Say Anything Blog

Yea… but he was stupid to say $50, otherwise he has a good point. No one is going to go pick lettuce at the rates the illegals take to do it. Thus a hole in the market is filled. It’s not a bad point.

You can argue against illegal immigration all you want on the basis of security and entitlements. But all things being equal, you’re never going to make an economic case against the movement of free labor (you’d be arguing against a major subset of free market economics).

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

I agree Hairy, but I think there is a solution that meets both standards.

I’ve always supported a “tall fence with a wide gate” stance.  We absolutely deport all the illegals here, and we ardently defend the border against all who would cross it illegally.  But at the same time we abolish immigration quotas and make the legal immigration process as simple as possible while still preserving adequate security/disease precautions.

Thus we disincentive illegal immigration while providing incentive for legal immigration.  I don’t care if they want to come here and work.  I do care that they get to come here without fulfilling all the obligations of citizenship and while flouting our laws.

Sovereignty is important.

The big problem for this solution, though, is the business environment the liberals have created.  One of the reasons cheap immigrant labor is so attractive is that business owners often don’t have to follow all the tax codes and wage/labor regulations that the liberals have foisted on us (which isn’t to say that all those laws/regulations are bad, just most of them).  If the illegals came here legally they’d have to follow the law, and thus wouldn’t really be any cheaper to hire than Americans.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I agree.

If the illegals came here legally they’d have to follow the law, and thus wouldn’t really be any cheaper to hire than Americans.

So really you can look at illegal immigration as a black market that corrects for dumbass social policy.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera