I read the
Volokh Conspiracy pretty regularly, but I rarely enjoy reading it. It's an important blog and is generally regarded as a conservative blog (though the fact that it has been absorbed by the Washington Post makes me question how true that assumption is). Unfortunately, it's a blog run by lawyers and is marred by the fact that its writers think like lawyers.
What I mean by that, is that the writers often concern themselves far more with what is legal, or what can be justified by precedent and case law, than what is right. As lawyers, they have a certain respect for the laws and the processes surrounding them. I view that as a liability. Law is often twisted for evil while maintaining a scrupulous attention toward legal language and precedent.
The blog also appears to be generally pro-immigration. I think this is an extension of the fact that the authors are academics, and far more caught up in ivory tower theorizing than the facts on the ground in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods like the ones in which my rental properties stand.
I consider the pro-immigration stance to be an almost comically unjustifiable position on the merits, so it causes me to have grave doubts about their intellectual honesty in other areas (pretty much the opposite of the
Gell-Mann Amnesia phenomenon. I try to actively cultivate this. If you discover a source being outrageously ignorant in an area about which you are knowledgeable, you should assume until proven otherwise that they are ignorant on subjects about which you are not very knowledgeable).
An example of this is the recent article
"Assessing immigration policy as if immigrants were people too". How can you take seriously an article that starts off with such an outrageous straw man assertion? Point me to the ranks of immigration opponents who don't think immigrants are people, too? They are virtually* non-existent. This is a blatant attempt to demonize the opposition by the inference that they think of immigrants as less than human. It's ridiculous and offensive.
Of course immigration opponents think immigrants are people, too. We also happen to think that, as these people are citizens of other nations, it is
those nations that have primary responsibility for protecting those citizens' rights and privileges under law. If that nation is failing in its responsibilities that does not mean that all of a sudden those people become the responsibility of the U.S.
Either you support the idea that the U.S. is justified in exercising
Manifest Destiny over the entire world, or you accept that much of the world population is simply neither our problem nor our responsibility, nor should it be.
Also, lets make it plainly clear, when pro-immigration forces talk about "immigrants" they really mean "illegal immigrants." Failure to be clear on the distinction is another characteristic piece of intellectual dishonesty common to pro-immigration types. Of course, many of them are also "open borders" types who believe in the ludicrous proposition that anyone should be able to choose to reside in any nation they wish at any time.
As to the illegals: people who flaunt our laws, violate our sovereign territory, and engage in persistent deception to hide their illegal status or who refuse to accept the legal consequences for it are terrible candidates for permanent residency or citizenship. They are, by definition, people who do not respect our laws. They are, by definition, criminals.
Let's state the obvious: every person in the world is a person. It makes as much sense to talk about "assessing immigration policy as if immigrants were people too" as it does to talk about "assessing anti-terrorism policy as if terrorists were people too." Yes. Terrorists are people. We know that. It's rather beside the point. What is not beside the point is that what these people are
not, is citizens of our country.
The article says "For many current and potential immigrants, denying them entry or
deporting them once they have arrived means consigning them to a life of
poverty and oppression in Third World countries."
First, our primary source of immigrants by several orders of magnitude is Mexico. Despite popular perception, Mexico is not a third-world country. It's an advanced, industrialized nation with large government, business and education infrastructures. It uses immigration as a means of letting off steam -- exporting its malcontents and its peasants rather than addressing their needs. Consigning someone to a lifetime in Mexico is not a crime against humanity, so lets stop pretending it is.
As for immigrants from truly hellish places -- pick a random African nation -- well, Africa is filled with hundreds of millions of desperate, impoverished people. It's patently ridiculous to say that our only humane option is to give each of them a free pass to the U.S. Even if it were possible to import the entire population of Africa to the U.S., if you think doing so wouldn't destroy the U.S. as we know it, you're lying to me or to yourself.
Anyway, if we really want to bring U.S. style rights and benefits to all the downtrodden people of Africa, wouldn't it simply be more efficient to take over Africa? Start a new colonial, imperial era? That would give the downtrodden people the advantage of being able to remain in a familiar land, speak a familiar language, and give us ample space to accommodate them all. Of course, this would be
terrible! First, it's part of the liberal catechism that colonialism is terrible (all the ways that perception is wrong is fodder for a different article). Second, the Africans would fight us tooth and nail. For some reason millions of them want to bring Africa to the U.S., but they're not so keen on bringing the U.S. to Africa (except when it means us sending them boatloads of food and money). I'm fine with that. Let them just stay in Africa, then, and fix it.
At a fundamental level of human dignity, each man's fate and destiny is his own. If you want a better world, you have to build it, not expect it to be handed to you on a platter.
The author's answer to this: "One can argue that the US government is not responsible for the poverty
and oppression that exists in Third World countries, and therefore we
have no moral obligation to let in immigrants fleeing from it. But when
we restrict immigration,
we do more than simply ignore poverty and oppression created by others.
We actively use force to prevent immigrants from escaping those
terrible conditions – even in cases where there are Americans who are
perfectly willing to engage in voluntary transactions with those
migrants, by hiring them for jobs or letting them rent housing."
Unless the immigrant is to become an indentured servant of the U.S. citizen that is willing to hire them or house them, it is ridiculous to assert that the mere willingness of employers and landlords to transact with immigrants negates the societal effect of immigration. A permanent immigrant impacts the public space in numerous ways, and as citizens we have a right to expect our government to prioritize current citizens over those desirous of citizenship or residency. None of what the author says in any way establishes a plausible right to immigration.
I have to admit, the original article and the one in the link above are so endlessly tiresome to me that I can barely be motivated to slog through their rationalizations. We're arguing from different first principles. My first principle is that a state exists to serve the needs of its
existing citizens, to protect
their rights. A state has no meaningful concern with the rights of those outside its borders. Those people are beyond its jurisdiction in both positive and negative senses. The state has no more obligation to honor the right to immigrate of foreigners than it does to honor the right to trial by jury of citizens of North Korea. Surely the citizens of North Korea have such a right. Just as surely, we're not about to go to war with North Korea to defend North Korean citizens from their own government.
Likewise with immigration, the state has an interest in defending the right of its own citizens to immigrate to other lands, and promoting treaties and international laws that facilitate this. But, it does not have an interest or obligation to promote or defend the rights of Mexicans to immigrate to the U.S. The priorities of a nation are not necessarily symmetrical.
The cold, hard fact on the ground is that if every person in the world has the right to immigrate to the U.S., then the U.S. will itself shortly cease to exist as it currently exists.
You simply cannot allow several billion people with no interest in the United States' tradition as a constitutional republic with a limited government and a presumption of liberty and autonomy of its citizens to overrun the country. The vast majority of the world's population is some combination of tribalist or socialist, and simply wants to get in to the U.S. and get as big a piece of the public pie as they can via any means they can.
I see the Somalis in Columbus, Ohio rioting over Section 8 housing slots. These are not a people who are embracing our tradition of rugged individualism. What they're embracing is our handouts. To continue to import people like that is national suicide! I refuse to even spend too much thought over pro-immigration navel-gazing when they can't even recognize that elephant standing right in front of them. I say:
Listen you over-educated bunch of academic soft-heads -- the starving masses from around the world are not rational, acadamic philosophers. They are not your friends. They don't come in peace. They don't have a reverence for your progressive pluralistic, "diverse" society. They come to consume you. Wake the hell up.
If they want a nice country, they can fight for it just like our forefathers did. On their own ground. They can't have ours.
* I say "virtually" to account for the theory that for every crackpot idea, you can find someone on the internet who supports it.
