Bunny trail on borders

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
PeterG
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by PeterG »

Demographic and cultural changes are inevitable, and of all people conservatives (or at least non-statist conservatives) should be highly skeptical of government attempts to regulate it, just as they are skeptical of government regulation in general. As Benjamin Powell says in this article,
What is the optimal number of people to migrate from California to Massachusetts? No one knows. We find out through the market process. Potential migrants evaluate offers of employment, compare rents on apartments or prices of homes, and evaluate where they should live. When home prices go too high, or wages too low, people decide not to move. Whatever number do decide to move is roughly the optimal number.

The same should be true at the national level. Absent a market process, there is no way to centrally plan the optimal number and mix of immigrants any more than it was possible for the Soviet Union to centrally plan its markets. Instead of restricting labor flows at arbitrary places where politicians happened to draw lines on maps, we need a free market in labor. That means open borders. Not only would free immigration make the native-born population richer, but also it would be an effective way to help the poor of the world.
(There's an actual open-borders advocate for you, by the way.)

How much more should we be skeptical of government attempts to regulate a nation's culture?

And from a moral standpoint, I find it highly problematic to argue against others begin given opportunities that we would wish to have for ourselves.
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Josh
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by Josh »

I think people should try to improve the countries, towns, states, etc. they grew up in. The idea that the whole world should move to Western Europe and North America seems foolish to me.

Incidentally, I’m pretty familiar with what multiple generations of immigration look like for a family - myself, my parents, theirs, and my great-grandparents, and as far as I know my great-great as well. I hold 4 passports and regularly work and visit in countries not related to any of those 4.

And overall, I don’t think it’s good to try to make the whole world end up like me. And I don’t think always seeking better opportunities elsewhere is good. I don’t think always “fleeing” is the best plan, either.

Ultimately, if the entire population of Nigeria moves to America, America will be Nigeria with colder weather. All we’ve accomplished is burnt a lot of jet fuel and encouraged displacement of people from the homelands their families thrived in for generations.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by Bootstrap »

haithabu wrote:There has been a huge increase in illegal immigrants since 1990. I don't lay it all on Obama.
Good. Because almost all of the increase happened before Obama. Graphs are helpful.
haithabu wrote:As far as Obama's role - I don't give him credit for the drop in and stabilization of the number of illegal immigrants either which seems to coincide with the onset of the recession in 2007. The lack of job opportunities had more of an effect than anything the government did. However, the question remains: why has that number stabilized? If there were effective immigration enforcement - and I don't just mean at the the borders - would you not expect that number to have continued to angle downward toward 1990's levels? If the economy improves as it appears likely to, what would prevent that number from spiking again?
Let's look at the U.S. Civilian Unemployment Rate during that same time period. Under previous presidents, the rate of illegal immigration was increasing independently of the unemployment rate, there really isn't a clear relationship there at all. This graph covers 1990 to the present day, the same period as the graph for illegal immigration.

Under Obama, unemployment declined, but there was no corresponding spike in illegal immigration. To hear the political rhetoric, you would think that unemployment and illegal immigration had both skyrocketed. Not so. Unemployment has continued to decline under Trump - there hasn't been a huge change in the rate at which it declines.
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Last edited by Bootstrap on Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Josh
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by Josh »

Shorter Bootstrap:

“Changes under Obama are always good”

“If you disagree with me you’re a white nationalist”

“Left-wing policy perfectly represents what a true hearted Jesus following Anabaptist should want”
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haithabu
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by haithabu »

Bootstrap wrote:
haithabu wrote:As an example: two years ago I attended an organizing meeting for a community sponsorship initiative for a prospective Syrian family. The budget proposed at the meeting was one which assumed full support for the family for a year together with ancillary service and supports which totaled $100,000 in cash and in kind.

Contrast that with the foreign worker who hits the ground running with first one and then two or more jobs beginning the first week he or she is in country. She receives no ESL training other than what she herself pays for. She expects to learn our language and the rules of our society on the job. She is not allowed bring family over until she is granted permanent residency, which takes a minimum of four years. That's four years of working 60 or more hours a week, separated from her children, living in a rented bedroom while sending up to half of her money home.
I don't actually know the budget numbers, but I do know that resettlement support lasts only 6 months here in the States, it can be extended another 6 months for extenuating circumstances. The families I know work, and work hard. And I know that at least the one family I work with has to pay off their flight costs to the United States, the flight was paid for as a loan. I do think that they have a lot of medical costs paid for - they had not seen much medical care or dental care in their lifetimes, and they had some significant medical issues.

How did that work for your prospective Syrian family? Were they not expected to work and pay for their living costs? What did that $100,000 pay for?
The $100,000 included donated housing for the year, a full set of new (donated) furniture as well as extensive ESL training and a cash budget for living expenses. There was no expectation communicated as to family members working or achieving self support in the first year.

This is a big change from my experience in the 90's when private or church sponsors were held responsible if their families went to social services for support in the first year and therefore the first expectation communicated was that they would find work and become fully self supporting as soon as possible. Our cash budget for a refugee family during the transition period might have been $5,000 - $10,000 (rents were lower then of course). Of course you could set an in kind value on the volunteer time involved which would pad up a budget but still nowhere near the level proposed at that meeting.
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PeterG
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by PeterG »

Josh wrote:I think people should try to improve the countries, towns, states, etc. they grew up in.
[snip]
I hold 4 passports and regularly work and visit in countries not related to any of those 4.
[snip]
I don’t think always seeking better opportunities elsewhere is good.
I sense a contradiction...
Josh wrote:And overall, I don’t think it’s good to try to make the whole world end up like me. And I don’t think always seeking better opportunities elsewhere is good. I don’t think always “fleeing” is the best plan, either.

Ultimately, if the entire population of Nigeria moves to America, America will be Nigeria with colder weather. All we’ve accomplished is burnt a lot of jet fuel and encouraged displacement of people from the homelands their families thrived in for generations.
This is a strawman. ( :wave: Robert!) (Actually, maybe it's an either/or fallacy or something. I need to brush up on my logical fallacies.) A more open immigration system would simply allow market forces rather than government regulation to determine the movement of people, as noted in the quotation in my last post. It would not make the whole world end up like you, but it would give others the same kinds of opportunities that you enjoy (and if these opportunities are good for you, why deny them to others?). Market forces would determine whether individuals would take advantage of these opportunities, and would prevent wholesale migration from Nigeria, etc., just as market forces prevent wholesale migration from, say, Louisiana to Connecticut.
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Robert
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

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PeterG wrote: This is a strawman. ( :wave: Robert!)
Do NOT get me started!! I almost started on my own a few weeks ago, but resisted the urge.

I also drove past Hayti, MO on the way home which was very hard to resist.
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Josh
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

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“Market forces” will result in labour being paid as little as possible on the worst possible conditions.
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PeterG
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by PeterG »

Josh wrote:“Market forces” will result in labour being paid as little as possible on the worst possible conditions.
No, that's what happens in statist economies such as North Korea's. Generally speaking market forces result in labor being paid as much as possible in the best possible conditions, although I believe that some government regulation of wages and working conditions can be positive in some circumstances.
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PeterG
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Re: Bunny trail on borders

Post by PeterG »

Robert wrote:
PeterG wrote: This is a strawman. ( :wave: Robert!)
Do NOT get me started!! I almost started on my own a few weeks ago, but resisted the urge.

I also drove past Hayti, MO on the way home which was very hard to resist.
Be strawng, Robert!
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