[This is a guest post, reprinted with Carmen’s permission from the blog All About Race. Thanks, Carmen.]
In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled that people of African ancestry were not, and could never become, citizens of the United States of America. The Dred Scott decision asserted that blacks were property. And because no state or federal government could take a citizen’s property away from him, this decision meant that any slave who managed to escape to a “free state” would be hunted down and returned to bondage and his or her “owner.” This decision enraged many of the most vocal abolitionists and politicians in the North and was an important precursor of Abraham Lincoln’s election to President.
But still, even among those who philosophically opposed slavery, I imagine dinner conversations sounding something like this:
“That Dred Scott decision is appalling.”
“Yes, it’s simply awful.”
“But, you know, those Negroes who just up and run away? I mean, they are breaking the law.”
“Yes, and our country cannot tolerate law breakers.”
“Just to think, what if everybody just went about doing whatever they wanted to do?”
“The whole Union would collapse into chaos.”
“Absolutely!”
The issue of immigration in America is cause for this kind of conversation now. Many well meaning and good natured people are not critically examining what it means that the media uniformly and incessantly blares the term “illegal immigrant” as if the people who risk physical harm to get to America to work, are only that. The media would have you believe that these are not the same people America has welcomed to come to build and clean our houses, harvest, prepare and serve our food, and raise our children.
In the South, the American Civil War was termed “the War of Northern Aggression.” During the 1960’s, those who made the trip south to support Southern grassroots movements in their protests for an end to Jim Crow and racial terrorism, were called “agitators.” Now, it is all so clear. But, as the events of America’s Civil Rights movement unfolded, many decent people, with hearts in the “right” place, felt “Negroes are pushing too hard, for too much. These things take time.”
I support strong and secure borders, period. And with that, I believe that if we as a nation welcome people to come and clean our houses, harvest, prepare and serve our food, and raise our children, then I believe we must provide a path for those people to become full citizens of the United States sharing all of the rights and responsibilities that citizenship entails.
There was a time in America when it was illegal to gather and discuss independence from England. There was a time in America when it was illegal for an American of African descent to vote or own property or drink from certain water fountains. There was a time in America when it was illegal for Americans of Japanese descent to live in their homes. Instead, Japanese Americans were legally evicted from their homes and moved to internment camps.
So, I have a question for you. When you say “illegal immigrant,” other than relating a fact of American citizenship status, what are you saying? What do you want me to know about the people you describe in this way?
Jake Squid Writes:
Not necessarily. If actual tax rates on the richest one percent have been reduced then the only way that they should be shouldering more of the tax burden is if tax rates for the poorest people in our society have also been dramatically reduced, perhaps even more than the tax rates on the richest. I think the middle class/working class/people-who-are-barely-middle-class is the group that has been getting squeezed because this link says that their percentage of the tax burden hasn’t changed that much over time.
Middle 50 percent of taxpayers paid a roughly even share of the taxes in 2003, 2000 and 1997: 12.6 percent, 12 percent and 14 percent, respectively
The bottom 50 percent of taxpayers bore less of the burden in 2003 compared to 2000, paying almost 3.5 percent of taxes compared to over 4 percent three years earlier. The bottom half of taxpayers has paid a decreasing share of taxes since 1980.
“A poor person who takes risks, works longer, harder, and–dare I say it?–smarter, is very likely to escape poverty. Assuming of course that this poor person doesn’t have too many kids too soon, become addicted to drugs, or do something else to kept them chained to their present station in life. One of the best things about a free society is the level of social mobility that is possible for someone who chooses to work hard: poor people can become rich and rich people can lose everything to become poor.”
‘Very likely’ is a judgment call, but it’s worth noting that countries with more generous welfare policies have higher social mobility;. When the US was more generous with redistribution, such as the 60’s and 70’s, it also had more mobility – as has been presented already here, I think.
“Or he could end up with an entitlement complex the size of Montana and become even lazier than he would have been had there been no external help from the government.”
Okay, but my whole point was that the incentive argument cuts both ways – something that goes either unrealized or ignored. Say you turned on the TV to a random cable news channel. Some talking haircut pundit is at it, but due to station problems, you only catch three words: ‘poverty’, ‘welfare’, and ‘incentives’. Which of our two arguments would you think was being made?
“I’m all for “helping people who are trying to help themselves” but I oppose any system that goes as far as to say that no one can be allowed to be poor.”
Well, ‘poor’ is an inherently relative term, so any society that doesn’t mandate dollar for dollar equality is going to allow some people to be poor. I don’t want anyone allowed to be homeless. I don’t want anyone allowed to be hungry – our Jewish friends who are fasting this Rosh Hashanah notwithstanding. There is a lot – A LOT – more to poverty than food and shelter. The majority of these are perhaps beyond our ability to engineer away – or at least, for the government to engineer away. But basic, bottom-of-Maslow’s-pyramid type concerns are legitimate.
There really should be a third item on that list, though: I don’t anyone allowed to be shut out from the prospect of upward mobility in the future. This may or may not require positive provisions, not merely the bare allowance of the fact by law. People are controlled by many outside factors besides the law.
“I also believe that private organizations are more readily able to help individual people or families that are struggling with their best effort rise above their circumstances. A government organization has to use the same standards for everyone to determine whether or not the applicant seeking assistance would benefit from help or be hampered by it. A private non-profit agency is better able to look at the circumstances of the particular case and make a judgement that reflects intimate knowledge of the person’s situation, knowledge that a government organization can’t seek because it would be intrusive.”
I agree – though I’d add the caveat that factors such as power, size, and decentralization affect the efficacy of agencies, not whether they are public or private. In general, governments are bigger, and in general, governments are more powerful, and in general, governments are more distant than most good-willed NPC’s. However, I could imagine a situation where, for instance, the municipal government of a small town may be better situated than a large, national non-profit that doesn’t have a regional chapter specifically for the town.
Whenever possible, I’d like organizations that are smaller, more local, and closer to the ground to handle these matters – which usually corresponds to private non-profits. But if and when these organization’s efforts are insufficient in some way, I have no problem with government filling the gap. Given that the state does its best to help these NPC’s through tax breaks, I don’t see that it has to be an either/or.
“Nobody, it’s my impression that those historical very high rates were not the actual marginal rate that was in effect. IE, if you had a rate of 91% you also had a wide variety of deductions and shelters that meant your effective rate was much lower.”
True, but deductions and shelters still exist today – and in the case of the latter, they’ve become worse. No, the millionaires of the 40’s never actually paid 94 cents on the dollar. But the millionaires of today don’t actually pay 35 cents to the dollar, either, and you’ll be hard pressed to prove that those deductions and shelters – which still exist today, which in many ways have gotten worse – will manage to push the former figure below the latter.
“I suspect that the actual percentage of national income taken in taxation at all levels in the US shows a general upwards trend in most of the 20th century, with a leveling off around the Reagan years and fairly flat after that. I could be wrong – I can’t find any immediate statistics – but I’m pretty sure that’s the picture. (Contrary evidence welcome.)”
Is there any reason to suspect that income tax loopholes or offshore havens became less of a problem as the 60’s and 70’s progressed? Or that tax enforcement became stricter? I’m not aware of any evidence that they did. The common sense position is that higher taxes = higher government revenue*, and as we’ve already seen a crackpot economic theory that postulated otherwise crash and burn in recent history, I’ll need a strong burden of proof met to convince me otherwise.
In the end, though, all this talk about the tax rates on the rich are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. We are interested in the amount of tax revenue that goes toward *anti-poverty* programs, which make up a miniscule portion of total government spending. Even if the rich paid more in taxes during the 90’s than they did during the 70’s – a proposition that I highly, highly doubt – there is no serious debate among those who haven’t lived under a rock or underwater that spending on anti-poverty programs has gone down. Remember when there actually was a War on Poverty?
*Income taxes are the main part of government revenue but by no means the only one – there is the possibility that other forms of revenue and other types of taxes went up. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about US government history to say anything definitive on this. But I wouldn’t want to make the conservative mistake of equating income taxes with all government revenue, conveniently forgetting about those forms that are regressive in nature.
Jamila, you keep shifting your definitions and you’re not really answering the question. By “the rich” I assume we’re all referring to rich individuals (or families), and omitting corporate contributions to the tax burden, which is a whole ‘nuther debate.
You wrote a platitute about how a poor person who works hard, takes risks, etc. is “very likely” to escape poverty. (Said poor person is named Horatio Alger in your mind, I assume.) In support of this argument, you claim social mobility is decreasing. That’s what we call a non sequitur. joe phrases it correctly–no risk-taking means very unlikely to get out of poverty–but there is no logical inference that those lazy, risk-averse poor would be “very likely” to escape their situation if only they got a little gumption.
Robert, reducing the tax issue to “how much money does Joe want to make?” is oversimplifying. If Joe is making enough money to have to worry about the AMT and higher tax rates on ‘the rich’, then money is probably not the only benefit he receives from his job. Joe is also likely considering his long-term income, not just what he makes this year and what taxes he pays this year.
Are there no other possible explanations?
Could it possibly be that since 1970 the richest 1% of Americans have become VASTLY RICHER BEYOND THE WIDEST DREAMS OF THE ROBBER BARONS OF THE 1900s, such that even when the lower tax rate is applied to their VAST INCOME, it produces a growing share of national tax revenues? As the New York Times explains:
“[F]or Americans in the middle, the share of income taken by federal taxes has been essentially unchanged across four decades. By comparison, it has fallen by half for those at the very top of the income ladder.
Because the incomes of those at the top have grown so much more than those below them, their share of total income tax revenue has risen despite the reduced rates.
The analysis by the two professors showed that the top 10 percent of Americans collected 48.5 percent of all reported income in 2005….
The top 1 percent received 21.8 percent of all reported income in 2005, up significantly from 19.8 percent the year before and more than double their share of income in 1980. The peak was in 1928, when the top 1 percent reported 23.9 percent of all income.”
To be fair, reported income has likely been influenced by changes in the tax code over the decades. New forms of business organizations (S-Corporations and Limited Liability Companies) permit income from business entities to be taxed as ordinary income rather than as corporate income. As a consequence, today rich people are reporting more personal income than they would have under the tax code of, say, 1947. But they’re doing so to avoid paying the corporate taxes that they would have paid in 1947. In other words, when you combine the share of income owned by rich people individually AND as shareholders, the growth of their wealth has expanded even more than the growth of taxes would suggest.
Interesting that we’re heading back to the levels of income disparity – and the rapacious policies that supported those levels – of 1928, the last year before the Great Depression. I’m just sayin’….
How does this argument over hard working poor vs. lazy poor have anything to do with illegal immigrants? Isn’t the typical complaint about people sneaking across the southern border that they’re willing to work harder for less money and are thus ‘stealing’ jobs from ‘decent blue collar union folks’? Am I wrong in assuming that the largest public resource consumed by immigrants is schooling for their children? Isn’t this the idea behavior for the poor?
Take smart chances (move to the US where there are better job)
Work hard,
Raise your children
Joe, it’s pretty usual among the restrictionist crowd where I hang out to acknowledge that. Nobody dislikes the fact that these are immigrants who want to work and improve their lives, and few people are unaware that the current immigrant wave isn’t much different than previous waves in terms of human capital and potential being brought into the country.
The questions are rather, how many low-capital individuals can we assimilate at one time, how to manage the immigration process in a way that keeps our nation secure, and how to make the immigration system fair to everyone who wants to come here – without giving away the store to people just because they happen to live next door. There are a lot of people who would like to immigrate here; right now, illegals (most, but not all, of whom are Mexican) are pretty much sucking all the oxygen out of that room. Nobody’s going to increase the legal quotas when the illegal numbers are swamping the system.
I generally approve of Mexican immigration and think that we should be letting in plenty of our neighbors; I also think that a guest worker program to allow them to work without gaining US citizenship or benefits would be productive both for the US and Mexico. But it has to be controlled and we have to have a grip on our border. It isn’t 1950 anymore; we can’t be Texas casual about this stuff.
, and few people are unaware that the current immigrant wave isn’t much different than previous waves in terms of human capital and potential being brought into the country
C’mon, Robert. Lots of people are unaware that the current immigrant wave is pretty much the same as previous waves. Heck, some restrictionists have written best-selling books insisting that this time, it’s different.
The idea that our immigration system is an unfortunate result of all those illegals makes no sense. We prioritize families and skilled workers. Engineers from Bangalore are not been kept out because strawberry-pickers from Jalisco took all their slots.
The biggest enemies of a fair immigration system are businesses. When your workers are in this country legally, they tend do to things like making Workers Comp claims when they get hurt, and suing you if they get shorted on heir paychecks. A legal workforce drives up costs. Agribusiness, to name one 800-pound gorilla, has zero interest in a guest-worker program unless deportation is a threat for crossing your employer.
One objection to illegal immigration is that it burdens the social services that US citizens provide for each other, thereby reducing the services available for US citizens and undermining support for the services. This led to a discussion of wealth transfers from rich to poor, and the consequences of those transfers.
Yeah, maybe the optimal thing from the world’s perspective is for poor people to get their kids into school. But few people have a world-wide perspective.
Imagine rich people have three objectives: they want to keep as much of their money as possible, they don’t want to see poverty, and they want to avoid producing a generation of muggers. So rich people are more prone to help poor people they can see, and children in the neighborhood, than others. In short, they have a parochial perspective. But if their charity prompts more poor people to move into the neighborhood, rich people realize that charity is not achieving their objectives. They may be succeeding at alleviating suffering from a global perspective, but they’re increasing evidence of suffering on a local perspective. Consequently rich people lose enthusiasm, and focus more on the objective of hoarding their resources instead.
I postulate that such “rich people” make US immigration policy.
So praising illegal immigrants for putting their kids into school is akin to praising Pretty Boy Floyd for using some of the money he got from robbing banks to feed the poor: It’s nice, but it doesn’t necessarily justify the underlying crime to the policy makers.
Mythago, what would you consider a ‘fair’ immigration policy? I think that all interest groups will oppose things that harm them.
“The idea that our immigration system is an unfortunate result of all those illegals makes no sense. ”
Really? Because it makes sense to me. And a lot of other people. Just saying.
I certainly can’t support an increase in legal immigration without tying it to a decrease in illegal immigration. One is, potentially, desirable, controlled, and beneficial to the country.
And control benefits a lot of people. Our current system benefits Mexico but fucks over people in a lot of other countries like, say, the impoverished ones in Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. They might like to immigrate, too. And we might actually let them (pro-immigrant forces are always talking about the U.S. need for workers, right) but when there are so many illegals then they’re not needed.
Really? Because it makes sense to me. And a lot of other people.
The idea that we were seeded onto this planet by UFOs makes sense to a lot of people, too. Just saying.
If you make it legal for anyone from Central America (not just Mexico) to come here by filling out a form, you’d certainly increase legal immigration while decreasing illegal immigration, but that’s hardly a solution.
joe, a ‘fair’ immigration policy would start with a complete reform of our immigration laws and agencies. The agency formerly known as INS has a schizoid split between its bureaucratic arm and its law-enforcement arm. The idea that immigration policy is thoughtful or fairly enforced would be funny if it weren’t so sad. Hell, Congress passed a law in 2000 creating a special “U Visa” for victims of trafficking and violence, and we STILL don’t actually have such a visa in existence because immigration hasn’t gotten its shit together.
mythago, while I get that you don’t like the way our current system is run I’m curious how, if at all, you’d handle immigration. I don’t expect a policy paper and I’m not trying to trap you. But since the current system doesn’t seem to work well what would you recommend? Assuming we could administer it. Broadly speaking.
It doesn’t matter what system you have in place if you have total administrative breakdown. The best, most sensible rules will not work if they are not followed nor enforced, if the judges who oversee cases under those rules have near-absolute power and exercise it arbitrarily, and where the rules aren’t even implemented because hell, it’s just a bunch of fur’ners.
I know this will bum Robert out majorly, but I do favor strong control of our borders. I just happen to also believe that the legitimate path to legal immigration and citizenship ought to be wider, instead of people from certain countries getting preference because they share ethnicity with a U.S. Congressman, or being kept out because if they aren’t deprived of their legal rights, celery costs more.
The best, most sensible rules will not work if they are not followed nor enforced…
Well, yes. Do you think that maybe the presence of 12 million unscheduled players on the field might be making it a leetle more difficult to enforce the rules?
I just happen to also believe that the legitimate path to legal immigration and citizenship ought to be wider
Great! Advocate for that. And since widening the path to legal immigration and citizenship has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the border is controlled, we can control the border and stop the flow of illegals while you work on expanding the quotas.
Actually, just because Mythago doesn’t object to controlling the border, it doesn’t logically follow that you “can” control the border. Attempting to stop undocumented immigration from the supply side (controlling the border), rather than the demand side (removing the motivation to immigrate illegally) has so far been a failure from a practical perspective. Worse, it’s a failure that does lead to hundreds of immigrants dying, because they take less safe routes.
Saying “we can control the border” is meaningless as a statement of principal when you lack the practical ability to control the border.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that nothing can be done. It just means that slowing down undocumented immigration is a matter of economics, not a matter for border control.
Do you think that maybe the presence of 12 million unscheduled players on the field might be making it a leetle more difficult to enforce the rules?
No.
Amp, I’m not talking about the current system of “let’s just funnel them all into the Sonoran Desert and hope it kills them”. When there is a wider path to legal immigration, there will be a lot fewer illegals, and border enforcement will be easier.
I understand a lot of what you DON’T want, and a lot of what you’re NOT talking about, but i’m having a harder time evaluating what you do want, or what you are proposing, even in the face of your last post.
Can you elaborate a bit more?
Mythago, thanks for explaining what you’d like to see: A more open immigration policy with better enforcement of existing rules.
sylphhead Writes:
The link you provided only seems to partially support the idea that a more generous redistribution policy encourages social mobility. The link says that in Britain, a country that appears to be far more generous in terms of welfare than the US, social mobility has declined whereas in the US it was atleast stable.
I wouldn’t even try to answer that question. It depends on whether the news channel was Fox News or something more liberal like MSNBC.
mythago Writes:
I know this statement wasn’t directed at me but I have a question for you: Do you think that we will have to increase the size of our current welfare state to take care of the low skilled workers and there families? And if you do believe that we will have to increase taxes to fund a greater safety net, how much bigger do you think the government should expand to do this? Is there any point at which you would stay stop?
mythago Writes:
In post #95 I didn’t bring up decreasing mobility to support the argument that a poor person is very likely to escape poverty; I brought up decreasing social mobility to point out that a progressive policy of increasing the share of the tax burden paid by the rich will not necessarily increase social mobility, it may in fact have something to do with decreasing social mobility by discouraging people from working harder to make more money ( or the middle classes could be becoming more effective at avoiding paying taxes at they make more money).
Yes, more than gumption is necessary. This person will need to work harder, longer, and smarter than a person who was born into a well-off family.
The person will also need luck. Maybe just a little good luck (maybe more) But definitely very little bad luck.
and not the self created luck. The “my car doesn’t get rear ended at a stop sign and I can’t get to work kind.
A more open immigration policy with better enforcement of existing rules.
Half right. I also favor a more consistent immigration policy with logical rules that are based on our actual needs, and not on “there is a US Senator batting for his ethnic group” or “a particular industry would like to bring in below-market-wage workers” or “no, we need more white and less brown people in this country”.
I’m not actually sure that what I’m favoring is a more open policy, in that perhaps a consistent and system would end up being less open overall. I guess I just have that silly leftie attachment to that whole “give me your tired, your poor” foofaraw.
Jamila: quit dissembling. You said, plainly, that a hard-working poor person is “very likely” to get out of poverty if they apply themselves. If what you meant to do was try to make an argument about the tax code, you should have done that. Instead you just tipped your hand.
I also favor a more consistent immigration policy with logical rules that are based on our actual needs…I guess I just have that silly leftie attachment to that whole “give me your tired, your poor” foofaraw.
Well, which is it? Rules based on our actual needs, or based on our ideals? I’m pretty sure we don’t have an actual need for any boatloads of Sudanese refugees; I’m also pretty sure what our ideals have to say about that.
You mention, derogatorily, the Senator going to bat for a particular ethnic group, or people who prefer one particular version of our ethnic balance. Yet how else are we to assess needs, other than through our political process and through the lens of our existing racial relationships? It’s not like there’s an objective list of what America really needs and it’s the cupidity of the Senate that prevents that list from being made into law; there’s no agreement about what we need. Or at least, no consensus; where there IS widespread agreement (if not consensus), the values endorsed are not necessarily in favor of your perspective. The number of Americans who think America would be better 80% white is probably larger than the number who think it would be better 40% white.
So who’s conception of “need” is it that you endorse? The broad democratic mishmash of priorities that our political system produces? Or some narrower, more personal vision that would not necessarily find wide acceptance among the citizenry?
I suspect many people would like to see a “rational” immigration policy, limited yet allocated on the basis on some principle. As Robert suggests, I favor admitting more refugees, for example. But I know that however many slots I’d like to make available for refugees, I need to anticipate that a large number of the immigration slots will already be taken by illegal immigrants. Thus another Karin family will remain huddled on the Thai/Myanmar boarder, dodging bullets from the junta that wants them dead and the Thai guards that want them gone, because their slots were taken by some young Mexicans who want better paying work.
Good outcome? Bad outcome? Whatever; until the US adopts open boarders for everyone, this is an inevitable outcome. To whatever extent the US limits immigration, there will be illegal immigration. Any immigration policy must reconcile itself to this dynamic.
I agree that slowing down undocumented immigration is a matter of economics – supply and demand – and that managing the problem would require a focus on both. Politicians tend to focus on boarder control, which probably has some effect. But, as many observe, it definitely has the effect of funneling illegal immigrants into ever more dangerous boarder crossings. As some wag remarked, “Desert crossing seems to be a kind of employment screening test administered by the INS on behalf of the construction industry.”
To limit the demand for immigrants to enter illegally, we must influence a potential immigrant’s cost/benefit calculations. We could try to make alternatives more beneficial and less costly. One alternative a would-be immigrant faces is not to immigrate. We could try to make staying put more beneficial and less costly; that is, we could engage in economic development in the areas that send us illegal immigrants.
Another alternative is to immigrate legally. We could try to make this alternative less costly in terms of money, delay, uncertainty, etc. Perhaps we could make this alternative more beneficial in terms of making new legal immigrants eligible for certain government programs that are unavailable to illegals.
But the other side of this coin is making illegal immigration less beneficial and more costly. And mostly we do that by making the lives of illegal immigrants miserable. We make them risk their lives to get here. We subject them to bad treatment if they get caught. And more importantly, we adopt policies that will have the effect of subjecting them to bad treatment (“exploitation”) even if they don’t get caught.
I sense much of this discussion is prompted by people’s compassion for the suffering of illegal immigrants in the US. Why can’t we fix our system to stop this? For better or worse, the suffering of illegal immigrants is a functioning part of the system. It is mainly through their deaths and their suffering – not through boarder patrol agents – that illegal immigration can be deterred to the extent that it is.
Oppression: it ain’t a bug; it’s a feature.
“Border”, damn you. Proper spelling is one of the tenants of good Internet discussion.
(Gunshot)
(Thump)
To whatever extent the US limits immigration, there will be illegal immigration. Any immigration policy must reconcile itself to this dynamic.
Well, to the extent that we limit immigration there will be a demand for illegal immigration. Not all demands are filled, even by the most efficient markets.
I am not sanguine that it would be a trivial matter to control our southern border. Nor am I so convinced that it would be impossible to establish rudimentary physical control. The game might not be worth the candle; it might cost more to get control than the control is worth to us. But given the maximum theoretical potential downside of an uncontrolled border (“do you remember what Texas was like before Al Qaeda detonated that nuke in Houston, uncle Bob?”) I suspect that the cost wouldn’t be all that high.
Heck, the border is only 1,951 miles. The least effective possible method is just stationing a guy with a gun every 100 feet; that’s about 100K guys. Assuming three shifts, 300K guys could seal it “arm to arm”. Would it be trivial or cheap to deploy a 300,000 man border patrol? No. Could we do it? Of course.
Fencing, walls, and surveillance technology would just make it cheaper and easier. It isn’t that we can’t do this; it’s that we don’t want to. Or at least, enough of us don’t want to. The identities of the people who don’t want us to is fairly amusing to anyone who finds the prospect of a progressive-agribusiness axis counterintuitive.
Jeez, where would we find a labor force of 300,000 people who were willing to hang out at the border all day?
Heh. It’s an old joke in restrictionist circles; hire illegals to build the wall, because illegals do the jobs that Americans don’t want to do.
Oppression?
If I put an alarm system and a mean guard dog in my house and then a burglar gets bitten and caught after breaking in have I oppressed him somehow? Or if he cuts himself trying to wriggle in through in my barred windows he hasn’t been oppressed either. He doesn’t have a right to entry or my stuff not matter how badly he wants it.
Similarly, we are a sovereign country and people choose to break our laws and not recognize that sovereignty. They choose to try to get around the impediments we place in protecting that sovereignty. There is no “right” of entry into this country for non-citizens except maybe in very select situations.
I can envision some policies lead to situations in which illegal immigrants must choose between 1) revealing themselves and subjecting themselves to separation from family, imprisonment and/or deportation, and 2) virtual slavery (including sexual slavery) by US employers. I label this “oppression” in the hope that, by conceding that illegal immigrants suffer, we can avoid lengthy discussions attempting to establish this undisputed proposition.
mythago:
this may be overly optimistic. i suspect it’s just as likely that, if illegal immigration could really be reduced through economic or legal means, border enforcement would become considered unnecessary and have its funding cut.
But the other side of this coin is making illegal immigration less beneficial and more costly. And mostly we do that by making the lives of illegal immigrants miserable. We make them risk their lives to get here. We subject them to bad treatment if they get caught. And more importantly, we adopt policies that will have the effect of subjecting them to bad treatment (“exploitation”) even if they don’t get caught.
This simply isn’t as true as you would think. As I wrote in an earlier thread on immigration, in the 1930’s Jews from eastern European countries were illegally entering and working in Nazi Germany because they could make more money there. They did this even though they had to risk their lives to get there, were subjected to bad treatement (they figure they’d be killed if they were caught) and were in a country that had adopted policies of subjecting them to bad treatment even if they weren’t caught.
I’m not sure that a country that isn’t ruled by an insane dictatorship would even be able to get close to making things as bad for illegal immigrants as Nazi Germany did for Jewish illegal immigrants. It didn’t work for them, how’s it going to work for us?
Just guessing here, but I expect that it did “work for them.” That is, I expect that the number of Jews that illegally entered and worked in Nazi Germany was less than it would have been if the Nazi’s hadn’t been homicidal maniacs or if the pay scale in Germany had been lower (or if the governments of Eastern Europe had also been homicidal maniacs, or if their pay scales had been higher, or some combination of these factors…).
Part of my point is that I don’t expect to find a “cure” for illegal immigration. I expect we can identify policies that increase immigration and policies that decrease it. But I doubt we’ll find a workable policy that decreases it to zero.
Part of my point is that I don’t expect to find a “cure” for illegal immigration. I expect we can identify policies that increase immigration and policies that decrease it.
Even the threat of death didn’t decrease illegal immigration in the ’30s in Germany. Once Germany’s economy started to get back on it’s feet, it became the place to make money for those from countries that were even worse off. The only way that we can decrease illegal immigration is to stop it from being economically better than countries of origin. People will risk anything for the chance that they can make more money so that they can improve the conditions in which their families live.
That is, I expect that the number of Jews that illegally entered and worked in Nazi Germany was less than it would have been if the Nazi’s hadn’t been homicidal maniacs…
You’re making my point for me while trying to ridicule me. The number of Jews entering Nazi Germany didn’t lessen until the Nazis became overtly homicidal maniacs. The chances of any near future US regime of becoming homicidal maniacs is pretty slim. So, what are the chances that creating a hostile environment that doesn’t include mass round-ups and massacres is going to reduce illegal immigration?
I just don’t think that it’s an effective route to go down.
I was specifically addressing the paragraph of yours that I quoted, a paragraph in which you stated that treating illegals worse if they were caught would work to reduce illegal immigration.
This strikes me as an empirical proposition, and I don’t have evidence on hand one way or the other.
That said, I would expect empirical data to refute this statement. Rather, I would expect empirical data to show that people vary in their tastes and preferences, including their risk tolerances. Thus I would expect empirical data to show that some people will take riskier measures than others to make more money, that you could induce more people to take Action X by increasing the potential for making money by doing X, decreasing the risk of doing X, decreasing the potential for making money by means other than X, and increasing the risk of failure to do actions other than X. I would be surprised if these dynamics did not apply to illegal immigration in Germany in the 1930s and illegal immigration in the US in the 2000s.
Again, I’m not arguing that subjecting illegal immigrants to bad treatment will deter ALL illegal immigration; I’m arguing that it will deter more illegal immigrants than if we didn’t.
I mean, think about the converse proposition for a second. Some people have suggested granting citizenship to illegal immigrants. What effect do you think that such a policy would have on rates of illegal immigration? If you conclude that a policy making life better for illegal immigrants would increase the flow of illegal immigration, you are of necessity also concluding that making their lives worse would decrease it. It’s the same proposition, rephrased.
But again, it’s an empirical proposition, so I don’t know what more can be accomplished by discussing it in the abstract.
It’s a matter of balance. Can we really make the conditions and economic incentives worse in the US than in the country of origin? Can we come close to making the conditions here plus the risk of entering & staying bad enough that it will have any significant effect on (illegal) immigration from Latin America or Asia or Africa? Without a murderous regime, I don’t think that we can and that, therefore, our efforts would be best spent elsewhere. Maybe in the directions that your other paragraph mentioned, ie “we could engage in economic development in the areas that send us illegal immigrants.” Of course, I doubt we have the political will to do any such thing and so our national conversation will always return to punishing and excluding.
My exact words are were as follows: A poor person who takes risks, works longer, harder, and–dare I say it?–smarter, is very likely to escape poverty.
“Applying yourself” is not enough, you may be applying yourself in the wrong way.
I think this thread has splintered off into too many different directions and at this point it’s becoming increasingly difficult for us to understand what the topic of any individual post is.
I’ll try to keep things clear from here on out.
This is what I think would be a great start at solving the situation.
1. Increase legal immigration quotas. You cannot apply from inside the US or if you have lived in the US illegally in the last 5 years.
2. Implement a system of database checks that an employer must do to verify every employee with the IRS and Homeland security. (and get the damned computers from different agencies talking to each other during these checks)
3. Triple or quadruple the number of agents investigating employer violations of immigration laws.
4. Crackdown on employers for every violation with a heavy hand. $25K – 50K per illegal that was in violation of #2, or wasn’t checked. If you knowingly hire illegals it should be a very real financial risk.
5. No welfare for illegals. They came looking for jobs, they will go home when those jobs dry up due to #4. The vast majority will go back voluntarily, no massive roundup will be needed.(that was such a red herring during the immigration debate)
6. Build the double wall across the border at the more populated areas and let the military man the more remote areas. Its our sovereign border and its our governments number one responsibility to see that its secure.
Regarding the wall, its both a deterrent and an obstacle (which is much more effective when electronically monitored and manned). Sure some people will try to cross it, but many won’t.
Most people lock there doors and windows at night even though there are a hundred other ways into their house then with a key, yet people still bother. Its a minimum level deterrent and obstacle. An alarm and guard dog would raise security level even more. Yet if someone wants your stuff really really bad they will still try (but a much fewer number of people).
What I am trying to say is that we cannot expect the border to be perfectly secure, but if we can cut down illegal border crossing attempts from several hundred K per year, to a few hundred or less, that’s good enough. Plus an added benefit of all the deterrents and obstacles is that many of the people that are still willing the attempt are people we really want to catch (drug smugglers, terrorists, etc). We can concentrate on them without them melting into the human wave that’s currently coming across.
I like Larry’s list of jackbooted ideas. I would add to it the following:
Establish it as a matter of national policy that Mexican and Canadian citizens, as our friends and neighbors, are welcome to come and go as they please, subject only to reasonable border security. For those who wish to come here and work, there should be some reasonable accommodation.
We have a huge population of undocumented immigrants, and that’s what the American economy and political system did.
No. That’s what the Mexican economy and political system did. Mexico has a corrupt oligarchy that artificially limits Mexican citizens’ ability to enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. So Mexicans come here, knowing that here in the U.S. they can actually enjoy the fruits of their labors in proportion to their abilities and levels of effort and don’t have to worry nearly as much about the civil authority abusing them.
We have to deal with where we are:
No argument there. But dealing with it by granting people who break our laws every day American citizenship is not the way to do it.
Of course, a guy who thinks Ireland should quarantine black children to protect its culture
I would think you’re right. But who would that guy be? I haven’t seen anyone take that position here.
on the idea that those who benefit from the continuing consequences of slavery should do something to help fix the inequality.
Slavery? The topic here pertains to illegal aliens, not slaves.
nobody.really, I’ll respond at length later, but RonF was endorsing the practice, as I read it. He was clearly arguing for Ireland to guard its culture, saying that multiculturalism had produced poor examples elsewhere in Europe. That’s an endorsement, or at least an excuse.
So much easier to demonize someone than to actually logically counter their arguments, isn’t it? Saves all that messy effort of thinking.
Amp:
Attempting to stop undocumented immigration from the supply side (controlling the border),
Ask me and I’ll say that we really haven’t dedicated sufficient resources to this effort and could do it a lot more effectively. Having said that,
rather than the demand side (removing the motivation to immigrate illegally) has so far been a failure from a practical perspective.
We haven’t done this hardly at all. I’ve said it before, but if the ICE goes into a plant and hauls out 50 illegal aliens, the people who hired them should be hauled out in handcuffs as well, tried, convicted as is appropriate and thrown in jail. We definitely need to cut down on the demand side here.
Worse, it’s a failure that does lead to hundreds of immigrants dying, because they take less safe routes.
Every time I see this debate come up on Free Republic you see a cohort that condemns the humanitarian groups that go into the desert and leave water and otherwise try to keep people from dying. Fortunately for my peace of mind, it is a minority cohort that is shouted down. People are responsible for their own actions, but that doesn’t mean that we should not show compassion. It’s one more reason to solve this problem.
I wonder what would happen in Mexico if the U.S. actually started effectively controlling it’s border with them and also actually started effectively controlling the ability of illegal aliens to get jobs in the U.S.?
I think the question pertains to this discussion because I figure that at least executive branch governmental decisions regarding law enforcement on both sides of the border are being made in part on the basis of what they think the answer is.
Well, which is it? Rules based on our actual needs, or based on our ideals?
Robert, you know that it doesn’t bother me much when you disagree with me, but it really does bother me when you bust out tired old rhetorical tricks like false dilemmas and expect me to be so stupid that I won’t notice ’em. On the off-chance that you were asking that question in good faith: Our ideals do not mean that we are idiots who set aside all other valid considerations, like national security. But the starting point, for all us Constitution-huggers, ought to be starting from the principle of open immigration and then setting limits, not the other way around.
Unless you do think it’s a good idea to ape Old Europe and its attitudes like “France for Frenchmen” and “just because you were born here doesn’t mean you’re one of us”.
My exact words are were as follows: A poor person who takes risks, works longer, harder, and–dare I say it?–smarter, is very likely to escape poverty.
Indeed they were. Which is why you got called on your ‘very likely’. joe’s take is accurate; yours is merely secular Calvinism.
Robert
Let another 20-40 million poor immigrants in who are willing to do the work for a price that Americans won’t do. Great idea! Then we can get formerly middle-class Americans wages suppressed for a couple dozen other industries while the lucky new employers get to push the rest of the cost of these people onto the dwindling number of self-sufficient American tax payers. (i.e.. low wage workers take more out of the system then they put it. Especially when you add up the cost of schools, hospitals, and social safety net.)
So now schools become even more over-crowded, hospitals are over burdened, and the self sufficient American tax payer can look forward to tax increases to fix it all. Then with the usually increased birth rate of poor people added with the anchor-baby policy, we can look forward to 50 million brand new American citizen children in the span of only a few years. Viola, just what we needed: 10s of millions of new poor children heading off to school and showing up at the emergency rooms with runny noses.
A national policy of importing a massive amount of poverty. That’s a great plan, Robert.
As for the “jackbooted” thing. I know, its mean for a country to protect its borders and attempt to control who crosses them. I mean, we are probably the only country in the world that cares about such things. With the rest of the planet as “citizens of the world” that can go where they want, we here in American are a cruel lot. For Shame.
Larry, I agree with you about the border controls and the need for them. “Jackbooted” was an attempt to be light-hearted; apparently it misfired. My bad.
We definitely need to cut down on the demand side here.
Good luck with that happening. Americans are not going to be happy when they see the price tag that comes with using only legal labor.
Really, a simple solution would be a voluntary private certification agency (aren’t you conservative types big on the private sector?). Businesses that wish to sign on are perfectly free to do so, perhaps receiving a “Open for Legal Business” certification if they adhere to a strict set of guidelines, open themselves up for random audits, and so on. Then all the folks who are so very concerned about illegal labor would simply funnel their dollars to those businesses. The corner-cutting businesses would wither away, and the good businesses would not only attract customers, but would be able to hire more reliable, safer, legal employees, whose higher salaries would go back into the local economy. Everybody wins.
Robert
Nope sorry, my bad.
Mythago
II am sure someone will correct me if my memory is wrong, but I think they did a study a year or so ago and figured that you could double the wages of lettuce pickers and the price per head would only go up something like 22 cents. Housing construction would probably get quite a bit more expensive though.
“I kind of remember a study a year or so ago” is not really a cite, Larry.
“The link you provided only seems to partially support the idea that a more generous redistribution policy encourages social mobility. The link says that in Britain, a country that appears to be far more generous in terms of welfare than the US, social mobility has declined whereas in the US it was atleast stable.”
Sure… in the same vein that the Sun only seems to partially be hot, by virtue of the fact that it’s not actually infinity degrees Celsius. Britain, which generally has wider social safety nets (though not as extensive as those in continental Europe), is declining in social mobility whereas the US is not. I’ll go you one better – Britain’s social mobility is actually lower in absolute terms, as well. It’s one country.
What we find, though, is that countries with highest income mobility have names like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Countries in middle are Germany, Canada, and France. There isn’t even a debate that the US has very low mobility relative to other nations with high living standards. I think you’re banking pretty heavily on no one actually following my link.
mythago, I love your plan purely as a political gambit – there’s significant overlap between nativists and the deregulation crowd. Perhaps this would show them that market solutions are sometimes just ineffective and plain bad.
Of course, the reason I love it is because I strongly suspect that it *won’t work*. There are a kajillion reasons to hate WalMart, yet when it matters they all seem to lose out to the one pretty good reason to love it. “Raising awareness” only goes so far – there is no substitute for security measures such as the ones Larry listed.
Mythago, I know. Thats why I loaded it with caveats. Free time for posting was short so I was hoping that someone remembered it. But its entirely possible that I have mixed it up with rhetoric that I read during the congressional immigration debate.
When I get a little more time I will do some searches to see if I can find it.
sylphhead Writes:
You just repeated almost exact what I already wrote, except for the part you threw in about Britain’s social mobility being lower in absolute terms. Sooooooooo……let me say it again, your link only partially supports what you have asserted about wider social safety nets increasing mobility. If a more generous welfare state will always increase social mobility then British society should be more socially mobile than the US.
And this now brings us back full circle. Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are not allowing thousands of low-skilled illegal immigrants into their country every day and they have nowhere near the millions of illegal immigrants present in their country as we do. Their immigration policies are far more restrictive. Hopefully you see where I’m going with this.
Sweden has birthright citizenship but they also recently restricted immigration. Norway has also been restriction immigration due to an increasing Muslim population. Germany does not have automatic birthright citizenship.
If you want higher social mobility you can’t allow millons of low-skilled illegal immigrants to come into the country and not think that they will be a substantial burden on the (welfare) state or fail to realize that many of them will be stuck in poverty for their entire lives.
So the question would be whether or not poor immigrants from across the Mexican border are skewing the numbers down.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/SR9.cfm
Since I don’t have time to check their numbers and methodology I’m not going to bother with a summary but at least there’s something to chew on.
fwiw, i can’t imagine that a large number of people coming into the country to work at rock bottom prices won’t affect poverty stats.
“You just repeated almost exact what I already wrote, except for the part you threw in about Britain’s social mobility being lower in absolute terms. Sooooooooo……let me say it again, your link only partially supports what you have asserted about wider social safety nets increasing mobility. If a more generous welfare state will always increase social mobility then British society should be more socially mobile than the US.”
That is an incredibly weak argument. If I say that winters are cold, my statement is still true despite the fact that every once in a while there’s a warm day during the months of December, January, or February; this is an understood convention of language. True universals simply don’t exist in the real world, and trying to pretend an opponent’s argument is necessarily a universal is flimsy, even by strawman standards.
If a gunshot is always more dangerous than a stab, we shouldn’t expect at any point, ever, anywhere, a situation where one person is shot with a gun but survives while another is stabbed with a knife and dies. But occasionally we do see that, which must forever invalidate the idea that guns are more lethal than knives – if for nothing else than to preserve the face of other logical contortions, such as the idea that helping the poor doesn’t help them.
I suppose that was unfair. We could always hedge it by saying a gun is ‘only sometimes, partially, haphazardly, oogily-doogily’ more dangerous than a knife.
Well, a strong social safety net is to social mobility what a gun is to killing. Canada would be something like a steak knife. The US is a spoon.
sylphhead Writes:
True universals do exist in the real world. It’s just that “generous welfare state=high social mobility” is not one of those universals.
You could say a single gunshot wound is more likely to be fatal than a single stab, assuming that all other variables are the same. And you could say that social mobility is likely to increase with a more generous welfare program in America, like it has done in Sweden and Norway, but then you would need to keep a tight grip on immigration like Sweden and Norway have done. You would also probably need a more homogenous society, just like Sweden and Norway.
And once again, I’m going to bring us back full circle. If you want to increase social mobility, then we have to stop allowing thousands of low-skilled illegal immigrants to come into the country and change immigration policy to favor educated workers instead of focusing so much on family reunification. We also need to stamp down on employers who hire illegal immigrants and increase criminal liabilities for entering the country illegally.
I would just rather decrease welfare and let more people in, regardless of their educational level, and let them figure out how to take care of themselves or either go home.
I’m an avowed constitution-hugger myself. Glad to know you are, as well.
Would you mind showing me where in the Constitution, exactly, you’re getting your support?
Would you mind showing me where in the Constitution, exactly, you’re getting your support?
You know, all that bleeding-heart crap about due process and birthright citizenship. I hear that is sometimes referred to as the “anchor babies” provision of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“True universals do exist in the real world. It’s just that “generous welfare state=high social mobility” is not one of those universals.”
You know, perhaps they do. From induction/deduction principles, we know that somewhere out there, there might be dry water, or a horse with seven heads – but for all intents and purposes, we’re dealing with universals. But when we’re talking political pronouncements dealing with something as multivariabled as a society, no, there aren’t any universals. Massive defense spending=safer on the world stage? Hardly. Pegged currency=dependency on foreigners? Often the opposite is true. Harsh laws=less crime? Not always.
“You could say a single gunshot wound is more likely to be fatal than a single stab, assuming that all other variables are the same. And you could say that social mobility is likely to increase with a more generous welfare program in America, like it has done in Sweden and Norway, but then you would need to keep a tight grip on immigration like Sweden and Norway have done. You would also probably need a more homogenous society, just like Sweden and Norway.”
A bit of a false dichotomy here. There’s no doubt Sweden and Norway have done very well for themselves. If aliens landed tomorrow and I had to show them the pinnacle of human society, I’d show them the Scandinavian countries – somewhere in between metropolitan Tokyo and the Pyramids. But yes, there are many aspects to their situation that aren’t strictly applicable to the US (or to France, for that matter, or Canada or Botswana…)
However, this isn’t a question of “how to turn the US into Norway or Sweden”. It’s “how to turn the US into any other Western country where peasants don’t fry rats for food”. (With the exception of, of course, Britain – insert joke about British food here.) When you’re the basically last in the standings, perhaps you should try and concentrate on getting into playoff contention first before worrying about the championship. And I don’t care how many farm workers in the US lack SS numbers, it can’t possibly compare to, say, the logistical nightmare of the wholesale ingestion of a sizeable impoverished Communist country. Yet Germany is making it work. Every country has its problems.
sylphhead Writes:
I said the real world, not in Somewhere Out There land.
I can guarantee you that a sudden influx of low skilled workers into a country will depress wages for the only jobs that the immigrants can get. This is a universal; it happens every single time. If you can think of one instance where a sudden influx of low skilled immigrants has come into a country and not depressed wages in the industry that the majority of them flock to, then you’ve got me.
I’m glad you recognized why the situation in the US is different from the situation in Norway or Sweden.
Simple. We should start keeping out the poor people like all the other Western nations with substantial welfare states do.
From what I know about Norway and Sweden, they aren’t too keen on importing millions of people from the third world who fry rats for food.
Last in standing in what? All things considered, America is doing an excellent job of handling the millions of immigrants, both legal and illegal, in this country. I promise you that if you dropped 12 million illegal aliens into the middle of the sweet little nation of Norway, their beautiful welfare state would collapse under the weight of it.
Oh, you’re tlking about that? That’s pretty limited, as it only applies to your kids. And itrequires you toget in, and have babies. And it doesn’t stop the govrnment from kicking the parents out. And it sure as hell says nothing about whether we should let any given individuals in in the first place, or refrain from kicking any other individuals out.
The only thing that provision really does is to make birthright citizenship. We could make our laws a gazillion times more draconian without crossing that line.
The only thing that provision really does is to make birthright citizenship.
And, again, there’s that whole ‘due process’ and ‘equal protection’ thing, which I know is horribly out of fashion except for wealthy persons accused of sexual assault or of white-collar crimes.
Mythago says:
You know, all that bleeding-heart crap about due process and birthright citizenship.
I did some research on this and found something surprising. The Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark decided that the Fourteenth Amendment extended citizenship not just to former slaves and their offspring (who had been disenfranchised by Dred Scott) but also to people who could reasonably be supposed to owe allegiance to some other country (which was apparently the original intent of “subject to the juristiction of …”). However, the Supremes did not apparently make a broad statement on the matter and have apparently never explicitly ruled on the citizenship status of persons born in the U.S. who were illegal aliens. The parents of the subject of Wong Kim Ark were legal resident aliens. From Wikipedia:
I wonder if anyone is thinking about bringing this before the Supreme Court? If the Supremes of 1898 left some wiggle room in there, the current Court might just decide to slide through it.
RonF, I’ve read your post several times and I’m very confused as to what issue you think SCOTUS might consider. There’s nothing about Wong Kim Ark that gives hope to those terrified of “anchor babies”.
Jeez, enough of the snark please; it’s getting sort of tiring.
Especially with such a bad argument. If you’re a lawyer, you KNOW what due process is. Why the hell would you claim that due process has much to do with whether or not we allow someone to stay in the U.S.? It doesn’t, and you know damn well it’s a weak argument. Sure, we can’t deport people from the U.S. willy nilly–gotta follow our own rules, after all, which is what DP is really about–but the final question of whether we can deport them at all isn’t really a DP issue. It’s a PROCESS requirement, not an OUTCOME requirement, after all. (and of course a wannabe immigrant who isn’t in the U.S. may not have much of a DP argument at all, ya? Not being in the jurisdiction of the U.S. and all that. Don’t forget that part.)
And equal protection? Again: doesn’t work here. Sure; maybe it applies to how illegal immigrants get caught (can’t discriminate, etc.), or how they are treated by the authorities. But it has piss-all to do with whether they are actually illegal. Or whether (if they’re not in the U.S.) they are allowed to come in.
So in this argument, we’re debating illegal immigrants. And you are citing DP and EP in support of an “open” immigration policy…? God, I thought I had enough of this with the republicans I argue with. If you’re going to wrap yourself in the Constitution, get it right.
Oh yeah: I actually believe in due process. And I argue for it consistently, across the board. I want DP for everyone–white, black, poor, rich; whether accused of embezzlement, drug dealing, or rape. Including people who I don’t like as well as those I do. If that “for whites only” comment was aimed at me, it’s about as untrue as you can get.
“I’m glad you recognized why the situation in the US is different from the situation in Norway or Sweden.”
No problem. But in light of:
“And you could say that social mobility is likely to increase with a more generous welfare program in America” (post 156)
Norway and Sweden aren’t the only countries with higher income mobility or more generous welfare programs than America. They’re not the only countries we could try emulating.
“Simple. We should start keeping out the poor people like all the other Western nations with substantial welfare states do.”
Better yet, we could start limiting the amount of immigration and expanding the American welfare state, giving income mobility two shots in the arm. Two’s better than one, no?
“I can guarantee you that a sudden influx of low skilled workers into a country will depress wages for the only jobs that the immigrants can get. This is a universal; it happens every single time. If you can think of one instance where a sudden influx of low skilled immigrants has come into a country and not depressed wages in the industry that the majority of them flock to, then you’ve got me.”
All right. If the industry in question is an infant industry, and that sudden influx of low skilled workers gave it the threshold number it needed to be structurally viable (or expand/incorporate, as the case may be). This allows the industry to expand, raising the wages of all its workers.
No, this doesn’t happen as often as depressing wages from an established, mature industry. But doesn’t happen as often =/= never happens. That’s why we are careful around the language of universals, and why we are extra careful about not falsely accusing your opponent of making one, as a strawman.
eez, enough of the snark please; it’s getting sort of tiring.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be stealing your flavor. See, I made a remark about “Constitution-huggers” and you thought you would be clever and rest the debate on “what does the Constitution say about illegal immigrants”?
Do you believe that due process has no place in deportation proceedings? Do you believe that the United States has no jurisdiction over persons residing in this country unless they are citizens or legal aliens? That if the government believes somebody is not here legally for whatever reason, we should just put their ass on a bus and that’s the end of it? Otherwise you seem to be making some kind of Werner von Braun argument: it’s not my problem what ICE does once we arrest the bastards.
So in this argument, we’re debating illegal immigrants.
We are? I thought we were discussing the subject of immigration, and specifically illegal immigration vs. legal and policy considerations related thereto.
OK, mythago, you’re right; let’s both agree to revert back to politeness. I’ll start.
Do you believe that due process has no place in deportation proceedings?
No; any tribunal in the U.S. (including deportation ones) needs to have DP.
However, in my view, DP alone is a fairly de minimis requirement and often relates more to equal treatment than a particular result. A harsh, lengthy, or usually-negative-result process can still be due process.
And that process (like the criminal laws) may have to adapt to the problem it is trying to solve. The vast number of illegal immigrants may require that the process for evaluating their claims is more limited than the process for evaluating the defenses of accused murderers.
I don’t think we do an outstanding job of process. However, the real test would be where the type I and type II errors are. If we’re accurate and unpleasant, that bothers me far less than if we’re inaccurate and unpleasant.
That if the government believes somebody is not here legally for whatever reason, we should just put their ass on a bus and that’s the end of it?
I don’t trust the government’s belief about anything, really, immigration issues included. But at some point we have to trust SOMEONE to make that call, and I think the judiciary can do an OK job.
The issues of appeals are trickier. Appeals are important because they help prevent error. But they are also generally used as a delaying tactic, and are generally hideously expensive to manage. I don’t know if there’s a way to separate out people who actually think they should win, or who actually have a good case (e.g. the people we ‘want’ to appeal) from the people who don’t think they will/should win, and are just trying to stop the clock for a few months.
Otherwise you seem to be making some kind of Werner von Braun argument: it’s not my problem what ICE does once we arrest the bastards.
Well, you and probably disagree on what should happen to illegals; I think most of them should be deported (absent the asylum ones) and I don’t think you agree. But irrespective of what ICE does, you and I agree that the pre-deportation process must be reasonable.
There will ALWAYS be an element of unfairness, though, mostly because of the large # of illegal immigrants in comparison to the ones who are deported. I don’t see that as a DP issue, though. Do you?
If we’re accurate and unpleasant, that bothers me far less than if we’re inaccurate and unpleasant.
I’m not at all concerned with “pleasant”; I’m talking about an impartial process that is subject to judicial review and that proceeds according to existing law. That’s not what we have now by any stretch of the imagination. There’s a lot of room between kangaroo courts and long, ponderous, Dickensian layers of appeal.
I have no opinion as to whether ‘most’ illegal immigrants should be deported; the standards for who is allowed to stay and why should be clear and the courts and the law should adhere to them, that’s all. My bias is on the front end–allowing people into the country in the first place–not on whether, if they ARE breaking the laws, we should enforce those laws.
sylphhead Writes:
I prefer the reverse: expanding–or, in other words, allowing people to come and go as they please across borders–the amount of immigration and decreasing the welfare state.
The business is going to want to maximize profit. It’s not going to raise wages until the influx of cheaper labor slows or stops: why would I start paying a worker $10 an hour when I can continue to pay that worker $5.15 an hour and keep the extra profit as the business expands?
Really, a simple solution would be a voluntary private certification agency (aren’t you conservative types big on the private sector?). Businesses that wish to sign on are perfectly free to do so, perhaps receiving a “Open for Legal Business” certification if they adhere to a strict set of guidelines, open themselves up for random audits, and so on. Then all the folks who are so very concerned about illegal labor would simply funnel their dollars to those businesses. The corner-cutting businesses would wither away, and the good businesses would not only attract customers, but would be able to hire more reliable, safer, legal employees, whose higher salaries would go back into the local economy. Everybody wins.
Funny you should bring this up, mythago. Something like this already exists for the building trades; they’re called “labor unions”. Labor unions are already subject to random audits by the Department of Labor, and folks entering apprenticeship programs are already required to produce proof of citizenship or green card. I know that the union contractors in my area are pretty damn diligent about their employees’ legal status; as someone with black hair, olive skin, and a Latin name, I’ve been required to provide my birth certificate as part of my employment paperwork (while whiter compadres could pass with just their union card and driver’s license).
However, the existance of this system hasn’t created a demand for this easily verifiable 100% legal labor. Seems like there’s something about “illegal” status that really appeals to employers…..hmm…..what could it be……….
mythago Writes:
…There’s a lot of room between kangaroo courts and long, ponderous, Dickensian layers of appeal.
But what about the underlying accuracy? Isn’t that the end point of analysis? It’s a bit like the typical standard; if the claimed error wouldn’t have made a difference, then it’s not enough to overturn an appeal.
Of the people who get deported through the existing U.S. deportation system (which isn’t so hot from the bit I know, though “kangaroo courts” seems like a stretch), what percentage are deported who shouldn’t really be deported? Don’t you think that’s an important consideration?
“I prefer the reverse: expanding–or, in other words, allowing people to come and go as they please across borders–the amount of immigration and decreasing the welfare state.”
Okay, but that’s not what I was responding to. You implied that the way for America to have the higher income mobility that other Western nations have, it would only have to limit immigration. I pointed out that the strength of the welfare state also plays a large factor. If income mobility isn’t a concern of yours at all, then fine. If it is, you’d do well not to ignore the role of the state that you’ve already admitted exists.
“The business is going to want to maximize profit. It’s not going to raise wages until the influx of cheaper labor slows or stops: why would I start paying a worker $10 an hour when I can continue to pay that worker $5.15 an hour and keep the extra profit as the business expands?”
What’s ironic about this analysis is that it reads straight out of the LTV: as if the only economic considerations in any system are a worker’s wages and his employer’s profits, and the zero-sum game between the two.
This business, particularly an expanding one (which we can safely assume in most cases does not have majority market share), does not have a monopoly on labour. Other businesses can pull workers away if it tries to keep a very low lid on wages and compensation – we see this in real life, where even struggling small businesses rarely pay the bare minimum wage – no one would work for them if they did. (In my experience, bare minimum wage is offered by two main sorts of employers: gigantic mega-employers affected little by competition and those that primarily employ students. Often the two go together.) So a business such as this one is under constant pressure to raise wages, as long as it remains in competition – this pressure is tempered when it is financially incapable of doing so, but not when it is expanding and able. The effect is an upward pressure on wages, as sure as a stream of immigrants provides a downward pressure on wages.
Moving on, I read an article recently that brought up a very good point: strong-armed security measures may make it harder for illegals to get into and stay in America, but they may also make it harder for working illegals here to send money back across the border – thereby strangling off a major source of income for families down there, increasing the incentive for more of them to cross the border into America.
All this suggests to me that the way to control the borders is two-pronged: border security and enforcement will be needed to contain the adverse, spiralling consequences that would occur in its absence. But the leg work of actually reversing the problem that we have now can only be done by choking off the demand for illegal immigrants. This can be done both by strict enforcement of legal labour practices on employers, and the cessation of all tendencies to force economic programmes on Mexico that make it prone to historic currency collapses.
sylphhead Writes:
If we had an open border there would be plenty of cheap labor to go around. The problem is the same: businesses are not going to raise wages until they have to compete for employees–which they won’t have to do as long as the supply of cheap labor is flowing. Once the numbers of people willing to work for rock bottom wages slows down or stops, and the businesses continue to expand, ,i>then wages will rise.
“If we had an open border there would be plenty of cheap labor to go around.”
What is absolutely amazing is that this is presented as a good thing. This is a quote I just have to save for posterity.
“The problem is the same: businesses are not going to raise wages until they have to compete for employees–which they won’t have to do as long as the supply of cheap labor is flowing.”
There is always a supply of cheap labor flowing – even if there were no immigrants, there are still the unemployed looking for work and those who are just coming out of school. That does not mean businesses never have to compete for labor. The influx just has to be greater than the sum total of the variables that run the other way, which is not always the case – hence not a universal.
Heck yeah it’s a good thing! The goods we buy are cheaper, because the labor that went into making them was inexpensive, thus allowing us to buy more of them.
The laborers who come into the country illegally to work for low wages wouldn’t be doing so unless coming here was better than whatever it was they were leaving behind. So for them low wage work in the US is a dramatic improvement over unemployment/low wage work in whatever country they came from.
Sounds like a win-win to me.
suggestion, Jamila: since you think cheap labor is such a good thing, how about you take a pay cut for the greater good?
Nomen –
Which products do you think we should make more expensive for poor people to buy?
“Heck yeah it’s a good thing! The goods we buy are cheaper, because the labor that went into making them was inexpensive, thus allowing us to buy more of them.”
This reminds me of a label that Conceptual Guerrilla came up with: Cheap Labour Conservative (or Libertarian). You know, how you have ‘family values conservatives’, ‘law and order conservatives’ – we can add ‘cheap labour conservative’ to the list.
And just as the former two have become labels that right wing politicians, advocacy groups, and activists have readily adaopted, I’m sure “Cheap Labour Conservative” will be no different – after all, cheap labour is a good thing, is it not? So write to Ron Paul and tell him to campaign under a banner of “Cheap Labour”. Convince the American Enterprise Institute to adapt it into a slogan. At least amongst yourselves, on right wing blogs and public forums, headline topics and entries that openly pine for “cheap labour” – in those words.
It’s a good thing, remember.
“Nomen –
Which products do you think we should make more expensive for poor people to buy?”
So you’re of the camp that says that it’s okay to lower poor people’s wages, as long as the CPI goes down or something. There’s lot of people who’d say the reverse – it’s okay if the stuff they buy gets more expensive, as long as their wages go up with it.
Here’s a radical idea – why don’t we let poor people decide for themselves what they’d prefer, instead of telling them what they ought to want? Start a Republican political offensive into inner cities, hollowed out ghost towns, former manufacturing hubs that now have high, high unemployment – and convince them that cheap labour = cheap goods, which is good for them. I’m sure they’ll be mighty impressed.
Nomen Nescio Writes:
No thanks. I’m damn near working for minimum wage already. However, for someone making the US equivalent of $50 a month in another country, minimum wage would be a decided improvement.
Of the people who get deported through the existing U.S. deportation system (which isn’t so hot from the bit I know, though “kangaroo courts” seems like a stretch), what percentage are deported who shouldn’t really be deported?
The ends justify the means? We got the bad guys anyway, so who cares if we followed the rules? Is that really your argument?
Robert, how about tobacco?
Robert, how about tobacco?
I’d love some, thanks.
I don’t think it’s the state’s job to improve the moral lives of the poor by taxing their pleasures into unaffordability.
I’m pointing out that an important aspect of process analysis is, IMO, ultimate accuracy. You are deliberately misphrasing it as some sort of Western frontier justice, so let me state it more accurately for you and other readers:
Process is designed to ensure fairness, but “fairness” is difficult to define. A better measure of fairness is accuracy, which can be measured by looking at cases in retrospect.
An attack on the existing court system based on DP is, at heart, an accusation that the system is inaccurate. And a protestation for better DO is–or should be–based on a belief that a lack of DP is causing inaccuracy.
When the system focuses more on process than accuracy, that is a failure of due process.
Take criminal law. The fact that our criminal system allows many guilty people to go free is a cost. It’s worthwhile cost–we have few real ways to reform it that wouldn’t result in innocents being convicted. But when someone who is actually guilty gets off on a technicality of process, that’s a bad thing. Similarly, when someone who is actually innocent gets convicted or denied appeal because of a technicality of process, that’s a bad thing.
So yeah, when you complain about DP for illegal immigrants, I want to see the result of accuracy. Because the quest for accuracy should drive DP, NOT the other way around.
Think of the various DP requirements that we have enacted. Think of the requirement for exclusion based on warrantless search. This was not enacted because of some random DP belief. It was enacted because it was necessary to avoid lying; to ensure accuracy of the police’s statements; to enhance accuracy of the outcome.
That’s why federal courts will, when reviewing a defendant’s appeal, look at whether or not the claimed error made any difference in the defendant’s trial. I think they are too anti-defendant to do a good job at this most of the time, but the concept is strong.
So: you complain about the kangaroo courts. Are they inaccurate? Are they kicking out people who have a legal right to remain?
And why would you suggest that doesn’t matter?
Process is designed to ensure fairness, but “fairness” is difficult to define. A better measure of fairness is accuracy, which can be measured by looking at cases in retrospect.
Which is a fancier way of saying that the ends justify the means and due process doesn’t matter. As long as we can say the results are the same, who cares, eh?
“Most of the people who got deported would have been deported under a fair system” is not a measure of accuracy. For starters, it assumes that no mistakes are made in the other direction. It also assumes that unfairly imprisoning, prosecuting or attempting to deport people who are legally entitled to remain here is not all that important.
RonF, I’ve read your post several times and I’m very confused as to what issue you think SCOTUS might consider. There’s nothing about Wong Kim Ark that gives hope to those terrified of “anchor babies”.
Sorry to take so long to respond, mythago.
The idea is this; when pregnant alien women come into the U.S. and give birth, current law says that their children are thereby U.S. citizens by birthright. Some, as in the case of Wong Kim Ark, are legally resident aliens. Some are illegal aliens. Some cross the border with a legal permit they’ve gained via deception; they are legal aliens, but not resident.
This benefits the child because he gains the rights of an American citizen, and the benefits of those rights are often superior to those benefits available to him or her in the country of their parent’s origin. It also makes it easier for their parents to gain residence in the United States, which is something also highly sought for by citizens of various countries.
As I said, current law is based on the Supremes’ decision in Wong Kim Ark. But Wong Kim Ark was a legally resident alien. The article proposes that it’s not at all impossible that if someone brought the proper suit, the Supremes could construe Wong Kim Ark narrowly and restrict birthright citizenship only to children of legally resident aliens and deny it to children of illegal aliens and legal non-resident aliens.
The reading that people here are giving the word “juristiction” as found in the 14th Amendment is “subject to the laws of the U.S.”. That’s basically taken to mean anyone except children born to foreign diplomats. But in researching the adoption of the amendment (and I apologize; I don’t have the cites at hand and have no time to look them up), I found that this may not be true; that what was meant was “owes no allegance to any other government”. So, if a child is born to a Mexican couple in U.S. soil that child is a Mexican citizen and owes allegiance to Mexico, and would thus be ineliglble for American citizenship. The intent of the 14th Amendment was to ensure that slaves and their children could not be denied American citizenship, since they owed allegiance to no other country.
I do not offer this as being definitive – I’d have to re-do the research, and I’ve got no time for that right now. But be aware that between that and the grounds on which Wong Kim Ark was decided, there’s a lot of wiggle room for the Supremes to go ahead and declare that children of illegal aliens are not automatically citizens under the Constitution.
This benefits the child because he gains the rights of an American citizen
That’s because the child IS an American citizen.
But be aware that between that and the grounds on which Wong Kim Ark was decided, there’s a lot of wiggle room for the Supremes to go ahead and declare that children of illegal aliens are not automatically citizens under the Constitution.
There’s really not as much wiggle room as you are making it out to be.
That’s because the child IS an American citizen.
Under current law, yes. I didn’t mean to imply differently.
There’s really not as much wiggle room as you are making it out to be.
It’s not something that can be quantitatively measured. There’s as much or as little wiggle room as 5 out of 9 Supreme Court Justices decide there is. Any opinion on what way that would go would be pure speculation. But the justices could easily decide against birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens without violating stare decsis.
Actually, they would be going against a great deal of precedent. But it’s not like they are; this Court has made it clear that they’ll do whatever the hell the think, whadarayagonnadoaboutit?
Of course it’s speculation as to how SCOTUS would actually rule; but the excited notion that Wong Kim Ark is the tool that will happily kick all those anchor babies back to Mexico is a pipe dream.
Implementation of such a ruling would be interesting; would it only apply to all children born after it was made, or going back to all children that ever qualified under the original law to begin with? And would the Supremes take that into account upon considering how they would make their ruling?
If that’s what I meant to say, I’d have said it.
I’m not sure why, but you seem to be doing a lot of “what you’re really saying is…” and it is getting sort of annoying. Especially since I responded in some detail to you, AND posed some followup questions based on your post, none of which you have answered. Is this some sort of sound bite war?
I made that assumption to use the bias to your benefit, not mine. Most people who are concerned about DP focus on Type II error (the innocents who are mistakenly held to be guilty. In this case, that would represent the people entitled to stay who are mistakenly deported.
Your point has no meaning unless you mean to apply it to Type I error. It is true that I intentionally didn’t go into the number of “should be deported” people who the courts are allowing to stay in the U.S. But complaining about high levels of Type I error in the immigration courts is a conservative argument, not a liberal one. Are you sure you want to go there?
I’m not sure where you’re getting that. Certainly the prosecutorial type II error is also relevant.
But would you care to point out some statistics to back up your claims? Because after all, ANY system is going to have type II error at the prosecution stage, and the arrest stage, and the conviction stage. The question isn’t whether a system HAS such error–they all do–but rather which system has LESS.
And that goes back to the question I asked before: why do you make the claims you do?
Ron, IMO the concept of a USSC-driven revocation of birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants’ kids is so far-fetched as to be almost pointless to discuss. It’s much more likely that it would pass via a constitutional amendment (which will almost certainly not happen. And yes, the ‘much more likely’ still applies.)
But complaining about high levels of Type I error in the immigration courts is a conservative argument, not a liberal one. Are you sure you want to go there?
I’m honestly not following you here. An argument is valid or invalid depending on whether a conservative would like it?
The issue isn’t merely error–if by “error” you mean “the result would have been the same either way”. The issue is having an impartial, fair and consistent system of immigration courts. That’s why I keep saying you appear to be arguing that the end justifies the means. You’re a lawyer, so I truly can’t fathom your argument (or at least what I believe you’re arguing), which is that as long as we aren’t making too many errors we must assume there is due process.
As for ‘back up my claims’, I guess I could ask you to go first–beauty before age and all that–although I could cite you plenty of articles on how broken our immigration system is, if you truly aren’t aware of that. Personally, I’ve been involved in the system both as the spouse of a potential immigrant, and as an attorney volunteering for a legal clinic that assisted people with immigration problems. The staff attorneys at that clinic had inhuman levels of patience. (I know I wouldn’t remain that calm trying to handle a system that has not managed to implement a special visa for victims of human trafficking seven years after Congress approved it, for example.)
The issue is having an impartial, fair and consistent system of immigration courts.
I boggle that you think any systemic entity capable of having all of these attributes simultaneously and categorically. They must be traded off against one another.
You can call them a list of desirable traits in specific decisions, if you like. (“This was a fair ruling.”) That’s the kind of impartiality and fairness that Sailorman is looking for, I think, which is why he’s focusing on whether correct decisions are being reached.
I agree that it’s important to have proper process and such, but I also think that the primary criteria for judging the quality of a judicial system is the quality of its rulings, not the optimality of the process’ alignment to a rulebook.
mythago,
a system with lots of type 1 error and little type 2 error is a very liberal system. Since you appear to be approaching this from the pro-illegal-immigrant viewpoint, it seemed fair to assume that wouldn’t bother you.* Generally speaking, a DP argument focuses on Type 2 error, as there’s no entity who does a good job asserting a “too much type 1 error” complaint.
So are you saying that you actually care about the number (large as it is) of people who we could prosecute and/or deport, that we don’t prosecute and/or deport? If you don’t care about it–which I strongly suspect is the case–why bring it up?
Can you PLEASE stop with this bullshit? I’ve called you on it above; now you’re continuing with a bizarre ad hom. I considered a reply in kind (“you’re a lawyer, so I can’t believe you’d fail to understand…”) but please. It is fucking ridiculous, and beneath you. Please stop, now.
Impartiality and consistency are means to an end, which is that elusive “fairness.” Complaints about partiality or inconsistency are at heart complaints that the result “should have” been different than it was.
Do you see another goal of the process? DO you think the process is a goal unto itself?
*Info for those who don’t know the lingo: Type 1 error is “failing to convict the guilty;” and Type 2 error is “accidentally convicting the innocent.” Generally speaking, there’s a balance between the two and in a given system a change will trade one for the other rather than reducing total error. However, different SYSTEMS can easily have different amounts of total error. Also, some changes to a system will reduce total error without changing the 1/2 ratio; I’ve posted on that w/r/t rape law on my own blog, most recently here: http://moderatelyinsane.blogspot.com/2007/09/more-on-bias-neutral-improvements-for.html
Authoritative regimes tend to reduce Type I error by increasing Type II error (“kill ’em all and let God sort them out;” or “we may have to imprison a lot of innocent Muslims to catch a terrorist, but it’s justified.”) The “potential terrorist” sweeps post 9/11 were an excellent example.
Liberal regimes tend to prefer Type I error over Type II error (“better than 100 guilty go free than that an innocent man be convicted.”) Exclusionary rules in evidence are a great example. As a point of interest, though, some liberals feel very differently when it comes to rape law. But that’s a different thread.
I agree that it’s important to have proper process and such, but I also think that the primary criteria for judging the quality of a judicial system is the quality of its rulings, not the optimality of the process’ alignment to a rulebook.
Sorry, Robert, could you put that into English? Do you think that courts would all be better off if they followed the whims of the judge instead of some wacky, you know, laws?
Since you appear to be approaching this from the pro-illegal-immigrant viewpoint
Oh, I see. It’s not that you have problems with ad hominem attacks or unfair categorizations, it’s just that you feel they’re sort of your intellectual property. (It’s also more than a little disingenuous to take a swipe at rape-shield laws as part of your argument, then pull a no-tagbacks by saying ‘but that’s for a different thread’.)
So are you saying that you actually care about the number (large as it is) of people who we could prosecute and/or deport, that we don’t prosecute and/or deport?
Why, yes. Sorry to disappoint.
Complaints about unfairness are not merely complaints that the result was wrong. They go to the validity of the system itself. Take your example regime, Killemallistan. Imagine that the police in that country arrest a man for embezzlement, not because of any evidence, but because his cousin refused the advances of the chief of police. They torture him into confessing, and bring him before a judge who says “If you were arrested you must be guilty,” convicting the man of embezzlement.
If the man’s employer later stumbles across evidence that the man WAS an embezzler, it’s all good?
Mythago, It seems to me that Robert and sailorman are arguing that correctly applying bad rules is not a ‘fair’ process. You seem to be arguing that correctly applying any rules is a fair process. So universally applying a horrible system of laws without error would be fair in your opinion but not in theirs. Did I get that wrong?
Sailorman, can you please explain what you mean by Type I and Type II errors? The only time I saw that nomenclature it was in reference to rejecting or failing to reject the null hypothesis in hypothesis testing and I’m not sure how that applies here. I’m not sure about other readers but your use of the terms do not help make your point clear to me.
Sorry, Robert, could you put that into English? Do you think that courts would all be better off if they followed the whims of the judge instead of some wacky, you know, laws?
This is so grossly not what I said that, although I’d sworn off trying to get you to stop dishonestly mischaracterizing posts, I’ve gotta join Sailorman: please knock it the fuck off.
Next time I’ll be sure to just say “What the fuck did you just try and say?” instead of guessing at what you could possibly have meant. Better yet, how about you just add me to your virtual bozo filter, since you’re persuaded that, like you, I am only interested in scoring rhetorical points?
joe – I’m saying that you can’t have a good result if you have a manifestly broken and arbitrary process.
OK. I will use simple words and concepts.
It is important to have rules for a court system. Those rules should be as fair as is reasonably possible. The court system should follow those rules as well as it can. We know from our understanding of human nature and history, though, that there is no perfectly fair set of rules. We also know that no court system will be able to follow the rules perfectly.
It is also important that the court system reach just outcomes. When it is looking at people who are guilty of the crimes they are accused of, it should find them guilty. When it is looking at people who are innocent, it should find them innocent. We also know from history and human nature that no court system will achieve this perfect justice.
If there is a conflict between a court having fair rules, or doing justice, it is better if the court does justice.
You demand a system that is “impartial, fair and consistent”. I suggest that this is a conceptual error, and that human systems are not capable of maintaining these categorical qualities simultaneously. I suggest that what is important is justice.
Joe, did you read my “info for those who don’t know the lingo” paragraphs, that attempt to explain type I and II error in the legal context? If you still don’t get it I’ll explain more, but I suspect you missed them. Let me know.
Mythago:
This was merely an explanation of why I assumed you were less interested in Type I error, based on the earlier content of your posts. Note the word “appear”, which acts as a qualifier (are you even paying attention to what anyone else is typing? that’s an ad hominem, I know, but I’m honestly beginning to wonder here. I don’t know why you’d miss that.)
I like rape shield laws. I think they’re justified. I’ve said as much in a variety of threads. But they are what they are, and their effect on Type I and Ii error is what it is. And as such it serves as an interesting example of how people’s preference for varying levels of type I and II error can change through the subject matter.
I don’t control the threads here, and–in theory at least–this thread is about something else. Feel free to “tag” me back if you want to, though I doubt we disagree on the rape shield subject.
I missed that paragraph. So the legal profession uses Type 1 and Type 2 as a term of art? I Didn’t know that. They’re somwhat similar to the way they’re used in statistics.