Saturday - September 27, 2003
The Cure for Modern Slavery
President Bush and National Geographic Magazine
have highlighted the surge of slavery in our modern world. There are many kinds
of slaves, mostly for labor or sexual exploitation, but one cause of its
proliferation is very clear. It is overly restrictive immigration policies that
create the desparation for people to put themselves in positions that they can
be enslaved from.
Imagine living in a poor or oppressed country,
such as much of Mexico, or eastern Europe. Some people prosper in such places,
but many cannot escape onerous poverty or fear. From a moral point of view we
can't fault people for wishing to escape from such a life and enter a democratic
republic where they see so much prosperity. In fact, I almost lack respect for
those who choose not to escape.
But
entering these prosperous nations is illegal, they must be smuggled in, and
smugglers are by definition willing to take great risks to make money. It's
hardly surprising that some of them enslave their clients. Or their cargo, to
state their point of view.
The emigre
seeking a new home must put his life in the hands of a criminal and can only
hope that he gets to the place he wishes to reach. They have no guarantee, and
no refund.
So the obvious solution, as
with everything, is to eliminate the government coercion that makes slavery
possible. Eliminate the immigration controls that make this market of human
chattel possible. Immigration control should be limited only to verifying that
immigrants are not criminals or enemies of our safety such as
terrorists.
There are two main
arguments against this approach, both of which are pitiful. The first is that
these immigrants will only come here to instantly be put on
welfare.
The complaint is that poor
immigrants suck up government money, that is the taxpayers' money, because many
of them won't find work and will be on welfare, or that they can't afford
medical bills so they suck up medicare . They also resent paying money to put
their children through school. This is even worse in California where even
illegal immigrants get undergraduate and graduate degrees subsidized by the
government. Naturally, those who pay the taxes to subsidize this largess are
afraid that eliminating immigration controls will leave them bankrupt from
paying for all this socialism. They insist that immigration be more tightly
controlled to protect them from further excesses of socialist spending. Of
course, this is backwards.
This is the
reason why socialism is so evil, and I'm continually shocked that people can't
extend their minds to see this inevitable result of taking money from some
people and giving it to others. Socialism not only redistributes your money to
those who didn't earn it, it also inevitably causes people to call for more
controls over anything that affects that cost. They demand control over your
smoking because they pay for your cancer treatments. They demand control over
what your child learns in school. They demand that good people be kept out of
our nation and kept in poverty and
oppression.
The only escape from
tyranny or starvation for these people sometimes is to risk being smuggled into
a nation where they have a chance to live. Once in the smugglers' control, they
can become victims of the slave
trade.
Welfare causes immigration
control, which causes slavery. Freedom causes prosperity. Why do we insist on
policies that by definition and design are doomed to create
slaves?
The second argument is even
more pitiful than the first. The citizens of the prosperous country that these
huddled masses wish to escape to often fear that these new immigrants would rob
them of their jobs. First, these immigrants are poor, often poorly educated, and
usually don't speak the language of their new home well if at all. That natives
to that country are afraid of these people taking their job is a pathetic
statement of their own capabilities. I'll say it flat out: If you can't compete
with these wretches for a job, you deserve to be put out of work. Pathetic. How
many Americans, for example, even want to work picking tomatoes? It's miserable
work. But there are many people who would gladly do it to escape from where they
are.
But the immigration restrictions
encourage people to enslave immigrants for cheap labor, and being slaves they
needn't even bother with worker safety, proper wages,
etc.
If Bush is serious about stopping
or curtailing slavery, he will decimate the INS. Until he does this, the war on
slavery will just be another incompetent, pork laden government program like
FEMA, Medicare, and public schools among many others. Instead of ending the
cause of slavery, he will use the issue of slavery to stir up public support for
spending more of our money.
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