@Nob Akimoto, Actually markets could be in this case. Rather than having a heavy-handed state try to stop immigration we could open up legal immigration much wider and let the markets absorb a huge number of new workers and consumers. Free trade and free movement of labor go hand in hand.
@North, I think you're simplifying things, North. Couldn't we say the same about free trade? We'd be just fine if we threw up a bunch of tariffs, banned outsourcing jobs, etc. right? No negative consequences. We'd adapt.
@Simon K, I agree, Simon. Hugely expensive and completely ignorant of the actual need for labor. Trust me, plenty of industries could not operate the way they do without this influx of labor. And like I keep saying, the influx of labor leads to a more robust economy anyways. Making more slots available for legal workers is the best way forward.
@Scott, It's not as though workers who come here to work and live don't have to pay for a place to live, food to eat, clothing, transportation and numerous other items and services. All of that translates into more $$$ for everyone. More workers ends up meaning more jobs, more prosperity, and a better chance that the entitlements we pay for will remain solvent.
@greginak, That's for sure. The Dems in their infinite stupidity have included a National ID program in the initial drafts of their immigration bill. Maybe if we can build a high enough wall around the country and then make sure we know who and where everyone is within that wall at all times everything will be okay.
@Mike Farmer, I don't think open borders make sense, because there are valid security concerns that we have to take into account. I do support ending the war on drugs and vastly increasing legal immigration. I believe increased legal immigration is necessary and will eventually put upward pressure on wages.
@Daniel Larison, Daniel - the right has failed for innumerable other reasons as well - many of which you bring to my attention daily. On immigration they are not pro-immigration enough in simple, practical terms. We need to enforce our immigration laws, and I would support a great deal more funding for the border patrol, but unless we open up legal immigration much wider we are fighting an endless war akin to the war on drugs. Some have mentioned going after employers. Fine. Good luck with that. Wage stagnation has also been mentioned. Again - open up legal immigration much wider and you will see an increase in wages across the board. This law will only make law enforcement more difficult, because it conflates two wars - that of immigration and the war on drugs. Police will find their jobs much more difficult in the latter war if they cannot rely on the assistance of the immigrant community. Etc. etc. This is a failure of the right because they fail to understand the problem. In my estimation it is just as futile and stupid as their belief in nation-building. If we are to build empires we should do it right, go all out. Similarly, if we want to clamp down on the movement of labor, we may as well clamp down on free trade as well. If we use half measures we'll never achieve anything. But that's too authoritarian for me, so I would advocate opening up - legalizing immigrants and incorporating them into the broader culture. We'll need more workers not fewer in the long run.
@Pat Cahalan, Once again, this is not an assault on science properly understood, but in how western medicine and other areas of social science have gone astray, and one reason why and how this is. No, I don't think most scientists went out of their way to purposefully demonize folkways, but I do think it was part of the story, especially when they came into contact with other cultures during the colonial days or in the New World. Rufus mentioned Indian Schools in Canada - they were here too. This is not something confined to science. It is the hubris of progress, in whatever form it takes, when that progress divorces itself from the past.
@Jaybird, You're right, Jaybird. I never once expressed any skepticism of science only the attitudes and approaches taken by many people who consider themselves scientists (and other experts).
@Steven Donegal, Absolutely - I think something was done to the past. Not that the people of the past had no agency, but that there was a concerted effort to 'progress' away from folk wisdom toward a society more governed by the experts whether those were doctors or government bureaucrats. Has this had many benefits as well? Of course. Is it sustainable in its current form? I don't think so.
@Kaleberg, Well that certainly is representative of modern thinking. I'm not so sure your understanding of tyranny is as fleshed out as it could be - and regarding lying on one's back while giving birth being 'comfortable' let me just say that not a single woman I know who has ever had a baby would agree - but really this isn't a surprising sentiment. The demonization of the past is only equaled in ferocity by its glorification. Alas, both are generally far off the mark.
@Creon Critic, Quarantining the sick, draining toxic humors and burning the witch all began at the outset of modern medicine. Before that people went to the witch for remedies.
@ThatPirateGuy, Hmm. I wonder if anything along those lines was in my post?
Modern medicine works like folk ways or folk wisdom used to work. Advances in medicine and medical technology and practice are built on the backs of failure and success, trial and error, and so forth. The irony, I suppose, is that so much of modern medicine is built in denial of folk wisdom and folk medicine. Certainly a great deal of our medicine is made from ingredients which were discovered looking at various potions and witch’s brews, but since the very beginning of modern Western medicine, the denial of the past has been very strong, and yet the process by which the experts in the medical field find continuous improvement is very similar, if far more formal, to the process of handing down remedies and recipes from one generation to the next.
You see, what I'm doing here is accepting that this is how the scientific process functions, but questioning not so much the process, but the starting point and starting assumptions.
@Francis, It's not really about alt-medicine vs modern medicine. A good deal of alt-medicine is just more snake oil after all. The experts have infested that field to be sure. Lots of so-called alt-medicine gurus out there peddling an alternative to western medicine. But a lot of that is phony and we're suckered in. It's like druidism. Pretty much all that was once druidism is lost almost entirely but we have pop-druidism which rose up in its stead. It's not the same thing - more of a fantasy or wishful thinking really.
@Sam M, True enough, Sam. But then again, the rise of the parenting self-help book didn't happen for no reason at all. My point is not that our material or social concerns are somehow greater today than they used to be, but rather that our approach to solving problems has drastically shifted and is continuing to shift away from conventional or handed down wisdom to one beset by easy fixes and pulp non-fiction.
On “On straws and particularly the one that broke the camel’s back”
@Mark Thompson, As I mentioned in emails earlier, it is not so much my being surprised as it is my being fed up.
"
@Jaybird, Thanks, Jaybird!
On “Arizona and the failure of the Right”
@Mike Farmer, Oh they have certainly both failed - but do I have to always include the left when I accuse the right and vice versa?
"
@Nob Akimoto, Actually markets could be in this case. Rather than having a heavy-handed state try to stop immigration we could open up legal immigration much wider and let the markets absorb a huge number of new workers and consumers. Free trade and free movement of labor go hand in hand.
"
@Rufus, Tons of illegal aliens fly in. The walk-across-the-border phenomenon is greatly exaggerated.
"
@North, I think you're simplifying things, North. Couldn't we say the same about free trade? We'd be just fine if we threw up a bunch of tariffs, banned outsourcing jobs, etc. right? No negative consequences. We'd adapt.
"
@Simon K, I agree, Simon. Hugely expensive and completely ignorant of the actual need for labor. Trust me, plenty of industries could not operate the way they do without this influx of labor. And like I keep saying, the influx of labor leads to a more robust economy anyways. Making more slots available for legal workers is the best way forward.
"
@Scott, It's not as though workers who come here to work and live don't have to pay for a place to live, food to eat, clothing, transportation and numerous other items and services. All of that translates into more $$$ for everyone. More workers ends up meaning more jobs, more prosperity, and a better chance that the entitlements we pay for will remain solvent.
"
@greginak, That's for sure. The Dems in their infinite stupidity have included a National ID program in the initial drafts of their immigration bill. Maybe if we can build a high enough wall around the country and then make sure we know who and where everyone is within that wall at all times everything will be okay.
"
@Mike Farmer, I don't think open borders make sense, because there are valid security concerns that we have to take into account. I do support ending the war on drugs and vastly increasing legal immigration. I believe increased legal immigration is necessary and will eventually put upward pressure on wages.
"
@Daniel Larison, Daniel - the right has failed for innumerable other reasons as well - many of which you bring to my attention daily. On immigration they are not pro-immigration enough in simple, practical terms. We need to enforce our immigration laws, and I would support a great deal more funding for the border patrol, but unless we open up legal immigration much wider we are fighting an endless war akin to the war on drugs. Some have mentioned going after employers. Fine. Good luck with that. Wage stagnation has also been mentioned. Again - open up legal immigration much wider and you will see an increase in wages across the board. This law will only make law enforcement more difficult, because it conflates two wars - that of immigration and the war on drugs. Police will find their jobs much more difficult in the latter war if they cannot rely on the assistance of the immigrant community. Etc. etc. This is a failure of the right because they fail to understand the problem. In my estimation it is just as futile and stupid as their belief in nation-building. If we are to build empires we should do it right, go all out. Similarly, if we want to clamp down on the movement of labor, we may as well clamp down on free trade as well. If we use half measures we'll never achieve anything. But that's too authoritarian for me, so I would advocate opening up - legalizing immigrants and incorporating them into the broader culture. We'll need more workers not fewer in the long run.
On “Plato, “Gorgias” & ‘epistemic closure’”
Magnificent!
On “Folkways and knowledge”
@Mike at The Big Stick, Thanks, I'll do that Mike.
"
@Pat Cahalan, Once again, this is not an assault on science properly understood, but in how western medicine and other areas of social science have gone astray, and one reason why and how this is. No, I don't think most scientists went out of their way to purposefully demonize folkways, but I do think it was part of the story, especially when they came into contact with other cultures during the colonial days or in the New World. Rufus mentioned Indian Schools in Canada - they were here too. This is not something confined to science. It is the hubris of progress, in whatever form it takes, when that progress divorces itself from the past.
"
@Jaybird, You're right, Jaybird. I never once expressed any skepticism of science only the attitudes and approaches taken by many people who consider themselves scientists (and other experts).
On “Folk wisdom and the tyranny of the experts”
@Steven Donegal, Absolutely - I think something was done to the past. Not that the people of the past had no agency, but that there was a concerted effort to 'progress' away from folk wisdom toward a society more governed by the experts whether those were doctors or government bureaucrats. Has this had many benefits as well? Of course. Is it sustainable in its current form? I don't think so.
"
@Kaleberg, Well that certainly is representative of modern thinking. I'm not so sure your understanding of tyranny is as fleshed out as it could be - and regarding lying on one's back while giving birth being 'comfortable' let me just say that not a single woman I know who has ever had a baby would agree - but really this isn't a surprising sentiment. The demonization of the past is only equaled in ferocity by its glorification. Alas, both are generally far off the mark.
"
@Rufus F., Very well said, Rufus. Quite right.
"
@Martin28, I don't think you're reading very carefully.
"
@Creon Critic, Quarantining the sick, draining toxic humors and burning the witch all began at the outset of modern medicine. Before that people went to the witch for remedies.
"
@ThatPirateGuy, Hmm. I wonder if anything along those lines was in my post?
You see, what I'm doing here is accepting that this is how the scientific process functions, but questioning not so much the process, but the starting point and starting assumptions.
"
@Francis, It's not really about alt-medicine vs modern medicine. A good deal of alt-medicine is just more snake oil after all. The experts have infested that field to be sure. Lots of so-called alt-medicine gurus out there peddling an alternative to western medicine. But a lot of that is phony and we're suckered in. It's like druidism. Pretty much all that was once druidism is lost almost entirely but we have pop-druidism which rose up in its stead. It's not the same thing - more of a fantasy or wishful thinking really.
"
@Sam M, True enough, Sam. But then again, the rise of the parenting self-help book didn't happen for no reason at all. My point is not that our material or social concerns are somehow greater today than they used to be, but rather that our approach to solving problems has drastically shifted and is continuing to shift away from conventional or handed down wisdom to one beset by easy fixes and pulp non-fiction.
"
@Jonathan, Thanks Jonathan!
On “I know Mark Levin, and you sir are no Mark Levin”
@Koz, One could conclude that if they so chose. I'm not sure that's significant really.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.