Quisling: a synonym for traitor, someone who collaborates with the invaders of his country.
Posted on 10/17/2005 9:44:36 AM PDT by Crackingham
The results of the recent special election in California's 48th Congressional District are a sober wakeup call to economic conservatives who believe in the free movement of goods, capital and labor. Self-appointed, vigilante immigration restrictionist Jim Gilchrist received a sizable 14.4 percent of the vote for Congress on a single-issue, immigrant bashing platform. Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who endorsed Gilchrist, is trying, with some success, to raise immigrant-bashing to a top-tier issue in the 2008 elections.
Anti-immigration sentiment is one symptom of a larger neo-Mercantilist disease that is also threatening the globalization of trade and capital flows. Unless true free-market conservatives tame these emotional arguments with the force of logic, much of the economic progress of the past century could be reversed.
America enjoys unprecedented diversity. After decades of increasing prosperity, most Americans feel comfortable with this diversity, but some, reacting to immigrants who are increasingly bypassing traditional immigrant-friendly coastal cities to settle in traditionally white rural and suburban communities, are uncomfortable with demographic change.
Anti-immigrant groups and demagogues like Gilchrist and Tancredo have capitalized on this discomfort in newly emerging immigrant communities. They have falsely attempted to blame immigrants for everything from suburban sprawl to environmental degradation and most recently have taken advantage of the fears of the American public to blame immigrants for terrorism.
Immigration is a moral imperative and an economic necessity. Geographic location of birth is a morally arbitrary fact, and it is wrong to limit an individual's freedom to pursue his or her interests based on it, particularly in a country whose civic identity is based on providing opportunities to people from around the world.
The economic benefits of free movement of people, like the benefits of free trade and capital flows, are clear. Each immigrant who comes to the United States expands national output more than he or she personally consumes, which benefits everyone.
A landmark National Academy of Sciences report found that immigrants contribute more than $10 billion annually to the economy. Other estimates range as high as $80 billion. The NAS study examined every aspect of the issue, from job displacement, to wages, to entrepreneurship, to taxes and consumption of social services. The economic contributions of immigrants have been particularly notable in midsize to large cities, whose populations and economies have been buoyed by immigration.
Immigrants have revitalized urban economies throughout the United States and particularly improved important sectors such as small business, import/export, finance, construction and manufacturing. Immigrants also have founded many of the largest and most successful technology companies, the lifeblood of our 21st century economy.
With unemployment rates remaining near historic lows and legal immigration quotas far too low to meet the demand for labor, it is clear that reforms are needed to reconcile public policy with economic reality. President Bush has proposed a compromise approach that would create a legal guest worker program to meet this demand for workers. Included in this program would be a route to earned legalization so that undocumented workers can adjust their status and become legal permanent residents. These principles are embodied in Senate legislation sponsored by John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Bush should endorse this legislation, and explain to the American public that the correct conservative, free-market position is pro-immigration.
Well put, and sometimes I feel like there's more trotskyites masquerading as "conservatives" than there are the real thing.
Why doesn't this Mr. Kerpen start his program with countries other than America?
Then I could go down to Mazatlan and buy a nice seaside house and not have to worry about property rights or visas. Or Thailand. Or anywhere on the South China Sea for that matter.
The open-borders harpies care only about the American border being open, and not any other country. They never seem to mention that not one single nation on planet Earth willingly allows open borders.
Anti-immigration sentiment...
An illegal alien is not an immigrant. The author of this article can go fly a kite.
Phil Kerpen: Another proud member of the journalistic MSM quisling class.
Nothing new here.
They're basically faddists, and conservatism is the current fad. So they portray themselves as such, but they can't help trying to change it into something it isn't!
Which isn't very conservative, but then, they aren't....
Quisling: a synonym for traitor, someone who collaborates with the invaders of his country.
Although there is a certain amount of "immigrant bashing" going around, it is not "immigrant bashing" to insist that the borders be controlled, and that immigration be controlled and legal.
The writer misses the point that the US is the country on this earth most free for immigration. Most immigration activists are not upset at the fact of immigration, but rather the open border, across which passes we know not who and we know not how many.
In a democracy we share power with our neighbors by means of the vote. We agree to rule one another, and to submit to the rule of our fellows. But we do not agree to be ruled by just anyone, which is where immigration and citizenship laws come in. It is by means of these laws that we agree who we will allow in and who we will share power with.
Free people do not submit to just anyone, we insist that we, at least indirectly, have a say in who we give citizenship to. This means controlling the border, and extending a legal invitation to the people we want to come in.
Approximately 1.3 million people immigrate to the US every year, year in and year out. Who decided thats a good number? When did we have this public debate? Why are you a racist if you think 500,000 is a better number? or 300,000? Why are you a racist if you insist that, if 1.3 million people are coming in, they ought at least to have asked and received permission?
"Immigrant bashing"?
WTF?
I can't say I've heard of anyone here on FR bashing legal immigrants.
Indeed, some of us are even married to such. That said, I am totally and irrevocably firmly opposed to the current "open door, anything goes" system in place today. It is nothing less than a recipe for disaster, and all who gainsay this are either wilfully blind, or abysmally ignorant...
the infowarrior
A landmark National Academy of Sciences report found that immigrants contribute more than $10 billion annually to the economy. Other estimates range as high as $80 billion
In a multi-trillion dollar economy 10 or even 80 billion is peanuts. We're spending double or triple that per year in Iraq. It shows you how hollow the economic argument is.
"A landmark National Academy of Sciences report found that immigrants contribute more than $10 billion annually to the economy. Other estimates range as high as $80 billion"
There are plenty of threads here on FR that point to studies where illegals COST the taxpayers of this fine country much more then they "contribute".
My first thought on reading this article is, "So THAT'S what happened to bayourod - he moved to San Diego and got a job with a newspaper!" Glad to hear the ol' boy is doing well.
These "studies" are probably well aware of that, and I believe that using phrases such as "benefits the economy" are intentionally misleading. The real question is, it helps which segment of the economy? Employers hire illegals for a lower wage and no benefits, passing the costs to the taxpayers and saving themselves billions of dollars in the process, and somehow that money is "helping the economy" (i.e., everyone in the country)? If this crap keeps up, eventually there won't BE a middle class to pay for all this. And then, what?
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