Virginia Libertarian

cgeorge wrote:

David, Don’t for a second believe these people are contributing to the economy. Some yes, but when 29% of all of our federal inmates are illegal immigrants, they are doing far more than becoming a productive member of our society. Do you remember the Mexican prostition ring that was busted up by the FBI at Harbor village Apartments, a few years back.

Of course they are contributing to the economy, they spend money, they buy things, that’s the economy, of course they send a lot of money home, as we won’t let their families in now. Look at the number of people that are in the federal prisons due to victimless “crimes” (your prostitution ring is a prime example). As long as everyone is a willing participant (i.e. the women weren’t forced into the job), then where is the crime? Drug users, as long as they aren’t breaking any laws that involve there being an actual victim, why are we prosecuting these people? The War on Drugs has been shown many times over to be an abject failure. If you make it easier for these people to come into the country legally, then they will be contributing to our economy even more.

Furthermore, are country does not have the infrastructure to support them at that rate they are crossing over. It becomes a supply and demand issue. Our country cannot accommodate the large number of people in such a short time. Our systems will go bankrupt.

Crap, we are already accommodating them. If demand exceeds supply, guess what happens, somebody steps in to make money and fulfill the demand, that’s how free markets work. The only time you end up with a shortage is when the government steps in and tries to “regulate” things.

As far as the wage issue, they are driving the American wages down. Screwing the legal American family. They are not all doing jobs Americans do not want to do. That is Bullshit. Plus the are contributing to the increasing cost of the housing market. 20 of them will pool their resources together and buy home, while the legal American family is out of another home. It is another supply and demand issue. Cost goes up because of limited supply and huge demand. It’s screwing legal American families out of everything they work for.

So? If they get paid less money, they won’t be able to buy as much, and either the price of goods will come down, as more people won’t be able to afford them (why do you think WalMart does so well?), or they will demand higher wages. If they choose to live 20 o a home, why should that affect me? I can still buy or build my own. You are correct, it is another supply/demand issue. There is plenty of land and plenty of resources to build houses for anyone that wants to come here. The only issue is goverment (local or otherwise, but usually local here) making ridiculous land use laws, i.e. what California has done causing the price of a 900 sq.ft. house to be $700,000 (open space laws and other stupidity)

Plus, they are infiltrating are hospitals and using the emergency rooms as the primary doctor. In LA, American citizens can not even use the damn hospital because of the illegals. But guess whose forting the taxes for it. The legal citizens.

You are again bringing up supply and demand in a different form, the reason they use ER is because that’s what they can get. Make them legal and they will be using the same services you and I do, and they will have to pay for it instead of getting a free ride in the ER from the system. This is just as much a problem with people who are on welfare as it is with immigrants. When they have to start paying for the care they receive, they will stop going for the frivolous reasons they are now.

Same thing goes for the schools. They are filling up the classrooms, overwhelming the teachers, and further degrading the level of education for the legal families who are paying for all of this through taxpayers.

Don’t even get me started on the government indoctrination centers they call public schools. The teachers aren’t overwhelmed because of immigration, the entire public school system is broken, vouchers and private schools are the solution, phasing out government funding for education entirely.

Plus dont get me started on welfare. They come here drain are welfare systems that are already bankrupt anyway. But yet every check we get, you and I pay for their welfare. They get away tax free.

Welfare needs to go away completely as well. Charitable private organizations, such as churches, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and countless others are far better at performing this kind of service than goverment is.

Furthermore, we now have wonderful dieses again that were eliminated years ago. Thank you Turbuculois. I can send you a list if you want. The fact the communist party is so behind this doesn’t that bother you? What do you think their agenda for America is? I believe they understand what they are doing.

Of course they do, but communism has failed everywhere it has been attempted. I am hopeful that we will realize this before we have to go down that road, but I don’t know if we are smart enough to realize it.

If you want more information, I will gladly share it with you. If you want to know how we will end up, just take a look at the country they come from. Corrupt government, corrupt judges, corrupt police, no citizen rights, and only the ruling class and the peasants. That is what is coming.

What, you think we don’t already have all of that here?!?! Have you not seen all the scandals that both major parties have been party to the last couple of years? Are you not familiar with the activist judges that have been making law from the bench since the ’60’s? We’re already there, and it’s not due to immigration, it’s due to socialist liberals.

Even if we grant these illegals working rights and force them to pay taxes, infrastructure and resources can not support it. Systems will go bankrupt and resources will be depleted.

What systems? The poorly planned and executed government socialist systems, i.e. welfare, social security? Good, let them go broke, hopefully we’ll be smart enough to realize they were a bad idea to begin with

Personally, I’m ecstatic, about the bill the House passed. If give them a temporary work permit, then all of their families can come here with them. We will go from an estimated 20 million illegal immigrants to nearly 80 million instantly. Not to mention, the ones that will continue to bring their families. Are infrastructure cannot support this. That is increasing our population growth by about 26% instantly, not including the ones that want to come here. It sad this is even a debate, because I do believe you and I pay for legal ways for immigrants to join are country legally. I’m not opposed to that at all. If give these illegals the opportunity to work here legally, we will encourage a population shift unforeseen in US history.

Yes, we do pay for legal ways for them to enter, but we make it prohibitively difficult for people to get in that way. We need to be facilitating the naturalization process, not punishing the people who want a chance at a better life. That is what they are coming here for, part of the American Dream. They WANT to participate in our country, contribute to our economy, and bring their culture to us and participate in ours, we just need to let them do so.

Finally, do you know what President Fox of Mexico has done with his southern border? He has the military guarding it to keep illegals from South America from entering his country.

Don’t care about Mexico’s problems

It’s a Constitutional issue, a legal issue and economic issue. How can they give me a summons for breaking the stupid county and state laws, and protect and defend these felons against the Constitution and the immigration laws of this country?

It’s not a Constitutional issue, this is a country of immigrants, almost everyone here had ancestors that immigrated here not that long ago. The economy will take them in and prosper.

Finally, as far as tax reform. Wasn’t this on Bush’s mandate last year during his state of the union. 47% of the people do not pay federal income tax already. If the number gets to 51% you can kiss tax reform goodbye.

Amen there, that’s 100% true.

Talk to you soon.

I think that Arnold has the right ideas here.

Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Schwarzenegger: Amnesty is ‘Anarchy’
The "first order of business” for the federal government in dealing with illegal immigration is to secure the nation’s borders, Arnold Schwarzenegger declares in an Op-Ed piece.
And the California governor says that granting amnesty to illegals is "anarchy.”
"We learned on 9/11 that not all those who cross our borders want to share in the American dream,” Schwarzenegger writes in the Los Angeles Times.
"A few want to replace it with a nightmare. If we don’t know who is coming over our borders, we won’t know what they might do. And in a post-Sept. 11 world, that is a risk we cannot take. Congress must strengthen our borders.”
Criminalizing immigrants for coming into the U.S. – as some have called for – is not an answer, according to the governor.
"Instead, I urge Congress to get tough on those illegal immigrants who are a danger to society. If an illegal immigrant commits a serious crime, he must leave the country — one strike and you’re out. No excuses, no delays.”
Schwarzenegger also said the U.S. should pass "a common-sense temporary worker program so that every person in our nation is documented. We can embrace the immigrant without endorsing illegal immigration.
"Granting citizenship to people who are here illegally is not just amnesty … it’s anarchy. We are a country of immigrants, yes. But we are also a nation of laws.”
Finally, he said, "We should assimilate immigrants into the mainstream. We want immigrants to not just live in America but to live as Americans.”
Schwarzenegger, who said "I don’t just talk about immigrants — I am an immigrant,” concludes: "This is the time for a permanent solution to our broken immigration system. This is the chance to again become a country of immigrants and a nation of laws.”

Immigration, IMO, is not the problem that you think it is. The problem is more that we keep these people as illegal, and they remain in something of a limbo. Many of them don’t pay taxes, but god help you if you try to deny them medicare, medicaid, or any kind of health benefits. Oh, and if you try to prevent them from voting, kiss your ass goodbye. The best thing to do would be to make it so that people can easily immigrate legally (we would prevent known terrorists of course, probably about as effectively as we do now), but why deny most of these people entry? They are contributing to the economy, the only reason they are currently a drain is because they don’t pay taxes. Make them legal and they will. Even better, implement the fair tax and it won’t matter if they are legal or not, they’ll still pay taxes. Once they are paying taxes, they cease to be any more burden any other citizen, and probably less than most. I realize that a lot of people are currently concerned with border security because of the terrorist threat, but do you actually think our current policy is preventing anyone who wants to get in from doing so? If you do, would we be any worse off by allowing the people who now get in illegally to come in legally? The only issue I really have is cultural integration, and I think even some of that would be alleviated by making them legal, as then they would not feel the need to hide from participating in our culture and integrating with it instead of secluding themselves in pockets of their own.
Now as to whether this is going to contribute to us becoming a more socialist/communist/fascist state, that I don’t know. We are already heading down that road at apparently breakneck speed, but I don’t think immigration is the problem here, it is more a problem of the consequences of many of the “welfare” type of programs that have been started by the government over the last 50-60 years, starting with FDR and the New Deal giving us Social Security, continuing with government funded welfare programs, government funded corporate subsidies, government funded farm subsidies, government funded transportation subsidies, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum. I honestly don’t know how to get out of the situation, as it appears that more people today are concerned with getting what is “owed” to them than with taking personal responsibility for their own situations.

Gary wrote:

Go here and join.
write the three people at the bottom.
Keep being concerned.
http://www.lpva.com/

—–Original Message—–
From: cgeorge
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 2:45 PM
To: Gary; David
Subject: Immigrant Invasion
This past weekend, the demonstrations or invasions of the immigrants were extremely startling. The biggest questions I had throughout all of the media coverage and even Monday’s talk radio was “Who could organize this?” There is no way you can have 100,000’s of people protesting at the same time in different cities on the same days without an organization having a significant amount of power and financial resources to motivate that number of people. So yesterday I researched the net for hours, trying to find out who is behind this. When I finally found out who it was it hit me in the face like brick. The motives of this organization are to totally bankrupt our economy, welfare system, healthcare system, etc. to ultimately lead to more government control. Having free flowing immigration overwhelm our society is one of the fastest tools to do this. It was hard for me to fathom that this organization has been operating right here within our own borders and no media outlets have exposed them. Even more devastating is to see how many people support this organization right here in the USA and how much influence they already have on our government. Yesterday, at the Senate Judiciary committee that would offer illegal immigrants a temporary work permit, Nancy Pelosi said we don’t have enough information about this not to vote for it. Yesterday Bush even met with Mexican and Canadian reporters and told them to give him time he would convince the House to vote for this. The only government official that I have even heard oppose this is Trent Lott on FoxNEws this morning. He said that this demonstration totally offends him. These people come to our country illegal and take advantage of our current system and resources and then protest because we will not make them citizens. This is the only voice of reason I’ve heard. Anyway, just in case you are still wondering who this is that organized this it’s called Communist Party, USA. Visit there website. http://www.cpusa.org/ Or more importantly google the name. It returns 9,080,000 web page references to this party. I’m sure you can do all of the research you both want on this. It is stunning how much influence they have and yet nobody talks about them. The other major organizations involved with organizing this according to Sean Hannity were the labor unions trying unionize these immigrants. I found all of this information yesterday and emailed. Dr. Burton about it. He called me last night and told me to turn Michael Savage on. He even had more information about it on his program last night than I had researched. He also mentioned and made references to the Catholic church being involved with this also. More on that later. It’s all sickening. By the way, with our wonderful war on terror and Homeland Security, as of December of this year Americans citizens will not be able to leave the country not even to the Bahamas without a passport. So basically, government can tell the citizens when they can come and go, but as far as illegals you are welcome anytime, come and go as you please.

By Phyllis Schlafly
Mar 27, 2006
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, known as Welfare Reform, has been cheered as a stunning achievement of the Republican Congress and its Contract With America. The law helped to move millions of welfare recipients out of dependency and into productive jobs, but its unintended consequences brought many thousands of “never welfare” families into the welfare bureaucracy.
Financial incentives are often built into tax credits, reductions or bonuses to influence human behavior in home ownership, energy, water, transportation, and waste management. But sometimes the law contains incentives that were not planned, expected or desirable.
The Great Society welfare system was recognized by the 1990s as a social disaster that created fatherless children, illegitimacy and women’s dependency on government. Channeling taxpayer handouts to mothers provided a powerful financial incentive for fathers to depart; they were not needed anymore.
Unfortunately, policy changes in the 1988 and 1996 welfare laws created similar financial incentives for state governments to exclude middle-class fathers from the home. The law incentivized the states to manufacture “noncustodial” (i.e., absent) fathers and to order money transfers (usually through wage garnishment) to mothers, thereby putting a large segment of the middle class under the welfare bureaucrats.
The major goal of the 1996 Welfare Reform was to reduce the budget deficit by, among other things, recovering welfare costs from absentee fathers. Without justification or public debate, the rules to accomplish this were then applied to middle-class “never welfare” families.
Formerly, to receive welfare benefits, recipients had to demonstrate eligibility by “need” (i.e., a test measured by income level), but the new policy omitted income eligibility requirements. Without a means test, a high-income mother with custody can use the power of the state to collect from a low-income father.
The federal government annually provides $4.2 billion in block grants to states to serve as collection agencies. States are reimbursed for 66 percent of their costs of child support enforcement activities, 80 percent of their costs for technology, and 66 percent of their costs of DNA testing for paternity.
The more cases the states can create and the more operational expenses they incur, the more federal funding states receive to expand their welfare bureaucracy. No performance standards are required to get this money and, in addition, the feds provide a bonus fund ($458 million in Fiscal 2006) for which the states compete.
In the welfare class, most absentee fathers are unemployed or working for wages so low that little or no money can be squeezed out of them. State bureaucrats discovered they could cash in on the pot of federal money by exploiting middle-class divorce and creating a whole new class of absent fathers who have good jobs and are willingly making payments to their ex-wives.
When a married couple with children is divorced, the family court typically renames the husband and wife as noncustodial and custodial parents. The more time with the children that is awarded to the custodial parent, the more money the noncustodial parent is ordered to pay and then can be reported by the state as collections that merit federal bonuses.
Federal funding thus provides powerful monetary incentives for states to maximize the number of single-parent households with high transfer payments, and to minimize equal child custody which would lessen transfer payments. Depriving or reducing children’s access to one parent is thus a source of revenue for states.
These incentives drive family court discretion and skew the opinions of the vast army of lawyers, psychologists, custody evaluators, and parenting counselors who are used to rationalize the process. They hide their predetermined custody rulings under the subjective slogan “the best interest of the child.”
Put another way, forcibly depriving children of access to one parent, usually the father because he usually has a higher income than the mother, is a big source of revenue to states. The more support orders that are issued, the higher they are, and the more fathers who are threatened with jail and suspension of their driver’s and professional licenses for challenging the system, the better chance a state will receive more money from the federal government.
This result was accurately predicted by Leslie L. Frye, chief of Child Support for the California Department of Social Services. In testifying to the Human Resources Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee on March 20, 1997, Frye said the new regulations “encouraged states to recruit middle-class families, never dependent on public assistance and never likely to be so, into their programs in order to maximize federal child support incentives.”
Of the 40 percent of U.S. children now growing up in homes without their own father, some are victims of the stereotypical “deadbeat dad.” But most are victims of disastrous federal policies that provided incentives to create female-headed households, first by the Democrats’ welfare system and then by the Republicans’ so-called welfare reform.
Many consciences should be burdened with the realization that taxpayer money provides financial incentives to deprive millions of children of their own fathers.
Phyllis Schlafly is the President and Founder of the Eagle Forum.

Copyright © 2006 Copley News Service

by Jim Fedako

Zoning is theft, pure and simple. In his fantastic introduction to the Austrian School, Economics for Real People, Gene Callahan correctly identifies eminent domain as a form of property theft, especially noting the use of government condemnation in order to secure rightfully owned property for commercial development.

It is easy to see government as the crowbar that influence-seekers use to jimmy locks and force private property owners from their land. Here we have the clear picture of Ma and Pa Kettle and clan fighting the law and “progress” armed only with shotguns, corn squeezing, chewing tobacco and shear grit. The flip side to eminent domain, zoning, is not so easily seen. But as Bastiat revealed, the unseen is as important as the seen.

Zoning is typically defined along the lines of a government-regulated system of land-usage imposed in order to ensure orderly development. Zoning is usually a component of the larger conceptual ideal called regional planning. Of course, planned development is really the name of the road toward planned chaos.

Zoning uses all the standard interventionist lines of thought, most notably the concepts of externalities and utility. Those who advocate zoning really believe that acting man does not have the ability to create communities that are functional and prosperous. Without plans and maps drafted and drawn by the local elected elite, developers with knowledge and foresight, and a whole lot of money to gain or lose, would purposively layout communities that are sterile and functionless. Only the marginal vote-getters — those elected — and their appointed allies are omniscient enough to peer into the crystal ball and define the perfect setting for future life and leisure. The rest of us can only marvel at their visions.

Just as the developer can use government to roll over the rights of property owners, property owners — community members — can use government to roll over the rights of developers and fellow property owners.

In Ohio, townships create zoning maps and comprehensive plans that overlay development regulations on top of current properties. Prior to the establishment of zoning regulations, a farmer could simply sell his land to the highest bidder. No one had a voice in the proposed use of the exchanged land. The sale to a new property owner incorporated full development rights, including continued farming, residential and commercial development, or parceling off pieces for home sites. Land was a commodity similar to the crops grown on it. Just as no one had a right to control the final use of the corn and soybeans reaped from the soil, no one had the right to control the next use of the land. Property rights were secure.

Zoning changed everything. The future use of existing farmland will, with the stroke of a pen, be limited in some manner by zoning regulations. The regulations could restrict future land usage to its current use — farming in this instance — or it could restrict land usage to some other form of activity.

The free market has a tool that allows a property owner to align the future use of his property with his vision, the restrictive covenant. A property owner could, for example, create a legacy by selling his land contingent on the development carrying his family name. Should the property owner be too restrictive, the value of his property will fall. He will be exchanging a psychic good, a family legacy, for cash.

Zoning is another matter altogether. Zoning restricts current landowners based on the local power brokers. In the zoning process, someone gets hurt. Had the farmers of a township wanted to keep the area as farmland, they could have signed restrictive covenants guaranteeing crops instead of homes. Property rights, and the laws that purport to protect those rights, allow individuals to act in their own best interest. Zoning, collective decision-making, use the coercive power of government to restrict usage based on the whims of those in power.

The farmer who owns this land now has his potential property rights bounded within a specific range; future use is restricted to residential developments that have no more than one house per acre. The farmer may vote, and may have voted for some of those elected, but he never agreed to the change in proposed land usage. He was robbed, and there is no means for him to restore his rights and land value; they are gone with the stroke of a pen.

I know some of those in the Chicago School will claim that the farmer implicitly agreed to the loss of land-usage rights by being born in the United States, or of naturalized American parents, or by becoming a citizen through oath. By owning property in the United States, the farmer granted majority ownership in his property to those elected and appointed, the omniscient and omnipotent. This is no way to build and run a system of secure property rights, and no way to create a free market. Rothbard is correct when he constructs his political economy on secure rights to property; anything less is the beginning of the Hayek’s Road to Serfdom.

Now we have a developer who is trying to satisfy the urgent wants of consumers, his development could include new homes, new stores, new factories, etc. The developer is a keen entrepreneur who sees a chance to turn a profit by creating a development that will be desired, and therefore profitable to him. The developer settles on a residential development and approaches the farmer from above offering to purchase his land, contingent on final zoning approval of course.

You see, the developer has been here before. He knows the ways of the local officials who approve and disapprove zoning changes on whim and fancy — or even the smallest of political pressure. The developer is not going to consummate the deal with the farmer until he knows that his proposed development is a go.

The farmer, old and worn-out, wants to retire and enjoy, along with his wife, his remaining years in leisure and comfort. This is certainly a reasonable request from someone who has worked the dirt in snow, rain, and blistering heat for decades. Who could reasonably question his desire? Commissioners and board members; those omniscient by vote and omnipotent by law.

Remember that the land was designated to be developed at only one home per acre, but the developer does not think he can make a go of it at that yield. Given the market in the area, there is no way for him to turn a profit due to the myriad of other regulatory hoops he will have to jump through in order to get approval for his development. A host of green-eyed bureaucrats see the proposed development as a tax revenue generator. The developer will have to build off-site roads and sewer improvements, donate a park or school site, and give away money to all those governments with their hands out. In addition, regional officials will balk at the proposal since it does not agree with their vision of the future.

So the developer, a Don Quixote at heart, decides to take on the zoning commission by proposing a variance to the zoning code and comprehensive plan. Mr. Developer needs to build one and a half homes per acre, a change that will require months of hearings where he will be badgered and attacked from the zoning commission and community members alike. The commissioners will request petty changes to the development’s conceptual plan based on vague building standards that they most likely do not understand. Is stucco created from natural and man-made materials a natural or artificial exterior? Does 50 microns of aluminum create a better look than 49 microns? Should sidewalks be required? How high should the entrance sign stand? Is fire-red a natural color? Is a 30-foot setback sufficient for future property values? The answers depend on which commissioner has the mike at the time.

Residents with property adjoining the development will complain loudly of supposed lost property values, traffic, and crime. In addition, they will attack the developer as evil incarnate bent on destroying the community. But those same voices will lose the rhetoric as soon as the developer offers all adjacent homeowners landscaping allowances. A few thousand in new trees planted in their backyard is enough to forgive any supposed loss in value, additional traffic, and hypothetical break-in.

So the developer now agrees to build roads, upgrade sewer lines, donate parks with equipment, set aside a school site, and improve residential landscape. What is gently termed exaction is really extortion by another name. After zoning comes township trustees meetings and the process begins all over again. More exactions and more regulations, but trustee approval can be had if the developer does the dollar-dance long enough. Had the developer simply slid a rumpled paper bag of twenty’s across the table, a law would have been broken. Instead, the process occurs in the sunshine for all to see, and all to agree that more should have been given — or taken.

All agreed, with the exception of the developer and the forgotten farmer. You see, lost in all this is the simple desire of a farmer and his wife to retire and enjoy life, and maybe leave a little for their grandchildren. Every hand looking for a piece of the development pie is not robbing the developer and redistributing supposed unearned profits; those hands are robbing the farmer and his wife of their property value.

The risk of not passing zoning, the exactions, and readily available alternatives for investment are all reductions to the value the farmer could have obtained for his land absent zoning. The loss of value is recognized at the time the developer makes an offer for the land; the theft, on the other hand, occurs in front of the community that the farm family lived in for generations. It shows what damage a little money and power can cause in a community. Zoning is indeed theft.