Recently at Reason Online

May 29, 2008

Here's a recap of recent memorable material posted at reason online:

Help Set "The Copenhagen Consensus"!: Vote now to tell policymakers what global problems should be tacked first Bjorn Lomborg (5/28)

Does Fashionable Beat Rational When It Comes to Solving the World's Biggest Problems? : The third dispatch from the 2008 Copenhagen Consensus Conference Ronald Bailey (5/28)

No Child Left Behind: Texas abuses children to prevent abuse. Jacob Sullum (5/28)

Now Playing at Reason.tv: Drew Carey Looks at the High Costs of Building a Border Wall (5/28)

Go to reason.tv for more information on immigration and instructions on how to display this video at your website.

Comments

BakedPenguin|5.29.08 @ 2:19PM|#

Damn it! Not another clip thread...

|5.29.08 @ 2:28PM|#

LoneWackoooooo!!

|5.29.08 @ 2:30PM|#

Hey, Episiarch, write this one down for your Predictions History:

The term "Cophenhagen Consensus" will be less widely disseminated in the Anglosphere as "Arab Spring," and last roughly as long.

Orange Line Special|5.29.08 @ 2:39PM|#

Cool! Here's the Drew Carey Challenge. It involves just one specific topic; is he intellectually honest enough to try to answer it? (Note: he doesn't have to try to answer it all alone, he can feel free to get help from all the people he's going to need).

Naga Sadow|5.29.08 @ 2:45PM|#

A border wall was always an integral part of the constitution. The homeland security webpage says so.

|5.29.08 @ 2:46PM|#

Following Lonewacko's link, you find...

While individual workers might be "peaceful", as a group they form a political power bloc for foreign governments. In other words, for very little gain (cheap labor is cheap for a reason), we'd be giving a foreign government even more political power inside the U.S. than they have now.

Yesterday at H&R, Lonewacko wrote...

While individual workers might be "peaceful", as a group they form a PoliticalPower bloc for foreign governments. In other words, for very little gain (cheap labor is cheap for a reason), we'd be giving a foreign government even more PoliticalPower than they have now.

It appears there is some filter that reason.com applies to Lonewacko's comments that causes the ConcatenatedCapitalization. It's a lossy filter, though, as it dropped the text "inside the U.S."

|5.29.08 @ 3:14PM|#

LoneWhackJob/OLS,
Your "question" makes no sense.

While individual workers might be "peaceful", as a group they form a political power bloc for foreign governments. In other words, for very little gain (cheap labor is cheap for a reason), we'd be giving a foreign government even more political power inside the U.S. than they have now.

First, it's not a question it's a statement, and a false one at that.

Foreign workers(non-US citizens) only comprise about 10% of our entire population and therefore exercise very little control over the political structure as a whole. After all, if it were a sheer numbers game this country would be much more libertarian based on the "libertarian leaning" polls.

Since those numbers are relatively abysmal, let's look to a country where the foreign workforce is not only greater in percentage but actually exceeds the native population of the country by a margin of 5:1. Dubai would be that country. Only 17% of the country's population is native Emerati, the balance being foreign workers or expats.

Do foreign workers control the political power in Dubai? Of course they don't. They may agitate for better working conditions but then so do their native workers. If it doesn't happen when the native population is overwhelmed 5:1 it isn't going to happen when the numbers are reversed and then some at 1:10.

You may argue that Dubai is a Dictatorial Kingdom whereas this is a Democratic Republic and you'd be right. Of course, non-citizens can't participate in the Republican process here, at least not directly anyway and any participation they do participate in has to convince the actual voting populace.

If you are going to try to scare people over the big, bad, brown, menace you should really formulate questions(or statements) that are not so easily refuted.

Now, onto the real meat of your "question".
Your concern isn't the political power that "foreign workers" hold in this country, rather it's the perceived change in the demographic that you seem to think is happening. The problem is almost everybody in this country has bloodlines that start out of it, indeed most of them start outside of this hemisphere.

Face it, this country is and it's demographics have always been and always will be in flux. Fucking deal with it you xenophobic pussy.

Michael Ejercito|5.29.08 @ 5:46PM|#

Here is a quote from the California Supreme Court on why polygamy is a crime.


We emphasize that our conclusion that the constitutional right to marry properly must be interpreted to apply to gay individuals and gay couples does not mean that this constitutional right similarly must be understood to extend to polygamous or incestuous relationships. Past judicial decisions explain why our nation's culture has considered the latter types of relationships inimical to the mutually supportive and healthy family relationships promoted by the constitutional right to marry …. Although the historic disparagement of and discrimination against gay individuals and gay couples clearly is no longer constitutionally permissible, the state continues to have a strong and adequate justification for refusing to officially sanction polygamous or incestuous relationships because of their potentially detrimental effect on a sound family environment…. Thus our conclusion that it is improper to interpret the state constitutional right to marry as inapplicable to gay individuals or couples does not affect the constitutional validity of the existing legal prohibitions against polygamy and the marriage of close relatives.

|5.29.08 @ 6:45PM|#

Are you quoting that passage as an example of poor legal reasoning?

Michael Ejercito|5.30.08 @ 11:34AM|#

I have to admit that it is very poor legal reasoning.

If you think about it, the same reasoning used to justify bans on polygamy is used to justify bans on same-sex marriage, and yet the court wrote that this reasoning is justification to restrict what types of relationships qualify as marriage.

Mike Laursen|5.30.08 @ 4:06PM|#

Cool! Here's the Drew Carey Challenge. It involves just one specific topic; is he intellectually honest enough to try to answer it?

You were great in the Drew Carey video, Lonewhacko! Nice moustache!