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  • Immigration’s Economic Key

    Problems With the Romney Plan

    Mitt Romney’s plan to end illegal immigration worries me. In particular, this point bodes ill for the economy:

    Encourage Legal Immigration. Streamline the system to recruit and retain skilled workers and welcome the best and the brightest from around the world to our universities.

    To begin with, we already get “the best and brightest from around the world” in our universities. Some countries suffer from substantial “brain drain” that largely goes to the United States. Also, I support the idea of making the legal immigration system work. The big question is, Who decides how many people from where get to come?

    But the real problem I see here is two-fold. First, it is not only skilled but also unskilled labor that is in demand. Second, who decides what makes somebody skilled? Which skills are useful? The freewheeling illegal immigration that has been occurring lets the market determine the answer to that. Any other system is likely to suffer from attempts at micromanaging the economy—a sort of outward-looking central planning system. Think of it as the Soviet Union take on immigration. Great.

    Key Economics

    The crux of the matter is the ability of illegal workers to undercut citizens/nationals by working for less than minimum wage. If we remove this ability by tighter border enforcement, active prosecution of employers who pay unlawfully low wages, and easier legal entry to help document and track those who come in to the country, then I believe we would have the following results:

    1. Lower-class citizens/nationals would be better able to compete for jobs in the lowest wage range.
    2. Increased prices of consumer goods due to higher labor costs for employers.
    3. Decreased employment overall, but, at least initially, a higher proportion of those employed will be citizens/nationals, and those employed will be paid at least minimum wage.

    If we as a nation decide that that is a desirable combination of outcomes, then let’s do it.

  • Communism

    Question: Does insistence that communism not be part of [American] society unduly infringe on people’s rights of political expression and thus become the thing it is seeking to avoid?

    Proposition #1: Communism is not evil.

    Proposition #2: Solidarity against the evils of communism deprives people of rights.

    Proposition #2.1: Citizens have a right to seek the overthrow of constitutional government notwithstanding that the government is not consistently, uncorrectably depriving its citizens of their rights.

    I would argue that all of the above propositions are false. People can say whatever they wish short of planning or encouraging the overthrow of the government; however, they must not be permitted to engraft into the system of our government principles entirely contrary to its existence. As Abraham Lincoln applied it to slavery, so does “this nation cannot long endure half slave and half free” apply to any attempt to accommodate a system of thought and of government that inherently devalues and endangers liberty. Thus the preservation of liberty for all, while it may occur some restriction upon the desires of some, is naturally not contradictory to liberty itself, for liberty is not equal to the ability to act without any restriction. Rather, it is perhaps the ability to have the actions of the greatest number of individuals be meaningful by virtue of being their own.

    We could of course ask similar questions with regards to the philosophies undergirding terrorism around the world. Must we permit people to establish terrorist training camps under the guise of their liberty or rights to organize? Clearly not, for the greater crime to liberty would be that which endangers the liberty of all. A pessimistic view could come to see liberty for the masses as being built upon the oppressed minority. This mischaracterizes the issue. Those who insist on seeking the overthrow of freedom are clearly trying to become the premiere oppressors and in so doing end up voluntarily oppressing themselves. The actions of the free majority are a justified defense.

  • Dance Party

    I went to a dance party tonight. It was almost against my will—I figured I would probably end up going, but when the time came I didn’t really feel like leaving the apartment. But, I had told some of the girls from the hosting apartment that I would see them there, so I felt like I needed to.

    Well, it was fun! Back in high school and my freshman year of college I was a pretty enthusiastic dancer, but I’ve sort of lost the taste for it or something lately. But it’s really that I don’t have as much energy as I used to, since many times when I actually get around to dancing I remember that I like it. It’s fun to move to the music and it’s something that I naturally like to do—unless there are people around. Then I have to overcome a bit of self-consciousness.