I’ll help you pack
07-May-10
via facebook.com
Posted via web from crasch’s posterous
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, one of the principal ways its victims helped themselves was by leaving. Katrina prompted one of the biggest resettlements in American history. Who would have blocked Interstate 10 with armed guards, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to suffer in the disaster zone, no matter how much assistance was coming in from outside? We wouldn’t have done that, because it would have made us collectively responsible for their continued suffering. Why then, in the thoughtful debate that has emerged over how best to aid Haiti and help its citizens help themselves, are Americans still quiet about this sinister face of our immigration policy?
via washingtonpost.com
Posted via web from crasch’s posterous
Marginal Revolution: How to help Haiti
15-Jan-10
…contact the White House and tell them that you support granting Haitians Temporary Protected Status (TPS) immediately.TPS is a form of temporary humanitarian immigration relief given to nationals of countries that have suffered severe disasters, natural or man-made. (For example, El Salvador got TPS was after the country was hit by a terrible earthquake in 2001, Honduras after Hurricane Mitch in 1999, and Burundi, Liberia, Sudan, and Somalia were designated because of ongoing armed conflicts.)
Once a country has been given TPS, its nationals who are in the United States can apply for work authorization (a very useful thing to have if, say, one needs to send money home to family members in need of medical care or a house that has not been reduced to rubble), can’t be deported or put into immigration detention (also quite handy if you’re trying to work and send money home), and can apply for travel authorization, which allows them to visit their home country and return to the US, even if they wouldn’t otherwise have a visa that would allow them back into the country (incredibly important if you have loved ones who have been badly hurt and need to visit them, or if you need to go home to attend funerals).
Designating Haiti for TPS status would provide an immediate, tremendously valuable benefit to Haitian immigrants in the United States. But, more importantly it would benefit their loved ones who remain in Haiti and are in desperate need of their assistance.
via marginalrevolution.com
Via Michael Katsevman.
Posted via web from crasch’s posterous
Pro border control folks often bristle when you accuse them of being anti-immigrant.
“I’m not anti-immigration, I’m anti-illegal immigration. I have no problem with immigration, so long as they follow our laws, and don’t try to jump the line.”
You know what–they’re right. It’s not fair to accuse them of being against all immigration.
It’s just like how Obama is often accused of being anti-gun. But Obama isn’t opposed to all gun ownership. He only opposes illegal gun ownership.
Granted, in Obama’s utopia, it takes 10 years and $20,000 to buy a gun. In most cases, you can get a gun only if one of your relatives already owns a gun, or you’re sponsored by a business willing to pay thousands in attorney’s fees. Temporary permits that let you shoot only at certain gun ranges are capped at a few thousand each year, allocated by lottery.
But these are mere common sense restrictions on gun ownership. Just imagine what would happen if we relaxed gun laws. Poor people would buy guns. Uneducated people would buy guns. Many of them would commit crimes. Do you really want poor, uneducated people owning a gun in your neighborhood? Just look at how many of them already buy guns illegally! We can’t allow people who disrespect our laws to own a gun! Only until we’ve secured the existing black market in guns, can we possibly consider increasing legal gun ownership.
You say you’re at risk from a stalker? You own a convenience store in a bad neighborhood? Well, that’s no excuse for disobeying the law. You should stand in line with everyone else. Or hire a security guard. Or maybe you should’ve treated your ex better or spent a little more time cleaning up your neighborhood. If you had, maybe you wouldn’t need a gun in the first place.
And what about all the security guards, police officers, and other people who would lose their jobs if any shmoe on the street could just buy a gun himself? Do you want to put these hardworking Americans out of a job, just so some poor, uneducated slob can own a gun?
And what about the terrorists? Without strict gun laws, what’s to prevent Osama II from just strolling into a gun shop and buying a gun?
No, we must strictly vet every gun owner. Only then can we prevent terrorists from buying guns.
But just because Obama supports such common sense gun laws doesn’t mean he’s anti-gun ownership. That’s a calumny. He fully supports legal gun ownership. He’s merely anti illegal guns.
Just like pro-border control folks are merely anti illegal immigration.
The Nation Is Not A House
18-Dec-08
The Nation Is Not A House
Let’s reflect on the rhetoric used by those who oppose greater freedom for people to move back and forth across political borders. Opponents of the freedom to move frequently analogize a nation to a house. “You lock your house, don’t you?” these anti-immigrationists ask—implying that what makes sense for a home makes equally good sense for a nation.
Analogies are useful for analyses, debate, and persuasion. But just as they can enlighten, analogies can also mislead. They must be used, and heard, always with care.
The analogy of a home to a nation is more misleading than helpful. Unlike a home, a nation—at least each nation whose citizens are free—is not a private domain; it does not belong to anyone in the way that a house belongs to its owner. Also unlike in a home, living space within a free country is allocated by market transactions rather than by the conscious, nonmarket decisions of the residents of a house. A person who enters a country and purchases a place to live displaces no one in the way that an intruder into a home would displace a resident from his bed and favorite chair. In addition, of course, every intruder into a home likely intends to inflict some harm on the household’s residents. In contrast, the vast majority of persons who enter a country intend no harm to anyone.
Evolved Disease-Avoidance Mechanisms and Contemporary Xenophobic Attitudes
Ethnic outgroups are often blamed for outbreaks of epidemic diseases, and these outbreaks can inspire violently xenophobic reactions to outsiders (Goldhagen, 1996; Markel, 1999; Oldstone, 1998). Foreigners are also associated with semantic concepts that connote disease. This association is evident in xenophobic propaganda, in which ethnic outgroups are likened to non-human vectors of disease, such as rats, flies, and lice (Suedfeld & Schaller, 2002). The associative link between foreign peoples and disease shows up consistently in the social science literature on immigration.
An Agent, a Green Card, and a Demand for Sex
“I want sex,” he said on the recording. “One or two times. That’s all. You get your green card. You won’t have to see me anymore.”
She reluctantly agreed to a future meeting. But when she tried to leave his car, he demanded oral sex “now,” to “know that you’re serious.” And despite her protests, she said, he got his way.
On the origins of Russian supermodels
30-Jan-08
Where did all the beautiful Russians come from?
To put it bluntly, in the Soviet Union there was no market for female beauty. No fashion magazines featured beautiful women, since there weren’t any fashion magazines. No TV series depended upon beautiful women for high ratings, since there weren’t any ratings. There weren’t many men rich enough to seek out beautiful women and marry them, and foreign men couldn’t get the right sort of visa. There were a few film stars, of course, but some of the most famous—I’m thinking of Lyubov Orlova, alleged to be Stalin’s favorite actress—were wholesome and cheerful rather than sultry and stunning. Unusual beauty, like unusual genius, was considered highly suspicious in the Soviet Union and its satellite people’s republics.
This doesn’t mean there weren’t any beautiful women, of course, just that they didn’t have the clothes or cosmetics to enhance their looks, and, far more important, they couldn’t use their faces to launch international careers. Instead of gracing London drawing rooms, they stayed in Minsk, Omsk, or Alma Ata. Instead of couture, they wore cheap polyester. They could become assembly-line forewomen, Communist Party bosses, even local femmes fatales, but not Vogue cover girls. They didn’t even dream of becoming Vogue cover girls, since very few had ever seen an edition of Vogue.
Mexican “300″
21-Sep-07
Mexican vagina control
01-Sep-04
Opponent of immigration often cite the negative externalities that Hispanic immigrants impose on the rest of us as reason to deport them.
However, if it's worth preventing Mexicans from crossing the border, would not the same logic apply to preventing Mexicans from crossing vaginas? Yet, you rarely hear immigration foes calling for compulsory birth control.
Also, if the negative externalities are the issue, why export only Mexicans? After all, native born poor blacks also impose similar externalities. Shouldn't we also have a policy of exporting them back to Africa?
And why stop at national borders? If it's good prevent Hispanics from entering the U.S., then it should also be good to prevent them from leaving the states where they are already concentrated. Perhaps we should have a policy of internal border control?