Illegal Immigration

In some ways I'm conflicted about the issue of Illegal immigration. Many of my fellow libertarians think anyone should be able to come and go as they please. Ideally, that's how it should be. However, pragmatically, it just doesn't make sense. I think we must carefully control the borders, but liberally grant work visas for those who want to work. We need to weed out the criminals and potential terrorists. But we should also allow good people wanting to support their family to come here. There are several arguments for and against doing something to fix the problem of illegal immigration.

One argument for fixing the problem is that illegal immigrants take jobs from Americans and legal immigrants. If you truly believe in free market capitalism as I do, this is not an issue. It is perhaps a little bit unfair to those who play by the rules, but if someone is willing to do a job for less money than someone else, then that's just free market capitalism.

Another argument is that illegal immigrants are overwhelming our social services. This is true in many cases, particularly in communities where there are large populations of illegal immigrants. However, if charities took care of such services rather than the government, then it would not matter as much. Individual charities can set their own requirements for eligibility for benefits, and people could choose which of these charities they wish to support. If we continue to have social services provided by the government (as we almost certainly will for as long as any of us are still alive), then we could demand that only citizens and legal immigrants should be eligible for benifits. Without doing anything else, this solution would address this argument. This would also help provide incentive for immigrants to come here legally.

Some may argue that illegal immigration leads to higher crime rates. This is actually a pretty good argument, though many who make this argument seem to think of immigrants in general as thugs. I belive most are not. By having tight control over our borders, we can keep many criminals from coming here.

As I just mentioned, I believe most immigrants, more specifically hispanic immigrants, are good people. If I grew up in a big city where there was a problem with hispanic gangs, I might have a little different prospective. But I grew up in a rural area where there was a large hispanic population who mostly worked for agricultural businesses. Amoung the hispanic students at school, some were poor students, some were great students, and some were average. The percentages of hispanic students in each group seemed to be about the same as with white students. And just like the white students, most were pretty good people with a few who were bad. White and hispanic students interacted as if there were no differences. I can't imagine anyone who is familiar with hispanics who would want to prevent them from comming to this country.

Demanding that people come here legally is not about preventing hispanics or any other group of immigrants from comming here (although there are some bigots for whom this is exactly what the issue is about). It is about making sure the rate of immigration is a rate that our social services can manage, and at the same time filtering out criminals. Right now, it seems to be easier for people to come here illegally. While it is easy for us to criticize illegal immigrants for disregarding our laws, people in desparate situations will easily disregard immigration laws to feed their families. It is up to us to make sure people come here according to our laws, but at the same time, we need to make it easier for people to come here legally.

Hair-brained idea of mine.

Read
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19209968/

This seems to fit with an idea I've had about what happened to water on Mars, other than what ended up on the poles. Perhaps some of the magma under the crust cooled enough to solidify and therefore decrease in volume. Perhaps the crust was rigid enough to resist sinking at the same rate the magma underneath cooled, and perhaps cracks formed in the crust. If this happened under the ocean, then perhaps water would go through the cracks in the crust and fill the growing gap between the mantle and crust. Maybe the cooling effect of the water would increase the rate that the mantle cooled creating an even greater gap between the crust and mantle to be filled with more water. Any water boiled off in the process would cool and eventually rain back down and likely flow into one of the cracks in the crust. Maybe this process would screw with the weight distribution of Mars enough to shift it's position.

I hope this makes sense. I know it's not related to politics or atheism, but I felt like I needed to post this hair-brained idea.

Initial Post - Basic overview of my beliefs

Most people with political opinions seem to consider themselves to be either liberal or conservative. I am neither. I grew up as a conservative christian. From about the time I was ten, I was very interested in politics and religion. I lost my belief in god early in my adult life, and I'm now very much a libertarian, though I don't always agree completely with the libertarian party positions. I would likely be a libertarian to some degree if I had retained my belief in god, but I can't say for sure.

For those of you who don't know, a libertarian basically believes that governments should have as little influence in our lives as possible. That sounds somewhat like conservative Republicans (at least conservative Republican voters). However, conservatives often want governement in our lives when it comes to non-economic issues like drugs, indecent language, pornography, buying alcohol on Sundays, etc. Also, in practice, the Republicans who are elected do little to reduce the size of government.

Here is a quick simplistic comparison between conservatives, liberals, and libertarians.

Conservatives: If you smoke crack, you should go to jail.

Liberals: If you smoke crack, go to a rehab center and we'll help rehabilitate you.

Libertarians: Smoke all the crack you want. But don't expect us to pay for your rehab. And if you actively harm others regardless of the role crack plays in that harm, you should go to jail.

Here is another simplistic comparison I've heard elsewhere:

Conservatives: Don't stick anything up your ass. That's nasty and immoral.

Liberals: Stick whatever you want up your ass. What you do with your body is your own choice, except for when you smoke or refuse to wear seatbelts.

Libertarians: Stick whatever you want up your ass. Just don't ask us for help if it gets stuck.

I disagree with many libertarians when it comes to the war in Iraq, which I'll explain in a later post.

Like I said earlier, I don't believe in god. I don't deny god because I think I'm too good for god or because I'm angry at him. It's not because of any rebellion or the desire to not pay consequences for my sins. I just simply do not see any good reason to believe there is a god. I'll probably get into this in another post.

Please, reserve comments about the war in Iraq or religion/atheism for future posts about these issues.