The WSJ's libertarian fantasy world
The Wall Street Journal has an editorial supporting the Bush/Fox amnesty, and using Bernie Kerik's nanny problem as an example. It's only available to subscribers, but an excerpt is here:
...Think about the Kerik example: The man and his wife have two small kids.... A nanny offers that help, and she seems both nice enough and gets along with kids. Whether or not she's "legal" seems less important to most American parents than whether she's trustworthy and hard-working.
As for the nanny, she's traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from home to make some money and get ahead. Her primary concern isn't running some Immigration Service gantlet but is to find a good family that pays decently and treats her well. Are we really supposed to believe that this kind of transaction between consenting adults jeopardizes our national security?
Leaving aside any ethical issues, and only looking at this matter on the surface, it all seems so simple. A couple wants a nanny, a nanny wants a job. They exchange a little bit of money, and everyone's happy.
In the perfect case, or in the case of just one nanny, everything might be fine.
However, the nanny problem becomes a problem for the rest of us when you move out of the WSJ's libertarian fantasy world and when you consider the numbers involving, say, 1000 nannies.
Out of that number, some of them will get sick. Will their employers pay for their medical treatment, or will they encourage the nanny to go to the emergency room? What of those nannies that get injured on the job? Will the couple give her a little bit of money then threaten to call la migra if she doesn't go home?
What of all the other public services those nannies will have an impact on simply by being here? Won't 1000 nannies require new roads, new utility services, and all the other services that apparently are paid for by others in the WSJ's libertarian fantasy world?
What if the nanny has a U.S. citizen child while she's here? Who will pick up the tab to educate that child? The nanny will send back money to her home country, making her a valuable commodity to that country. That monetary incentive will cause that country to meddle even more in our immigration laws, reducing American sovereignty. Is there a price tag we could put on that?
The WSJ's scenario would have some merit if they were willing to pay the true cost for their nannies' labor. But, that would be contrary to the goal of cheap labor: pay as little for the labor as possible, and stick the rest of us with the true costs.
Comments
John S Bolton (not verified)
Tue, 12/14/2004 - 14:34
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Likewise, in the style of the anarcho-pacifist libertarian school of political fantasy, it would seem to assume that we can safely delegate to such as the employers of domestic servants, the sovereignty over how far the security zone, or its border, extends. The sovereign small employer, solving the rich women's help crisis which started on Pearl Harbor day in 1941, should get to arrogate to himself the determination ofwho is an enemy and who is not?
John S Bolton (not verified)
Tue, 12/14/2004 - 14:09
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That excerpt shows exceedingly fallacious reasoning; how is it better than saying that because, in one instance, someone was smoking in a facility full of highly flammable and explosive materials, and nothing happened. Danger, as to national security, is not rationally evaluated by an example of a security breach that was not followed by annihilation. They would have to compare large numbers, to the number of instances of bad consequences, and to several levels of severity of damage. The current policy lets enemies in over the borders, and allows various degrees of hostility of foreigners living in the country to stay, already resulting in the knocking down of one hundred-storey building after another. This year, our election was a plaything to Osama, and he could threaten, because our government traitorously refuses to perform its duty to defend the states, its primary function.