Issues: March 2006 Archives

Michelle Malkin notes the "peaceful" protest that left the head of the Chicago Minutemen hospital-bound for protesting loans to illegal aliens. I could have told them that banks offering loans to illegal immigrants are nothing unusual, but that doesn't change the fact they were peacefully exercising their rights to protest on public land when they were assaulted.



Michelle Malkin also has coverage of the Los Angeles illegal immigrant's rally.



Wizbang has a take on the illegal alien thing that worth mentioning.



Glenn Reynolds has more thoughts.



Once upon a time, the United States needed all the cheap labor it could get, skilled or unskilled. For unskilled labor, that time is now at least forty years in the past. If we start enforcing our immigration laws, the only thing that will happen to our economy is that employers will start having to pay a little more, which means (in most cases) some things will cost a little more, and more americans will be willing to do those jobs, so the unemployment rate will go down even more.



Furthermore, a nation unable or unwilling to control its borders ceases to be a nation. If those who are claiming this as their homeland are not justifying it under the same terms as the German "drang nach osten" (run it through some search engines), then I must ask why those subject to immigration controls weren't they born here, and thus, citizens? Did their ancestors leave after 1848? Did we throw them out? (The answer to those questions, is, in general, no). The truth is that the illegal immigrant deluge (and Britain and Canada are the second largest group of illegals!) is about economic opportunity. They can make more money here. Take away the employer's incentives to cheat our laws, and they vanish.



I still want to see immigration. We still need a good bit of it. For one thing, without immigrants, we would be almost as badly off as europe because our native born population is declining, too. But I want to see it deliberate, controlled and legal, as opposed to the tragedy of the commons and recipe for domestic terrorism that we have now. If we will not or can not control our border, we are doomed to lose it, and if the thought of operating under the Mexican government isn't enough to scare you, I don't know what would.



It is worth noting that among my wife's family (who wetbacked the Rio Grande in 1916, before doing so was illegal, who marched with Cesar Chavez in the 1960s, and who vote overwhelmingly Democratic), if you pin them down, they want illegal immigration stopped as much as any other group. It hurts the family members who are possessed of lesser skills, by forcing them to compete with low wage illegals. It hurts their chances to bring relatives still living in Mexico across legally. This is one of those things where the attitudes of the masses seems to diverge significantly from that of the self-appointed "hispanic leaders", who want a larger bloc of people that they will control.



Who benefits from cheap illegal labor? Pretty much everyone who isn't competing with it. Those who benefit the most are rich capitalists, who get much cheaper labor while not suffering the increased costs.



I just don't see that the societal value of the gains to the rich capitalists exceeds the societal value of the costs to the relatively unskilled legal residents. Indeed, it makes it ever harder for those who are here legally to get started on their upwardly mobile journey.

Volokh Conspiracy has an excellent article on the state of the law vis-a-vis publicizing past felony convictions.



I ask, how can it be permitted for the media to do something that private citizens cannot? Does the media have more freedom of speech than a private citizen? I would submit that the first amendment was clearly intended to protect both equally.



Do we want privileged classes in the US. Admittedly, we have them de facto, but is this a practice we wish to discourage, or encourage, de jure?



As an additional note, at what point does it become media? Am I, with roughly 1300 visits and 2000 page views per day over the last week (making my articles more read than many small papers, newsletters, etcetera), a media publisher? Are the Volokhs, at roughly ten times that level? Michelle Malkin, at roughly ten times that level? Does it require incorporation? Financial Statements? What, precisely, is the factor or factors distinguishing media publication from non-media?



I mistrust, as a matter of principle, all lines dividing our nation into two or more parts as to legal rights, privileges, or obligations. The correct view to take, and definitely to start with, is that all citizens are equal before the law. If A is allowed to do something, what compelling societal reason do we have for forbidding B? If C is not allowed to do something else, what overriding concern allows it to be permissible for D? We may disagree on specific cases, but I believe that the reasoning is universal.



I submit that in this case, no valid distinction can be drawn between the rights of media and the rights on individuals.



As a final reductio ad absurdem, suppose it is permissible for something to be published by one media outlet or another. Can we visualize any scenario under which it should be illegal for one citizen to tell another what they saw in a news report? If this distinction is drawn, that is precisely the state of affairs we will find ourselves in.

Nice folks: Iran Threatens U.S. With 'Harm and Pain'. Kind of like the criminal threatening the cop who brings him in for trial. Just the sort of folks we'd want to have nuclear weapons.



I do not want to get into an actual war with Iran. The US does not want to get into a war with Iran (far as I can tell, EU is only dangerous in the same way as Mellon, one of my two little dachshunds. She'd never have the guts to bite anyone - but she might accidentally drown them). But the Iranian government seems to be banking on the fact that the rest of the world is in denial about what they intend. Put their intransigent attitude together with the propaganda they are feeding their own people and the fact that they actually bragged about sandbagging the atomic negotiations and the fact that they are furnishing arms to the insurgents in Iraq, and what have you got? What situations similar to this have we seen within the last couple of millennia?



To deny that Iran is intending to acquire nuclear weapons is no longer tenable. To deny that the Iranian government has ambitions beyond their current borders is to ignore their actions of the last twenty-eight years, as well as their stated intentions. I happen to believe that they mean what they say, and that there is more than ample evidence of this. Which is better: dealing with them now when they don't have nuclear weapons, or dealing with them later when they do? I'm becoming more certain every day that that is the choice we have, and given that choice, I'll take the former, thank you very much.



I believe that the US can conquer, and can afford to occupy Iran, but more importantly, I do not believe the American public is willing to occupy Iran. Given this situation, the only way to deal with the situation is smash the government and the atomic capabilities, then leave. Net result: Americans are the bad guys, Iran spends the next twenty years playing a somewhat friendlier version of Aftermath, millions may die of starvation and similar basic causes despite the best efforts of world charities, and there's another country full of people with good reason to hate the American government. It would make them our permanent enemies. World oil prices also shoot up, but that's hardly worth mentioning on the scale of the other problems mentioned. My guess is that Russia would move in, as well. Putin would see opportunity to further his nationalist ambitions. The Russians have always had interests in the region, and there is no reason they can't want to expand those interests.



The second option is conquest and occupation followed by rehabilitation along the same lines as Iran's neighbors. It'd take more troops than Afghanistan or Iraq, as Iran is a much larger country with many more people. It would also take a firmer hand, and as a result of this, casualties would also be much higher. On the other hand, the Iraqis and possibly the Afghanis might be willing to help, even if no one else will. Assuming we have the intestinal fortitude to see it through (which I do not believe to be the case), end result is another country with a basically positive outlook on the US. Millions don't die, and there's a democratic government in place. Against that, this costs several tens of thousands of US casualties.



Third option is keep making concerned noises like we are, but sit on our thumbs and not do anything. If public Iranian statements are to be believed, end result is Israel nuked, and our friends and allies all around Iran (Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, and India, among others) menaced by Iranian nukes. Perhaps Armenia, as well, if for no other reason than that they're christian, have a historical dispute with Azerbaijan (a muslim nation) and in range. Not to mention that any revolution aimed at replacing the mullahs that doesn't capture the entire country at once gets nuked itself, because you can bet that the folks controlling the nukes will be the most fanatical available. The world wants to do anything about the situation then, nukes will be a necessary component, and not all of the nuclear traffic will be flying one way. That's kind of the idea of dealing with it before it gets there. Note that this is the default situation at this point in time. If we don't do what is necesary to prevent this, it's what we are going to get.



This is a bad situation. But moaning about it won't produce anything positive. I'd prefer occupation, but that's easy for a fat middle aged man sitting at a keyboard to say. If we want something other than a nuclear armed Iran governed by a proselytizing Islamic theocracy (i.e. a jihad government), we need to do something about it now, or at least before they get nukes, because once they have nukes (or the world believes they have nukes) the situation becomes a lot more dicey.



In other words, we do nothing, in about five years we're going to have to deal with a situation that's a lot worse than it is now, and it's going to grab us by the least convenient body part and demand we pay attention.

Stop the ACLU has an open letter (and open trackback) on opposition to Islamism. Among many other online sites, they print the following manifesto:



Together facing the new totalitarianism



After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.



We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.



The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.



Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.



We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.



We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.



We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.



(signed) Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chahla Chafiq, Caroline Fourest, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Irshad Manji, Mehdi Mozaffari, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Antoine Sfeir, Philippe Val, Ibn Warraq.



In case you weren't aware, I've been against Islamism for a very long time. I was one of the few people who didn't move anywhere politically as the result of 9/11 - I knew something like that was coming, and however much I wish I had been wrong, merely having my prediction confirmed is not grounds for moving further against Islamism's insanity.



To the Islamists, I say:



To hell with your demand that we all become Islamic.



To hell with your demand that we give Islamics preferential treatment.



To hell with your demand that we treat women as lesser beings.



To hell with your demand that we treat women as being guilty of anything they are accused of and unable to effectively testify in their own defense.



To hell with your demand that we allow your religion to dictate how we will respond to the universe.



To hell with your demand that the will of Allah as interpreted by your clerics shall be the supreme ruling word of the world. We did not elect Allah, we definitely did not elect his clerics, and we do not acknowledge any authority of theirs save that which is given them voluntarily by their own believers.



In short, I do not submit.



I will not submit.



I will exercise the rights reserved to me as a free individual by the United States Constitution and other such documents. I will aid by any means at my disposal the ability of others to do so. I will not stand by and permit others to be oppressed by my lack of action.



If you can't handle it, that is your problem.