New at Reason

David Weigel | August 28, 2006

Peter Bagge reports from multiple fronts in the War on Mexicans and asks whether this "third world invasion" is really all that Pat Buchanan says it is.

Comments

|8.28.06 @ 1:58PM|#

paging Flemur, Pig Mannix and whatever crazy name Lonewacko is calling himself this week...you arguments getting Pwned in Aisle 2.

Warren|8.28.06 @ 2:27PM|#

MY UNION EVEN ACCEPTS ILLEGALS AS MEMBERS NOW... IT'S BETTER THAN BEING OUTPERFORMED AND UNDERBID!

Sweeeeeeeeeeet.

|8.28.06 @ 2:33PM|#

Oh boy, this one ought to bring out the nativist nutjobs. It's even in an easy-to-read comic format!

|8.28.06 @ 3:02PM|#

God-damned immigrants always coming to take jobs from us native-born!

|8.28.06 @ 3:06PM|#

ay tuk ur jubz!

|8.28.06 @ 3:17PM|#

As always, an intelligent, thoughtful Bagge cartoon.

Where are those snarky know-nothings? Are they all at some some rally where they can burn Elvira Arellano in effigy?

|8.28.06 @ 3:42PM|#

I always thought that the key to having a vibrant society and economy was to attract the best and brightest and highest skilled that the world has to offer from every corner where they are willing to come. Apparently, I am just a nativist nut job for thinking that.

The real way to prosperity is to bring as many low skilled non-English speaking people from the same part of the world who speak the same language into the country as possible, put them into linguistic ghettos and ensure that their educational achievement still lags behind natives even after three generations thus ensuring that they continue to do low paid low productivity work for generations. Silly me.

|8.28.06 @ 3:46PM|#

for what definition of "thoughtful" could you possibly mean.

the idea that the US should be an open border country is absurd. it is one of the few capital "L" libertarian positions that i find amazingly absurd.

|8.28.06 @ 3:52PM|#

I always thought that the key to having a vibrant society and economy was to attract the best and brightest and highest skilled that the world has to offer from every corner where they are willing to come. Apparently, I am just a nativist nut job for thinking that.

Maybe not a nativist nutjob, but who are you to decide who are the best and brightest, or what skills are needed by businesses?

The real way to prosperity is...Silly me.

These points have all been refuted on previous posts with logic and statistics from reliable sources. Do we have to waste any more time with them?

|8.28.06 @ 3:59PM|#

Give me your talented, your bright
Your Indian doctors yearning to breathe in the burbs
No one said anything about you, wretched refuse!
If you huddled masses don't clear out of here, I will burn you with this Torch of "Liberty" so help me...homeless? tempest-tossed?!? back to your own country, quit taking our jobs!
I lift my lamp for only those deemed smart enough or worthy!

|8.28.06 @ 4:03PM|#

I always love the Peter Bagge stuff.

I just picked up a collection of his early "Hate" stuff with my bi-monthly Amazon.com order. Similarities between myself and Buddy Bradley back in the early 90's made for an uncomfortable trip down memory lane.

|8.28.06 @ 4:03PM|#

Give me your talented, your bright
Your Indian doctors yearning to breathe in the burbs
No one said anything about you, wretched refuse!
If you huddled masses don't clear out of here, I will burn you with this Torch of "Liberty" so help me...homeless? tempest-tossed?!? back to your own country, quit taking our jobs!
I lift my lamp for only those deemed smart enough or worthy!

|8.28.06 @ 4:47PM|#

I always thought that the key to having a vibrant society and economy was to attract the best and brightest and highest skilled that the world has to offer from every corner where they are willing to come.

Close. So very close. Change "the best and brightest and highest skilled" to "those who will be gainfully employed" and you've got it.

The theory of comparative advantage does not merely apply between nations: It applies between any two sets of anybody. If the minimum-skilled native-born American would be more productive doing something other than picking strawberries, it is stupid to have him pick strawberries. And it is insane to legislate a minimum wage for picking strawberries that takes him from his higher productivity job.

Preventing employers from hiring anybody they want from the largest universe of persons they can simply saddles the economy to the benefit of no one.

|8.28.06 @ 4:54PM|#

whit,

Exhibiting or characterized by careful thought: a thoughtful essay.

Does that help?

|8.28.06 @ 4:54PM|#

And John, the ultimate irony behind your tightly restricted borders stance is that, because the US has the biggest and most advanced economy in the world, open borders would make it more likely the US would draw the best and brightest and highest skilled. Unfortunately, without open borders, only employers at the bottom of the employment ladder are willing to risk hiring illegals. And -- suprise! -- the vast majority of illegal immigrants are of the unskilled variety.

fyodor|8.28.06 @ 5:07PM|#

The real way to prosperity is to bring as many low skilled non-English speaking people from the same part of the world who speak the same language into the country as possible, put them...

John, no one is bringing or putting immigrants anywhere, they're doing it all on their own, exercising their natural rights to their own freedom of movement and association. You're obviously intelligent enough to know the difference, both morally and consequentially, between activities being directed by the bureacracy of a centrally planned government program and those resulting from the freely made choices of individuals, but one would never know it from that last post of yours!

mk,

"Hate" fuckin' RULED!!!

|8.28.06 @ 5:52PM|#

I always thought that the key to having a vibrant society and economy was to attract the best and brightest and highest skilled that the world has to offer from every corner where they are willing to come. Apparently, I am just a nativist nut job for thinking that.


Hmmm...Could you explain how attracting both unskilled labor and highly skilled labor is not possible. Also, please explain what is gained by forcibly reducing the supply of unskilled labor.

|8.28.06 @ 5:57PM|#

between activities being directed by the bureacracy of a centrally planned government program and those resulting from the freely made choices of individuals

Really, it is very interesting to see a conservative proposing a centrally planned labor market. I think we can end this thread here as Johns arguments have been pretty well exposed as nonsense.

|8.28.06 @ 6:27PM|#

Really, it is very interesting to see a conservative proposing a centrally planned labor market.

He just uses economic arguments because he knows that his real justifications would be even more unpopular. Still, every once in a while he slips up and starts ranting about hispanics.

I think we can end this thread here as Johns arguments have been pretty well exposed as nonsense.

John is still going to pop up on the next immigration thread, pretending like none of this has ever been discussed before. He's like a creationist, rolling out the same tired old arguments over and over.

|8.28.06 @ 6:33PM|#

"He just uses economic arguments because he knows that his real justifications would be even more unpopular. Still, every once in a while he slips up and starts ranting about hispanics."

That's usually the case when anti-immigrant people talk about their deep concern for the American worker. The actual labor leaders in this country are almost uniformly in favor of pro-immigrant reforms, and have welcomed immigrants into their unions, as Bagge's strip notes.

For the most part, the people proclaiming their deep concern about the impact of immigration on jobs and wages are, like Pat Buchanan, people who wouldn't have bothered to walk the long way around a picket line before the recent immigration debate began.

|8.28.06 @ 7:24PM|#

According to Bagge, all the people using the rallies as a way to connect to people regarding anything but immigration are "the usual protest junkies, who glom onto any issue as if it's all about them." Except the eminent domain protestor, who's glomming in service of a point of view Bagge shares. That guy is "the lone voice of reason in a sea of race baiting madness."

|8.28.06 @ 7:55PM|#

using the "ethnicity card" (hispanic is not a race, it's an ethnicity,since you can be an asian hispanic but i digress...) is obnoxious and silly.

it reminds me of liberal racial quota^^^^^Haffirmative action proponents claiming that anybody who opposes racial quotas is racist.

being against illegal immigration has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. it has to do with national sovereignty. if u believe in that, then believing that we should enforce our borders. mexico does the SAME DAMN THING. on their southern border. just TRY to sneak across that one.

people should be able to discuss the issue of illegal immigration and sovereignty without a bunch of identity politics ninnies claiming "racism racism". some people here sound like a bunch of democratic underground rejects.

|8.28.06 @ 7:57PM|#

You want to see something funny?

Go back into the archives and read the comment threads from the weeks of the big immigration protests, especially the second one, and look at the tough guy conservatives wetting themselves about the scary brown people holding peaceful demonstrations.

There's even a drinking game: every time you see a reference to "the implicit threat of physical force" refering to people peacefully gathering in a demonstration, drink.

|8.28.06 @ 7:57PM|#

parse,

The eminent domain protestor was calling attention to the taking of the very shopping center the rally was being held at. His cause was relevant to the place, even if he was not taking part in the rally occuring at that moment. He did not glom on to some one else's cause.

|8.28.06 @ 8:05PM|#

being against illegal immigration has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. it has to do with national sovereignty. if u believe in that, then believing that we should enforce our borders.

I think you must have been sleeping for the entire debate, because these statements indicate you have not heard a lick of it. Did you read the Bagge comic? There's a link at the top of this page.

mexico does the SAME DAMN THING.

Are you suggesting that we adopt Mexico as our role model? Cuz that's what it sounds like you're saying...

|8.28.06 @ 9:24PM|#

What, if any, control measures are applied to open borders?

What are the impact on our current social security, SSI, Medicaid, Medicare programs?

What happens if we enter a recession/depression after opening the borders?

What keeps masses of unskilled workers from flooding our country and over taxing our infrastructure? Or is it like too many deer in an area? Of course the woods are trashed before it begins to correct itself.

If they are not owners how do they contribute their fair share to education?

At what point do the less than highly skilled begin to contribute vice use?

"Open Borders" is a title to a book (or a volume). The pages are yet empty.

|8.28.06 @ 9:43PM|#

look, there is no doubt that most racists in the US are ALSO anti-illegal immigration. it does not follow that most anti-illegal immigration people are racists. do u understand the difference?

and yes, i read the bagge comic. it reads like the classic identity politics ad hominem crap i would expect at DU, not here.

one would think it would be possible in the friggin' reason blog to have a RATIONAL discussion of border issues, national sovereignty etc. without a bunch of people claiming that everybody who does not think we should just dissolve our borders, are racists.

there should be (and is) a process for applying for citizenship. that process should not be sneaking across the border. heck, if i was not a wealthy mexican (and the vast majority of mexicans aren't wealthy), but just scraping by in mexico, i'd be among the first to try to cross the border into the US. i don't hold it against the individual mexicans. i'd do the same.

that is a far cry from believing that we should not enforce our national sovereignty and our borders such that we do not reward illegal border crossings with the de facto benefits of citizenship.

this applies equally to canadians, mexicans, or anybody else. it's just that mexicans are the only ones streaming across in great #'s, for obvious reasons. canadians are too busy watching hockey and eating kraft dinner. :l

|8.28.06 @ 10:44PM|#

i'd be among the first to try to cross the border into the US. i don't hold it against the individual mexicans. i'd do the same.

Exactly what morality do you believe in that allows you the freedom to travel and labor in the US while disallowing that freedom to someone who happens to have been born on the other side of a line on a map?

...especially given that you fully recognize that you would do the same in their shoes...

|8.28.06 @ 11:01PM|#

it reminds me of liberal racial quota^^^^^Haffirmative action proponents claiming that anybody who opposes racial quotas is racist

I've got to know: how is it that it seems like every post that contains multiple carat (sp?) symbols is from a complete loon?

|8.28.06 @ 11:06PM|#

whit,

Who called you a racist on this page?

|8.28.06 @ 11:40PM|#

What are the impact on our current social security, SSI, Medicaid, Medicare programs?

Good question, cosidering a large proportion of illegal immigrants pay into the system and have little chance of ever benefitting from them.

The again, if all were allowed to be legally employed, they'd not only contribute, but be entitled to be recipients...

|8.29.06 @ 1:28AM|#

shecky,

Not to mention the fact that immigrants can delay the demographic disaster that Social Security and Medicare represent for the US. Given the ferociously regressive nature of the nonrefundable payroll taxes, low-skill illegal immigrants are practically saviors of those programs.

But don't get me wrong. I don't believe in using poorly executed state welfare programs as an excuse to increase immigration. Government welfare and services should be reformed even as immigration is liberalized.

Carter|8.29.06 @ 1:39AM|#

That homeless vet is obviously based on Sarge, who is seen on that corner in his wheelchair with a flag. His speech is impaired from some sort of brain damage, but he is able to say "Have a nice day" and "Thank you", which he shouts at passersby whether they give him money or not. I have serious doubts Sarge made the statements attributed to him, but even if he did, his handicaps would seem to be extenuating. Is that why Bagge chose not to draw him in a wheelchair?

I realize it�s somewhat silly to criticize exaggeration in a cartoon, but Bagge is the one who presents his comic strip as being reporting based on facts.

|8.29.06 @ 7:02AM|#

Shecky,

How do illegal immigrants pay into Social Security without a social security number? Or do they have one? If so, how did they get it? Not sure how that works.

MikeP,

What are your suggestions to reform welfare and services?

|8.29.06 @ 10:46AM|#

What are your suggestions to reform welfare and services?

My comment was actually a facetious take on the oft-heard complaint that immigration can't be liberalized until there's no welfare state for immigrants to take advantage of.

A complete answer to your question would be too long and off-topic, but suffice it to say that the federal government alone as of 2001 spends $40,000 per year per person below the poverty line on unconstitutional programs -- from industrial subsidies to food stamps -- meant to economically improve people's lives. There's definitely a way to do better with less burden than that mess.

|8.29.06 @ 11:06AM|#

Oveerpopulation anyone? Overcrowding of our cities? Oh, sorry about that "our" - Americans must have no sense of possession of, uh, the country. It's just a place for everyone. I wonder if you guys propose the dissolution of borders for all other places in the world?

And have any of you thought of the implications of splitting the United States into English-speaking and Spanish-speaking populations? The lack of cohesiveness that would result?

Have any of you considered why Mexico is such a basket case? Is it just an abstract problem, or might it have something to do with the people themselves and their culture?

|8.29.06 @ 12:13PM|#

Oveerpopulation anyone? Overcrowding of our cities? Oh, sorry about that "our" - Americans must have no sense of possession of, uh, the country.

Somehow Manhattan seems to manage without a "sense of possession" of the city. And Connecticut seems to manage without a "sense of possession" of the state.

As to your worries about Mexican immigration in particular, perhaps you missed the recent thread where Douglas Massey's Cato Unbound article was brought up.

|8.29.06 @ 12:42PM|#

How do illegal immigrants pay into Social Security without a social security number? Or do they have one? If so, how did they get it? Not sure how that works.

Those ineligible to get a Social Security Number -- but whose money the government wants anyway -- receive an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. The Orange County Register has a recent article describing the use of such numbers:

By law, anyone who makes enough money regardless of legal status must file a tax return. The IRS and the state Franchise Tax Board allow people without Social Security numbers, such as illegal immigrants, to file their taxes by providing them with a special nine-digit number. An Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) is given to a range of people without Social Security numbers, such as foreigners who invest in U.S. stocks and people in the U.S. with work visas.

|8.29.06 @ 6:44PM|#

I can vouche for the use of ITINS. Illegal immigrants can even use them in lieu of a SSN when applying for a mortgage with certain lenders.
One really unfortunate consequence of allowing the legitimate use of ITINs for illegals is that unscrupulous folks who often set themselves up "Notario Publicos"* in Mexican neighborhoods claim that they will help the people become legal and get them a legitimate SSN. All they do is help the poor souls get a ITIN. I've seen them apply for a mortgage certain that they were legit, and they found out that they were duped only after we pulled their credit.

*In Mexico a Notario Publico is an attorney that assists with legal paperwork, like wills and immigration papers, unlike in the US where a Notary Public is someone certified by the state to serve as a witness to signatures on legal documents.