A cold and frosty America.

Frosty Wooldridge is one of those Right-wing types who is economically illiterate. Of course his ignorance of economics means he speaks out on economics all the time. Now, for some reason that boggles the mind, Freedom’s Phoenix gives him a feature article to promote his vision of a Right-wing, unlibertarian vision. Got to appeal to the militia types, don’t we?

Wooldridge combines bad economics, with Malthusian fear mongering and tosses in a dash of racism to liven up the mix. Stupid is as stupid does. Let’s look at just a few of the absurd comments he makes.

“We’ve got 14 million unemployed Americans while our government allows three million illegal aliens crossing our borders annually.” There is this assumption that the 14 million unemployed Americans is caused by the illegal aliens. False. Most unemployment is caused by ignorant politicians passing labor laws that make labor more expensive than it ought to be.

Here is a fact. America grows crops and it needs people to pick those crops. The workers who do that tend to come from Mexico. They drive up, pick the crops, and return home. Most go back and forth. They earn their income here and spend it in Mexico where it goes much further -- something large number of Americans now living in Mexico understand. But with crack downs those workers are finding it harder to get to the fields and farmers are losing crops due to a lack of labor. So where are all those Americans who want to work in the fields Frosty?

Everywhere I go in the world I see the same thing at McDonald’s. The work is not the highest paying nor the nicest. Legal manipulation of the markets mean all the workers are paid the same. There is no wage competition there. An immigrant can’t offer to work for less than the other workers. Everybody gets the same pay regardless of who they are. Yet the native born seem to shun those jobs while immigrants fill them disproportionately. Why? Because the immigrants are willing to work those jobs while the native Frostys of the world will not. The field jobs went unfilled because the Frostys didn’t want the work.

Now the bigot is not know for consistency. Certainly Frosty isn’t consistent. See all those illegals come to America to “steal our jobs”. And to refuse to work and sit on welfare. Yep, that’s it. “Dem dar aliens is takin our jobs and ain’t workin like real ‘mericans.” (Can’t you just see them saying this wearing their best, freshly ironed sheets.)


So immigrants, legal and illegal, refuse to work and live off welfare instead. Gee, they sound like a lot of native Frostys that I’ve known over the years. But as the saying goes, it’s not so much what you know that causes the problems but what you know that just ain’t so. Back in April I blogged about a new report on unemployment rates among various groups. Among native born Frostys it was 5.2 percent. Among immigrants, legal and illegal, it was 4.6 percent.

Of course if you aren’t interested in the facts and merely want to bash a specific group of people you don’t hesitate in make contradictory allegations. So that makes it just dandy to claim immigrants come to American and steal jobs while simultaneously sitting on welfare and refusing to work.

I love it when a “libertarian” web site, albeit one that tries to appeal to the lunatic Right, runs an article attacking immigrants who “defraud our tax system” while bringing us diseases at the same time. I must say this is the first time I’ve seen a libertarian site promote the idea that taxes are a duty. Now old Frosty says that along with bringing disease and defrauding the tax system they “usurp our English language.” Old Frosty doesn’t know what usurp means does he. His knowledge of English is on par with his economics.

Typically the racist Right accuse immigrants of not knowing English. In other words they don’t speak English. Frosty says they usurp English. Usurp means “seize or hold by force or without legal authority”. Does he mean “ignore”? That would be consistent with his claims. But usurp would mean they have grabbed control of the English language. Maybe if Frosty had better control of the English language himself we could understand what the hell he is saying here.

Like most ignorant people Frosty has visions of grandeur. He dreams of what he would do as president. As if eight years of an idiot in the White House isn’t enough. Frosty says he would form a brain trust of the finest economists around to advise him on the deficit. How nice! How about these fine economists? These economists, including real libertarians not far Right extremists pretending to be libertarian, said that “immigration has been a net gain for American citizens” and that “Immigrants do not take American jobs.” Hey, not the kind of advice Frosty wants! Included on that list of hundreds of economists are such well known libertarian thinkers as Dominic Armentano, David Beito, Peter Boettke, Don Boudreaux, Bryan Caplan, Roy Cordato, Tyler Cowen, Richard Ebeling, Fred Foldvary, James Gwartney, Thomas Hazlett, David Henderson, Robert Higgs, Jack High, Randall Holcombe, Jeff Hummel, Lester Hunt, Daniel Klein, Art Laffer, Deepak Lal, Steve Landsburg, Richard Langlois, William Marina, Deirdre McCloskey, Milton Mueller, Randall O’Toole, Richard Rahn, Mario Rizzo, Ken Schoolland, George Selgin, Vernon Smith, Richard Timberlake, Jr., Robert Tollison, Gordon Tullock, Karen Vaughn, Alan Waters, Lawrence White, Kevin Dowd, Ronald Hamowy, Pierre Lemieux, Chris Lingle, Robert Nef, and Jan Narveson. That’s only a fraction of the signers. The most brilliant economists around tell Frosty he’s full of it. But I bet most of them are from families that "immigrated" and you can't trust disease ridden, criminally prone, immigrants.

And what else does President Frosty want. “I would concentrate on assisting American citizens by making powerful executive decisions to stop insourcing, outsourcing and offshoring American jobs... I’d give 14 million unemployed Americans a chance to work their jobs at a living wage.” Cue ominous music, booted feet marching on the cobblestones can be heard in the distance getting closer and closer.

What is this rubbish doing on a “libertarian” web site? He is advocating an economic dictatorship. The president has no Constitutional authority to make “powerful executive decisions” to run all American businesses from the White House. In the rhetoric of the fanatical Right Frosty says: “I would not allow corporations to govern America.” What he won’t allow is corporations to run their own affairs. Where Microsoft produces is their business not the presidents. A company outsourcing, insourcing or “offshoring” is a company running it’s own business. Frosty is proposing economic fascism. But it does go nicely with his views on immigration. Sort of a matched set.

Again the desire for absolute power is strong on the Right. Frosty promises to use his “presidential power” to force aliens out of the country. I wonder which clause of the constitution he has in mind granting these powers. No matter, if it isn’t there just invent it.

Oddly he says that for “farm work” he’d create a pink card that allows migrant workers to work in the US three months a year. Apparently there are jobs that Americans don’t want.

Now Frosty says that if employers don’t check every pink card for “authenticity, the employers is (sic) fined and locked up.” I love it, “employers is”. I’m glad he’s out there defending the English language. Of course it’s not Frosty’s fault he doesn’t realize it ought to be “employers are”, the problem is that immigrants have usurped English and didn’t leave enough for him to use. And don’t forget they bring disease too.

Please note that along with running American corporations by executive decision from the White House he wants all employers to be immigration agents and will arrest and incarcerate any who don’t co-operate. Yes, but it’s to protect freedom!

He wound ban all immigration for ten years and then only allow 100,000 annually but only if the population doesn’t grow. See it’s that Malthusian stupidity that comes into play. Frosty, being ignorant of economics, thinks that the planet is being raped by capitalism.

Now Frosty would also take control of all media outlets in America. By executive order, by the will of the Fürhrer alone he would “require all TV, radio, newspapers and governments documents to be in English.” But would they be free to say “employers is”? His view: “If immigrants don’t like this 230 year ‘aspect of America, they would be free to return to their own counties of origin.”

Okay, so Frosty doesn’t know history either. As a small child I knew my great grandmother. She couldn’t read English or speak it. She did read. She read the Polish newspaper. And entire neighbourhoods of Chicago had signs in Polish, the shop keepers spoke Polish and church services were in Polish. In fact throughout American history there have been foreign language publications printed and distributed in America. To this day the Amish speak their own German dialect though for obvious reasons there is no Amish television. New York was known as New Amsterdam. To this day the names Harlem and Brooklyn are based on the Dutch towns Haarlem and Breukelen. This Dutch settlement was taken by force by the British those upstart immigrants who then “usurped” the Dutch language and replaced it with English. In the Midwest entire regions of Michigan, and Illinois were settled by Dutch who also produced a Dutch newspaper, De Hollander.

And the Dutch weren’t the only ones. The very first German language newspaper published in the US was printed in 1732. It was called the Philadelphische Zeitung and the publisher was a usurper of English named Benjamin Franklin. One web site notes that every major American city and some smaller ones, prior to World War I, “had at least one German-language newspaper.” They note that at one time there were 800 newspapers in the US published in German alone. And New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, started in 1834 is still published in German today.

I will give Frosty credit. His knowledge of history is almost as good as his economics.

Frosty would ban professional lobbyists as well by executive order. Apparently he doesn’t have much use for the Constitutional process of changing things. Instead of laws debated in Congress he prefers to issue edicts and orders and just force people to obey. Sure, I see why a libertarian web site would publish this rot.

As for education he proposes centralization not in the hands of Congress but in his own hands. He says he “would move to maintain closed and protected high school campuses” and would consider “separate all boys and girls schools”. Apparently he isn’t interested in the Constitution since the president has no such powers over local schools. But so far Frosty isn’t paying much attention to the Constitution. Maybe he’s a Republican.

He also promises to “stop instant citizenship for any child born in the United States by an illegal alien parent.” Not only doesn’t the president have this power but it is in direct violation of the US Constitution which states that: “All persons born...in the United States... are citizens of the United States.” Hey Bush ignores the Constitution by shouting “terrorists” and Frosty would ignore it by shouting “immigrants”.

Frosty would also “change the drunk driving laws”. Once again that this is not a federal issue and not under the authority of the president seems to escape him. He isn’t interested in Constitutional government he wants a dictatorship.

Of course he has to mention 9/11 and distort the facts to boot. “September 11, 2001 wouldn’t have happened if we had taken care of our own borders with strict immigration controls in the first place.” Again none of the 9/11 terrorists were in the US illegally. None of them crossed the border without permission.

Frosty’s dictatorship is not finished. He would institute socialized health care for America. He would spend “billions” of other people’s money on alternative fuels, he would create a National Population Policy -- and remember he is against population growth so expect that policy to control the reproduction of Americans.

He says “That’s for starters. I’d run the presidency with common sense, rational thinking, and reasonable planning.” Ah, that “reasonable planning”, that desire to centrally control a society. This is not rational nor is it common sense. It’s a dictatorship.

Picture: Isn't that about how you envisioned him looking? Now be honest. And the fashion sense! He's one chic chick magnet.