Monday, January 30, 2017

The 900 Pound Gorilla in the Debate

Robert Higgs writes:
Why is a guy from, say, Texas, so pushed out of shape that an illegal immigrant from Sonora or Oaxaca will receive emergency medical care and schooling for his kids, but makes not a squeak about the millions of native-born deadbeats in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois who will receive not only those two benefits but potentially hundreds of others from the welfare state, also at his expense? Really, how hard can it be to see that the welfare state is the 900 pound gorilla in this debate, and the undocumented migrants are responsible for only a relatively very small part of the imposition being laid on Americans? I frankly have great difficulty in accepting this excuse for anti-immigration sentiment as genuine when it so blithely treats the stray dog that wandered into the house as the problem while totally ignoring that gorilla or, worse, accepting that the gorilla is okay, but the dog is intolerable.
 RW note:

Of course, the first step in the solution is a Welfare Wall that prevents illegal immigrants from government benefits. Step 2 is the total end to welfare. Or alternatively, combine steps 1 and 2.

Always move in the direction of shrinking the state, not expanding it.

45 comments:

  1. Higgs's argument: politically speaking we can't currently repeal the US welfare state, ergo we should extend it to any of the Earth's 7.5 billion people who manages to make it across the US border.

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    1. Well hey, at least that would probably get it repealed by default.

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    2. By Senile higgs' logic, since you already have rapists, criminals and welfare parasites in your country, you HAVE TO WELCOME the rest of the world's rapefugees, criminals and welfare parasites as well. Or your are a racist!

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  2. Stop creating the imagrants and refugees, then put up the welfare wall. When the US Government quits overthrowing governments in Latin America and ends the war on drugs. The imagrants won't be so desperate to cross the border. Most of them are seeking a better place and not free hand outs.

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    1. "Seeking a better place" or "seeking a better life" are useless loony left bumper stickers. Just because you seek a better life does not make you noble in any fucking way. Are there any humans that are not actively seeking better things for themselves?

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    2. Does overthrowing governments make the the United states more noble? Does sending gastopo DEA death squads to countries sound noble?

      Seeking a better life is not some lefty bumper sticker and I know plenty of content people.

      If you had to put up with what the empire does outside of its official borders you would seek to get inside those borders too.

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    3. Fathead needs to pull his head out of his fat behind. Europe's rapefugees planning attacks in Switzerland, although the swiss had not done a damn thing to them, rapefugees raping Japanese women immediately after being given "refuge" etc, etc. Claims of US government causing all the evil in the world are looney tunes.

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    4. @Phathead

      Yeah if it wasn't for US meddling there would be no reason for brown people to rent seek off us. It just wouldn't happen.

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  3. To answer the question Higgs poses:

    Welfare plays to a sort of extended tribalism. The immigrant isn't part of the extended tribe. That's why they complain about one but not the other. Proximity to particular problems plays a role as well. Ask the guy in the big city who's watched his neighborhood change because of various welfare programs and he won't care about the mexicans in Texas.

    Most of all, people don't analyze or think things through from principle. They just feel and go with it.


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    1. Caplan an has agrued that there exists a positive correlation between the size of a country's welfare state and the degree of ethnic homogeneity. Like how Scandanavian nations are mostly Nordic people and have large welfare states because its citizens think "why no fellow Swede would cheat the system..." But with more diverse nations there may be less of this sort of implicit tribal social trust, so the welfare state tends to be smaller.

      Not sure but seems plausible. One more reason to root for more immigration, anyway.

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    2. So, this autistic person thinks destroying trust in societies by introducing multiculturalism (or increasing tribalism) is the way to destroy the welfare state. Retard has never heard of Brazil or India.

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    3. @Evan Smiley

      lol wut. So let me get this straight. You want to live in a society with lower social trust? Because, why exactly? You don't like welfare? Have you really thought this through? Like, at all?

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  4. The answer is that the average American has been so beaten down on the issue of welfare for the last 50 years that he's given up arguing the case and is now trying to hold the line on extending welfare to illegal immigrants.

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  5. "Of course, the first step in the solution is a Welfare Wall that prevents illegal immigrants from government benefits. Step 2 is the total end to welfare. Or alternatively, combine steps 1 and 2."

    That is not the situation at present.
    The fact is the invader can take from the taxpayers right now.
    I am curious how anyone that touts themselves as an advocate of freedom can advocate a position that is pro invader.

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    1. The state will continue to rob you regardless of how many people cross their imaginary lines. Immigration is a red herring.

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    2. Just because the state takes some of your money, you should let them import welfare aliens who will take more of your money. Impeccable logic.

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    3. @valley sapien

      If I found you on the street having been stabbed I might as well just stab you again. If I use a smaller knife what is there to complain about? If you complain it means you are "blithely ignoring" the initial stab wound.

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    4. Exactly. I am beginning to think the Lolbertarians are really not that smart.

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  6. Quite possibly the dumbest argument I've seen in my life. Do we really have to go over the reasons for it being dumb?

    Higgs is very lightweight.

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    1. Luckily he is completely irrelevant and only taken seriously by libertarian ideologues who care far more about their wallets and their egos than they do about their people.

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  7. Higgs, we have enough people who do not want to work, so why bring more who can loot the system? I'm for physically removing most of our derelict population that causes problems regardless of skin pigmentation.

    And what about honest Americans who have been out of the workforce, but the federal government insist on funding refugees and illegals?

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  8. Higgs also refused to acknowledge culture. There is a reason some parts of the world are garbage filled wastelands. Africa, Haiti, Central America and such. Do we really need more non-Western immigration? How does a low IQ Muslim Somali make this country better? Granted, some Indians and Chinese and others have stared successful companies here in the US, but that does not mean we need millions of them.

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    1. The reason western "culture" has dominated is precisely because it adopted Enlightenment principles of individual liberty, and eschewed much of the tribalism and collectivism that has plagued much of the rest of the world. Trumpers would enthusiastically destroy the very principles that have made western culture "superior."

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    2. Ha, there goes this guy again dissipating fiction. Have you ever heard of IQ statistics among different races? Do you know how behavioral traits relate to genetics? How culture is determined by biology? No? ok keep blabbering about Muh enlightenment and much liberty!

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    3. Ha, there goes this guy again dissipating fiction. Have you ever heard of IQ statistics among different races? Do you know how behavioral traits relate to genetics? How culture is determined by biology? No? ok keep blabbering about Muh enlightenment and much liberty!

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    4. I'm not sure if you have figured this out yet, but its the chicken and the egg problem. You can't have these principles if you are importing poop heads from cultures that are oblivious to such concepts.

      I know we desperately need more poop heads from failed cultures and states.

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    5. Well no use arguing with racial determinists, I guess. Just wish your fetish weren't interfering with so many people's freedoms of association.

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    6. Racial determinists, as opposed to poopheaded blank slatists. You can tell this guy doesn't know science if it smacks him in his face.

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    7. So you want state agents to enforce state borders and I'M the statist???

      Logic fail. Better stick to your pseudo-science.

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    8. Ha Ha I said blank slatist, not statist. The only technical terms you LOLbertarians know are "statist, statist, statist"

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    9. Haha, very clever.

      Anyway your insistence that, because median intelligence might vary among races, therefore the state should centrally plan the composition of the population, is a total non-sequitur.

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    10. Nice straw man Smiley. You can go and consort with whoever you want, without imposing a cost on anyone else. Want to bring in a sudanese home cleaner? Go right ahead. Pay every fucking cost he/she imposes on the rest of us whose money paid for the public infrastructure that the immigrant you want here uses. Don't want to pay the full costs? Then keep your mouth shut about immigration.

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    11. Yeah I'll do that when you stop making me pay to maintain a continent-sized Americans-only zone so that your nationalism can be indulged.

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  9. it's difficult for me to fathom the level of ignorance coming from conservatives here. Higgs is simply pointing out that the real problem is the Welfare state. He isn't even taking a pro/con position on immigration in his statement.

    Why isn't Trump (and his followers) complaining MORE about welfare than immigrants? That's the question. What is your answer? It's obvious isn't it? It's politics. He can't so he won't. He talks big but when it comes to making ANY SIGNIFICANT changes in the status quou.....crickets.

    Instead, he is playing you all like fools, knowing full well this is all he can get away with.

    And frankly, this nonsense about "letting in more rapists" is tiring. You are all worried about rapists when there isn't room to put them in jail anyway because they're filled with non-violent "criminals". Additionally, in my experience (and many others I know), I've had more issue with low wage anglo-saxons who's grandfathers immigrated here than recent Mexican immigrants.

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    1. Yes. Lets bring in more rapists, AND make more room for them in our prisons, but bringing rapists here is not negotiable. If anglo saxons are harassing you so much, why don't you please go find refuge among the sexually non-violent people of haiti or afghanistan?

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  10. If you are a libertarian and don't believe in the legitimacy of the state, then since it's only the state that classifies people into citizens and non-citizens, why should you buy into that distinction? If you don't buy into that distinction, then what is the difference if competition for available jobs comes from someone already here versus someone who comes here from another land mass? Plenty of people already here are out-competed for jobs by other locals, or by technological innovations. Also, each time a new person is born here that puts pressure on the longer-run labor pool. Which man has the right to use force to prevent another man from competing with him for a job, regardless of where he comes from?

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  11. I feel bad for Higgs. I know he is really old and probably gets confused a lot. The problem is not so much with invaders rent seeking as it is with turning whites into a minority in America, and a hated one at that.

    This is a country for the white man. Period.

    I understand that someone like Higgs doesn't care about his race or its future but he would at least do well to apply his own theory of the ratchet effect to multiracialism and open-borders. Do ethnic gangs, random crime, and low-trust lead to a larger or smaller police state? Throw in communist laws against speaking in the truth as there are in Europe and you have a recipe for the worst type of tyranny.

    People like Higgs never want to talk about Europe because it is more than obvious that his anarcho-liberal bullshit leads to nothing but an Islamic state in which whites are enslaved and then exterminated.

    Sad!

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    1. LOLbertarians live in their own utopian fantasies of a borderless, anarcho capitalist world. The reality outside of the west is closer to afghanistan and somalia.

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  12. Trying to understand all the commentors who are throwing out straw man and red herring refutations of Higg's arguments. Why do any of you seem to think that Higgs is advocating further aggression on private property and more people addicted to the welfare state? Do you even read Higgs? Borderless utopia? You mean, like the southern Texas border now? Looks like we are already in your libertarian utopia... seriously?

    Higgs is clearly arguing against the absurdity of people being up in arms about the relatively tiny fraction tax money going to illegal immigrants vs. almost all of it going to home grown welfare recepients. So, if you can follow this, how about dealing with the root problem: home grown welfare recepients. The illegal immigration problem is a distraction that only serves to keep your efforts in the noise.

    You really want to take an axe to state power? End the welfare state.

    You wanna be some DC think-tank pawn? Keep railing against the illegals.

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  13. Randy, Randy, Randy. Illegals are not a"relatively tiny fraction". Schools, hospitals and every other public infrastructure we are forced to pay for is overburdended, overcrowded and has become utterly useless to us. When do you LOLbertarians stop your low IQ fantasies and look at the real world?

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    1. Are you really arguing the point that if we got rid of welfare, we would still have an illegal immigrant problem with respect to use of welfare (that doesn't exist!)? Do you see the problem with that argument?

      "...useless to us"? What do you expect from publicly funded institutions anyhow? Increased quality over time? You are getting what you are forced to pay for.

      On top of that, do you think you are entitled to my or any everyone else's income for schools and medicine?

      Also, I don't want to get too distracted here: do you want to debate % use of public institutions in general or welfare benefits in particular? Don't go moving the goal posts of the argument.

      Seams like you are making the case that somehow a small population of illegal immigrants take in a significantly larger overall cut of the the welfare budget every year compared to the overwhelming number of US citizens who are on the doles.

      http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/28/terry-jeffrey/are-there-more-welfare-recipients-us-full-time-wor/

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States

      From where I'm sitting: 319 MM overall US population. 109 MM welfare recepients. 11 MM illegal immigrants. You wanna count all 11MM in with general population and the welfare population? You wanna add an astronomical fudge factor for totally undocumented cases? I haven't parsed it out further, but it looks like you have your work cut out for you.

      But please show me the numbers which actually support what you are saying.

      If you are arguing the case concerning general public institution overuse, this opens up the comparison to the entire US citizen population. You would then have to show me numbers which again defy reason: a small population of illegal immigrants are using a significantly larger cut of the total pie of public resources? Is that a backhanded compliment praising the illegals for somehow getting their kids in schools at a significantly higher rate than US citizens?

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