Graphics at link.
From the desk of Martin De Vlieghere
This article was written by Martin De Vlieghere and Paul Vreymans of the Flemish think tank Work for All.
On 23 and 24 March the European Council is meeting to discuss the future of Europes social model. The very essence of the welfare state is at stake. Europes present social model is unable to tackle the modern challenges of globalization, and has left Europe with gigantic problems: an unsurmountable public debt, a rapidly ageing population, 19 million unemployed, and an overall youth unemployment rate of 18%. The unemployment figures may easily be doubled to account for hidden unemployment. The untold reality is that Europes real unemployment stands at the level of the 1932 Depression.
A man-made Disaster
Europes social disaster is unfolding while the rest of the world is booming at its fastest rate in three decades. 2004 and 2005 were record years for China and India, which have double-digit growth rates, and for the USA, which fully enjoys the benefits of globalization. The worlds economy is booming at an average rate of over 4%, but Europes growth has stagnated at an inflated 1.5%.
Why is Europe performing so poorly? Europes deficient performance is incompatible with its huge potential as the worlds largest single consumer market. Its slow growth contradicts its unequalled industrial productivity and infrastructure, its outstanding education level and labour ethics, its favourable climate, fair business morality, and not in the least its tremendous potential provided by the opening of the iron curtain. Obviously Europes fairy-tale is not materializing. Nor are the inflated expectations prognosticated by Europes political elite at the launch of the Common Currency and the Lisbon Agenda.
Deficit Spending & Threatening Debt Crisis
The reality of Europes ailing economy contrasts sharply with its economic potential and with the massive resources employed to cure its ailing growth. The whole arsenal of Keynesian remedies has now been tried and has failed one by one. Massive deficit spending throughout the eighties and nineties has left Europe with a public debt unequalled in history. The size of Europe's monumental public debt is only surpassed by the hidden liabilities accumulated in Europes shortsighted pay-as-you-go public pension schemes.
Unfunded pension liabilities now average some 285% of GDP [pdf], more than 4 times the officially published public debt figures. Total public liabilities now exceed assets in most EU countries, and are causing runaway debt service. Richard Disney calculates [pdf] that if social policies are kept unchanged, tax hikes of as much as 5 to 15 percentage points will be necessary over the next couple of decades merely to avoid the rate of indebtedness increasing any further.
Unfortunately, this will just kill growth completely. Europes present social model is unsustainable because it is based on robbery of future generations. Keeping the system in place would jeopardize the next generations future with an unbearable and uncompressible tax burden, and would seriously add to the risk of a total collapse of Europe. Moreover these expansionary social policies have not worked so far. In spite of the largest debt buildup in history Europes growth has remained weak anyway. Europes social model is built largely on credit to be paid back by its own children.
ECB Money Printing & Runaway Asset Inflation
The ECBs expansionary monetary policy has failed as well. M3 money growth has been exceeding the real economic growth rate by an average 5% ever since the Euro was launched. Real Euro interest rates have been negative for several years now. The only obvious effect has been run-away asset inflation and an unprecedented speculative bubble. Today Europes bond prices have reached historical highs, and Euro-stocks earning ratios are at historical lows. Prices of building plots in Belgium have doubled and even tripled in some areas. In Brussels apartment prices rose by 50% over the last 12 months, driving many native Belgians out of their hometown because living in Brussels has progressively become an exclusivity affordable only for Europes privileged bureaucrats.
Obviously the Keynesian expansionary strategies are not working and the ECBs money printing is only making things worse. Present policies are leading to an Argentinean-style debt crisis. The challenges of globalization and Europes rapidly ageing population call for an urgent fundamental policy change. The 19 million unemployed (that is the official figure, but 38 million is closer to the truth) no longer believe Europes social fairy tales and can no longer wait.
Faked Public Debate
In an effort to keep the dancing on the Titanic going, Europes catastrophic situation is systematically hidden from public opinion. Official unemployment data, debt figures, and poor growth performance are systematically and grossly underestimated. Thus the public debate and the whole democratic decision making process is being falsified by lies and wishful thinking. Even the best policy makers are making the wrong diagnosis based on the wrong statistics, and as a consequence prescribe the wrong remedies. Having accumulated such monumental debt through years of over-consumption, Europe can indeed no longer blame its ailing growth on slow consumer sales. It is the supply side that is failing. Policies aimed at boosting Europe's economy should therefore no longer be aimed at stimulating consumption but at stimulating the defaulting creation of wealth.
Bureaucracy & A Crippling Tax Burden
Europes production is failing because of bureaucracy and a paralytic tax burden. The reality on Europes work floor is that the workforce is demotivated, and that Europes personnel and managers are increasingly rebelling against the persistent confiscation of over 50% of the fruit of their labour. The excessive tax burden leaves Europes workforce too little to lead the standard of living they earn. Businesses are deprived of the resources needed to finance their innovative projects and to compete in the global markets, if foreign entities have not yet bought their assets.
Europes well-intentioned model is not working because it does not pay to work after the taxman has taken his share. Europe is not innovating because it does not pay to innovate after the huge costs of complying with all the prescriptions, limitations and restrictions in all Europe's overabundant licences and autorisations. Demoralization is the real cause of Europes stagnation. Europes workforce is tired of being incessantly hindered in its task of producing wealth. Demoralization is the reasen why ever more engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs flee Europes tax misery. Paradoxically, the Old Europe of the West must now learn from the New Europe of the East, where after years of disastrous socialism, low and simple flat taxes are being introduced, luring investors from all over the world.
Scientific Evidence
In his research into the causes of growth differences between OECD economies the American economist James Gwartney irrefutably demonstrated [pdf] the direct relation between tax burden and economic growth. The higher the level of taxation, the lower the growth rate. The explanation is as logical as it is simple. The higher the tax level, the lower the incentives to make productive contributions to society. The higher the fiscal burden, the more resources flow from the productive sector to the ever more inefficient government apparatus.
Gwartneys findings provide the final explanation why continental European economies, such as Belgium, no longer grow. The Belgian tax burden is 20% above the optimal tax level burden as calculated by Primo Pevcin [pdf]. It is 9 %-points above the OECD average and 15 %-points higher than the tax level in the US and Japan.
WorkForAlls empirical study analyzing 25 plausible causes of economic growth in a comprehensive regression arrives at the same conclusions. The best way to spur growth is by reducing the tax burden and Europes languishing government sector, and by shifting taxes from income to consumption.
Adapting Europes Tax Structure for Globalization
With an excess proportion of direct taxes, Europes tax structure is totally unadapted to globalization. Direct taxes on profits, wages and capital increase the cost of domestic production, and in doing so have exactly the opposite effect of import duties. Direct taxes roughly double the cost of Europes domestic production, making Europes produce uncompetitive both in the home market and in global markets. Just as import duties cause protectionist distortions in world trade, direct taxes do the same, but in the absurd opposite sense. Globalisation therefore necessitates more urgently than ever a shift of the tax burden from production to consumption.
It is, indeed, a direct result of the trade distortions caused by direct taxation that is causing Western Europe to losing ever more rapidly its semi labour-intensive sectors to countries where productivity is lower than in Western Europe. This relocation from countries with high productivity to low productivity countries is a pure waste. It is not only disastrous for Western Europes employment. It is also harming worldwide development as Europes highly productive production apparatus and infrastructure are left idle. With Europes potential not being used to capacity, the direct-tax distortions are leading to less than optimal global labour division and wealth creation.
The success-story of the Irish alternative
Europe will only be able to maintain its prosperity and generous social system if it succeeds in generating a growth rate of 4 to 5% over the next couple of decades. This is not impossible. Ireland has shown us how to do it. The Irish economy has been booming at an annual growth rate of over 5.6% for over 20 years now. In barely 18 years Ireland has made the unbelievable jump from the 22nd to the 4th place in the OECD prosperity ranking.
Ireland thanks its success to its clear-cut different tax policy. With 33%, the Irish overall tax burden is the most moderate of Europe. Ireland also has a unique fair-flat-tax structure, which fairly and evenly spreads the weight of the tax burden over profits, labour and consumption. This unique tax structure is the key to Irelands success. Contrary to the rest of Europes demoralizing tax structure, the Irish tax model provides a positive stimulus to participation, saving, investment and enterprise: the crucial factors which the rest of Europe lacks.
For 20 years now, the Irish social model has proven its effectiveness not only in creating wealth and jobs, but also in providing Irish authorities with ample resources for their wide range of cultural, environmental and social initiatives, as well as for the costs of ageing. The unequalled Irish success story proves that their alternative policies are reliable and realistically feasible within the current European framework.
Scandinavian Myths
Despite the overwhelming success of the Irish alternative, adepts of large state interference continue to plead in favor of a Scandinavian model. Nonetheless the outdated Scandinavian policies have proved to be particularly inefficient. The Scandinavian countries have gone through a long period of steady decline with poor growth and job creation. In 1970, Swedens level of prosperity was one quarter above Belgiums. By 2003 Sweden had fallen to 14th place from 5th in the prosperity index, two places behind Belgium. According to OECD figures, Denmark was the 3rd most prosperous economy in the world in 1970, immediately after Switzerland and the United States. In 2003, Denmark was 7th. Finland did badly as well. From 1989 to 2003, while Ireland rose from 21st to 4th place, Finland fell from 9th to 15th place.
Together with Italy, the Scandinavian countries are the worst performing economies in the entire European Union. Rather than taking them as an example, Europes politicians should shun the Scandinavian big-government recipes. If there is anything to be learnt from the Scandinavian experience it is that Scandinavia succeeds in making a more efficient use of public resources, through investment and innovation. Nevertheless even their most restrictive unemployment policies will never result in higher growth so long as they keep their Keynesian policies and excessive government in place. The best proof of the failure of the Scandinavian model may be that the Scandinavian countries themselves are increaslingly abandoning it.
EU Tax Harmonization
Europes many high-tax and very-high-tax regimes view Irelands success with envy. They fear that less greedy and more efficient governments will develop Irish style reconstruction initiatives. Such a trend could lead to tax competition which would force them to improve their own public efficiency. In contradiction of all EU-Treaties guaranteeing full autonomy in fiscal affairs to the member-states, Europes high-tax regimes are now trying to prevent Irish-type reconstruction initiatives from developing in other countries. Fearing competition from less greedy and more efficient governments they are trying to impose their high-tax-regimes on other EU-members through a new directive.
In the same sneaky way as the EUs devastating savings directive was introduced, a tax-base harmonization scheme is now being proposed, obviously as a first step toward imposing a back-door harmonization for corporate tax rates also. Despite the severity of Europes high-tax disaster Europes high-tax-regimes obviously still refuse to see the unsustainability of their high-spending high-debt high-tax policies. These Keynesian policies have failed.
Curing the symptoms no longer helps. It is time to tackle the real and ultimate cause of Europes stagnation, namely the total discouragement of Europes work force. It is time to free Europe from its bureaucracy and its crippling tax burden. Failing this Europe will continue to lag behind ever further and its current relative impoverishment will soon turn into absolute pauperization, ultimately resulting not only in economic, but also in cultural and moral decline. If the economy is sick, it is because democracy is ill as well.
#1
Failing this Europe will continue to lag behind ever further and its current relative impoverishment will soon turn into absolute pauperization, ultimately resulting not only in economic, but also in cultural and moral decline.
The author doesn't mention demographic decline directly. While the economic thing is certainly the major factor in Euroland's decline, one cannot ignore the corrosive effects of post-modernism and aggressive, even evangelical, secularism and hostility towards religion and the heritage of the West in general as playing a key role in both the economic AND demographic decline in Europe.
Repeat after me - NO HEAVEN ON EARTH.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/28/2006 5:55 Comments ||
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#2
A5089, good article, up to your usual standard. I've worked in Ireland in recent years and lived there many years ago. Despite their protestations to the contrary, they are Anglos and that explains their success (stories about the old days excised).
I'm suspect that the reason most illegals have become upset is that they perceive recent efforts in Washington, and maybe with some justification, as "ethnic cleansing wrapped in velvet".
That is, that they can work for a while in the US, but then have to return to Mexico and apply for citizenship there. Except that we are already processing the maximum number of Mexican citizens we are able to process. So that means that MOST of those who leave voluntarily won't ever be able to come back.
This means something along the lines of three to ten million people!
Many of their children were raised in the United States, have never lived in Mexico, and don't even speak Spanish. Would you round up an equal number of caucasian children and dump them in Mexico? Holy crap! These are American kids. All they know is what other American kids know. They are just kids.
I can see why so many people are getting agitated about this.
Building a wall is a sensible idea, it keeps out any additional newcomers. It gives us years to fully integrate and recognize those that are here. Which is basically the situation we are stuck with. They aren't going home, they want to stay here, and for the most part become good citizens.
The alternative, of turning three to ten million people into fugitives overnight is just insane. None of them, except utter idiots, are going to voluntarily return to Mexico, so is the government proposing a massive round-up? To criminalize millions of people who committed a misdemeanor?
Emptying whole neighborhoods, even cities? For what?
I'm more than a little disturbed by some of the overt xenophobia and racism that is really cropping up around the US. It's a warning sign when your typical luser suddenly feels free to spout in public what he really feels. Ironically, the #1 complaint is that Mexicans speak Spanish, and this is somehow rude and inconsiderate of them.
Okay, it may make communications a little more difficult, but seriously, it that a reason to be like Slobadan Milosevic?
Yes, illegal immigration is a problem. And yes, stopping further illegal immigration should be a priority. But I'm as opposed to forcing law-abiding, working, peaceful Mexican people out of the US as I am of doing the same to our 70,000 illegal alien minority, the Irish.
Which President Bush granted an amnesty to, by the way.
Posted by: bk ||
03/28/2006 10:45 Comments ||
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#2
Ethnic cleansing is a politically-loaded term. If we're going to use such terms, let me propose my own - my word for what happens when a distinct people enter a country in large number without permission from the natives is colonization. Thus, when we push Mexican illegal aliens out, what we are accomplishing is "decolonization", not "ethnic cleansing".
Note that no legislator has proposed a wide-ranging guest worker program covering people from all-over the world. The guest worker program covers just Mexico. So all this political rhetoric is merely intended to mask the reality that Congress has apparently decided to legislate Manifest Destiny in reverse - Mexico will now colonize the US instead.
#3
We get a lot of immigrants, legal and illegal, from many countries around the world. Mexicans are the only ones I know that cheer for bin Laden at US-Mexican sporting events.
#4
Once you compare the mexican issue to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina your argument loses it's credibility. I have several questions for you; What is your solution?It's fun to gripe and not have a solution.Democrats are great at it. I think the current bill is a band-aid over a gunshot wound. But I also believe that illegals should be returned to their own country. Whether or not their children have grown up here is no argument, it simply means that they have escaped being prosecuted for a crime. That's the first word there, illegal. I would also ask you why is it that many of the protesters who seem so adament to stay in the states but haven't learned to integrate within our culture by learning the language. This is a situation where I believe we can look at Austria or Switzerland as a model for fixing our problem. Allow them to stay. Give them one year to learn the history and culture, to learn the language, and then test them. If they fail,ship them home. Why would you want to pay for someone when they don't contribute?
#5
Many of their children were raised in the United States, have never lived in Mexico, and don't even speak Spanish. Would you round up an equal number of caucasian children and dump them in Mexico?
#6
As someone who is both more involved with the immigration nightmare than I would wish to be (still waiting on my sweetie's green card, and that's after we have followed through on all the paperwork demanded of us), and a native of a state that is literally getting overrun while the feds screw around (Arizona), allow me my two cents.
The idea that our government is "ethnically cleansing" Mexicans shows just how much this author does not understand what that term really means. I have yet to hear ANYONE state that the way to solve the problem is to "kill 'em all! Let God sort 'em out!" The government from time to time says they will send them back, but everyone knows it's a joke and rarely happens.
Quite frankly, my sweetie is at more risk of getting sent back, which I find ironic and more than a little disgusting, considering we have been following the damn rules from the start. Tell me why my sweetie should worry more about deportation than someone who broke the law to get here should, because it makes no damn sense to me whatsoever.
Misdemeanors are criminal offenses. If you can potentially spend time in jail, which is definitely possible under AZ law in that case, it's a criminal offense. Committing misdemeanors on a repeated basis (forget the sneaking across bit...they almost always were driving without a license, without insurance, without registration, and the list goes on...), is hardly "law-abiding".
As for their kids, most of them grow up speaking some kind of weird pidgin Spanglish. Trust me, I know. I used to translate for police officers in Phoenix....no way was a lot of what I heard regular, everyday Mexican Spanish, or even normal English. And I hate to break it to you, but unless they were born here, or got naturalized, they're not Americans.
As for the Spanish speaking only part, yeah, I admit, I got annoyed about having to come out and translate for someone who had been here ten or more years. My sweetie has been here for a little over three and is fluent in English....what the hell is that lazy troll's excuse, when there are free English classes offered all over Phoenix and other major cities?
The three to ten million you refer to, as much as you may not like to admit it, are breaking the law, are draining the budgets of rural counties along the border for law enforcement and public hospital costs, and aren't all here just to work and send money back to Mexico.
Our Immigration "service" is a pain in the ass, but to imply that it is totally impossible to follow the rules and be here legally is a slap in the face to the millions like me and my sweetie who are doing just that.
#7
I am also opposed to forcing "law-abiding, working, peaceful Mexican people out of the US." Illegal immigrants don't qualify. "Illegal" and "law abiding" are mutually exclusive.
I feel badly for the kids caught in the middle of this, but their parents knowingly created the situation, not those here legally.
Allowing people willing to break the law to the head of the line for legal status seem self-evidently foolish. Perhaps I'm not "nuanced" enough.
#8
DB - I can relate to what you are saying. We just received the Perm. GC for my wife. Its a pain in the ass to deal with the INS. We had background checks, inteviews, medical exams (for her), police checks, and I had to sign a Affadavit of Support (which I am still under and will be until she either becomes a citizen or works for 10 years...).
There is a reason that the process is difficult. One is for security (background checks, interview), Two is for Health (medical), Three is to control the influx of immigrants (limits), Four is for finanical (so they don't end up on welfare or free-medical).
And they want illegal aliens to get in for free? No backgroud checks, no medical, no interview, and proven LAWBREAKERS? Oh and we have to pay for their medical, and schooling, and welfare too....
So that means that MOST of those who leave voluntarily won't ever be able to come back.
I take this to mean that they probable won't be able to pass the medical or interview or background checks...
And why does the guest worker program only apply to Mexicans? Why not Canadians, or Filipinos, or Chinese, or Indians? Why only Mexicans? Isn't that racist?
#9
Tell me why my sweetie should worry more about deportation than someone who broke the law to get here should, because it makes no damn sense to me whatsoever.
Because it isn't about following the rules; it's about power.
Which, frankly, sucks.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/28/2006 14:59 Comments ||
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#10
Amnesty is probably the biggest point of contention. On the one hand you don't want to reward law breaking. On the other hand it makes little sense to send back a million illegal Mexicans only to replace them with a million legal Mexicans. Ironically, the million illegals are preferable in many ways. They already have jobs, families, and more cultural familiarity (including English skills) than the million who would replace them.
So how about we let them stay -- just as soon as they pay up all their back taxes and go through the entire legal immigration process. That takes away much of the advantage of having come here illegally. It would also provide a great deal of useful information for prosecuting those who have been employing illegals.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
03/28/2006 15:51 Comments ||
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#14
"We've gotta protect our phoney-baloney jobs, gentlemen, we must do something about this immediately!"
Life imitating art. There is absolutely no motivation in any of this for the absolute base corrupt ruling patron political culture to stop in anyway the dumping of even more millions of its unemployed citizenry upon the United States. With double digit unemployment and an economy that sucks because of entrench xenophobic policies, its in the absolute interests of the political structure of Mexico to protect its power by making sure those who would in any other time be motivated for revolutionary reform are sent away. All this does is enable the continuation of the existing underlying causal factors which means once again in another 10 years well have the same problem with 20 million. Fraud, pure and simple.
#15
DB - dont mind the Affadavit - we are commited to each other in ways far beyond financial :).
Iblis - I hear what you are saying but... Well for one the million legal immigrants are law-abiding which, by definition, the illegals aren't. The legals have patiently 'waited their turn' and proven that they really want to immigrate here and contribute to society - the illegals have proven that they don't care about the 'rules' :).
And why should an illegal immigrant alien be allowed to 'cut-in-line' before a law-abiding person who is following the proper procedures and has been patently waiting for (sometimes) years? This would encourage even more illegal aliens -- just as it has in the past.
I don't think its possible to deport all the illegals. But we should discourge them by making (as formally Dan mentioned) it a felony to hire illegals (and make it pierce the corprate veil in some cases), remove 'free' medical' except for life-threatening situations, require proof of citizenship / residence for schools, no instant citizenship for babies born of an illegal alien, and cut funding to 'sainctuary cities'.
#16
Haven't we deported Mexicans all the way down to the Guatemalan border, just to make it farther for them to come back across? I heard that, but I haven't checked it via Snopes, so I could be, you know, wrong.
#17
"Ethnic cleansing wrapped in velvet" seems to have gone by the wayside already, based on what has been done in Washington today. However, the entire argument is secondary to the one big issue:
Preventing additional illegal immigration.
That is, quit messing around and build that wall. If that is done, and the number of Mexican illegals can be slowed to a trickle, the intensity of the problem in the US fades, and fades quickly.
The US absorbed illegal Mexicans for decades at some cost, but we were able to do it. Only when Vincente Fox's forced emigration for the PPP came into effect, with hundreds of thousands forced from their lands and sent North, did the situation really become intolerable.
If slowed to a trickle, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the 1950s, suddenly everything changes. Several things to look forward to:
1) Illegals cannot be left illegal in such vast numbers. Business wants them to remain illegal, because they cannot unionize, or receive any other benefit beyond minimum wage or below. In short order, illegal workers will be in shortage around the country, and they will no longer be willing to be exploited like that. Simple supply and demand.
2) The 2nd generation "Spanglish", who are typically problematic, will be far less so in a strong job market. The chance for advancement and prosperity will neutralize a lot of their "fish out of water" frustrations.
3) The 3rd generation "Amerimex", by dint of a closed border, will disconnect from Mexico even faster than usual.
4) Bloody Mexican civil war. Lots of the people at the border will no longer be economic immigrants, but refugees. Already and by the next Mexican Presidential election, the situation may be out of hand, with leftist radicals coming to power, and possibly Mexico joining the leftist nations of South America.
For this last reason, especially, it is imperitive that the wall be erected ASAP. It may otherwise turn into a situation of refugees running from Mexican machine guns towards American machine guns.
#18
Try making a living in the construction business and you might just take a dim view on illegals. They drive the wage down to that of 7-11 workers and start giving the boss big ideas.
#19
Anonymoose: Business wants them to remain illegal, because they cannot unionize, or receive any other benefit beyond minimum wage or below.
Illegals get much better than minimum wage. In most cases, they get the same pay as other people in the same industry. The way they do it is by getting false papers. Even the ones who don't get false papers get better than minimum wage - day laborers in New York get $10 an hour (documented by none other than the New York Times, which is pro-illegal alien). Employers like having a large number of immigrants around - legal or otherwise - it provides a bigger over pool of labor to hire from, which depresses wages. This glut of labor is why wages in many low-skill service industries that can't be outsourced have declined on an inflation-adjusted basis over the past quarter century.* The reason Bush is conniving with Congress to avoid enforcing immigration laws is to do an end-run around what the electorate feels is already too much legal immigration - 1m people per year.
* As a conservative, I have no compunction about crushing unions - it would be fine with me if unions were outlawed altogether. But conspiring to keep the wages of the bottom segment of society low by encouraging excessive immigration is just dirty pool.
#20
"I'm more than a little disturbed by some of the overt xenophobia and racism that is really cropping up around the US."
It really doesnt matter how many times someone qualifies his or her statements play the race card. It will do nothing to further intelligent discussion but it might persuade others that your opponents motivations are based on an irrational emotion. Besides it is really tedious to actually support your argument with facts.
Article 33 - Foreigners are those who do not possess the qualities determined in Article 30. They have the right to the guarantees of Chapter I of the first title of this Constitution, but the Executive of the Union has the exclusive right to expel from the national territory, immediately and without necessity of judicial proceedings, all foreigners whose stay it judges inconvenient. Foreigners may not, in any manner, involve themselves in the political affairs of the country.*Though the Mexican government does so regularly through its consulates.
I. Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization and Mexican associations have the right to obtain ownership of lands, waters, and their accessories, or to obtain mining or ground water concessions.
#22
DepotGuy: Playing the race card applies only when you are falsely accusing people of racism. My point is that while you (someone) may have very strong opinions about an ethnic group, usually you hold your tongue in public, because not to do so is seen as impolite behavior.
However, when people no longer control themselves, when they will state before a stranger their feelings, *and* propose a radical attack on people solely based on their race, then, by god, it is not the "race card", it *is* racism.
I even heard someone jokingly ask why are we going to throw out all the Mexicans? We should start with the "niggers" first, because Mexicans are hard workers. Said in a convenience store, in front of several people, and without hesitation or concern. This is not a good sign.
But as I said, the #1 complaint is that they speak Spanish, instead of English. But that is not a legal-illegal thing. I have known naturalized American citizens who only knew a few words of English after living in the US much of their lives. They mostly relied on their children's proficiency for things they didn't understand.
My bottom line to all of this is to stop any more immigration now, with which I'm sure most of you agree. My argument is that once we do so, most of the problems we see right now will evaporate--no need to do much of anything other than let nature take its course.
#23
Anonymoose: I'm more than a little disturbed by some of the overt xenophobia and racism that is really cropping up around the US.
Here we go again with politically-loaded terms. If there is any xenophobia and racism, it's against illegal aliens who are *not* Mexican. If we're going to have an open borders policy with Mexico, why not also have an open borders policy with respect to the rest of the world? Why discriminate in favor of Mexico? If we're going to have an amnesty, let's have one that does not discriminate in favor of Mexicans - let's have a quota of 40,000 Mexicans, 40,000 Poles, 40,000 Taiwanese, etc. Or does Bush think Poles or Taiwanese won't work as hard as Mexicans?
#24
Uh, no, Anonymoose. Cut off the illegal immigration. Don't punish the ones playing by the rules because a bunch refuse to.
America was built by immigrants and their children. It's part of what has made this country great. The difference between people like my grandparents and my sweetie and the illegals are that the first category doesn't treat America like a giant ATM. They actually want to build lives here and contribute, sometimes even creating jobs and building companies. The illegals just make some cash, send it all home, don't learn the language, and leave after they make their pile.
Please cut the crap about everyone who thinks that there should be penalties for being here illegally are racists. That's as stupid as basing your entire argument on one moron's idiotic comments in a 7-11.
#25
Personally I think Anonymoose lost the arguement with the title about ethnic cleansing since nobody has ever, for a second, discussed tossing out US citizens of Mexican decent. Choosing an overly charged word normally associated with death camps, and then misusing it, is to create a strawman the size of king kong.
In America we look at this debate backwards. We look at the tiny number of poor Mexicans that come to the US and forget about the hundreds of millions who stayed behind in poverty because the safety-valve of illegal immigration prevented political and economic reform.
#26
rjschwarz: We look at the tiny number of poor Mexicans that come to the US and forget about the hundreds of millions who stayed behind in poverty because the safety-valve of illegal immigration prevented political and economic reform.
#27
Zhang Fei and Desert Blondie: A fence is to keep out illegal aliens, not legal immigrants. The racism I have seen is solely directed at Mexicans. It is on the street, not a matter of government policy, at least not yet. The government has long had *official* policies of racism towards many countries and peoples, but that is another matter.
And rjschwarz: how many dozens of misdemeanors have you committed in your life without real punishment?
I mean the petty stuff like traffic offenses, jaywalking, etc. Would you think it fair to be taken from your home, lose all equity in it, have your children taken out of school, and the lot of you sent to a third-world country because of an offense you committed 10 years ago? Not a serious felony, mind you, but a misdemeanor?
And yet, that is de facto what was being considered for between 3-10 million people living in the US.
What in hell do you call deporting that many people other than "ethnic cleansing?" "Asking them to leave nicely?" That's all the Serbians initially tried to do--force out the people they didn't want. The killing part only came when they didn't want to leave.
Actually, Hitler just wanted to deport the Jews, too. He tried a bunch of ways just to send them out of Germany as undesireables.
"But they are *criminals*!" I keep hearing that argument. That is nonsensical. They have paid for any criminal acts committed against this country many times over by being horribly abused by employers, and shunned from any legal recourse because they were "illegal".
What price do you put on being denied justice? Of not being able to stand up against abuse without being deported as a "troublemaker" or "unionist." Of not being able to secure a loan even with 100% collateral. No insurance. No medical care except in an emergency room or free clinic. No driver's license. Being denied credit. Etc.
When that wall is erected, the US is almost going to have to increase the number of legal immigrant applications, and do so quickly. Shortly thereafter, it will probably have to relax many of the requirements for legal immigrants, too.
But I see no real problem with any immigrants, legal or not, already in the US staying here, except for violent criminals and the insane or diseased. Good for the legal immigrants--they have gone through the process, so they should get the perks of citizenship quickly. The illegals will have to wait a good long time for theirs.
Once things have settled down, including the murderous massacres down in Mexico proper, maybe they will someday get a government competant and honest enough so their people will want to live there.
#28
Anonymoose: The racism I have seen is solely directed at Mexicans.
Mexicans are being targeted because they are the largest group of illegal, unassimilated immigrants around. How many Polish radio stations are there? How many Chinese? And how many Spanish? Only Mexican immigrants have the potential to change the nature of this country because of their raw numbers - to turn the United States into Mexico. Nobody thinks Polish or Chinese immigrants are going to turn the US into Poland or China - because there just aren't that many of them. But the tens of millions of unassimilated Mexican immigrants have the potential to turn this country into just another United Mexican State.
But the bottom line concerns fairness. How is it fair that Mexicans, who cheer for bin Laden at US-Mexico sporting events, get a special place in front of the line? Just because you encounter racism against Mexicans doesn't make it fair that Mexicans get preferential treatment to enter this country. I'm sure that after 9/11, a lot of Muslims encounter prejudice as well - should we also start importing millions of Muslims from around to world to atone for our lack of sensitivity? Asians are extremely prejudiced against blacks - should we pressure Asian countries to take in millions of African immigrants?
#29
Yeah, it's definitely about fairness. And it's not fair to the average American. My credit-union ATM greets me with the option of Ingles or Espanol.
No, goddamnit, not "English," it really does say "Ingles."
The civil service exam in my county grants 1 fifth more preference to people demonstrating competency in Spanish. The legal, Hispanic-descent population here is less than 1%.
Why all this? It doesn't matter that the Hispanic kids learn some kind of Spanglish, because they don't have to use it. La Raza is colonizing NA slowly but surely, and the appeasing bootlickers will be ground under its heel just like the rest of us if we don't cleanse this place of illegals FAST.
Posted by: Some Dude ||
03/28/2006 23:14 Comments ||
Top||
#30
To me this is all a no brainer. RANT ON: First, build the wall - make that fucker nice and high and anchored way deep into old terra firma. Second, plug any gaps w/combined federal law/border control and U.S. military. Next, round up all illegals and deport - I know this will be hard and unpopular - I could give a shit - these folks made a conscious decision to disrespect our laws as well as our sovereingty. They go to the end of the legal immigration line as well - no negotiation. Also, make it a federal offense to employ illegals, help illegals into the country, or coming into the country illegally. If any big U.S. city refuses to work w/the feds on this then pull their fed funding immediately. For every illegal we catch or have to deport we charge that parent country or deduct $2,000.00 for each case out of their respective aid packages - too bad vicente, keep your house in order or we will do it for you, just like you do on your own southern border - you fucking hypocrite. Including the 70,000 Irish - and I'm about as Irish in ancestry as you get. Next, a child born by illegals on U.S. soil will no longer be given automatic citizenship status - what a stupid out dated law. Finally, reduce legal immigration to the educated or professional workers from other countries. Further, this doesn't include their extended family especially their over 60 yrs old family members who immediately jump on a social security system they never paid a dime into.
We also don't need anymore cabbies or a population the size of india or china. Yes folks, Americans will do these jobs. Don't believe the b.s. that only illegals will do this type of work. We may pay a little more for legal American labor but I guarantee someone will do that job. The market always finds a way to fix itself - it just doesn't let a gap or opportunity to make money go unfilled - supply and demand, right? Or, people can get reaquainted w/mowing their own fucking lawns, staying home for a meal, or doing their own landscaping - I know too many fellow Americans who are fat asses and could prolly use the exercise anyhow (but that's another rant).
Now, if our politicians are so swayed by big business to keep their illegal addiction or if the libz want to pander for illegal votes then what the fuck did I go to Iraq for? To come back and see some illegal alien or even a naturalized citizen in my country waving the mexican/honduran/& or guatamalan flag and holding up traffic in L.A.? To see people who should not even be here protest lawful American laws and whine like little babies because we are actually going to enforce a lawful standard? I hate to say it but we've got some real pussies in office at all levels. I find it hard to believe there is even a debate about what to do. If our elected officials were truly patriots they would do the hard and unpopular things to uphold our laws and sovereingty instead of making us mexico's half-way house (who btw are the sole benficiaries of geography while every other hopeful wannabe *legal immigrant* is fucked by not being parked right south of the U.S.) and the flop house for all illegal aliens. I will not even qualify any of this with saying how much I like hispanics or how I have nothing against mexicans or whatever it is that every rino feels the need to say so that the left doesn't call them the R word - that's so lame. Our country is at a crossroads, do we follow the rule of law or the rule of man? I love my country dearly but am afraid that our elected goverment officials have become too morally weak to do the right thing in this case. RANT OFF.
Fate conspires to remind us what this war is really about: civilizational confidence. And so history repeats itself: first the farce of the Danish cartoons, and now the tragedy -- a man on trial for his life in post-Taliban Afghanistan because he has committed the crime of converting to Christianity.
The cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were deeply offensive to Muslims, and so thousands protested around the world in the usual restrained manner: rioting, torching, killing, etc.
The impending execution of Abdul Rahman for embracing Christianity is, of course, offensive to Westerners, and so around the world we reacted equally violently by issuing blood-curdling threats like that made by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack: "Freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy," he said. "And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."
The immediate problem for Rahman is whether he'll get the chance to "mature" along with Afghan democracy. The president, the Canadian prime minister and the Australian prime minister have all made statements of concern about his fate, and it seems clear that Afghanistan's dapper leader Hamid Karzai would like to resolve this issue before his fledgling democracy gets a reputation as just another barbarous Islamist sewer state. There's talk of various artful compromises, such as Rahman being declared unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity on the grounds that (I'm no Islamic jurist so I'm paraphrasing here) anyone who converts from Islam to Christianity must ipso facto be out of his tree.
On the other hand, this "moderate" compromise solution is being rejected by leading theologians. Let this guy Rahman cop an insanity plea and there goes the neighborhood. "We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," says Abdul Raoulf of the nation's principal Muslim body, the Afghan Ulama Council. "Cut off his head! We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left." Needless to say, Imam Raoulf is one of Afghanistan's leading "moderate" clerics.
For what it's worth, I'm with the Afghan Ulama Council in objecting to the insanity defense. It's not enough for Rahman to get off on a technicality. Afghanistan is supposed to be "the good war," the one even the French supported, albeit notionally and mostly retrospectively. Karzai is kept alive by a bodyguard of foreigners. The fragile Afghan state is protected by American, British, Canadian, Australian, Italian, German and other troops, hundreds of whom have died. You cannot ask Americans or Britons to expend blood and treasure to build a society in which a man can be executed for his choice of religion. You cannot tell a serving member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in Kandahar that he, as a Christian, must sacrifice his life to create a Muslim state in which his faith is a capital offense.
As always, we come back to the words of Osama bin Laden: ''When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.'' That's really the only issue: the Islamists know our side has tanks and planes, but they have will and faith, and they reckon in a long struggle that's the better bet. Most prominent Western leaders sound way too eager to climb into the weak-horse suit and audition to play the rear end. Consider, for example, the words of the Prince of Wales, speaking a few days ago at al-Azhar University in Cairo. This is "the world's oldest university," though what they learn there makes the average Ivy League nuthouse look like a beacon of sanity. Anyway, this is what His Royal Highness had to say to 800 Islamic "scholars":
"The recent ghastly strife and anger over the Danish cartoons shows the danger that comes of our failure to listen and to respect what is precious and sacred to others. In my view, the true mark of a civilized society is the respect it pays to minorities and to strangers."
That's correct. But the reality is our society pays enormous respect to minorities -- President Bush holds a monthlong Ramadan-a-ding-dong at the White House every year; the immediate reaction to the slaughter of 9/11 by the president, the prince, the prime ministers of Britain, Canada and everywhere else was to visit a mosque to demonstrate their great respect for Islam. One party to this dispute is respectful to a fault: after all, to describe the violence perpetrated by Muslims over the Danish cartoons as the "recent ghastly strife" barely passes muster as effete Brit toff understatement.
Unfortunately, what's "precious and sacred" to Islam is its institutional contempt for others. In his book Islam And The West, Bernard Lewis writes, "The primary duty of the Muslim as set forth not once but many times in the Koran is 'to command good and forbid evil.' It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid."
Or as the shrewd Canadian columnist David Warren put it: "We take it for granted that it is wrong to kill someone for his religious beliefs. Whereas Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him." In that sense, those blood-curdling imams are right, and Karzai's attempts to finesse the issue are, sharia-wise, wrong.
I can understand why the president and the secretary of state would rather deal with this through back-channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies.
Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet. What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection?
In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
''You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
India today is better off without suttee. If we shrink from the logic of that, then in Afghanistan and many places far closer to home the implications are, as the Prince of Wales would say, "ghastly."
#1
Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet. What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection?
If we must. ABSOLUTELY!
In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
Let's get very impeccably multicultural with EXPECIALLY THAT PROCECUTOR WHO THOUGHT UP THIS MESS!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
