it is not important to me, my or your skin color or country of origin. what is important, that the laws in the US DO differentiate us. That I, as a Caucasian , a group I am forced to identify with, under penalty of law on EVERY FUCHING govt form , am discriminated against, at every possible turn , and basically drives a group of producers out of their own country. Not just Caucasians, but interestingly, Asians, who were discriminated against up and to the end of the 2nd world war. I care when ANY group of productive people are forced outside their own country. I do not identify with the "lost gen" of the 20s. I do not appreciate checking little boxes in the US.

I was shocked to read this from khalling; "... all of this at the cost of white Americans. ... Now whites are emigrating ... "

Do you CARE what color they are? I might be concerned that -producers- are leaving. I might say that "many Americans" are becoming ex-patriots. That is true. American ex-pats go back to the Lost Generation of the 1920s. But I do not care what so-called "race" they are. Apparently, it is important to you to be White.

The problem is not immigration; it's welfare. We are entitled to it, along with city streets and all the rest.

I was shocked to read this from khalling; "Our policies on affirmative action make it advantageous for immigrants to get high paying government jobs, scholarships to schools, hiring, etc. all of this at the cost of white Americans. When they cross the border they are eligible within 90 days for govt assistance. no wonder people are xenophobic.
Now whites are emigrating to economically freer countries for opportunities and lower costs of living."

It was not just her racist claims, but the fact that no one called her on them. What would Ayn Rand say?

The complaints that "they" do not know "our" cultural traditions or political heritage was leveled against the -Irish- by Americans who were English. Progressives of the late 19th century were aghast that Italians were flooding in. No one here seems to mind now. (Or maybe you do.)

When my grandparents came here... is a good opening line. I do point out though that very few people actually showed up with NO resources. Most people moved into ethnic communities from which they were assimilated in the next generation. Sixty years later, we still read a local Hungarian language newspaper. But, also, one time, my uncle came over to watch football and Grandma asked us in Hungarian if we wanted something to eat and my uncle said, "Jesus Christ, Mom! You've been in America 50 years. Speak English." So, I get the complaints about immigrants being slow to assimilate, but that is part of the process. We all spoke English, but our parents spoke something else. I learned to call my friend John on the phone and speak enough Ukrainian to his mother to get through. It's a process.

it is easy to cite vague claims from conservative think tanks. How many of you actually work with illegals? I do. I have been a security guard since 2002. I have never seen an Anglo come to clean the washrooms. Most of them have two such jobs because none is an eight-hour gig. They clean a motel in the days and an office at night. They bust their humps. That's what I see first hand.

I also saw three generations of Indian women in Target the other day. Grandma and Mom were all sindoored up and in saris. The teenager would be indistinguishable from her classmates in school. It is a process.

The xenophobes here are just freaked out over the latest wave of new people.

One time in German class we read this story set in some mythical ancient time and place and this honest hardworking city guy was crying because the town had been invaded by barbarians and the emperor did nothing. Actually, they were just subjects from the frontier...

I now live in Texas. When I lived in New Mexico, I learned to think of this as the Spanish Borderlands Frontier: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/spanish-...

define the term racist. what IS racist is affirmative action. Is a welfare state designed with the mindset that certain groups of people cannot compete. Colleges and corporations have to meet quotas which are racist towards certain groups. A policy that would reward an immigrant at the expense of a citizen by giving assistance, paying for education, preferential treatment in hiring is racist. If you read more of my posts you would know that I favor the immigration policies of Kemp, Kirkpatrick, Bennett- IF we had not become a welfare state and IF we did not have racist laws in place.
Finally, I am not only familiar with our southern border , I have lived beyond it. My neighbors will laugh when I tell them today I was called racist because I expected US policies to support their citizens first and foremost.

It would be easier to monitor the fanatics/terrorists/jihadists if they weren't forced to take underground (for lack of better word) routes. And again, we should be fighting terrorism, not free immigration.

To: larryklutz55

I couldn't agree more! I singled out immigrants in response to the original post "A moral argument for freedom of immigration" The twin killers of America are Altruism and Collectivism. Programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and Food Stamps have made takers of the majority of us and we are witnessing the end of Individual Rights here and around the Earth.

And this is indeed the Objectivist position. In the free, unregulated society the only function of government would be protection of the individual rights. So criminals, and all those who openly advocate the use of force against others should be prevented to immigrate. The task of Objectivist government would be to identify these people during the immigration process which by no means should be automatic. So completely free immigration, that is- an uncontrolled movement of the people from one country to another would be unobtainable even in the free society. Imagine what would happen if 60 million Muslims will immigrate to Galt's gulch-like country, Even in Galt's gulch were certain condition of admission. Dagny Taggart for example wasn't qualified and had been escorted out blindfolded. Moreover, the free society is a precondition even for this relatively free immigration policy. In the present semi-free welfare state free immigration means an influx of herds of parasites, looking for the free government hands outs and additional burden on producers. Illegal immigrants are the people who knowingly and deliberately infringed the laws of the host country. They have no respect for society in which they want to integrate. Therefore to grant them an amnesty and citizenship would be a contradiction in terms.

There can be no such thing as a moral government. Government equals force. Your question is idealistic, sort of "in a perfect world",how would this work? Immigration policy exists but it is not being administered adequately. Without addressing what exists and possible remediations, it seems pointless to explore immigration philosophically.

Milton Friedman was, of course, exactly right. The answer, therefore, to our immigration problem is to get rid of the welfare state. Then immigration will take care of itself. The only immigrants we'll get will be those who want to be what every good American wants to be: Productive.

In this sorry state you have partially described illegal aliens are singled out to indicate the dramatic magnitude of the problem. The "exploding imbalance" expected from passage of the immigration bill means that our current CITIZENS at or near the poverty line in income ALREADY enjoy this "exploded imbalance', The problem, then, is not immigrants, legal or not, but the welfare state our misguided nation has become.

You make some good points, and you ask "what mechanisms do we have to ensure that those that wind up in government don't swing to the socialist, communist, ...." Right now, I reckon we don't have any mechanisms to prevent such things, regardless of a strict or loose imigration policy. Perhaps a solution would be to let any imigrant come here, and give anyone already here the same option, to choose to live here freely as a resident alien (without penalty, but also without benefit), and for anyone who wishes to pursue political office must be a citizen, and part of being a citizen could include a bond to uphold the laisses-faire principals. Our current constitution was prety good, but apparently not good enough. The primary role of the constitution was to place heavy restrictions on government action.

thanks for your interest, rocky, our first one is out there trying to garner an agent-as soon as we have something published, we'll let the Gulch know!

Good info...another 'thank you'.

Have you two actually published a novel? If so, I would like to read it....

he sent me this blog post ;)
http://hallingblog.com/understanding-the...
usually, the discussions are not over dinner, since we work together all day long. We have an IP practice and we write novels together about an inventor and entrepreneur w
ho has gone vigilante

I enjoyed your link...thanks!

You must have some interesting dinner conversations with your hubby. If I mention the FED to my bride, she asks if I'm not hungry enough to drag out the wok....

What is his take on Zarlenga?

that is horrible but would also happen underthe Zarlenga rules. Credit is a private issue. Contract. Pure and simple. Banks should determine their own reserve ratios, buyer beware, depositor beware

Ok, finished the Zarlenga article. 1st disagreement: fractional reserve banking is not counterfeiting. If we do away with that, we would have to outlaw stocks, bonds any form of securitizing wealth, jsa. This would destroy the ability of developing new technologies, which is our only source of increased wealth. The last thing we would want is the govt in charge of credit and creation of money. Here is an article my husband wrote on point:
http://hallingblog.com/did-midas-mulliga...

Thank you. If we don't stop and smell the roses once in a while we end up mired in the manure. Life is too short.
Regards,
O.A.

Haha I like following the conversation wherever it goes. And that's not a bad idea, things don't always need to be subject related or too serious we forget that we are all of a similar mentality here.

And we are facing those very threats, now, most recently at the Boston Marathon. In London, a beheading and mutilation halal meat style. (Nod to kw).

Certamente! And I do love it. Montepulciano, too!

a little goes a loooong way

analog is good.
Remember those boots. They're not made for the pool...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=end......

analog overload
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pX0yBJ5z...

I actually did not read the link. I agreed with changing the monetary system. I'm into about page 11 of of the pdf and the first thing I disagree with are the stances on fractional reserve banking. I do not know why so many people misunderstand how it works.
to your final comment: I have been commenting back and forth with jsa quite a bit. It has been my experience that those who are not AR fans also will not sign up as producers. For me, producers get more of the benefit of the doubt initially.