Comparisions between illegal immigration and illegal drugs?

[Pb]

Ending the war on drugs is a fairly popular position on this board (and THR).  Cracking down on illegal immigration is also quite popular.  I would like to suggest some of the things that make the war on drugs difficult are the same things that make enforcement of immigration laws difficult.  Illegal drug sales are voluntary on part of the seller and the buyer- considered a "victimless" crime by many, and thus it is difficult to stop them.  Illegal immigration is similar- the immigrant comes into the country voluntarily, and is hired by someone who what the persons labor.

If the war on drugs is not effective for this reason, would a war on illegal immigration be similarly doomed, regardless of the feelings of those attempting to enforce the law?

[Fjolnirsson]

I'd say there's a real difference, in that the War on Drugs leaves no outlet for drug use by those who want them. This drives the profit margin through the roof, encouraging criminal actions for monetary gain.
Illegal immigration can be greatly slowed by enforcement of existing laws. It would also require a reworking of the vast catalog of rules surrounding legal immigration at this time. A channel would be left open for those who wish to come to America for legal purposes. The Drug War lacks a release valve, which is what causes most of the trouble with it, aside from the ethical standpoint that it's wrong to deny people the right to poison their own bodies. There is no "right" to enter America.
That said, at this time, I am in favor of deporting all those who would willingly flaunt our immigration laws. Were the drug war to cease, and welfare handouts to illegals stop, I'd perhaps say to go ahead and open the borders. Illegals (for the most part), come here for three things:
Free stuff
Profits from the sales of illegal drugs
Earning money to send back home.

I do feel that sending money earnde here to another country weakens America, but to nowhere near the degree of the first two.

[Standing Wolf]

Illegal drug sales are voluntary on part of the seller and the buyer- considered a "victimless" crime by many, and thus it is difficult to stop them.  Illegal immigration is similar- the immigrant comes into the country voluntarily, and is hired by someone who what the persons labor.

The similarity you've posed is false. Illegal drugs are, indeed, voluntarily offered and purchased, and do, indeed, harm no oneexcept, of course, when people get spaced out and drive. Some drugs actually do cause all manner of ugly side effects, such as dementia after extended methamphetamine use; the vast majority, however, are no more harmful to the user than alcohol, which is entirely legal. Heroin, for example, is highly addictive, and dulls the intellect, but in and of itself, it's physically almost harmless. If the vast majority of prohibited drugs were suddenly legalized, they'd have a very small impact upon the nation. Most are dangerous only because acquiring them leads people to commit crimes.

Illegal aliens do, indeed, voluntarily invade our nation, and are, indeed, voluntarily hired in large numbers. Unfortunately for your similarity, you're overlooking the costs: unpaid taxes, welfare, housing subsidies, food stamps, education, social workers, prison guards, cops, ancillary costs of crime, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They're good for employers who want to keep their labor costs down, but the rest of us pick up an enormous tab to subsidize them. Some of that tab is measured in dollars, but it's also measured in lives destroyed, women raped, citizens terrorized by gangs, and the like.

Ending both the famous "War on Drugs" and welfare would be enormous steps forward for the nation; even so, opening the borders to any and all who'd like to live here would be cultural and social suicide.

Legal immigrants have always been one of America's greatest strengths; conversely, illegal aliens are a cancer in America.

[Gun Runner]

If heroin were legalized tomorrow, do you know anyone who would take up the habit?

[The Rabbi]

They of course are nearly identical in their problems.  And the arguments people on these boards use against making drugs illegal are even more applicable to immigration.  The net result of making drugs legal is to create more drug addicts, which results in the degradation of neighborhoods, violence and poverty.  The net result of legalizing immigration is to create more prosperous families competing for jobs.
People push for "tighter enforcement" in immigration, despite the fact that spending to control such immigration has increased hundreds of percent in the last 20 years with no discernible affect (actually made the problem worse, as the WSJ pointed out recently).
So why are people so committed to showing superficial "differences"?
It is part of the culture of egotism and narcissim that says "I have mine and the gov't needs to protect that.  Everyone else can go to hell."  So I guess freedom is good only for some people and only in some circumstances.

[Pb]

Standing Wolf, I disagree with you about the small cost of drug use, as far as "unpaid taxes, welfare, housing subsidies, food stamps, education, social workers, prison guards, cops, ancillary costs of crime".... drug abuse and drug addiction are involved in every single one of these issues.  I lived near several people on disability due to damage to themselves from drug abuse... some drug addicts neglect their children, increasing social costs, etc.

[roo_ster]

1. Drugs (legal or not) are not sentient.  Toss a pound of heroin across the border & it just sits there, waiting.  Toss an illegal over the border and Senor Illegal is going to do something.  A good analogy is the Keystone Kops in the TSA: they spend all their time searching for objects which are "dangerous," when what is truly dangerous are the people.

2. Drugs do not breed once over the border.  I have never heard of an inanimate object such as cocaine spontaneously sprouting off a child it then raises to create havok in our health, criminal, & school systems.  We also don't make that mythical coke-child a citizen of the USA, making it darn near impossible to send his felonious parents back to where they came from.

3. Illegal aliens are bad for many and good for very few.  Illegal drugs are good/neutral for many and bad for very few.  Doubt the latter statement?  Check out a poll of the percentage of Americans who have used an illegal drug...and then compare that number to the combined number of folks in prison, rehab, or killed due to illegal drugs.

4. Illegal drugs do not settle and then send missives back to the folks back home, inviting still more to come north and form a community alienated from American values.

5. I could go on...but the equivalence of the two problems is an illusion.

[The Rabbi]

Yes.  "Drugs" is a one syllable word and "immigrant" is three syllables.  One is a Germanic word and the other is Latin-based.  I could go on listing hundreds of differences like this.  You are right: no comparison at all.

[...has left the building.]

The only similarity is that when $0.01 of my taxes goes to either issue, it is no longer a victimless crime.

[The Rabbi]

The only similarity is that when $0.01 of my taxes goes to either issue, it is no longer a victimless crime.

Of course you could say that about any function of government that you don't support.

[Standing Wolf]

Some people do, indeed, damage themselves and others with drugs, just as some people damage themselves and others with alcohol.

The issue isn't whether drugsany drugs, all drugscan be abused, but whether individuals have the right to decide for themselves whether to take them. Do you have a right to decide whether to drink a beer this evening? Do you have a right to decide whether to max out your Visa card? Do you have a right to wear red socks? Do you have a right to...?

The federal government's famous "War on (Some) Drugs" is not only a complete waste of money, but probably encourages a fair number of people to try drugs. If the whole lot of them were legalized bright and early tomorrow morning, not only would they lose much of their allue to young people, but muggings, burglaries, robberies, and the like would go way down in extremely short order.

The federal government's efforts to combat the cancer of illegal aliens is a somewhat different waste of money: it's been horrendously expensive and ineffective, and stands in the way of taking serious, effective action.

By the way, the statement:

It is part of the culture of egotism and narcissim that says "I have mine and the gov't needs to protect that.  Everyone else can go to hell."  So I guess freedom is good only for some people and only in some circumstances.

is pure baloney. Those of us who are deeply concerned about illegal aliens aren't raciststhat's the most common nit-witted accusationnor are we egotists and narcissists. We're people who are sick of the crime, the flouting of law, the welfare, the food stamps, the crowded schools, the prisons filled to bursting, and all the rest of the ancillary effects of ignoring this invasion. There's a world of difference between welcoming qualified immigrants and wanting to maintain worthy American standards. Welcoming people who have something to offer our nation doesn't mean welcoming the dregs from Castro's prisons. Welcoming people who, in many cases, have waited well over a decade to come to America doesn't mean looking the other way from millions upon millions of others who just sneak in.

We in this forum really ought to have more moral and intellectual substance than to relieve ourselves of cheap ad hominem pot shots.

[The Rabbi]

So the result of illegal immigration is crime, flouting the law, prisons filled to bursting, welfare cases, etc.
Which is funny because most experts blame drug addiction for these things.

So you posit that if drugs were legal all these problems would go away.
But if immigration were legal it would add to these problems.

And you complain about a lack of intellectual substance.

[Chris Rhines]

As a wholehearted advocate of both drug legalization and unregulated immigration, all I can do is sit back and laugh at this thread.  

BTR is right on the money.

- Chris

[Firethorn]

While I do indeed support the cracking down on illegal immigration, it's because, by definition, those entering the USA are criminals.  Easy Victims and predators come over in quantity.

My position on it is the same as drugs.  There is a demand, which is fullfilled by a black market, which leads to smuggling.  The same people who smuggle people will also smuggle drugs.  Just depends which trip is easier or more profitable at the moment.

Our legal immigration system is screwed up.  What's the labor demand for?  Cheap manual labor.  Cornerstone of american immigration for centuries.  I say that we let them in.  Legally.  At the same time crack down on illegals, just as I'd crack down on those who still produce/sell drugs without a license(boy the FDA would love me!  They get the DEA's toys!), or not meeting requirements.

If you could enter as a documented worker for $20-100 and a quick criminal history check, illegal immigration would come to a screeching halt.  We'd be able to document and collect statistics on the workers, and they wouldn't have to be afraid to request police protection, report crimes, etc.    By what I've heard, illegals are considered prime targets for criminal activities as they generally won't talk to the cops.

At the same time dismantle the welfare system, so our bums as well as the cheap illegal workers can't take advantage of it.  If you can't make a living wage here, go home, accept a lower standard of living, or get educated.

I agree with Standing Wolf on the war on drugs.

I support ending the war on drugs.  I believe that our problems with them would actually decrease because people would stop making meth and go back to the cheaper and safer traditional drugs.  It's been calced out that without all the laws and controls that a bottle of medical quality Heroin would be competative with Aspirin.  What's this mean?  Well, a heroin junkie can get his fix panhandling on the street like a booze bum.  No need to steal to try to get the hundreds of dollars for his fix.  Compared the costs of trying and imprisoning a mugger, burgler, or robber, a booze bum is positivly cheap.

Meanwhile, you just deprived the gangs of their income.  

Standing Wolf, I disagree with you about the small cost of drug use, as far as "unpaid taxes, welfare, housing subsidies, food stamps, education, social workers, prison guards, cops, ancillary costs of crime".... drug abuse and drug addiction are involved in every single one of these issues.  I lived near several people on disability due to damage to themselves from drug abuse... some drug addicts neglect their children, increasing social costs, etc.

BTR, there are people on legal drugs that do the same thing.  There are people on no drugs that cost the government in that fashion.  You go after them for those reasons.  The drug use doesn't matter.  It's also been found that the 'nonfunctional addict' rate remains pretty much constant no matter what drug laws are.  If you made drugs legal, you'd have more people using them, sure, but they'd remain functional, especially with the traditionals.  Marijuanna, Cocaine, Opium, Peyote, etc...

[Fjolnirsson]

Firethorn and Standing Wolf..
+1(or would that be 2?)

[Glock Glockler]

Do drugs commit crimes, espionage, get welfare doles, carry diseases, etc?

There is a difference between an actual substance that someone ingests and a person, they are not the same thing.  

That being said, both a war on illegals and on drugs is not going to address the root of the problem, which is govt nonsense in both situations.  On that note however, you have to consider the effects of a population's ability to vote themselves more doles, do you really think an uneducated Mexican making 17k/yr will vote to have all his govt provided social services taken away so he can pay for them directly?

What do you do when govt nonsense is the underlying problem but you are inviting more and more people who will vote for increased govt nonsense?

[The Rabbi]

Do drugs commit crimes, espionage, get welfare doles, carry diseases, etc?

There is a difference between an actual substance that someone ingests and a person, they are not the same thing.  

That being said, both a war on illegals and on drugs is not going to address the root of the problem, which is govt nonsense in both situations.  On that note however, you have to consider the effects of a population's ability to vote themselves more doles, do you really think an uneducated Mexican making 17k/yr will vote to have all his govt provided social services taken away so he can pay for them directly?

What do you do when govt nonsense is the underlying problem but you are inviting more and more people who will vote for increased govt nonsense?

Do abstract ideas cause poverty, crime, and disease?  No.  Immigration is an abstract just like drugs are merely a substance.
Most illegal immigrants don't vote, so that is a straw man argument.  But most of them do pay payroll taxes (unless they are working for cash) and do pay sales taxes.  Like most working people they see the value of their wages eroded by taxes, so arent likely to vote themselves more benefits.  In fact legal immigrants tend to vote Republican and tend to be anti tax and anti government regulation more so than native born Americans.  I wouldnt expect illegals to be much different from that.

[Glock Glockler]

No.  Immigration is an abstract just like drugs are merely a substance

ab·stract (ăb-străkt', ăb'străkt') adj. Considered apart from concrete existence

Immigration is when someone crosses a border into a country, that is plenty concrete.

Most illegal immigrants don't vote, so that is a straw man argument

I have seen, with my own eyes, illegals vote.  I have also seen vans of the local party machine go looking for illegals to ship them to the voting station.  I kinda doubt someone would identify themselves as illegal before voting, so where do get your information to make the claim "most" illegals don't vote?

Like most working people they see the value of their wages eroded by taxes, so arent likely to vote themselves more benefits

If someone isnt paying income taxes or they make so little money that it doesnt really matter they can derive disproportionate benefit from govt programs.  Paying for schooling, healthcare, food, housing, etc. directly will cost a lot more than if taxes in general go up.  The great thing about taxes is that everyone else who isnt using your service gets to pay for you.  What a deal!  

In fact legal immigrants tend to vote Republican and tend to be anti tax and anti government regulation more so than native born Americans.  I wouldnt expect illegals to be much different from that

I think it depends on whose Ox is getting gored.  I know several immigrants from India who are high income earners who loose out from higher taxes and regulation, they also tend to be more educated and understand how things like economics work.  If also know several low income immigrants who want higher taxes on others so they may have govt programs for themselves.

[The Rabbi]

I bow to your superior experience.