Rand Paul pro-amnesty

Rand Paul, son of Ron, has joined the Republican pro-amnesty chorus.

Comments

[Sojourner]

Which is freakin ridiculous. He was my one hope for a decent Republican of the new generation but nope. This is too big an issue to let go.

[Odds]

So much for Rand Paul. Next.

[ntk]

Not surprising - libertarians are mostly open-borders types (because naturalising all those turd worlders will open up a huge pool of libertarians, right?)

Rand Paul is just reverting to the usual open-borderism of libertarians. His dad, at least, is smart enough to know that open borders means importing vast amounts of welfare-dependent libertarianism haters, which is why Ron is anti-amnesty and pro-border-enforcement.

Ron's views are summarised at: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul314.html

[M Steinberg]

@ ntk,

Indeed. Paul is probably coming from the same position as Chris Hendrix and others on this Libertarian blog. http://openborders.info/blog/future-citizens-of-all-kinds/

As noted in the comments there though:

1.Not in the case of low skilled immigrants. In fact, as Tino Sanandaji noted a few years ago:

The most reliable estimate of the fiscal impacts of immigration was done by the prestigious National Research Council, NAC (the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences, NAS).

Low skilled immigrants earn less than the average, pay less in taxes and receive more in public services such as health care, public housing, income aid etc. The NAC estimate is that the total net cost of each low-skilled immigrant for the US. State is $120,000 in 2009 dollars. (High skilled immigrants in contrast are a net fiscal benefit for the U.S).

These figures may underestimate the costs. Since this study was made the costs of welfare services to lower income people has further expanded, especially Medicaid and S-CHIP, and may go further yet..

2. Groups differ in assimilation outcomes. In the case of Hispanic groups, who are the largest, there is a clear issue with lack of intergenerational progress. As David Frum has noted:

“Stephen Trejo and Jeffrey Groger studied the intergenerational progress of Mexican-American immigrants in their scholarly work, “Falling Behind or Moving Up?”

They discovered that third-generation Mexican-Americans were no more likely to finish high school than second-generation Mexican-Americans. Fourth-generation Mexican-Americans did no better than third.

If these results continue to hold, the low skills of yesterday’s illegal immigrant will negatively shape the U.S. work force into the 22nd century.
The failure to enforce the immigration laws in the 1990s and 2000s means that the U.S. today has more poorly skilled workers, more poverty and more workers without health insurance than it would have generated by itself.

(Frum ‘The Future Costs of Today’s Cheap Labor’ May 3rd, 2010)

3. That is a major problem as witness in California.

California currently ranks 40th among the 50 states in college-attendance rates, and it already faces a significant shortage of college graduates. Studies have shown that the economy will need 40 percent of its workers to be college-educated by 2020, compared with today’s 32 percent. Given the aging white population (average age, 42), many of these new graduates will have to come from the burgeoning Latino immigrant population (average age, 26). By one estimate, this would require tripling of the number of college-educated immigrants, an impossibility if current trends hold. The state’s inability to improve the educational attainment of its residents will result in a “substantial decline in per capita income” and “place California last among the 50 states” by 2020, according to a study by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112167023

[asdf]

Rand watched his father accomplish nothing and get mocked most of his life. He probably sees it as his purpose to be a more "pragmatic" and "mainstream" voice of his father's ideals who "gets things done".

If Ron was dead I'd claim he was turning in his grave.

[Conquistador]

That's why they're called lolertarians. They're stupid just like liberals but in a peculiar way because nobody outside of college and the internet is one. Ron Paul is likeable only cuz he's principled. The rest are SWPL with a strong Republican bent.

[WJ]

The phone number of his D.C. office:
(202)-224-4343

Give him a call.

[Sgt. Joe Friday]

The speed with which the GOP has embraced this amnesty business suggests one of two things to me:

- They are so panic-stricken that they can't even let the dust settle and take the time to crunch the numbers and see exactly why they came up short, or

- The fix was already in before the election, i.e. the Graham - McCain - Bush wing of the party had this in their back pocket, ready to go regardless of which way the election went.

I tend to believe the latter.

[Bernie]

Rand Paul also went on Sean Hannity's show a few months ago to talk about how "racist" the justice system is against blacks.

Like father, like son.

[faffy]

Agreed. So much for Rand Paul.

[Otis the Sweaty]

I may have misunderstood Ron's position, but I thought that Ron was initially open borders, became anti immigration and then switched back to being pro illegal in 2012.

Obama isn't going to push for immigration reform but if the Republicans are stupid enough to offer it, I'm sure he'll be happy to oblige.

I don't think immigration reform is going to happen because too many Republicans would risk getting primaried if they voted for it.

[John]

"Not surprising - libertarians are mostly open-borders types"

I totally do not get why most of my fellow libertarians are so dumb about immigration. Study after study shows that NAMs are anti-libertarian on both social and economic issues. Yet the cries from Reason magazine are, "Let them in! Let them in!".

Heck, even Asians voted almost 3:1 for Obama, and he has not promised them anything. I can see the T-shirts now:

"Freedom: It's a white thing."

[Odds]

Maybe Rand is just trying to go undercover here and say whatever Republican leadership wants to gear up for the 2016 primaries.

I have always advocated guerrilla politics. Get elected and then do what you really secretly planned anyway.

[lil mike]

Not much of a surprise. Libertarians are open borders types, so I'm not sure this is even a change of position. He probably always held this view and it just never came up. Just like Bush had always been an open borders/amnesty type but it never really came up in the 2000 election.

[T]

Apparently he wants to couple this with ending all immigration, legal and illegal.

http://www.vdare.com/posts/hold-on-a-minute-is-rand-paul-alaso-advocatingan-immigration-moratorium

[DaveinHackensack]

Libertarians don't believe in a welfare state either, do they? If you don't have a welfare state, then open borders is less of a problem: most people who can't find jobs or create successful businesses will go home.

[BlogRaju]

John on November 13,2012 at 7:29pm said "I can see the T-shirts now - Freedom: It's a white thing."

John is correct. Asians (including Indian Rajus like me), blacks, Hispanics, and various indigenous people are actually frightened by true libertarianism. They think that chaos will ensue if someone strong is not in charge.

I have given up trying to convince Indians that libertarianism is in their best interest. Indians spend inordinate amounts of energy trying to reduce their tax burden and circumvent regulations on their businesses, but fail to see why the reduction of taxes and regulations are in their best interest.

[Allerious]

"I totally do not get why most of my fellow libertarians are so dumb about immigration. Study after study shows that NAMs are anti-libertarian on both social and economic issues. Yet the cries from Reason magazine are, 'Let them in! Let them in!'."

You don't need studies to show you that NAM's are anti-libertarian: all you need is a pair of eyes and a functioning brain.

Libertarians' major malfunction is that they're predominantly white men who haven't crossed the bridge to racial awareness, much like white liberals and mainstream conservatives. Your brain cannot function properly without you being racially aware.

On the other hand, those in the HBD sphere who ignore the natural compatibility of libertarian civic philosophy (note: I did not say libertarian immigration policy) are equally blind and dysfunctional.

[Alex]

"Not surprising - libertarians are mostly open-borders types (because naturalising all those turd worlders will open up a huge pool of libertarians, right?)"

Libertarians ignore HBD; if they didn't, they wouldn't be libertarians:

- HBD teaches us that the great masses of people are stupid and *need* leaders. It teaches us that States, community churches, etc. will always exist.

- HBD teaches us that even in a fully libertarian environment, the fecundity rate of K people will always be lower than R people, and therefore cause gradual third-worldization. I don't buy the rosy anarcap story about how the end of welfare would cause poor people to be exterminated at the benefit of rich nerds; surviving and making babies isn't so costly or difficult as long as food is cheap, and it will stay that way because of modern technological techniques.

[Scrutineer]

"Paul said the 'trade-off' would be 'not to accept any new legal immigrants while we’re assimilating the ones who are here.'"

If the price of getting an immigration moratorium and real border control is to amnesty the illegals already here, I'd take that bargain.

[Toad]

BlogRaju:
"I have given up trying to convince Indians that libertarianism is in their best interest. Indians spend inordinate amounts of energy trying to reduce their tax burden and circumvent regulations on their businesses, but fail to see why the reduction of taxes and regulations are in their best interest."

But it's not in their best interest. They are being entirely rational.

They count as non-white in the government enforced infrastructure of non-white preference. In a libertarian country, this infrastructure would not be there.

They are adhering to Randian principle of self-interest and they benefit from big-government, so they support it. To oppose big government when you benefit from it would be self-sacrifice for the collective good, which is immoral.

[FatDrunkAndStupid]

If you actually read the article, it sounds like Paul is advocating a backdoor return to pre-PC immigration policy. No immigration- legal or otherwise until the current illegals are "assimilated". And when pressed as to what the effect this would have on international relations, he coyly replies that we'd have to talk about which countries would get a moratorium and which would not. Since the only criteria which would make any sense for such a list is proportion of recent immigrants admitted, legally or otherwise- in practice this would be a moratorium on Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean and other undesirables.

Rand Paul is actually a pretty brilliant politician. He's a non-interventionist but is careful to couch his views in a way that the Fox News crowd can't possibly object to, and here we see him calling for a return to white favored immigration policy in way that gets him praise from Politico for being part of some kind of Progressive evolution. Do not underestimate this man. The goofy haircut is probably the only thing standing in his way of being a first tier Presidential candidate in 2016.