What about Israeli Art Student visas?

Mr. Raimondo, please consider, Paul, in a 30 second commerical, is suggesting systematic changes to how we let folks into the country.  Why “libertarians” would express particular outrage about foreigners getting into Marxist/citizenry supported outposts like higher ed requires some greater nuance in the present climate, let alone, what sort of gift to the world is another Marxist?

I’m a big Ron Paul supporter, but I agree with your critique of the ad.
I’d say I’m an open borders guy.  I have no problem with mass
immigration into this country.  Further, should Ron Paul get
into office, it will be nice to have some hard-core libertarians
keep him honest.

First of all, in practice, the government isn’t really issuing student visas to “terrorist nations” (i.e., Arab, Muslim countries), and Ron Paul I am sure knows this. There isn’t a single terrorist attack that has occurred in a Western country that I can think of that would have been prevented with this policy. All it would have done is keep people like Benazir Bhutto from studying at Harvard. But unlike Justin, I have a problem with the rest of the commercial. The commercial’s imagery implies there is some great difference in the motivations and character of the (European) immigrants that arrived at Ellis Island and those crossing the Rio Grande (Mexicans). I think they are for the most part the same. Both immigrant groups primarily want and wanted to take part in the economic opportunities America offers. Both groups work very hard and have done alot to build this country. I wouldn’t say I’m an open borders person and I support a reasonable system of border security, but I do not see illegal aliens as that much of a problem and I believe America having commerce and interaction with the rest of the world is a very good thing. And I can’t believe I am saying this, but McCain and Bush are right, Ron Paul is wrong: illegal aliens should have a path to citizenship.

GM

While I think you are correct about the Euro vs. Latin American immigrant comparison for the most part, I can personally confirm more than a few illegals who came here just for perceived ‘benefits’. 

The way to attack the immigration issue without being ‘unlibertarian’ is to attack benefits for illegals - IE welfare, tuition, etc.

David Maxwell:

I agree that in general illegal aliens should not be collecting welfare benefits, but I think illegal aliens are crossing the border mainly for better job opportunities, not welfare benefits, and also, illegal aliens do contribute to the tax base of the country.

These students tend to immigrate here; they stay legally and illegally.

And what about Trifkovic’s Sudden Jihad Syndrome?

The best way to defend the US from jihad is by keeping most foreign Muslims out.

If we must educate the world, may we do via Internet schools?

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And sure, if the tendency of their remaining in the US illegally was removed, it would pose less of a threat.

However, students tend to be young, and young males tend to be more violent. And they stay 3-5 years or more if doing grad school+. There’s also the increased chance they’ll marry an American after being here for so long.

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This is pandering to the worst, Tom Tancredo-esque paranoia and outright ignorance (or do I repeat myself?) and is not worthy of Dr. Paul.

Well, I guess this sums it up: I preferred Tancredo and his defending of Western Civilisation.

Quote Raimondo: “This is pandering to the worst, Tom Tancredo-esque paranoia and outright ignorance (or do I repeat myself?) and is not worthy of Dr. Paul.”

- this was quoted from Raimondo’s blog entry. I put it in blockquote, but that tag isn’t used here I think.

In my comment to the campaign, I began “I hope you only did this to see if we were paying attention”.

The fundamental attraction of Ron Paul is his integrity, and this seems to violate it.  Dozens of times he says we should trade with all nations, and generally be open to them, so the last line in the ad seems like he is doing a flip-flop.  I can’t think of another instance where he has said something rash or inconsistent with liberty (some accusations were from things pulled out of context).

I would have much prefered he attack NAFTA/WTO or the UN.  Or the H1B guest worker program.  But students?

(In the comment at the AW blog I was supported, but noted most college campuses are not the place to learn anything about liberty, tolerance, etc.).

There are problems with “students” on visas.  One problem (talk show host) Tom Likas noted is libertarians can’t explain anything in less than 5 minutes.  Much less 3 seconds.  Many overstay the visa.  Some attend a few classes, but really are working.  But this applies to white european students as much as those from Somalia or Pakistan.

Or perhaps he will note that Saudi Arabia is more of a “terrorist nation” by any consistent definition than most on the list.  There are many explanations possible.  But Dr. Paul needs to issue a clarification.  (And make some changes in the campaign staff elite).

Libertarians are ideologues, like Marxists, and are in agreement with the neocons in supporting mass non-Western immigration into the U.S. 

America historically has been a Western nation, and there’s nothing wrong with keeping it that way.

Mexicans are not Western.  With the exception of a small upper class of European blood, 30% of Mexicans are Amerindian and 60% are Mestizo (mostly Amerindian with a little Spaniard blood). 

Muslims and Middle Easterners also are not Western.  And they should not be allowed to immigrate to the U.S., nor any Western country for that matter.

Many on this list seem to have bought into the PC mantra:  “Africa for Africans, Asia for Asians, South America for Mestizos, and the West for Everyone.”

MEXICAN GANGS ACCUSED OF TARGETING BLACKS

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer Mon Dec 31, 2007

LOS ANGELES - In a murderous quest aimed at “cleansing” their turf of snitches and rival gangsters, members of one of Los Angeles County’s most vicious Latino gangs sometimes killed people just because of their race, an investigation found.

There were even instances in which Florencia 13 leaders ordered killings of black gangsters and then, when the intended victim couldn’t be located, said “Well, shoot any black you see,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said.

“In certain cases some murders were just purely motivated on killing a black person,” Baca said.

Authorities say there were 20 murders among more than 80 shootings documented during the gang’s rampage in the hardscrabble Florence-Firestone neighborhood, exceptional even in an area where gang violence has been commonplace for decades. They don’t specify the time frame or how many of the killings were racial.

Los Angeles has struggled with gang violence for years, especially during the wars in the late 1980s and early ‘90s between the Crips and the Bloods — both black gangs. Latino gangs have gained influence since then as the Hispanic population surged.

Evidence of Florencia 13, or F13, is easy to find in Florence-Firestone. Arrows spray-painted on the wall of a liquor store mark the gang’s boundary and graffiti warns rivals to steer clear.

The gang’s name comes from the neighborhood that is its stronghold and the 13th letter of the alphabet — M — representing the gang’s ties to the Mexican Mafia.

Federal, state and local officials worked together to charge 102 men linked to F13 with racketeering, conspiracy to murder, weapons possession, drug dealing and other crimes. In terms of people charged, it’s the largest-ever federal case involving a Southern California gang, prosecutors say. More than 80 of those indicted are in custody.

But eliminating the gang won’t be easy. It’s survived for decades and is believed to have about 2,000 members. Its reach extends to Nevada, Arizona and into prisons, where prosecutors say incarcerated gang leaders were able to order hits on black gangsters.

According to the indictment, F13’s leader, Arturo Castellanos, sent word in 2004 from California’s fortress-like Pelican Bay State Prison that he wanted his street soldiers to begin “cleansing” Florence-Firestone of black gangsters, notably the East Coast Crips, and snitches.

His followers eagerly obeyed, according to federal prosecutors.

In one case, F13 members came across a black man at a bus stop, shouted “Cheese toast!” and fired. “Cheese toast” is a derogatory name for East Coast Crips, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin S. Rosenberg said.

The victim, apparently targeted only because of his skin color, survived being shot several times, Rosenberg said.

F13 isn’t the only Latino gang linked to racial killings. Last year, four members of The Avenues, a gang from the Highland Park area east of downtown Los Angeles, were convicted of hate crimes for killing a black man in what prosecutors called a campaign to drive blacks from that neighborhood. And last January, authorities announced a crackdown on the 204th Street gang following the killing of a 14-year-old black girl.

The violence goes both ways, said Adam Torres, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department gang detective whose beat includes Florence-Firestone.

During a recent patrol on the east side of the neighborhood, he pointed to a cinderblock wall peppered with bullet holes. Torres said the Crips still control that area and any Hispanic there is at risk of being shot.

Despite the wave of violence, George Tita, a criminologist with the University of California, Irvine, said racially motivated gang killings are an exception. Latinos and blacks are far more likely to be murdered by one of their own.

“You don’t see these major black-brown wars, either within the context of gangs or outside the context of gangs,” Tita said.

Residents of Florence-Firestone are loath to discuss gangs, fearful they might end up as targets, but there are signs of change. Murders in the neighborhood dropped from 43 in 2005 to 19 in 2006, Baca said. For 2007, there were 19 murders as of Dec. 24.

Jose Garcia sees the difference. The security doors on the store where he works aren’t covered with graffiti as often and he hasn’t heard a gunshot in two months.

“It used to be at least once or twice a week,” he said.

Justin, are you familiar with what is really going on
at our science and Engineering Graduate Schools
TODAY. I matriculated in 3 of them 20-30 years ago.
And 2 of my 3 kids presently attended and applied to
more than a dozen of them. As an undergraduate, my
daughter was a national merit finalist and had a 4.0
and a 35 out of 36 on her ACT. She could not get into
any college she wanted outside of the southeast. And
of course out of state tuition assistance was out of
the question anywhere. But lets leave that issue alone..

Its true that when I went to graduate school at Case
Western Reserve 5 of the 30 graduate students in my
department were Americans and none of those 5 were
in the PhD program. That hasn’t changed. At LSU in
the Electrical Engineering Department 3 out of 60
are Americans. But lets leave that issue alone.

What has changed is the foreign students are now
going back to their countries and competing with us.
So we are turning away solid American students to
train our competetion. Many are being subsidized.

Re the comments to your post on Antiwar.com, you write: “half were supportive, and the other half not very. The latter, furthermore, were outraged that I criticized Paul at all: I should have kept quiet, no matter what I thought, for the good of The Cause.”

Really?  All of the latter?  Outraged irrational zealots?  That’s rather a broad brush.

Mass immigration with a welfare state only grows government. And Ron Paul’s position on immigration hasn’t changed in six years

Justin,

I never for a moment doubted your commitment to Ron Paul’s campaign.  I also shared your reaction to the last few seconds of the immigration ad.  For someone who has been an admirer of Dr. Paul for several years since first stumbling upon him at LRC it was like a kick in the stomach--or perhaps somewhere a bit south of that target.

Anyone who has followed this campaign closely, especially from the grassroots side, might be excused for seeing the incompetent hand of the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee in this mess.  This point out one of Ron Paul’s worst flaws--yes he has a few--his almost naive trust in the people who work for him.  Does the name Dondero ring a bell? These are the same people who, after the grassroots flash rally following Ron Paul’s exclusion from the Iowa Iowans for Tax Relief Forum promised to deliver 10,000 votes in the Iowa Straw Poll only to see his disappointing 5th place showing with 1,305 votes.  The same people who short circuited the Philly Rally and have generally conducted themselves in the finest tradition of LP lethargic amateur dog catcher campaigns. 

Dr. Paul is where he is and we are where we are in spite of the PCC.  Whatever our eventual successes it will be because of him and us, not because of them.

Bob:

You are basically making a protectionist argument for college admissions which is wrongheaded. The main reasons Americans are not getting admitted to top colleges has to do with the fact that our public schools are doing a poor job educating people and, frankly, that many American students, instead of applying themselves to their studies, are out drinking and getting involved in god-only-knows-what. Also, getting a college education isn’t a zero sum game. If the demand for an education is there, educational institutions will expand their programs and admissions. In fact, in many cases, foreign students actually subsidize programs because they don’t get the same level of financial support that the American students do. Finally, if you go to Silicon Valley and to global powerhouse companies like Google, where do think they draw their pool of talent from? Without the foreign students, these companies either will not exist or they will shift operations overseas.

It would be such a crime if American universities were actually for the benefit of Americans.  It would be such a crime if the University of Kentucky accept mostly Kentuckians to its medical program.  Let’s just ban (white) Americans from the universities their ancestors built and populate them all with imports from India and China.

But John Jay, it’s a cult. The libertarian ideology works only if we all convert to their ideology (replace ideology with religion at will.)

To wish to better our own is blasphemy. That man naturally wishes to do so is ignored.

I doubt one can reason with zealots.

Justin,

I cannot read the link as my computer doesn’t support it, but I agree with you in principle and your support for Ron Paul is unchallenged.  I look forward to an article regarding the FOX exclusion of Ron Paul from debates based on faulty poll numbers.  Please provide a list of FOX advertisers wwho can immediately feel the results of trying the fix the election in their favor.

There are two problems with it: first, it imposes collective punishment on an entire class of individuals on account of their nationality.

Collective punishment? Paul’s idea is sensible. Of course he could have said the student visas for those nationals would be reinstated once the designated nation stopped supporting terrorism.

But the position of Mr. Raimondo could be framed as “Libertarians want to reward nations which support international terrorism by giving their nationals student visas so they can study at our elite American Universities.”

This “terrorist nation” business—which hits the viewer over the head at the end—alienates those brought in by his antiwar message.

Not me. I have no problem identifying as “terrorist” those nations which support terrorism, and I am an antiwar Paul supporter.

GM ...

You make some good points but you make them too
strongly. I’m going to refrain from rearguing
some points I made in my first post that you have
chosen to ignore, but reread the statistics I gave
you and defend them in your own mind.

I’m sure few science american graduate students do get
drunk on weekends. None I’ve met. Since you grouped
them all in a scenario you seem to know let me be a
counter-bigot for a minute. I met many foreign students
who get through graduate school by cheating. It seems
to be in their culture. If you have experienced
graduate schools you could not avoid seeing this.

Like Pat Buchanan, I don’t come by my “protectionist
views” easily. But we are not dealing with a fair
playing field. Apply to Graduate school at university
of Maryland. For their application essay they will
ask you how you will contribute to the “diversity”
of their university. Yes, I concede they are
interested in how hard you are willing to work.
But not so much in your intelligence. In fact,
they prefer it if you don’t have a life.

And your Silicon Valley comment is looking backward.
They are going back to their own country to work
and to teach. Silicon Valley is going to come crashing
down. Intel is expanding in Israel. Tell me my tax
money is not indirectly subsidizing that. Anything
for the new world order right?

Your arguement about foreign students supporting our
universities is kind of like the argument that
illegal aliens do the work Americans don’t want
to do and help our economy. It has the same kernel of
truth, but it suffers from the same set of weaknesses. The old slippery slope.
I know the situation is not the way we would have
liked it when we started to intervene but what do
we do about it now?

The answer...like in Iraq… extricate yourself and
don’t blame me if it is not pretty.

If elected, Dr. Paul will be far more likely t

And then there is Ron Paul’s strange support of re-regulation of rail freight, which can play only into the hands of the oil companies.  In 1980 Jimmy Carter (that pro-big gov’t liberal!) signed the Staggers act, which deregulated rail freight, into law, and the fuel saving freight railroad industry blossomed anew.  Bush and the Republicans (smaller gov’t, right?) are doing all they can to sabotage our railroads, even blaming the collapse of that bridge in Minnesota on the $$$ AMTRAK siphons from highway funds; of course, Iraq has nothing to do with that.  Is Ron Paul a true libertarian?  I wonder.

I am sure Dr Paul will do the right thing if elected. If his ad gets him some of the anti-immigration vote more power to him.
I’m sure he will declare Israel a terrorist state and Keep their “art students” out of the U.S.

I concur with all who have called Justin out for hyperbole bordering on the hysterical.

That said, a 30-second political ad can go into little detail.  I feel confident that Dr. Paul would advocate a list of terrorist-supporting nations that is accurate.  He would undoubtedly replace the foolish and self-serving Bush roster, which demonizes some innocuous and/or inconsequential nations, while excluding “allies” whose support of terrorism and terrorists is blatant, long-standing and beyond debate.  As a previous comment suggests, let men of good will in such nations stay home to influence and educate more men of good will until terrorism is no longer supported by their governments.

The US Constitution is not a suicide pact, but an open-borders policy most certainly is.  Ever the constitutionalist, Dr. Paul demonstrates in the border security campaign ad his devotion to the national government’s primary legitimate purpose: the defense of the United States of America at the frontiers. Moreover, in that context he reiterates his blanket condemnation of the unconstitutional welfare state.