Matt Yglesias supports taking toys from needy U.S. children; unable to understand limited resources

Two Houston charities are requiring proof of citizenship before giving out donated toys to needy children; the story is here.

About this, Matt Yglesias says (link):

I think there are pretty good pragmatic reasons to think that democratic governments should consider themselves primarily responsible for the welfare of their citizens rather than for the welfare of humanity at large...

I’m not sure what sense it makes to say that “the point” isn’t “to punish the children” since the method chosen is the punishment of children.

Meanwhile grant that it’s “the parents’ responsibility” that the family may be in the United States without legal permission. Suppose the parents had committed a crime that’s even more serious than moving across an international boundary without permission in order to do work in exchange for money (hard to imagine a more serious offense, I know). What if they’d, I dunno, broken into people’s homes and stolen jewelry and now they’re in jail. Is the Salvation Army going to say that their kids shouldn’t have toys to play with? What sense does that make?

Since MattY is a Harvard University grad, I've illustrated the problem in a way that he can understand; see the image. The problem is that there are too few toys and too many needy children. Unless one lives in a fantasy world where there are an endless number of toys, that means that some kids are going to be left out. And, that also means that any toys that are given to illegal aliens will be toys that were in effect taken away from U.S. citizens.

In other words, Matthew Yglesias is supporting taking toys from needy U.S. children in order to give them to foreign citizens who are here illegally.

If MattY knew anything about these issues, he'd suggest discouraging illegal immigration in order to reduce the problems. Instead, his employer, the Center for American Progress, supports comprehensive immigration reform, something that would lead to even more illegal immigration and make the problem worse. In the meantime, he could call on the Mexican government to take care of their own kids.

The fact that he's not doing that, and the fact that he can't figure out the problem of limited resources, shows just how flawed his thinking is, especially on the immigration issue.

Tue, 12/01/2009 - 13:58 · Importance: 4