Federal Judge Blocks Obama Immigration Amnesty

[Pointedstick]

And what are you, PS?

I don't know. I feel like it changes daily. But as of right now I feel like an old-school conservative with libertarian, technocratic, and elitist leanings.

The Dark Enlightenment

That page is disappointingly short! But yeah, something like that, I guess. If I could identify the thing that kindled the flame, it might be Hoppe's Democracy: the God that Failed. The Austrians make much better social commentators than they do economists, IMHO.

[MachineGhost]

I don't know. I feel like it changes daily. But as of right now I feel like an old-school conservative with libertarian, technocratic, and elitist leanings.

Where are you on the map currently?

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[Pointedstick]

Gosh, I dunno… I haven't moved back into support of government enforcement of social mores, but I certainly don't support the current paradigm of deliberate government sabotage of said mores. Not sure where that would put me.

And I also question how many genies can be put back in their bottles. Globalization, for example.

[WiseOne]

the idea that we forcibly remove folks (at the point of a gun, of course) to lands hundreds of miles away from the ones they call home because they don't carry the right papers, is one of the most gross forms of government overreach there is.

Took me a while to catch up with this thread...

Moda, I think you're assuming that people who came here illegally have the right to call this country "home".  They don't.

It's analogous to some guy wandering into your living room, spreading out a sleeping bag and calling it home.  Let's say you were away for an extended vacation and then came home to find him there.  Is that his home now because he's settled in and been there for a while?  Or would you boot him out?

That's exactly how I think of people who came here illegally.  And to make matters worse, they don't even bother to learn the language even after living here for >10 years in many cases.  To me, that's the action of a visitor or squatter, not a law-abiding and contributing citizen.

[MachineGhost]

That's exactly how I think of people who came here illegally.  And to make matters worse, they don't even bother to learn the language even after living here for >10 years in many cases.  To me, that's the action of a visitor or squatter, not a law-abiding and contributing citizen.

I like that perspective a lot better than the hand-wringing about breaking silly laws over imaginary borders.  It's more... tangible.  In Costa Rica, squatters actually have rights there that if you were stupid and naive enough as a gringo to buy property and a squatter took up residence (scam or not), you lose the property.  That's liberalism run amok.

[dragoncar]

That's exactly how I think of people who came here illegally.  And to make matters worse, they don't even bother to learn the language even after living here for >10 years in many cases.  To me, that's the action of a visitor or squatter, not a law-abiding and contributing citizen.

I like that perspective a lot better than the hand-wringing about breaking silly laws over imaginary borders.  It's more... tangible.  In Costa Rica, squatters actually have rights there that if you were stupid and naive enough as a gringo to buy property and a squatter took up residence (scam or not), you lose the property.  That's liberalism run amok.

Uh.. Here too.  Adverse possession, and it has plenty of utilitarian  reasons to exist in law

[fnord123]

Irrespective of whether or not one believes in God, I think it is difficult to argue that the Judeo-Christian religious tradition is not the cornerstone upon which Western Civilization has built its moral/ethical values system.

This is wildly off-topic, but I think one can argue that the Romans and Greeks deserve an equal amount of credit for Western civ.  Christianity itself quickly learned "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" - i.e. separation of church and state - from the Romans, for instance.  Contrast this to Islam, where religion and the state were not separated, resulting in a religion that at least in many places is really screwed up.

It seems to me, the more dysfunctional the current state of affairs is in a certain arena of federal law/enforcement, the more one could claim a legitimate role of the executive branch, via agencies, to take more unilateral action.

I strongly disagree with this sentiment.  Every increase in executive power sets a precedent for future executives.  Maybe Obama is on your team (party), but please keep in mind that the next president may not be, and the one that follows may be even further afield.  For the (D)s on this board, would you want Bush III taking power, perhaps followed by Michele Bachmann issuing orders with as much or more power as Obama has been issuing, to, say, stop the EPA from enforcing the law?  How about (R)s - imagine if Hillary is elected, followed by a real leftwinger, who uses executive power to seize all ammunition (Roosevelt seized all gold coin using executive orders, so why not ammo)?

This country rejected kings long ago.  Ever-increasing executive power (along with dynasties like Bush and Clinton) is taking us right back in that direction.

[madbean]

I agree with the statement below from an Ann Coulter column, but then I had already reached the same conclusion after the first Bush administration....

If a Republican majority in both houses of Congress can't stop Obama from issuing illegal immigrants Social Security cards and years of back welfare payments, there is no reason to vote Republican ever again.

[moda0306]

the idea that we forcibly remove folks (at the point of a gun, of course) to lands hundreds of miles away from the ones they call home because they don't carry the right papers, is one of the most gross forms of government overreach there is.

Took me a while to catch up with this thread...

Moda, I think you're assuming that people who came here illegally have the right to call this country "home".  They don't.

It's analogous to some guy wandering into your living room, spreading out a sleeping bag and calling it home.  Let's say you were away for an extended vacation and then came home to find him there.  Is that his home now because he's settled in and been there for a while?  Or would you boot him out?

That's exactly how I think of people who came here illegally.  And to make matters worse, they don't even bother to learn the language even after living here for >10 years in many cases.  To me, that's the action of a visitor or squatter, not a law-abiding and contributing citizen.

WiseOne,

I make no such assumptions about "rights."  Rights are useful for discussion, but overall they are myths, IMO.  If we view them too strictly, and analyze them as such, we end up seeing them for the contradictions they are when we’re using government to protect them (or even without that complication, in the case of claiming land as “your property rights”?).

And from what I can tell, people that get all hung up on our “rights”? on this issue when they feel like it are just conveniently using it as a tool to justify having the government (which could not exist without my “rights”? to property being violated) pull people out of the place they’ve called home for years… and their kids, who were stupid enough to pick the wrong parents.  I’m not trying to be rude here, as this is common in liberal circles as well.  Bounce conveniently between “rights-based”? arguments that are inconsistent with government, and “utilitarian-based”? arguments as those rights-based arguments get holes poked in them.  It’s a story as old as time.

So on to the real argument… utilitarian aspects of borders juxtaposed against their “rights-based”? justification…

From a utilitarian perspective, property and borders must be respected for civilization to function.  But this is a concept not without nuance and materiality.  Speed limits must also be respected, but I’d hope the next time I go 32 in a 30, a cop doesn’t shoot out my tire, drag me out of my car, and send me to the county jail.

Your analogy to someone being in my living room is ridiculous, IMO.  My living room would be in Germany if the original protectors of American “rights”? didn’t grossly violate those of others by annexing the American West.  A living room, in a vacuum, is a very concrete, tangible connection to my need to live as an individual (the basis of the idea of “rights”?).  A nation’s borders are an abstraction that couldn’t even be enforced without having violated the rights of others in the past, and my rights today to enforce it.

So if we’re going to play the utilitarian game, we can play it.  We can either forcibly remove families from the communities that they call home so WE can be a bit more pleasant and not have to press 1 for English, or we can give them a very strict path to citizenship, recognizing the same nuance that the cop recognizes when he doesn’t pull me over and give me a $150 ticket every time I go 31 in a 30, accept a few more brown people around, and not have to rip families from their communities.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to build a strong border (this was actually part of my Keynesian king-for-a-day plan back in 2009 when the economy was taking a dump), while making sure we are respecting the other abstraction that we value as humans… that people don’t like to be ripped out of their communities and forcibly moved by men with guns.

Do they have a “right”? to their homes in Arizona, California & New Mexico?  No.  But if we follow the rabbit hole of rights far enough, neither do we.  We can’t have our cakes and eat it too.

[MWKXJ]

We can either forcibly remove families from the communities that they call home so WE can be a bit more pleasant

Put me down in favor of this, the "Eisenhower Option".

[Pointedstick]

Moda, it seems that if I could boil down your objection, it would be, "Where is the moral legitimacy of using violence to hurt people--some of whom may be innocent of any crimes committed on their behalf (e.g. children of illegal immigrants born in the USA)--to enforce the made-up borders of a land we stole from people too weak to resist us?"

The answer is "because we are the current owners of that land, that's why." Right or wrong, here we are. And if somebody ever nukes the USA or unleashes virus bombs or some terrifying future weapon, and the stragglers get conquered by the Sino-Russian alliance or whatever, you can bet they're not going to be really happy if a bunch of Latin Americans or Africans try to enter their new colonial acquisition.


Look, I get that when you take an honest historical perspective, it's all arbitrary and there are no good guys. But you can get so lost there that the present stops seeming worth fighting for. I reject that. It's a good place we live in. We should try to keep it that way. A lot of hard work went into making this place pretty nice. What the people who conquered this place 250 years ago did is irrelevant to my life and I bear no moral responsibility for it. Arguing otherwise is just firing the leftist guilt paralysis ray at yourself.

I mean, in the scheme of things, the house I live in sits on land that was settled by a variety of Native Americans, and conquered by the Spanish 500 years ago. Then it was illegally sold to the USA by the French who it turned out didn't own it anyway. Oops. The land was sold in the 1960s to gullible elderly people as part of a real estate scam, and the house I currently live in will likely be dramatically redecorated by the next owner, possibly bulldozed by the one after that, and the land it sits on may one day have a high-rise condo building, a waste treatment plant, or whatever. In the scheme of things, its history lacks moral legitimacy and is largely irrelevant from a cosmic perspective. Does that mean that I shouldn't take pride in its condition in the present? Should I neglect it, let squatters camp out on the front yard, stop paying the utility bills, let the weeds take over, and allow to slowly deteriorate while I continue to live in it?

No. That's gross irresponsibility on an individual level, and for the leaders of a society to do the equivalent is gross irresponsibility on a collective level.

[MWKXJ]

Moda, it seems that if I could boil down your objection, it would be, "Where is the moral legitimacy of using violence to hurt people--some of whom may be innocent of any crimes committed on their behalf (e.g. children of illegal immigrants born in the USA)--to enforce the made-up borders of a land we stole from people too weak to resist us?"...

Yours is a great, even-handed response, PointedStick.  Regarding the following:

Look, I get that when you take an honest historical perspective, it's all arbitrary and there are no good guys. But you can get so lost there that the present stops seeming worth fighting for.

The above mindset stems from an overly reductionistic approach to understanding the world.  Such reasoning refuses to see the whole, instead splitting things down into ever more atomic component parts.  In truth, a thing is greater than the sum of its parts, and a large part of becoming older and wiser is realizing this.

Logic addresses the reductionistic problem with "the principle of the exclusion of the middle".  For example, one is either driving a car or one is not.  One is not driving a pile of bolts, tires, wires, and vinyl moulding.  The latter assertion is, frankly, dishonest, it results in things becoming anything but what they are, e.g., nations becoming their past crimes, etc.

Edit reason: Misattribution.

[moda0306]

Moda, it seems that if I could boil down your objection, it would be, "Where is the moral legitimacy of using violence to hurt people--some of whom may be innocent of any crimes committed on their behalf (e.g. children of illegal immigrants born in the USA)--to enforce the made-up borders of a land we stole from people too weak to resist us?"...

Yours is a great, even-handed response, PointedStick.  Regarding the following:

Look, I get that when you take an honest historical perspective, it's all arbitrary and there are no good guys. But you can get so lost there that the present stops seeming worth fighting for.

The above mindset stems from an overly reductionistic approach to understanding the world.  Such reasoning refuses to see the whole, instead splitting things down into ever more atomic component parts.  In truth, a thing is greater than the sum of its parts, and a large part of becoming older and wiser is realizing this.

Logic addresses the reductionistic problem with "the principle of the exclusion of the middle".  For example, one is either driving a car or one is not.  One is not driving a pile of bolts, tires, wires, and vinyl moulding.  The latter assertion is, frankly, dishonest, it results in things becoming anything but what they are, e.g., nations becoming their past crimes, etc.

Edit reason: Misattribution.

Guys, I'm not just some nihilist or anarchist trying to deny the state power.  I'm not getting lost in trivialities.  I'm advocating that we look at some of these things with a bit of historical perspective, and logical consistency.

We don't have to disband the idea of property and government to put a bit of perspective on "the rule of law" and the importance on "citizenship."  Hell, we do it every day when a guy drives 33 in a 30 and a cop doesn't pull him over, or states enact sales tax amnesties.  That is PRECISELY the "right or wrong, here we are" logic that PS is advocating when he sees me attacking our historical property claims (which I'm not really trying to for purposes of dismantling them, but instead for some perspective before we rip people from their homes).

Right or wrong... here we are.  Exactly!  Right or wrong, we had economic and border policies that practically BEGGED poor Mexicans to come up to the U.S.  If  you don't think so, put yourself in a Mexican guy's shoes and tell me what you'd do. They came.  Some settled.  Most of the money that most of them earned was by working shitty jobs, not by trying to figure out how to get on welfare as soon as they got here.

I think we can fix the majority of the immigration problem without dragging millions of people through the depths of misery and indignity by relocating them to a land they don't know as home (or starve them out of the country, as some would advocate).

I'm not saying that I have the perfect logical/moral compass here, but I'm trying to look at this from the standpoint of trying to respect our institutions while not disrespecting some basic tenets of human decency.  Really not trying to be a hyper-reductionist nihilist.  In fact, I fully support a strong border and very limited legal immigration, and not just as a concession.  I'd push the button now, if I could.

[stuper1]

Moda, I agree with you 100%.  I bet all of these guys who like to call them "illegal" immigrants, don't call themselves "illegal" drivers when they drive 31 mph in a 30 mph zone.  That's just so you can get to your destination 30 seconds sooner, but when somebody who has absolutely no future in their homeland wants to make a better life for themselves and their family, and is willing to work jobs that most Americans won't work anyway, suddenly the law becomes sacrosanct.  The onus is on our government to enforce the rules keeping people out (good luck with that; it will never work).  A guest worker program would be great, but the Democrats won't go for that, because it doesn't help them increase their voter rolls.  So, my advice would be to get used to the situation.  It's not going to change.  But don't blame the immigrants.  You would do the same thing in their shoes.  Sure there are a few criminals among them, just like any group of humans.  They'll get dealt with in the criminal justice system hopefully.

[dragoncar]

Moda, I agree with you 100%.  I bet all of these guys who like to call them "illegal" immigrants, don't call themselves "illegal" drivers when they drive 31 mph in a 30 mph zone.  That's just so you can get to your destination 30 seconds sooner, but when somebody who has absolutely no future in their homeland wants to make a better life for themselves and their family, and is willing to work jobs that most Americans won't work anyway, suddenly the law becomes sacrosanct.  The onus is on our government to enforce the rules keeping people out (good luck with that; it will never work).  A guest worker program would be great, but the Democrats won't go for that, because it doesn't help them increase their voter rolls.  So, my advice would be to get used to the situation.  It's not going to change.  But don't blame the immigrants.  You would do the same thing in their shoes.  Sure there are a few criminals among them, just like any group of humans.  They'll get dealt with in the criminal justice system hopefully.

There is a big difference between driving 1 mph, or even 10 mph, over the speed limit and entering a foreign country illegally. And then using services which you have not contributed to the cost support of.

If you enter Iran or North Korea without permission, you will find yourself jailed in a goolag-type prison or dead. Obviously, we don't want to emulate that type of behavior here, but, just sayin'...

Hopefully you never enter a town in another state, or God forbid another country, where you would be using resources for which you haven't contributed

[stuper1]

There is a big difference between driving 1 mph, or even 10 mph, over the speed limit and entering a foreign country illegally. And then using services which you have not contributed to the cost support of.

If you enter Iran or North Korea without permission, you will find yourself jailed in a goolag-type prison or dead. Obviously, we don't want to emulate that type of behavior here, but, just sayin'...

Apparently, Iran and North Korea have enough people to pick their fruit and clean their houses.  Actually, I would say, fine, emulate that behavior.  The problem I have is with allowing people to do all our menial jobs, and then kicking them out when we get tired of them.

[Pointedstick]

There is a big difference between driving 1 mph, or even 10 mph, over the speed limit and entering a foreign country illegally. And then using services which you have not contributed to the cost support of.

If you enter Iran or North Korea without permission, you will find yourself jailed in a goolag-type prison or dead. Obviously, we don't want to emulate that type of behavior here, but, just sayin'...

Apparently, Iran and North Korea have enough people to pick their fruit and clean their houses.  Actually, I would say, fine, emulate that behavior.  The problem I have is with allowing people to do all our menial jobs, and then kicking them out when we get tired of them.

Isn't that the whole purpose of a "guest worker" system? Get their labor but don't let them "pollute the culture."

[moda0306]

There is a big difference between driving 1 mph, or even 10 mph, over the speed limit and entering a foreign country illegally. And then using services which you have not contributed to the cost support of.

If you enter Iran or North Korea without permission, you will find yourself jailed in a goolag-type prison or dead. Obviously, we don't want to emulate that type of behavior here, but, just sayin'...

Hopefully you never enter a town in another state, or God forbid another country, where you would be using resources for which you haven't contributed

Hopefully, I will never have to [illegally].
But we're not talking about using the subway while on vacation. We are talking about expensive education, health care, welfare, etc.

We're also talking about people who largely came here and worked their asses off probably twice as fast as you and I could for half the pay we'd ever consider taking to do it slowly.

[fnord123]

Guest workers (e.g. braceros program) in combination with severe penalties for employers who employ illegals would be a huge step to reducing the number of illegal immigrants we have - note how many of them left during the great recession.  Without jobs, there is much less of a motivation to come.

There of course would be criminals who stay behind, welfare leaches, etc.  Criminals should be actively deported.  Welfare leaches should be solved in general I think, not in a special way for illegals.

[stuper1]

No one said the illegals don't work hard, or do jobs that [lazy!] Americans are loathe to do. But they still came here WITHOUT PERMISSION, and broke the law in doing so. None of the rest of the arguments really mean much at that point.

They were also born into poverty WITHOUT PERMISSION.  What would you do in their shoes?  I know what I would do.

[stuper1]

There is a big difference between driving 1 mph, or even 10 mph, over the speed limit and entering a foreign country illegally. And then using services which you have not contributed to the cost support of.

If you enter Iran or North Korea without permission, you will find yourself jailed in a goolag-type prison or dead. Obviously, we don't want to emulate that type of behavior here, but, just sayin'...

Apparently, Iran and North Korea have enough people to pick their fruit and clean their houses.  Actually, I would say, fine, emulate that behavior.  The problem I have is with allowing people to do all our menial jobs, and then kicking them out when we get tired of them.

Isn't that the whole purpose of a "guest worker" system? Get their labor but don't let them "pollute the culture."

As a guest worker, they would be allowed to come here, make their money, and go home to their families safely.  Right now, they can't really do that.  Once you're in, you don't go home and risk getting caught.  So, you stay here, settle down, procreate, etc.  I'm not saying that being a guest worker is great, but it's a lot better than what we have right now.  But it probably won't happen, so don't worry about it.

[MachineGhost]

No one said the illegals don't work hard, or do jobs that [lazy!] Americans are loathe to do. But they still came here WITHOUT PERMISSION, and broke the law in doing so. None of the rest of the arguments really mean much at that point.

Yeah, but the law is whatever "they" say it is or wants it to be, so how can you take the moral high ground over what is barely enforced and isn't all that important on the grand hierarchy of subjective criminality?  I just think it's a red herring for xenophobism/racism/rightwingnuts.  I mean, if you can make a argument that breaking immigration laws is a guaranteed "gateway drug" to higher criminality, it might be more convincing.  DrugWarSympathizers can't do that for marijuana, so I'm not holding my breath.

That being said, it's clear the non-violent illegal-undocumented-alien immigrants feel what they did is wrong and they don't like the constant insecurity of being a "criminal".

[Pointedstick]

As a guest worker, they would be allowed to come here, make their money, and go home to their families safely.  Right now, they can't really do that.  Once you're in, you don't go home and risk getting caught.  So, you stay here, settle down, procreate, etc.  I'm not saying that being a guest worker is great, but it's a lot better than what we have right now.  But it probably won't happen, so don't worry about it.

That's a good point I hadn't thought about.

[dragoncar]

No one said the illegals don't work hard, or do jobs that [lazy!] Americans are loathe to do. But they still came here WITHOUT PERMISSION, and broke the law in doing so. None of the rest of the arguments really mean much at that point.

Yeah, but the law is whatever "they" say it is or wants it to be, so how can you take the moral high ground over what is barely enforced and isn't all that important on the grand hierarchy of subjective criminality?  I

Did I give you PERMISSION to speak?

[MachineGhost]

When did this become 'pile on MangoMan'?
There are laws because there needs to be laws. You have turned that into a morality discussion.

Chill, brother!  He meant that for me on the finer arts of implicit vs explicit permission.