Donna Martinez has a nice piece on immigration.
I don't know if she is right, though, about her claim that "real" conservatives should support immigration reform of the kind she outlines.
Her claim is logical, I think. But I don't know what a real conservative is any more. Numerically, most people who call themselves conservatives seem to advocate imposing their own religious views on everyone else, expanding government to accomplish that imposition, and spending lots of money on foreign adventures without any source of tax revenue to pay for it.
Still, a good read.
1 comment:
I think the question--if you are a conservative who believes in benefits of the free market--is whether national boundaries are a good, God-given part of the system or whether they are an artificial restriction on the free market that should be worked around or minimized where possible.
The problem is that those who like the boundaries are unwilling to accept the labor-market implications thereof. ("You mean I have to raise the wage until I can get American citizens to take the job?" "You mean I have to pay more for (landscaping/ construction/ dining out) because they can't hire workers if they pay less?")
And those who prefer an unrestricted labor market are unwilling to openly make the case minimizing the importance of national boundaries. ("Being an American doesn't make you special. The accident of your birth on one side or the other of the Rio Grande should not limit your labor market participation to that side of the river.")
I think that nationalism presents a difficult challenge to an advocate of an internationally open labor market.
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