The Glade 4.0

I think it goes the other way too. When you normalize the mechanistic application of government authority by taking subjectivity and individualized judgment out of the equation, you make things like "just following orders", "just doing my job", "just following the rules" into valid excuses for the people who would actually be tasked with enforcing despotism to do so without ever examining their own consciences. When you look at the worst examples of despotic regimes in modern history - Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc. - one of the key elements you find is the bureaucratization of evil. Everyone from the guy who stamps your papers to the guys who pull the trigger in the firing squad perceives themselves as just another cog in the machine, with no personal moral responsibility for the actions of that machine. One of the things that makes our system much more resistant to that kind of mindset is the fact that we have so many subjective, individualized decision points built in that it's difficult for a totalitarian amorality to take root.


Like DE said, I think you're overestimating the ability to keep things simple. For example, consider a very basic commercial situation in which a company that owes money to a few creditors, leases its office space, employs a handful of people, and has a few pre-paid customer orders to fill doesn't have enough cash on hand to make all of the necessary payments. What happens? Just to sort out that very, very simplified situation, you need laws governing contract enforceability and interpretation, creditor priority, real property rights, bankruptcy rules, court procedures, and enforcement of judgements, not to mention the issue of whether debt contracts, real property contracts, employment contracts and consumer contracts should all be treated the same. Moreover, what do you do if the contracts in question are silent or contradictory on various important points (which, I guarantee, they will be)? What are the default rules for filling in the gaps or resolving inconsistencies, or, if there aren't any rules, how do you handle those gaps and inconsistencies?

Bear in mind that all that is just for sorting out one very small business that comes up short on its cash flow, and even then it's an incomplete list of considerations. If you don't sort all that out in advance with the kind of comprehensive legislation and even more comprehensive case law you decry, that would mean every business transaction and every contract would have to negotiate and agree on it all from scratch every time (and those contracts would still have gaps and inconsistencies with one another), which would create far more uncertainty and lack of uniformity (not to mention work for lawyers) than we have now.

Here is my big issue with the whole immigration thing...

Govt Official: "do you want to be a citizen?"
Illegal Immigrant: "Yes, Da, Aye lad, Si, etc."
Govt Official: "Okay here is how we start the process."

Govt Official: "Do you want to be a citizen?"
Illegal Immigrant: "No, Nein, Nyet, Not on yer **** life Lad!, etc."
Govt Official:"Well then get the **** out!"

Where is the problem with that? Why should the process be any more difficult to start than that? After the yes you can get to **** like... checking for criminal background, vaccinations, teaching the language, etc. But you actually take in these people and give them a choice right off the bat, if they are willing to become citizens, you take them in warmly and give them a citizens' privileges, etc.

If they say no, you bounce them right the hell out.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Because there are entirely too many people wanting to come here. They'd all just say "yes" in order to get in.

We used to actually do something kind of like this. It used to be that other-than-mexicans were just given a court appearance and released on their own recognizance. Naturally, less than one in every 10 ever went to court.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And if the government leads them through the entire process and does not leave them to their own... what is the problem? They are coming in already, and we do not kick them out, so make it easier to become a citizen... I can sum it up with the following:

if yes then make it easy
if no then deport
if yes then criminal background check
---if background check clear then easy (but 100% guided and observed)
---if background check not clear then deport

DE, how much easier and safer would your job be if you were suddenly thrown into more of a guiding role to lead by example for the immigrants who want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, as opposed to an Enforcement role where you stand to look like the bad guy to people who may or may not be dangerous?

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

So DS your immigration plan is: If you can get here you can stay here?

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Because we don't need a huge influx of additional citizens. That's the problem.



I didn't get into this line of work to "guide" or "lead by example". I'd quit if the job turned into some sort of immigration counselling service.

Illegals who really give a **** at all about "solutions" as opposed to "problems" for the U.S. and its immigration situation are for all intents and purposes nonexistent. They have no ill will towards the United States, but it isn't their country. They're perfectly happy, even proud to be from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, or wherever. All they're doing is what makes economic sense to them at the time, and a large part of the reason is "everyone's doing it".

As for me "looking like the bad guy", most illegals don't see us as the bad guy. They understand that what they are doing is illegal, and don't particularly care. They just want a job, and they know nothing particularly bad is going to happen to them.

I simply do not see any particular reason to just open up citizenship to "anyone who wants to be a citizen", nor do I see any reason whatsoever to spend the money "guiding people through the process", especially when a lot of them are not sincere in the first place. We simply cannot be the population sink for everyone else. These countries need to start addressing their own issues; and it won't happen until they get the idea that their surplus population cannot simply be farmed out to the U.S., either as illegals, or as insta-citizens.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Oh, by the way? Background checks work only for people who have already been to the U.S. They can be the biggest criminal in the world in their own country, and not have a single hit in the U.S. If they have an Interpol record, that shows, but those are exceedingly rare; I have yet to see one

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's not necessarily true, particularly in light of the demographic fix we're in with Social Security and Medicare for the aging Boomers. I've seen a number of economists and policy-makers argue that an influx of working-age immigrants is exactly what we need over the next 10-25 years. I don't know if they're right, of course, but I think it's worth noting that zero-growth or negative-growth immigration is definitely not an established consensus at this point.

I don't see how that is going to help. That would just kick the can down the road when those immigrants got old. Furthermore, the jobs that unskilled, uneducated immigrants would pay relatively little in taxes if, indeed, they paid any net taxes at all, not to mention that those jobs are needed for existing citizens.

Economists and policy-makers that are making that argument are using some exceedingly rosy assumptions to do so.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The only (IMO) bad part about our immigration system right now is the stupid length of time that it takes. It shouldn't take 7 years to find out if you're going to say yes or no. I don't think the entire process needs reform.

My views of the whole immigration issue are somewhat changing lately, maybe just growing older, or growing up... but no, not if you get here you can stay here. More like, "If you get here and make the effort to stay here, we will help you. But if you just want to come and not make any effort to stay, screw you leave."

@DE: Thank you for the response. I understand your position, even if I think differently.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

I agree with this, although I also think there should be more immigrant visas available overall.

With regard to illegals, the problem will never be solved trying to Americanize them. Fundamentally the problem is in the other country and the US is just a convenient place to go.

Here's the thing: fundamentally, illegals are cheap labor. Legalizing them makes that labor a lot more expensive. You have minimum wage, workman's comp and all that other crap you don't have to worry about with a $4/hr under the table employee.

Let's pretend (to keep the math easy) that I lay floor tile for a living. Let's also pretend I employ 10 illegals at $4/hr each.

Now let's pretend they suddenly get legal status; how doesn't matter. Let's further pretend that minimum wage is $8 an hour. Now all of a sudden my labor costs doubled. I have to let 4 of these guys go, maybe more if there are other costs.

Worse, I can now only lay half as much floor tile. The only bright spot is that I can raise my prices because most likely everyone else's illegals also just became legal.

This is a great deal for the 4 guys that are now getting $8/hr, but the other 4 just got **** in the ***. Now, I really don't care (real me, floor tile me probably does care) but now those guys and every other illegal that lost their job is here with legal status and no work at all, not even the $4 floor tile job.

On top of that, the first thing that's going to happen is that there's going to be an influx of illegals trying to jump on the bandwagon, because they aren't going to really understand that the jobs that illegals did just got axed by the fundamental fact that there's no free lunch. Right after that, I'm going to go fire my 4 legal employees, go out and find some of these new illegals, and tell them "look, I won't hire you if you take the legal status. That costs me too much. Stay off the books though, and I can hire you. What'll it be? $4 an hour, or nothing? Good luck finding a legal job though, those are all already taken".

This sin't to say we should have a permanent illegal underclass to lay cheap floor tile. The thing is that you have to cut off the ability of the donor countries to send us their surplus population. Without doing that there will always be an advantage in coming here illegally.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I am not seeing the difference.

Agree with Lenas, 7 years is retarded.

At RD more workers in the face of 16% unemployment sounds like a net drain on Medicaid/Medicare.

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Not to mention there was a very interesting panel discussion I heard with the CEOs of 3 major businesses here in Minnesota, saying how that the immigration laws basically were forcing them to outsource jobs to india or where ever because the qualified programmers or other high paying jobs they had they couldn't source here in the US. If they could legally get those employees into the country they would relocate them here to the US, and we'd have an influx of high wage earning (i.e. high tax contributing) employees.

I don't think that the highly skilled workers you're referencing would qualify as "a huge influx of additional citizens".

Additionally, I've read that what those CEO's were stating is bunk:
H-1B Visa Numbers: No Relationship to Economic Need

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

We do that at my company. We bring in Indians, Pakistanis and lately Chinese programmers to replace American programmers who expect just way too much for being (code) monkies.

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This may be true, but with unemployment what it is I don't think it would be THAT hard to find Americans to take those jobs with suitable (re)training.

Also, indians are a tiny minority of the people sneaking in here. This speaks to the need for more visas and less time to get one. It does not speak to a need for uneducated people from Central America where, notably, these CEOs are not outsourcing to.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

/shrug

When the CEO of Medtronic says that they specifically opened up a coding house in India, because they couldn't find enough qualified Americans and they couldn't get enough visas I guess I believe him. Further he specifically stated that salaries weren't the issue. Qualified people were the issue.

Frankly with the last 20+ years of the religious right warring against the sciences, I'm not surprised in the slightest.

H-1B Visa numbers were cut in half after 9/11 is my understanding. That's going to have an impact.

Alright I will say it... You are a retard. Outsourcing kills the middle class because the job is not available to Americans; issuing an H1 visa to a foreigner does the same thing. In addition you pay H1 employees A LOT less because it is still more than they'd make in butt **** podunk. So now you're artificially keeping wages down. Think there might be a correlations between when H1 visas became widely available and wage stagflation?

Seriously of all the **** for you to cherrypick in terms of actually listening to business leaders on you cherry pick this one. Not healthcare reform or deregulation...

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/shrug

When the CEO of Medtronic says they opened up a coding house in India maybe it's because it costs a shitload less to do so and the "not enough qualified Americans and not enough Visas" excuse is so he doesn't sound like one of those evil outsourcing CEOs.

The H1-B Visa cap wasn't reached until mid-January in 2010 and 2011. Sounds about perfect to me.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

They were cut in half after 9/11... After more than tripling from 1998 to 2001. I am quite certain the CEO could find more Americans if he paid more, trained Americans, or both.

But hey, if there were more H1B visas then we could have a permanent underclass of cheap tech workers, oppressed by evil corporations. Then we could hear why they should be allowed to become citizens, and vote for the nice liberals that stood up for them!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

All H1-B visas are used up in 2 weeks and that's "perfect"? Ok, whatever.

And I should have clarified. They had the coding house here in the US, and were bringing in qualified people and paying them a living wage for the US. But after 9/11 they couldn't keep enough here because of the visa shortage so were forced to move the coding house offshore.

Why wouldn't it be? You have your employees identified and your paperwork ready for that season. It's called plannig.



Then perhaps they shoulsdn't have assumed that the visas numbers would remain at the levels they spiked to by 2001. There wasn't a visa shortage after 9/11; rather the number of extra visas issued was back down to about 66% above levels that had been customary rather than being over 200% above 1990s levels.

I wonder what this "living wage" really was.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Oops, I missed this line. Talk about a red herring...
I know you feel you can just throw that out there without any evidence to back it up, because everyone knows it's true, right?

I'm sure you're thinking of the whole Evolution controversy. Well, according to Pew, 87% of scientists agree that humans have evolved over time due to natural processes, but only 32% of the public thinks the same. Man there are a lot of "religious right" people in the US, must be like 68% of the population!

I'm guessing that stem cell research is one of the talking points you would have brought up if you didn't know you were right. Hmmm, well, that whole embryonic stem cell research block that people rail against? It was the Dickey-Wicker Act made into law by Democrat Bill Clinton to prevent research on embryos. Oh, and by the way, under Obama, that research is still restricted.

I know you'd have cited Bush's "anti-science" stance so that would have been something you would have cited. The problem is that Bush reversed the science funding decline that occurred during the Clinton years and doubled NIH funding and boosted NASA after 8 years of decline, but he's a prime example of right-wing anti-sciency people, right?

Let's see, who are those most likely to not vaccinate their children? Hmmm, it appears to be those high-minded left wing progressives in Washington, Vermont and Oregon Including:


How about Nuclear Power? 70% of scientists are in favor of it, yet new powerplants get blocked. Must be those right wingers! Couldn't be those scientifically evolved progressives in the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Musicians United for Safe Energy, nah.

Animal testing? 93% of scientists agree that it should be done, but only 52% of the public, gosh darn right-wing Bible-thumpers at it again!

I think I'll stop there.

Maybe the real reason you see so much skepticism about science coming from the right (other than the media feeding your confirmation bias) is because the right has become more skeptical of the motives of scientists.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I'm guessing that you're not too familiar with how the H-1B Visa program works, and that's understandable. However, compounding your ignorance by trying to be snarky really isn't.

The program opens each April 1 (or the first business day). The quota wasn't "used up in 2 weeks", it took over 10 months. I'd say taking 10 1/2 months to fill the quota is pretty good.

If you'd read the link I provided, you'd have probably been able to figure that out. Further, if you'd read the link provided, you'd have seen that since 1999, the United States has approved enough H-1B visas for computer workers to fill 87 percent of net computer job growth over that period. I guess Medtronics got out-competed with their "living wage".

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko