December 21, 2006

Bryan Caplan descends into self-parody on immigration and... donuts

Bryan Caplan - along with TCS/Insty fave Arnold Kling - is one of the contributors to "EconLog", a libertarian/"free" market-oriented site that, like other libertarians, can't seem to understand how massive illegal immigration violates the supposed libertarian support for national defense and their supposed opposition to subsidies.

In his latest post, Caplan has - according to this - descended into self-parody, and I concur. While not specifically concerning the illegal variety of immigration, he supports immigration from Cambodia... because Cambodians are good at making fresh donuts:

...In L.A., independent shops with fresh doughnuts are the rule. What gives? ...After learning a bit about the industry, I advanced a simple explanation: Los Angeles has Cambodian immigrants to thank for its happy situation.

Thankfully, commenter "superdestroyer" provides some counterpoint to Caplan's starry-eyed blather. And, I join in with a link to my Jobs for South Asia satire.

If Caplan would like to be taken seriously, he might consider approaching some of the downsides of what he's promoting in a future post.

Posted to Immigration at December 21, 2006 05:36 PM

Comments

It is also a stereotyped response; as if to say without mass immigration of undesirables, they won't let anyone eat in NY, or LA.
They've had many requests to say why mass immigration on to net public subsidy is justifiable; but always find it more convenient to avoid such questions, and stick to something as banal as tastes in doughnuts.

Posted by: John S Bolton at December 22, 2006 02:38 AM

Lawrence Auster and Randall Parker ask: what does Bush realy mean when he says "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande" ?
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/006777.html
Randall Parker highlights Heather Mac Donald’s important and astonishing article showing that Hispanic immigrants, who already have the highest fertility level of any group in America, also have the highest illegitimacy rates. There is much to be said about this. But for the moment, here is a passing thought that was triggered by Parker’s article, which I also posted as a comment at his site:

Reading Mr. Parker’s article I just realized something. When President Bush speaks of family values, what does he mean? Does he mean, say, a married man and woman and their children, as distinct from an unmarried mother and her children? No! He means any grouping of parents and children, regardless of marital status. After all, he ran in 2000 saying that “Single moms have the toughest job in America,” thus not only approving of non-marital families but making them the special object of national concern. Obviously Bush sees non-marital families as families, and he therefore he sees non-marital families as carriers of family values. So what he really means by family values is the act of having children. And since having children is the way of human nature, what he means by family values is indistinguishable from humanity itself. So, when he says that family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande, and that we must therefore not exclude Mexican families from the United States, what he really means is that humanity doesn’t stop at the Rio Grande, and that we must not exclude humanity from the United States.

Certainly GWB is an open-borders globalist who thinks that "the American people" is a meaningless abstraction. But why does he need to continually feel the need to spout blatant nonsense in defense of illegal immigration? My personal opinion is that W had an unhealthily close relationship with his Mexican nanny. Not an oulandish speculation considering Barbara Bush's strong resemblance to a KIng Tiger tank.

Posted by: perroazul del norte at December 22, 2006 09:01 AM

Doughnut shops are largely cash businesses. Family members work there, and there is lots of room to hide cash receipts. Of course, we can't mention this, because that would be racist! Only Americans run cash businesses, evade taxes, and use their kids as free labor.

And our local Cambodian doughnut maker lets flies walk all over his inventory. Eeuw.

Posted by: Pat at December 22, 2006 06:41 PM