SWCAMBORNE

A new organization in the UK has put together an excellent fact sheet about immigration.  You can go directly to the I Love Migrants site . Or cut and paste this link: http://ilovemigrants.wordpress.com/i%E2%99%A5home/

An exerpt:   “Migrants will look after the old: Only through migration will there be enough young people to look after the elderly.” read more

In reality the presentation of facts will only work to convince those with open minds.  Most minds are made up already and dismiss facts that don’t confirm their beliefs.  But this is the beauty of I Love Migrants.  Their main appeal is to the emotions.  And they claim the emotional high ground.  Love is better than hate.

I wrote a piece I’m pretty proud of for Radical Immigration about the Berlin Wall.  In my old army footlocker somewhere I have a piece of The Wall.  I bought it for a few dollars shortly after it was torn down.  It is with my vial of Mount Saint Helens Ash.

I’m afraid that the future will see the US in the same light as East Germany when thinking about our Southern Border Wall.  Read the article here: http://www.radicalimmigration.com//content/view/149/1/lang,en/

An exerpt:  “The right to migrate gives people a powerful weapon against bad governments. A government that does not deliver goods, services and freedoms to it’s people at a level proportionate to its neighbors will be threatened if its aggrieved citizens can vote with their feet and leave. For this to happen people need a place to go to.”

Why is it that when 8 million people a year move from one state to another within the USA it is no problem, but when a half million people a year move here from Mexico it is a big problem?

Read a discussion of this question on Radical Immigration

Happy New Month!

I’m still very passionate about “the right to migrate” but I’m sure not making much headway building a like minded group.  I’m attributing it mostly to my lack of organizational skills and a bit to timing.  I haven’t lost heart.  When I started this project I said it was a twenty year effort.  It is now year four and there is a recession going on.  Almost nobody wants more immigrants.

I wrote a new article for Radical Immigration this week titled “Danger Signs.” I think it is good enough and controversial enough that it should be discussed.  And since I’ve had no takers on that site I thought that I’d appeal to my swcamborne audience.

The central argument I try to make is that the Obama administration is admirably trying to stop immigration related work- place raids by ICE.   At the same time it is increasing “employer audits” and is requiring employers who get federal money to use E-Verify.  These actions have the same effect as raids on undocumented immigrants.  They force them out of the workplace.

So if you have the time, visit Radical Immigration, read the article and write a comment either pro or con.  While you are on the Radical Immigration site take a look at the new design and let me know what you think.  Do the links work?  Are they intuitive?

All of the driving on our Colorado trip made us think a lot about cars.

We connected cars with immigration when we heard on the radio that ICE was going to start auditing companies to see if they were hiring illegals.  See my story about the insanity of this idea. Why is it that Americans can keep near perfect track of our cars with VIN numbers and registrations yet we can’t or won’t keep track of people as carefully?  The idea of a national ID card is opposed by both the far left and the far right.  My idea a few years ago was to have Mastercard and Visa issue the cards so that the government could not abuse the system as easily or screw it up.  The “RealID” idea that gives the states the task of doing it for the Federal government is doomed because it has become too political.

Libertarians (different than Librarians) believe that less government is better.

The Philippine however, by its negative example, makes the other side of the argument.  A successful society, it turns out, needs some general rules  of human interaction that are respected by all.  There need to be some rules about things like Zoning, Property Title, Helmet Laws, Building Codes and Pollution.

My observation is that the people in the Philippines are intelligent, creative, motivated to improve their lot and friendly.  The government on the other hand is ineffectual, corruptible and largely irrelevant.  The rich buy privileges and exemptions from the law so everybody else feels justified in ignoring laws that add cost to there lives without immediate benefit.

Wire anarchy

Motorcycle helmet are a good example.  There are laws requiring helmets that the police don’t enforce and so nobody wears them.

A cow, a pig and three men on a tricycle

The resort at Sabang Beach is the best example.

An undeveloped beach near Sabang

Title disputes caused the beautiful beach to be sold and resorts, stores and clubs to be built on a series of alleys.  Now there is an unplanned town where the beach used to be.

Sabang Beach today

There is no sewer system, no road and no beach.

Runoff

I tend to be a Libertarian and always look for nongovernmental solutions to the issues of the day.  I always see evidence that the government is a blunt instrument and should be used sparing to solve the delicate problems of society.  But the Philippines has shown me an example of a society that is less civil than ours because it has less enforced or enforceable laws.  As usual the solution is probably somewhere in the middle.

In the meantime the people of the Philippines are voting with their feet and leaving.  More than 15% of working age Philippinios are working outside the country.  This is an example of why I support an increased right of people to migrate.  Responsible people should not have to stay under the control of irresponsible governments.  You can see a lot more of my thoughts on this subject on RadicalImmigration.com

On the way back from our trip to Phoenix and Albuquerque last month we stopped at El Morro.  It was a beautiful day and we took some great pictures both as we approached and on the walk.

There is a year round water source at the base of the cliff and so people have been visiting here for thousands of years.  They have also been carving their names into the soft sandstone, leaving a record that shows how many immigrants have past this way.

Native American Sheep

I’m not sure if this is an argument for or against immigration.

A Spaniard in 1709

Perhaps it is as Mike the Barber says:  “Migration happens, Get used to it”

US Calvary 1859

Now of course we would call it graffitti.

Last night we held the Pasadena premiere of the movie that Dave, Brian and I have worked on so long.  The event was excellent.  attendance was well over 200 people, the equipment worked, and most of the comments were positive.  We got lots of leads for new screenings and even had some groupies.

One of the best things to come out of the event was meeting Bob Gordon who moderated the very short panel discussion after the screening.  Bob is a former head of the screen actors guild and has a call in show called From Left Field 

I’m pretty sure that our politics disagree but I could tell in the few minutes that we spoke that our objectives are the same:  To make sure that the trend toward liberty and prosperity continues.

Bob did a great job moderating the panel and giving each of us a chance to speak.  Thank him for me by visiting his web site and making a comment.

This is a new book by Mark Krikorian the president of The Center for Immigration Studies.

In my review on Amazon I wrote: “The New Case Against Immigration” is not a “new case”. Its arguments are based on the same fears that stopped immigration in the 1920′s. In the words of Michelle Wucker author of Lockout “they were wrong then and they are wrong now.”

The rest of my review of the book is on Amazon and is mostly unfavorable. Krikorian is a good writer and a clever manipulator of emotional arguments. One example is he doesn’t say “population growth” he says “artificial, government engineered population growth.” Of course I do the same thing with lines like “the right to live where you choose.”

You can read all of my review on Amazon here. You would be doing me a great service by taking a minute to follow the link and rate my review. Thanks.

Ben Wattenberg an author and thinker who has influenced me greatly over the years has a new book. I highly recommend it. He also wrote Fewer that is one of the books that created the philosophical underpinnings of Radical Immigration.

He is one of the people we interviewed for Beyond Borders

Available on Amazon

“Fighting Words” is an enlightening ramble through the thickets of American politics from the 1960′s to the present. Ben Wattenberg is the host of the long running PBS show “Think Tank” and the love of word and ideas that is so apparent on the show runs on steroids through this book. The main theme of the book is how Wattenberg who started as a loyal Democrat became a neo-con. Wattenberg makes no apology for his break with the center left coalition that now runs the Democrat party. He uses examples of the Democrat shift to the left on foreign and domestic policy and explains the rise of the neo-cons as Democrats who stayed with the old values. These old values of the Democrat party included spreading American values and liberty throughout the world and affirmative action without quotas at home. These and others are the values that according to Wattenberg’s narrative the neo-cons have stayed with as the Democrat party has moved left towards a world view that doesn’t recognize American exceptionalism and domestic policies that strive for equality of outcome (quotas).

But the best part of “Fighting Words” is not the main narrative. It is the personal stories, tangents and illuminating anecdotes that fill in the pictures of the political landscape that Wattenberg is painting. He tells a story about how Hubert Humphrey helped to insert “under God” into the pledge of allegiance in 1954. Another story about Adlai Stevenson, who ran as against Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, quotes him as explaining a newspaperman’s job “is to separate the wheat from the chaff and print the chaff.”

Politics is not linear and neither is this book. It tells why Reagan opposed Carter’s Olympic boycott and offers a theory on why voter turnout is so low in the US. Wattenberg emphasizes his most salient comments with the phrase “sound familiar” but lets us the reader make the analogy to the present.

This is not quite an autobiography and not quite a political how-to manual it is however a delightful look at the American political scene through the eyes of one of our times best political operatives, scholars and writers. “Fighting Words” is an excellent read that puts this years heated political debate into much needed perspective.

Now if you have read this far do me one more favor. Go to Fighting Words on Amazon and scroll down to the reviews. Rate my review (all you have to do is click the stars) and rate the book. By doing this you are, at no cost, boosting my ego and helping Ben Wattenberg sell some books.