The Free Thinker

My Take on Paul Romer's Charter Cities Concept

I am a fan of Paul Romer's ideas, as represented in this video, and in general at this blog, about charter cities. I very much like it that Romer is thinking out of the national sovereignty box. This is one of the great moral imperatives of our times. National sovereignty is to the present rather as feudalism was to the present: it helps to organize things but is an enormous source of systematic injustice, and people of good will ought to mitigate, undermine, modify, hamper, and confuse it at every turn. The big political causes I support, like the Iraq War and immigration reform, are calculated to replace the worst iniquities of national sovereignty with something more free, just, and/or rational. One of the great virtues of organizations like the IMF and the World Bank (and one reason why I'm proud to have worked at the latter) is that they stand athwart the matrix of sovereign states.

Romer is probably the greatest living theorist of economic growth, and I expect he'll win the Nobel Prize at some point. In the video, he makes the case that Hong Kong is the most successful development project in history, and he wants to replicate it. He actually toys with the idea of "Give war a chance," and it makes me wonder if he's a closet Iraq War supporter, on the obvious grounds that it replaced a worse government with a better one, but he doesn't think, in general, that conquest, or even liberation, by military force, is a good way to remake the world in a manner that is conducive to growth, development, the betterment of the human condition, etc. He suggests, instead, that charter cities might be carved out of the sovereign territory of less developed countries, with their consent, and administered by wealthy countries, but with the citizens of the less developed countries having full access-- a little bit like Hong Kong. These areas could be magnets for enterprising people and would then spread development through their host countries, as Hong Kong became the catalyst for economic growth throughout southeastern China.

Brilliant! Of course, it would depend on developing countries agreeing to it, but I think that might be possible. I would propose a different plan, though, which borrows Romer's ideas but adds another dimension and motivation to them.

Generally speaking, the right to migrate was better respected in almost any past epoch in history than it is in the present dark age of border controls. In ancient times, in the Middle Ages, in the early modern period, in the 19th century, one might easily wander from the heart of civilization to the ends of the earth and back without encountering official interference. Today, this is impossible, unless one is willing, among other things, to risk one's life in the deserts of Arizona, as some brave and noble souls dare to do. One might say that in the past the whole world was more like the deserts of Arizona. One might indeed run a risk of bandits, but the bandits were less likely to wear badges and were not paid by taxpayers. Of course this institution of immigration restrictions is highly regrettable, unjust, inefficient, and so forth, and in the interests of human flourishing, commerce, Christianity, and everything else good and praiseworthy I wish to see it abolished, but that is not the point here. My point is that while the right to immigrate was better respected in the past (especially for travelers and sojourners; acquiring land and settling might still have been difficult) the right to emigrate is in theory more widely acknowledged today. Thus, serfs had more rights than slaves, but they were still tied to the land, albeit running away was often not too difficult for the enterprising. 20th-century totalitarian regimes, too, tried to prevent emigration (and in general their citizens were a lot like slaves) but they were pressured by the West on human rights grounds to allow it, and since the fall of communism there are few places in the world where the right to emigrate is restricted by the country that is being emigrated from. Often, however, prospective emigrants have no place to go. And it seems to me disingenuous to deny that this gives a country like America a good deal of guilt in all the crimes of regimes that do not respect human rights. A Chinese or Iranian torturer might have fewer victims at his disposal if Chinese and Iranians could board a plane to the United States and expect to be admitted. People are trapped under bad governments by the immigration restrictions of the West. The border patrol is working for, among others, Vladimir Putin and Ahadminejad. We are their jailors.

Now, if we want to mitigate this guilt, it is not necessary to open our own borders, but only that some emigration options be available to all the world's people. So this becomes a second use for the Hong Kong-style charter cities that Paul Romer wishes to create. To administer them, I think the best agency would be the World Bank. It is largely in the business of institutional design or you might say institutional export. When I was working at the World Bank and found that people were confused about what it did, I coined a half-joking aphorism which, however, puts it in a nutshell: "Think of World Bank as the British Empire. But think of it through the lens of Marx's dictum that 'history repeats itself, first time as tragedy, second time as farce.'" That's slightly more cynical than I would actually want to be about the World Bank but I think it captures a lot of things. First, the altruism. The British Empire was partly motivated, at least, by very high ideals, by the quest to spread liberty and civilization to benighted peoples. The abolition of suttee, the despicable Indian custom of forcing widows to burn themselves alive, is emblematic. Second, third, fourth fifth, and sixth, the creativity, flexibility, consultativeness, enlightenment and intelligence of the British Empire/World Bank: they like to work with local rulers and win them over, using reason and argument as well as the influence of prestige, plus, lastly, a bit of money. Of course, the British Empire also had guns. This is where the analogy breaks down, and it's also why the word "farce" is not entirely inapt: sometimes, indeed often, World Bank consultants develop excellent plans and schemes but are helpless against local vested interests and corruption. But they have lots of experience thinking about government, they have good intentions, they have a kind of international legitimacy that the US, for example, lacks, they are throughly multicultural and progressive (a word which has a much more creditable meaning internationally than domestically), they are technocratic and insulated from politics. They are trusted by multinational corporations.

So, my proposal. Launch a global initiative-- probably the US would have to help, but Europe could originate it too-- to make the right to emigrate a worldwide reality, by creating an archipelago of no-passport-necessary sanctuary cities, administered by the World Bank. A general offer would be made by which countries could alienate small pockets of territory to the World Bank, probably not permanently but as a long term lease, e.g., 49 years or 99 years. This would typically be relatively undeveloped territory; not major cities. It would be up to the World Bank and/or donors to build the infrastructure, ports and roads and power plants etc. Passport control lines would be erected between these new charter cities and the rest of the host country's territory, not to keep the host country's nationals out-- again, no one is to be kept out-- but to keep in the migrants to the charter cities, other than host country nationals or those with visas to travel in the host country. This is to ensure that host countries can agree to the creation of charter cities on their territory without entirely opening their own borders, though if they want to do that, too, great, and it might be encouraged with further offers of aid.

Why would any country agree to this? Several reasons. First, money. I envision this being a development project initiated by rich countries who are willing to pay to make it happen. The terms of the lease might be quite lucrative. I would suggest, too, that regular transfers should be arranged from the tax revenues collected in the charter cities to the governments of the host countries, so that if a real Hong Kong arose on one's territory, it would pay off well. And of course, a successful charter city could promote development in the host nation the way Hong Kong promoted development in China, buying its products, outsourcing jobs as wages in the charter city rose. Also, tourism: if the charter city was successful, its residents would surely want to travel in the host country. A second incentive might be security. It might not be a good idea to have US soldiers guarding the charter cities: too politically sensitive. I would picture UN troops or some kind of global security agencies (i.e., mercenaries); but there would be at least an implicit and probably a partly explicit guarantee of the charter cities' integrity by the US and/or NATO, and perhaps by other regional security bodies and/or the UN as well; and this might be extended on a case-by-case basis to the host country as a whole. The World Bank itself might outsource a lot of its own operations to the charter cities (World Bank staffers are sometimes irritated by the hassles of getting US visas and might feel more at home in a place where they called the shots) and this could give a certain prestige and global influence to host countries. And of course, when the lease runs out, the country would gain control, if all goes well, of a dynamic new modern city built by the World Bank... albeit one populated largely by foreigners whom it might be awkward to expel. So, how many countries would take this deal? I have no idea, but it doesn't seem improbable that some would. I'm thinking mainly of Africa, but Latin America or South Asia might, too. Rich countries might do it with outlying possessions: Guam, for example, or Guantanamo Bay. Of course, the territories would be unlikely to be completely uninhabited, and how to deal with the locals is a problem, but probably not an insurmountable one. They wouldn't be kicked out, after all, and while they would have to tolerate a flood of newcomers, they could be very well compensated for that, first in direct payments, second in the rising value of their land. (The "lease" would be design to leave residual ownership rights with locals while the World Bank would get administrative rights.)

The founding principle of these charter cities would be that anyone could come, and policy would have to adapt to that. Their assets would be some donor aid and the "imprimatur," as the financial press sometimes says, of the World Bank. Who would come? Initially, the most obvious candidates are entrepreneurial types of refugees of conscience. The "market-dominant minorities" (Amy Chua's term) that lead moderately prosperous but very insecure lives in all sorts of places would certainly trust the World Bank much more than the local governments in, say, Africa, and might be glad to move to a charter city, or to acquire a second home there and spend part of their time there, perhaps educating their children there. Western universities might be keen to set up satellite campuses; or perhaps the World Bank would induce them to do so. Multinational corporations might set up offices there too: they would be ideal if you want to do business in Africa but limit one's contact with corrupt local officials. Economic migrants would be disproportionately clever and entrepreneurial; religious refugees and refugees of conscience would be disproportionately orderly and ethical, so that these charter cities would probably have rather appealing populations. They would probably be predominantly English-speaking, since in any agglomeration of people drawn from all over the world English is generally the lingua franca; possibly if one were set up in Honduras, say, it would be mainly Spanish-speaking. English might enhance the appeal of the places: "go there to learn English," parents would say. I expect the World Bank would want to use the dollar for a local currency, though if they wanted to use the charter cities as bases from which to spread a rival global currency (along the lines of the IMF's SDRs) to the dollar, that would be interesting too.

If the goal is to apply the Hong Kong model, policy would presumably be rather libertarian. But is that the World Bank's philosophy? Sort of, yes, I think. I mean, the World Bank is always thinking about social safety nets, but if you're working in Africa, South Asia, Central America, and so forth, you have to get used to the social safety net being at a pretty low level. World Bank staffers might, a bit inconsistently, support a much more generous social safety net in rich countries, but they couldn't indulge such a preference in a charter city that was constitutionally obligated to accept all comers. On social issues and religious freedom and so forth, World Bank staffers' inclinations are quite libertarian.

I expect you'd get a lot of ideas fermenting, from tech entrepreneurialism to political radicalism. You might get a flourishing of the arts as well, just as a result of the blending of different cultures. You might get a lot of religious piety too. Christian missionaries would love them, but the international left might find them hospitable too: charter cities might be to the global left today what Geneva was to Lenin.

What about crime? A possibility. Why crime is high in some places and low in others is not well understood, and to the extent that it depends on social solidary (but I'm not sure it does) that would be hard for World Bank technocrats to foster. What about terrorism? Also a possibility.

If it were just me, I'd feel silly proposing something so ambitious and eccentric. But Paul Romer might just have enough influence to make it happen.

"Stories of deportation find an ear" (JSOnline):

Rosa Bautista broke into tears as she told a standing-room-only crowd of nearly 1,000 who filled St. Adalbert's Catholic Church on Sunday afternoon about how the father of her four children had been deported to Mexico City.

She's a U.S. citizen, and her children are, too, but the day before Good Friday last year, the man in their lives was deported, she said. He had been here nine years and worked as a roofer, Bautista said.

"I ask you, if you were in my shoes, would you like to see your family separated as we are?" she asked the crowd.

Edward Ike of Nigeria told of how he and his wife could bring only two of their four children with them because their U.S. sponsor couldn't afford the other two. That was in 2003. The 6-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter they left behind are now 11 and 13, he said.

"It broke our hearts, but we promised to bring them soon, as soon as possible," he said. "It has caused deep pain in my wife and myself."

He said at least now immigration is working on his case.

The stories were part of a "Families United" rally and prayer service sponsored by the Milwaukee Inner-city Congregations Allied for Hope and Jewish and Muslim leaders.

Milwaukee is the 12th stop in five-week, 20-city listening tour led by U.S. Rep Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who said he wants others to hear the stories of what's happening to families and to influence President Barack Obama to bring about comprehensive immigration reform...

The listening tour is sponsored by faith groups and held in church sanctuaries because "churches are the places where immigrants are welcomed, cherished and defended," he said.

End the violence.

Shipping Container Migrants

Some people come to America by shipping container:

When 29 undocumented Chinese nationals were found trying to enter the United States through the Port of Los Angeles in April, it wasn’t the Border Patrol that caught them. The men had arrived in a cargo container carried on a Panamanian vessel that had last stopped in China and Hong Kong. L.A. port security personnel spotted them wandering around a cargo area.

The security officers called the U.S. Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who later described the scene as familiar: a 40-foot shipping container filled with empty food packages, water bottles and receptacles overflowing with human waste.

Smuggling fees for migrants from China can run as much as $60,000 per person. While tougher security in the post-9/11 world has decreased the smuggling of immigrants by sea, the practice continues.

"It isn’t all that uncommon," said Tony Migliorini, a spokesman with the Coast Guard. "We have caught them several times."

It seems to me that the worst part of this, by far, would be human waste. Food wouldn't be that much of an issue. You could eat raisins, chips, and other portable non-perishables for a month. I don't see why you couldn't even put a small microwave in there, powered by a generator, although I think a fridge would take too much energy. If you had a generator, you could have a lamp, and maybe power up a Kindle e-reader or an iPad. It might even be kind of fun. Get away from it all for a while, read, watch movies. But the human waste would make it horrible-- unless a chemical toilet would fix the problem.

A chemical toilet is a toilet which uses chemicals to deodorize the waste instead of simply storing it in a hole, or piping it away to a sewage treatment plant. Common types include aircraft lavatory, some passenger train toilets and the portable toilets used on construction sites and at large gatherings. They can normally be identified with a blue-colored dye in the bowl water. In the Americas and Europe this blue liquid formula is generally called "Anotec" filled with black chemical liquid. An even simpler chemical toilet consists of a seat on a container or bucket of water, with a solution of chemicals used to disinfect and/or deodorize. These are sometimes found on inter-city buses or in homes where indoor plumbing is not available. Portable toilets are universally chemical toilets.

Disinfection was generally carried out by mixing formaldehyde, bleach or similar chemicals with the toilet water when flushed. Modern formulations are nitrate based and work biologically.

Chemical toilets are often used on construction sites and at outdoor gatherings such as music festivals, and in caravans.

Since formaldehyde is very irritating to the eyes, ears, skin, nose, and throat, it is being replaced by other proprietary blends such as glutaraldehyde^[1] and quaternary ammonium compounds,^[2] with non-staining dyes and nature-identical perfume oils. Additionally, enzyme hybrids are sometimes used.

Are there any chemical toilets effective enough now to keep a shipping container with a human inside reasonably pleasant for a month? If not, is that something that might be invented soon, I wonder?

In Defense of Fake Social Security Cards

May God grant that the confession of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, an illegal immigrant, will awaken the conscience of the nation to the wickedness of immigration restrictions. One of the aspects of the experience of being an illegal immigrant that Vargas writes about is:

But I am still an undocumented immigrant. And that means living a different kind of reality. It means going about my day in fear of being found out. It means rarely trusting people, even those closest to me, with who I really am. It means keeping my family photos in a shoebox rather than displaying them on shelves in my home, so friends don’t ask about them. It means reluctantly, even painfully, doing things I know are wrong and unlawful. And it has meant relying on a sort of 21st-century underground railroad of supporters, people who took an interest in my future and took risks for me.

The things he says he did that were "wrong and unlawful" are of two kinds. First, he worked using a fake Social Security number:

The “uncle” who brought me here turned out to be a coyote, not a relative, my grandfather later explained. Lolo scraped together enough money — I eventually learned it was $4,500, a huge sum for him — to pay him to smuggle me here under a fake name and fake passport. (I never saw the passport again after the flight and have always assumed that the coyote kept it.) After I arrived in America, Lolo obtained a new fake Filipino passport, in my real name this time, adorned with a fake student visa, in addition to the fraudulent green card.

Using the fake passport, we went to the local Social Security Administration office and applied for a Social Security number and card. It was, I remember, a quick visit. When the card came in the mail, it had my full, real name, but it also clearly stated: “Valid for work only with I.N.S. authorization.”

When I began looking for work, a short time after the D.M.V. incident, my grandfather and I took the Social Security card to Kinko’s, where he covered the “I.N.S. authorization” text with a sliver of white tape. We then made photocopies of the card. At a glance, at least, the copies would look like copies of a regular, unrestricted Social Security card...

For more than a decade of getting part-time and full-time jobs, employers have rarely asked to check my original Social Security card. When they did, I showed the photocopied version, which they accepted. Over time, I also began checking the citizenship box on my federal I-9 employment eligibility forms. (Claiming full citizenship was actually easier than declaring permanent resident “green card” status, which would have required me to provide an alien registration number.)

This deceit never got easier. The more I did it, the more I felt like an impostor, the more guilt I carried — and the more I worried that I would get caught. But I kept doing it. I needed to live and survive on my own, and I decided this was the way.

Second, he told lies to various friends and other people about himself:

After a choir rehearsal during my junior year, Jill Denny, the choir director, told me she was considering a Japan trip for our singing group. I told her I couldn’t afford it, but she said we’d figure out a way. I hesitated, and then decided to tell her the truth. “It’s not really the money,” I remember saying. “I don’t have the right passport.” When she assured me we’d get the proper documents, I finally told her. “I can’t get the right passport,” I said. “I’m not supposed to be here.”...

But the real reason was, after so many years of trying to be a part of the system, of focusing all my energy on my professional life, I learned that no amount of professional success would solve my problem or ease the sense of loss and displacement I felt. I lied to a friend about why I couldn’t take a weekend trip to Mexico. Another time I concocted an excuse for why I couldn’t go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Switzerland.

Now, I certainly wouldn't judge any illegal immigrant who lies to personal friends when the stakes are this high.  Still, if the question is posed in a general, abstract way, I would say that the standard to live by is never to tell any lies at all.  I could be wrong and particular situations-- what if a life is the only way to save Anne Frank from the Gestapo?-- are so hard that I'd just refuse to answer, or say, "let's hope that doesn't happen."  But I would not consent to formulating a set of exceptions to the no-lying principle, though I have, alas, told quite a few lies myself.  (I don't remember any specific ones off the top of my head but I remember having done it.)

However, I think using a fake Social Security card is fine.  Lying to a machine, or to an impersonal bureaucracy, is different than lying to a human being.  I was applying for insurance the other day and one of the company's agents advise me to put false information so that I could get through the form.  I constantly order something, and there will be a box that says "I have read the terms and conditions of the agreement," or something like that, and I haven't done so, but I still check the box.  I don't feel guilty, and I don't intend to stop doing it; there's just nothing wrong with it.  Maybe it would be better if pointless legalese didn't trap people into signing so many things they don't have time to read and couldn't understand anyway, but you can't live without doing that, and it isn't really lying.  Systems can get detached from the human content of language.  Likewise with Social Security cards.  I don't think Vargas needs to feel guilty about that one.

Indeed, using a fake Social Security card means paying taxes without thereby becoming qualified for benefits.  If anything, it's a generous action.

Here's a somewhat more serious blog post about immigration (from 2007). The title is "Does Christianity Demand Open Borders?" (Answer: yes, the 20th-century social-engineering experiment of segregating humanity by place of birth, and still more so the separation of families that is necessary to enforce it, violates the letter and spirit of the Bible and of Christian ethics.) "Vanishing American" writes:

These days, in all the debate and rancor over mass immigration and ethnic division, Christians are getting battered from both sides: I have heard many people who are opposing multiculturalism and the breakdown of nations condemn Christianity as the cause of the West's self-immolation. And then the Open Borders fanatics and the multicultists have pummeled Christians with our Bible, telling us that God wants us to open wide our gates and welcome the immigrant, illegal or legal. Michael Gerson's article in the Washington Post, (H/T Lawrence Auster at VFR), excoriates Christians who are 'nativists' for their 'national chauvinism' and 'rage.'

Rhetoric watch: "fanatics" "multicultists" "self-immolation." To call people like me and Gerson who don't want to use violence against peaceful immigrants is plausible (if it is plausible) only because our views are different from the American majority, as opponents of slavery were. The connection between open borders and multiculturalism (whatever that means) is quite spurious.

Those of us who are Christians, with a traditional perspective sometimes find it difficult to give Biblical answers to the liberals like Gerson, who are brazenly Bible-thumping in support of their political agenda. I think they believe they can shame us out of our 'nativism,' and sadly, maybe their tactics succeed with many Christians who tend to go along with social trends. And believing in a soppy egalitarianism and universalism is popular these days, especially for many ostensibly conservative Christians who have fallen in with the 'emergent church' movement.

"Soppy." Hmm. As for "egalitarianism and universalism," well, there can be no question that Christianity is a universalizing religion. Egalitarian-- well, I won't go there, since Christianity is certainly egalitarian in some ways (Jesus died for all) while open borders isn't all that egalitarian ("equality before the law" is the most that it says). Much confusion here. However, here's something more like an argument.

But here is one Christian perspective on the Bible and immigration. Rev. Childress talks about the religious activists' support for illegal immigrants based on their interpretation of the world 'sojourner'. For example, there are Biblical passages which God enjoins the people of Israel to welcome the sojourner:

The Bible is full of stories of sojourners, strangers without homes, whom God called people to protect. The Israelites "God's chosen people" were themselves sojourners for 40 years after the exodus from Egypt as they entered the promised land. God did not let the Israelites forget that they had been without a homeland for such a long time; the ethic of welcoming the sojourner was woven into the very fabric of the Israelite confederacy. It was more than an ethic, it was a command of God. 'Do not mistreat or oppress a stranger; you know how it feels to be a stranger, because you were sojourners in the land of Egypt' (Exodus 23:9)." p. 1

As these excerpts point out, the Bible in a great many places uses "sojourner" to refer to those who are in a location which is not their original homeland. However, it is clear that while a sojourner shares some characteristics with an immigrant, the two are in very different pursuits.

Using the term sojourner as a kind of proof-text for political statements about immigration clouds the issue because many people of faith find it hard to "argue against the Bible." Paul W. Lewis, an author on Christian engagement of social issues and a former missionary, admits "I have been greatly bothered by the way some people have used the term 'sojourner' to back up their own idea about immigrants. It was a totally different situation back then. We could also use the word 'traveler' today."

Childress says that the class of people called 'sojourners' were mainly temporary guests or travelers, in some cases refugees who were fleeing some troubles in their homelands. These sojourners who would be more like today's 'refugees' were not expected to stay permanently.

Nope, sorry, that's not going to work. Exodus 23:9 says "Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt." The Israelites were in Egypt for 400 years. So the logic of the divine command clearly includes the possibility of very long stays. Also, it was possible for immigrants to join the Jewish people, as is explained in the Book of Ruth. And that's in the Old Testament, where the universality of God's plan was far less explicit and where more concession seems to be made to the violent ways of man in the world.

In fact, even in our country, refugees were at one time in our history considered only temporary guests until they could be repatriated to their homelands. It's odd how even in my lifetime the attitude has changed; it used to be a given that most people, given a choice, would prefer the land of their birth. It was just assumed that a people would be happiest and most suited to their homelands, among others of their own people. At what point did we discard that most basic human assumption? Don't we all feel, deep down, that home is the preferred place to be? We have so many proverbs and folk-sayings which indicate our attachment to 'home.'

What is he talking about? A refugee, of course, is almost by definition someone who wanted to stay home and presumably might like to return. But they might not be able to or might change their minds. And of course, millions came to America who never wanted to return. "Don't we all feel, deep down, that home is the preferred place to be?" No. Some of do maybe. Some don't. America was created by people who didn't. That is far from being a "basic human assumption," but that's not to say that it's not a perfectly good and admirable and desirable situation when someone does love their home and prefer it to anyone else. Why on earth would we impose that choice on the whole human race by violence? Also, there is a lot of internal mobility in America, which is a vast country, so that internal migration often involves longer-distance travel and provides access to as much opportunity as international migration would for others and elsewhere in the world.

Be it ever so humble... and 'East or West, home is best.' And in the past it was implicit that home meant not just the house we live in, which may not be a permanent address, but our homeland, and for many of us our home state, our hometown, where our attachments are. What happened to that regard we once had for the natural ties which bind us to our people and our homeland? Now, everybody, regardless of political leanings, seems to accept this liberal notion that people are innately nomadic, searching for the cushiest and easiest conditions. Home and kin are now regarded as trivial; what matters is, apparently, A Better Life, which it seems can only be found in our country. How did we come to this? We Americans are in the unfortunate position of living in a country which is seen as the world's cornucopia, the dispenser of goodies and Better Lives for the whole world. There is no longer any need or desire, apparently, for anybody in the less prosperous countries to better themselves there, or to improve their homeland; far better to get an airline ticket to America, or pay a human smuggler a bundle of money to bring them to the Promised Land. This situation is not what the Bible is talking about in those passages about 'sojourners.'

So many confusions here. People in less prosperous countries will very often not have the opportunity to better themselves there-- just as many bright Americans don't have the opportunity to pursue the careers they want in the small towns where they might have grown up. Americans are certainly not "unfortunate" that our country is such a cornucopia of opportunities; indeed the ingratitude of that remark is a bit shocking. People may not be seeking the "cushiest and easiest conditions": they often come here to work very hard and found companies, make scientific discoveries, acquire knowledge, practice their religion, reunite with their relatives, marry, or satisfy the basic needs of their families. It is the nativists for whom "home and kin are trivial": they want to expel by force people whose children live here, or who, though born abroad, have lived here almost all their lives and know no other home. VA goes on:

Our country is THE destination of choice for most of the world's covetous have-nots. And the last time I looked, the Bible forbids us to covet our neighbor's goods. Poor people don't get a pass on that; coveting is not justified by being less fortunate, and stealing and defrauding are also sins. Yet we excuse the coveting, stealing, and bearing false witness and defrauding of the illegals because they are poor. This is not Biblical; we don't have two sets of commandments, one for the wealthier and one for the poorer people. Wrong is wrong, and there is no respect of persons. And before somebody brings up the issue of charity, Americans can and do give a great deal of money not only by foreign aid, but via private charitable groups. We do our share for all the poor countries, and it is not our fault that their leaders often steal the aid or misuse it. It is not justice to demand that we take in all the world's peoples who are less well off than we are.

The Bible's commandment about covetousness is neither here nor there. America is no one's private property. Particular parts of America are the private property of particular individuals. No one is excusing illegal immigrants who steal, that is, who steal property; to call being on US soil without US government permission "stealing" is nativist newspeak. It may not be our fault if leaders of poor countries steal foreign aid, but it is our fault if we try to force people to stay in countries where corrupt governments or other conditions have created situations of desperate poverty. It is not justice to force out a person who has come here asking nothing but the chance to earn a living by contracts mutually agreed with private citizens and is willing to pay taxes if given any kind of legal status.

However, the open-borders zealots, religious and secular, always seem to imply, as I've said here before on this blog, that America has some kind of monopoly on 'democracy' and 'freedom' and 'a better life', and that it is our responsibility to spend our substance and our young people's blood to make other people free, regardless of their capability for it. And it is our obligation, so they imply, to essentially hand our country over to the masses of immigrants because we alone have the keys to the 'better life' and the 'American dream'. And it would be greedy and selfish to want to keep all freedom and prosperity to ourselves.

No, America doesn't have a monopoly on 'democracy' and 'freedom' and 'a better life'-- why is that relevant? There are many other places where immigrants many poor and oppressive countries could do better than at home. They should let them in, and so should we. Advocates of the liberation of Iraq, or Libya, are more or less calling on to "spend our substance and our young people's blood" (though of course, only the blood of soldiers who signed up for what is known to be a risky profession) "to make other people free," but advocates of open borders are demanding nothing of the kind. Nor are we asking Americans to "hand over" the country.  The country is-- this must always be insisted on, it's what makes us different from pharaonic Egypt-- not "ours" in anything like the same sense in which a car or a piece of land is someone's private property.  But the sense in which it is justly ours-- there is a sort of social contract among us which is in force throughout a certain territory, and we have administered law and order and protected natural rights well enough that others could not make a plausible prudential case that establishment of a hostile state on this territory would be conducive to justice-- is not diminished by accepting our lack of right to prevent others from coming here, as long as their intentions are clearly peaceful.  No one is asking Americans to give that up, only not to do violence to foreign-born people who come to live peacefully among us.  Vanishing American goes on:

Yet another Christian commentator, Steve Marr approaches the illegal immigration question from a justice perspective. After all, although Marr does not say this, the Bible tells Christians to obey the laws of the land. If our illegal invaders are such devout, religious Christians as their apologists claim they are, they are disobeying God's command to follow the laws of the land. And if some leftist Christians aid and abet the illegals, and encourage 'civil disobedience', they are disobedient to God's laws too.

Actually, the Bible is full of examples of people disobeying the law of the land, with God's approval. St. Peter escaped from prison: not legal. Daniel refused to bow to the idol of Nebuchadnezzar: not legal, either. The early Christian martyrs broke the law by refusing to practice the imperial cult. The Hebrew midwives in Egypt disobeyed the law by refusing to kill the new-born babies of the Hebrews. Moses's mother disobeyed the law by hiding her infant son, whom the Egyptians would have killed. The Bible and the history of the Church are full of civil disobedience. One ought to obey the law when it is just. And sometimes when it is unjust, too. But that's far from being the only consideration. I don't think illegal immigration is entirely morally unproblematic, but immigration restrictions are by far the greater sin.

When considering this issue, from a Christian perspective, I ask the same question I ask on most issues: are we wiser than our forefathers? My answer is almost always NO. How is it that today's Christians can see things in the Bible which our ancestors for the last 2000 years never saw? Did previous generations of Christians ever imagine that God wanted us to surrender our countries to any and all invaders in the name of kindness or charity? Did any past generations imagine that the Bible tells us to lay down our arms and passively let ourselves be conquered? Did our forefathers believe that God wanted to erase borders and create a single world system in which all peoples mingled willy-nilly together? If all these things are found in the Bible, why did our ancestors fail to realize that and abolish borders and nations 2000 years ago? Are we wiser than our forefathers?

This appeal to tradition very much misfires. Again, when Ruth migrated into ancient Israel, she did not apply for a visa. When St. Patrick went to Ireland to preach the Gospel, he did not ask permission of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It is not the advocates of open borders who are the innovators here. It is those who seek to enforce the global apartheid regime that was developed in the heyday of fascism and socialism in the early 20th century. No, the Bible did not tell people to lay down their arms and passively let themselves be conquered, and advocates of open borders are not saying that, either. The Bible presupposes that the sojourner can come, and commands that he be well-treated (though he is not automatically a full member of the community) and this is exactly what open borders advocates today say.

Here's another thought on the Bible and nations: God seemed to have divided us into nations, after the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis 11, as a way of keeping people from uniting in rebellion. Nations are a kind of system of 'checks and balances' to keep flawed human beings from excessive concentration of power. Most conservatives, religious or not, sense that the greater the concentration of power in the fewer hands, the greater potential for tyranny and evil.

Well, that's an Old Testament view, and the prophets and the New Testament are full of the promise that that sad separation will be undone. Be that as it may, nations have always historically lived side by side, mixed up together in the same towns and cities. The nation-state is a very modern invention. And it's a bit absurd to advocate the massive social engineering that is migration control in the name of avoiding "concentration of power in... fewer hands." 

This writer is not as much of a clown as the "Castillo Chronicles" blogger, but I am struck again by how confused the arguments of the nativists are. It is easy to knock them down one by one, but it is so hard to get any clarity amidst all the misconceptions and misdefined terms, the side-effects of an ignorance which results from the simple fact that these people are never on the receiving end of immigration laws, never had to apply for a US visa, and so haven't been compelled by experience to think clearly about it.

It is a bit like battling with dwarves in a swamp.

A remarkably silly response to my article from a blog called the Castillo Chronicle. The writer calls my article "a mish-mash of girlie-man thinking" and posts a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a dress with pig-tails and ribbons in his hair. Amusing picture, albeit quite irrelevant. His only verbal response is "Oh brother. Can you imagine the reaction of these long-suffering folks to this la-di-da way of thinking?" The link is to a news story about a fire on the Arizona border which is "suspected to have been started by illegal immigrants." Suspected.

Obviously if the fire was deliberately or negligently by illegal immigrants we should seek to find and prosecute the individuals concerned. We should not punish the millions of illegal immigrants in this country who were not involved. We should not punish anyone on the basis of mere "suspicions." A vast purge of millions of people from the country as a response to a fire in a border town, even if (some!) illegal immigrants were culpable, would be both disproportionate and ineffectual. Of course I'm stating the obvious here, but what is one to do? We have the misfortunate of sharing a country with people like Robert Faith del Castillo, who make arguments as unserious as this (unserious in everything except the harm they do when listened to) and then accuse me of a "la-di-da way of thinking." Contempt is an unpleasant business, but perhaps, someday, it will provoke people like this into using the faculty of reason. Or conscience.

What if Justice Demands Open Borders (The American):

Obama described America as “a nation of laws,” but what is law? The American form of government emerged from a tradition of moral and political thought of which two of the most eminent representatives are Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and John Locke (1632-1704) (but which has roots going back to the High Middle Ages, to scholars of canon law like Gratian, scribbling in cold monastic scriptoria

In this tradition, certain basic imperatives of conscience and common sense (do not kill, steal, etc.) are distilled into the idea of natural rights, or natural law (ius naturale). Ethics informs politics, and in time it came to be seen that “to secure [natural] rights” is the only valid reason that “governments are instituted among men,” and that they “derive their just powers [only] from the consent of the governed,” as the Declaration of Independence states. It follows that a government cannot justly make any law it wants. Positive law must conform to natural law.

While the tradition of Locke and Jefferson can adapt to new times, and can critique itself and make discoveries, both philosophers were right to affirm the primacy of natural rights, to believe that the task of governments is to protect them, and to found the legitimacy of government on the consent of the governed in the form of a social contract.

The social contract is more than a mere myth, yet it is not quite a fact. The consensual roots of the governments of the English-speaking world go back to medieval feudalism, with its vertical bonds between suzerains and vassals established by ceremonies and oaths; and even further back, to the deference which the last Roman emperors, and many subsequent secular rulers, paid to that great voluntary institution, the Christian church.

Yet few, if any, alive today have ever signed a social contract. Nor should consent be identified too closely with democracy, because democratic governments can violate human rights, too, and they are not justified in doing so just because they have majority support.

If “government by the consent of the governed” is an unattainable ideal, however, that does not make it irrelevant. It is a standard of justice, to which some policies, and some regimes, are closer than others.

One lesson to take from the Lockean tradition is the imperative for freedom of migration. A country must not prevent peaceful migration by force, because migrants are not violating natural law. They are violating no one’s natural rights. They have committed no violence against persons or property. They are pursuing happiness, without threatening the lives or liberties of others. Coercion against them has no justification if governments are instituted among men to secure inalienable natural rights.

In the 19th century, before the liberal tradition of Locke and Jefferson was partially eclipsed by relatively illiberal political philosophies, the open borders policy implied by these basic ethical facts was actually practiced, for the most part, in the United States and Western Europe. As historian Harold James recalls:

Above all, people moved. They did not need passports. There were hardly any debates about citizenship. In a search for freedom, security, and prosperity… the peoples of Europe and Asia left their homes and took often uncomfortable journeys by rail and by ship, often as part of gigantic human treks. Between 1871 and 1915, 36 million people left Europe.¹

World War I and the age of fascism and communism put an end to 19th-century freedom of mobility, but the way politicians talk about immigration, and the way a decent society treats illegal immigrants, show that we still know right from wrong. We don’t want our politicians to tell us that most human beings born into this world are permanently excluded from our country.

Most Americans seem to have more qualms about reporting illegal immigrants to the police, especially those with families or who came here as children, than about doing business or making friends with them. Our immigration laws are like the Prohibition laws of the 1920s. They are a scandal, not only because they are widely disobeyed, but because they are widely disobeyed by normal, decent people. And that is because they have no basis in natural law.

Advocates of immigration restrictions tacitly borrow from another political tradition, from the 17th-century English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, spokesman for arbitrary and absolute power. Hobbes, long dead, is still with us in disguise. He has taken the form of a word, sovereignty, the uses of which encapsulates his philosophy and sustains his influence. Hobbes and the contemporary proponents of sovereignty relegate natural law to the background, or simply ignore or deny it.

The Hobbesian tradition tells people to obey sovereign governments, no matter what. By contrast, the Lockean tradition affirms that sometimes governments ought to be resisted. As one representative of the Lockean tradition, Martin Luther King Jr., argued:

One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality… Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court [desegregating the schools], for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

We have treated King in the usual manner of prophets, honoring him after he is killed, but often ignoring what he said. Yet his words are directly applicable to immigration. Laws against migration, unlike laws against murder or theft, are not rooted in eternal and natural law, and they do not uplift personality.

The one thing I would have liked to have in is something specific about those who were brought here as children. That's the case where the right and the wrong of the matter is just inescapably clear. As Obama said:

And as I gave that commencement at Miami Dade, it broke my heart knowing that a number of those promising, bright students -- young people who worked so hard and who speak about what’s best in America -- are at risk of facing the agony of deportation.  These are kids who grew up in this country.  They love this country.  They know no other place to call home.  The idea that we’d punish them is cruel.  It makes no sense.  We’re a better nation than that.  (Applause.) 

It's a bit galling to borrow words from Obama, after his administration has been guilty of an unprecedently large number of deportations and he wasted political capital on Obamacare and now seems to be just trying to get votes in exchange for nothing. Still, he's right. What we're doing to illegal immigrants who grew up here is the disgrace of immigration restrictions concentrated to laser intensity.

Via Instapundit: "Nearly 11 Percent of US Houses Empty." Of course, there are plenty of paying home buyers, or renters, ready to occupy those homes, if only the immigration authorities would let them in. It's the nativists versus the economy, and the nativists are winning.

"A World Without Barriers"

"Jesus was a refugee, pope says on world migration day" (Catholic News Service, 1/18/11, via Brothers Judd):

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Jesus was a refugee -- a fact that should be remembered as societies deal with modern issues of emigration and immigration, Pope Benedict XVI said.

"Migration today sometimes is voluntary and at other times, unfortunately, is forced by wars or persecution, often in dramatic conditions," the pope said Jan. 16. From its very beginnings, the church has taken an interest in these situations, he said.

"The parents of Jesus had to flee their own land and take refuge in Egypt, in order to save the life of their child: the Messiah, the son of God, was a refugee," he said.

Throughout the centuries, he said, Christian populations have at times suffered the necessity to leave their homelands, impoverishing the countries where they and their ancestors had lived.

On the other hand, the pope said, the voluntary migration of Christians through the ages has increased the church's missionary dynamism and ensured that the witness of faith reaches new frontiers.

The pope made the remarks at the Vatican on a day that was celebrated in most countries as the World Day for Migrants and Refugees. Late last year, he issued a message on the theme of this year's celebration, "One Human Family."

The pope said he wanted his message to underline that in the church's vision, human migration has a unifying goal: to form a single human family that is enriched by differences but that lives without barriers.

Exactly, well said. I was thinking about the state of the immigration debate on this blog up till now. Tom and Nato mostly agree with me. Dissent has come from JM, MS, and SDS.

SDS seems mainly concerned that he perceived in me a judgmental attitude towards advocates of migration restrictions. It is never amiss to be told to love the sinner while hating the sin, for even if one has not fallen into hating the sinner, one may succumb to that temptation at any moment, and it is good to be warned. However, SDS's main grounds for claiming that I had fallen into it was my use of historical analogies that compared advocates of migration restrictions to fascists and to the slaveowning antebellum South. The problem with this line of argument is that if to compare nativists to fascists or slaveowning Southerners is to "judge their hearts," presumably the hearts of fascists and slaveowning Southerners have already been judged. And not only would that be contrary to "judge not that ye be not judged" and "hate the sin but love the sinner," but it would impoverish our historical understanding of fascists and antebellum Southerners if we simply "explained" their beliefs and behavior by saying that they were evil and we are not. I think we should recognize that we are not immune to letting veneration of the state blind us to the moral law; to desiring order more than our own freedom and especially that of others; to letting our perceived economic dependence on a system induce us to condone its violations of natural rights, in a spirit of cynical "realism." Americans are prone to feel that, because our country has historically behaved morally better than other great powers, that moral superiority is a sort of birthright. It is not that; it depends on our actions; and inasmuch as we imitate one of the most infamous practices of slavery by separating families by force...

Using Census data and figures released by the Pew Hispanic Center, the report estimates that just over 1 million family members have been separated from their loved ones by... deportations.

we risk forfeiting our moral superiority to societies which we view as cautionary tales.

JM offered the widest range of arguments against my positions, some of them monstrously bad. Among them was the worst, logically and morally, of all the arguments made against illegal immigration, namely the confusion of property with sovereignty, as if the entire territory of the United States were the private property of the US government, and for unauthorized foreigners to enter is some kind of trespassing. This is an argument worthy of pharaonic Egypt, to accept which is to repudiate in its entirety the heritage of liberty, which views man as a rational being with rights, and government as based on consent of the governed, and to make us all the slaves of the state. She also hinted at paternalistic arguments, suggesting that maybe not all those who say they would like to come to America would really benefit by coming. The idea that it is for the benefit of migrants that the migration decision be taken away from them and put in the hands of a State Department bureaucrat, who is not only not adequately incentivized to decide for the desiring migrant's good, but is not even trying to do so, is so absurd that one is reluctant to bring in the fact that most migrants to the US enjoy large income gains, lest by mentioning empirical evidence one seems wrongly to concede that the argument has enough prima facie validity not to be rejected at once. I was also struck by JM's claim that my advocacy of policies that don't involve separating families by force was an unrealistic desideratum, and she used the example of war. Now, first of all, JM may not be aware of this, but the United States does not practice conscription, so a polity that does not separate families by force in order to staff its armed forces is not only realistic, but a realized fact. Second, it might be appropriate to resort to a measure in emergencies when the survival of a society is threatened by a violent assault, but intolerable to make that measure a part of one's everyday policies. Third, even conscription has traditionally separated only fathers from their offspring by force, not mothers, and this I think makes a big difference, since the mother-and-child bond seems especially intimate and sacred. Slavery and migration restrictions, by contrast, will even separate a mother from her child. It is probably quite possible to have a society which never severs that bond, at least when the mother has not committed a crime; at any rate, we have to try. I recall another disappointing bit of sophistry from JM. I was arguing that migration restrictions are unique to our time, that comprehensive migration controls were never attempted before the 20th century, and certainly did not exist in the era she tends to admire, though of course travel was dangerous then and some were better able to engage in it than others. She said that some people could travel, it depended on who you were, just like today. She somehow glossed over this, I can't remember the exact artful formulation she used, but it was a bit like arguing that there is nothing unique about slavery, because there is always work to be done, and people can't be completely equal. (I remember she also once made the bizarre suggestion that my position on immigration is "defeasible pacifism." As it isn't any kind of pacifism-- not a general rejection of state violence; not a rejection of just war-- I can't make head or tail of this one.)

However, there was one argument that JM made which I found extremely interesting. Both JM and MS have often used "community" as a slogan with which to argue against open borders. This is a seeming nonsequitur, since (a) migration restrictions constantly divide communities, and/or prevent their formation, since actual and potential communities (including families!) regularly cross borders and are forcibly separated by migration restrictions, while on the other hand (b) how migration restrictions could possibly contribute to "community" even among native and naturalized US citizens is unclear, since the crossing of the Rio Grande by an illegal immigrant would seem to have no effect on the love and friendship and trust that any particular Americans have for each other. By pressing JM hard with this argument I provoked a very intriguing glimpse of the conception that might underlie this argument. From what I remember (it would take a while to find it), JM said that people need not only food, shelter, etc., but also community, friends, and that if everyone is friends with their neighbors then everyone has friends. It is a sort of social safety net in community: let everyone have, and fulfill, a moral obligation to know their neighbors, and while some people may have many more friends than others, yet no one will be completely friendless.

If this argument is accepted, there is a fairly plausible case for some kind of migration restrictions, because it might be necessary to ensure that one's neighbors are the kind of people one can make friends with, e.g., that they speak English, and have some degree of cultural similarity. The argument could be used even more plausibly to support some kind of domestic segregation, but I don't say that to delegitimize it. I would actually be very interested to see where a serious and consistent application of the argument that coercion is justified as a means of ensuring that people know their neighbors would lead. However-- and it's odd that JM doesn't seem to have seen this-- this is not at all a defense of the status quo, because in fact, nowadays hardly anyone seems to know their neighbors. I was particularly struck by this a few years ago when I visited a friend of mine in Louisville, KY, who is very community-oriented. He's choir director of the church, he's president of the local Hibernian Club (an Irish-American organization) and organizes the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, he keeps in close touch with many friends from Notre Dame, he grew up in Louisville and moved back to his home town. And we were having a conversation about community and the theme of how people don't know their neighbors anymore, and he said that he thought about that too, but that even he didn't know his neighbors, even though he is such a community-oriented kind of guy. Of course, he'd recently bought a house; probably he knows his parents' neighbors. Still, the point stands. A society in which no one is friendless because everyone lives next to someone and everyone is friends with his neighbors is not, at this time of day, a practicable proposal. It's far more utopian than my modest proposal to tax immigration rather than restricting it by force.

One reason that I wish JM and MS would be more serious and systematic in thinking about "community" is that I think it would eventually become clear to them that while their concerns might motivate serious and far-reaching changes in our customs and policies, it certainly would not provide any basis for defending immigration control such as the US practices today. I think that even when reason is abused to defend the indefensible the results are sometimes good, because argument has a tendency to lead to truth even when that is not the motive of the arguer. I experienced this personally in my own life, when as a teenager my efforts to defend an indefensible religion, Mormonism, awakening my conscience and intellect in a way that eventually led me out of the Mormon church and to orthodox Christianity. I think the American South is another example: the libertarian, romantic, aristocratic conservatism that originally emerged there in part as an attempt to rationalize the indefensible institution of slavery lingered afterwards and changed, and became, much later, an important component of the American political instinct that enabled the United States to avoid the encroachment of the social-democratic state which is now slowly smothering Western Europe. Similarly, there may be a genuine need to revive and rethink the idea of community and make our society more conducive to its development and health, but not to shut out the foreign-born by force.

Finally, MS's main argument seems to be simply that I'm in a small minority and that it's just too improbable that I'm right. She hopes that I will "moderate" my views. The truth is that I am the moderate here, looking for practical and just solutions, the extremist position being the view that every single human being in the six-million-square-mile territory of the United States must be here only with the permission of a government bureaucracy. Oddly enough, it's not even clear which of us-- myself, or JM and MS-- is more critical of the status quo, since I, after all, want those who are here to be able to stay here, and to that extent am an advocate of the status quo over against the presumptive advocacy for mass deportation of JM and MS... though on the other hand, I'm not really sure whether either of them stand on the issue. Whatever It Takes is the title of a book by J.D. Hayworth and a co-author, which I certainly will not read, but the title is a useful summary of the immorality inherent in nativism/"enforcing the law." What would Hayworth say, if I said that nothing short of regular pogroms will sufficiently offset the economic incentives to come here (especially since there is no moral reason for foreigners to obey this particular law if it is not in their interests to do so)? Presumably, "whatever it takes." What about JM and MS? I would be glad if they would draw the line somewhere, if they would say, "we'll try to enforce the borders, but we won't resort to x." So far I don't think they have ever done that. Hopefully they would draw the line at murder, at least. It's hard to see where else they would draw it, since we're already separating families by force. As for whether I'm in the minority, that's not clear. Most ordinary Americans just don't seem to have any idea of what our immigration policies is; they'll complain about illegal immigrants, then say they just want them to come in legally, following the rules, as if they're under the impression that most or all illegal immigrants had the option of coming legally and just chose, for some reason, not to take it. Wir haben es nichts gewusst, said the Germans after the Holocaust-- "we didn't know." I'm not saying migration restrictions are the moral equivalent of the Holocaust, of course, but there is a similar (wilful?) ignorance among Americans about what immigration enforcement involves. It's not clear in what sense a person who blames illegal immigrants for not using non-existent legal channels can be said to have an opinion about immigration policy at all. They have an opinion about immigration policy in an alternate universe. And it seems like most people, even some prominent pundits, are in exactly that situation. Moreover, if you were to poll the opinions of mankind about what US immigration policy should be, I might well find the vast majority supporting my position.

Still, MS's argument deserves serious examination. To what extent should one defer to the judgment of the majority? How likely is it that an individual is right and society is wrong? The multitude has more information, more experience than the individual, after all. And there is one area of life in which I think the value of deference to the general opinion of moralizing mankind in the teeth of one's own desires and reasoning can hardly be overstated: sexuality. Here the immediate mutual benefit seems so obvious and natural, the long shadow of negative consequences so impossible to explain, or rather, the explanations seem so threadbare and silly. Who can understand the mysterious interwovenness of body and soul, how deep the bonds and how potent their vengeance when violated? Who can foresee the way the pleasures of romance and of parenthood, so different and incommensurable, are yet bound together so that the latter must succeed the former for it to be complete? The wisdom of one's elders is invaluable here, for only those who have seen all the stages of a human life unfold can begin to appreciate how scarce a resource is youth's capacity for sexual love, and how prudently that resource must be spent. Nor is it easy for a young person to perceive and to credit the kind of stake that his or her family has in whom he or she marries, and why it ought to give them a say.

However, it is not tenable that deference to local majority opinion is always a better guide than an individual's judgment. After all, local majority opinion differs from time to time and place to place, and where there is disagreement at least one side must be wrong. For example, it is universally held today, at least among Americans and Western Europeans, that slavery is a horrible evil. But now think about this: for centuries, nay for millennia, slavery was practiced wherever mankind achieved a certain degree of wealth. I recently read Rodney Stark's account of how that ended, and in particular of the dominant role which religion played, from beginning to end, in the movement to abolish slavery. Slavery first disappeared from western Europe in the early Middle Ages. Later, when it was revived during the "Expansion of Europe" in the 16th and 17th centuries, it never penetrated Europe itself (at least not on a large scale), but instead was established in the New World and other overseas colonial possessions of Europe. The popes were unambiguously opposed to it from the beginning, even decreeing excommunications for those who enslaved others, but the Reformation and Counter-Reformation had greatly weakened them vis-a-vis secular rulers, and their opposition was mostly ineffectual, though-- Stark shows-- the Catholic Church did manage to ameliorate slavery by getting slave codes passed in Portuguese and Spanish colonies that were more lenient and humane than those in Protestant Barbados and North America. Yet in the end slavery lasted longer in the Catholic countries than in the Protestant countries, where abolition was pioneered by the Quakers, and later embraced by the Methodists and Protestant evangelists of the early 19th century like Charles Finney, and British abolitionists financed the antislavery movement in France.

Stark makes an important point which is relevant to the immigration question today. Slavery is by no means explicitly condemned by the Bible. Although the slave code of the ancient Jews, as described in the Mosaic law, is unusually lenient, the ancient Jews did practice slavery. The apostles, moreover, encouraged slaves to obey their masters, although in an epistle to Philemon, Paul seems to encourage him (but gently) to manumit a slave, Onesimus. So how could Christians come to the conclusion that slavery was sinful? Contra the biases of some historians, they certainly did not derive the concept from secular, liberal morality, for secular intellectuals mostly favored slavery: this idea began among Christians and became part of liberal morality later and as a side-effect. Rather, Christians derived this conclusion by reasoning from Biblical and theological premises:

[The 1754 Quaker anti-slavery pamphlet by John Woolman] was a model of gentle Quaker persuasion. He began by quoting Matt. 25:40: "For as much as ye did it to the least of my brethren, ye did it unto me," with the direct implication that to enslave a "Negro" was to enslave Christ. Although clearly aimed at slaveholding Quakers, it did not single them out but reminded all Quakers that "Negroes are our fellow creatures, and their present condition amongst us requires serious consideration," and that Friends are committed to justice, love, and the better of all humankind, not to self-interest. In his final paragraph he expressed his belief that while God has so far not intervened, he sees that "[Negroes] are trodden down and despised, yet he remembers them: he seeth their affliction," and soon God is apt to "humble the most haughty people" who prefer "gain to equity"...

[Later, under Woolman's influence, the Quaker Yearly Meeting] agreed to publish a tract of its own, constituting a far more direct attack on slavery: An Epistle of Caution and Advice, Concerning the Buying and Keeping of Slaves.

Written by a committee, this statement began by asking whether it was consistent with the Golden Rule to deprive "our fellow creatures of the valuable blessing liberty," or to "grow rich by their bondage"... Then... the committee got to the clincher. "Finally, brethren, we entreat you in... Gospel love, seriously to weigh the cause of detaining them in bondage. If it be for your own private gain, or any motive other than their good, it is much to be feared that the love of God, and the influence of the Holy Spirit is not the prevailing principle in you."...

Not to be outdone, many Christian groups and luminaries took up the cause of abolition, and soon abolitionist societies sprang up that were not associated with a specific denomination. But, through it all, the movement (as distinct from those it made sympathetic to the cause) was staffed by devout Christian activists, the majority of them clergy...

In 1833 leading abolitionists formed the American Anti-Slavery Society. Led by the fiery agitator and editor of The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879), the group adopted and published a ringing Declaration of Sentiments, filled with religious justifications. Noting that to hold a human being "in involuntary bondage" is, "according to Scripture" stealing, the docuemnt proclaimed it a certainty that "the slaves out instantly to be set free, and brought under the protection of law." Furthermore, all current laws "admitting the right of slavery, are therefore, before God, utterly null and void... an audacious usurpation of Divine prerogative" and "a presumptuous transgression of all the holy commandments."...

The American Roman Catholic Church faced not serious internal conflict over slavery because it had few Southern parishes, and, at least by the start of the nineteenth century, the clergy followed the pope in opposing slavery. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Pope Pius VII (1800 to 1823) demanded the suppression of the slave trade. Then, in 1839, Pope Gregory XVI (1831 to 1846) sent an Apostolic Letter to the Provincial Council of American Bishops in which he condemned slavery. It began with a fine example of theological "deduction." In his opening paragraph the pope admitted that the Apostles counseled slaves to obey their masters, but went on to note (as Woolman had also done) that just as Christ declared that whatever was done to the least of all humans, it was done to Him, "it naturally follows" that Christians should treat slaves as their brothers. He then pointed out that "In the process of time, the fog of pagan superstition being more completely dissipated and the manners of barbarous people have been softened, thanks to Faith operating by Charity... there are no more slaves in the greater number of Christian nations." Unfortunately, there were "among the Faithful" men who were "shamefully blinded by their desire for sordid gain," and who went to distant countries and there "did not hesitate to reduce to slavery Indians, Negroes, and other wretched people." Then, desiring to remove such a shame from all Christian nations" and "walking in the footsteps of Our Predecessors," the pope demanded an end to slavery...

The larger point is that abolitionists, whether popes or evangelists, spoke almost exclusively in the language of the Christian faith. And although many Southern clergy proposed theological defenses of slavery, pro-slavery rhetoric was overwhelmingly secular-- references were made to "liberty" and "states' rights," not to "sin" or "salvation." This was conclusively demonstrated by Auping, who performed a content analysis of writings by randomly selected samples of prominent abolitionists and defenders of slavery. The abolitionists were far more likely to invoke God, and the difference persisted even when only clergy were compared...

But there is another and far more persuasive tack taken to minimize the importance of religion in abolishing slavery. It is argued that many sincere Christians were quite able to square slavery with theology-- as Francis Asbury, first Methodist bishop of the United States, put it in 1798, "Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians... in the highest flights of rapturous piety, still maintain and defend [slavery]." This being the case, the argument goes, it must have been not religion per se but something else that prompted some Christians to conclude that it was a sin to hold humans in bondage. But, as Asbury was fully aware, that conclusion misses the point. The case against slavery is theological, not revelational. Had Moses been given a commandment against slavery, then only heretical Jews and Christians could have owned slaves. Or had Jesus proclaimed that no slave master shall enter heaven, there would have been no ambiguity as to what Christians must do. But theology is based on human interpretations, and therefore sincere and brilliant seekers may reach opposite conclusions. Asbury did not propose that those who accepted slavery were ignorant of revelations, but that they had drawn incorrect theological conclusions, that they had neither "a sufficient sense of religion nor of liberty."

Abolition was not inherent in Christian scripture; it was only a possible conclusion... I do not propose that monotheism or even Christian culture was a sufficient basis for deeming slavery to be a sin. Instead, I propose that it was a necessary basis, in that only those religious thinkers working within the Christian tradition were able to reach anti-slavery conclusions (with the exception of two Jewish sects). (Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God, pp. 340-345)

The immigration issue today seems to be in a similar place.  It is not that the Bible unambiguously condemns immigration restrictions or declares for freedom of migration, although particular episodes, like the Exodus from Egypt, are suggestive.  But reasoning from Biblical premises cannot but strongly point towards open borders, particularly when the existence of illegal immigrants and their families on US soil transforms the issue into one of what kind and degree of violence will be resorted to in order to enforce a law which can be given no basis in justice.  The Golden Rule is certainly sufficient to condemn migration restrictions, for who of us can seriously say that if he had illegally entered the United States in order to feed his family, or earn enough to provide medical care for a child, he would wish to be deported?  And yet Matt. 25:40 makes the Golden Rule far more powerful, for while the Golden Rule seems abstract, Matt. 25:40 compels us to imagine that what we do to our fellow man we do to Christ. The fact that, as Pope Benedict observes, Jesus and the Holy Family were refugees, drives the point home. Current US law would deport the Holy Family to be executed by the agents of Herod. "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

The Bad Guys

Mort Kondracke: "'Nativist Lobby' is Winning on Immigration" (Roll Call)

The failure of Congress and two presidents to enact immigration reform is plunging the nation into an ugly future. Call it the Arizonification of America.

Quite apart from the ghastly shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and 19 others in Tucson, Ariz., the state truly has become, as Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described it, “a mecca for racism and bigotry” — largely over immigration.

It has become a state of Minuteman vigilantism, death threats against politicians and judges, talk-radio demagoguery, and bullying of Latinos and rival politicians by “America’s toughest sheriff,” Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County.

Now, governors and legislators in 23 other states are considering following Arizona’s lead in directing local police to act as immigration officers. And politicians in several states are contriving to, in effect, amend the U.S. Constitution to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. if their parents are illegal immigrants.

All this represents a high-water mark in the influence of the “nativist lobby” — a richly funded assemblage of national and local groups organized by Michigan ophthalmologist John Tanton.

The groups, which have gained respectability, include the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA. But some investigations have tied Tanton to white-supremacist ideology as well.

The move to end birthright citizenship is led by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is affiliated with FAIR’s legal arm.

Tanton’s groups are making use of economic hard times to argue that immigrants — legal and illegal — are stealing jobs from Americans and straining government budgets. It’s largely bogus because immigrants tend to take jobs that Americans won’t or can’t do and because illegal workers pay taxes but can’t get benefits.When federal Judge Susan Bolton halted enforcement of major parts of the law, she received hate mail and death threats...

And so did Judge John Roll, when he ruled in 2009 that illegal immigrants could sue a local rancher on charges of harassment. Roll died in the Tucson shooting rampage at the hands of deranged gunman Jared Loughner.

Loughner had nothing to do with the immigration issue, but there has been plenty of other ugliness in Arizona over it. Does America really want that to metastasize nationwide?

"Jeb Bush and Latino Outreach" (RealClearPolitics):

Bush told the gathering that, because of the growth of the Latino population nationwide, it would be "incredibly stupid" for the Republican Party to ignore these votes.

Frankly, Governor, "ignoring" would be a step up in GOP-Hispanic relations. More often than not, what happens now is that Republican candidates at the local, state and national level use Hispanics as a convenient foil to scare up votes from whites who are terrified of the coming demographic realignment and unsure of where they fit in the new scheme.

The terrified include right-wing radio host Mark Levin, who pounced on Bush for "race-baiting" and called his remarks "divisive" and "destructive of conservatism." Levin also accused Bush of not being "that bright" and lacking a basic "understanding of the greatness of this nation."

Levin has it backward. Repairing the breach between Republicans and Hispanics won't destroy conservatism; it will help save it. And much of the greatness of this nation is wrapped up, first and foremost, in its immigrant tradition, which some conservatives seem to want to unravel by limiting legal immigration.

No one summed up the GOP's predicament better than Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the former Republican congressman from Florida. Since the United States is a nation of immigrants, he said, the American people would probably never again allow Republicans to become the country's majority party if they see them as being anti-immigrant.

I'll add: With Hispanics on track to make up 30 percent of the U.S. population by 2050 and likely to decide elections not just in Texas, California and Florida but all over the country, the perception that the GOP is hostile to Latinos is also hazardous to the health of the party.

Yet, even at a gathering like this, where many agree that the Republican Party has a problem with Hispanics, there were those who clung to the idea that the issue is simply one of tone -- easily fixed by a few turns of the public relations screwdriver.

Wrong. As I said during my panel, the GOP doesn't just have a problem with tone. It's not that simple. When it comes to immigration, the Republican message is toxic. There is too much dishonesty, too much racism, and too many simplistic solutions to what is a complicated problem.

If the GOP wants to make a serious play for Hispanic voters in 2012 and beyond, this has to change. The party is struggling with demons. It doesn't need a publicist. It needs an exorcist.

Second-Class 'Citizen of the Year' (RFE/RL)

She's young, bright, well educated, and she loves her adoptive country, Norway.

She recently published a successful book and was even named "2010 Citizen of the Year" by a Norwegian magazine.

Yet the Russian-born Maria Amelie remains an illegal migrant after almost a decade in Norway and faces imminent deportation.

Her story, which she recounted in her book "Illegal Norwegian" published in September, has moved many in Norway.

Rights groups, politicians, and celebrities have thrown their weight behind the 25-year-old Amelie. Some 1,000 supporters rallied for her release in Oslo this week, and some 90,000 people have joined her support group on Facebook.

Amelie, who was released on January 18 after being briefly placed in a detention center for migrants near Oslo, insists her home is in Norway, not Russia.

"I live in constant fear," she told NRK, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, shortly after her release. "As soon as I pause for a few minutes, it becomes difficult to breathe, which is the way I felt at the detention center. I've come a long way, I've fought for myself. My friends and the whole country supported me in this fight. Where am I supposed to go now? My home is here, in Norway."

Norwegian authorities, however, have refused to bow to pressure. Amelie was detained by eight police officers on January 12 and placed in a detention center for migrants near Oslo where she said she was treated like "a criminal."...

"She managed to learn fluent Norwegian within a year and a half, she graduated from high school with only top grades two years after arriving in Norway," Lindeman says. "She managed to enter university, where she gained a master's degree with top grades."

Morally, the right and wrong of this issue is as clear as the racial segregation issue in the 1960s.