+ 10 - 4 | § ¶Bush and Immigration
As any readers (I guess that means you, Aaron) are probably aware, Bush made a speech last night calling for new immigration policy. The full text of his speech is available from the White House here.There's two things I want to talk about here: first, the rhetorical commitments Bush is making here, and second, the responses to it that have been floating around the blogosphere.
Early on in the speech, Bush states:
Once here, illegal immigrants live in the shadows of our society. Many use forged documents to get jobs, and that makes it difficult for employers to verify that the workers they hire are legal. Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals, it strains state and local budgets, and brings crime to our communities. These are real problems. Yet we must remember that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives. They are a part of American life, but they are beyond the reach and protection of American law.Now, first off, I find it completely uncredible that employers cannot verify that the workers they're hiring are, in fact, illegal immigrants. I'd think the fact that they weren't complaining about being paid less then minimum wage would be a good clue. Employers KNOW they hire illegals. In fact, they seek them out because they will do work Americans won't or will work longer for less then the domestic workforce. Being that they're illegally here, they have little legal protection, and they know it. This is also attractive to more shady employers. That said, it's not "illegal immigration" that puts pressure on schools and hospitals, and it's certainly not "illegal immigration" that brings crime to our communities - underfunding and poverty do that.
Of course, I take the larger point that there's a substantial amount of tax money lost when undocumented immigrants don't pay into the system they use. But to blame budget shortfalls, strained schools and hospitals, and increases on crime on immigration alone is to ignore the fact that all these things have other causes as well. Like, for instance, chronic underfunding of schools at the federal level, a private healthcare system that doesn't cover the lower class (and covers illegals not at all), and a lack of real opportunities for urban youth (due itself, in part, to an underfunded education system). But I digress.
Bush continues his speech, proposing a five-point solution:
1. Secure borders by increasing funding, hiring an additional 6,000 Border Patrol agents by 2008, and launching "the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history." Additionally, deploying up to 6,000 National Guard soldiers to patrol the border in the interim. Apparently, we're out of room to detain illegals, so more beds in "detention centers" are needed. We've also apparently expedited the deportation process, so they're being sent back faster then ever. The reasoning is "When people know that they'll be caught and sent home if they enter our country illegally, they will be less likely to try to sneak in." Honestly, I'm a little skeptical on this point. People already know that if they get caught, they'll likely get sent home. He acknowledges this in the speech, when he says that 85% of those caught are Mexican, and are immediately sent home. So the threat of being returned home is supposed to provide a deterrant to the 15% who travelled all the way through Mexico from god knows how far south to get here already?
2. Create a temporary worker program:
A temporary worker program would meet the needs of our economy, and it would give honest immigrants a way to provide for their families while respecting the law. A temporary worker program would reduce the appeal of human smugglers, and make it less likely that people would risk their lives to cross the border. It would ease the financial burden on state and local governments, by replacing illegal workers with lawful taxpayers. And above all, a temporary worker program would add to our security by making certain we know who is in our country and why they are here.Of course, this will only work if it's simple enough that the (often illiterate) population trying to sneak across the border can use it, provides enough temporary worker positions (in the right places) to slow the flow of immigrants in the first place, and is drafted correctly so that employers and illegals don't have an incentive to continue operating illegally. Being that the House has already shown itself to be pretty radical on this topic, I don't know how effective legislation could possibly be drafted. If a temporary worker program works to put immigrants in a worse off position then they already are, they'll have no reason to not just try their luck and sneak across in the first place.
3. Biometric "tamper proof" (?) IDs for all immigrants. This would somehow keep employers from hiring illegals, again resting on the assumption that they do so by mistake. How, exactly, is biometrics going to help things? Unless you have a system to verify the biometric data, it's worthless. And unless you've got individual employers somehow verifying the IDs at every single hiring point, it's, again, worthless. Or is the legislation supposed to punish employers for hiring people with bad IDs when they couldn't verify the IDs were good?
4. No deportation, but no "amnesty" either:
I believe that illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law, to pay their taxes, to learn English, and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship, but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law. What I've just described is not amnesty, it is a way for those who have broken the law to pay their debt to society, and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen.It seems to me that paying all your back taxes since you came to the country and a "meaningful penalty" might be a bit excessive. What's a meaningful penalty, and how exactly, is one of the most empoverished sections of our population going to afford it? How are they supposed to learn English? It sounds like this isn't providing amnesty at all, but just setting up substantial barriers to citizenship in the name some perversion of fairness.
5. Learning English = immigrant success! Since we're a melting pot, we must make sure everyone speaks the same language. Or something. While it's true that non-English-speaking people tend to be marginalized in America, making them learn English isn't necessarily going to fix the problem. While proficiency in English certainly breaks down some barriers to gainful employment, it's not a cure-all, and requiring immigrants to speak it as a condition for citizenship isn't going to fix much.
Bush then calls for substantial reform, and soon. And claims that all these points need to be addressed for legislation to be successful. Which is also probably true. However, I think it's very unlikely that any legislation is going to go deep enough, examine the real causes of problems caused by immigration: poverty coupled with a lack of opportunity, and racism. Until those things are addressed, immigration will always be a substantial problem in this country.
+ 9 - 8 | § ¶Leaks and Declarations
Via Digby, I find today that ABC News reporters are having their cell phone calls tracked by the government. I can't say I'm all that surprised.I wonder, honestly, how such actions could be justified. The only conservative response to this article I've been able to find was over at Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds's place, a simple one liner:
Now, I realize this isn't an explicit argument on his part. But part of my training as an analytic philosopher involved being able to pull out implicit assumptions or arguments from a text. Now, there's two assumptions or pseudo-arguments here, both a bit dangerous. First, obviously, he's assuming that "plugging leaks" is a good thing. Second, there's the implication that the press requires leaks, that they benefit from the leaks being open.PLUGGING LEAKS: The real reason the press is upset about the phone-number-tracking story?
These two things are deceptively uncontroversial. After all, who would be for leaks in the first place? Isn't information security a good thing? And isn't it true that the press directly benefits from the leaks being open? The answers seem simple, but answering these questions in the affirmative and leaving it at that is a bit troubling.
First, leaks do not simply serve to make information insecure. They also serve to keep the public informed of actions or policies that the government does not, itself, want disclosed to the public. To seal off leaks altogether would be to insure that the only information Americans will receive about their government's more clandestine activities is disclosed with that same government's permission. And call me crazy, but I don't trust my government to keep me informed of its most suspect actions, no matter who's leading it.
Second, the suggestion that the press only wants leaks open because of the financial benefit they derive is completely ridiculous. The motivations of individual journalists differ from the interests of the corporations (or the shareholders) that employ them and some may, believe it or not, actually place a value on keeping the public well-informed.
Finally, and most importantly, reducing the journalist's "real reason" for concern to something about "plugging leaks" is to completely ignore the fact that these are individuals whose private phone records were gathered and analyzed, and sidestep the question of whether it's legitimate for the government to be collecting this data on them in the first place. Who is doing the collecting? Was there judicial oversight? Were Ross's and Esposito's rights to privacy violated in the search? Is it legitimate for the government to try to close leaks altogether? Or are some leaks (say, those that tell us of secret CIA detention centers) legitimate, while others (say, those that out CIA officers for political retaliations) illegitimate?
Snarky comments like Reynolds's are, on the one hand, just that - snarky comments. But they also forego any substantial analysis (or even acknowledgement of issues) in favor of reinforcing certain positions. It can be turned into a declarative statement: "Leaks are always bad, newspapers/journalists only want them to make money." Everything else gets lost.
+ 5 - 9 | § ¶Welcome to the new Proles.net
So yeah. This is the new Proletariat Network. I (Aaron) will actually probably not be posting too much here - if you want to read my political oriented writing, I suggest heading to my new blog Polisci Applied. The goal of my new blog is to combine both the academic and practical/partisan issues of politics, something I think is largely lacking in modern political discourse.That said, Proles.net will still be around, and it looks like my friend Tim will be doing some writing around here. Of course, as always, other contributors are welcome, so just speak up if you're interested. I'll also probably still pop in on occasion at least, for more casual stuff that isn't appropriate for my new blog.
Just so you get oriented, it seems like the way this new system works is to have the main content (like this) in the middle, About/"linkdump" (shorter blog entries that are just a quick link to something interesting) on the left hand column, and Search/Calendar/Archives/Recent commenters/referrers/links/"stuff" on the right hand side. Pretty straightforward, and I'll probably be fleshing it out a little bit in the near future, but I actually like this default view pretty well so I don't think I'll change it too much.
Anyway, thanks for coming, and do check back for the postings of Tim and whoever else in the near future.