Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on Bachmann's Foolish Crusade Against Unauthorized Workers

"Michele Bachmann has rushed in where angels fear to tread '" and she is a fool for doing so," notes Reason Foundation Senior Analyst in her latest column at The Daily. "Just when her campaign badly needed some class, she reached into the mud and found another group to demonize besides homosexuals: illegal immigrants."

This will put her in bed with groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies and Numbers USA, the political godfathers of the modern anti-immigrant movement. But what Bachmann doesn't realize is that the radical Malthusianism that underlies their crusade is fundamentally at odds with her own Christian, pro-life beliefs.

These groups have peddled five myths about illegal immigrants to whip up public sentiment that Bachmann will now have to hawk as well.

What are these? Go here to find out.

Comments

[Almanian]

Old news - dr

[Drake]

Here we go.

The brilliant Libertarian strategy of importing millions of foreigners who will then vote for Statists. Then... I forget the rest.

[Episiarch]

So allowing people free movement is secondary to controlling who comes in and votes for whom. You're the fucking statist, asshole.

[Colin]

+1

[Slap the Enlightened!]

If we didn't have numbnuts like you making statism look so attractive to the alternative, maybe you wouldn't have so many statists to worry about?

Maybe you ought to join the Free State Project or that libertarian Seastead project, where you can live among people Just Like You, and you can all get together and rail about the other people who want to live among people who are Just Like Them.

[mr simple]

Why do you come here?

[the 'Enlgihtened']

"...and you can all get together and rail about the other people who want to live among people who are Just Like Them"

You mean live amongst people who are white?

[Episiarch]

Maybe if you made any sense at all, it might be worth responding to you.

[tarran]

Go easy on him, Epi,

The lot of a white supremacist is very hard in these dark times.

Whites are so superior to other races that whites must be protected from them. Which isn't happening anymore. Pretty soon white boys won't be able to find a white girl to marry anymore and will have to breed with dusky women like Salma Hayek.

[Libertarian White Supremacist]

Did you know libertarians propertarians can tell aggressors by the amount of melanin in their skin?

In short; racialist science is properly not an act of aggression or a cover for oppression of one group over another, but, on the contrary, an operation in defense of private property against assaults by aggressors. ~Murray Rothbard

[KPres]

Property is liberty! - Proudhoun

[Drake]

Your Libertarian purity and name-calling have earned you a spot in Libertarian Heaven.

[White Indian]

The brilliant Libertarian propertarian strategy of importing millions of foreigners who will then work cheaply and make profits for the real owners of the country (and funders of Libertarian propertarian "think tanks") while they're safe from any consequences behind their Inclosured Community fences.

But they'll tell you it's all about freedom. It's a cool act. Economic priestcraft.

[White Indian]

Plus middle management, i.e., government, gets more voters to their ends.

It's an all around good deal for the owners and middle management (government) of the company town known as America, Inc.

[Almanian]

Cool story, bro.

OK, not really.

[White Indian]

It has nothing to do with "freedom of movement." It is all about the Wardens (capitalist owners and middle-management government) administering their Populations of Domesticated Humans.

If you were really for, and if we had "freedom of movement," then I could gambol across forest and plain like Non-State people did for 17,000 years (until 300 years ago) without being shot or imprisoned or herded into a concentration reservation.

[KPres]

Uh, non-state people who gamboled into their rivals tribal territory got an arrow through the throat.

Nevermind, though, the tragedy of commons doesn't exist. Let's just all do whatever we want. No need to worry it's effect on others.

[Anagrams for White Indian]

Eat Hindi Win

Wan Hindi Tie

A Den Within I

Awe Hid In Tin

[mr simple]

1. Allowing people to better their lives through freedom of movement is not the same as importing.
2. While I'm sure you everything there is to know about the little brown people, most immigrants are hard-working people who have had enough of government in their lives in the country they left and are usually too socially conservative for my tastes, but it's not my decision.

[mr simple]

Also, a free flow of labor is necessary for a functioning capitalist economy.

[White Indian]

Officer, am I free to gambol across plain and forest, living a Non-State sociopolitical lifestyle popular here just 300 years ago, before the invasion/occupation of the City-State?

No?

People may want to leave a worse prison for a little better prison, but let's not joke around about freedom of movement.

It's all managed now.

[Pip]

"Officer, am I free to gambol across plain and forest(?)"

Actually, yes. If you believe otherwise it must be due to your court ordered committment in which case, you need to focus your blame on the judge and two shrinks.

[R C Dean]

What Indian, you could spend the rest of your life gamboling across plain and forest (legally!) and not cover a smidgen of a fraction of the state and national parks available for this purpose.

So get after it, already!

[White Indian]

Actually, no.

Ever hear of the Trail of Tears?

Try living a Non-State social lifestyle here in America, and you will be shot or imprisoned by police, privation property land owners, etc.

[Pip]

"Ever hear of the Trail of Tears?"

Why yes I have. It's the trail of tears I leave every time I laugh my ass of at your inane posts.

[R C Dean]

Seriously, What Indian?, you can do all the gamboling you want at state and federal national parks. No private property owners, there. With a little discretion, the rangers won't even know you're there, much less give you a hard time.

If you are so sold on the benefits of the primitive lifestyle, give it a fucking try already. Alaska in particular would give you everything you need in terms of freedom from interferin' propertarians.

And if you think we're going to send the Armored Cavalry in to drive you cross-country to a rez, you seriously need to get over yourself.

[KPres]

"It's all managed now."

It was managed before. Only not as well.

[Rhywun]

I stopped at "import". Nothing further of any value can be expected from this one.

[wareagle]

so not welcoming illegal immigrants amounts to being anti-immigrant? Who let Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in the door? Next thing you know, we'll be hearing about proposals to make illegal immigration, you know, illegal.

[MWG]

If you referring to the Center for Immigration Studies and #s USA then yes, they are 'ant-immigrant'. Both organizations are for against 'legal immigration'.

Is there anything Bachmann has said regarding immigration that would make her pro 'legal immigrant'?

[T]

Both organizations are for against 'legal immigration'.

That's an exceptionally incoherent sentence, even for you.

[MWG]

That was pretty bad. I'm typing on a new iPad, so my awesome grammar and apperanly my ability to proof read have disappeared.

Should read: Both organizations are against 'legal immigration'.

[wareagle]

and what has she said that makes her anti legal immigrant? She and Marcus are busy converting gays regardless of immigration status.

[O2]

no, they take fed $ and attempt convert TEH [GAYZ]. it doesnt matter if there's no conversions

[wareagle]

so the Bachmanns are really liberals and we should judge them by the intentions, not the outcome, of their ideas.

[MWG]

FTW!

[White Indian]

Christian, pro-life beliefs

Now that's a stretch.

Anybody who believes that an innocent virgin human must be slaughtered in a bloody sacrifice on a Roman torture device, so as to appease a Bronze-age Ugaritic sky-god plagiarized by the Hebrew priestcraft who claimed their gOD commanded the kidnapping, sexual humiliation, and forcible rape of "comely" female war captives,* ain't pro-life.

* When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house. But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive's garb. After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife. However, if later on you lose your liking for her, you shall give her her freedom, if she wishes it; but you shall not sell her or enslave her, since she was married to you under compulsion. Deuteronomy 21:10-14

[T]

I remember some quote about needing to demonize people for political ends. Or was that about imaginary hobgoblins? My practical politics is a bit rusty, me being a libertarian and all.

[White Indian]

Statist pig! Socialist swine!

How is it "demonizing" somebody to quote their inerrant, infallible scriptures contradict their public relations talking points?

[Karl May]

Wie?e Indianer, you do know that many Christians either are not literalists or don't care/know what Deuteronomy says? When did Christians last implement this?

Should we start on about the Morning Star sacrifice your idols actually practiced in recent times (much more recently than any Christian groups implemented that passage in Deuteronomy)? What does that prove about the peaceful, free Indians? Or will you engage in special pleading for your team?

(The point is that you can cherry pick bad things about any group, and your cherry picking isn't particularly good because you set yourself up to be tarred with the same brush. If it works for Christians it certainly works for Native Americans as well.)

[Professional Critic]

That passage doesn't say what you think it says. In fact, it says the opposite. Thanks for playing.

[Argument Clinic]

M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!

The Argument Sketch
From "Monty Python's Previous Record" and "Monty Python's Instant Record Collection"
http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/sketch.htm

[Colin]

One day soon Bachmann will be just an asterisk. Perry has completely taken her wind, and for that alone the nation owes him gratitude.

[T]

So, Perry broke Bachmann's wind? Is that what you're saying?

[White Indian]

You one funny T.

[T]

Oops. Didn't mean for that to thread. My mistake.

[Hank]

Bachmann is an idiot. Having said that, this article is the worst kind of awful. Every point made is about these other groups, and Bachmann is tied to them only by some amorphous comment about being "anti-illegal immigrant".

But what's the headline: Bachmann Sucks, Mmmmkay?

[Hank]

It's exactly the kind of article Reason will (rightfully) rail against if Ron Paul and his newsletters come up again.

[mr simple]

Agreed. There are also a few statements like this:

They enhance overall economic productivity, lowering the prices of goods and services and raising ? not lowering ? real wages.

So I'm just supposed to take your word for it? Not even a sentence fragment about how you reached this conclusion?

[Shiksa Dalmatian]

So I'm just supposed to take your word for it? Not even a sentence fragment about how you reached this conclusion?

Fuck you, that's why.

[Tonio]

[T]he radical Malthusianism that underlies their crusade is fundamentally at odds with [Bachmann's] own Christian, pro-life beliefs.

Shikha, I really like your writing but you keep using this rhetorical device of defining other peoples beliefs for them, also, recently "a true progressive would..."

There are like a gazillion different flavors of Christianity, all at odds with one another about something or other. So, unless you belong to the same denomination as Bachmann, it's inappropriate to criticize her on doctrinal grounds. There's plenty of grounds on which to legitimately criticize her without losing your credibility.

[bigbubba]

The article was referring to the Christian beliefs that Bachmann subscribes to, not all Christian beliefs...

[Propertarian Think Tanks]

Immigration has little to do with "freedom of movement." It is mostly about the City-State Prison Wardens, i.e., capitalist owners and middle-management government, administering their ultimate resource: Populations of Domesticated Humans who have been disestablished from the land and therefore forced to work for the owners, (or beg from middle-management,) or starve.

If libertarian propertarian think tanks truly advocated "freedom of movement," then they would advocate we could gambol across forest and plain like Non-State people did for 17,000 years (until 300 years ago) without being shot or imprisoned or herded into a concentration reservation.

[Karl May]

Wei?e Indianer, repeating yourself does not help your case. Neither does foolish imagery of Indians skipping through the fields of flowers (which is the only way I can imagine them gamboling).

[KPres]

Yep, the Marxism always comes through.

[Slap the Enlightened!]

I liked what Roissy had to say about libertarians and open borders. He nailed our Enlightened Cosmopolitans? perfectly.

I keep hearing from all these erudite economists and Ellis Island schmaltzfuckers in love with their open borders theories that the down economy is causing illegal migrants to return to Mexico by the truckloads. Oh really?

Number of Mexican immigrants returning home dropped during latest recession, study finds.

Fewer Mexican immigrants returned home from the United States during 2008 and 2009 than in the two years prior to the start of the recession, a finding that contradicts the notion that the economic downturn has hastened return migration to Mexico, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

I love the whir of a furious backpedal, coming soon to a libertardian blog near you. Can we just finally concede that the anti-nationhood Western elite policy of ignoring the porous borders and demonizing anyone who notices was nothing but a giant middle finger gleefully wagged in the face of middle and lower class whites? Candor is good for the soul.

Indeed. The peasants are getting the bird from their Enlightened? betters, and they know it. One of these days, they may decide to do something about it.

Time to buy stock in burning torches and pitchforks...

[mr simple]

Why don't you peddle your racist, Know-Nothing wares elsewhere.

[Azathoth]

I really don't get this.

Private property is very important--my body, my land, my stuff--but anything beyond that--like maybe people creating an agricultural city-STATE, and maintaining their borders would be bad because it might impede people who want to do something with my stuff without my permission? So private property is only important as long as the things that are mine don't impede someone trying to get their own stuff?

I still can't grasp why the idea of protecting private property cannot travel up the chain of government? Why libertarians want a society to maintain X ideals without maintaining Y space to maintain them in? Or does it only work if it's the whole world? Is this a point where the perfect is the enemy of the good? Where for want of an ideal state, all work towards that state must cease lest we impede those who have no desire for the ideal state we seek?

[White Indian]

Property by use is very important. But causing privation to others by abstract ownership of the earth is different.

Attorney Jeff Vail differentiates between "abstract ownership" (vast tracts of land and resources not needed for survival) and "property by use" (bagpipes, a bow and arrow, your clothes, your shelter, etc.), as presented in the following article:

The Right to Property
by Jason Godesky | 18 July 2005
http://rewild.info/anthropik/2.....-property/

He does a good job of deconstructing Lockean "abstract ownership property rights" while supporting "property by use," which has been recognized by all Non-State band and tribal societies.

Give it a read; even if you disagree, you'll be challenged on you Lockean ideology.

[Azathoth]

Get off the damned computer if you're wanting to be a hunter gatherer. Stop blathering and go do it. You can, you know? There are numerous quasi-tribal groups living nomadic lives in this country. Eating what they can find or catch, sleeping where they want. These people exist, White Hypocrite, why aren't you with them?

I've done it.

I think you'd shit yourself if you ever had to deal with meat that didn't come on little foam trays. I think you have no idea what a real subsistence life is like.

Get out and learn to kill for your supper.

[Old Mexican]

Re: White Imbecile,

He does a good job of deconstructing Lockean "abstract ownership property rights" while supporting "property by use," which has been recognized by all Non-State band and tribal societies.

You mean "homesteading," right? You numbskull. Homesteading IS a recognized form of right to property, you stupid, gullible fool.

What a waste of time you were for your mom. I am sure she regrets it by now...

[KPres]

"Property by use is very important. "

No it isn't. It's an economic distortion which creates a disincentive to capital production and is probably the reason your tribal societies stagnated (thank God).

[KPres]

BTW, Stalin made the same distinction. He called it "personal property" vs. "private property".

As I said, the Marxism always comes through in the end.

[KPres]

Strike that. White Indian's position is that we shouldn't have any private property and leave it to nature instead. Even the Marxists weren't that stupid.

[Pro Libertate]

Say, is there a Republican politician of note named Turner? That should be her VP candidate, if nominated.

[wareagle]

the campaign is in overdrive to find just such a veep.

[MWG]

"I still can't grasp why the idea of protecting private property cannot travel up the chain of government?"

You mean like 'private government property RIGHTS'?

[oft]

The Founding Fathers would agree with Bachmann. Below is their opinion on citizens. The framers would deport illegals immediately.

[T]hose who acquire the rights of citizenship, without adding to the strength or wealth of the community; are not the people we are in want of."

-James Madison, to Congress Feb 3, 1790. The Writings of James Madison. 1998 World Book Inc. Western Stnd Publishing Co.

Most hispanics who break our laws to enter our country, add no strength to our communities, since they fail to assimulate and hold onto their own language and culture, and they provide no wealth as they send billions back to their home countries.

Crossing our border illegally is not acting decently. Washington would never have allowed it to get this bad:

"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment."

-George Washington. To THE MEMBERS OF THE VOLUNTEER ASSOCIATION
AND OTHER INHABITANTS OF THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND WHO HAVE LATELY ARRIVED
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK, New York, December 2, 1783.

[MWG]

"The Founding Fathers would agree with Bachmann. Below is their opinion on citizens. The framers would deport illegals immediately.'

You're actually full of shit. The 'Founding Fathers' found immigration to be so inconsequential that they didn't even mention it in the constitution.

"and they provide no wealth as they send billions back to their home countries."

Major basic economics FAIL. You're confusing wealth with value.

"Crossing our border illegally is not acting decently."

Sorta like escaped slaves weren't acting decently (See Fugitive Slave Act), or that uppity Rosa Parks. The law is the law, right?

[Tulpa]

Begging the question.

The fugitive slave law was clearly unjust. I've not seen anything other than bloviation that shows the border-crossing laws to be unjust.

[MWG]

You're missing the point. Oft claims that because they 'broke the law' they're not decent people. It's a mere appeal to authority and not an argument. Why are people that risk their lives in the middle of the desert for a job inherently not decent. Well, according to oft, because the law is the law.

Regarding your point (which really had nothing to do with my point) if you believe in the right to free movement and association, which I do, you might be able to see how the prohibition on the immigration of a whole class of people might seem unjust.

[KPres]

1. That's not what appeal to authority means, dingbat.

2. If you adopt the rule of law as a valid political principle unto itself, then breaking the law would,in fact, make you a less "decent person", even if you consider the law itself was unjust.

[MikeP]

and they provide no wealth as they send billions back to their home countries.

Scratch an anti-illegal immigration zealot, find a mercantilist.

[Old Mexican]

Re: oft,

Most hispanics who break our laws to enter our country, add no strength to our communities, since they fail to assimulate and hold onto their own language and culture, and they provide no wealth as they send billions back to their home countries.

Let's send back all those Italians and their spaghetti! Noodles are unamerican!!

By the way, you stupid fuck: Money is NOT wealth. In order to obtain money, you have to produce something, and the product of the labor from "hispanics" STAYS HERE, in the U.S. So wealth IS being created HERE, in the U.S.

Learn some economics before you even dare opine on matters you know naught.

How's that for assimilating, huh? This Mexican knows some ingles! You dumb fuck.

[Rhywun]

What is so hard to understand about individual freedom?

I love this one: "They fail to assimilate and hold onto their own language and culture." OH NO!! How DARE they not conform!? How rude of them.

[MWG]

"I love this one: "They fail to assimilate and hold onto their own language and culture." OH NO!! How DARE they not conform!? How rude of them."

It's actually really stupid when you stop and think about it. The vast majority of immigrants learn english. Other than that, I don't know what one should expect from them. Should they eat apple pie every night for dinner and play baseball on the weekends? What the hell is US culture anyway? It's undefinable.

[Isaac Bartram]

It's also funny that the poster, oft, brought the Founders into a discussion about immigration.

One of their grievances was that the Crown was restricting it.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

[Tulpa]

The population density situation in the US was slightly different in 1776.

[MWG]

Whatever Tony.

[Isaac Bartram]

And...?

[tarran]

The most populated states had a population density of > 40 people per square mile.

The U.S. currently has 80 people per square mile.

This meme that the U.S. is too populated for immigration is pure unadulterated bullshit.

If there was a real population density problem, you'd be seeing all kinds of efforts to disincentivize child-bearing instead of subsidizing it as the government does now.

[KPres]

"NO!! How DARE they not conform!? How rude of them."

Culture serves the purpose of unifying communication and expected behavior, making everybody's life easier. At the same time, you need cultural competition in order to generate innovation and evolution.

In a free society both processes would happen through a process similar to natural selection. However, what we do is prop up failed cultural norms through the welfare state. "Failed cultural norms" might mean a whole host of behaviors, but in this case, it means people that refuse to learn the language the vast majority of their peers are speaking.

INOW, let them be free to speak whatever they want, so long as they suffer the consequences on their own that follow from having reduced social interactions (ie, lower standard of living).

[R C Dean]

What the hell is US culture anyway?

Cowboy poetry and crucifixes dipped in urine, according to the feds.

[MWG]

Don't forget the Tractor Pulls!

[DC Police Chief]

Question for the open borders, natural law crowd: do you support *any* restrictions on people entering the country? eg, if a guy who's been convicted of blowing up buildings in Kuala Lumpur shows up at the border carrying a bunch of Second Amendment-protected items, are you going to deny him entry?

[MWG]

I'm almost as 'open-borders' as they come, so let me take a stab at this. There should be an orderly process for people to exercise their right of free movement. Currently those seeking to immigrant to the US have to pass a background check, which they pay for themselves. I see nothing 'unreasonable' with that.

[tarran]

We had a home invasion crew from North Carolina show up in my home town.

Somehow the police caught them without manning checkpoints on the Connecticut border and checking everyone coming into Massachusetts.

Which kind of makes sense. How many mad bombers are in the world? 10,000 or so? Divide that by 6 billion people, and the utter worthlesness of having border checkpoints becomes clear.

[Anna]

Isn't your libertarian hero and Rirchite racist scumball, Ron Paul, anti-immigrant, too?

[alaamiah]

ern anti-immigrant movement. But what Bachmann doesn't realize is that the radical Malth