Virginia Libertarian

President Bush Addresses the Nation on Immigration Reform

We must begin by recognizing the problems with our immigration system. For decades, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders. As a result, many who want to work in our economy have been able to sneak across our border, and millions have stayed.

How ’bout if we begin by recognizing the actual problem, the welfare/warfare state we live in?  After that, yes, the porous borders would be a security problem if we are worried about terrorists.

Once here, illegal immigrants live in the shadows of our society. Many use forged documents to get jobs, and that makes it difficult for employers to verify that the workers they hire are legal. Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals, it strains state and local budgets, and brings crime to our communities. These are real problems. Yet we must remember that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives. They are a part of American life, but they are beyond the reach and protection of American law.

Shadows my ass, collecting welfare, putting their kids in public schools, getting disability, and not paying for any of it?  If that’s in the shadows, we need to point a big spotlight on it.  That may be a good thing that comes from the recent illegal alien demonstrations.   The second issue here is that they are not parti of American life, they choose not to integrate into our society, and pour money out of the country.  This may be a symptom of the larger problem, but I’m not so sure.  We need to have immigrants willing to assimilate into American culture, as they have been doing for the past 200 years.

Despite this progress, we do not yet have full control of the border, and I am determined to change that. Tonight I’m calling on Congress to provide funding for dramatic improvements in manpower and technology at the border. By the end of 2008, we’ll increase the number of Border Patrol officers by an additional 6,000. When these new agents are deployed, we’ll have more than doubled the size of the Border Patrol during my presidency.

How is this really going to help?  with 18000 people, you could put someone maybe every half mile, that may be stretching it.  How are they going to be able to catch anyone?  Physically keeping people out is not the answer, we need to make it so that when we do catch someone here illegally, they get sent back, as quickly as we can do it, and they (or anybody else for that matter) don’t have access to the current welfare state.

Second, to secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program. The reality is that there are many people on the other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work and build a better life. They walk across miles of desert in the summer heat, or hide in the back of 18-wheelers to reach our country. This creates enormous pressure on our border that walls and patrols alone will not stop. To secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across.

Absolutely they will, we are the land of opportunity.  I don’t have a problem with this, having more people here helps our economy if they actually live and stay here, and a rising tide raises all ships.  We also have to make it easier for people to get into the country legally.  I dare say most wouldn’t be doing this illegally if they could just as easily, or even with a bit more difficulty, come here legally.  The only people we really need to keep out would be someone intent on terrorism.

Third, we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire. It is against the law to hire someone who is in this country illegally. Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees because of the widespread problem of document fraud. Therefore, comprehensive immigration reform must include a better system for verifying documents and work eligibility. A key part of that system should be a new identification card for every legal foreign worker. This card should use biometric technology, such as digital fingerprints, to make it tamper-proof. A tamper-proof card would help us enforce the law, and leave employers with no excuse for violating it. And by making it harder for illegal immigrants to find work in our country, we would discourage people from crossing the border illegally in the first place.

No we don’t, employers aren’t law enforment officers, and shouln’t be expected to act as them.  If an employer wants to run background checks because they want to, that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be required to do so by the government.  To boot, there is no such thing as “tamper-proof”.   You can make it difficult, but where there is a market it will be done.

Fourth, we must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are here already. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully, and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration.

I absolutely agree with that, but the laws to get here need to be changed as well.

Fifth, we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot, which has made us one nation out of many peoples. The success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language. English is also the key to unlocking the opportunity of America. English allows newcomers to go from picking crops to opening a grocery, from cleaning offices to running offices, from a life of low-paying jobs to a diploma, a career, and a home of their own. When immigrants assimilate and advance in our society, they realize their dreams, they renew our spirit, and they add to the unity of America.

I think this is probably the most important thing he said during his speech.  If people aren’t willing to assimilate, you get what is happening in Iraq currently with the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis.  People who don’t want to be American, not Mexican-American, not African-American, or any other whatever-American, but  just American, shouldn’t come here.

MoJo Blog: Uppity Cleveland woman carted to psych hospital by police and ordered to a psych unit by judge
For as long as we have had some kind of mental health system, women who “behave incorrectly” have been ordered to undergo its treatments. At one time or another, feminists, suffragists, menopausal women, and women who question authority in any way have been sent to institutions so that they could recieve “help.” The latest woman to get such help is Carol Fisher of Cleveland. Fisher is on the staff of Revolution Books, and on January 28, while she was putting Bush Step Down posters on telephone polls in Cleveland Heights, she was ordered by a police officer to take them down or face a fine.

The rest of the article is just unbelievable. I keep telling myself there must be more to this, there just has to be. If this can happen to someone just for putting up posters, something is terribly wrong here. I’m going to keep an eye out for more information on this, because this just can’t be all there is to the story.

Update:
Here is another link on this story, with some more information and some people you can contact if you want to help out.

Update:
Some more for you, I knew there had to be more. Seems Carol was not quite as peaceable as the first couple of articles claimed. Looks like she started fighting with the police when they tried to arrest her for not showing her ID. I understand her resistance to this, but to physically fight them was stupid. She could have filed a suit later for the intrusion were she so inclined. I think she took an opportunity to get this issue much more publicity than it would have had she gone peacefully (good for her!), but you have to be willing to take the consequences for it.

Excellent article on the evils of Democracy

Athens and the US: The Decline and Fall – Mises Institute
by Eric Phillips

[Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006]
Suppose there existed a world democracy with one vote for each person in the population. Is it not obvious, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe points out, that the world would adopt a flagrantly favorable policy towards China and India at everyone else’s expense?

Sen. Tom Coburn interview transcript — The Washington Times

Q: There were 15 amendments on individual spending proposals you withdrew. Why did you withdraw them?
A: The larger point. What you do is you irritate, irritate, but you don’t want to cause bleeding. We made our point. You can do it to the point where you totally alienate people or you can make your point and have caused enough pain to draw attention to the problem without alienating your ability to do it again. I had made my point. You’d be surprised by the number of people who didn’t vote with me that came back up to me and said, “You keep doing what you’re doing.” That’s a positive signal to say they know in their heart we got to change this system, but they’re not at the point yet where they can figure out politically that they can be with me.

I happend to be of the opposite opinion here, I say make them bleed, and call attention to it.  The worse you make it hurt, the less likely they will be do to it again in the future.  Of course this could also backfire on you and make someone who is vindictive angry at you instead, so Coburn may have a point here and his way will probably work better, as he is the one actually working in the senate and I’m not

I love Thad Cochran. I think he’s a great guy. He’s working hard for Mississippi. I just don’t think some of the stuff is a legitimate cost for the federal taxpayer. I didn’t have any tense moment with anything else for me. It may have been for them, but it wasn’t for me.

This is exactly the point, how much of what is in these earmarks is legitimate for the federal government to be paying?  I would say that anything that only benefits a subset of Americans is not legitimate, and should be paid for by the group of people that supposedly are benefiting from it (see here for why I say supposedly).

I think there’s a fundamental flaw in how we’ve tied re-election campaigns to earmarking and to gerrymandering and to careerism. We’ve so advantaged incumbency through the process. Every Framer, with the exception with Alexander Hamilton, believed in rotation. Rotation is term limits. They didn’t think they needed it because they never thought anybody would want to spend a career, their entire life, in Washington. So, if they made a mistake, that was the mistake they made — not incorporating in the Constitution the concept of rotation.

Colburn hit the nail on the head with this one.  Another mistake is the amount of power these people have when they are in office.  They have so much power to affect the livelyhood of so many people that bribery is a foregone conclusion.  I’m not sure of the best way to handle it, pay them more as Thomas Sowell suggests or pay them so little that the only reason that they would want to be there is because they actually want to serve the country, not become powerful (which is the way it was for a long time in the beginning, congress was paid close to nothing).  I don’t think the latter option would work now, I believe that if they were paid nothing they would become even more susceptable to bribery, which is what the large problem is now.  Back in the day, the problem was only people who wanted to be career politicians to make money, so if you didn’t pay them, why would they do it.

Q: How do you get around the Senate rule?
A: I’m practicing for free. It’s costing me a ton. I’m having to pay my nurses, pay my rent, pay my malpractice [insurance] out of my pocket. It’s going to run me about $80,000 a year.

This is someone who believes in what he is doing.  Congresscritters make a lot more than that a year, but from what I’ve found, I would end up making more than him after he pulls that 80k out.

What the American people want — what they want us to do — is to not be Democrats and Republicans. They want us to be Americans. They’re sick of the partisanship. What is the partisanship all about? It’s about the next election. It’s not about philosophy, it’s about who gains power in the next election. They don’t like it, and I don’t like it.

A-freaking-men to that.  Look at the polls and you will see that most americans are centrist, whilst the two major parties lie at the extreme left and right.  Who the hell are we supposed to vote for?  Which evil would we rather have?

Q: Would you ever run for president?
A: No.

Q: Why?
A: Because I want to stay married. And, look, I have some real goals in my life. I’ve not committed to a second term. I’ve been through two cancers. I’m in my third year of my second one. I have four grandchildren. I’m hoping to get a whole lot more. The reason I’m here is because of grandchildren — everybody’s grandchildren. But if I’m here, then I’m not spending the time with my own grandkids.
I don’t have any desire for higher office. Think about how much fun it is to be involved with a young couple who gives birth to their children. There is nothing greater than to see the tears of a mother and a father as their newborn baby is pulled out and put on the mama’s tummy. You compare that to any buzz I get up here — it doesn’t compare.

We desperatley need more people like this in office, a lot more.

Q: Do you think there would be any advantage to Republicans losing their majority in either the House or the Senate this November?
A: We have a wonderful republic. How do we preserve that? I don’t know the answer to that question. But I do know the collective wisdom at the polls most often is better than our collective wisdom here. America’s not going to be hurt if that happens in the long run. It may fall back in the short run. But if that were to happen, it would refocus the Republicans on what they really stand for.
No one is doing their job — Democrats or Republicans — as far as making the government efficient. I’ll never vote for a tax increase until we’ve done the hard work of not wasting the money that’s there.

I think the Republicans losing either, but not both would be the best thing to happen since they won both.  Having one party dominant in each tends to lead to stalemates, and that is probably the best we can hope for for a while.