From: asylvain@felix.filenet.com (The Chipmunk)
Newsgroups: ca.politics
Subject: Immigration (was Re: June Genis in the Orange County Register)
Date: 27 Jul 92 19:26:53 GMT
            <1992Jul22.164241.13921@odin.corp.sgi.com>
            <19038@fritz.filenet.com>
            <1992Jul25.205735.18817@cheshire.oxy.edu>
Reply-To: asylvain@fritz.filenet.com (The Chipmunk)
Organization: Foundation for the Increased Wealth of Chipmunks

Written in article <1992Jul25.205735.18817@cheshire.oxy.edu>
 by leavitt@cheshire.oxy.edu (Thomas VanNess Leavitt):

:[Chipmunk said:]
:
: "immigrants come here, make babies, and get on welfare"
:
: Jesus Christ man, get a clue, Chipmunk...

WHOA-OA-OA, don't pee in your pants, man!  Chill a minute!

I'm not saying that that's MY opinion!  I was attempting to address
other people's concerns, one that I've often heard against immigrants.  
The "make babies and get on welfare" is a pretty standard conservative 
complaint, which I was merely parroting.

So hey, lemme give you MY opinion so you have something REAL to argue
against!

: I'd really like to see some substantial evidence that immigrants, as a
: whole, are more likely to "make babies, and get on welfare, and become
: eligible for more entitlements"... this is outrageous bullshit.

Well, don't ignore the fact.  We DO have immigrants who come here and
make babies and get on welfare.  For that matter, we have folks born
here who do the same.

However, I don't view that as the most serious immigrant problem.  I
have no evidence that "as a whole" that's what they do, and I'm 100%
sure that "as a whole" it's probably NOT true.  For the most part, in
fact, we have an extremely valuable work force in immigrants, both legal
and illegal.

But, I hear that complaint used against them all the time.  (Usually
not from folks educated enough to be on Usenet, but I do hear it.)  
So, deserved or not, this is the reputation immigrants must suffer, 
especially Hispanics.

June's solution to the "immigration problem" strikes me as being
designed particularly to counter this particular complaint.  Whether or
not she actually had this in mind is up to her to state.

The first libertarian solution is to have 100% open borders.  If people
want to come here to work, or go there to work, hey, let 'em.  If people
are willing to work for a wage, and there are certainly jobs available
to them, why NOT let 'em?

Liberals (to my knowlege) usually don't have a problem with this.
Conservatives will rattle off this knee-jerk welfare baby concern.  The
libertarian answer is to eliminate welfare, thereby eliminating that 
concern.

However, in today's political climate, eliminating welfare is probably
impossible.  Liberals would fight it.  And indeed, there may be some
pragmatics in having a "societal safety net," so long as it isn't 
allowed to get out of control.

Applying the impossibility of total elimination of welfare and other
entitlements to the immigration problem, the next step is to have 100%
open borders, so long as the immigrants are here to work, and not to
just get on the public dole.

What fraction of people who'd actually be disqualified under this final
restriction is open to debate, and I certainly don't have the numbers.
But that's not the main issue.  The main issue is loosening immigration
restrictions.

It should be viewed as the utmost of societal insanities that people
must enter the country in the trunks of cars, when, for the MOST part,
all they want is a decent job.

It should also be viewed as the utmost of hypocracy that the same people
who would force immigrants into the trunks of cars are themselves 
descended from immigrants who came here for largely the same reasons.

: Thom

-- 
The Chipmunk.
Opinions are mine, batteries not included, void where prohibited.
Unquestionably, there is progress.  The average American now pays out
twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
Newsgroups: ca.politics