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NAFTA Superhighway to Hell
Chris Hayes investigates the magical, mythical NAFTA superhighway:
When completed, the highway will run from Mexico City to Toronto, slicing through the heartland like a dagger sunk into a heifer at the loins and pulled clean to the throat. It will be four football fields wide, an expansive gully of concrete, noise and exhaust, swelled with cars, trucks, trains and pipelines carrying water, wires and God knows what else. Through towns large and small it will run, plowing under family farms, subdevelopments, acres of wilderness...
Indeed, the image of the highway, with its Chinese goods whizzing across the border borne by Mexican truckers on a privatized, foreign-operated road, is almost mundane in its plausibility. If there was a NAFTA highway, you could bet that Tom Friedman would be for it--what could be more flattening than miles of concrete paved across the continent?--and Lou Dobbs would be zealously opposed. In fact, Dobbs has devoted a segment of his show to the highway, its nonexistence notwithstanding.
It's all marvelously elaborate wish fulfillment for a certain kind of conservative. The racial composition of the country is changing, and how much more fun to blame coordinated, nefarious back door dealing than to acknowledge the millions of individual decisions that feed into demographic change. (We didn't sanction Mexican nannies at Deliberation Day!) Never mind that the opposite--maintaining demographic stasis--would actually require a coordinated, expensive, and abusive campaign.
GinSlinger|8.16.07 @ 1:39PM|#
Paging TheLoneWacko, YouGotYourWish.
OMG BrownMenaceSuperHighwayOfDoooooooooom!
Franklin Harris|8.16.07 @ 1:44PM|#
The racial composition of the country is changing, and how much more fun to blame coordinated, nefarious back door dealing than to acknowledge the millions of individual decisions that feed into demographic change.
The thing that unites all neo-populists is that they are all guilty
of the constructivist fallacy, as identified by Hayek. But unlike
socialists, who think capitalism is chaos and that the world needs
to be "rationalized," neo-populists believe the entire world is
already being run like some giant clockwork machine, with sinister
cabals behind the scenes running everything for their own benefit,
which necessarily means screwing blue collar workers in America,
American farmers, and the American middle class in general.
The kookier neo-populists give these shadowy figures names like
"Illuminati" or "Builderbergers" or "Trilateralists" or The Five
Jew Bankers."
The ones who try to maintain an illusion of respectability, like
Lou Dobbs, just call their mysterious enemies "elites" or, worse
still, "economists."
thoreau|8.16.07 @ 1:45PM|#
I agree with MikeP.
However, I do not agree with Kerry Howley's decision to not include
more AC/DC references.
It ain't easy, living free...
|8.16.07 @ 1:46PM|#
We're calling it a Superhighway. Eight lanes of shimmering
cement running from Mexico to Canada. Smooth, safe, fast. Border
traffic jams will be a thing of the past.
I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off,
off and on all day, all night! Soon there will be a string of gas
stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly
prepared food! Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful,
wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see! My God...
It'll be beautiful.
thoreau|8.16.07 @ 1:48PM|#
BTW, the Onion covered this a while ago.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27842
|8.16.07 @ 1:50PM|#
Mein Gott, Warren, are you channeling Rand herself?...that's
just, beautiful writing man.
Just beautiful.
/no more broken glass thoughts
Franklin Harris|8.16.07 @ 1:51PM|#
Ayn_Randian, he's quoting Judge Doom from "Who Framed Roger
Rabbit."
Seriously.
|8.16.07 @ 1:52PM|#
Warren,
Who needs a car in Mexamerida? We have the best public
transportation system in the world!
Big Props.
|8.16.07 @ 1:53PM|#
I agree with MikeP.
Yeah, we got that some time ago.
Yeah, what's up with that? Did you lose a bet?
|8.16.07 @ 2:02PM|#
"Never mind that the opposite--maintaining demographic stasis--would actually require a coordinated, expensive, and abusive campaign." Actually, isn't virtually all recent population growth in the US attributable to recent immigration? The US native born population made many thousands of spontaneous decisions to level off the birth rate, perhaps feeling we had enough people here (especially enough kids given the poor state nations that have a lot of kids hanging out in their population are in). So immigrant spontaneous choices ruined native ones. And in essence deprived the natives of the kind of America they wanted...But hey, those agribusinesses need pickers (what the hell is wage increases or innovation to them), so let's radically change the number of people within and nature of American society. It might just work, and if it doesn't we will have some seriously cheap grapes...
|8.16.07 @ 2:12PM|#
When I drive the highways, looking at all the dangerous trucks
zooming about, it occurs to me, we need more third world peasants
driving those big rigs on our roads!
http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060622/NEWS/606220415/1004
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=93408&ran=120909&tref=po
http://www.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/dwi/0720drunkdrive.html
|8.16.07 @ 2:12PM|#
Why would the Chinese ship to Mexico to deliver to Canada?Seeing the U.S. is their largest market why drive goods all those miles to sell to 30 million peeople and bypass a market of 300 million?My mother and father believe all this tripe and I can not sway them.
|8.16.07 @ 2:17PM|#
The US native born population made many thousands of
spontaneous decisions to level off the birth rate, perhaps feeling
we had enough people here (especially enough kids given the poor
state nations that have a lot of kids hanging out in their
population are in).
Wow. You make quite a jump from many thousands of disparate
spontaneous decisions to some collective reasoning for them.
Since the costs and the benefits of the choice to have or not have
children accrue almost completely to the household having them, it
is a wild stretch indeed to presume that people make that decision
because they want a lower US population.
|8.16.07 @ 2:17PM|#
Michael Pack
The fellow on Colbert Report (supposedly an expert, I don't
remember his creds, but Colbert often has real deal experts on)
said that they will do so to avoid the high unloading costs of the
heavily unionized port workers in the US and Canada.
|8.16.07 @ 2:22PM|#
So it's cheaper to ship in small lots thousands of miles than go direct to the source?Besides,the consumer pays the frieght in the price.This makes no sense and that's why people believe it.The Bilderburgs are behind it.
|8.16.07 @ 2:22PM|#
Yeah joe, I'm a racist to point out that illegal aliens have
high accident rates. Like this racist with the Brookings
Institute:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12533972&ft=1&f=5
He attributes it to the incredibly crappy cars they buy that are
unsafe and cultural differences. But I would guess the fact that
many (a crazy high % of illegals) don't have even a HIGH SCHOOL
education can't help much.
I've got plenty of sympathy for poor people. I've argued on this
blog for some pretty radical health care changes and minimum wage
protections. But let's not be too romantic: a crazy number of
illegals are real deal peasants (think Zorro), and that kind of
suffocating poverty comes with a huge helping of ignorance,
superstition and impulsive behavior (what anthropologists call a
"culture of poverty"). We need more of that in our nation,
especially on our roads, like we need a hole in the head.
Of course many groups have worse accident rates (think of young
males, insurance companies don't make this stuff up).
Christopher Monnier|8.16.07 @ 2:25PM|#
I liked this implicitly contradicting quote at the end of the article:
For Williamson, this is progress; for Hall, it's an outrage and a tragedy. "We have so little control over our own government," she told me, the alienation audible in her voice, thunder punishing the air outside. "We are really the last beacon of freedom in the world--the land of the free and home of the brave--and we're letting it slip away from under our noses."
So the logic is, "We have so little control over our government
that the solution is to prevent the government from giving up some
of the control (i.e. the authority to build and maintain roads) it
has over us.
That doesn't make sense.
If we wanted MORE control over the government, wouldn't we shrink
the size and/or scope of the government so as to gain a comparative
advantage over it?
|8.16.07 @ 2:26PM|#
Why would the Chinese ship to Mexico to deliver to
Canada?
One possible reason is the better terms offered by NAFTA.
If I recall correctly, the first Chinese cars to be sold in the US
will get final assembly in a Mexican factory even though most of
the work will be done in China. By being finished in Mexico, the
cars come into the US duty free, which would not happen were the
cars made in China.
All the more reason the next trade agreement the US signs should be
the WUFTS (Worldwide Unilateral Free Trade Statement). Other
signatories are optional.
|8.16.07 @ 2:28PM|#
Why are you talking about illegal immigrants, Mistah
Niceguy?
Although this is a story about Mexicans, it really doesn't have
anything to do with illegal immigrants, but Mexican drivers who
live in Mexico and are authorized to drive trucks across the
border.
Eliding that difference is not a terribly effective strategy for
convincing people that you are not putting forth arguments based on
stereotyping Mexicans, you know.
Bee|8.16.07 @ 2:34PM|#
I'd worry more about crazed Canuck logging truck drivers than Mexicans who don't have high school diplomas, anyway. You want scary? That's some scary right there.
thoreau|8.16.07 @ 2:37PM|#
Here's why I say "I agree with MikeP":
MikeP kicks so much ass on immigration threads that I found there
was no need to even enter the debate. I'd be like "What he just
said." And he could usually do it more succinctly than I can. But I
wouldn't want to completely drop out of immigration threads and
leave him all to his lonesome. So I decided that from now on I'd
just show up in immigration threads and say "I agree with MikeP" to
show my support but not get bogged down.
But if it bothers the arbiters of internet etiquette, I'll
stop.
|8.16.07 @ 2:43PM|#
A few years ago, a Canadian lumber-truck driver got his rig
stuck on the elevated portion of I-93 in the middle of Boston.
Jammed between I-beams of the overpass, shut down the whole Central
Artery. The Boston Herald ran the headline, "LUMBERJERK."
And yet, like our large body of undocumented Irish retail
employees, not a word about the need for tighter immigration laws
was spoken in the accident's aftermath..
|8.16.07 @ 2:46PM|#
Of course many groups have worse accident rates (think of young males, insurance companies don't make this stuff up).
Somehow, it never hits you that a lot of immigrants are, tada!,
young males?
|8.16.07 @ 2:47PM|#
if it was such a good deal the Japanese would have done it
by now.
From a 2005 BusinessWeek
article...
More promising is the free-trade strategy Mexico has been using to build on the effects of NAFTA. Mexico now has free-trade pacts with the European Union and much of Latin America, and it just inaugurated an agreement with Japan. That means Japanese and European carmakers will be able to set up shop in Mexico, import parts from their home countries, and ship made-in-Mexico cars to Europe, Japan, or the U.S. -- all without paying tariffs. Lured in part by these arrangements, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM ) last December began producing Tacoma pickup trucks for the U.S. at a new facility in Tijuana. Similar logic is driving Volkswagen, whose exports from Mexico have dropped by half since 2000, to ready its Puebla factory for the launch of a new Jetta for the U.S. and European markets.
thoreau|8.16.07 @ 2:51PM|#
Good point about Canadian truckers, joe.
MikeP is kicking much ass in this thread.
Sorry if saying that pissed anybody off.
|8.16.07 @ 2:51PM|#
As thoreau points out, this was an Onion parody.
Does The Onion get extra points if people fall for it?
|8.16.07 @ 2:55PM|#
Sounds to me we need free trade too.The fact is the Japanese have invested in this country and invest in others.I myself have bought Nissian trucks for years.
|8.16.07 @ 2:55PM|#
Bee
It's only the ones from Quebec that you have to worry about.
Or at least that's what my friends in Ontario say.
You know, while we're on the topic of stereotypes and all. :)
|8.16.07 @ 3:06PM|#
a dagger sunk into a heifer at the loins and pulled clean to
the throat.
Which is, after all, an essential step in converting the heifer
from a grass-munching vet magnet into something more useful, like
steaks.
|8.16.07 @ 3:06PM|#
Sounds to me we need free trade too.
Indeed. Given that the free trade strategy Mexico is using to
capture automobile assembly factories works best only if the US
maintains trade barriers with other nations, I expect that agents
of the Mexican government have infiltrated the US in order to keep
those barriers going.
Even Lou Dobbs and his anti-trade tirade might be in the employ of
the Mexican government. Look for him to expand on his "War on the
Middle Class" theme by calling the NAFTA Superhighway "Bypass of
the Middle Class".
|8.16.07 @ 3:12PM|#
MikeP,Dobbs wiil rail about jobs going to Mexico then complain their all coming here to steal jobs,drink beer and steal our women.
shecky|8.16.07 @ 3:17PM|#
Ron Paul's take on the NAFTA Superhighway here:
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst103006.htm
|8.16.07 @ 3:21PM|#
FTA...
"Both the actual TransTexasCorridor and the mythical NAFTA
Superhighway represent a certain kind of future for America, one in
which the crony capitalism of oil-rich Texas expands to fill every
last crevice of the public sector's role, eclipsing the relevance
of the national government as both the provider of public goods and
the unified embodiment of a sovereign people."
This is where most of the opposition to the actual and
not-currently-actual plans comes from, in my view. NAFTA does not
represent free trade and it doesn't represent a step toward free
trade, to most people in America. It's "managed trade", which is a
nice way to say "crony capitalism." I think the article's lead and
the H&R blurb gloss over this issue in an attempt to make it
about race, which is admittedly very easy to do.
GinSlinger|8.16.07 @ 3:21PM|#
shecky, that's just disgusting and disappointing as well.
Anyone who opposes the TTC and does not have to regularly drive
long distances on IH-35 between San Antonio and Dallas needs to
STFU.
TLB|8.16.07 @ 3:22PM|#
Apparently Kerry Howley - the "libertarian" - got the memo a bit
late, since the libs linked to this story a few days ago. It's
interesting how Howley's small lizard brain gets in the way of her
limited amount of journalistic skills, otherwise she might try to
at least look into the other side of the issue.
It's also interesting how a "libertarian" site is trying to sell
its readers on the non libertarian idea of three countries being
forced into a community behind closed doors. It's also interesting
how a "libertarian" site is supporting a massive corporatist
boondoggle.
Maybe Reason is a libertarian site after all, since the ultimate
impact of their work tends to favor those who appreciate things
like corporate welfare and forced changes, no matter their
statements otherwise.
Those with open minds can check out the comments left on these
sites. Compare the comments from apologists there to those
here:
matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/the_highway_that_wasnt_there.php
digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/on-road-to-aztlan-and-mecca-by-digby.html
|8.16.07 @ 3:24PM|#
Sorry if saying that pissed anybody off.
Sorry t. I ain't trying to start no fight.
I know your dirty, mean and mighty unclean
thoreau|8.16.07 @ 3:33PM|#
It's interesting how Howley's small lizard brain gets in the
way of her limited amount of journalistic skills
Lonewacko, if you want to find somebody with limited journalistic
skills then you should go to a Michael Young thread. Kerry Howley
kicks ass.
VikingMoose|8.16.07 @ 3:43PM|#
Lone(pigfucker)wackjob:
whee wheeeee WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
(may your soul become part of a DUNDEROOOO "soul turducken" with
other various dickheads from hier)
|8.16.07 @ 3:47PM|#
GS Anyone who opposes the TTC and does not have to regularly
drive long distances on IH-35 between San Antonio and Dallas needs
to STFU.
I live in Austin and I only make the drive to DFW every other month
or so. But to imply that being forced to choose between the status
quo or the TTC is an acceptable range of options, well, that
doesn't work for me.
|8.16.07 @ 3:48PM|#
Actually, isn't virtually all recent population growth in
the US attributable to recent immigration? The US native born
population made many thousands of spontaneous decisions to level
off the birth rate, perhaps feeling we had enough people here
(especially enough kids given the poor state nations that have a
lot of kids hanging out in their population are in). So immigrant
spontaneous choices ruined native ones. And in essence deprived the
natives of the kind of America they wanted...
People in the U.S. decide not to have children because they're
trying to shape future U.S. demographics? Really? Maybe a few
lonely leftover malthusians, but if you think this sentiment is
behind the drop in U.S. native fertility rates, you're smoking
something.
People are making individual choices about the families
they want, not about broader demographic trends. You have
to be a pretty hardcore collectivist to argue that they're seeking,
and indeed entitled to a certain demography.
Sorry, Mr. Nice Guy, but you're just a little bit too eager with
these completely baseless arguments.
|8.16.07 @ 3:55PM|#
The US native born population made many thousands of
spontaneous decisions to level off the birth rate, perhaps feeling
we had enough people here. So immigrant spontaneous choices ruined
native ones. And in essence deprived the natives of the kind of
America they wanted.
Or perhaps much of that native born population felt that, after the
discovery of reliable birth control and the enactment of Roe v.
Wade, it would inconvenience their lifestyle to have any
ankle-biters.
I have three siblings who feel exactly that way. None of them
harbor any ill will toward immigrants or people with browner
skin.
|8.16.07 @ 4:04PM|#
-"It's also interesting how a "libertarian" site is trying to
sell its readers on the non libertarian idea of three countries
being forced into a community behind closed doors. It's also
interesting how a "libertarian" site is supporting a massive
corporatist boondoggle."-
I'm not clear on the rules, but we drink now, right?
|8.16.07 @ 4:07PM|#
I'm not clear on the rules, but we drink now,
right?
Absolutely. In fact, the mere presence of LoneWacko automatically
merits a drink. And by the end of that last post, you should have
been totally shitfaced.
|8.16.07 @ 4:08PM|#
I read in the Economist that the U.S. fertility rate was trending back upwards toward replacement levels. Or maybe we are already there.
GinSlinger|8.16.07 @ 4:14PM|#
temporary k,
My point is that 35 has experienced extreme growth in recent years
and, according to TxDOT, is incapable of being upgraded to meet
current or future needs. IH-35 is simply not an option anymore,
something has to ease the congestion. That said, TTC may not be the
best answer, may indeed be the worst answer, but people like
TheLoneNutjob, who want to make this about something other than an
over-congested highway need to butt out and let those of us who
have to deal with these problems do so in the manner that is most
suitable for us.
BTW, Since when does it take 1.5 hours to get from Roundrock to
downtown at 3PM on a Wednesday?
|8.16.07 @ 4:46PM|#
I-69 is a brilliant plan, it will be vital to the auto-parts
trade, as it connects the three most significant automobile
manufacturing areas of North America (the southern states,
southwestern Ontario & northern Mexico!)
- Gavin
Jesse Walker|8.16.07 @ 5:11PM|#
My big problem with the TTC is the seizure of private property. I'm not a big fan of eminent domain even when a true "public use" is involved.
|8.16.07 @ 5:21PM|#
Since when does it take 1.5 hours to get from Roundrock to
downtown at 3PM on a Wednesday?
I thought that was everyday! I just drive back and forth between
Manor & 51st and Parmer & McNeill with the occasional foray
into downtown. Driving between Georgetown and San Antonio during
daylight hours has been murder 90% of the times I've made the
trip.
I35 is in horrible shape, but why does TxDOT say it's incapable of
being upgraded to meet projections? The land grabs will be too
expensive? I honestly don't know, but I do think they've been quick
to latch onto one particular plan.
Nathan Pannbacker|8.16.07 @ 5:37PM|#
Personally, I think it's ridiculous that we have to respond to over-congested highways by building massive new corridors. The correct answer is for the government to hold its ground until a new (PRIVATE) railroad line comes in. The burgeoning demand, if not reacted to by the government, will prompt a market response eventually. If the demand was left unmet until the market reacted, it'd be beneficial towards the goal of weaning people from government transportation subsidies.
|8.16.07 @ 5:45PM|#
I too wish Ron Paul would get off the NAU/NSH kick. All it does
is encourage the conspiracists. Yes, NAFTA sucks. Yes, the SPP
sucks. And yes, the highways are a huge boondoggle that will soon
make Boston seem a frugle city. But dammit, stop throwing fuel on
the conspiracy fire!
The CFR are a bunch of big government global statists, but last
time I checked they were not a branch of the US government. They
have no power, none at all, to hand over our national sovereignty
to a NAU. Let me know if a NAU treaty ever gets to the Senate. In
the meantime lets fight the real evil instead of wasting our time
and energy on mythical beasties.
|8.16.07 @ 6:17PM|#
Joe-illegal immigrants are mostly from Mexico. Mexico has a crapload if peasants, and I would rather they not cross over on foot or in big rigs. It's not so much that the illegals are peasants from Mexico but that relative to our population they are full of peasants. They are closer to a 3rd world lacking the basic sanitation, safety regulations, and education. And you want that coming over on big rigs? Whatever!
|8.16.07 @ 6:27PM|#
"Poor educational quality: Despite very good enrollment rates,
the quality of the education Mexican children are getting is quite
poor. Mexico, with a GNI per capita of $7,310, ranked 101st out of
125 countries for the quality of its math and science educational
system. Vietnam, with a GNI per capita of $620, ranked 65th.
Literacy: Nearly 80% of Mexican 15-year-olds tested were incapable
of performing even moderately difficult reading tasks.
High drop-out rates: In 2004, only 23% of Mexican adults between
the ages of 25 and 64 had obtained a high school degree, versus 88%
in the U.S. The average years of total schooling for a Mexican
adult is 7.4, compared to almost 13 years in the U.S. "
http://www.worldfund.org/index.php?q=Mexico.html
Yeah, you'd have to be a racist to think that'll make for good
driving, or good citizenship! Have you people ever known a lot of
incredibly poor, deprived, poorly educated people? It's very little
property rights or political discourse, more like fistfights and
cockfights (nod to SIV). Lot's of superstition, impulsiveness,
recklessness, sexism, homophobia, provincialism. Let's not
romanticize that mess. Of COURSE they are not inherently dullards,
duh. They just a stunted life of deprivation and mind numbing
corruption. This is very unfortunate, and we should do everything
we can to help raise them up. But Jesus you don't want peasants in
your neighborhood, your streets or your country. Trust me, they
make fundamentalists or urban street thugs in the US look like
broadminded intellectuals.
libertreee|8.16.07 @ 7:00PM|#
But Jesus you don't want peasants in your neighborhood, your streets or your country. Trust me, they make fundamentalists or urban street thugs in the US look like broadminded intellectuals. Mr Nice Guy
The same arguments against the Irish, Italians, newly freed blacks,
Poles, etc. etc. Somehow, the nation survived those massive waves
of poor immigrants.
Progressive WASPS invented civil service and public education to
"uplift" those immigrants. Mixed to poor results there.
The fact is, some of these comments could just as well apply to
multi generational Americans as well. We call them
"rednecks".
Despite New Gingrichs inflammatory rhetoric, studies show low crime
rates among immigrants.
Syloson of Samos|8.16.07 @ 7:21PM|#
Do the majority of illegal immigrants come from Mexico?
libertree,
Yeah, it is only after a generation or so before immigrants reach
the same per capita level of crime rates.
TLB|8.16.07 @ 8:17PM|#
Brandybuck: I'm still laughing about your comments. There are
very few top government officials of the past several decades who
aren't CFR members, and it's pretty obvious that things like the
SPP are being pursued without congressional oversight and also
because congress won't do its job and oversee what SPP is doing and
what the goal is.
I'll be posting about the response to the linked article later on;
those responses help show how most bloggers can be wound up by
GuiltByAssociation and have no real journalistic skills. Of course,
in some cases there might be something else going on.
|8.16.07 @ 8:51PM|#
Literacy: Nearly 80% of Mexican 15-year-olds tested were
incapable of performing even moderately difficult reading
tasks.
High drop-out rates: In 2004, only 23% of Mexican adults between
the ages of 25 and 64 had obtained a high school degree, versus 88%
in the U.S. The average years of total schooling for a Mexican
adult is 7.4, compared to almost 13 years in the U.S. "
Shouldn't you be comparing the education levels of Mexican truck
drivers versus US truck drivers?
|8.16.07 @ 9:15PM|#
Mr. Nice Guy-
I can say through experience drivers from the Hampton Roads area
and especially the Eastern Shore are bad with or without
illegal immigrants.
|8.16.07 @ 9:20PM|#
Also, the United States would have nothing to worry about even
if the North American Union crap was true.
Canada has 30 million peole, Mexico has 108 million. The USA has
300 million--more than twice as big as both combined. The
US would dominate that union like Russia dominated the Soviet
Union. Why in the world would Mexicans and especially Canadians
want something so disadvantageous?
|8.16.07 @ 11:20PM|#
"The same arguments against the Irish, Italians, newly freed
blacks, Poles, etc. etc. Somehow, the nation survived those massive
waves of poor immigrants." Yes, and we put a very strict cap on
those groups didn't we (mind you I'm Irish) in 1924. The cap
stemmed the flow of the peasant population we were getting from
those nations, as you say. And guess what? We turned out OK and so
did the other nations.
Newly freed blacks did not immigrate here. Both their supporters
and antagonists agreed by the way that in their severly deprived
state that they were hardly fit to be good citizens. The South
wanted to just oppress them and the North wanted to use
Reconstruction to combat the effects of the horrible deprivation
the suffered. Since whites forced them to come and enslaved them it
seemed quite justified. But it seems quite nutty to say hey
peasants that would be terrible citizens, come on in and we'll use
massive government programs to try and make you decent citizens. Of
course, that is exactly what we will do, right? Or try. And
"libertarians" see this as Ok...
brian|8.17.07 @ 10:44AM|#
Mr. Nice Guy
Joe-illegal immigrants are mostly from Mexico. Mexico has a
crapload if peasants, and I would rather they not cross over on
foot or in big rigs. It's not so much that the illegals are
peasants from Mexico but that relative to our population they are
full of peasants. They are closer to a 3rd world lacking the basic
sanitation, safety regulations, and education. And you want that
coming over on big rigs? Whatever!
And all of this hurts you....how?
brian|8.17.07 @ 10:45AM|#
But it seems quite nutty to say hey peasants that would be
terrible citizens, come on in and we'll use massive government
programs to try and make you decent citizens. Of course, that is
exactly what we will do, right? Or try. And "libertarians" see this
as Ok...
Show me where a libertarian supports "massive government
programs"
|8.17.07 @ 11:11AM|#
MikeP, you magnificent bastard, I read your damn book!
Why in the world would Mexicans and especially Canadians want
something so disadvantageous?
Mexico would be like Bobby Trendy and Canada would be like Howard
K. Stern to our Anna Nicole. Sweet, ride-along deal, dude.
|8.17.07 @ 1:44PM|#
Brandybuck: I'm still laughing about your comments. There are very few top government officials of the past several decades who aren't CFR members, and it's pretty obvious that things like the SPP are being pursued without congressional oversight and also because congress won't do its job and oversee what SPP is doing and what the goal is.
The CFR still remains a private organization. It is not the
government. That some government officials are members of the CFR
is as irrelevant as the fact that some governmnet officials are
members of Rotary or Kiwanis. Many members of government join the
CFR for the same reason they join Rotary: it's the socially
expedient thing to do in Washington D.C. But the idea that the CFR
can control its members like puppets is as silly as thinking the
same of the Rotary.
Using CFR membership as some sort of political measurement is
absurd. A statist who is not a member of the CFR is still a
statist. His membership in that organization has no bearing on the
level of pain he would inflict on us.
The danger is not the organization, but the ideas that
some of its members hold. We must fight those ideas, and
not organizations or associations of people. Imagine the world
today if McCarthy had spent all his energy rooting out communist
ideas instead of communists.
|8.17.07 @ 3:55PM|#
"And all of this hurts you....how?"
I dunno Brian, I can think of negative effects from having the
number and % of the US population that is uneducated, unhealthy,
superstitious, impulsive and unsafe increase, but then I geuss I
have a vivid imagination huh?
|8.18.07 @ 6:12PM|#
Just that little snippet you quoted up there makes me long for
this road.
Imagine all the jobs it would create along the corridor:
Warehousing, fleet maintainence, super-markets of every
stripe!
Not to mention the high-paying jobs related to the corridor's
upkeep/maintainence. Let's face it, such a super-corridor would
have the latest in technological oversight; it would need a well
trained staff to use those tools.
In all, I'd imagine a super corridor bisecting America would be
like adding a new riverway, complete with docks and ports.
"privatized"? Wonderful! Everyone Wins.
The question I have (if such a thing were wrought) is would the
highway make national security easier or harder?
Ron Paul|8.20.07 @ 11:23AM|#
The proposed highway is part of a broader plan advanced by a
quasi-government organization called the "Security and Prosperity
Partnership of North America," or SPP.
The SPP was first launched in 2005 by the heads of state of Canada,
Mexico, and the United States at a summit in Waco.
The SPP was not created by a treaty between the nations involved,
nor was Congress involved in any way. Instead, the SPP is an unholy
alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several
governments. One principal player is a Spanish construction
company, which plans to build the highway and operate it as a toll
road. But don't be fooled: the superhighway proposal is not the
result of free market demand, but rather an extension of
government-managed trade schemes like NAFTA that benefit
politically-connected interests.
The real issue is national sovereignty. Once again, decisions that
affect millions of Americans are not being made by those Americans
themselves, or even by their elected representatives in Congress.
Instead, a handful of elites use their government connections to
bypass national legislatures and ignore our Constitution-- which
expressly grants Congress the sole authority to regulate
international trade.
The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated
North American Union--complete with a currency, a cross-national
bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union. Like
the European Union, a North American Union would represent another
step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether.
A new resolution, introduced by Representative Virgil Goode of
Virginia, expresses the sense of Congress that the United States
should not engage in the construction of a NAFTA superhighway, or
enter into any agreement that advances the concept of a North
American Union. I wholeheartedly support this legislation, and
predict that the superhighway will become a sleeper issue in the
2008 election.
Any movement toward a North American Union diminishes the ability
of average Americans to influence the laws under which they must
live. The SPP agreement, including the plan for a major
transnational superhighway through Texas, is moving forward without
congressional oversight-- and that is an outrage. The
administration needs a strong message from Congress that the
American people will not tolerate backroom deals that threaten our
sovereignty.
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