Various posts by Mike Linksvayer
Excerpts:
"Anyone who professes to care about inequality and does not call for complete freedom to move, live and work across jurisdiction borders is deluded by the fog of jurisdicitonism."
"I don’t think open immigration would destroy capitalism or end affluence (the opposite in both cases), but regardless for moral reaons I think restrictions on movement and employment must be ended, roughly the same reasons South African Apartheid had to go."
Friday, May 19, 2006
Monday, April 24, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wage war on poverty, not immigrants
Wage war on poverty, not immigrants
March 28, 2006
BY JESSE JACKSON
"Si se puede!" Yes we can. They marched by the hundreds of thousands in Los Angeles, by the tens of thousands in Milwaukee, in Phoenix, in New York. Across the country, Hispanics dramatically entered what has been an increasingly ugly debate about immigration in this country.
Rep. Tom Tancredo is gaining national attention railing against undocumented immigrants. He wants them turned into felons, a wall built along our border to keep them out, police dispatched to send them home. He does not bother to tell us how he plans to transport 11 million estimated undocumented workers out of the country. Nor what will happen to the millions of their children who were born here and are American citizens.
Senate leader Bill Frist is doing his own Tancredo. Efforts by Senators Kennedy and McCain to fashion a compromise look likely to fail in the face of the furies. President Bush has offered an employers bill -- why does this not surprise? He'd increase enforcement at the border, but create a guest worker program so that employers could ship low wage immigrants in, so long as they promise to boot them out when they've finished exploiting them.
When employers brought slaves to America, few objected as long as they were prepared to work without wages and without rights. When they began to demand equal rights, all hell broke loose. No one minded when Mexican farm workers came to pick the crops, do the lawns, clean the houses. When they started to demand the right to citizenship, to vote, to organize -- the furor started.
American workers are sensibly worried that the flood of immigrant labor will bring lower wages as part of the global race to the bottom. But their complaint is with employers who prefer undocumented workers whom they can exploit without complaint, and with federal and state authorities who turn a blind eye to that exploitation.
There is no way anyone is going to locate, arrest, detain and ship millions of undocumented workers out of America. Our choice is whether we want to maintain permanently a large underclass of undocumented workers that can be easily exploited by cynical employers, and slurred by callous politicians -- or whether we want to fulfill America's promise by providing them with a road to citizenship, benefitting from their willingness to work, pay taxes and contribute.
How do we stop our country from being overrun by impoverished immigrants if we offer them pathways to citizenship? There is only one way -- and it is not mentioned in this debate. We passed a treaty called NAFTA with Mexico and Canada that guaranteed rights to employers and investors but not to workers. The results have been catastrophic. Wages in Mexico, the United States and Canada have fallen. Mexico now exports more cars to the United States than the United States exports to the world -- all made by U.S. companies benefitting from cheap labor in Mexico. And U.S. food exports have displaced millions of poor Mexican peasants and driven them from their communities. They don't come to the United States because they want to leave their homes. They come desperate for work.
The only way to stop the flood of immigrants is to help lift their standards up, rather than drive ours down. When Europe created one trading union including impoverished Spain and Portugal, the high wage countries of the north spent billions on development in the poorer countries, while demanding that they adhere to labor rights, environmental protections and basic social protections. While those countries still are not as wealthy as those in the north, their people were given hope and opportunity -- and would much prefer to stay home.
We can spend billions trying to lock immigrants out and hold those that come in down. Or we can devote energy and resources now wasted on a civil war in Iraq to help lift our neighbors up, gain real trading partners and significantly reduce the misery that drives people from their homes.
Potential presidential candidates like Frist, Tancredo and even supposedly straight-talking John McCain won't say anything like this. But that's the truth. And in the end, it is the truth, and only the truth, that will set you free.
March 28, 2006
BY JESSE JACKSON
"Si se puede!" Yes we can. They marched by the hundreds of thousands in Los Angeles, by the tens of thousands in Milwaukee, in Phoenix, in New York. Across the country, Hispanics dramatically entered what has been an increasingly ugly debate about immigration in this country.
Rep. Tom Tancredo is gaining national attention railing against undocumented immigrants. He wants them turned into felons, a wall built along our border to keep them out, police dispatched to send them home. He does not bother to tell us how he plans to transport 11 million estimated undocumented workers out of the country. Nor what will happen to the millions of their children who were born here and are American citizens.
Senate leader Bill Frist is doing his own Tancredo. Efforts by Senators Kennedy and McCain to fashion a compromise look likely to fail in the face of the furies. President Bush has offered an employers bill -- why does this not surprise? He'd increase enforcement at the border, but create a guest worker program so that employers could ship low wage immigrants in, so long as they promise to boot them out when they've finished exploiting them.
When employers brought slaves to America, few objected as long as they were prepared to work without wages and without rights. When they began to demand equal rights, all hell broke loose. No one minded when Mexican farm workers came to pick the crops, do the lawns, clean the houses. When they started to demand the right to citizenship, to vote, to organize -- the furor started.
American workers are sensibly worried that the flood of immigrant labor will bring lower wages as part of the global race to the bottom. But their complaint is with employers who prefer undocumented workers whom they can exploit without complaint, and with federal and state authorities who turn a blind eye to that exploitation.
There is no way anyone is going to locate, arrest, detain and ship millions of undocumented workers out of America. Our choice is whether we want to maintain permanently a large underclass of undocumented workers that can be easily exploited by cynical employers, and slurred by callous politicians -- or whether we want to fulfill America's promise by providing them with a road to citizenship, benefitting from their willingness to work, pay taxes and contribute.
How do we stop our country from being overrun by impoverished immigrants if we offer them pathways to citizenship? There is only one way -- and it is not mentioned in this debate. We passed a treaty called NAFTA with Mexico and Canada that guaranteed rights to employers and investors but not to workers. The results have been catastrophic. Wages in Mexico, the United States and Canada have fallen. Mexico now exports more cars to the United States than the United States exports to the world -- all made by U.S. companies benefitting from cheap labor in Mexico. And U.S. food exports have displaced millions of poor Mexican peasants and driven them from their communities. They don't come to the United States because they want to leave their homes. They come desperate for work.
The only way to stop the flood of immigrants is to help lift their standards up, rather than drive ours down. When Europe created one trading union including impoverished Spain and Portugal, the high wage countries of the north spent billions on development in the poorer countries, while demanding that they adhere to labor rights, environmental protections and basic social protections. While those countries still are not as wealthy as those in the north, their people were given hope and opportunity -- and would much prefer to stay home.
We can spend billions trying to lock immigrants out and hold those that come in down. Or we can devote energy and resources now wasted on a civil war in Iraq to help lift our neighbors up, gain real trading partners and significantly reduce the misery that drives people from their homes.
Potential presidential candidates like Frist, Tancredo and even supposedly straight-talking John McCain won't say anything like this. But that's the truth. And in the end, it is the truth, and only the truth, that will set you free.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Saturday, January 21, 2006
How to Speak Minnesotan
A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: "HOW TO SPEAK MINNESOTAN
Dear Garrison,
I realize that your show's main pull is nostalgia for a Minnesota (or an America) that once was. Ethnic Norwegians, Swedes, and German Catholics living in sheltered communities.
However, the Minnesota of today is largely urban-centered and that Norwegian/Swede cultural domination is slowly giving way to Hmong, Laotians, and Vietnamese, Somalis and Ethiopians, Mexicans and Russian Jews. Perhaps your show could reflect this new Minnesota a bit more.
Thanks,
Douglas, from St. Paul
Douglas, the Somalis and Ethiopians who listen to the show regularly like it just the way it is. They feel that it teaches them something about American English and the midwestern culture in which they find themselves. It was strange to them when they arrived, and the show makes it less so. You are naive about culture, my friend, if you think that we can put it on and take it off as one might put on a serape or put some African carvings up on the mantle. We are who we are. Foreigners realize that. When they come to the midwest, they find a very distinct culture. It doesn't reflect them particularly and they have to accommodate to it, just as you would need to make peace with the French if you lived in France. "
Dear Garrison,
I realize that your show's main pull is nostalgia for a Minnesota (or an America) that once was. Ethnic Norwegians, Swedes, and German Catholics living in sheltered communities.
However, the Minnesota of today is largely urban-centered and that Norwegian/Swede cultural domination is slowly giving way to Hmong, Laotians, and Vietnamese, Somalis and Ethiopians, Mexicans and Russian Jews. Perhaps your show could reflect this new Minnesota a bit more.
Thanks,
Douglas, from St. Paul
Douglas, the Somalis and Ethiopians who listen to the show regularly like it just the way it is. They feel that it teaches them something about American English and the midwestern culture in which they find themselves. It was strange to them when they arrived, and the show makes it less so. You are naive about culture, my friend, if you think that we can put it on and take it off as one might put on a serape or put some African carvings up on the mantle. We are who we are. Foreigners realize that. When they come to the midwest, they find a very distinct culture. It doesn't reflect them particularly and they have to accommodate to it, just as you would need to make peace with the French if you lived in France. "
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Catholic Charities USA - Caring for the Strangers Among Us
Catholic Charities USA - Caring for the Strangers Among Us
Selected Teachings from Our Catholic Faith Tradition
The essential starting point for Catholic social teaching is the dignity of every human life. Created by God and redeemed by Christ, every person possesses a fundamental dignity that comes from God, not from any human attribute or accomplishment…This clear commitment to the dignity and value of every human life must be reflected both in individual choices and actions and in the policies and structures of society.
Read more
Selected Teachings from Our Catholic Faith Tradition
The essential starting point for Catholic social teaching is the dignity of every human life. Created by God and redeemed by Christ, every person possesses a fundamental dignity that comes from God, not from any human attribute or accomplishment…This clear commitment to the dignity and value of every human life must be reflected both in individual choices and actions and in the policies and structures of society.
Read more
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Sunday, January 08, 2006
No statute of limitations
There is no statute of limitations for illegal immigration like there is for many crimes.
In Minnesota, for example, charges in most crimes have to be brought within three years, after which the perpetrator cannot be prosecuted. Arson is five years, as is theft, forgery or fraud. Bribery of a public official is six years. Sex offenses against adults are nine years. Kidnappings and death crimes have no statute of limitations. (Source)
Our current system has no statute of limitations for illegal immigration, which isn't even a crime in most circumstances. No matter how long you've been here, you never emerge from that threat of deportation. An illegal immigrant could get in more trouble for simply being here than for arson, theft, bribery, or sex offenses.
In Minnesota, for example, charges in most crimes have to be brought within three years, after which the perpetrator cannot be prosecuted. Arson is five years, as is theft, forgery or fraud. Bribery of a public official is six years. Sex offenses against adults are nine years. Kidnappings and death crimes have no statute of limitations. (Source)
Our current system has no statute of limitations for illegal immigration, which isn't even a crime in most circumstances. No matter how long you've been here, you never emerge from that threat of deportation. An illegal immigrant could get in more trouble for simply being here than for arson, theft, bribery, or sex offenses.
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