Maybe we should look at this immigration question and beyond. Absent the hysteria.
Many Americans want this country to take in millions of immigrants per year. We do. Well, we take about a million per year. Legal ones. Lord knows how many illegals come in.
Open border folks reckon we should at least double this. Or triple it. Why? To ease pressure on the countries they flee. After all, these are mostly poor people. Their impoverished countries cannot cope with them.
In fact, this does little to help those poor countries. Why? Take a million. Multiply it by a few thousand. Imagine that a million is represented by this gumball. Now imagine a few thousand gumballs. That is how many desperately poor people there are in the world. When we take in a few million, the impoverished world notices nothing.
There is a short video that will open your eyes to this. Google: Numbers USA gumball video.
What is the best way then to help those billions of people in poverty? The best way is to do what the Left abhors. It is free markets. And the right to buy and sell and own property. And the freedom to operate businesses for profit. And freedom from smothering regulations. And more freedom, period.
The Left abhors these because they are tools of Capitalism. The Left prefers Socialism. When it is not encouraging open borders, that is.
Well, that is a bit of a predicament. What works best to alleviate poverty are assorted tools from Capitalism’s treasure chest. Witness China, India, South Korea. They privatized state-owned businesses. They encouraged entrepreneurs. They cut taxes and red tape. All capitalistic measures. Which helped lift hundreds of millions of their people from desperate poverty. In the greatest injection of wealth the world has ever known.
What works least to alleviate poverty is Socialism. When it is introduced to wealthy countries it does all right. Because there is much wealth to confiscate and spread around. But in poorer countries it smothers initiative. It smothers growth of wealth. Witness China before Capitalism. And Russia. Witness India before it slashed red tape and encouraged Capitalism. Witness Venezuela and Cuba and Vietnam. After 40 years of peace, Vietnam’s GDP is $1600 per person. Cuba’s is $10,000, after 56 years.
The Left is in a quandary. On one hand it wants to help the poor around the world. On another hand it does not want to encourage the very thing that works best to help the poor. It wants to encourage people to leave countries. To come to the U.S. at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. It wants to encourage Socialism for the poor countries.
This is what is called being blinded by ideology. The Left’s ideology blinds them to how Socialism harms people. When governments own factories and businesses and plan and control economies they harm people.
Their ideology also blinds them to how Capitalism lifts people out of poverty. Genuine grass-roots Capitalism does. If you doubt this, ask hundreds of millions of formerly poor Chinese and Indians.
The Left’s ideology blinds them to how cheap fossil fuels – cheap energy – improves the living standards of the poor. Directly and dramatically. The Chinese and Indians are not so blind. They are furiously building coal power plants. To deliver cheap energy to their poor. Both are building hundreds of new plants per year. When they achieve sufficient prosperity they will move to other fuels. But for now, ideology be damned.
If we want to help the billions of poor of the world, what works best? What has worked least? If we make a list of what works best, taking in a few million poor immigrants per year does little for those billions.
From Tom…as in Morgan.
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