03.28.06
Give work permits to illegal immigrants: The homeland security case
What should we do about the illegal immigration problem?
On the one hand, the borders need to be secured. Currenly, thousands of people cross the borders illegally without being checked by customs or homeland security. This is the perfect way for terrorists to come in and smuggle nuclear and biological weapons.
On the other hand, history has shown that when there is supply on one side, and demand on the other side, the market always finds a way. Whenever governments attempt to stop an economic activity through legislation a black market emerges. That is exactly what we have today, a black market for immigrant smuggling. If we ignore economic reality and attempt to close the borders to all willing labor, the black market will continue. Alcohol prohibition didn’t work, the drug war was a total failure, making prostitution illegal has never worked, and trying to control the labor market is not going to work either. As long as there is demand for labor, and people willing to supply it, the workers will find a way to come, and the employers will find a way to hire them.
So I think the best way to solve the problem is to dismantle the black market by giving people who want to work here a legal avenue to do so. We currently have about 800,000 people crossing illegally every year. If 1,000 terrorists wanted to hide themselves among those crossing it would be relatively easy since these 800,000 are never interviewed by a border agent when they enter the country. However, if we allow those 800,000 people to come in through the front door we would be able to check their backgrounds, and we would effectively slam shut that potential revolving door for terrorists.
The same is true for the 12 million illegal immigrants currently here. If 10,000 terrorists wanted to hide among the illegal population they would find it relatively easy. However, if we were to offer work permits to illegal immigrants, the great majority would step forward and register, leaving only terrorists and criminals operating in the shadows.
Would we still have a black market for people who didn’t meet the standards? Not likely. The current black market is driven by a legitimate and powerful market force, the need of employers to find labor, and the need of workers to find jobs. If we legalize that, the engine that drives the black market will get redirected to legal activities. Since there is no market need for terrorist activity in the US, there is no economic engine to power a black market for smuggling terrorists or for keeping them here.
Would we be flooded by people becoming citizens and taking over the country? Not likely. A proposal to legalize labor does not necessarily entail an easy path to citizenship. Also, not everybody who comes here to work wants to stay here. A large percentage of illegal workers come here with the intention of making a few extra dollars so they can go back and start a business, buy a house, buy a car, etc. A lot of them stay here because if they go back it will be hard to get back in. We could (and should) still have stringent requirements for citizenship, but not for work permits.
03.22.06
Great Feynman Quote
I was listening to the Feynman’s lectures on my way from work today, and he said something that got me laughing so hard that I had to stop the CD for a while. He was talking about the evidence we have to conclude that gravity works all the way from our scale to the scale of galaxy clusters. He was showing a picture of a galaxy cluster to his students, and he said “If you cannot see gravity acting here, you have no soul”. I’ve always heard of “having soul” as something related to the appreciation of certain types of music and art, so I figured I must not have any. But if the appreciation of physical laws qualifies me, then I am a soul man!
03.09.06
The best beer ever!
When I started drinking beer in college they all tasted the same to me. At the time (blasphemy!) I actually thought that Coors Light was a good beer! As my exposure to beers increased I discovered Guiness, and stout was my favorite beer style for a while. Later, I found that I liked porter style the best; in particular, I really like Java Porter which is brewed by Mountain Sun in Boulder. Then I discovered Arrogant Bastard Ale by the Stone Brewery, and I found that I liked all of the beers from Stone Brewery as much as I liked Java Porter. However, I just found a beer that is superior by leaps and bounds to any other beer I have ever tasted, the beer is Bigfoot Ale by Sierra Nevada. It is thicker than a stout, and it has the caramel-like flavor of a stout, but it also has a very strong bitter flavor like a porter, but it is stronger than typical porters. I don’t know the lingo of beer drinkers, so I can’t quite describe the flavor like a pro, all I know is that it is my new favorite beer! The only problem is that it is a seasonal beer, so they don’t have it in stock all the time. If you go to the liquor store right now you might still find it, otherwise, you’ll have to wait for the next winter.
03.06.06
Objective Law
I spent this weekend in a law conference organized by Front Range Objectivism. The speakers were first rate, we had both academics and practitioners, and the topics complemented each other from the very abstract to the very applied. Tara Smith talked about the different doctrines on interpreting the constitution held by legal scholars today. Some of these doctrines are clearly non-objective, and even though originalism claims the high ground on objectivity, Tara Smith showed why this is not the case. Eric Daniels talked about unenumerated rights, the history of the 9th and the 14th amendment, and how the cases decided by the supreme court have radically changed the view of rights by today’s courts. It was shocking to discover that modern courts treat the 9th amendment as meaningless, and think of rights as a laundry list, whereas the original intent was to think of government powers as a laundry list. Dana Berliner talked about the case of Kelo vs. New London (which she litigated working for the Institute for Justice), what this meant for property rights, and what we can expect in the near future. Amy Peikoff talked about the history of our idea of privacy as a right, and made an interesting case for subsuming all the protections which currently fall under privacy under more fundamental rights, such as life, liberty and property.
I came away of this conference with a much better understanding of how constitutional law works. Also, I was very encouraged to find out that even though the supreme court went the wrong way on Kelo vs. New London, the awareness of the issue and shift in public opinion that came from the high profile case has done more to damage eminent domain than a supreme court ruling in favor would have done. Polls found out that 98% of people from all political persuations believe that the use of eminent domain for private undertakings is wrong. So any politician who wants a chance at getting elected or reelected is going to have to address this. As we speak, many states (including Colorado) have initiatives to make this illegal at the state level. The Institute for Justice has created the Castle Coalition site to report on eminent domain abuses, and watch the progress of the movement against it. One thing I sugested to Dana was to put up a list of the companies that benefit from eminent domain on this site, so I can avoid doing business with them whenever possible, and also, so I can short their stock.
