From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Wed Jun 21 2000 - 12:45:06 MDT
Waldemar Ingdahl wrote:
>
> >From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
> >Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > >
> > > > Frankly I don't find immigration laws to be inhumane.
> > > > Why are they a bad idea?...
> > > > ...societies that produce excessive numbers of people should pay the
> > > > costs of those problems themselves, not pawn them off on others.
> > >
> > > I'm surprized at you, Michael. Open borders are a bedrock of the free
> > > market economy, and a simple consequence of granting the same basic
> > > rights of free travel and association to those born on one side of an
> > > imaginary line as we do to those born on the other. Nationalism is
> > > unbecoming rational minds. "Excessive people" are a resource to be
> > > cherished, not a burden.
> >
> >I don't look at it as a nationalist issue, its an economic AND ecological
> >issue.
> >Open borders for TRADE are a bedrock of a free market economy. The existing
> >members of a free market economy should also have the ability to control
> >the
> >quality of life in their communities. If people living elsewhere want a
> >high
> >quality of life like we do, then they should work to recreate our success
> >where
> >they are at. Part of that is re-engineering their society. Societies that
> >produce more people than can be sustained on their resources not only
> >degrade
> >their own quality of life, by exporting the results of their bad social
> >reproduction policies to our countries, they not only perpetuate a dumb
> >idea
> >where they are at, but they export people who will perpetuate those same
> >dumb
> >ideas elsewhere.
>
> I am shocked by this being said by an American. If some nation in the world
> is the proof of you being wrong it is the US! Immigrants are not unskilled
> or uneducated. A ticket to the US is EXTREMELY expensive in most poorer
> countries. Face it, you're receiving the elite of these countries, for free.
> You get already trained people that are willing to work and work hard. You
> also negate the concept of economic growth. And besides, the MORAL aspect. I
> have the right to live where I damned well please, as long as I don't mooch
> on other people. Really, immigration policy should be one of transhumanism's
> more important issues. If we want dynamism, new ideas, new possibilities in
> our cultures- we should fight for a free immigration policy.
As I've said several times already, I'm not opposed to immigration per se. You
are right that the vast majority of legal immigrants we get are top quality
people, educated, informed, good citizens, and highly productive. The US has
benefited greatly from immigration, and many more repressive countries have
suffered from losing their best people who immigrated here (the scientists
responsible for the Manhattan Project being just one example, plus Andy Grove,
George Soros, Nicola Tesla, Andrew Carnegie, etc.)
What I am trying to illustrate is that while the US, and the small number of
people, relatively, who immigrate benefit frequently, the causes of large scale
immigration inherent in other countries get subsidised by permissive immigration
policies, and it may be that more people suffer in the end, than benefit,
because those societies people immigrate from perpetuate the poor conditions by
the 'evaporation' of the part of the population that is most likely to create
change if they remained. Immigration is a pressure relief valve for other
societies. Take Cuba for example. All of Castro's enemies and opposition do not
live in Cuba, they live in Miami, where they are powerless to affect change in
Cuba, and this is exactly how Castro likes it. Why do you think he promoted the
Mariel Boatlift in the 80's? The Soviets for many years found it easier to exile
someone to the west than to shoot them or send them to the gulags.
Your point is quite valid about 'living where you damn well please without
mooching on other people'. Its that 'without' that so many seem to fail to
understand or accept. A question though: If you want to live next door to me, do
you think that gives you the right to tell me how to live, to change the way I
live? If you don't, then welcome to the neighborhood. If you do, then please
stay where you are, or go somewhere else.
Mike Lorrey
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