Netherlands abandoning multiculturalism
At some point, two peoples occupying the same land either blend, or fight. Looks like the Dutch just figured out which one was happening.
Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
Monday, June 27, 2011
Sunday, November 07, 2010
We Can't Afford Illegal Immigrants.
Janet Daley, in the Telegraph:
Too many promises have been made by altruists, promises based on faith that any good that could be imagined could be done without cost to other goods. Like an overextended credit card, we'll be paying for it for a long time.
If working people are to fend for themselves and support their own families without help, they cannot be under-bid for employment by migrants who, as often as not, have no dependants and no permanent obligations in the host country. The uncontrolled movement of peoples around the globe is problematic for welfare states – which can end up supporting them – but it may present even more dramatic difficulties for a country with a contracting state. The combination of reduced welfare and unlimited migration could produce ugly consequences which no responsible person wants to see.The premise that immigration should never be limited is relatively modern and backed up by little besides an altruistic frisson. The libertarian responds that labor has the right to move where it wills. And it may indeed. But in a world where the supply of capital outweighs the supply of labor, the free movement of the latter penalizes the workers of nations that develop the former.
Too many promises have been made by altruists, promises based on faith that any good that could be imagined could be done without cost to other goods. Like an overextended credit card, we'll be paying for it for a long time.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
America is Not the Problem
Paul Driessen hits the usual points in talking about how screwed up Mexico is, and in doing so, he posts a factoid that should be shouted from the heavens:
Fifteen Percent. Fifteen Percent. The same lousy, ten-hour, fruit-pickin' job that pays 4 dollars an hour in California pays 60 cents in Baja. And we are lost as to how this may be. We look at the poverty to our border and don't even wonder about it, because it's always been there. Since the Conquistadors showed up, Mexico has been a land of horrifying, endemic, turn-J.P.-Morgan-into-a-Communist poverty.
But the Communistas can't seem to improve the place. And neither can the capitalists, it seems. Mexico is trying both at the same time, and neither is working. The oil industry is owned by the Mexican Government, who sells it to the developed world, and especially the United States, and uses the profits to...pay more government workers? Improve oil production? Meanwhile, whole areas of Mexico are without electricity.
And if all that were privatised overnight? If the government oil industry became Mexicoil, Inc? The same would occur. Cash-crops cannot save economies that don't empower people to make use of it. When there is nothing that will allow people to transferr the assets they have into liquid, they may not advance except by the benefice of the government, which depends upon either political connections or revolt.
Property Rights. Rule of Law. Universal Suffrage and Education. It's all we've ever needed.
Low-skill wages today are less than 15 percent of what Mexican workers can earn in the US, and half of its 106 million people still live in poverty.
Fifteen Percent. Fifteen Percent. The same lousy, ten-hour, fruit-pickin' job that pays 4 dollars an hour in California pays 60 cents in Baja. And we are lost as to how this may be. We look at the poverty to our border and don't even wonder about it, because it's always been there. Since the Conquistadors showed up, Mexico has been a land of horrifying, endemic, turn-J.P.-Morgan-into-a-Communist poverty.
But the Communistas can't seem to improve the place. And neither can the capitalists, it seems. Mexico is trying both at the same time, and neither is working. The oil industry is owned by the Mexican Government, who sells it to the developed world, and especially the United States, and uses the profits to...pay more government workers? Improve oil production? Meanwhile, whole areas of Mexico are without electricity.
And if all that were privatised overnight? If the government oil industry became Mexicoil, Inc? The same would occur. Cash-crops cannot save economies that don't empower people to make use of it. When there is nothing that will allow people to transferr the assets they have into liquid, they may not advance except by the benefice of the government, which depends upon either political connections or revolt.
Property Rights. Rule of Law. Universal Suffrage and Education. It's all we've ever needed.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
The Consequences of Inaction
I find the reactions to the President's speech last night most instructive. It now appears that nothing short of "DEPORT THEM. ALL OF THEM." will satisfy the Republican "base". This I fail to understand. Mass deportation of the millions of illegals is not feasible in any sense of the word: in terms of the manpower and infrastructure, in terms of political will, in terms of likely humanitarian consequences.
We should all deplore the lassitude and inertia that has brought us to the present circumstance. But inaction, like action, has consequences. We must accept these consequences before we can effectively chart a new course.
I found the principles of the President's position both reasonable and just (indeed, it all sounds remarkably similar to what I myself proposed). The question remains of how these principles translate to action. You may call a "guest-worker/earned citizenship" program whatever you like, but absent strict enforcement of the existing border, it will become precisely the amnesty that the President says it is not. This is unacceptable, and it is the fear of this which, I suspect, drives the hostility of conservatives.
Because we have one of three options. The first is to set forth a plan that will simplify immigration and secure the border, and then follow through on it. The second is to annex Mexico. The third is to do nothing and hope it all will go away.
Option three is the worst, and conspicuously, the one we are likely to engage in. But a third-party candidate who was solidly behind the first, this man I might give serious consideration too.
We should all deplore the lassitude and inertia that has brought us to the present circumstance. But inaction, like action, has consequences. We must accept these consequences before we can effectively chart a new course.
I found the principles of the President's position both reasonable and just (indeed, it all sounds remarkably similar to what I myself proposed). The question remains of how these principles translate to action. You may call a "guest-worker/earned citizenship" program whatever you like, but absent strict enforcement of the existing border, it will become precisely the amnesty that the President says it is not. This is unacceptable, and it is the fear of this which, I suspect, drives the hostility of conservatives.
Because we have one of three options. The first is to set forth a plan that will simplify immigration and secure the border, and then follow through on it. The second is to annex Mexico. The third is to do nothing and hope it all will go away.
Option three is the worst, and conspicuously, the one we are likely to engage in. But a third-party candidate who was solidly behind the first, this man I might give serious consideration too.
Friday, March 31, 2006
The Essayist #14: Mexican Wars
My ancestors came to this country at varied times and for varied reasons, and all of them belonged to groups that, at some time or other, were regarded as dangers to the Republic. The Germans were suspected of disloyalty during both World Wars. And the Irish were the Mexicans of the 19th Century, a horde of uneducated, malnourished, uncultured swine, spreading Popery and syphillis, and depressing the wages in the major Northeast cities (New York, Philadelphia, Boston, etc.) down past the level to which even black workers had become accustomed.
I get all that. I do. Yet this still does not make me favor the goals of those who marched in Los Angeles this past week.
Generally, I'm a pro-immigration, pro-assimilation, pro-melting pot kind of chap. Every successful immigrant group in America has added to, not detracted from, our culture and economy, long-term. I want everyone who wants to come here and join our reindeer games to be permitted to do so, regardless of color, creed, or language, provided they agree to the following, non-negotiable Rules of the House:
1. Learn to speak English well enough to communicate with most people who live here, at least when in public.
2. Put your prime loyalty to This Our Republic, above any other foreign commitments (sending money to your grandmother in the Old Sod is jolly fine, sending money to organizations that demonize and seek to damage the U.S. is not)
3. There is no 3. You may now pay taxes and vote like the rest of us.
The Mexican Immigration problem is in nature different from any of the other ones we have previously dealt with (in truth, each one is as different as the countries from which they stream here). The difference lies not in the culture of Mexico, nor in a particular defect of Mexican immigrants, but in the past.
The border with Mexico has always been porous. For 19th Century Outlaws, Mexico was Safe at Home, Olly-Olly-Oxen-Free. Banditry and paramilitary troublemaking along the border is nothing new: Pancho Villa's raid into Texas prompted President Wilson to send the U.S. Army deep into Mexico after him (they came up empty). The border is desert for Washington's sake, desert and a river whose banks will shift if it rains hard enough (as they did in 1941, moving 5 miles to the north and creating a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which was obliged to rule in favor of Mexico because the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo established the river as the border).
Then there's the fact that the U.S.-Mexican border is the result of the last international war on the North American Continent. In 1848 one-third of Mexico became the southwest United States, as provided for in the aforementioned Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo which ended the war. Mexicans who thus claim that they are standing on their "homeland" make a statement that many are inclined to credit, especially given the ambiguity with which the U.S.-Mexican War has been viewed by Americans, from the 1840's forward. Republicans like Lincoln and Grant regarded it as a "war of conquest" pushed by proto-Confederates to create land for more slave states, but this did not prompt them to return the lands to Mexico. The problem has been with us ever since.
None of this, however, means that we can any longer afford to tolerate the situation; to call a problem old is not to accept its continuance. In the first place, while the Mexican War may not have been the most morally shining moment in our history, neither is it the Malevolent Rape of Innocent Mexico that our history books seem to suggest. The Mexican Government is at least as responsible as the U.S. Government for the War's Outbreak: their stubborn refusal to accept the Texas Republic and their short-sighted attempts to dispute the border gave the U.S. the cause that it needed: regardless of the oft-repeated "Manifest Destiny", it is hard to see how a war could have come about, even under President Polk, had not Mexico believed they could regain what they had lost, and attempted to do so.
Moreover, in victory the United States government was generous: the Mexican Cession was given not as conquered to conqueror but in return for $15 million (equal to what Jefferson paid for Louisiana), plus another $3.25 million of debt to Mexican citizens living north of the new border that the U.S. agreed to assume responsibility for. These same Mexicans were guarunteed citizenship and full property rights. No indemnities were paid, no massacres committed. This is hardly history's cruelest conquest.
Second, the United States is under no obligation to accept any immigrants from anywhere; our past notwithstanding, we are the third most populous nation on earth (a distant third, granted, behind China and India, but double the size of the next one on the list); we have no shortage of people, nor any real need for more. A government's first obligation is to its citizens, not to those who may become citizens, if they feel like it.
While I don't know how I feel about a "guest-worker" program, philosophically, there isn't too much daylight between myself and George Will. I likewise believe that an intelligent immigration reform package should include the following:
Secure the Border. Fences, walls, the whole nine yards. This is a security as well as an economic issue. Along with those huddled masses are drug lords and foreign thugs. They need to be kept out as well (an overhaul of security at all entry points would be welcome as well).
Make Legal Immigration Easier. A points system like that of Australia would give immigrants legal status (and thus, a means of identification and monitoring), a simpler means of reaching the end goal, and thus, encouragement to get there.
Zero Tolerance for Reconquistadors. Anyone proclaiming that the Southwest be returned to Mexico or that whites be expelled from any part of the Americas should be arrested for fomenting insurrection, if a citizen, and deported with a permanent 'no entry' mark next to their name if not. The history between the U.S. and Mexico makes such statements a "Clear and Present Danger" as far as I'm concerned. Anyone standing in Los Angeles who seems to think he's in Mexico should be returned to Mexico, that he may discover the difference.
Assimilate, Assimilate, Assimilate. There was no bi-lingual education for the Germans, the Italians, the Swedes, the Poles, or anyone else. I don't see what makes Latinos so special that they can't follow the same path. But more than language, it's time to instill in immigrants a love of the country they're joining, as a republic of free men and women from around the world, not as a cash cow. America is more than the New York Stock Exchange, more than Wal-Mart, more than Hollywood. We must remember this, and we must so teach our new brothers and sisters.
If we can do this, we'll have the means for turning all these Mexicans into Mexican-Americans, and eventually just plain the latter. Enough of guilt, enough of malaise, enough of flagellation for the degree to which America is not Eden. It never will be, and if we can forgive ourselves for that, we can discover again a people worth keeping.
I get all that. I do. Yet this still does not make me favor the goals of those who marched in Los Angeles this past week.
Generally, I'm a pro-immigration, pro-assimilation, pro-melting pot kind of chap. Every successful immigrant group in America has added to, not detracted from, our culture and economy, long-term. I want everyone who wants to come here and join our reindeer games to be permitted to do so, regardless of color, creed, or language, provided they agree to the following, non-negotiable Rules of the House:
1. Learn to speak English well enough to communicate with most people who live here, at least when in public.
2. Put your prime loyalty to This Our Republic, above any other foreign commitments (sending money to your grandmother in the Old Sod is jolly fine, sending money to organizations that demonize and seek to damage the U.S. is not)
3. There is no 3. You may now pay taxes and vote like the rest of us.
The Mexican Immigration problem is in nature different from any of the other ones we have previously dealt with (in truth, each one is as different as the countries from which they stream here). The difference lies not in the culture of Mexico, nor in a particular defect of Mexican immigrants, but in the past.
The border with Mexico has always been porous. For 19th Century Outlaws, Mexico was Safe at Home, Olly-Olly-Oxen-Free. Banditry and paramilitary troublemaking along the border is nothing new: Pancho Villa's raid into Texas prompted President Wilson to send the U.S. Army deep into Mexico after him (they came up empty). The border is desert for Washington's sake, desert and a river whose banks will shift if it rains hard enough (as they did in 1941, moving 5 miles to the north and creating a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which was obliged to rule in favor of Mexico because the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo established the river as the border).
Then there's the fact that the U.S.-Mexican border is the result of the last international war on the North American Continent. In 1848 one-third of Mexico became the southwest United States, as provided for in the aforementioned Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo which ended the war. Mexicans who thus claim that they are standing on their "homeland" make a statement that many are inclined to credit, especially given the ambiguity with which the U.S.-Mexican War has been viewed by Americans, from the 1840's forward. Republicans like Lincoln and Grant regarded it as a "war of conquest" pushed by proto-Confederates to create land for more slave states, but this did not prompt them to return the lands to Mexico. The problem has been with us ever since.
None of this, however, means that we can any longer afford to tolerate the situation; to call a problem old is not to accept its continuance. In the first place, while the Mexican War may not have been the most morally shining moment in our history, neither is it the Malevolent Rape of Innocent Mexico that our history books seem to suggest. The Mexican Government is at least as responsible as the U.S. Government for the War's Outbreak: their stubborn refusal to accept the Texas Republic and their short-sighted attempts to dispute the border gave the U.S. the cause that it needed: regardless of the oft-repeated "Manifest Destiny", it is hard to see how a war could have come about, even under President Polk, had not Mexico believed they could regain what they had lost, and attempted to do so.
Moreover, in victory the United States government was generous: the Mexican Cession was given not as conquered to conqueror but in return for $15 million (equal to what Jefferson paid for Louisiana), plus another $3.25 million of debt to Mexican citizens living north of the new border that the U.S. agreed to assume responsibility for. These same Mexicans were guarunteed citizenship and full property rights. No indemnities were paid, no massacres committed. This is hardly history's cruelest conquest.
Second, the United States is under no obligation to accept any immigrants from anywhere; our past notwithstanding, we are the third most populous nation on earth (a distant third, granted, behind China and India, but double the size of the next one on the list); we have no shortage of people, nor any real need for more. A government's first obligation is to its citizens, not to those who may become citizens, if they feel like it.
While I don't know how I feel about a "guest-worker" program, philosophically, there isn't too much daylight between myself and George Will. I likewise believe that an intelligent immigration reform package should include the following:
If we can do this, we'll have the means for turning all these Mexicans into Mexican-Americans, and eventually just plain the latter. Enough of guilt, enough of malaise, enough of flagellation for the degree to which America is not Eden. It never will be, and if we can forgive ourselves for that, we can discover again a people worth keeping.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Santa Anna's Ghost Returns
Good news for those who worry about troubles on the U.S.-Mexico border leading to militarization of that border: it's already happening. Except the troops aren't ours.
It is fascinating that a man who has staked his presidency on American security is so willing to be blind regarding our own border. It would be one thing if Mexican authorities were crossing to capture criminals. We've done that, and I don't see that it would be bad to set up an agreement or three allotting those rights. But that isn't what's happening. They're crossing our border to aid and abett criminal activity. That's unacceptable, and if it continues, there will be an international incident. It's only a question of how soon, and how bloody, it will be.
It is fascinating that a man who has staked his presidency on American security is so willing to be blind regarding our own border. It would be one thing if Mexican authorities were crossing to capture criminals. We've done that, and I don't see that it would be bad to set up an agreement or three allotting those rights. But that isn't what's happening. They're crossing our border to aid and abett criminal activity. That's unacceptable, and if it continues, there will be an international incident. It's only a question of how soon, and how bloody, it will be.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
La Raza in L.A.
Moonbat Monitor has the alarm bell ringing on our own immigration problems in light of Paris. This observation was bound to be made, and I for one don't necessarily think it shouldn't be made. After all, hordes of unassimilated immigrants was how Texas stopped being Mexican in the first place.
Yet I can't help recalling Boxing Alcibiades' Humble Proposal on the Mexican Border, in which he writes:
And this:
All of which is well and good. But if it took numbers to make a Revolution, there'd never be one. So what DO we do about those racial mau-mauers and their dreams of a Republica del Norte? Shuddering in horror is not an answer.
UPDATE: Russ suggested I should take an actual stand on the issue, and Moonbat Moniter gave me a link promising "interesting bits of info". So I suppose I had better offer some. A few points:
Both the French and Russian Revolutions were launched by a small but determined clique of educated radicals. At no time did the balance of the populations support either revolution, indeed, both the National Convention and the Politburo had to engage in extensive counterguerilla warfare against the peasant populations who had risen up in armed resistance. The latter's campaign constitutes a largely unknown portion of Russian History; when the war against the Whites was over, the Reds still had to tangle with the "Greens", and that continued for several years.
Revolutions also tend to break down ruling classes that are weak or retreating. It is always after the tyrant releases his grip that the revolution happens, not before. Louie Seize and Nicky Deuce were no man's idea of tyrants; by any reasonable account, they were unsure, self-effacing family men who went along with the tied of reform. Louie Quatorze and Alex Trip would have devoured Danton and Lenin respectively (in point of fact, it was the execution of his elder brother for a plot against the life of Triple Al that, according to him anyway, turned Lenin into a revolutionary). Nor were the nobility any help. For decades before 1917 in Russia the nobility had feared and expected a Revolution, the causes of which they could not be bothered to mobilize against, and the French elite of 1789 was in many cases on the side of the bourgeoisie, or at any rate did not care to resist them.
In spite of all of this, a preponderance of firepower could have stifled either revolt in its infancy. A professor of mine at St. Joes was noted for saying that with a few thousand loyal riflemen the Tsar could have survived 1917, and the performance of the Swiss Guards in Paris in 1789 were not inspirational. But you must have men who are ready, willing, and able to fire on civilians, who perceive them as their enemies, and the enemies of their society.
The true questions, therefore, are these:
1) How popular are the Alte-Californians among the balance of the Hispanic community? Do our Mexican immigrants feel significant animus against the Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo to desire revanche?
2) How serious are these radicals? Do they really want to create their Republica del Norte, and are they willing to shed the necessary blood to obtain it? Or is this merely a pose to bait the Man?
3) Is our elite prepared to deny them such, and stomp on them vociferously if the desire? Are they willing to shed blood?
4) If they are, will our police and soldiers respond to the call?
Question 4 seems to be a certain "yes", and I'm pretty sure that somewhere along the line 3 will turn out to be "yes" as well. For the rest, more data is required.
Yet I can't help recalling Boxing Alcibiades' Humble Proposal on the Mexican Border, in which he writes:
As a Texan "anglo" (I hate that stupid term), I may not celebrate the Day of the Dead, but I sure have a lot more in common with Mexican emigres I've met, especially from Gerrero, Tamalpais, and Coahuila, than I do the typical New Yorker or Bostonian, both of whom, to judge by the newspapers, are regularly embarrassed at my state's mere existence. And the average guy in Indiana probably has an easier time understanding one of the many Mennonites in Chihuahua than he does the Chomsky-worshipping residents of Berserkely...
And this:
In fact, language is pretty much the only barrier Mexicans face to assimilation, at least when politicians aren't busy using race as a divide-and-conquer issue in LA. It certainly isn't the ranchero music, which sounds alarmingly close to something you might hear a couple of old guys playing at a Polish wedding in upstate Wisconsin. Mexicans who desire to assimilate do so almost instantly, as soon as they can speak English, because their values are so nearly identical to our own. Much closer than other groups, even those who integrate well, but steadfastly refuse any notion of assimilation. Go on, tell some cute girl from India that she should marry a white guy or a Navajo. G'wan, try it.
All of which is well and good. But if it took numbers to make a Revolution, there'd never be one. So what DO we do about those racial mau-mauers and their dreams of a Republica del Norte? Shuddering in horror is not an answer.
UPDATE: Russ suggested I should take an actual stand on the issue, and Moonbat Moniter gave me a link promising "interesting bits of info". So I suppose I had better offer some. A few points:
The true questions, therefore, are these:
1) How popular are the Alte-Californians among the balance of the Hispanic community? Do our Mexican immigrants feel significant animus against the Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo to desire revanche?
2) How serious are these radicals? Do they really want to create their Republica del Norte, and are they willing to shed the necessary blood to obtain it? Or is this merely a pose to bait the Man?
3) Is our elite prepared to deny them such, and stomp on them vociferously if the desire? Are they willing to shed blood?
4) If they are, will our police and soldiers respond to the call?
Question 4 seems to be a certain "yes", and I'm pretty sure that somewhere along the line 3 will turn out to be "yes" as well. For the rest, more data is required.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)