Conversation with a Conservative: A compromise between a Conservative and a Libertarian on Immigration

I had a conversation about immigration with a ardent die-hard conservative Republican recently. I feel the discussion was valuable. I got a better sense of their concerns on the issue and it's more than just "foreigners are bad" or "they took our jobs" or "terrorists!!" like many seem to caricature them to be and in addition to educating them on the libertarian perspective, got their thoughts on that perspective.

For background, my ideal immigration policy is no policy - open borders, no govt required registration. Nobody is directly being harmed by people simply crossing a political line in the dirt. However, there are challenges to that view right now due to the policies of our current govt. For example, we currently face a threat from terrorism that our foreign policy exacerbates and invites. If you also have a non-interventionist foreign policy, I believe your risk from the threat of terrorism is significantly less and thus the need (or perceived need) to comb over every person that gets in an airplane or visits from another country is drastically reduced.

At the same time, however, I am a strong pragmatist and feel that libertarians are not going to get anywhere close to a free society by just declaring the govt is immoral and demanding that everyone stop using it. So I am often more willing to compromise on issues than I feel many libertarians are.

After a nearly 2 hour discussion with my conservative friend, we were able to reach an agreed-upon compromise for immigration reform:

Application process is a background check
A single, simple form to apply for immigration. This form should only require the basic information to identify the person and will be used to perform a background check. The only purpose of the entire application process is to determine if you are a threat to others - i.e. if you have a violent criminal history, ties to terrorists, etc. If you do not, you're free to enter the country at your earliest convenience. No multi-month/year long process of various approvals for different types of immigration.

This should change the legal immigration process from taking months or even years to a couple weeks. By making the process significantly more simple as well as shorter, I feel it will make legal immigration much more attractive compared to the risk and disadvantages of illegal immigration. In addition, with a drastically smaller number of illegal immigrants I think illegal immigration itself will be easier to deal with and certainly less of a problem.

A one-time fee
Applying for legal immigration will require a flat fee that simply pays for the cost of performing the paperwork and background check - no more, no less.

No fines or back taxes
There's little value beyond retribution in trying to excise fines or figure and collect back taxes on illegal immigrants already here. Besides, it would likely cost more in trying to audit and calculate those taxes on individuals who likely earned little income and have no record of it than the tax itself would amount to.

No English fluency/literacy requirements or tests
This is simply unnecessary. Plus, allowing immigrants to come out of the shadows of illegality would likely lead to them being more likely to assimilate and learn the dominant national language.

No expiration on legal immigration
There's nothing immoral and nobody is directly harmed by someone remaining here after govt has told them that they have stayed here long enough. If they are not a direct physical threat to anyone, there's no reason to put a time limit on their stay here.

Eliminate the dozen+ types of immigration statuses
A single status, either legal or not. Whether you're coming here for a single business meeting, a week long trip, a summer tour, or to live here for years doesn't matter. As long as you are not a threat to anyone, govt shouldn't care.

Secure the border
If you're going to have any immigration policy and any restrictions or controls on those who come in, it makes little sense if people can bypass and disregard the law and the process anyway. Frankly, however, I believe that the rest of the policies in this compromise would drastically reduce the demand for illegal immigration and thus reduce the need to aggressively patrol and defend the border as we do currently. I'm not sure how effective any attempt at securing the border would be or the costs involved, but I'm fine with enacting it as part of a bill.

No Federal Welfare
One of the concerns of many conservatives are those unskilled immigrants that come here and directly latch onto the govt dole. As a compromise between no restrictions whatsoever and no welfare whatsoever, we agreed that legal immigrants should be able to take advantage of as many state and local govt assistance programs as they are eligible for, but they should not be eligible for federal govt welfare programs. This is a basic decentralization/"laboratories of democracy" position (I hold the same pragmatic position on all welfare programs). Get the national govt out of it and let the states and localities decide how and to what extent to provide assistance to people - in this case immigrants.

Eligible for citizenship after a period
An immigrant can apply for naturalized citizenship after 10 years from the point they were approved for legal immigrant status. Time period is debatable, 10 years was just what we came up with, but some period of time from the point they received approval should be required before they can apply for full citizenship.

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I just barely touched on these items to convey the basic premise. But it seemed like a good compromise that deals with both the concerns of conservatives while making the system and process more simple and open.

So what do you think? What does this overlook? What problems (besides political) might this create?

Pro-[Choice/Life] isn't Anti-Freedom

I frequently see people on both sides of the abortion debate that point to the other side and accuse the other position of being "anti-freedom" or "incompatible with freedom". Problem is, as I see it, neither side can make that claim.

It seems to me that at some point, the right of the child to live overrides the right of the mother to choose to kill it. Most reasonable people will concede that this point is some time before it's actually born. Thus we are really just debating what that point should be.

For people like Ron Paul, his view is that the freedom to live is more important than the freedom to choose what to do with your own body. That's his view, but he recognizes that not all share it. In addition to that, he has said that Constitutionally, he would not allow a federal level mandate one way or another.

Personally, I'm not sure there is a "correct" answer politically that will satisfy everyone.

This is because, more generically, the problem is that abortion creates a paradox for individualism because you have two people occupying the same space at the same time and the exercise of rights by one is an infringement on the rights of the other.

In either case, you are infringing on someone's rights. Either you protect the right of the baby to live and infringe on the right of the mother to choose what to do with her own body, or you choose to protect the right of the mother to choose what to do with her own body and infringe on the right of the child to live.
So, agree or disagree with him about the point at which he feels we should recognize and protect a life, but it's not anti-liberty or anti-freedom.

In fact, Paul's actual policy prescription is a good compromise. Instead of a federal, top-down mandate that states that abortions are either all legal or all illegal, he allows the people of each state to decide. This will create a diverse environment that allows different views to be respected.

For example, while some states ban abortions, and some states permit even late-term abortions, perhaps a few other states would pass a law that legalizes abortion up to the 8th month, but that all abortions after the first 10 weeks must be done painlessly such as with lethal injection or an anesthetic that puts the baby to sleep first. This should satisfy most all pro-choice individuals since their ability to get an abortion isn't infringed. This could satisfy many pro-life individuals since the baby itself would not suffer or feel any pain. Reasonable compromise? I don't know.

Through this method of allowing multiple, different approaches that Paul is advocating, I think a more acceptable common ground can be reached.

Why don't we go nuclear?

I read an article titled There is No Perfect Fuel published on Acton blog.  However, while the article itself is good, it was a comment that I found that really impressed me with how powerful it was. Now, I haven't double checked all his numbers, but I do know from my own reading that the concepts he's talking about are accurate. This really makes one wonder why we aren't really pushing nuclear more beyond just promises and rhetoric.

Yes, there is a perfect fuel: uranium and thorium. I have worked in nuclear energy for more than 30 years. I have been on a submarine that could traverse the ocean depths, surfacing only for food and toilet paper, all thanks to a 158 MWth nuclear reactor. I have worked in 1000 MWe nuclear power plants that emit zero CO2 and zero particulates, and whose spent fuel of some 30 years of operation fits inside five or six dry storage casks, completely sequestered from the environment and ready for reprocessing to be used in the next generation fast neutron burner.

With nuclear energy we can make our own liquid fuels or produce hydrogen to replace imported oil. With nuclear energy we can obviate the need for coal fired power plants whose emissions kill 30000 annually from lung disease in the US alone. With fast neutron burners we can consume all the long lived actinides in spent nuclear fuel, making Yucca Mountain or any other long term geologic repository a moot point. By using fast breeder reactors, we have enough uranium and thorium in Earth's crust to fuel nine billion people with a level of energy consumption equal to that of the average American for one million years.

Consider this: The energy in one uranium fuel pellet—the size of the tip of your little finger—is the equivalent of 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1,780 pounds of coal, or 149 gallons of oil. If you used only uranium or thorium for energy and added up all the energy you use in a lifetime, it would be the size of a 12 ounce can of soda. But if you did the same with coal or oil or gas, it would hundreds of tons of refuse dumped willy-nilly into the air and water and ground.

BTW, did you know that coal fired power plants that supply 50% of US electricity emit more radioactivity in the form of uranium, thorium and radium occurring naturally in coal than any nuke plant releases? Indeed, Con Ed in the 1960s wanted to build a coal fired power plant next to its Indian Point nuclear facility but couldn't because the radioactive emissions of the coal plant would swamp the radiation detectors in the nuke plant. I know - I worked at Indian Point for 18 years and I was the radiation monitoring system engineer for unit 3, and the two 1000 MW pressurized water reactors (units 2 and 3, 1 is decommissioned) produce almost as much electricity as the US portion of Niagara Falls!

Take a look at emission numbers below:

Coal Plant Emmissions: Pounds of Refuse per 1 MWe of Generation
 Carbon Dioxide 2249
 Sulfur Dioxide 13
 Nitrogen Oxides 6

Oil Plant Emmissions: Pounds of Refuse per 1 MWe of Generation
 Carbon Dioxide 1672
 Sulfur Dioxide 12
 Nitrogen Oxides 4

Natural Gas Plant Emmissions: Pounds of Refuse per 1 MWe of Generation
 Carbon Dioxide 1135
 Sulfur Dioxide 0.1
 Nitrogen Oxides 1.7

Nuclear Plant Emmissions: Pounds of Refuse per 1 MWe of Generation
 Carbon Dioxide 0
 Sulfur Dioxide 0
 Nitrogen Oxides 0

So what's safer for the lungs?

BTW, solar and wind are a joke: no wind - no electricity. No sunlight - no electricity. If wind were so darn great, then why are not commercial ships still propelled by sails? Capacity factor of wind and solar never exceeds 30%, but the current capacity factor for an American nuke is more than 92% and its environmental footprint is miniscule compared to the dozens of square miles of landscape that have to be torn up for wind or solar.

Yes, there is the perfect fuel - two of them in fact: Thorium from which we can breed U-233, and uranium from which we get get U-235 or with which we can breed Pu-239.

I have worked 30+ years in the nuclear industry. It's the safest and best industry in the world, and that is exactly why it is opposed by all the right (er, I mean left) thinking people.

More nukes, less kooks is what I say. I shall have more to say about safety, Chernobyl, TMI, etc., in later posts. Suffice it to point out that not ONE member of the public has been injured or killed as the result of the operation of ANY Western light water reactor. A Chernobyl event cannot happen at a US plant because Chernobyl was an RBMK - a plutonium weapons breeder. It was graphite moderated and light water cooled. It had a positive tmeperature and void co-efficient of reactivity. No US reactor is like that. The laws of physics prevent a Chernobyl event at any light water cooled, light water moderated reactor. As for TMI - when the worst happens to a US reactor, the radioactivity is contained in containment and the public unaffected. Just look at the gas fired power plant explosion in Conneticut earlier this week. Can't happen at a nuke. Not possible.

...

By the way, I want to make something perfectly clear here. Obamolech is NOT pro-nuke. Yes, he proposed 57 billion in loan promises to the US nuke industry, but he appointed anti-nuke Jackzo as head of the US NRC.

Remember back in Bush's days John Roberts was selected for SCOTUS? Harry Reid had a fit about that and said no. But Harry Reid (who opposes the Yucca Mtn repository and is anti-nuke) had as his science advisor Gregory Jackzo. he proposed to Bush that he'd let John Roberts go to SCOTUS is Jackzo became a commissioner in the NRC. Bush agreed, but NEI (Nuclear Energy Institute) wanted balance in the NRC, so they contacted Pete Domenici (a pro-nuke senator) whose science advisor was Peter Lyons, a pro-nuke himself. Domenici offered Lyons as the balance to Jackzo. Then the Obamination of Desolation got elected. The terms of Jackzo and Lyons both ended early in Obamolech's presidency. Obamolech renewed Jackzo's term but dismissed Lyons, leaving an open vacancy. Additionally, Obamolech demoted pro-nuke Dale Klien as NRC Chairman and appointed anti-nuke Jackzo.

Guys, this ain't rocket science. The Obamination of Desolation opposes nuke power no matter what he says. Why? I can only assume that coal and oil suppliers have him in their back pocket. What's the biggest threat to coal and oil and gas suppliers? Nukes!

Oh, here's a bit of trivia: pick up an ordinary piece of bitumous coal. There's more energy in the uranium and thorium of the piece of coal then there is in burning the coal. Think about that. Think about how we could cut down on our consumption of coal if we used that as a resource for uranium and thorium instead of burning it by the megaton. And did you know that a nuke operates for 2 years before refueling, and only 1/3 of the core gets refueled at any time? Coal and oil and gas suppliers hate nukes.

You all know I'm ... how shall I put it, "politically minded" at times.  Well, I'm also against signing up for web newsletters. Most seem to either ...

• constantly throw ads at me, 
• send enormous articles at me 4-5 times a day, 
• simply say nothing but teases of information, 
• require me to click on a link to get any real information, or
• all of the above.  

However, I'm a member of a web organization called DownsizeDC.org whose newsletter does none of these things. I hope you'll be interested in what they are proposing as I am. 

I'm asking you to look into this because I'd like your help in compelling Congress to pass two specific pieces of legislation created by DownsizeDC.org:

The Read the Bills Act [http://www.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/27]
The One Subject at a Time Act [http://www.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/83]

These bills would do exactly what their names suggest . . .

The Read the Bills Act would require that every bill be posted online for 7 days, and more importantly, would require that every member of Congress read every word of every law (enforced by requiring them to sign affidavit) they want to impose on you, BEFORE they vote to enact it.

Congress is routinely ignorant of the laws they pass, but ignorance of the law is no excuse for us, and it shouldn't be allowed for Congress either.

Even when they do know the content of the bills before them, they pass unpopular laws by stuffing them as portion of a larger, more popular one. Would it surprise you to know that the Minimum Wage Increase in 2007 was put in as subsection of an Iraq war spending bill?  Or how about that the REAL ID Act, which requires a national ID card, was passed as a small amendment to the "Emergency, Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief?"

The One Subject at a Time Act would prohibit Congress from passing unpopular laws by combining them with popular but unrelated proposals. Every law would have to be voted on as a stand alone measure, and pass or fail on its own merits.

They require no membership fee and though I have donated no money to them yet, I am considering doing so. Their newsletter is also a great source of short (most are shorter than this email), but compelling and informative nuggets. You can sign up for it for free, without a membership by going here: http://www.downsizedc.org/page/newsletter and entering your email address.

Should you chose, you can sign up for a free membership with DownsizeDC.org which will . . .

• Allow you to promote these bills by sending letters to Congress -- all it takes is a few mouse-clicks and keyboard strokes
• This can be done in one step and is much easier with Downsize DC than by visiting each Congressional website and posting separately
• Keep you posted on what Congress is doing through an excellent email newsletter, the Downsizer-Dispatch
• Enable you to pressure Congress on other issues
• Make your pressure on Congress more effective by combining it with the efforts of thousands of others

You may not agree with all the stands Downsize DC takes, but unlike a political party or candidate, you can choose which Downsize DC campaigns you want to support.

I hope you'll join me in promoting the Read the Bills Act and the One Subject at a Time Act.

If you do decide to join me in this effort please drop me a line and let me know. 

Thanks for considering this,

RR