Are Low-Skilled Americans the Master Race?

Those low-skilled Americans are the ones who are most interested in limiting access to something they haven’t earned: success in America.

This smug and sarcastic little whine is disgusting and insulting. It simply an indication of how pathetic the authors’ position is that he wheels out the ‘woodja MURDER yadda, yadda’ line to start with. As to 8% for the booting every illegal back to their home country-well, it’s one of many good reasons to do so. However, as badly as we need to bounce the illegal back to their own(what a concept!) countries, we need even more to rid ourselves of the treasonous hacks who not only ceaselessly pimp the vast wonders of the invading hordes- whether through an obtuseness so vast that they can’t mentally function without a fantastical textbook propped three inches from their face or because they’re a bought & paid for shill for the 3% of society that gets any benefit
from the illegals-but also make smartass sarcastic cracks about their(supposed) fellow citizens. Do you not feel any sort of loyalty to or preference for other Americans, no willingness to sacrifice theoretical economic ‘efficiency’ for some ‘inefficient’ favoritism of the people who are (allegedly) your countrymen? Why do you feel compelled to explicitly favor a foreign people in a foreign country over other Americans? Do you suppose that there will never be consequences for you for this arrogant and insulting posture? You’re a great example of why the vast majority of
people find economists foolish and less than useless-and therefore a prime reason so many fundamentally poor economic policies are enacted-as well as by all appearances a sad and pathetic person. And you’re certainly no American, at least not in any sense of focused & limited loyalty-of course, you likely think that sounds great. Why not quit bothering us, give up your American citizenship and go become a member of one of those poor countries with all those apparently wonderful, saintly people, and focus your message on those poor backward souls? Why, with benefit of your profound genius and insight, I’m sure they could buy and sell us slothful, nationalistic ‘mericans in only a few years-buying and selling being the only form of human interaction you recognize, of course.

I am always confused when people advocate that I should somehow be morally obligated to support certain people because they, by accident, had been born in the same general geographical location. I am proud to be American because of the philosophical principles that founded this country. Although we seem to waver a little bit, this is still a great country. People who hold values of freedom and hard work can only make it better. The more the merrier.

Geoffrey – The more the merrier.

There are approximately 6 billion people in the world who have a lower standard of living than almost every American. I guess you think they all should be allowed in until the standard of living in the U.S. drops to the level of the poorest nations in the world. That is the only logical conclusion to your ‘thoughts’ on the subject. Care to re-think your position? Or do I assume that you think immigration should stop only when it starts to affect your standard of living?

The accident of geography is why we do care! We have to live next to our native poor and they have a say in our political process. Also as a practical matter we redistribute wealth to the native poor (and immigrant poor), and whether or not that is moral, its something that won’t change in the near future.

We should deport people (or effectively deport people by taking away there ability to work) because otherwise we cannot control the rate of immigration, and the supply of cheap labor affects our native poor and hinders the assimilation of legal immigrants. How would you feel if the law was flagrantly ignored at your expense?

And I don’t undertand the master race title? Of course they are not the master race, that’s why they need our help! And not helping a select few latin americans (who violated our laws) is very morally different than actively harming everyone in latin america (most of of whom have never been to america).

Also you say latin americans, but the majority are mexicans, why should we be so selective in helping one country, one which is middle class by world standards.

Wow. You sure have some rednecks reading your blog:

“Fuck off you elitist piece of shit”

“countries, we need even more to rid ourselves of the treasonous hacks who not only ceaselessly pimp the vast wonders of the invading hordes”

Do they even have computers in the redneck backwaters that breed the authors of the above? I guess so.

[Note from EconLog Editor: The comment first quoted above has been removed from EconLog, and the individual who said it has been banned.]

I found the way Bryan started off the post with that whole genocide thing so cool, I’ll follow in the same vein. Hyperbole rocks!

First off, people who advocate mass immigration in practice support the mass murder of their fellow citizens, and should be treated accordingly. (Latins murder at roughly three times the white rate – that immigrationist bodycount racks up fast!)

Second, people who advocate mass immigration support the wholesale ethnic cleansing of their compatriots from whole neighbourhoods. (Ask the people who used to live in latino slums what they think about immigration!). Hence, immigration advocates should be evicted from their homes.

Third:
“I am always confused when people advocate that I should somehow be morally obligated to support certain people because they, by accident, had been born in the same general geographical location.”

I believe this sentiment is more commonly known as ‘treason’. Seriously though, by giving automatic moral credits to those who happen to occupy space around you, we reduce social friction a great deal (by sharing a national sentiment), especially when those around you are socially and culturally similar.(This is in turn an argument against mass immigration, multiculturalism and inequality, but let’s save that for antoher time…)

There is lots more, but let’s stop there for now. Some additional cool advantages of immigration should be mentioned, still:

– You import cool political views! (We hate Gringos and love Socialism!)

– You import millions of people who believe the land they are moving into was stolen from their ancestors. Civil war rocks! (And we haven’t had one in like ahundredandfifty years!)

– You import millions more of affirmative action subjects. Kewl!

– Slumficication rocks!

– Black american men have it way too good already!

– Plus, this whole immigration thing has Free Republic muttering “impeachment”, which is kinda funny in itself!

How about establishing democracy in their countries so that they can elect a government similiar to ours? It’s win-win! They can even elect a government better than ours if they want!
What about Hamasians? Should we let Hamasians in unchecked?
Okay, we’re gonna have a world-wide election, and everyone who wants in is in wherever they are! Wanna be an American? Just sign right here! No, don’t even do that; that would be discrimination. Just… just take the check.
Cuz we care.
But what is an American? Is it an ideal? If it’s an ideal, then they can have their ideal wherever they are. Is it a right to protection? If so, then doesn’t veryone in the world deserve these rights? Doesn’t that mean we should immediately begin enforcing those sacred rights all across the world?
Hypothesizing about what rights are ignores the history of how we got here. Sure, it’d be nice if everyone in the world could get along, and nobody was mean, and we were all free and had free health care that no one had to pay for and on and on…
It’s just not realistic.
The world is not a nice place, and it certainly isn’t fair. The vast majority of people who have ever lived have died. Tell me that’s fair. Most of them died never knowing the freedoms that we as Americans have today. I’m not advocating forgetting about all the people who were not lucky enough to be born American. We have to approach the implementation of these ideals in a way that will work in the real world. And it will not work by having unregulated borders.
The best way to help people is to help them where they live. We need to remove terrorist-sponsoring mass-murdering tyrants from power and establish democracies so that people can choose how they want to live. We need to compel governments that oppress their people, either through failed economic policies (Venezuela, Bolivia, Russia) or through human rights violations (Cuba, Iran, North Korea) to adopt better policies. The Berlin Wall was built to keep people IN. That’s because the place sucked so much that people would flee. Our country is so great that people are risking everything in the hope to get here.
But we cannot take care of everyone. And we do not need to be offering this false hope to others.
We gave amnesty to illegal immigrants in 1986. It didn’t work. It didn’t work because we did nothing to keep other illegal immigrants from coming in. We care through international charity and foreign policy. How many of you go out every night and find homeless people to invite into your house? No. You donate to charity. And charities do a great job. Far, far better than government does, because charities are run by people who care (generally, if they don’t they typically fail quickly).
At least, in my opinion. Everyone else was ranting, and I didn’t want to be left out.

“Well I certainly think they should be allowed in because it will raise the US standard of living given the US more efficiently utilizes labor than developing countries; Indeed it would vastly raise the global productivity and for nationalists it really is the only way for maintaining US primacy vis a vis China and India in the long term. ”

It never struck you that replacing the existing US population several times over would result in a new political entity with no resemblance whatsoever to the actual, existing United States? “Harmageddon” is probably a tame description of what would follow.

Still, it is refreshing to see a pro-immigrationist taking his logic to its conclusion.

Bryan is the one getting personal. His beef is with all the dumb cool kids that used to beat him up in high school. Now get back to playing your online hero games where you can be the cool kid.

Bryan uses “High School dropouts” as the example. But are they really the ones that are putting up a fuss. Maybe, but it takes Middle class America(college educated husband and wife) to start complaining(the ones who vote) before it starts making it on a politicians to-do-list. Their gripes are more social driven rather than economical.

“I´m pretty sure the point of immigrating to the U.S. is a chance to work, not feed off welfare or other government programs.”

Why need there be some choice or contradiction here? Both work and government largesse makes for an even better coctail!

“The simple fact is that most production of goods/services is more valued in the U.S. than in other nations, and so the more people who come here to take advantage of that fact (which owes mostly to American economic freedom, infrastructure, education, ability to attract the best and brightest, and the agglomeration of wealth due to these factors), the wealthier and better off the world will be.”

The world? Perhaps, but I don’t care. The United States? Doubtful. Why? Because hispanic social statistics suck, plain and simple. This means more murder, more poverty, more slums, more government spending, more white flight from “bad schools” and “bad neighbourhoods”, more affirmative action, etc. etc. (I have an even more extensive list up above…)

Many of these things are examples of external effects, however, so they don’t exist in a libertarian universe.

Finally, it’s interesting to see how the immigration issue is employed by certain people to differentiate themselves from ‘the trailer trash’. There is a certain logic to it of course – only the more affluent can fully use those cheap gardening services, or perhaps a bargain-basement maid.

“Its depressing how nativistic nearly every segment of our society is.”

I prefer the term ‘patriotic’, but to each his own. I realize actually caring for your (‘arbitrary’) fellow citizens has gone out of style in large swathes on the elite. Indeed – like you, they wear the fact that they have no more love for their fellow Americans than for any arbitrary mexican as a badge of honor.

“I feel absolutely no solidarity with anyone who is anti-immigrant, even if we agreed on everything else. Of all the views you could hold, barring genocide, anti-immigration and anti-globalism are the most dispicable.”

Do you have any actual reason or rationale for feeling that way? Or just spouting off some class hatred?

Most of the anti-immigrant sentiment is simple xenophobia. A lot of the rest is ignorance of the way trade works, and how free flow of labor is just as good as the free flow of capital. The rest is generally guised as concerns about “security”, but government hasn’t been able to stop drugs and I doubt they’ll be able to stop people. They’ll just make things worse, no reason to let them get all draconian in the process.

I actually have a lot more respect for most illegal immigrants, at least the ones who work, than I do for high school dropouts. Taking the risk of coming to the US at least shows some initiative, a willingness to make an effort to make one’s life better. Dropping out of high school, being unwilling to get just any old job, and then complaining that the durn brownfolks are takin’ your livlihood demonstrates laziness.

As for the “what about illegals who come here and get welfare” argument, well, the answer is to eliminate welfare. Get rid of that, and I bet you’ll see more employed illegals and a lot more employed dropouts. They’ll probably be coworkers.

Dobeln,

“I prefer the term ‘patriotic’, but to each his own. I realize actually caring for your (‘arbitrary’) fellow citizens has gone out of style in large swathes on the elite. Indeed – like you, they wear the fact that they have no more love for their fellow Americans than for any arbitrary mexican as a badge of honor.”

You’re right, I am indeed proud to say that I place equal value on a Mexican and an American life. Why would I imply otherwise? Can you provide a compelling argument for why an American deserves better opportunities than a Mexican? Other than “he/she won the geographic lottery”?

dsquared,

We’ve been displacing manual labor with automation for at least 200 years. So we already know one answer to your thought experiment. Standard of living for everyone will increase. Quality of life for many will improve.

Economists never deny that such displacement has transitional costs.

When these people can walk legally into this country and follow the legal formalities of obtaining citizenship and start paying their share of the tax burden placed on all of us, THEN, they may ask for the rights granted to citizens of the USA, until then, if you don’t like our laws GET OUT.

I’d also ask if dsquared’s magical robot should be banned in order to preserve the jobs of the people currently being used as servants by the rich. Presuming rich people have servants, which I’m sure some of them do, and presuming that some of them are high school drop outs, should we ban the hypothetical robot in order to keep them employed?

“I actually have a lot more respect for most illegal immigrants, at least the ones who work, than I do for high school dropouts.”

That should place you in a bit of a pickle, as Hispanics have a cool high school dropout rate of about 50 percent or so.

Dobeln,
I was hoping if you could provide some of the statistics that back up your claim that Mexicans have caused a “mass murder” of U.S. citizens. I definetly would like to know how this “mass murder” has taken place, how many U.S. citizens have been murdered, the groups involved, and the governments reaction to this “mass murder”.

“Because you might have been a patriot.”

– Right, supporting rules to keep out foreigners (which our ancestors all were at some point) is the definition of patriotism. One of the things I love about the U.S. is our tradition of welcoming and assimilating immigrants. As opposed to, say, the French tradition of intentionally isolating immigrants in urban/suburban ghettos.

“Because if you show more solidarity to those inhabiting your own socio-political construct than to those outside it, it will benefit all those inside it. (I.e. ‘patriotism’/’nationalism’)”

– that is purely an assertion.

“This in turns tends to limit conflict inside the socio-political construct in question (I.e. the nation-state), plus giving great advantages in all forms of group conflict. In short: cohesion rocks.”

– Another assertion. Although I do believe that we all benefit from some level of group cohesion.

“In this particular case, it allows US Citizens to keep poorer, more crime-prone, worse-educated Mexicans south of the border through force of arms, thus improving their own quality of life.”

– Obviously you’ve never lived in an area of extreme poverty. There is substantial research that suggests people’s behavior is greatly influenced by their current environment – in other words, “crime prone” folk will become more law-abiding in an environment with greater emphasis on following laws.

“Of course, if you do not want to be a part of the American nation other than as a geographical occupant, you should make that clear to those around you, so that they don’t waste any nationalist-based goodwill on you.”

– I make that crystal clear to those around me. If a Bangladeshi can perform my job effectively at a lower price, so be it.

Quick question: how does nationalism factor into your purchasing decisions?

Dobeln,

Can you point me to some of the statistics you continue referring to? I’m particularly interested in the statistics about more government spending. Studies I’ve seen show just the opposite:

– the late conservative economist Julian Simon calculated that native U.S. citizens receive more in government benefits than do immigrants;

– a Cato Institute study found that immigrants paid 48% as much in taxes as the average American family, but received only 32% as much in government benefits;

– the Urban Institute estimated in the mid-90’s that immigrants contributed $30 billion more in taxes than they receive each year.

The difference may be that “immigrants” includes much more than just Mexican border crossers. “Hispanics” probably includes all Puerto Ricans and all citizens who were at any time descended from the Spanish population.

Still, I’d like to understand why we can each refer to such inconsistent statistics.

Seems to me that lumping “hispanics” into the “white” category makes perfect sense. Or are they somehow less descended from Europeans because the Conquistadors were brownish and spoke Spanish?

“Seems to me that lumping “hispanics” into the “white” category makes perfect sense. Or are they somehow less descended from Europeans because the Conquistadors were brownish and spoke Spanish?”

The population genetics of ‘hispanics’ is an interesting subject in itself (compare ‘hispanic’ Vincente Fox with your average’hispanic’ Chiapas indian, and you will find a rather striking contrast!), but the US government in its infinite wisdom has decided that Hispanics should be tracked as a separate group. Yet for some strange reason, they have failed to implement this policy when it comes to crime reporting. Puzzling!

“Still, I’d like to understand why we can each refer to such inconsistent statistics.”

The most likely explanation is that I tend to focus on very ‘basic’ social statistics, such as murder rates, high-school dropout rates, etc. They are less dependent on who is doing the calculating (although they are hardly always easy to come by, as we see above with the murder rate).

In part, this is because I am interested in the effects of immigration that do not pass through the price mechanism, I.e. external effects.

Furthermore, if we include highly educated professionals, PHD:s and Masters students into the equation, the tables shift, of course. This group has excellent social statistics and is truly high-powered in every respect. Also, the positive dynamic effects are likely to be far larger in this group (research exchange, etc.). That is not the kind of immigration that is in dispute, however.

Finally, it is very hard to come up with a comprehensive accounting for Mexican immigration. Do we include costs for affirmative action? College quotas? Crime? And so on – demarkation problems rapidly become a nightmare. Thus, I find it more rewarding to look at basic social stats.

Tdl: Also, I should again point out that my somewhat ‘edgy’ framing of the murder rate issue was in reply to the more than ‘edgy’ genocide parable used in the original post. Usually preferable to keep things a bit cooler – especially on this (very touchy) subject.

(This is mostly as Immigration is frequently used for social-exclusion scans for bigotry, as it holds credible bigot-detection potential.

A bigot could never support large-scale third-world immigration. Hence, a pro-immigration stance becomes attractive in many circumstances, as a way to signal non-bigotedness in a credible fashion, independent of the actual merits of immigration as a policy.

For an illustration, witness the number in this thread going on about how anti-immigrationists are at best one step above your average untersturmbannfuhrer…)

“Excuse me, Dobeln, but am I reading your post correctly? You seem to use the rate at which Hispanics are murdered to derive a Hispanic murder rate. Does that imply that only Hispanics kill Hispanics? Or was your statement typed incorrectly?”

As is clear from the BoJS site, offending and victimization rates tend to track rather closely for the ethnic groups that are tracked there. The offending rates given at various anti-immigration sites around the web (Google: ‘hispanic murder rate’) appear to hover around 3, so I see no reason to doubt this is the case with Hispanics as well.

“No, the definition of patriotism is doing so if it is beneficial for, you know like, the actual citizens of the United States.”

pa·tri·ot·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ptr–tzm)
n.
Love of and devotion to one’s country.

Where in the definition of patriotism does it say this?

“Depends – the US had a long immigration freeze up until 1965 – a period generally remembered very fondly by the majority population.”

Yep, and eventually we return to our roots and accept immigrants into society. Blips along the way? Sure. All that tells me is that the human instinct to be xenophobic runs strong. And gee, if the majority remember it fondly, then it must have been a good thing. 😉

“Do you have any evidence the French have intentionally been isolating immigrants in ghettos? My impression is rather that they have been fairly gung-ho on the assimilationism of third-world immigrants, but have largely failed (as in all of Europe) in that goal.”

The French have been gung-ho on isolating Muslims (especially from North Africa) in ghettos. I’ll try to find links on this. Read The Economist – this topic has been discussed in detail.

“No, it is an assertion backed by a great deal of empirics. The nation state is an incredibly successful political construct – that is hard to dispute. Thus, those (like you) who wish to replace it with something else has a heavy burden of proof to bear.”

I have no wish to replace the nation-state. I just want to allow a steady stream of immigrants into the U.S. And yes, you did make an assertion.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. US blacks, for instance, have proven remarkably successful at keeping up a murder rate roughly six to seven times the (hispanic-inflated) white rate throughout all the decades since record-keeping began. Of course, crime correlates with all sorts of social statistics, so there is always some (supposed) proximate cause to blame.”

This doesn’t address my earlier point.

Zac wrote:

“Excuse me, Dobeln, am I reading your posts correctly? You seem to be a racist idiot.”

– This adds absolutely nothing to the debate. Uncalled for Zac.

Dobeln – I disagree with your views, but ascribe none of your comments to racism, for what it’s worth.

1. I thought that the tread was implicitly about hispanic immigration, so if nothing else was stated, that was probably what I was talking about.

“I was asking about your claim that more immigration will mean more government spending. ”

2: Fair enough – my argument on that point is largely derived from the fact that Hispanics as a group are poorer than most Americans. Poorer people in turn tend to constitute a larger drain on the public treasury, as they pay less in taxes (nothing at all if they are off-the-book), and use more government-provided services.

As Robert J. Samuelson states in a recent WaPo column:

“Since 1990 about 90 percent of the increase in people living below the government’s poverty lines has come among Hispanics.”

“The median net worth of Hispanic households is about 9 percent of that of non-Hispanic whites (net worth is what people own minus what they owe).”

“Of those who got through and stayed (crude estimate: some 500,000 annually), about two-thirds lack a high school education. ”

In short, hispanic immigrants are poor, own little and are uneducated. That is a blueprint for creating a net drain on social resources of all kinds.

Zac: Calling someone a “racist idiot” is a less than effective way to take them to task. Your further comments provided a basis for your judgments; thanks for elaborating.

“since they can’t respond to the actual argument at hand – that immigrants, by and large, come here to work hard for low wages”

Erm, is this supposed to be a pro-immigration argument? Still, I certainly grant that there is a benefit to US capital owners in getting greater access to cheap labor, thus driving the wages of local labor down. Also, there is a benefit to the immigrants. But that hardly answers the question in itself, especially as the very concept of “low-wage labor” usually comes with significant hidden costs.

“in order to create a better life for their families, and as a side effect, a rising tide raises (almost) all ships”

I believe the figure bandied about in a different post was an overall (narrow) economic gain was one percent. The cost of this was supposedly an 8 percent wage cut for those in US society that are already at the bottom of the ladder. Given the many other negative effects associated with unskilled immigration, it is unclear if the one percent gain is worth it.

“as if there is something about their race or national origin that makes them more prone to violence, c.p.”

That hispanic immigrants are more prone to violence than, say, south-east asian immigrants, or US whites (but less violence-prone than US blacks) is a matter of fact, not something an evil racist made up. Thus, it must be taken into account when making a cost-benefit analysis of hispanic immigration.

“carefully chosen statistics”

No careful choosing needed – you can pretty much throw darts at random at all major socioeconomic statistics for hispanic immigrants and count on that they will turn out to be worse than for the majority population. (Although they are sometimes hard to get at – sometimes by accident, sometimes by design)

Dobelyn,

What nationality are you, out of curiosity?

Comparing Hispanics to the general population is comparing apples to oranges, because, as you note incessantly, they are poor, stupid and backward, or whatever words you use. Obviously poor people commit more crime and have lower education backgrounds, and probably all the other stats you cite but give no evidence. You and others sound just like all the people at the turn of the previous century complaining about the southern Europeans coming to this country. Because we now live in a welfare state, it is natural that current immigrants will consume more gov’t resources than a century ago, but that doesn’t mean it will happen w/ their kids or grandkids.

The reason America is such a special place is that she has welcomed with open arms, for the most part, and certainly compared to other countries, the worlds poor and hungry, this is the land of opportunity. Rich people don’t tend to emigrate, poor people do.

For those that complain about the drain in welfare resources these illegal immigrants suppossedly consume, find some numbers that compare their consumption to other groups of equal income and education, and then talk to me. I don’t think it ever occurs to people that the problem is the welfare state, not hispanics. I’ve lived in Texas my whole life, and sure, there are lazy bums, just like in every culture, but until someone proves to me that these illegal immigrants plus a couple of generations of kids are a net drain to this country, I will continue to believe my eyes first.

I know everybody ragging on immigration gets painted with the ‘racist’ tag by some, and it’s irritation, but as a conservative/libertarian white male who hates the left and political correctness, I gotta say most of you, but not all, do sound racist, you just like to cloak it in intellectual garb, just like people did a century ago.

BTW, that in no way means levels of illegal immigration is an important topic, waves versus steady flow is a difference.

dsquared: “Here’s an alternative thought experiment: Say tomorrow I invented a new type of robot which can produce a load of stuff which goes into the GDP and which substantially lowers the cost of personal servants for the wealthy. Would your reaction to this be “fantastic! the best and fairest way to finance the development of this new technology is obviously to tax everyone without a high school diploma 8% of their income!”?”

The poor, like everyone else, have a legitimate property claim to the money that they receive through voluntary exchange. But the poor do not own their emplyers or their employers’ customers. The analogy doesn’t really work.

Its the way Bryan takes a dispassionate science and tries to “freakonomic” it up that I find hilarious.
He baits everyone into a fight. He could have expressed roughly the same views in a low-key manner without all the master-race and killing bologna, but that would not generate 70+ comments. Good stuff, keep it up Doc.

Bryan,

If you’re going to criticize people who want to look after their compatriots before foreigners using that logic, then you indeed are going to explain why you take care of your own children before you take care of other people’s. If you buy your son a $300 bicycle, you could’ve kept 5 children in Sudan alive for a year with that money instead. So can we say that “Bryan Caplan killed 5 children in Sudan when he bought his son a bike”?

This could be fun. Do enlighten.

Ergon,

If you want to give your own money to those born in the same place as you, or buy things with your own money from people born in the same place as you, go right ahead. You have every right to control your own money. It belongs to you. But other people do not belong to you, including those Americans that would like to hire people that were not born in the same country as you.

The right analogy would be about forcing Bryan to buy his kids a bike rather than buying something from those starving abroad. That’s what the anti-immigration side is ultimately arguing for.

Someone,

We cannot “harness the energy of our poor” if it’s not there to harness. Employers of Mexican immigrants in CA and TX have told me they try to hire citizens. But they just cannot depend on them to show up after they get their first paychecks. Our economy does not need to be carrying a bunch of deadweight dopeheads and drunks, regardless of how admirable a goal you think that may be.

The unemployment rate in the U.S. is under 5%. Skilled workers in transition and the flat unemployables make up most of this group. Other enemployeds prefer to remain that way rather than move to where the jobs are. There just aren’t enough poor people around to do the work the illegal immigrants are doing. That’s why jobs continue to be available for them.

The rational solution is a guest worker program that allows us enough workers, but ensures that those workers and their families are treated fairly. The immigrants who find jobs here in north Texas work extremely hard, and we should be pleased to benefit from their productivity.

Bryan, you may be more concerned about the welfare of poor hardworking foreigners than that of economically unsuccessful American citizens. As a second-generation immigrant, I have a lot of sympathy for this position.

However, the American government has a responsibility to put the welfare of its own citizens first. Localized responsibility is one of the key principles of libertarianism. The best way to help poor hardworking Mexicans to succeed as a group is to create a good system in Mexico. If you have any doubt as to how much can be accomplished in this manner, look at Hong Kong.

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. Help Americans with your US tax dollars, and help the non-Americans you value more highly with your other resources.

Dobeln: You write about the early US immigrants:
“they were conquerors and explorers, not ‘immigrants’ in the common sense.”

You have to be kidding, right? Being a Swede, do you consider the 1 million people or so leaving Sweden in the 19th century for the US being conquerors and explorers? My grand grandfather left Sweden (Småland) in the 19th century because of extreme poverty and starvation. He worked in the north of the US building railways, sending home some of the cash etc.

The Swedish immigrants were mainly from very poor rural areas (Småland) that were badly hit by tough years with bad havest.

And for the irish immigrants, were they explorers? No, they fled poverty. The Italians fled poverty. The polish fled poverty. I can go on and on.

The early European-based immigrants to the US were starving and extremely poor. They fled to a country that welcomed them do to hard work. Kind of like the Mexican immigrants too I guess…

And even if you refer to the very early Eureopan-based immigrants your assertion is hardly true. Sure, for a handful of people, but not for the large chunk of people.

If we’re supposed to place greater moral worth on someone who happens to be born within the U.S. borders, why stop there?

If I happen to be born in California, should I be upset that low-wage Idahoans are taking our jobs? Perhaps San Franciscans should establish a City Immigration and Naturalization Service (CINS), and deport anyone without proper papers. After all, do Bay residents really want Portlanders moving down simply to take advantage of our their generous welfare system? Black folk commit crimes at a far higher rate than whites — if Los Vegas put up a wall to prevent any more black folk from moving in, would you nativists support them?

None of the above answers the question of why we should allow an increase in the aggression by foreigners, within our borders, against our fellow national, the net taxpayer. The nation cannot mean less than that we owe loyalty to our fellow citizen, the net taxpayers and others, when they are attacked by foreigners inside the borders.
No historical precedent excuses the disloyalism, which waves in a foreign aggressor on to net public subsidy.

Since you think 8% of one’s income is no big deal, would you pay 8% of your income to help defray the costs of immigrants? You certainly can afford it more than low-skilled workers. You could write a check for the amount of 8% of your income to a hospital that provides medical care to illegal immigrants, for example. Let us know when you’ve done this.

“Suppose you could give American high school dropouts a 1000% raise by exterminating every man, woman, and child in Latin America”

You’re unable to refute economists who have actually examined immigration, reducing you to bizarre and sophomoric analogies with genocide.

“It’s time to cross the final frontier, and start rolling our eyes when the special interest is low-skilled Americans.”

I think it’s time to stop tolerating free riders who benefit from mass immigration while avoiding the costs.

“We cannot “harness the energy of our poor” if it’s not there to harness. Employers of Mexican immigrants in CA and TX have told me they try to hire citizens. But they just cannot depend on them to show up after they get their first paychecks. Our economy does not need to be carrying a bunch of deadweight dopeheads and drunks, regardless of how admirable a goal you think that may be.”
Right. Send those useless US citizens to an Auschwitz, that is the implication of what you are saying. . All hail the cognitive elite! And their obsequious servants get a break too -the rest can go to the gas chambers!
“As for for the original settlers of the US, they were conquerors and explorers, not ‘immigrants’ in the common sense.”-Dobeln
That’s just not true. Very few of the Spanish conquerors and explorers settled in the U.S. The small number who did established farms and missions.-johndewey
I think what Dobeln was saying-since English is not his first language- is that the first European settlers in North America were pioneers, they settled what was in essence a virgin wilderness. The Amerinds were stone-age hunter-gatherers who altered the continent minimally, mainly through burning.The Northern European settlers totally transformed North America and made it possible for Jews, Poles and others to come here and prosper.

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