In Grim's discussion of ICE Watch earlier this week he brought up the question of popular sovereignty:
What the government at all levels ought to take time to consider is how deeply the sovereign citizenry is rejecting this in at least some localities. I don't know or claim to know just what that means; perhaps we should, as we have often discussed, divide the nation in some way to allow the divergent political views space. Nevertheless, citizens are allowed to diverge in their opinions. Nobody has the right to use main force to compel Americans to abide by their preferred ideas about how we should be governed.
My question here is, which citizenry is relevant to the situation at hand? In our federal system, some powers are given to the federal government, in which case the relevant citizenry is all American citizens. These actions affect us all, so we should all have a say. Other powers are reserved to the states, in which case the relevant citizenry is the citizens of the respective states, and the citizens of other states should keep their noses out of it. Immigration belongs to the federal powers and we all have a stake in it, so the relevant sovereignty rests with the people of the nation.
Why? There are two main reasons. First, that is the system we have agreed to as a nation. If this agreement isn't acceptable to some, then they should work to change it. That is enough, but, second, as it stands, illegal aliens are counted in the census and count for apportionment for the House and Electoral College. This means that if some states cooperate with ICE and the illegal aliens there are deported while other states refuse to cooperate and keep their illegals, those latter states gain real advantages in the federal government. This would punish law-abiding states and reward law-breaking states. That is why immigration is a federal issue and the proper level of sovereignty is the American people as a whole, not the people of an individual state, much less an individual city.
In 2024 the citizens of the United States expressed their will on federal matters by electing Trump and giving a majority in the House and Senate to Republicans. Trump ran heavily on enforcing federal immigration laws. This is the will of the relevant citizens. Sovereignty, in the end, means the exercise of power, or, as Obama said, elections have consequences. Being part of the sovereign citizenry in the Republic means accepting that, not obstructing it.
Protest is a right. I have exercised that right lawfully as have millions of others. However, while it takes cover among legitimate protesters, the mass, organized obstruction of immigration enforcement happening in Minneapolis is not a lawful protest and it is not an expression of the will of the people. It is obstruction of the will of the people and a rejection of the sovereignty of the people as properly expressed in the 2024 elections. These obstructors are petty tyrants who will be more than happy to tyrannize us all if they get the chance.
40 comments:
Good! You are thinking carefully about this, as we all should be at this time.
“…which citizenry is relevant to the situation at hand?”
All of us who are indeed citizens, as you correctly intuit. But it’s crucial, I think, that enough of those citizens are willing to resist bodily; it’s not just a game of mathematics. They might be a minority, even, but if they are willing to risk death and even to die over the issue, they are paying with honor and even their blood to demand consideration. Many issues can be resolved by counting votes. Not all. Honor is harder to calculate than votes, but it is more important in spite of its difficulties.
I don't see any honor in their methods. Every criminal who mugs or burglarizes risks death to get your stuff, but that does not entitle them or their cause (stealing your stuff) to any special consideration. These people are defending criminals, primarily illegal aliens who have committed crimes in the US. Just on this point, I doubt we owe them any special consideration for the risks they're taking.
However, I think the Somali fraud scandal will, if investigated thoroughly, implicate Walz and Frey and probably other Democrat politicians. These demonstrations also serve as a distraction to cover up their crimes. If that's true, the demonstrators are also complicit in covering up those crimes. The fraud has been widely reported and people should be asking why the state and local Democrats are encouraging violent (though not yet lethal) obstruction. The tail wagging the dog is an old and well-known idea by now.
But let's say you are right. What is the option for countering this? They are clearly agitators, egging the police on. So, a counter-protest that adopted the same tactics against them would likely result in violence, only this time it wouldn't be police, however poorly trained, but untrained and likely armed militias egging each other on, daring the other side to be the first to fire. How's that going to end?
A counter-protest that did not use those tactics would be crushed. They've shown they'll mob you for wearing a patriotic sweatshirt. They are well organized and can probably get a hundred people anywhere in their AO pretty quickly. They set up roadblocks to keep vehicles from egressing. They've used caltrops to stop vehicles as well. If you counter-protest, you'd best show up with a hundred of your best friends ready to rumble. What happens then?
Let's not say that I'm right. I am probably not right. I am also trying to understand a chaotic situation from a perspective of limited knowledge.
So, the Hells Angels can also do what you attribute to this group (which I don't know if they could do, but again, we don't have to expect 100% accuracy in the present moment; fog of war and all that). They've been around for dozens of years and have endured many Federal investigations. They probably are involved in at least some degree of criminality; some of it is demonstrable historically.
We have a thing we're doing together that involves a certain amount of Outlawry as a valve of sorts. Illegal immigration has been an important part of that for a long time. Moonshining was; marijuana growing is now. It's not all legal; some of it is clearly illegal. It is all the same a valve that relieves pressure, produces lower labor costs -- every Republican small business owner I know employs Mexicans who are paid a rate the cartels set, which they collect at the Mexican grocery that ships their money back to Mexico.
It's not the way the system was set up formally, but it absolutely is how it works. How many of these legs of the stool can you knock out without it falling apart?
They might be a minority, even, but if they are willing to risk death and even to die over the issue....
What Thomas said. To which I'll add.
This minority is trying to overrule the majority in our republican democracy--even locally--and dictate their position to the rest of us. That's not just nakedly unAmerican, it's utterly without honor.
The only consideration these obstructionists (to use Thomas' generous term) deserve is arrest, trial, and if convicted, jail, with the degree of their violence, including their role in the killings of two of their number, informing the severity of their sentences.
That should especially apply to the State and city politicians who are inflaming the situation with their deliberately divisive and inflammatory talk. As elected public officials, they should be held to a far higher standard, as they're disregarding--violating--their oaths of office, which enjoin them to obey and enforce the law and their State constitution, and the Federal constitution, and which oaths override any platform on which they might have campaigned.
Frey's oath is here: https://www.minneapolismn.gov/government/departments/police/oath/
Walz' oath is here: https://law.justia.com/constitution/minnesota/Article5.html and https://www.sos.mn.gov/media/kahfsflm/oath-of-office-form-election_admin_sample.pdf
Let Frey answer in court for any claim that he might make regarding his personal obstruction (which he's not had the...whatever...to do regarding joining the obstructionists in the streets, just egging them on from the safety of his mayor's porch).
It seems apparent to me that Walz is sorely lacking in his judgment and ability.
Eric Hines
It’s clear enough that Walz is not on the right side. But Trump isn’t either; his remarks about guns are statist nonsense.
What is the right side? What are we trying to do here? It’s a hard question and I am not asking for an easy answer. You may not be asked this question more than once in your life. Think about it.
A: What makes you think I haven't already been thinking about these things for years?
B: I'm less concerned with the words of Trump than I am with what he actually does. Even his words aren't intended to incite violence, they're just head games aimed at particular individuals to take them out of their game.
Walz, on the other hand, is being deliberately divisive and generally inflammatory, likening ICE/CBP to the Gestapo, calling Federal law enforcers in the course of their enforcement, along with any who support them, Nazis.
Frey, on the other hand, is a bigger coward than Walz, as Frey's oath of office and his departure from it to stay safe in his offices or behind microphones demonstrates. Frey's actions, too, are more damning and damaging than his words.
Eric Hines
I assume that you have not been thinking about the events of the last few days for years. That of course assumes that you have longstanding principles that can be applied here as elsewhere.
I do think we should step back and look at this closely, giving ourselves time. This seems like an inflection point to me. We won’t get to come back here. Better be sure.
It's been obvious for years, or at least it seems apparent to me, that there has been an increasingly shrill set of extremists at both ends of our American political spectrum that want to destroy our republican democracy, our very republic, and impose their minority will on the rest of us.
That's been the case since our founding, when some anti-republican democracy holdouts, in violation of the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, extorted a "right" to keep slaves as a condition to agreeing our Constitution even before it was put up for ratification. That extremism hasn't been limited to the Left; there are too many extremists on the Right, as well.
The violent obstructionists in Minneapolis are only the latest iteration.
It's part of the hard times make strong men..., and we're at the point where strong men need to step up again. Unequivocally. It's also why we have a written-down Constitution that seeks to divide government power the way it does.
For all the mean words of Trump, and his many policy mistakes, the best thing he's done for our republic is take advantage of chance opportunities to put on Article III benches from the Supreme Court on down, but especially on the Court, judges and Justices who are gradually restoring adherence to our Constitution and doing away with the personal social agendas of judges and Justices of past courts.
Eric Hines
A valve for releasing what? The kind of pressure will tell us something important, I think.
As for numbers, of course I'm just guessing. In the cafe incident, 5 IT guys took a break from work and went to a cafe to get coffee. Someone at the cafe thought they looked like off-duty ICE (racial profiling, doncha know) and sent in a report. Pretty soon 10 or 20 people showed up to challenge them and basically drove them out of the cafe accusing them of being ICE.
From people who've infiltrated ICE Watch's Signal groups, we know they've divided the city up by zones basically corresponding to city council wards and people volunteer in the zones they want to work. They have 24/7 dispatch coverage, observers file SALUTE reports, and the dispatchers send people who've checked in to be available in that zone. I'm assuming that the cafe response was one zone. I also assume dispatchers could channel people from multiple zones if a larger response were needed. So lots of extrapolation, but not hugely unreasonable.
Where my claim might be really unreasonable is the numbers for a fight. A lot of the ICE Watch people who respond are there to shoot video and many are just going to harass people and get in their way. Some young men who seem willing to brawl do show up as well, though.
In addition, I've seen one report that out of state Antifa are there, although nothing about how many or in what capacity. It could just be to observe and advise, but I assume if brawling is called for, they might have Antifa units available, or if things escalated, they could bring them in within days. This is pretty sketchy, I know, but ... contingencies (hand-waving ensues).
You could be right, though perhaps we need wise men (and women) as much as we need strong ones. I’m not chiding you: I’m just trying to defend a space in which less confident men and women can talk about all this. We need that, I believe.
we need wise men (and women)
A quibble that might clarify a small matter about me: when I say "men" in this sort of context, I'm using it in the sense it was used in our Declaration of Independence: to represent the species, not just the male half.
We do need wise men as well as strong men, but I see considerable overlap of the two in the same person in a large number of cases, maybe most.
For those that are only one or the other, both need space in which to operate. Often, it's the case that strong men make their own space in one way and wise men make it in another way. It's important for those who are both to recognize those who are only one or the other and help them come forward, also.
And I didn't think I was being chided; I'm just a little testy these days regarding men who should be strong, and could be, but who have chosen to be weak. Similarly with men who should be wise but who have chosen to not be.
Eric Hines
I understand. I usually use “men” that same way myself. I just wanted to be explicit this time. I didn’t mean to imply that you were not also being inclusive.
‘The male embraces the female,’ I believe that Churchill said.
And as for being strong, once’s decisions are made they will be pursued to the very end. That is exactly why I am asking for patience and care in the discussion. We’re on the edge of a major decision. We might not get it right, but at least let history show that we took care to reason together about it.
I'm still not clear on your question above. You say these things are like a pressure valve, but what is the pressure?
- Tom
On that one question, it has been labor price. Increasingly there is another one, though, which is population growth. All analogies always break, and it might be easier or better to analogize that to a loss of pressure — equally devastating to the function of an engine, though not as physically destructive. It’s hard to change the laws, but we still need people to do the labor. So, industry and government have conspired to ignore the law.
Well, it seemed that you tied it together with the Hell's Angels, moonshining, etc., and I was wondering what pressure caused all of these phenomena. I thought you might be going toward crime as an outlet for societal pressures of some kind.
But, I'll see your analogy and raise you a metaphor.
All these phenomena are various forms of illness and trauma, and they must be diagnosed and treated properly if they are to get better. Some things become chronic, like diabetes, others are acute and can kill you but pass if you survive. Some are like a cold, others like cancer. Some are like getting shot.
The Hell's Angels strike me as diabetes. It's probably permanent and you just pay attention to what you eat and your glucose levels and take your insulin at the right times.
Illegal labor strikes me as a nutritional deficiency. If we (as a society) had taught our kids to work properly, and then if we'd not stopped having kids, this wouldn't be a problem. But, we didn't do those things and now we need to solve what is a long-term but solvable problem.
The obstructionists in Minneapolis are cancer. They twist the body's own cells to its destruction. If left unchecked, they grow and metastasize. Eventually, if not stopped, they will kill the body.
- Tom
Ok. I think you are correct about the broader issue: I think crime is a pressure valve. You asked me about a specific issue, but more broadly I think you are right.
I don’t think of HAMC as a disease. They’re a part of American society and culture for decades. I think they’re doing something useful, maybe even essential.
As were the moonshiners. During Prohibition, the rich could buy a prescription for alcohol. The poor sought out moonshiners. Or they became moonshiners. Someday we might have better solutions than alcohol, but right now it’s doing something useful: maybe essential.
Crime has an economy. If it didn’t make money it wouldn’t exist. If it does make money, it’s satisfying someone’s desire; and at least sometimes, someone’s needs.
Well, shifting out of the metaphor, it's not that HAMC itself is bad, but rather that something is disordered in such a way that they have to be outlaws. In a well ordered society, you could still have the MC but they wouldn't need to work outside the law. Here, well-ordered refers to not just law but the whole shebang.
Maybe it means a kind of social eudamonia.
- Tom
Also, lots of crimes are not economic in nature. Rape, for example. Even theft can be motivated by thrill seeking.
- Tom
So, our old comrade Joseph used to tell me that sexual assault was almost entirely about alcohol— one of the things I was suggesting, on other grounds, to be useful or essential. And it is; but there are other problems around it.
So yes, I agree that some crimes of impulse aren’t necessarily economic. Criminal enterprise is, though; it’s why it works.
Yes, on one side of the equation. But on the other they are not. It is not only a crime to sell drugs but to use them. Without the demand, there wouldn't be such enterprises.
- Tom
Trying to tease out the arguments here. I don't think that just because something has an economy that it is useful or good. There is an economy for child sex, but does that make it good? Are the cartels who fulfill the supply side of that providing a useful, necessary service?
For Prohibition, let's stipulate for the moment that the law was bad and that moonshining was justified evasion of the law. I could easily see it that way. But at some point Al Capone is murdering people to keep his supply running. Where does justified evasion become murder for money? Yeah, the guy sipping some bootleg moonshine at a secret speakeasy can think, "I'm not hurting anyone!" but he's ignoring the people who were murdered to get him that drink.
Contrary to justification because they fulfill an economic role, I would say it's the entry into an economic role that delegitimizes these things. If the government bans alcohol and someone quietly starts homebrewing for his own consumption, I tend to think that's fine. Take a step past that and he starts selling to friends, making a little cash on the side -- okay. When he starts making a living at it, competition becomes a problem, and since he's already outside the law, violence becomes a means of competing. Or, he is forced to join someone else's cartel and they do the violence for him. Murder, extortion, etc., become an inherent part of it. The more it gets economic, the less moral it is.
You are on to something important, which is very relevant to my life at the moment. This is why I don't want to help set up the artillery ammunition factory in Central Asia. There's a very solid business case for it; there's just not enough 155mm being produced right now. I know everyone I would need to know to make it happen. But I don't want to.
I will diminish, and go into the West.
Probably someone else will do it, but it won't be me. And the world will be just as good or bad as it was going to be anyway, but that's not in my power.
To the larger point, I sometimes get frustrated with the political right for talking about economics as if they were natural laws. We don't have to do what makes money; we don't have to maximize profits; we don't have to sell drugs or run moonshine. When a large enough amount of demand exists, however, there is a sort of pressure that either needs to be contained or released. Often we try to split the difference, as in the case of allowing the rich to buy prescriptions for alcohol under Prohibition. Sometimes we try to lock down very hard, as with the War on Drugs. That war has been going on for longer than either of us have lived, and "we" aren't winning it.
Some clarity about that would be helpful. Maybe; or maybe we are just doing the best that we can with these cases. Formally they get banned, informally allowed to slide through, but at lower levels because of the social pressure put on restraining them.
However, I also don't think that making money off of something makes it worse. Finding a need and filling it is how we always help each other, and we do thereby help each other. That's probably the normal mode for improving human life. It just sometimes doesn't work reliably.
... political right for talking about economics as if they were natural laws.
Well, economics is sic a natural law. Men want things. When they can't produce them for themselves or get them some other way, they pay other men to produce them or get them.
It's necessary to harness that natural imperative if a might makes right economy is to be avoided. The most moral economic system we've figured out, so far, is one where all the participants to a voluntary exchange are better off than they were before the exchange: each has something he values more than what he traded away to get it. The necessary emphasis is on that voluntary bit. That's a free market, capitalist economy.
To have that kind of economic system, to fit it within the framework suggested by Thomas just above, we need laws to set limits: no lying in advertising or contracts, no breaking of contracts at the convenience of one of the participants, that sort of thing.
The conundrum is this, and it applies across the board, not just to economic systems: laws cannot specify every limit or allow all permissions. We're human, and our laws are per force imperfect. God's laws are perfect, but we're still human, and our understanding and implementation of God's laws are imperfect.
That imperfection demands room for human judgment on case by case bases, as we work the boundaries and corners which, of necessity, are gray and shadowy, not hard lines in the æther. In the main, a virtuous--Franklin's warning--and a reasonably educated people can do this pretty well.
Getting and keeping that kind of people, though, requires strong men to not wait on the hard times, but to come forward while times are easy, also.
That's the hardest thing to do.
Eric Hines
I don't think making money makes something worse, either. In my example, the homebrewer starts selling to friends and that's okay. The problem is when the money becomes more important than human beings, when it becomes okay to extort people as part of one's business model or for Al Capone to murder his rivals so that he can keep the money coming in, or when it is corrupting by bribing cops or officials, or these sorts of things.
This is why I think the disease metaphor is right. There is a healthy free market and a diseased free market. Although, I regret saying any person or group is a disease. That isn't right as it implies we just need to get rid of those people. Instead, it is their corrupt or immoral actions that are the disease and ideally we help them choose a different path.
To the larger point, I sometimes get frustrated with the political right for talking about economics as if they were natural laws.
I do as well. Karl Marx also reduced everything to economics -- economics was the base from which the superstructure (everything else) developed. What nonsense. Humanity is the base and economics is something that develops from some ways humans try to fulfill their needs. There are other ways humans try to fulfill their needs that do not fall under the rules of economics.
When a large enough amount of demand exists, however, there is a sort of pressure that either needs to be contained or released.
I don't know. For some things, yes, but sometimes the market itself creates the perception of need where none arose organically. Marketing tries to get that to happen. Word of mouth in shady circles is a form of marketing. You don't know you need X until the cool kids start talking about how much they enjoy it.
I also think this is one place where virtue ethics is superior to deontology. Focusing on the rules / laws creates weak, legalistic people. Virtue ethics creates strong people. Or at least that's my working hypothesis. I think virtue ethics at least gives us a chance to address the demand side of this equation.
Of course, I think a renewal of Christian virtue is the best solution.
I think the problem is saying that X is the best economic thing to do so we should do X. The right does this a lot, particularly libertarians and those who are more economic right than social right. But that puts money above all other human concerns.
They will say, e.g., that we should allow nearly unlimited immigration because the free flow of labor will help everybody in the long run. Economically, that's true. Where that utterly fails is in disregarding everything else. Doing this destroys cultures, lowers trust in society, and is overall a destructive thing for a culture. If we aspire to keep American ideals alive, we cannot afford to bring in massive numbers of immigrants who have no idea what those ideals are and have no intention of assimilating into them. It is cultural suicide. And the economists are fine with that because American ideals don't enter into their formulas.
There are things more important than money and sometimes doing the right thing makes you poorer. It's unfortunate, but true.
I think the problem is saying that X is the best economic thing to do so we should do X. ... But that puts money above all other human concerns.
Some--many?--may put money at the center, but economics does not. Some systems of economics put the individual's welfare, as defined by the welfare, at the center. Reread what I said about voluntary participants being better off. Money is never mentioned in these; it's up to the individual to decide what makes him better off, in his definition of "better off."
Other systems of economics put the state's welfare at the center, as the state defines its welfare; here, too, money is not mentioned.
Other economic systems put the community's welfare at the center, again without bringing money into the definition of welfare.
Madison's happiness, the happiness Jefferson listed in our Declaration of Independence, the happiness that Madison wrote into the Massachusetts constitution was centered not on property, but on the individual's right to property--with property not defined as real estate but "stuff" of any sort, physical and including one's property in one's own body and the labor it could do, or not be offered to do.
What's "right" is a system that allows every individual to maximize his own satisfaction according to his own potential and effort without limiting another's ability at his own maximization.
Maximizing the state's welfare leaves the people--individuals or groups--vulnerable to the welfare definitions of the men in government, including as those definitions vary with the changing of those in government and across time as incumbents change their minds.
Maximizing the community's welfare can work for small enough (itself a hazy term) communities but only if substantially all the members substantially agree on the definition(s). If they don't, or once the community grows above some threshold, then the members become subjects of a powerful few who control the community or of the state that that community has grown into.
Money doesn't enter into any of those systems except as a tool, but raw personal power does go to the heart of the latter two groups of systems.
So far (I said that, too, and so do most economists), there is a particular system of economics that maximizes individual welfare. It does use money, but only as a tool, not an end, and that's why a virtuous. reasonably educated people is necessary.
The ignorant will tend to drift in that direction if left to their own devices--that's how we made the liberty progress that we did at the outset of our social evolution. The venal, though, will take advantage of the ignorant or use their strength to overcome others of any education, and those are the ones who need to be dealt with. That puts a premium on the virtuous part.
Where limits are, the limits that stop one man's maximization where it interferes with another's, that's where laws are of enormous help, but judgment is all that can handle the gray areas at the boundaries and that encompass the corners.
"That's my property; you can't have it or use it."
"But I need that strip to be able to come and go from my property."
"You're being too loud."
"I don't hear so good; I need things loud."
Those are oversimplified, but they illustrate.
And yes, "we should do X." But that's an individual's opinion, not a government's mandate.
Eric Hines
Yes, my using the word "money" was a mistake. Still, it seems that the economists who weigh in publicly seem to put material wealth above other concerns.
I've been a believer in the free market for a long time, so I agree with your comments on it. I wasn't ignoring, much less disagreeing, with them.
That said, I've read a bunch of stuff from economists (granted, quoted by journalists) who say that massive immigration is good because it helps the economy. While some workers may face wage stagnation or lose their jobs, overall the national economy is better for them and that's good for everyone. I think that focus is entirely on material wealth and ignores other factors that contribute to creating a good society, such as maintaining a high-trust society.
What do you think about that? Have I just read too narrowly? Or are economists generally just interested in material wealth? I wouldn't blame them; they are economists, not usually philosophers. It would just mean their work's value for questions of what makes and sustains a good society has limits.
@Thomas:
Part 1: Money is a tool, and in this context the primary way of measuring success, however success might be defined, or of sharing the bounty, however bounty might be defined. In some venues, that bounty or that success is that of a business entity's shareholders or partners--and their employees.
Overarching that, it's a lot easier to do moral things for more people if a man has more money than if he has less; material wealth accumulation isn't bad in itself. My father told me of an instance from when he was a lumberjack during the depression. A wealthy mill operator, not connected with my father's employer, went broke and had to close his mills. Rather than fire his employees, though, he built one of the most ornate Victorian houses in the area, paying his employees to do the milling, construction, maintenance, and everything else related to that kind of house. Time passed, the local economy recovered enough that he was able to start reopening his mills, and he put his mill/house employees back to work in the mills as they came back on line. Good for his employees that also was good for his business, creditors, and his employees' future employment.
That's a roundabout way of getting to your immigration question. I see a lot of contradiction in the subject, primary of which is this: lots of folks from government on down object to government mandating the minimum wage that must be paid by an employer. Lots of folks, though, have no problem with government manipulating the minimum wage that must be paid by manipulating the labor supply through limiting immigration. There's considerable overlap as well as separation between the objector groups, but that doesn't affect the inherent contradiction.
Our nation also has a small, but soon to be threatening demographic problem: a fertility rate that is substantially below the rate necessary to maintain a constant population, much less a growing one; that rate will in a couple of decades by itself lead to population shrinkage with attendant national security implications. Russia and the PRC are only a couple of generations ahead of us in this. When there is actual shrinkage, there is only so much that technology can do to maintain even a status quo, much less continue to produce improvement.
One of the more immediate effects of a soon-to-be shrinking population is an already shrinking labor force with its already badly shrinking ratio of workers to retirees. When Social Security was invented (much of it as a supplement, too, not as a complete replacement or "living wage;" families, multi-generation households still mattered) the worker:retiree ratio was 7:1, and the life expectancy in retirement was 5-7 years. Today that ratio is 2.5:1 and shrinking, and the retiree life expectancy is in the 15, or so, year range.
I see legal immigration as an unalloyed good, given some criteria to achieve that unalloyed-ness. Let free market forces set the wage rates, and let the labor force available continue to grow.
Eric Hines
@Thomas
Part 2: The criteria: build the big, beautiful wall all along our southern border, and maybe along our northern border, too. Pierce the wall(s) every mile with border-crossing stations so folks can cross legally and be better barred from crossing illegally (or be trafficked across illegally) and drugs be better barred from crossing illegally.
Streamline vetting so entry visas can be more effectively and efficiently issued or denied as the case may be, and eliminate quotas of visas. In conjunction with this, bar citizens from nations and any others traveling from such nations that do not provide necessary vetting information promptly regarding those seeking entry. "Necessary" and "promptly" must be defined by our State Department.
Be draconian in accepting refugees, and keep refugees on the foreign side of our border while their refugee status is being checked. And this: if they passed through Mexico or Canada en route here, they are not, in any legal sense, refugees. Mexico and Canada have been deemed safe nations (never mind the cartels; this is a legal determination), and Mexico already has offered refugee status to at least many of those traveling through it.
Those who overstay their visas must be deported promptly. Students on student visas who graduate with marketable majors--STEM, for instance, but not exclusively that--should get green cards good for some period of time (5 years?) during which they can work, look to assimilate, and then apply for citizenship. Wanting to stay but not be citizens would be fine, so long as they work and/or don't try to tap into our (already overblown IMNHO) welfare system.
Assimilation is a Critical Item for long term presence. It does our nation no good, nor does it do the immigrants any good, to hold themselves apart from us, clinging to the cultural imperatives of the nation they found deficient enough to want to come here. Attempts to force their old country cultural tenets on us at best dilutes our uniquely American culture and can pollute it.
And this, especially: count for representation allocation purposes only US citizens. Immigrants who want a say in our governance must become citizens.
Within that, the more immigration, the better.
Are economists interested only in material wealth? No. Like I said, money--material wealth--is a measurement device, not an end for economists. See Adam Smith, for instance, who was as much an economist as a philosopher, or Ricardo, the original international free trader, insisting that nations should focus on producing what they do best and buy from others what they need that those others produce better.
And a parable. Present 100 economists with a set of conditions and ask them what will be the outcome, and you'll get 1 or 2 or maybe 3 answers. Ask those same 100 economists what ought to be done about those conditions and their outcomes, and you'll get 101 or 102 or 103 different answers. Economists are all philosophers at bottom.
Eric Hines
Eric, thank you for your reply. It's been an exceedingly long day and I'll have to return to this tomorrow.
Eric, again, thank you for going through that for us. This is a fairly standard, though nuanced, economic explanation and I don't disagree with any of it as you present it.
However, the situation is more complex than that. While, as you say, "it's a lot easier to do moral things for more people if a man has more money than if he has less" is true, there is nothing in particular that pushes us to do moral things with that money. It seems just as likely to be put to immoral uses. Money should then be understood as potential, whether for good or ill. More money means more potential, but that may very well mean more evil. For example, all of the fraud uncovered by DOGE, investigations into Somali fraud in MN, etc. Some part of all that fraud is siphoned off into supporting anti-American causes, terrorism, etc.
You also say that "Assimilation is a Critical Item for long term presence" and I agree. But our current naturalization system is a long way from achieving that. I've helped immigrants through the naturalization process and the language and citizenship tests are a joke. Yes, we could make them much better and more likely to facilitate assimilation, but of course the Democrats will fight that tooth and nail. They've already declared that expectations of assimilation are racist and have kicked "the melting pot" to the curb and embraced "the salad bowl." The State Department as well seems to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party, with the exception of Republican political appointees. The Democrats don't want more Americans; they want new citizens whom they can buy off to get their votes.
In addition, once a critical mass of immigrants from a particular culture have immigrated, they form their own subcommunities, keeping their own traditions and language, and see no need to assimilate. I haven't seen economists talk about that, much less offer any realistic suggestions for how to address it.
Consequently, I suspect most immigrants never assimilate culturally and, whatever their citizenship, truly remain members of the nations and cultures they come from. Essentially, Democrats have trouble winning elections and they are importing a new citizenry to give them power. We see this happening in Europe as well, so it's not unique to the US.
Now, all of that can be fixed, if you get a Republican president and supermajority in Congress that will actually make the changes. Or, maybe some Democrats could regain their sanity and actually do what's best for America. However it's done, it could be solved, though I think that's a long haul.
So what are we supposed to do with immigration while we are working toward those changes? The economists seem to just keep on focusing on economic benefits of immigration and ignoring all the rest. That's why it seems to me that economists are really only concerned with material wealth, not creating a good society. Or, they think a wealthy society is the same thing as a good society, but it doesn't really work that way.
First, this, which bears on the overall discussion:
https://www.civitasinstitute.org/research/huntingtons-the-clash-of-civilizations-at-30
It's a good overview from one perspective. It has its flaws (one that jumped out at me was this: ...it was NATO that planned and supplied the disastrous 2023 Ukrainian counterattack. No, NATO contributed heavily to the disaster part, if not overtly caused it, by withholding a Critical Item in that counter: the necessary air power on which NATO--Western--doctrine depends.
For all that, it's a useful summary of a related alternative perspective.
More later.
Eric Hines
This is a fairly standard, though nuanced, economic explanation....
Quibble: Being standard is neither good nor bad, nor is it wrong. It's usually as right as we've got until something better comes up.
Money, wealth, are tools; they are neither good nor bad themselves, and they can accomplish great good or great evil--that depends solely on the user. Economists focus on welfare maximization via wealth and property (see earlier for clarity on "property"), leaving to others any focus on welfare max via...socialization, politics (except political economists), other paths to whatever constitutes welfare max. You and I are limiting ourselves too much when we focus on economists/economics or immigration as the sole path(s).
Regarding immigration, assimilation, and Progressive-Democrats, I lean more and more toward the necessity of De-Ba'athification of the Progressive-Democratic Party--via the ballot box only, though. But at bottom, as discussed earlier, also, that requires a virtuous, reasonably educated people. A Critical Item of virtue, though, is the willingness of folks to get off their butts and go out and do things--especially going to the polls so we can elect politicians who will do what we tell them to do and fire those who do not or break their promises to do.
An example of the failure of Conservatives and Republicans in that regard--and these are folks, mind you, who claim to be more virtuous than Progressive-Democrats--is the just concluded special election for Texas State Senate. A Progressive-Democrat won in a crushing landslide in what used to be a solidly Republican district. The Right is busily making two excuses for that: the Republican candidate didn't talk about her policies and contrast them with her opponent's well enough. That's entirely plausible; Republican candidates are notorious for their poor communication skills and their timidity in the face of slurs like racism, sexism, religious bigotry, pick a convenient slur. The other excuse, though, is the revealer. The weather was bad, the snow storm we were having kept people home. Here is the cowardice of the excuse: Progressive-Democrat voters turned out droves; it was only the Republican and Conservative voters who stayed home.
And that's what Republicans and Conservatives do during mid-term elections. Either they're sufficiently infirm that they can't go vote, or they're too lazy to go vote, or they don't care enough to go vote. Those last two excuses are nothing more than naked betrayal.
We need to regain control of the roots of our American culture by regaining control of our K-PhD educational systems (which would include tightening language and citizenship testing), require assimilation as a condition of citizenship, and actively limit voting to US citizens, rather than merely saying we do while "sanctuary" jurisdictions let anyone vote, often multiple times in the same election.
To do that, though, Conservative and Republicans must walk their virtue claims and go vote in every election all up and down the ballot. The ones staying safely on the sidelines are betraying us all and are worse than Progressive-Democrats.
Another test is the SAVE act currently under discussion in the House and Senate. An indicator of how successful that act would be is the irrational and hysterical objections of Congressional Progressive-Democrats to that bill. If there were a bill over which to shut down the government, this one is that for me: we don't have a government, anyway, if we don't have a franchise limited to citizens.
And, finally, a plaint of my own: you and I, lately, are the only ones having this discussion. It's disappointing to me that most others are not joining in.
Eric Hines
What do you think of Huntington's thesis overall? Do you think it's an important work to understand the current world situation?
A quibble with your quibble: I didn't disagree, and I don't disagree with your quibble. I'm kind of rough on economists, but it's not so much that I think they're wrong as they don't seem to consider the larger picture.
In fact, I don't disagree with the rest of your comment, either. I need to sort out how I can be more effective in effecting change.
Thanks for the good discussion. I'm sure we'll be revisiting and advancing some of these topics in the future.
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