometric ID that specifies the type of work the foreign worker is authorized to do; and finally a immigration status verification system and workplace enforcement to hold miscreant employers accountable.

Firm doesn’t get to decide who is and who is not a fair-minded advocate on either side of the debate. We should not accept an arbitrary number of foreign workers just because they are already here and because of malfeasance on the part of our government. Those who want to put illegal immigrants on a path to permanent legal status say their approach is "both realistic – since the economy depends on millions of undocumented workers and the government doesn’t have the capability of hunting them down and driving them from the country – and compassionate, because it would allow them to come out of the shadows and stop living in fear." This reasoning is questionable from several points of view. First, make no mistake about it, not just some but most of the illegals could be repatriated if the job were to be put into the hands of private enterprise. Training and initial supervision could be provided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to assure that the job is done right. The identification and repatriation could be accomplished at no cost to taxpayers. The contractors should recover all costs and a modest profit from the illegals, their families, their homeland governments and/or their employers. To describe this legitimate process for enforcing the law as "hunting them down and driving them from the country" betrays Firm's biases. This is merely the the sting of justice Mencken was referring to in his quote above.

When Firm speaks of compassion, where is his compassion for American workers and American taxpayers? He doesn't say how his way forward will assure that American workers are able to get jobs at a fair wage to support their families. As Mencken points out, doing good has come to be a favorite device of persons with something to sell. What bill of goods is Firm trying to sell us? Amexico perhaps? Maybe he hasn't taken the long view at all and remains focused on a short run, shortsighted solution to a long run problem.



10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi. Here is an audio link to one of your favorite topics: population growth. However, now the culprits are affluent, status-seeking American families that consume more that a whole 3rd world town. I would love to see whether you value life and freedom to procreate for all equally.

4 Is the New 2: Affluent Families Having More Kids

Anonymous said...

Se ha guardado su comentario y podrĂ¡ visualizarse una vez que el propietario del blog lo haya aprobado.

Can you not get rid of this? I cannot determine whether my HTML encoded link was successful or not until you come back which may well be tomorrow or the day after. It is impossible to sustain a conversation, even a virtual one, like this.

ultima said...

I clicked on the 4 is the new 2 URL but nothing came up. My position is generally that folks should have only that number of children that they can support and educate. That sounds a little like, "Okay, if you are Bill Gates, have as many children as your wife will tolerate." Admittedly, that has certain attractions because it assures that those children will be well-cared for and not at public expense. However, you point is a also a valid one, if I understand it. That is, isn't it a little unfair to base the number of children you can have on your degree of affluence? Or, perhaps the point of the audio link, oops I was thinking video, I will try again. I hadn't turned on the audio yet waiting for a picture to appear. I will see if there is a way to get rid of the message you don't like. I suspect to do so I will have to drop moderation.

ultima said...

The audio link still doesn't work for me. Without having actually heard the audio, I think I understand your point and it is certainly valid as far as finite resources and conspicuous consumption are concerned and they are definitely important in my book. There are other questions to be considered: Do we want more people of any kind, affluent or not so affluent? Is it possible to change the consumption habits of the affluent and the oligarchs? Even poor people consume so the more there are, the more there are of both the affluent and the poor, the more our finite natural resources are stretched and the fewer of them there are per capita.

Similarly, the poor place additional burdens on society that the children of affluent parents do not. Is this important? Rationing was one approach used to try to allocate fairly the resources limited by the demands of World War II? However, if one had political influence or access to black markets, there still was a way to beat the system. Economists always argue against controls that work against the principles of economics, rent controls and price controls. This suggests that this problem is far from simple but India and China seem to be addressing it, how successfully I don't know. I believe in China there were some complaints that the affluent were able to pay whatever arbitrary fines were imposed for having more children than the law allowed and thus were able to procreate unequally.

Some affluent families have histories of children gone bad [Paris Hilton?] and some less affluent with children of remarkable achievements.

I would be comfortable with a world in which all families were limited to the size necessary for replacement. That should reduce the total level of consumption of the affluent families because their numbers would be limited just as they would be for others.

What do you suggest?

Anonymous said...

Try these:

javascript:launchPlayer('12513005', '1', '05-Aug-2007', '&topicName=News&subtopicName=Nation&prgCode=WESUN&hubId=-1&thingId=12513004&ssid=&tableModifier=', 'RM,WM');

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12513004

Anonymous said...

They did not work. Try this

Anonymous said...

Good. Click on "Listen".

Anonymous said...

the poor place additional burdens on society that the children of affluent parents do not.

The affluent place an enormous burden on society by having it divert resources to wage wars to enrich their companies, by subsidizing agribusiness, by building all those freeways and suburbs for them to achieve their "American Dream". The Fed has created all that money sloshing around the globe just to create fake financial opportunities for them to play with and feel like financial geniuses.

Anonymous said...

What do you suggest?

I just wanted to know if you would tie yourself in knots to justify class privileges or if you really advocated population controls in which all classes sacrificed in the same measure. You seem to value all people equally though you do have that typically American, puritan, knee-jerk, Cold War belief that the poor are a burden to society while the affluent create wealth. Actually, much of the oligarchy are a bunch of leeches.

And thank for changing your controls. I feel better when seeing my messages pop up right after I write them.

ultima said...

I believe the poor can be a burden to society, that some of the affluent folks do create jobs and wealth for more than themselves, and, yes, I agree some, if not most, oligarchs are leeches on society. In addition to the 4 is the new 2, I note that many celebs are now out there parading their pregnancies and their babies as status symbols. If 30% of the affluent families are producing more than two children and all of the immigrants and illegals are doing likewise, we are in deep trouble populationwise.