Immigration is the hot topic, today (or yesterday. I’m a little slow). I agree with about 85% of the population that something needs to be done. And it needs to be done soon. The status quo of illegals living in our society indefinitely, paying or not paying taxes, abiding by or not abiding by out laws, cannot continue to exist. But to think that we can round them all up and ship them back is unrealistic. The technical challenges with this are huge. Where are they? How do you get them out? How do you prove some of them are illegal? And the logistics are huge, too. Busses, planes, boats? The inefficiency would make this a black hole of funding and would not achieve the end goal of grappling control of a population that is dramatically influencing healthcare, state revenue, crime, etc.
The piece of the immigration argument that never seems to get enough attention is the “jobs Americans won’t do”. It’s been clarified that it is the pay that is too low for Americans. At decade low unemployment levels, there aren’t a lot of people out there looking for these jobs. What is neglected is the immediate rise in price of goods that would stem from raising the price paid to these workers in order to entice them away from Wal-Mart or McDonalds. Jim Bennett touches on it, but his analysis is a long-term look.
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It is pretty clear that the premium to get Americans (or legal immigrants on track to become Americans) to do such jobs isn't all that great; whatever general price rise that accompanies it will probably be offset by reduction in welfare and unemployment expenses for the Americans who go back to work at the slightly higher pay.
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The price of goods will go up immediately. I won’t hold my breath that the “reduction in welfare and unemployment expenses” will trickle back down to me any time soon.
The economic factor is neglected in the discussions about immigration as it is in outsourcing to China. “We’re shipping all of our jobs over seas”. Yeah, but we’re paying $9.99 for a coffee pot. “Shipping Jobs over seas” strikes fear, but it is the macro economic picture that completes the outsourcing and the immigration discussion. One way to stop illegal immigration is to not hire them. Or not to hire a company that employs them. One way to stop outsourcing is to buy American. But the majority of people look at the price tag and decide they’d rather keep a few more dollars in their pocket than pay a little more for the “greater good”.
Jim Bennett article is good and it touches on most of the immigration subjects:
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There is a good deal of sympathy with the idea that Mexicans and others should be welcome to come here, as have other immigrants throughout our history, and join the American community. It's quite another for them to demand that they have a right to do so regardless of the wishes of the citizenry, or that they should not have to learn English or adopt the broad framwork of laws and assumptions that make America. It's not even a matter of assumptions of superiority: there's no implied superiority or moral imperative that, for example, favors driving on the right or the left side of the road, but it is vitally important that everybody keep to the same side. (I am waiting for the multiculturalist argument to the contrary.)
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And Glenn Reynolds also discusses immigration. And he mentions why he thinks this is a hot button issue today.
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A lot of it is anger at Washington: "We pay taxes, they say there's a war on terror, and they can't even secure the border." People don't necessarily expect perfection, but the powers that be don't even seem to be trying. That anger, I suspect, has a lot to do with the sudden interest of politicians in doing something -- or at least looking as if they're doing something -- about the issue.
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UPDATE: I should clarify that I am not in favor of the current immigration situation. And I don't believe in blind amnesty. But the solution is not as simple as "Send them all home"
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
American Thanks you Corporal Desmond T. Doss
American has lost a great patriot. Corporal Desmond T. Doss past away on March 24th, 2006. Corporal Doss represented all that America stands for. His religious beliefs would not let him kill, but he insisted on serving his country. And in doing so, he courageously saved the lives 75 of his fellow soldiers in an act that could only be described as a miracle. God rest his sole. American will stand free because of heroes like Corporal Doss.
Reads his story at Chaotic Synaptic Activity
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Doss never liked being called a conscientious objector. He frequently said that he preferred the term “conscientious cooperator.”
Raised a Seventh-day Adventist, Doss did not believe in using a gun or killing because of the sixth commandment, which states, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13). Doss was a patriot, however, and believed in serving his country.
During World War II, instead of accepting a deferment, Doss voluntarily joined the Army as a conscientious objector.
Assigned to the 307th Infantry Division as a company medic, he was harassed and ridiculed for his beliefs, yet he served with distinction and ultimately received the Congressional Medal of Honor on October 12, 1945, for his acts of bravery.
According to his Medal of Honor citation, time after time Doss’s fellow soldiers witnessed how unafraid he was for his own safety. He was always willing to go after a wounded fellow, no matter how great the danger. On one occasion, in Okinawa, Japan, he refused to take cover from enemy fire as he rescued approximately 75 wounded soldiers, carrying them one by one and lowering them over the edge of the 400-foot Maeda Escarpment. He did not stop until nearly 12 hours, later when he had brought everyone to safety...
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Summary from Blackfive
Reads his story at Chaotic Synaptic Activity
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Doss never liked being called a conscientious objector. He frequently said that he preferred the term “conscientious cooperator.”
Raised a Seventh-day Adventist, Doss did not believe in using a gun or killing because of the sixth commandment, which states, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13). Doss was a patriot, however, and believed in serving his country.
During World War II, instead of accepting a deferment, Doss voluntarily joined the Army as a conscientious objector.
Assigned to the 307th Infantry Division as a company medic, he was harassed and ridiculed for his beliefs, yet he served with distinction and ultimately received the Congressional Medal of Honor on October 12, 1945, for his acts of bravery.
According to his Medal of Honor citation, time after time Doss’s fellow soldiers witnessed how unafraid he was for his own safety. He was always willing to go after a wounded fellow, no matter how great the danger. On one occasion, in Okinawa, Japan, he refused to take cover from enemy fire as he rescued approximately 75 wounded soldiers, carrying them one by one and lowering them over the edge of the 400-foot Maeda Escarpment. He did not stop until nearly 12 hours, later when he had brought everyone to safety...
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Summary from Blackfive
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Moving Forward
It’s been a long hard struggle and the end is not near. But we must go on for the sake of Freedom.
I’ve told you before and I’ll keep saying it; Read The Belmont Club. Today he talks about a couple articles that discuss where civilization goes from here. Iraq and Afghanistan are moving into history, but the threat is not gone. We must accept this fact and prepare for the long war.
This belated flurry of strategic thinking means it is increasingly accepted that September 11 wasn't simply a gigantic crime -- an Oklahoma City bombing writ large. It was the end of an era and beginning of a new one. We are not, as JR Dunn so eloquently put it, about to "go back to everyday life, the way things were before all that unpleasantness in lower Manhattan and Washington those long years ago". That may be terrible news for those who believe the 1960s never ended, but there it is. We are adrift on a dark sea and the mariners are breaking out the compasses.
Also, Gateway Pundit summarizes false predictions on the war. “Ten’s of thousands will die” were terribly inaccurate statements but there is no consequence for such egregious statements. We must remember these statements and their inaccuracies as we look at statements in the future. What is the motivation behind voice? And don’t forget where you hear accurate prediction, for this is where you get your information in the future.
* German politicians predicted: "Millions of people in Baghdad will be victims of bombs and rockets."
What happened: The antiwar Iraqi Body Count site lists an estimated 4,000-6,000 civilians and fighters were lost in the startup months of the War in Iraq.
* Ted Kennedy predicted:"A war on Saddam might also cause an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with an estimated 900,000 refugees, a pandemic and an environmental disaster as Saddam lit the oilfields on fire."
Actual Result: The oil fields were not set ablaze, no pandemic.
* The UN predicted... It is also likely that in the early stages there will be a large segment of the population requiring treatment for traumatic injuries, either directly conflict-induced or from the resulting devastation. Given the population outlined earlier, as many as 500,000 could require treatment to a greater or lesser degree as a result of direct or indirect injuries.
What happened: Again, the antiwar Iraqi Body Count site lists an estimated 4,000-6,000 civilians and fighters lost in the startup months of the War in Iraq.
* Ted Kennedy also predicted: "The U.S. could run through "battalions a day at a time" and that the fighting would look like "the last fifteen minutes of 'Private Ryan.'"
Actual Results: Although each fatality is a tragic loss for America, this is still one of most successful military campaigns the US has ever fought.
And Instapundit points out a Red State post (and a good clarification on that post) about military deaths during the last 4 presidencies.
Take a look at the actual US Military Casualty figures since 1980. If you do the math, you wil find quite a few surpises. First of all, let's compare numbers of US Military personnel that died during the first term of the last four presidents.
George W. Bush . . . . . 5187 (2001-2004)
Bill Clinton . . . . . . . . . 4302 (1993-1996)
George H.W. Bush . . . . 6223 (1989-1992)
Ronald Reagan . . . . . . 9163 (1981-1984)
I’ve told you before and I’ll keep saying it; Read The Belmont Club. Today he talks about a couple articles that discuss where civilization goes from here. Iraq and Afghanistan are moving into history, but the threat is not gone. We must accept this fact and prepare for the long war.
This belated flurry of strategic thinking means it is increasingly accepted that September 11 wasn't simply a gigantic crime -- an Oklahoma City bombing writ large. It was the end of an era and beginning of a new one. We are not, as JR Dunn so eloquently put it, about to "go back to everyday life, the way things were before all that unpleasantness in lower Manhattan and Washington those long years ago". That may be terrible news for those who believe the 1960s never ended, but there it is. We are adrift on a dark sea and the mariners are breaking out the compasses.
Also, Gateway Pundit summarizes false predictions on the war. “Ten’s of thousands will die” were terribly inaccurate statements but there is no consequence for such egregious statements. We must remember these statements and their inaccuracies as we look at statements in the future. What is the motivation behind voice? And don’t forget where you hear accurate prediction, for this is where you get your information in the future.
* German politicians predicted: "Millions of people in Baghdad will be victims of bombs and rockets."
What happened: The antiwar Iraqi Body Count site lists an estimated 4,000-6,000 civilians and fighters were lost in the startup months of the War in Iraq.
* Ted Kennedy predicted:"A war on Saddam might also cause an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with an estimated 900,000 refugees, a pandemic and an environmental disaster as Saddam lit the oilfields on fire."
Actual Result: The oil fields were not set ablaze, no pandemic.
* The UN predicted... It is also likely that in the early stages there will be a large segment of the population requiring treatment for traumatic injuries, either directly conflict-induced or from the resulting devastation. Given the population outlined earlier, as many as 500,000 could require treatment to a greater or lesser degree as a result of direct or indirect injuries.
What happened: Again, the antiwar Iraqi Body Count site lists an estimated 4,000-6,000 civilians and fighters lost in the startup months of the War in Iraq.
* Ted Kennedy also predicted: "The U.S. could run through "battalions a day at a time" and that the fighting would look like "the last fifteen minutes of 'Private Ryan.'"
Actual Results: Although each fatality is a tragic loss for America, this is still one of most successful military campaigns the US has ever fought.
And Instapundit points out a Red State post (and a good clarification on that post) about military deaths during the last 4 presidencies.
Take a look at the actual US Military Casualty figures since 1980. If you do the math, you wil find quite a few surpises. First of all, let's compare numbers of US Military personnel that died during the first term of the last four presidents.
George W. Bush . . . . . 5187 (2001-2004)
Bill Clinton . . . . . . . . . 4302 (1993-1996)
George H.W. Bush . . . . 6223 (1989-1992)
Ronald Reagan . . . . . . 9163 (1981-1984)
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Iraqi Civil Unrest
Here is an interesting observation about the Iraqi "Civil War" subject. The Belmont Club describes how Saddam Hussein had to keep the underlying tribal conflicts that we are seeing today at rest while he was in power.
One of the reasons both the US and the EU hesitated to intervene in Slobodan Milosevic's genocide in the Balkans was because it was characterized as a "civil war"; a conflict of immemorial hatreds in which it would be useless to intervene. Even at his speech marking the Dayton accords, President Clinton portrayed events in the Balkans, not as the result of an organized conspiracy revolving around Slobodan Milosevic, but from an underlying geopolitical fault. "When I took office, some where urging immediate intervention in the conflict. I decided that American ground troops should not fight a war in Bosnia because the United States could not force peace on Bosnia's warring ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats and Muslims."
Not unsurprisingly, the same civil war theme has been used to describe the lack of options in Darfur. ...
The power of the "civil war" theme is that it provides an automatic rationale for withdrawing from the fray, especially if intervention is supposed to have 'caused it' in the first place. Rebranding Iraq as a civil war puts it in the same category of hopelessness as the former Yugoslavia and the Sudan.
It's not a civil war, yet. Stay in touch through the reputable Iraqi blog Iraq The Model. These guys have been reporting from Baghdad since the war begin. They have also visited the US and met with President Bush.
One of the reasons both the US and the EU hesitated to intervene in Slobodan Milosevic's genocide in the Balkans was because it was characterized as a "civil war"; a conflict of immemorial hatreds in which it would be useless to intervene. Even at his speech marking the Dayton accords, President Clinton portrayed events in the Balkans, not as the result of an organized conspiracy revolving around Slobodan Milosevic, but from an underlying geopolitical fault. "When I took office, some where urging immediate intervention in the conflict. I decided that American ground troops should not fight a war in Bosnia because the United States could not force peace on Bosnia's warring ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats and Muslims."
Not unsurprisingly, the same civil war theme has been used to describe the lack of options in Darfur. ...
The power of the "civil war" theme is that it provides an automatic rationale for withdrawing from the fray, especially if intervention is supposed to have 'caused it' in the first place. Rebranding Iraq as a civil war puts it in the same category of hopelessness as the former Yugoslavia and the Sudan.
It's not a civil war, yet. Stay in touch through the reputable Iraqi blog Iraq The Model. These guys have been reporting from Baghdad since the war begin. They have also visited the US and met with President Bush.
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