Immigration For Republicans

By Tyler Durden
Created 08/24/2014 - 22:20
Submitted by Keith Weiner via Acting-Man blog,
This essay is not intended to address a crisis that may be occurring on the border at this
time. We make no comment on that. Nor does it discuss the issues around war, such as
how to deal with citizens of enemy nations. This essay is not a policy proposal, it does
not set out, for example, when an immigrant can become a citizen and attain the vote or
what to do to immigrants who commit crimes. It has but one purpose: to enumerate
and respond to the common arguments used in favor of an impenetrable and
guarded border fence to shut down immigration.
It's the Law
Suppose you were born in a country that outlawed normal life. North Korea comes to
mind. Venezuela is a slightly less extreme example, and there are many other examples
which are slightly less bad than that socialist workers paradise.
I phrase it in these terms, because this is the essence of the issue. People are rightfully
fleeing places where they cannot live.
Anyway, suppose you are in a place where life is a living hell. Every day, you are forced
to beg and steal scraps of food to somehow stay alive. The best you can hope for is to
subsist, one day at a time. You must avoid the gangs and the secret police.
If you could somehow scrape together the money to escape to America, would you?
You would take a job paying minimum wageor lessdoing long days of unskilled
manual labor, if necessary. At least in America, you can work and you can begin to build
a better life for yourself and your family.
But you notice that people call you illegal. They dont refer to any crime you commit,
because you are no criminal. You never steal from anyone, hurt anyone, and or do
anything else that could objectively be called a crime. You work hard for every penny
you earn. But they call you illegal anyway.
You come to realize that when they say illegal, they refer to you, not your actions. Your
very existence so utterly offends them that they think you are crime incarnate.
You notice that most of them drive faster than the posted speed limit. Many dont
register their old handguns or refuse to pay tax when they sell a gold coin. They traffic in
old toilets, which flush more than 1.6 gallons. They break the law in numerous ways.
On Facebook, there is a common meme that laughs at the statistic that everyone
commits three felonies per day. Their crimes dont bother them in the slightest, because
they arent hurting anyone. They do get the concept of victimless crime, at least when
they themselves are made into criminals by nonobjective law.
However, for you, amigo, none of that matters. The law is the law, they assert. The
law must be obeyed, and they dont mean the speed limit law here. They mean the law
that does not allow you to live.

The law is the law (when it suits us).
Obviously, you are not going to oblige them by dying. This is the issue for you. Going
back to hell may well be your death, or the death of your family.
This is the monstrous injustice of anti-immigration policy. Now lets look at the
arguments used to justify it.
Keeping Out Bad Ideas
The most intellectual argument is that immigrants bring bad ideas with them. Though I
have not seen it phrased this way, this implies that we could build a Great Wall (or a
Berlin Wall) to keep out socialism, fascism, cronyism, corruption, and the ideas of Kant
and Marx. Surely, there would be no Che t-shirts if the wall were tall enough.
I find this argument unconvincing. In this era of radio, television, and the Internet, its the
policy equivalent of locking the barn doors after the horses are not only out, but sold to
the Saudis, and earning big purses racing in Abu Dhabi. Rotten ideas are not only here
in America, but they have predominated for decades in our universities, media, and
popular culture.
A lame duck president said, I've abandoned free market principles to save the free
market system. When our current president was a candidate he said, I think when you
spread the wealth around, its good for everybody." We have a pejorative term for the
wealthiest percentile of people, and one for bankers. Hollywood celebrities pose for
pictures with socialist thugs like Hugo Chavez. These ideas are mainstream. Even
conservatives will defend half a dozen of Marx ten planks.

A selection of communists their evil ideas have become so ingrained in Western
society, most people don't even realize their provenance anymore
If rational ideas prevailed in our culture and most people held to a rational philosophy,
then evil ideas would find no fertile ground here. Proud people of healthy self-esteem
who understand liberty, find nothing attractive about socialist utopias, death cults,
thieving parasites, or paralyzing bureaucracy.
If you are un-persuaded, and you still believe that we have to keep out people with bad
ideas, then you have to answer the following question. Are bad ideas intrinsically
compelling?
Suppose a Marxist chants slogans on a street corner, or finds a willing American
newspaper to publish his letter. Is this a threat to Western Civilization? Are reality and
reason and liberty so weak and so un-compelling, that they are blown away by mindless
communist propaganda?
At best, I think this argument reduces to another one thats much more common. This
argument does not address ideas, but voters.
Immigrants vote socialist, opponents of immigration tell us. But do they? I rather doubt
that its nearly so prevalent as were told, though I dont have the statistic. It doesnt
make any sense to me. These are people who have scrimped and saved to go to a
foreign country. Many have risked their lives, and most of them are not fluent in the
language. What motivates them to do this? I doubt its typically a desire to bring to the
US the same socialism that forced them to flee.
What if immigrants are not voting for Democrats for their socialist policies, but for their
pro-immigration stance? That would be a tragic irony to this argument. If the Republican
Party stakes out the anti-immigrant position, then no one should be surprised when
immigrants vote Democrat, along with their extended families, friends, and supporters.
The presumption that immigrants vote Democrat leads Republicans to oppose
immigration, which leads immigrants to vote Democrat. Mr. Foot, meet Mr. Gun. Blam!
Incidentally, while I am criticizing the Republican Party, this very same issue is hurting
them elsewhere too. Do gays all want socialism? Or do they want legalized marriage?
Do women all want socialism? Or do they want legalized control over their own
reproduction? Do biologists and other scientists want socialism? Or do they want
legalized stem cell research and other scientific inquiry? Many members of these
groups turn to the party that promises what they want.
Trespassers and the Collective
Moving on to the next argument, I hear often that an immigrant is like a trespasser or a
burglar who breaks into your house. Think about what this argument says.
It says that the nation is owned collectively. If you are in the group, then you are part
owner. If not, then you are a threat to the tribe. Today, its phrased in terms of criminal
trespass, but its a primitive view of belongers vs. outsiders.
Of course the country as a whole is not owned, and certainly no collective has a right to
violate anyones rights. Rights are neither a group benefit, nor a grant made by the
government.
A related argument is that immigrants are taking our jobs. This argument is thoroughly
Marxist. Thus, its ironic that it so often comes from conservatives, Republicans, and
even some libertarians.
Our jobs? A job is a contract with an employer, not a birthright for an individual or a
group privilege. If someone else is hired, but you are not, there is no injustice. If
members of one group get hired and members of another group do not, then there is no
cause for the government to interfere.
Jobs are not zero-sum. Under certain conditions, jobs are created and wages are rising.
Under other conditions, jobs are stagnant or even destroyed. What conditions? Left free
from coercion, people find ever more ways of coordinating their productive activities.
Increasing production means hiring more people and paying them better wages.
However, when the government intrudes it reduces coordination, which means it
reduces productivity, employment, wages, and quality of life. I proved this in my
dissertation [11]. One form of government intrusion is to block people, goods, or capital
from crossing the border.
It may have taken a genius like Adam Smith or Frederic Bastiat to provide the original
arguments to debunk state control, central planning, and government favoritism for
cronies. However, today, a smart 8
th
grader can understand and make a cogent
argument against this nonsense.
I dont think anyone believes in bad economics for the sake of bad economics. No, there
are two reasons people support junk economics. One is they want to get something
they couldnt earn in a free market. They seek protectionist measures to keep out
competition. The other is they can see that the economy isnt working properly. It is a
fact that employment is far below its prior level. Such jobs as do exist pay lower real
wages. Most people feel it at some level, and theyre angry.
They should be angry, but we should place the blame where it belongs. Taxes,
regulations, litigation, and especially the Fed are the cause.
Please dont take out your anger on poor immigrants.
The idea that the economy is zero-sum is a Marxist idea. Lovers of America, the
Constitution, and liberty should have nothing to do with it.

The economy is not a zero sum game. The idea of a static economy providing a fixed
pie to be fought over is a Marxist fallacy.
(Painting by Michael Morgenstern)
Welfare Tourists
The next argument is that immigrants come here to collect. We should not allow
immigrants because they will only end up on welfare.
Compensation is when you deliberately and knowingly do the wrong thing, supposedly
to fix a problem elsewhere that you cannot or do not wish to fix. My example is to let the
air out of three tires if you have a flat. Shutting down immigration is compensation for
the welfare state. We who dont want to see the taxpayer bankrupted will do better to
fight welfare, than to fight immigration.
This leads to a question I have asked several times, and received no answer. Why does
Immigration and Customs Enforcement go after employers?
Were told that immigrants are here to sell drugs and commit crimes. However, its
obvious that you wont find drug dealers, welfare queens, pimps, and bank robbers
working at or below minimum wage in the hot sun. So why go after employers? There is
only one reason.
It is to protect us belongers from losing our scarce jobs to those outsiders.
Can any of these arguments be applied to block immigration between the states? On
Facebook recently, I saw someone post (half) jokingly that Texas should pass a law to
keep out anyone from California who voted for its welfare schemes or high-speed rail
boondoggle.
Logically, there is
no reason they
couldnt be applied
to interstate
immigration. North
Dakota has low
unemployment. If
they continue to
allow open
immigration, then
pretty soon their
unemployment will
rise to the
unfortunate
heights of the rest
of the country
(maybe they
should thank their
harsh weather for
putting the brakes
on this).
The next step is to
apply it to
immigration within
a state, from city to city. We wouldnt want all of those Tucson people coming here to
take our Phoenix jobs, would we? The end game is the socialist dictatorship, which
clamps down on the right of people to move as they wish.
[12]
US inter-state migration patterns (for an interactive version, see here [13]) via
vizynary.com click to enlarge.
The elephant in the room that must be named is some people of the anti-immigrant
persuasion are motivated by racism. I dont believe this is the majority, but it exists.
They dont dare openly declare their feelings, at least not in any forum I read. Instead,
they couch it in another argument.
Back to Principles
One reason I started this essay off with a story was to establish the context and put the
reader into the shoes of a recent immigrant. I had another reason as well: to illustrate
the problems in the anti-immigration position. No one who fled a living hell will go back
willingly. So what will be accomplished by demonstrating ones resentment by slinging
the name illegal at a man? He will react. He will feel like he is in a no-win situation. He
may himself become resentful, and in that state he may adopt bad ideas that he did not
originally hold.
What will happen if the law attacks his employer and renders him unable to keep a job?
What would you do if you were permanently rendered unemployable by law? He will
take welfare if he can get it. The only alternatives are to starve, to go back to hell, steal
cars, or sell drugs. Nothing good can come from forcing someone to make that kind of
choice.
Though its not my purpose in writing this essay, if your concern is whether the GOP will
win elections, its hard to think of a more effective way to repulse a large voting bloc.
However, I think theres something much more important at stake. It is the theme of
most of my writing on the gold standard.
We need to rediscover and return to the principle on which America was founded. It is
the principle that everyone has the individual rights of life, liberty, and property. Lets
fight for those rights. Lets fight to repeal welfare and to restore the Constitution and the
Republic that was built on it.
Its the right thing to do, and it also works.

Picture captions by PT