In the business world, everybody is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first the cash will come later.
Harold Geneen, Former Chairman ITT
The US Congress on Migration
The debate in Congress is heating up about what to do about migration. The House passed a bill that would try to eliminate migration by using force both inside the country and at the borders.
The Senate Judiciary Committee led by Arlen Specter is trying to find a way to rationalize the existence of the eleven million undocumented people who are already here without calling it an amnesty and in a way that makes it seem like we don’t condone migration except through our legal channels. Reread the last sentence it has two contradictions in it. Contradiction one: Anyway you look at it allowing the undocumented to stay is an amnesty. Contradiction two: if we had an amnesty in 1995 and an amnesty by another name in 2006 it is hard to deny there is a trend. King Canute could not stop the tide and the US Congress cannot stop the flow of migrants to where opportunities are. Attempts to stop the flow will always fail and will cause misery, angst and bad behavior.
Peter Drucker the great management writer from Claremont wrote that if an organization has to keep making more and more complicated rules to maintain an outcome it desires; it should re-examine the underlying assumption that led it down the path to this increasingly complicated outcome. He suggests that the organization ask; “What are our basic assumptions about this issue?” In the case of migration, sovereign nations assume they have the right to restrict migration solely for the benefit of their current citizens. This is the incorrect assumption that causes the contradictions that Arlen Specter and his colleagues are trying to resolve.
Sovereign nations must recognize that people have a basic human right to migrate, that in balance it is almost always good for the receiving nation and that it is impossible to stop anyway.
So should people who believe in that the Right to Migrate as a basic human right support the legislation now in Congress. Making laws is a complicated process and the final bill will not recognize the basic right to migrate but if it, in the margin, moves in the direction of giving permanent status to the undocumented and does not build more walls between us and our neighbors it is a good thing.
But the real battle for Radical Migration is to change the debate. The ethics have changed. In a world with “liberty and justice for all” people must have the right to migrate. Nations that do not allow migration are on the wrong side of history. Walls are wrong.
For more information on the Right to Migrate visit radicalmigration.com
39,000 In Detention Centers
The WSJ (Wednesday March 15, 2006) reported, in a three line blurb, that “China refuses to take back 39,000 citizens who have been refused entry to the U.S. and are languishing in detention centers, according to Chertoff.”
Where are these detention centers?
What would happen if Mexico took a similar approach? The U.S. detention centers would fill to the brim in no time and adjustments would have to be made.
Mexico should support its citizen right to migrate with acts of courage like this.
For more information on the Right to Migrate visit radicalmigration.com
Maxim of the Week for March 12, 2006
No business has ever saved its way to prosperity.
Anonymous
Codger Divers go to Bonaire
These are a selection of my land pictures. Some underwater shots will be added if any of the highly skilled underwater photographers in the group ever send them to me to post.
This was the group that went to Bonaire in February and March of 2006. As you can see we had a very good time and also did some diving.
We happened to be in Bonaire for Carnival and stood outside of the Mona Lisa Bar for a while and observed the customs of the locals. Some of the Codgers were more into it than others.
Two cruise ships came in during the week and moored near the hotel. These things are big. More than 2,000 people visiting an island with about 12,000 residents.
Mike visiting the open air fruit and vegetable market. It is a beautiful building but the produce was lousy.
Sunsets from the hotel bar were often spectacular. Tom, Howard, Frank, Andy and kind diver from another group who took a picture for us that didn’t turn out that well. “What a great country: you order one beer and they give you two.”
Simon with Pepe one of our two dive masters for the week. Laurel was the other one. Pepe was from Venezuela and competes at motocross. The dive facilities were excellent and very well run. All of the dive sites we went to were within a 15 minute boat ride and the ocean on the leeward side were the diving was very calm.
Howard, Gene, Mike (the driver) and Simon rented a car and toured the island which is pretty much overrun by donkeys and goats. Mike is examining the odd constructions above the town of Rincon and of course looking for birds.
Flyng the kite on the windy and extremely barren part of the island.
The pink haze is some flamingos. Amazing!
More photos later after I solve some technical problems.
How Free People Vote
The freedom to cast a secret ballot in a fair election is one of the most cherished rights of free people everywhere. It allows the people to influence the acts of their government and hopefully increases the chances that the government will act in the best interests of a majority of its constituents. But it turns out the freedom to vote at the ballot box is not the only requirement for a society to be considered to be free.
To have real freedom people must also be able to vote with their money. Choosing where to spend money is a way of continuously voting for some products and services and against others. Every time a person chooses to buy celery instead of peanuts she is voting for all of the people in the celery production chain and against the people involved in peanuts. The marketplace is a huge and at its best a very democratic institution. In a free market economy buyers can direct their money towards products and services that give them the most satisfaction. In the 20th century we experimented with controlled economies but without the freedom of what can be called “dollar democracy” they became horribly inefficient and collapsed.
There are however two other requirements for real freedom. First we need the freedom to use our time as we choose. We should be able to watch what we want to on television or not watch at all. We should be able to work for whoever we want to and to hire whoever we want to work for us. This freedom encompasses free association and free speech. Finally we must be free to move away from tyranny and toward freedom. This new freedom, The Right to Migrate, gives oppressed people a power over their governments that they did not previously have. In the United States we recognize this freedom between states but not yet at our borders.
In conclusion there are four types of votes necessary for people to be free. To be truly free people must be able to vote with their ballots, their dollars, their time and their feet.
For more information on the Right to Migrate visit radicalmigration.com
It is a Right
The immigrant trails into the United States from Mexico are this generation’s underground railroad.
For more information on the Right to Migrate visit radicalmigration.com
Objections Number One to the Right to Migrate
“If we allow open immigration we will be overrun. The new immigrants will swamp our schools and our welfare system. We can’t allow it to happen.”
This is the most common argument against the right to migrate. The big fallacy is that it presumes that the State has obligations and that the migrant has none. However in a world where we are reducing the power of the state over people by allowing them to leave one country and join another they also have obligations. The first is that they cannot be an unreasonable economic burden on the current residents. Second they must assimilate as rapidly as possible to the existing culture. It is the new culture that attracted them in the first place so they need to acculturate. This means learn the language and the traditions of the new culture. In Israel new immigrants are required to attend ulpan which is combination of language and culture immersion classes.
One way to meet the cost of new immigrants is to bring them into the system so they pay taxes. People who have to operate in the cash economy are not paying taxes or subject to other regulations. Another way is to require that all new immigrants have a sponsor who will post a bond such that if the immigrant goes on welfare in their first 5 years in the USA they will cover the cost. Immigrants who went on welfare would be subject to deportation.
The right to migrate is a right, like freedom of speech, that transcends national boundries. Nations that hide behind economic arguements to restrict migration are wrong ethically and economically.
For more information on the Right to Migrate visit radicalmigration.com
Maxim of the Week for March 5, 2006
Ignorance is not innocence it is sin.
Robert Browning
Maxim of the Week for February 26, 2006
There comes a time in the life of any project when it is time to shoot the engineers and begin production.