Republican Wants to Give Rapists Free Pass

A Republican State Representative, Ryan Fattman, wants to give rapists a free pass provided they make sure they rape women who are "illegal" immigrants. Republicans, the organized party of hate in America, were protesting the decision by Gov. Patrick to not join a federal "Secure Comminities" program that tuns local cops into immigration thugs.

The Governor noted that law enforcement says that such measures push the immigrant community away from cooperating with the police when it comes to criminal investigations—and by criminal I mean things that actually violate the rights of others, not the kind of "crimes" Republicans want enforce, which merely offend the tastes of fundamentalist Christians.

Fattman was asked about a female "illegal" immigrant who might be raped and then afraid to come forward to report the rapist. Exuding the love of Christ that is so typical of Republicans, Fattman said: "My thought is that if someone is here illegally, they should be afraid to come forward." He then repeated the lie bigots use to excuse their bigotry: "If you do it [immigrate] the right way, you don't have to be concerned about these things."

I will try to explain this slowly, so that even mentally-challenged Republican office holders can understand. First, it is almost completely impossible to "do it the right way," thanks to their big government, bureaucratic hurdles meant to actually prevent people from immigrating legally. When my ancestors came to the US, they just got on a boat and then walked in. They didn't have to hire immigration attorneys and jump through the hoops that the hate-mongers have erected to prevent immigration. One actually just walked across the border, from Canada. Damn him, but for that I could have been born in a free country!

Fattman also said the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't "extend to illegal immigrants." And he is not worried about racial profiling. Of course not. Neither is the Klan.

Now I wonder if a child is raped, who is hear illegal, if Fattman's hatred goes so far as to claim that the rapist of the child shouldn't be reported because the "illegals" have to be taught a lesson.

Let us assume that Mr. Fattman has managed to find a brain-dead female, besotted enough with the Bible to marry him. Let us assume that one night she is walking home from her local church five minute of hate meeting against gay, illegal, Muslim, Mexicans. Along the way a good, God-fearing 'Merican, who had the sense to be born here in the first place, not like them "take-our-jobs, welfare-consuming brown people, comes up to Mrs. Fattman and violently has his way with her, as his contribution to the furtherance of the white race.

Mrs. Fattman is not a particularly observant woman, hence the reason she married Fattman in the first place. She doesn't notice the "God, Guns & Guts" bumper sticker on the pick-up truck, or the license plate number as her rapists drives off to his local Klavern meeting at the GOP offices. But, not far off, is a one of those 'Mexcans" who came here illegally. He say the entire rape. In fact he got a photo of the rapists, clear as day, along with the license plate number.

Then he thought about calling the police to give them the evidence. But then he remembers that Fattman and his fellow fanatics said that people like him should be afraid "to come forward." And he doesn't. He erases the photo. He doesn't call the police. He goes home to his family and tells them it was an uneventful day. Of course if Mrs. Fattman got pregnant then Mr. Fattman would want to force her to carry the pregnancy to term. After all that baby was coming into the country the right way!

In the end Fattman and others like him are telling "illegal" immigrants that if they witness a crime they shouldn't report it. If they can testify against a murderer they better keep their mouths shut. If they know where the child-killer lives, keep that information to themselves. Even if they are learn of some real terrorist plot, "they should be afraid to come forward." And this is what passes for "tough on crime" in Republicans circles. They would rather catch someone for the non-victim crime of looking for a job without government permission slips, that catch rapists, killers or terrorists. They hate immigrants so much they would rather give a free pass to real criminals.

One benefit to illegal immigration.

I am someone who believes, based on evidence and experience, that the vast majority of people are assets where ever they live. The degree to which they are an asset to those around them may vary. And whether a person is born in a country, or moves there, makes very little difference in the equation. Actually those who move may have the edge as it takes no effort to be born, at least not on your part, but plenty of effort to immigrate, whether legally or illegally.

The video below is an interview with Alexander Rybak, a musician/singer in Norway who has become quite popular in Scandinavia, as well as Europe in general. (More below.)

Rybak won the Eurovision Song Contest as the Norwegian entry, with the highest combined score in the history of the contest. His original song Fairytale was visually spectacular, told a great story, and was musically compelling. His combination of classical violin, Folk dancing, and his own lyrics are highly entertaining. And it doesn't hurt that Rybak is a natural charmer.

I was aware that Rybak was born in the old Soviet Union in Minsk and that he and his parents emigrated to Norway. But this interview brings out some things which I didn't know, until now.

Alexander's father, Igor Alexandrovich Rybak is a classical musician. When Alexander was still a young child, Igor went to Norway and stayed there illegally. According to Alexander his father hide in Norway, with the help of a rich family there. For two to three years he worked illegally saving up the money to bring his wife, Natalie, and young Alexander to join him.

Alexander says that he didn't even know he was immigrating to Norway, only that he was going to visit his father. But immigrate he did. It is not clear from the interview whether he and his mother were also illegal immigrants but it is clear his father was. And Alexander says the old Soviet Union was unhappy and that the KGB was looking for his father.

Alexander speaks of his memories as a child under Soviet domination. He remembers the family living in a tiny apartment that they had to share with another family. He says he never knew this wasn't the way most people lived. As he put it, if one's parents run around the garden dressed up as kangaroos a small child just thinks that is how everyone does it. He didn't know better so he assumed that life was normal.

But Alexander and his parents acclimated to the new culture, the new way of life, and the new language. So far I've heard Alexander interviewed in Russian, Norwegian, Swedish and English, which is rather impressive given how many people can't give an interview in one language.

His music has created a lot of wealth for the producers and much enjoyment for his legions of fans. He has enriched the world around him. Yet he is the product of illegal immigration. If the redneck vision of immigration were wholly accurate, he ought to be a rapist, a murderer or a drug dealer, occupations the rednecks wish to reserve for themselves I suspect.

It is absolutely true that Alexander is exceptional. The son of the typical illegal immigrant will not become a world famous entertainer. But neither will the same child typically become a criminal. Most live their lives in ways barely any different than those of the wider culture. Most work for a living, most create families that they love and care for, most contribute to their neighborhood, and to their new found home. Along the way most produce surplus wealth, leaving this world richer than they found it.

But there are the great exceptions, those immigrants who enriched their new home in much greater ways: Irving Berlin, Albert Einstein, Andrew Carniege, Houdini, Levi Strauss, Father Flanagan, Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Lansbury, Bob Hope, Ayn Rand, Colonel Tom Parker, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Isaac Asimov, Joseph Pulitzer, Eddie Van Halen,, Andre Previn, Knute Rockne, Mario Andretti, Wayne Gretzky, Admiral Rickover, Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, Max Factor, John Audubon, and Ludwig von Mises as a very few examples. When you look at this list you wonder what area of American culture was not enriched by immigrants.

I would dare say that many of the immigrant-bashing xenophobes are quite appreciative of many of these immigrants, but don't realize they are immigrants. Most people just assume you can't be more American than Bob Hope for instance. The great American pants are Levi's, named after Levi Strauss who produced them in San Francisco. Knute Rockne was the epitome of an American sport's hero.

My life is richer because of immigrants. And I suspect you has been as well, even if you don't know it.

And now an excuse for a second Rybak video, this time the visually stunning rendition of his song Europe's Skies. This is also available in HD format, if you have it.

Angle pulls out the racist card

This is the very ugly, very racist tirade of Sharron Angle the so-called Tea Party candidate in Nevada. Any libertarian who is still defending this disgusting movement has either not been paying attention or is brain dead. The Tea Party is anti-liberty. They are bigoted against immigrants and gays and are actually worse on social liberty than your normal Republican. Surveys show that the Tea Party is mainly the most reactionary element of the Republican Party.

Angle, who is also a staunch anti-gay bigot, of course, claims that "waves" of Mexicans are coming to America. Actually immigration flows are way down because these people came looking for jobs and when jobs dry up they go back. But in Angle's fevered, bigoted, little brain these people are not coming to America for work but for the explicit purpose of "joining violent gangs, forcing families to live in fear."

Is this true? Are millions of Mexicans flocking to America to join gangs? For answer I turned to the National Gang Threat Assessment published by the FBI and various police agencies who deal with gangs.


The first problem with Angle's slander against Mexicans is that millions of them can't be joining gangs. The NGTA report indicates that the total number of gang members in the US, of all races and nationalities tops out at 1 million. And of these over 100,000 are in prison. So Angle's estimate of illegal immigrants in gangs exceeds the total number of all gang members in the country

So Angle's main claim is impossible. Another problem is indicated when we look at which regions of the country report gang activity. In the Southwest, where most illegals come into the country, 63% of law enforcement report gang activity. This is lower than the Southeast region, or the Bible-belt where 68% report gang activity. The national average is 58% so the region with the most Mexicans is barely above the average. For instance the region include Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming came in at 58%, yet this is not a region known for having large numbers of illegal immigrants.

We should also look at what fueled the rise in gang numbers in the US, and it wasn't immigration, legal or otherwise. It is the war on drugs that creates massive profit opportunities for gangs to deal in drugs. The report notes:

During the 1980s, gangs that engaged in drug
trafficking in major cities began to expand their
drug distribution networks into suburban communities
influenced by local gangs. The larger
gangs controlled drug distribution in city drug
markets; they were motivated to move into adjoining
communities to generate additional income
by capitalizing on burgeoning powder cocaine and
crack cocaine abuse. Large urban gangs generated
millions of dollars from trafficking illicit drugs in
urban and suburban areas; this income enabled the
gangs to recruit new members and to force smaller
local gangs to either disband or align with them,
thereby increasing their dominance. To enhance
profits from drug trafficking and other crimes, large
urban gangs also deployed members to locate new
drug markets throughout the country, including in
suburban and rural communities. As various gangs
attempted to expand nationally, they often were
met with initial resistance by local gangs. This resistance
resulted in an increased number of homicides
and drive-by shootings in suburban communities.

Gangs expanded in the US during the last few decades for the same reason that the Mob expanded during Prohibition. Government stupidity pushes up the profits in offering an illegal substance that are desired, rightly or wrongly, by a large percentage of Americans. The profits are artificially high because the drugs are illegal. Given the violent nature of the drug warriors themselves it makes sense that over time more and more of the distribution of drugs will be handled by individuals who are just as violent, if not more so, than the police agents who enforce this law.

Gang members who do migrate illegally to the US do so to take advantage of the drug trade or because they work with the drug cartels who have been created by the prohibition of drugs. But there is no evidence that a significant number of undocumented workers in the country are here for gang activities. Drug prohibition is the main source of gang income. According to NGTA: "Gangs earn the profits essential to maintaining their criminal operations and the lifestyles of their members primarily through drug distribution." However, the crack down on the border has pushed many gangs into the people smuggling business. As usual prohibition fuels criminal enterprises.

Since millions of illegal immigrants are NOT fueling gangs how many are involved? Here is an estimate based on the NTGA estimates of the major gangs with Hispanic members, not all of whom would be illegal:

18th Street Gang: 24,o00 to 40,000 members who are assumed illegals.
Almight Latin King: Has 20,000 to 35,000 members but is open to "individuals of any nationality." No mention of significant illegal immigrant membership.
Florencia 13: about 3,000 not all of whom are illegal.
Fresno Bulldogs: 5,000 to 6,000 not all of whom are illegal.
Sureños and Norteños: No membership figures but these are gang members from other gangs that are numbered. These are members of other gangs imprisoned and working in the prisons. So these figures are included in other figures.
Tango Blast: Formed by Hispanic men in prison as protection against other gangs such as the Aryan Brotherhood.
Barrio Azteca: around 2,000 many illegals not all.
Hermanos de Pistoleros Latinos: around 1,000.
Mexikanemi: around 2,000 members.
Mexican Mafia: about 200 members.
Neta: Hispanic but mainly Puerto Rican not Mexican.

That is a list of the major gangs that are listed in the report which have Hispanic memberships of any significance mentioned. Their totals are around 90,000 or so and not all of them are illegal.
Many were actually born in the United States.

The gangs in America certainly are growing and as long as the drug warriors have their way these gangs will get bigger and bigger and more and more violent. Violent drug warriors encourage increasing violent drug dealers. The war on drugs won't stifle the demand for drugs and as long as demand remains high the drug war will offer massive profits to anyone willing to take on the cops. And who is willing to take on the cops: violent gangs.

Add into this mix the new profits being offered because of the border crackdown and the federal government is literally handing millions in artificially high profits to the gangs. Now, will Angle do anything to help encourage "legal" immigration or to end the war on drugs? No, just the opposite. It is Angle and people like her who are creating the very conditions that fuel the gangs.

The Bottom of the Republican Barrel

Jan Brewer is the governor of Arizona, she is a Republican, and she is an absolute moron. She is living proof that politics is like a septic tank: the big chunks float to the top. This woman is so insane as to be almost unbelievable. I have covered some of her stupidity in the past but you need to see these excerpts. Brewer is a bigot against immigrants and has publicly lied about the immigration situation in Arizona numerous time, appealing to the worst attitudes of voters, especially Republican voters. She previously claimed that virtually Mexicans coming into the US without bureaucratic permission slips are under the control of drug cartels. She had zero evidence for it, it was just another lie meant to pander to bigotry.

Then she made the claim that headless bodies were cropping up in Arizona as a result of the nasty Mexicans. That too was a pure invention. She claimed: "Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that have been beheaded." She said "there are people all over Arizona living in fear."

But watch what happens when she is asked to retract the false statement. She evades, evades and evades. Asked to repudiate the lie she stares for a second and then changes the subject. And then she just refuses to answer. I'm not a great fan of Democrats but I would vote for the Democrat just because Brewer is so incredibly stupid. Now, consider if she is this stupid then how much dumber must be the Republicans who are likely to nominate her?

No headless bodies have been found in Arizona. Brewer later tried to claim that she never said it was in Arizona and then went on to claim it was in Mexico. But if that is what she meant, then our were "our law enforcement agencies" finding these bodies in another country? Arizona's law officials don't patrol Mexico.

The problem is that one tends to make absurd statements like this when one is appealing to the most bigoted of prejudices, which is what Brewer is doing. She has to repeatedly make remarks stoking the xenophobic views of the American Right in order to keep their support.

Brewer has been utterly incompetent and was headed for defeat due to mishandling of the state budget and her promotion of tax increases. She then jumped on the hate-the-Mexicans bandwagon and saw her popularity among Republicans increase dramatically. But hate is like a drug, one can become used to the dose and need a strong dose to elicit the same high as before. So the hate has to be continually magnified. That is what Brewer is trying to do, the problem is that she isn't smart enough to do without sounding utterly ridiculous.

Republican says law can use "sixth sense" to finger illegals

I continue to stand by my view that the Republican Party is the party of organized hate in America. The Democrats may be in the clutches of the greedy, unions of government employees, who are helping bankrupt America while giving us lousy service, or unnecessary service, but general speaking the bigots are attracted to the GOP. Once the Republican Party embraced the fundamentalist Christians it was bound to head down the bigoted road on numerous issues. I have long noticed that someone who is bigoted against one group tends to be bigoted against several groups.

The odd thing about haters is that people who dislike people for being black are more likely to dislike people who are Jewish, or people who are gay. They are more likely to see women as inferior to men. They tend to be more authoritarian, even if they pretend they support "less government."

Listen to Republican Congressvermin Steve King justify police using racial profiling to target "illegals" by comparing it to a taxi driver giving him a ride. The taxi driver saw King leave a government building, tapped his horn to see if King wanted a ride and King responded positively. That proves we are "profiled" all the time.

What King neglects, and which too many politicians neglect, is that there is a world of difference when government acts in this way. The taxi driver does not have a legal monopoly on the use of violence and force against others. He is not the State. Police agents are government, not private individuals offering services, but individuals who have the power to use force against other people.

I remember standing on the platform of the U-bahn in Berlin when the tracks were being repaired and the trains were being diverted. I saw a couple who looked very confused and were speaking English to one another. They had American accents and I assumed they were confused by the changes that were implemented. So I walked over and explained how the trains had been changed and asked them where they were going. I was getting off at Zoologischer Garten, and they had to go a couple stations further so I suggested they follow me. When I got off the train I explained they had to go two more stops for the station they wanted.

In a vague senses that was profiling. But I have no ability to restrain people. I couldn't violate their rights, only offer them assistance. When the power to violate rights, which is inherent in policing, is linked to entirely non-objective traits, such as King's "sixth sense," you have removed all concepts of the rule of law from the policing system.

Imagine a police officer stopping a man on the street because his "sixth sense" tells him the man is some sort of criminal. The officer demands ID based on his sixth sense. Legally speaking we are supposed to still have the right to walk the streets sans government paper. So assume our man is without ID. He tells the officer his name, as required and even volunteers that he is a citizen. But the officer's "sixth sense" is working, or maybe the suspects the man wears shoes that show he is "illegal" or has the haircut of an "illegal" (this is really Twilight Zone thinking). So, using his new powers under the Arizona law he takes the man into custody.

The man has done nothing! He has not violated any law. He has not assaulted anyone, or transgressed on the rights of any other person. He is peacefully minding his own business and a police officer, using King's justification, merely "senses" that the man is suspicious. No objective standard now exists. Officers are free to harass and grab people on the streets merely because they don't like a haircut, a pair of shoes, or because they just get a "feeling" about the person.

This is big government at it's worst. Big government is bad under all circumstances, in my opinion. But massive government without the restraint of objective definitions of criminal behavior is total tyranny. No armed agent of the government should be able to stop people and restrain them merely because he "senses" something. That is the complete annihilation of the rule of law. It also illustrates why I consider the xenophobic, anti-immigrant hysteria on the Right to be one of the biggest threats to Constitutional freedoms around today. And what is really disgusting is that the morons pretend to be doing in the name of the small government.

The "charming" morons hired by Immigration

A friend of mine, who is Canadian, lives there with her American husband. The husband's father recently died and they have had to come to the U.S. a couple of times to settle matters of the father's estate. Having just returned from one of those trips she told me what happened as they were driving down to the U.S.

At the U.S. border they had another one of the insufferably long waits that Immigrations now routinely inflicts, discouraging millions in revenue for the country. These waits have basically killed off the previously thriving industry of Canadians coming to America to do shopping.

At the border they were approached by a Immigration thug who shaves his head and wears military sunglasses—a look I suggest is consciously thought through to make a statement that is supposed to be intimidating. I still contend that many people attracted to this line of work are actually petty thugs and bullies who are attracted to the job because they like to order people around—perhaps it is to compensate for small dicks, I'm sure it is to compensate for small brains, however. The productive marketplace, that is non-government employment, does not have much demand for bullies, especially dumb bullies.

The border thug demands to know why they are visiting the U.S., remember the driver is a U.S. citizen and the Canadian is his wife. The husband informs the curt skinhead that the trip was to settle his father's estate. Having looked at the passports, that is government permission slips given to "free" people allowing them to do what they did for millenniums without permission, the skinhead knew very little, but enough for his next question, so he thought.

He then asks my friends, "What is the status of the father?" A truly odd question if you think about it. After all they just told him they were going to settle the father's estate. The husband was so baffled by the question he sat there trying to figure out what the skinhead was talking about.

My friend, the wife, was startled by the question because it seemed so patently absurd to her as well. She responded: "He's dead."

That was sufficient to "set the guard off. He tore into me with a lecture about how [her husband's] father needed a status to have a residence and an estate in America, etc., etc., etc."

Actually, owning an estate is entirely independent of having "a status." And by status it was now clear that the skinhead was demanding to know if my friend's father was an illegal alien. So, what would trigger that line of questioning?

One thing, and one thing only. His surname is Hispanic. Remember he is a U.S. citizen, born in the U.S., his father was NOT an illegal alien. His only crime was having a Hispanic surname. Racial profiling and skinheads go together, and only the government gives the skinheads authority like this. Normally when they engage in racial harassment it is illegal, but not when working for government.

I am sure that the surname was the reason this sort of profiling was done. I also suspect that there was a second factor: the skinhead didn't know what it meant to "settle the estate." Given the intelligence level of people attracted to government employment I suspect he gave the term no consideration at all. All he heard was "father" and "estate" and then wants to know the "status" of the father, without realizing that normal people don't equate the word "status" with having permission papers from the federal authorities.

When my friend blurted out, rather surprised by the question, that the father was dead the skinhead realized he made a stupid assumption. Actually he made two stupid assumptions. First he assumed that having a Hispanic surname would mean the father could be an illegal alien. Second, it didn't dawn on him that the father was not living in the U.S., but was dead and buried in the U.S.

The reason he "tore into" my friend so heavily was because he was trying to cover up his own ignorance. But why bother? Surely the skinhead-military-sunglasses look already revealed the kind of ignorant moron that he clearly was. Opening his mouth only confirmed the obvious.

Yes, assuming a Hispanic name means "illegal" is stupid, but government policy encourages that sort of thing. But having a name assumed to be Hispanic doesn't mean one is either Hispanic or an alien. I remember one incident where three people I knew well all received solicitations to subscribe to the Spanish edition of Time magazine. All three had surnames that are widely assumed to be Hispanic, none were Hispanic and none could speak or read Spanish. Such false assumptions, in the private sector, are just amusing anecdotes with no harmful consequences possible.

Such assumptions, when made by morons with guns and the authority to use them, have very bad potential consequences. For example, remember the case of the man in Chicago, who was incarcerated for days because the morons didn't realize that Puerto Rico is part of the United States, not that it should be.

The skinhead mentality is alive and well, and it is always unpleasant. In the private sector when it exhibits itself the law is supposed to restrain it to non-violent acts. But when the mentality is backed by government power it becomes quite dangerous and potentially lethal. And while my friends on the Left would applaud much of what I say here, I want to remind them that it is the concentration of state power that makes this a problem. Skinheads acting privately are restrained by the law, skinheads with government "authority" are set loose on the public. The same disgusting mentality is magnified when combined with big government.

Too many advocates of centralized power on the Left assume that only "good guys" will have that power. That is a very bad mistake to make. Reality shows that eventually the "bad guys," regardless of how you define them, will get that power and use it as they see fit. If you want to protect minorities and civil liberties you have to work for smaller government. Otherwise you do get skinheads running immigration policy and fundamentalist "abstinence" types teaching sex education. In the private sector both are jokes, endowed with state power they are a danger.

US Citizen detained, looks Mexican

Eduardo Caraballo is a natural-born American, born in the US colony of Puerto Rico. He even had legitimate ID on him when he was arrested because police thought he was involved with a car theft, something he denies. When he was being released on bail Immigration showed up, apparently someone thought he looked "illegal." In other words, he looked Hispanic, i.e. Mexican.

Under the new presumptions of the immigration hysteria one must prove one's innocence. For instance, the Arizona law requires individuals to prove they are legal citizens any time a police officer stops them if he "suspects" they are illegal. The law says that they can't take race into account, but all that means is that police have to write their arrest records saying that they had other reasons to stop the person. Included in this category, by the way, is that the person "looks nervous." That sort of subjective definition is a blank check for cops to harass people for looking Mexican, provided the police simply lie and say they "looked nervous" instead.

How will this work? First, the cop pretends the individual they want to get failed to completely stop at a stop sign. No evidence is necessary for this. The cop will claim he pulled the person over for some minor infraction. The kind and nice officer can claim that he merely intended to give the driver a verbal warning. But, lo and behold, the driver of the vehicle acted nervous arousing the suspicions of the nice policeman who never thinks anything forbidden by the law. So the office demanded the driver "prove" his U.S. citizenship.

Of course, the authoritarians who support these laws, claim that the law allows the citizen to "prove" his innocence—a reversal of the usual requirement that the state prove one's guilt. Now Mr. Caraballo did that. He provided ID and even managed to show them his birth certificate. That didn't matter, the feds held him anyway. After all, he looked Mexican, so they assumed the documents had to be forged. It took three days, of federal incarceration, before the feds realized that the evidence showed he was actually a citizen. Until they could do that Mr. Caraballo sat in detention for looking Mexican.

More Immigrants, Less Crime?

The xenophobic Right, which loves to verbally bash immigrants, has repeatedly pushed the canard that immigrants cause crime. They claim that there is a crime wave hitting American due to immigrants and repeat claims that crime in border states is particularly bad. What they don't do is show crime statistics. These are the kind of people, so ignorant of evidence, that they think an anecdotal story suffices.

Let us go to ground zero is the immigration debate: Arizona. It is there that Republicans pushed through an infamous anti-immigration bill that has many people shocked and concerned. So what has happened in the Arizona border towns? Not much actually, as the Arizona Republic found when it talked the police chiefs in those towns.

Nogales, Arizona shares the border with Nogales, Mexico but the Arizona town says it doesn't know what the anti-immigration crowd is talking about. Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez says: "You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America."

The Republic says that they looked at the FBI Uniform Crime Report and statistics provided by local police agencies which "show that the crime rates in Nogales,Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade..." They also found: "Statewide rates of violent crime also are down."

Politicians, mainly, if not exclusively Republican, have made speeches about crime along the Arizona border. But Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, from Pima County, says: "This is a media-created event. I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure." In Cochise County the "crime rate has been 'flat for at least 10 years, the sheriff added."

The Republic reports: "While the nation's illegal-immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2004, according to federal records, the violent-crime rate declined 35 percent." If illegal immigrantion causes crime then shouldn't crime rates rise with more immigration,not fall? In Arizona the violent-crime rate "dropped from 512 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 447 incidents in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available."

This decrease in crime in "crime-ridden" Arizona—if you believe the hype about immigrants—continues to show up in the most recent statistics as well. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Arizona's major cities all registered declines" in crime and:

In Phoenix, police spokesman Trent Crump said, "Despite all the hype, in every single reportable crime category, we're significantly down." Mr. Crump said Phoenix's most recent data for 2010 indicated still lower crime. For the first quarter of 2010, violent crime was down 17% overall in the city, while homicides were down 38% and robberies 27%, compared with the same period in 2009.

Sure there is crime related to drug smuggling and it is growing in many ways. But that is not illegal immigrants by any means. Your typical undocumented worker can't afford cocaine to smuggle, they are lucky to afford the cost of getting themselves across the border. The violence we see is drug war related and as long as drug profits are high, which is a result of the war on drugs, then smuggling will be associated with violence. And the more violent our drug warriors become the more violent the smugglers will be. But this is not related to immigration: legal or illegal.

Sociologist Robert Sampson looked at crime trends in the US and compared them to immigration patterns. More immigrants didn't lead to more crime, which is what should have happened had there been a direc link between the two. If you look at the chart here you will see the time line shows American crime trands from 1990 to 2004 (this is from a 2006 article). You see crime rates dropping as immigration rates increased. Around 1998 crime rates stagnated for the most part, but immigration fell. So as immigration rates were increased crime fell, and when immigration fell crime rates stopped falling.

Sampson wrote:

Yet our study found that immigrants appear in general to be less violent than people born in America, particularly when they live in neighborhoods with high numbers of other immigrants. We are thus witnessing a different pattern from early 20th-century America, when growth in immigration from Europe was linked with increasing crime and formed a building block for what became known as "social disorganization" theory.

In today's world, then, it is no longer tenable to assume that immigration automatically leads to chaos and crime. New York is a magnet for immigration, yet it has for a decade ranked as one of America's safest cities. Border cities like El Paso and San Diego have made similar gains against crime. Perhaps the lesson is that if we want to continue to crack down on crime, closing the nation's doors is not the answer.

Professor Tim Wadsworth, from the University of Colorado read what Sampson wrote and decided to test it. The University press release reports what Wadsworth found:

Drawing from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and U.S. Census data, Wadsworth analyzed 459 cities with populations of at least 50,000. Wadsworth measured immigrant populations in two ways: those who are foreign-born and those who immigrated within the previous five years.

Wadsworth focused on medium and large cities because about 80 percent of violent crime takes place there. Wadsworth said distinguishing legal and illegal immigration is difficult, as the U.S. Census does not track those numbers, but he notes that immigrant citizens and non-citizens often live together in the same communities.

He tracked crime statistics for homicide and robbery because they tend to be reported more consistently than other crimes. Robberies are usually committed by strangers -- which increases the reporting rate -- and "homicides are difficult to hide," he said.

Wadsworth looked to see if crime rose as immigration rose and fell as immigration declined. Instead he found the opposite: "cities that experienced the largest growth in the population of foreign-born and newly arrived immigrant populations experienced the largest decreases in violent crime between 1990 and 2000." Wadsworth's conclusions corresponded with those of Sampson, and instead of showing a rise in crime because of immigration, the records showed that crime dropped.

How nationalized health care victimizes immigrants.

Evangeline Stanner is a victim of nationalized health care. As is her husband and two children.

Evangeline, 35, was born in the Philippines. She is married to Richard Stanner of New Zealand. The couple, who met over the internet, have been married since 2006, together they have two children, a two-year-old and a six-month old infant.

After her marriage in 2006 Evangeline was given a work permit in New Zealand so she could be with her husband. That work permit was renewed twice but is due to expire in January. You would think that as the legally married spouse of a Kiwi that she'd be able to stay in New Zealand. And Kiwis are allowed to sponsor their spouses for citizenship—something Evangeline and Richard have put into motion.

But the Stanners were told that Evangeline must leave her home, her husband and her children and return to the Philippines. Evangeline says: "Immigration is tearing our family apart." But she is wrong. It isn't actually immigration that is doing it, it is nationalized health care.

Evageline's only crime was that she got sick. New Zealand has a nationalized health care system and immigrants are not allowed into the country if they might impose costs on the system. It doesn't matter that Evangeline only became ill while in New Zealand. Immigrants are allowed in provided they fund the system, as Evangeline did with the taxes she paid from employment, but they must not collect from the system into which they are forced to pay. Their only purpose is to keep the system funded for aging Kiwis who don't have private insurance, thanks to the crowding out that happens when government provides this care.

During her first pregnancy, with son Josh, she developed a slight kidney problem. With the birth of her second child the condition became much more severe. Her application as the mother of two Kiwi children was scrutinized by medical bureaucrats who wrote her "that you do not meet the acceptable standard of health... on the basis that you are likely to impose significiant costs or demands on New Zealand's health services."

Evangeline has until January 10th to be with her children and then she will be exiled for the crime of being ill.

Immigrants going into New Zealand are taxed for the health care system. Many immigrants simply can't afford to purchase private insurance on top of the heavy taxes they pay for the "free health care" which they better not use. So, if they use the national health system they may end up getting deported, but they can't purchase private care either since the national health system eats up a good portion of their income. Its a case of damned if your well, double damned if your sick.

On top of kidney problems Evangeline has to cope with the stress of being exiled from her husband and children just so the illusion that "nationalized" health care is cheap can be kept alive.

Evangeline, and other immigrants, are not allowed to forgo the nationalized health system, the purpose of such a system is to guarantee "equality" not improve people's lives. So while many would find a better life in New Zealand, even without the socialized health care, they aren't allowed to have it. That would undermine the real principle at work, equality of outcome. So to pretend that the system grants equal access to health care, anyone who might get sick is deported.

You will also find that older people are also routinely discriminated against by New Zealand Immigration, even if those people are quite capable of funding their own health insurance. The system is set up so that nationalized health care trumps everything so anyone who could conceivable use that care is forbidden from moving to New Zealand.

Oddly this has nothing to do with a Kiwi fear of people taking advantage of the welfare state. People can immigrate and join the welfare rolls, that isn't the problem. The problem is that health care is a more precarious situation. Most Kiwis will never be on welfare, so the government can tax them to pay for those people who are on the system. But everyone eventually needs health care and the Kiwi system, like all socialized systems is costly with demand exceeding supply. So anything that strains this already over-strained system has to be cut out.

The result is the rationing which I have spoke about on numerous ocassions. Some medines simply are forbidden. Some procedures are simply banned. Hospital beds are rationed, as are doctors and health care in general. And, some people are simply banned from having health care. If you ban enough people then you can offer "universal health coverage" albeit not very honestly.

Evangeline Stanner had the misfortune of becoming ill under nationalized health care before her residency was approved. So, for that, she will be deported. Chances are also good that she will die in the Philippines because of her illness. She did pay into the health system for three years, her husband paid in for his entire life, but under socialized health care rationing takes place. Nameless bureaucrats decided where to draw lines over who is, or isn't allowed to have care. They drew the line and Evangeline was on the wrong side of it.

Of course, it is possible that lots of negative publicity will ge the politicians to step in and change the ruling. But that won't change the system. All it will mean is that lots of other people, good people who won't get the publicity, will still be excluded because the national health system is only looking for immigrants that can be plundered, not immigrants who may need health care.

In a rational immigration system health, in the sense of communicable diseases, may be an issue. But Evangeline posed no threat to the health of others. I would suggest her presence, with her children, would lessen risks they may have in life. But she was a "liability" not an "asset" to a system that she had no choice in joining.

National health care systems impact on freedom in more ways than meet the eye. It won't just be the reduction of freedom of choice in medical care, and it won't be just a reduction in the amount of the wages you earned which you are allowed to keep. It will also mean greater restrictions on freedom of movement between countries. Nationalize health care makes it harder for would-be immigrants to find a better life. And that means that they, and everyone else, is made poorer because of it.

Under nationalized health care immigrants are an invisible victim of the system. Evangeline is one of those victims, albeit one that has managed to received some publicity.

Save the planet and keep America white at the same time!

One of the major reasons that some people are so anti-immigration is that they don’t want poor people from the rest of the world moving here “stealing our jobs” while “living off our welfare.” And certainly, one of the prime motivations for immigration has been to improve one’s economic conditions. In fact, people immigrate to make their lives better.

In some cases that may mean seeking out more freedom. In some cases it means avoiding armed conflict. But I think it fair to say that most people today immigrate to the U.S. because they are seeking to improve their material existence. They are poor and they don’t want to be.

Now the anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies, founded by anti-immigration activists, has remarketed their views. They don’t like immigrants. And their founder and main funder, John Tanton, has basically argued that they should use any argument, and any tactic, to stop immigration.

Basically Tanton wants to use every big government measure possible to keep out those damn poor people. He wants to “get the IRS on our side”. He says that CIS should actively recruit government employees who deal with immigration as members so that they can see the light and start denying legal immigration to the country. And he especially advocates that CIS do everything possible to prevent any immigration reform until they can get their policies imposed instead.

In one memo Tanton sent out he said: “The demographic picture in South Africa now is startlingly similar to what we’ll see in California in 2030” where “a White minority owns the property, has the best jobs and education, has the political power and speaks one language. A non-White majority has poor education, jobs and income, owns little property, is on its way to political power and speaks a different language.”

By the way Tanton apparently knows nothing about South Africa. The “White minority” never spoke one language, as he claims. About 60% spoke Afrikaans while 40% were primarily English speaking. Tanton sneers at South Africa being bilingual but said that was because “Blacks are taught in Zulu and related tongues.” He seems unaware that white South Africans were bilingual and that a huge percentage of black South Africans spoke Afrikaans or English in addition to their own language. The country was never bilingual but multi-lingual and has 11 official languages -- a nightmare for the White supremacist types.

Later he said that whites in California will own farms “but will not be able to speak to the Hispanic field workers. They will need bilingual foreman. Does this sound like social peace? Or like South Africa?” Again, the man is uneducated about South Africa. Most black farm workers in South Africa spoke Afrikaans as most farmers were Afrikaners. And many farm owners spoke one or more of the indigenous languages. Often these farms were small holdings with just a few employees -- they didn’t have a foreman standing between the farmer and his employees. Larger farms would have such foremen due to size, not due to language issues. Tanton clearly is willing to clutch at any straw.

Tanton’s obsession with race and immigration actually began because he was in a panic about the environment. The Southern Poverty Law Center says he “started out as a passionate environmentalist. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he was a leader in the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, and other mainstream environmental groups.” That was step one toward his obsession with race.

Tanton soon became fixated on population control, seeing environmental degradation as the inevitable result of overpopulation.

When the indigenous birth rate fell below replacement level in the United States, his preoccupation turned to immigration. And this soon led him to race.

Tanton had something akin to a conversion when he came across The Camp of the Saints, a lurid, racist novel written by Frenchman Jean Raspail that depicts an invasion of the white, Western world by a fleet of starving, dark-skinned refugees.
Tanton helped get the novel published in English and soon was promoting what he considered the book's prophetic argument.

"Their [Third World] 'huddled masses' cast longing eyes on the apparent riches of the industrial west," Tanton wrote in 1975. "The developed countries lie directly in the path of a great storm."

And so he began to develop a counter-force. After 1979, when he co-founded FAIR, Tanton launched "a whole array of organizations that serve the overall ideological and political battle plan to halt immigration — even if those groups have somewhat differing politics," explained Rick Swartz, the pro-immigration activist who founded the National Immigration Forum in 1982.

So Tanton’s CIS has come full circle. They are now latching onto the global warming issue to justify their anti-immigration stands. Whether some well-intentioned advocates of the anthropogenic global warming theory wish it to be, the reality is that global warming is being used in the same way that “terrorism” is being used: as a catch-all excuse for a massive increase in state control of individuals.

CIS wants a massive increase in state control of individuals. In fact, they want total state control of all people wishing to immigrate to the U.S. and want that stopped. So, of course, they found their new mantra: immigration causes global warming.

Their newest report claims that “Immigration to the United States significantly increased world-wide CO2 emissions because it transfers population from lower-polluting parts of the world to the United States, which is a higher-polluting country. On average immigrants increase their emissions four-fold by coming to America.” All this “may trigger far-reaching, long-term effects on the Earth’s climate and biosphere, and consequently, on human civilization.” Yep, that’s it, immigration may end human civilization.

One thing this report does do, which was not intended, is show the connection between our so-called “carbon footprint” and economic prosperity. Where CIS previously had focused on the impact of letting those non-white, poor folks into America they are now talking about their small carbon footprint being enlarged by immigration. What they mean is that poor people are better able to feed their families, have better homes, etc.

While the concern of CIS is mainly to rile up resentment and hatred for immigrants they are doing us a service. They are unintentionally showing that one of the most effective ways to reduce “carbon footprints” is to plunge nations into poverty.

Tanton started out as a fearful environmentalist who saw humans as the problem. That pushed him toward wanting to limit populations. And that pushed him toward wanting to restrict immigration. Once he was in anti-immigration activism he, and his outfits, found themselves allied with racists, white supremacists and other such outfits. And now they are using their environmentalism to try and sell their anti-immigration agenda to those terrified by global warming.

Note: Some years ago I read the “lurid, racist novel” The Camp of the Saints. It was at a time when I was researching population issues heavily. And it was apparent that the whole thesis of the book was based on the false assumptions regarding demographics that was the foundation of the fear-mongering of such people as Paul Erhlich and other’s in the population control movement. The fallacies built into that book were numerous and the racism it espoused was the result. Also note that when I refer to the population control movement I am not speaking about voluntary population control but those who advocate various forms of state intervention to control populations.

Drew Carey on Immigration.

The logic of the anti-immigrant crowd.

There are numerous arguments that the xenophobes make against immigration -- or more precisely against certain kinds of immigrants. Rarely do I find that they want to stop all immigrants. After all no one wants to build a wall on the Canadian border -- but those people look like us so they are okay.

Some of these arguments are merely mistaken -- based on false premises. Some are just daft, moronic or stupid -- those based on false logic. Others are just mean-spirited and openly hateful.

A stupid argument is one that is just logically false. My favorite is the one that argues that the individuals grandparent or great-parent immigrated to America legally so why don’t those damn Mexicans do the same thing. It assumes that the Mexicans can do what their grandparents did. It assumes no differences in the law or the situation of the immigrants.

My great grandparents were all immigrants to the United States. And every one of them immigrated legally to the United States. How was that possible? First, let me recount what they did. They saved money up for a boat ticket. They got on the boat. They got off the boat. The filled in some forms with the immigration people and then walked out to their new life. No one can do that today. The people who come closest to doing this are, in fact, illegal immigrants.

People stupidly assume the law has not made life immensely more difficult for immigrants than it did 50 years ago or 75 years ago. My immigrant ancestors (there are no native Americans only people who immigrated sooner than others) didn’t have to queue up at a consulate and hand in massive documents that are meticulously filled out. They didn’t pay high filing fees they couldn’t afford or have to schedule “interviews” with embassy officials who couldn’t fit them into the schedule for months, if not for years.

They didn’t even need a passport -- no one did. People just traveled the world and settled where they wished -- except in a few countries that were considered dictatorships or authoritarian in nature. My ancestors merely boarded the first boat they could and got off in America. No immigrant today can do what they did under the current labyrinth of legislation.

Any legal system of immigration will allow some people into the country -- that is a given. That some get in doesn’t mean that others have the same chance of getting in if they simply follow the rules. This is particularly true for immigration since the rules are not the same for everyone. The government has created hundreds of special categories which apply to only some people. That your mother got in is not a guarantee that other immigrants could do the same thing.

To assume that all immigrants today have equal opportunities to immigrate is false. And to assume that today’s immigrants can enter legally just as easily as yesterday’s immigrants is totally false. The logic is bad. The premise is correct -- immigrants in the past did get into the U.S. but the conclusion -- that therefore immigrants today can do it just as easily -- does not follow the premise.

Another argument that is just silly is the one that says that some immigrants do something bad therefore reducing immigration is a good thing because it prevents the bad things from happening. For instance, an immigrant might kill someone therefore preventing immigration saves lives.

No doubt preventing immigration will save some lives. So would preventing births. Mandatory birth control will prevent any new murderers from being born. But of course there is a cost as well. The anti-immigrant debate tends to look only at the debit column and not the credit column. In the bridge collapse in Minnesota an immigrant rescued dozens of children from the trapped school bus. We recently outlined the case of the small child who was rescued in the desert by an illegal immigrant who sacrificed his chance to finish his journey to America by staying with the child until the authorities arrived. Not long ago a small child climbed onto a fire escape in New York City and fell several floors to the ground below. Two immigrants together caught the child saving its life.

Cutting immigration will cost some lives and save others. Unless there is some indication that immigrants are far more likely to be killers (and there isn’t) the argument is bogus. Every restriction can be justified on the basis of saving one life or preventing one crime. If every American were in prison or under constant surveillance by Homeland Security there would, no doubt, be fewer crimes. But such arguments are routinely rejected, with good cause, in areas that impact directly on most Americans. That the same rejected logic is then used against immigrants is indicative that it is not the logic that persuades people.

Many of the arguments against immigration are invented statistics that the xenophobic campaigners like to spread around like manure in a field -- and the smell isn’t much different either. One argument is that immigrants don’t contribute to the economy but are a drain on it. In fact we covered that topic several times. Here is one study that looked at the question of immigrants in Arizona, a state with a large number of illegals, and found that they pay more in taxes than they consume in benefits. In other words they are subsidizing the fat welfare crowd who are mostly native born.

Other studies showed that the immigrants are paying more in taxes than they receive in benefits as well.

The tottering Social Security system is subsidized by illegal immigrants who find that social security payments are deducted from their wages but they are unable to ever collect the benefits for which they are paying. The funds collected from these immigrants goes into an “earnings suspense file” that the government keeps. And they report that these funds are growing by $50 billion year. The chief actuary for Social Security, Stephen Goss, says that “about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes.”

The result is that immigrants are subsidizing the social security benefits received by millions of Americans. Mr. Goss says that because the illegals don’t collect, but are paying in, they are cutting the loses the system experiences. As the New York Times reported: “without the flow of payroll taxes from wages in the suspense file, the system’s long-term funding hole over 75 years would be 10 percent deeper.”

And one tax agent who helps immigrants prepare their tax returns says that among his clients many return to Mexico when they become elderly to live off their savings. “I can’t recall anybody over 60 without papers,” he said. They work and then retire with the earnings they made during their working years while simultaneously subsidizing the retirement of native born Americans.

Then there is the bogus crime issue. The claim here is that immigrants are apparently inclined toward crime way out of proportion to their numbers --- well, technically that is true but the inclination is one against crime. Immigrants commit fewer crimes on average than do the native born.

Some right-wing tirades against immigrants actually invent statistics. There is a lot of that going around especially on the internet by email. Any email claim received that is negative about immigrants, no matter how absurd or dishonest, is spread around with great delight by some. Yet these claims are false. They are lies that someone intentionally concocted knowing that the bigoted mind is prone to believe such claims simply because they confirm the prejudices of the believer. The bigot, however, never questions his own statistics but reports them as confirming what he already knew without evidence. And far too often those stats are just bogus.

The case against immigrants doesn’t stack up with the evidence. That people continue to make it, in the face of evidence to the contrary, has to cause me to wonder what their real motivation might be. And when I see some of the hateful emails that are distributed, filled with bogus statistics of the sort that Klan would disseminate I can only conclude that there is more than a hint of racism involved. When this concern never seems to materialize into actions taken to stop immigrants who are white my suspicions are aroused even further. But typically, if I read the material the anti-immigrant groups send around, all my suspicions are confirmed and rank prejudice is typically the main motivation for such beliefs.

The immigrant is prejudged and held guilty for things he has not done but for things he is assumed that he will do at some point in the future. This prejudgment is then supported with bad logic or dishonest statistics. That all looks like racism to me. Not every single opponent of immigration is a racist but every racist I’ve met has been an opponent of immigration. And more importantly, the percentage of racists among the anti-immigration crowd is far higher than among the general population. The link between racism and anti-immigration views is not 100% but it is substantial.

Photo: The illustration is of a publication from almost 90 years ago lamenting how immigration was ruining America. For most Americans that would be referring to your grandparents or their parents or grandparent. They also bought the argument that immigration then was "different" from previous waves of immigrants and thus a bigger threat. In other words you are the people the anti-immigrant crowd in 1920 was warning America about-- you are the threat they imagined.

Immgrant shoppers help all consumers with lower prices.

Here’s something that is bound to send the anti-immigration crowd up the wall they are building on the border. Immigrants, legal or illegal, can bring down prices for the goods that everyone buys meaning everyone benefits by having more spendable income. The evidence comes from a report by economist Saul Lach.

The Washington Post reports: “For every 1 percent increase in the ratio of immigrants to natives, prices go down by about 0.5 percent, according to Lach's new study about the effects of 200,000 Jews immigrating to Israel from the former Soviet Union in 1990.”

American economist Aviv Nevo said the reason this happens is: “immigrants change the mix of consumers and will likely change the relative prices of different products.” Immigrants are more price conscious and more likely to shop around for bargains. The net result is that more and more businesses find it advantageous to attract these new customers by offering the bargains they are seeking. While the profit margin per item is lower it is made up by increased sales.

The Post writes: “Lach found that new immigrants spend much more time comparison-shopping than natives—perhaps because their economic circumstances force them to look for best deals, or because they have more discretionary time to compare prices, or because they have not yet developed brand loyalties.”

When shops compete by offering lower prices all consumers benefit including those who don’t have time to shop for bargains. It isn’t the extra money that immigrants spend that is the factor here -- though it is helpful in numerous ways. It is simply that the immigrants spend more time shopping for bargains and that increases the likelihood that more bargains will be offered. And when more bargains are offered even the loony Minutemen and the xenophobes benefit -- though of course they are unlikely to understand the economics behind the reason why it happens.

A modest proposal for anti-immigration libertarians.

Some alleged libertarians argue that the combination of welfare and immigration (legal or illegal) is lethal. Thus, until the welfare state is abolished (unlikely), government must restrict other freedoms such as freedom of movement. Hayek argued that government interventions lead to problems which lead to more government interventions which lead to more problems. He called this “the road to serfdom.” Apparently it is a road some “libertarians” travel down happily, at least when immigrants are involved.

Generally this argument is bolstered by fake statistics and dishonest arguments. They falsely claim immigrations are more prone to crime than the native-born. The opposite is true. Nor are they welfare drains. The illegal status of many means that taxes are deducted from wages but they never file a 10W40 to claim their refunds, which gives them an inordinately high rate of taxation compared to native born citizens earning similar wages.

In spite of the facts the anti-immigrant Right still insists that the presence of state welfare means that government must act to restrict immigration. Freedom must be sacrificed because these immigrants will consume more than they pay into the outdated welfare state system.

And while anti-immigrant loud mouths concentrate mainly on Mexicans who cross into the United States, without government permission, there is another group of individuals who arrived in vast numbers and who consume massive amounts of social welfare. These anti-welfare activists ignore them entirely.

In an average year over four million of these individuals arrive in the States. And I’ve looked up some of the numbers of what they consume. The United States government, at all levels, doles out in excess of $500 billion every single year in order provide them with free state education. Police resources spent to keep these individual in check amounts to around $14.1 billion per year.

The reality is that these individuals do, over the course of their first two decades in the country, commit far more crimes than the average American. In fact, they commit a higher percentage of crimes than do the illegal immigrants. A report from the state of California, that I read, said that it is almost impossible to accurately estimate how much these people cost due to crimes they commit but the report said all estimates “conclude that nation-wide costs are in the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars annually.”

And I’ve seen some horrifying numbers. These people are more prone to use illegal drugs than average. They are more likely to be involved in drunk driving, as well as automobile accidents, than average. They are more violent and more crime prone than average. The social costs they impose on society are in the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars every single year, probably the trillions of dollars.

One in three of them relies on government services for their health care. Add billions more for that. And, unlike the Mexicans who immigrate illegally, they are entitled to massive amounts of welfare. The Urban Institute estimates that these individuals consume around $333 billion per year in entitlements alone. That doesn’t include all the money spent on crime control or the cost of those crimes or what is spent on education.

The arrival of these 4 million+ people every year consumes vast amounts of government spending. Far more than we could ever accurately calculate. And none of this includes the trillions of dollars in private spending.

And what do they put into the system? Unlike the typical illegal who comes to America to earn a living these new arrivals rarely enter the job market during their first two decades in the country. Those that do tend to take part-time work at minimum wage. It takes around 20 years or more before they are acclimated sufficiently to the culture before many of them make their first tentative steps into the employment market.

Who are these individuals that impose such massive government expenditures and contribute so little to the economy for such an extended period of time? Babies.

Every child that is born in the United States racks up massive amounts of government spending for at least the first two decades of their life. The Justice system spend billions to keep them in control. And the largest program of wealth redistribution in the world is the American educational system. A typical education, through high school, could cost the taxpayers anywhere from $100,000 to $160,000. Then many of them go on to subsidized higher education as well which, depending on where they are studying and for how long, can double the educational costs.

And unlike illegal immigrants they rarely find employment until decades after they arrived.

Would these social costs, imposed unwillingly on others, therefore justify government restrictions on reproduction? If not, why not? With infants there is clearly a net social cost in the form of entitlements for two decades. With immigrants there is net income as most work and most pay taxes. They are productive almost immediately. Not so with children.

As I see it the arguments that conservatives and anti-immigrant types make concerning social entitlements and immigrants applies far more accurately to giving birth than to immigration. Using their logic, that would make the case for state restrictions on reproduction far more compelling than their arguments for immigration restrictions.

Obviously I don’t think the state should be restricting the reproductive intentions of individuals. Nor do I believe it should be subsidizing them, which it does to the tune of trillions of dollars per year. I don’t think that the existence of entitlement programs justify the extension of state control in other areas -- as do the anti-immigrant “libertarians” I refer to. And I take this position even though the entitlements spent on children far exceeds that spent on immigrants.

Of course there is no movement worth speaking of to stop people from having children. It’s hard to rile up people to hate kids. It’s easy to get them to hate foreigners. It’s been going on for centuries. I think that raw prejudice is far more likely to explain the presence of anti-immigration libertarians than the welfare argument does. If it were really welfare that concerned them they’d spend more time lobbying for government restrictions on giving birth. I would be curious though, to see exactly where they would build the wall to prevent reproduction.

How the anti-Immigration Right is helping impose a Police State.

Throughout history politicians have used every “crisis” they could find or manufacture to further the power of the State. If enough Americans could be herded into a collective whining about a perceived problem the State rushed in, fleeced their wallets, stripped away their liberties, and assumed massive new powers. And the herd would breathe a sigh of relief and say; “Thank you, master, now the nasty wolf won’t get us, baaa, baaa.”

Shortly later some politician would take something innocuous, perhaps a rock or a bush, and fling some wolf skin over it. He would run around furiously pointing at it and shouting, “Wolf! Wolf!” And the poor little sheeple would panic and rush to him begging for new protections. And he would smile, fleece their pockets once again, strip away more of their freedom and become even more tyrannical himself.

Then he’d tell the sheeple how dangerous things were and how, without his protection, they would be dinner to the terrible wolves that roamed the woods. But being the master of so many sheep is hard work and one gets so very hungry. Wouldn’t a little mutton now and then allow him to protect the herd so much more effectively. “And we all know the good of the many outweighs the good of the one.”

The sheeple didn’t bat an eye but instead started debating among themselves as to which one of them would be tastiest. Soon they noticed the master building fences around the lovely green pasture where they roamed. The nooks and crannies that they used to explore so freely were walled off. “It’s for your protection,” announced the master. “We must keep the wolves out, you know.” The sheeple nodded in acquiescence. A few went to the master and thanked him ever so profusely. He patted them on the head and thought to himself how tender they felt.

In the distance they could see pens being built. They didn’t worry. Master told them it was to hold the wild animals that threatened them. And the sheeple felt much better. A building next to pens was erected and someone hung the sign up saying “butchery”. A few sheeple felt nervous. “It is just so that we can eradicate the threat to you more effectively,” said the master.

A few sheep looked about nervously. A couple started to complain. The master suddenly pointed into the distance and shouted, “Wolf!, Wolf” The sheeple all ran for cover and chastised the few who complained for putting the herd at risk.

Master had some nice new wool sweaters he wore. And he brought in dogs to help “protect” the sheep. The dogs, he assured them, were there to guard them from the wolves. And the sheeple slept much better feeling well protected right up until master started herding some of them into the pens he built. The sheeple panicked and ran to escape. But the fences he erected to protect them wouldn’t let them out. And the dogs who were there to stop the wolf started barking and nipping at the sheep forcing them to run into the pens themselves. And the pen doors shut.

The sheep still in the enclosed and secure pasture said to each other: “Well, it had to be done you know. Master needs to eat and someone has to pay for all the protection we need.” They felt so much better. “It’s only temporary,” one of them said. “And it’s not like master took all of us.” The sheeple nodded in agreement. And went back to grazing and getting fat.

It’s not just a fairy tale. And a fence that keeps wolves out is just as effective at keeping sheep in. Never has there been a wide spread panic about some perceived threat that hasn’t been used to plunder the American people of their rights and their wealth. So why anyone thought the new found panic about “immigration” would be different I don’t know.

Politicians, especially Republicans like the vile Tom Tancredo, are screaming about the “alien” menace and “protecting our culture” from people who want to find work and raise their families as best they can -- and other such threatening, alien “un-American” things. Every politician who has mouthed the slogan “secure our borders” has played a role in creating the panic necessary to build up the Leviathan State.

Even some of these new, disgusting, “culturally conservative, libertarians” have joined the panic brigade. Some of the more mentally-challenged (or just dishonest) among them even pretend they are actually anarchists but that the State has to act as private property owners would and “secure the borders”. Anyway, we all know sheep of the same color prefer to flock together so keeping out those “alien” sheep is just “freedom of association.” The new breed of anti-immigration “libertarians” are complicate in the drive to strip Americans of freedom.

Everyone knows what sort of man sits in the White House and what his Imperial ambitions are. Every “libertarian” knows the nature of the State. Most know enough history to know that panics are always used to further State power at the expense of individual liberty. So exactly what excuse do they have for joining the anti-immigration campaign? Did they really think that things would be different this time? Did they believe King George has learned his lesson?

And a press release from Wolf’s Lair, I mean the White House, has discussed some of the measures that this administration will take to eradicate the threat of dishwashers, gardeners and fruit pickers. Within the next year Bush will massively expand the power and scope of the State and the anti-immigration “libertarians” deserve a lot of the credit.

An additional 1,700 border brown shirts will be added. Remember they have the power to search vehicles inside the US as well, without probable cause or a search warrant. When they demand “Papers please” you are required to obey or you could be arrested as an “immigrant” which apparently is one step away from “terrorists”. If you were of those you go to secret base, get tortured and have no rights. So remember, if a federal agent starts snooping speak Spanish!

The White House says they will increase “funding” so that more detention centers are built. Increased funding requires increased taxes so any fake libertarian who says we must “secure the border” is deluding you if they also claim they never voted for new taxes.

We also learn, “The Department of Homeland Security will continue to explore effective and cost-efficient means of establishing biometric exit requirements at land border crossings.” Got that! If you want to leave the US they plan to gather your biometric data and track you! What? Did you think this was just for the wolves? I mean the “aliens”.

“Starting January 31, 2008, DHS will phase in a requirement for passports or other secure documents for sea and land ports of entry.” That National ID issue will be sold on stopping aliens but it will be imposed on citizens. So, when you are put into the system of internal travel passes called National ID, make sure you thank those nice “conservative libertarians” who promised you they would “secure the borders”.

“The Administration is training hundreds of state and local law enforcement officers to address illegal immigration in their communities.” Any one think this won’t eventually lead to more federal control over the local police forces?

And then we have something called alien removal teams who work for Immigration and Customs. “There were 15 seven-member Fugitive Operation Teams in 2005. As of this week there are 68; there will be 75 by the end of September.” Sure, we could secure the borders without expanding state power.

And don’t forget the anti-immigration Nazis (sorry, I get confused, I mean libertarians) know we can’t forget private business. The State must control private businesses in order to prevent wolves from getting jobs.

First, the government will be sending “No-Match” letters to businesses if an employee’s social security number doesn’t match. I remember when real libertarians wouldn’t even take a social security number. Now they want it used to track everyone in the country. We have to secure the borders, you know. After the letter arrives the employer is required to act as an unpaid agent of the Immigration department and must “take specified steps within 90 days”. Which steps are not specified here and what will happen to the employer is not mentioned.

Employers must establish that employees have state permission to work and don’t fall into categories of human beings who are forbidden to work. That’s a real libertarian concept isn’t it! King George complains that there are 29 “categories of documents” which can currently “be used to establish identity and work eligibility.” The new regulations “will reduce the number of documents that employers must accept to confirm the identity and work eligibility of their employees.” Notice the MUST. Notice that by weeding out more and more legal documents Mr. Bush and crew continue to move toward National ID. Another measure we can thank these “new libertarians” for. Without their help this would have been much harder.

The Department of Homeland Security will also have the power to raise fines they impose on private businesses for not acting as unpaid Immigration officials. Involuntary servitude is mandatory or your property will be stolen. Right now, Bush complains, the “fines are so modest”. Keep up the border hysteria and maybe we can get asset forfeiture passed on this as well.

Wolf’s Lair brags that they have increased the number of Americans arrested as criminals for failing to act as Immigration agents. In 1999 they arrested just 24 but in 2006 they arrested 2006, and this year they arrested 742 so far. These are Americans who are being arrested, people! “And it’s not like master took all of us,” said the relieved sheep who felt so much safer.

There will be expanded use of E-Verify, an electronic database that keeps track of who is, or isn’t allowed to have jobs. Of course once in place and with all private companies properly acclimated to asking the state permission to hire people, it will also be much easier to keep track of dissidents, tax protesters, and others. Imagine an electronic system that has to be checked before any American is allowed to freely trade their labor with another American. All this bought, sealed, and wrapped up and put under the Christmas tree courtesy of the anti-immigration, secure-the-border, “libertarians” and their allies.

E-Verify will be expanded to include “new sources of data”. A national data base on Americans. Hey, isn’t that a wolf, over there!

And the Feds will “seek voluntary (for now) state partners willing to share their Department of Motor Vehicles photos and records with E-Verify.” And that’s just the beginning: “Such agreements will also lay the groundwork for further expansion of the electronic employment eligibility verification system.” Of course this would happen. It was obvious this would happen. And any “libertarian” or “conservative” who pretended otherwise, and supported the “secure the border” initiatives was either: 1) incredibly stupid, or 2) lying about their libertarianism, or 3) both.

And for the few who are allowed state permission to enter the US to work, there will be new tests that “will inculcate the base values we share as Americans, and encourage civic knowledge and patriotism among prospective citizens.” In other words, if we let them in, we have to teach them how to be good sheeple and what to believe and how to obey the State.

And the Department of Education will even get involved to create courses to teach immigrants English. Anyone check the quality of English in American schools lately? I would think they’d first get it right here.

Let me be clear. If someone is a libertarian, a real libertarian, everyone of these measures is an egregious attack on freedom to him. Notice how many of these attacks are directed against Americans. The “secure the border” libertarians are NOT libertarians. They are pushing the biggest con job ever put forward by the State to expand its power. They are willing accomplices to tyranny. The Libertarian Party needs to purge it’s membership. It is bad enough that we have Republicans pretending to be libertarians. It is unacceptable that we have “Libertarians” who are just pretending to be “libertarians” as well.

Real libertarians should not fund these groups or their institutes or their candidates. They should not work with them or co-operate in any way with them. These fools might have thought they could limit the State to just attacking those “foreigners” that they dislike. But I don’t see how they could be that stupid. Either way the campaign they are fueling and feeding is one that is stripping you or your liberty. “Secure-the-border” libertarians are not your friends. They are not your allies and, considering the inevitable results of their fear-mongering, they are NOT libertarians. They may be conservatives, they may be paleo-conservatives. Some may be good on some issues like the war. But they are undermining freedom.

A good hand for a young hero.

One of the stories that floated around the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis concerned a young man, Jeremy Hernandez, 20. He is a worker with a local youth center which had taken a bus load of children to a local water park. On the way back to the center the bus was crossing the fated bridge when it collapsed.

The bus was the first thing I noticed when I saw a photo of the accident. It was smashed into a guardrail on the slanting bridgeway with destruction all about. I shivered when I saw the familiar yellow vehicle and feared the worst.

Mr. Hernandez was on that bus along with 61 children and a few other chaperons. And instinct took over. As the bus came to a stop he leaped to the back of the bus and kicked out the door. He just started handing children out of the back of the bus to strangers who appeared from nowhere to help. One after another Mr. Hernandez passed those children to safety.

He was the hero of the day. And when the press interviewed him they probed about his history. He told them he had been attending the Dunwood School of Technology to learn auto mechanics. But finances forced him to drop out. Word spread about that. Fees and tuition at Dunwoody can run up to $15,000 per year. The school was swamped with calls from students, staff and others all saying that something had to be done for this guy.

Dunwoody has now told the Hernandez family that if Jeremy wants to finish his course on auto mechanics that finances won't be an issue. Good for them. Good for Mr. Hernandez.

I wonder what the antiMexican folk would say about this. Perhaps one of those sites that reports on any immigrant arrested for anthing might report on this as well. But don't hold your breath.

Photo: From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune of Mr. Hernandez leaving the scene of the bridge after helping rescue 61 children.