Correct Immigration Policy in 11 Sentences

One of key characteristics of a legitimate government is that it actually has controls over its own geographic space and borders.  A government that can’t do that risks being a failed state.  It is a key competency.  Failure there indicates a deeper illness in the system that must be remedied.  Those who won’t remedy a problem of this sort are unwilling to govern.

The answer is to get on top of the problem and THEN to legislate a way to deal with the ongoing issue.  So, CONTROL the border and THEN find a way to address the desire for immigration.

There is nothing wrong with immigration or immigrants.  It is obvious America is a nation of immigrants.  However, the right immigration is legal immigration.  And once we have restored control of the borders, we can deal generously with those who want to immigrate.

The Tale of the Slave by Robert Nozick

In this day of burgeoning statism, I offer the following excerpt from Robert Nozick’s spectacular Anarchy, State, and Utopia:

“The Tale of the Slave”from Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 290-292.

Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you.

1. There is a slave completely at the mercy of his brutal master’s whims. He often is cruelly beaten, called out in the middle of the night, and so on.

2. The master is kindlier and beats the slave only for stated infractions of his rules (not fulfilling the work quota, and so on). He gives the slave some free time.

3. The master has a group of slaves, and he decides how things are to be allocated among them on nice grounds, taking into account their needs, merit, and so on.

4. The master allows his slaves four days on their own and requires them to work only three days a week on his land. The rest of the time is their own.

5. The master allows his slaves to go off and work in the city (or anywhere they wish) for wages. He requires only that they send back to him three-sevenths of their wages. He also retains the power to recall them to the plantation if some emergency threatens his land; and to raise or lower the three-sevenths amount required to be turned over to him. He further retains the right to restrict the slaves from participating in certain dangerous activities that threaten his financial return, for example, mountain climbing, cigarette smoking.

6. The master allows all of his 10,000 slaves, except you, to vote, and the joint decision is made by all of them. There is open discussion, and so forth, among them, and they have the power to determine to what uses to put whatever percentage of your (and their) earnings they decide to take; what activities legitimately may be forbidden to you, and so on.

Let us pause in this sequence of cases to take stock. If the master contracts this transfer of power so that he cannot withdraw it, you have a change of master. You now have 10,000 masters instead of just one; rather you have one 10,000-headed master. Perhaps the 10,000 even will be kindlier than the benevolent master in case 2. Still, they are your master. However, still more can be done. A kindly single master (as in case 2) might allow his slave(s) to speak up and try to persuade him to make a certain decision. The 10,000-headed monster can do this also.

7. Though still not having the vote, you are at liberty (and are given the right) to enter into the discussions of the 10,000, to try to persuade them to adopt various policies and to treat you and themselves in a certain way. They then go off to vote to decide upon policies covering the vast range of their powers.

8. In appreciation of your useful contributions to discussion, the 10,000 allow you to vote if they are deadlocked; they commit themselves to this procedure. After the discussion you mark your vote on a slip of paper, and they go off and vote. In the eventuality that they divide evenly on some issue, 5,000 for and 5,000 against, they look at your ballot and count it in. This has never yet happened; they have never yet had occasion to open your ballot. (A single master also might commit himself to letting his slave decide any issue concerning him about which he, the master, was absolutely indifferent.)

9. They throw your vote in with theirs. If they are exactly tied your vote carries the issue. Otherwise it makes no difference to the electoral outcome.

The question is: which transition from case 1 to case 9 made it no longer the tale of a slave?

Trivial Conclusions by Me on Stuff . . .

The time has come for me to get a few things off my chest.  Herewith:

I would never go to a Long John Silver’s if there is a Captain D’s in the same metro area.

Sonic, while a wonderful purveyor of slushes, is almost a complete failure in creating a potable limeade.  This is unfortunately also true of their new “sparkling” lemonade.

It has upset me to see my son so obsessed with Pokemon.  These people market to him with pathetic ease.  However, I realize that if the old Batman show with Adam West had been available on portable electronic screens, I may have done nothing else with my childhood.

Gadfly was a fantastically interesting magazine.  Very few of you will know what I mean and that is why it WAS a fantastically interesting magazine.  RQ was also really cool.

Political books by major radio personalities are like candy bars.  Consume and throw away the wrapper after you are done.  You won’t need it again and it probably didn’t do you much good.

It does feel good to have your prejudices confirmed.  I think it comes with a lovely chemical tickle across the surface of the brain.  This is true of both right and left.  And of me.

If you could have a totally honest conversation with the president, he would probably admit that he just wants to put as much of the economy in the government’s hands as possible.  He thinks government is fair, while the real world is not.  The problem is that sinful human beings operate both realms.  And in the government one, they have more power to abuse.

There are not enough Chick-fil-A restaurants in the world.  You can tell this because they are always overcrowded.

The only thing I don’t like about Chick-fil-A (and Wendy’s) is that I am not allowed to refill my own drink.

I am pretty sure there is actually less sex in movies right now than there was in the 1970′s.  I am equally sure this is because of a proper understanding of the laws of supply and demand and profit and loss.

Intervarsity Christian Fellowship is an incredible effective ministry.  Every time we find a really great staff member, like Taylor Bodoh at Florida State, we should bribe him to stay put influencing young people for a few decades.

Douglas Wilson has gained a lot of attention and respect for being willing to debate Christopher Hitchens.

Witness by Whittaker Chambers is the greatest unmade film in history.  We need a script and a star right away.

Welcome to Chiveis

A plague and nuclear exchanges in the wake of it have nearly wiped human beings off the planet.  Hundreds of years later, human beings live in scattered locales.  We find the main characters in a mountain-encircled place called Chiveis.  The government is a combination of monarchy and pagan religion.  The pagan gods must not be angered.  Would-be noble kings are weakened by the sexual temptation of the pagan priestess.  Christianity, has been forgotten by all except a few who have vowed never to allow it to be known to the people.  This is the setting for Bryan Litfin’s The Sword.

Despite this ugly arrangement of paganistic theocracy, there are citizens of Chiveis and surrounding areas who are looking for more.  They wonder if there is a good God to be discovered and worshipped.  The action is propelled dramatically forward when two characters venture out from the lands they know into unknown territory.  They discover a Bible, but the last 1/3 of the book, the New Testament, has rotted away.

So far, I’ve told little more than readers can find in interviews and other material on the web.  The Sword is the first book in a trilogy.  I enjoyed the book and found myself looking for opportunities to read it.  I would consider recommending it as a young adult book, but the treatment of sexuality (well done and edifying) is serious enough that I would encourage parents to read it first.

(Full disclosure: Crossway published this book and is the publisher of my book.  They sent me this book at my request for my review.  However, I would not give a favorable review of the book if I did not think it merited such treatment.)

The Trouble with the Social Welfare Modifier to the Pro-Life Position

We all know the circumspect pro-lifers who will endorse restricting abortion only to rapidly follow their statement with a modifier.  It goes like this:

But if you plan on telling women they can’t abort babies, then you’d better be ready to establish orphanages, pay for healthcare, add welfare benefits, etc.

For a long time, I accepted this as sage advice.  On first blush, it seems to be clearly true.

A friend brought up that point to me earlier today.  I suddenly realized it is in many ways a cop out.

In order to demonstrate, consider a similar position on theft, which does not of necessity entail the ending of someone’s life.  Here we go:

If you plan on making theft illegal, then you’d better be ready to remove the sources of material deprivation.  You’ll need to be ready to provide healthcare, food stamps, welfare, etc.  Until you remove the incentives for theft, you had better be ready to live with theft.

Do you see the problem?  Abortion is an evil.  Theft is an evil.  Both are sometimes resorted to because people are desperate and don’t know what to do.  At other times, the act is chosen in a more cynical fashion and without the tragically beautiful wrapping of travail.

I think we should do things to make abortion less attractive to women.  But I do not think that we should propose to people that they may not legitimately oppose abortion until they are willing to enact a host of social welfare reforms.  The evil is the evil.  We can seek to prevent the evil by making it less attractive through palliative measures, but we may also seek to prevent the evil by making it unlawful.  The second does not logically depend on the first.

Batching It . . .

It is summer and so the activity level at the university is diminished.  The wife and children evacuated the area and left me here to work.  I am amazed by how quickly the entire routine falls to pieces.  There is no structure for eating or going to bed.  I leave work and enter my apartment as though it were a room in outer space.  What to do?  How to use my time?

Last night, I ate turkey hot dogs without a bun and dipped in mustard.  I topped that off with a bowl of bran flakes!  My entertainment was a $2 copy of Get Carter starring Sylvester Stallone.  I bought it at Blue Suede Books, which is going out of business.  It is one of a handful of movies I have watched more than once.  Something about Stallone in that flick . . . His character draws me in.  Hey, remember, he won an Oscar way back when.  Just pretend that Stop or My Mom Will Shoot never happened.

Before we had children, I was quite accomplished at this.  I suspect I’ll get the hang of it just as they return.

P.S. I made iced tea by putting tea bags in a coffee pot and sticking it in the microwave to boil into tea concentrate.

The Way the University Should Be

This morning I sat down with a handful of colleagues spanning the humanities and hard sciences for a planned conversation about evolution, the Bible, and the implications.  I’m not going to try to document our conversation because that would be much more substantive than a post.  What I will say, though, is that the exercise was extremely valuable for me.  I really enjoyed listening to academics in the sciences responding to a topic and reading set out by a philosopher (not me).

What was especially fun and interesting was the way thing started.  A female colleague in the sciences opened our discourse by asking the philosopher, “Why did you find this author’s argument either intereresting or persuasive?” She quickly followed that by adding, “Because I didn’t.”  In many circles, her question and comment would set up a quick ending to the discussion.  Instead, she merely piqued our interest as the philosopher patiently explained his choice and his opinion.  Soon, we were well down the road in trying to find some common ground.  Before I knew it, over two hours had passed.

This is the way the university should be.  Congratulations to colleagues at Union University for spontaneously organizing this kind of activity and for being so gracious as to invite me to join.

William F. Buckley, Jr. by Lee Edwards

Lee Edwards’ life of William F. Buckley is the perfect primer for those who don’t know a great deal about Buckley and haven’t obsessively followed his career (as I have).

Before this book, I was only aware of the John Judis bio of Buckley, which was written from a left of center point of view.  The Judis bio is deeper and more analytical.  Edwards takes pains to dispute Judis on some points.

One of the disturbing things about being almost 40 is that I routinely run into younger conservatives who don’t know who Buckley was or have only a passing awareness of him.  This book should be a mandatory item for them.  It is almost impossible to understand modern American conservatism without understanding William F. Buckley.  In an era of growing statism, one can do little better than to learn about that philosophy’s greatest opponent.

I continue to wait for the Sam Tanenhaus authorized biography of Buckley.  I have great hopes he will do for Buckley what he did for Whitaker Chambers.  These hopes are notwithstanding Tanenhaus’ own apparent joy at his apprehension of the death of conservatism with the election of Barack Obama.