Award-winning journalist Nick Gillespie decided to talk about the difference between those who caused the September 11th attacks and illegal aliens who cross America’s southern border.
The distinction came after an open thread where Gillespie talked about the need for open borders.
Disagree. Open borders–the right of movement–is central to libertarianism. No one has a right to welfare, etc., but the state has no right or reason to keep out peaceful people who want to live and work here. https://t.co/fL3N3ehhF2
— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) January 23, 2018
Except every other nation in the world has borders. It’s only wrong for America to have borders because people want to live and work here.
https://twitter.com/tech_faq/status/957327354518437892
How do you know that those who come across our borders are all upstanding people? No one is vetting them. No one is looking into their past.
The difference between the 9/11 hijackers (who flew first class with legal entry papers) and illegals who cross a desert on foot to come here, work hard, and pay into entitlement programs they will never access is easy to discern to all but nativists. https://t.co/3TZe3F8EUG
— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) January 27, 2018
Is this seriously the argument you’re going to use to say it’s okay for one group to commit a crime because it’s not as severe as the 9/11 terrorists? If that’s the case, shouldn’t we let off every murderer, rapist and molester out there?
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And, as you can imagine, people weren’t happy with his explanation.
This is a joke, right? They do far more than simply "work hard," there are large societal costs attached regardless of intent (and that's ignoring crime). It's not on par as free exchange of goods, like free trade.
— Clyde Parker (@ColJSMosby) January 27, 2018
If we remove the emotional appeals that are often associated with illegal immigration, it’s hard to deny the fact that:
1) People who come here illegally are breaking the law. How can we expect them to respect other laws we have on the books when as soon as they come here, they’re breaking the law?
2) There are costs associated with educating and providing health coverage to folks who walk across our southern border. Someone has to pay for it. Take a guess and who that is.
Utter horseshit. Cops, schools, hospitals, firefighters, roads, prisons…..Are not funded by your "feels"
And 7% sales tax hardly puts a dent in those things.
— Judson McCulloch (@JudsonMcCulloch) January 27, 2018
EXACTLY.
We can let these discussions be overrun by emotions or we can look at this logically, numerically.
X amount of people come to America illegally. Y is the amount associated with taking care of them (food, housing, medical). What is the government’s liability then?
Illegals pay tons of taxes besides sales taxes–including state, local, federal, and payroll–because they mostly have fake papers and get money withheld. https://t.co/rUeWu0yNqP
— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) January 27, 2018
And how many of them are paid under the table?
Also, there’s no way to escape sales taxes. You know why? Because everyone — even kids using their allowance — pays sales tax when they’re buying goods. There’s absolutely no way around it. If you want the product you pay the tax on top of it.
You have an actual dollar figure? Have you factored in the sub contractor 1099 dance many use? Or just cash?
It's almost as if some in this debate have never been on the ground to see what actually happens.
— Judson McCulloch (@JudsonMcCulloch) January 27, 2018
Judson is on to something here, Nick.
Sorry Nick, but you're gonna have to start paying a living wage to the people cleaning your shitter, roofing your house or landscaping your yard.
— James Dean (@havayorkidad) January 27, 2018
What constitutes a “living wage” anyways? That means different things to different people.
The safest border control possible is to let people who want to come here to work do so legally and in public view. Prohibition doesn't work with booze or pot, even less well with people. https://t.co/odfrQjbRxz
— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) January 27, 2018
So we should just have open borders, allow anyone who wants to come here to come here? You need to go sit on the southern border for a few days. If we had open borders we would be allowing the drug cartels to WILLINGLY come to America to drop their goods off. We’d be allowing people from other countries, who commit crimes, to come to America as a safe haven.
All this would do is create a harbor for criminals.
Think beyond the emotion.
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