Blackmail may be the death of us. Unless we’re saved by… Mexico

First - a one-paragraph example of one thing you could do: volunteer to be a local precinct election official or poll-watcher. The training is minimal and you could help ensure an honest vote, in the fall. Yes, it's mostly retired folks.  So? Consider talking some honest, smart retiree you know into doing this, especially in "swing" precincts. Just knowing such sharp-eyed folks are on the job could force the cheaters to try elsewhere! Think about it?

Now our main topic: I’ve long wondered if our civilization is tottering because of one devastating crime, above all others. 

== Blackmail == 

Elsewhere, I describe how it’s the best way to suborn an enemy nation. Other forms of corruption have boundaries… the official you bribed may say: “that’s my limit for this year,” or “that’s too much betrayal, even for me.” 

But the blackmailed person is locked in. And every added thing he does for you makes him ever-more your slave. 

There is a way for the blackmailed person to escape… by coming clean. By openly and publicly confessing, or cooperating with honest civil servants to entrap the blackmailers. But that requires guts. And patriotism of a degree we seldom see, even on a battlefield. Then there’s rationalization – often the blackmailed or coerced person justifies it all by converting to passionate belief in the blackmailer’s cause -- the Patty Hearst Effect. Or the Moscow embassy Marine guards. Or George F. Will.

Hence a warning!  If you find yourself embarking on a career in politics or any other area of influence, be wary of entrapment!  That lucky ticket that's too good to be true. That strangely convenient opportunity to cheat in some small way that you think is unobserved. That alluring member of your sex-of-preference who comes on to you... the methods are myriad and highly, highly developed. See where I describe the cycle, in detail. And the one thing I don't disrespect about Mike Pence is his keeping the ultimate defense talisman nearby -- his wife.

Above all, the blackmailed person – even if repentant -- must overcome a devastating sense of loneliness. There may be hundreds – even thousands -- of men and women, in Washington alone, who writhe within such a trap, imagining they are alone. Many of those betraying America, as we speak – and I’ll talk about the wave of inexplicable treason, below -- are probably steeped in isolation, with a sense of no-way-out. Blackmailers will push that feeling, never letting their slaves realize a central, redemptive truth --

-- that there is a path to salvation. I offered this method to President Obama, and he could have transformed America, but it never reached his eyes. Now, I am about to appeal to the next idealist who could use this maneuver to save his own country… and possibly the world.

== An open letter to the President–Elect of Mexico ==

Dear Mexican President-Elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador,

Would you consider a proposal/suggestion offered by an impudent science fiction author from Upper California? You face incredible problems and obstacles to fulfilling your vow and overcoming rampant corruption, giving citizens hope and confidence in the honest rule of law. Indeed, classic corruption is the least of your problems!

Far worse than bribery is blackmail. Whether a person was originally entrapped in some small misjudgment, or willingly did something awful, the man who is blackmailed is far easier for evil ones to control than someone who is merely greedy or venial. Indeed, there is strong reason to believe that blackmail pervades every government on Earth, and - lately - has thoroughly suborned the United States of America.

There is a way out of this! You - personally - could set an example to the world. Simply declare amnesty for the first twenty men or women who come forth into the light with profound information that could transform Mexico!

Yes, there must be standards. Let’s say they must surrender most of any ill-gotten gains. In order for it to count, they must tell-all! Name others, including their blackmailers. There will have to be guarantees of safety, witness protection and possibly foreign refuge. Arrange these, along with safety from prosecution. Indeed, if their revelations bring down higher figures, then promise 10% of any seizures, as a reward.

Promise that the first who come forward - bravely - to confess and to reveal, will not be known as pardoned criminals, but as heroes.

What do you have to lose? Is twenty enough? Make it a hundred! If no one steps up, then it cost you nothing. If this unleashes a wave of pardon seekers, make sure the brave ones who step up first get special honor. Some may accuse you of setting up pardons for cronies. But that will die down, as a tide of revelations sweep forth! Also note, you need no legislation to issue pardons… though legislation will surely follow.

For safety’s sake, issue an Exclusion List. Ask Law enforcement agencies to write down those criminals they have already built strong cases against. You can name a hundred men whose pardon requests will not be honored. Can you think of a better way to single them out and terrify them into making a deal?

Oh, this is not a new proposal. I have put it forward for many years, to no avail. 

But you are a special case. You are committed to eliminating the corruption that has ruined civil life in Mexico. Alas, people expect – cynically – that you will just slip into a familiar pattern, either that of the sellout presidents before you, or that of Chavez, Erdogan and Duterte. There will be overwhelming pressures to go in either of those directions, so you must find something that will propel the idealistic momentum right away, and unstoppably. 

This one thing would prove the cynics all wrong, from the very start!

I have plenty of other proposals, but this one is so simple and blatantly obvious that it needs no further explanation. Think. Nothing could possibly alter that situation as swiftly and effectively as a sudden and cleansing wash of light.

== Back in the U.S.S.A…. ==

How deep does the betrayal go, in America?

This long and terrifying piece finally broaches publicly what many of us have known and said. That the "Russia Thing" probably goes far deeper than even Trump's loudest critics dare to say. Those critics may be trying hard not to sound like Alex Jones, whose wild ravings make "conspiracy nut" an appellation any moderate American would shun. But what if that's the aim of Jones and Hannity etc.? 

There have been dire conspiracies in history. And yes, cries of conspiracy bear some burden of proof. (Jones/Fox never show scintillas of evidence, after 25 years of "Clinton investigations.")  But as proof piles skyward that Donald Trump's cabal are - at-minimum - mafiosi, when do we get permission to extrapolate the trend? To reckoning on the worst?

Yes, this article goes a bit over the top, in places. Heck I have, too, by calling this "phase 8 of the Civil War." But even accounting for that, how can you shrug off the trend? When every single US strength that won us the Cold War is being systematically dismantled? From our alliances and science to strong institutions, citizen confidence, trustworthy media and the moral high ground? When every fact-using profession – all of them - is under attack by Rupert Murdoch's cult? 

One such betrayal, or two, or a few, might have excuses like "stupidity' or 'dogmatism." But when all actions push in the same direction, I invoke Goldfinger’s Rule:

“Once, Mr. Bond, may be happenstance.

"Twice could be coincidence.

“Three times is enemy action.”

It's been a lot more than three times! Read this piece. And stop softpedaling or saying "he exaggerates." Yeah, maybe he does, in a few places. And it is past time we err a bit in the same direction. Or we're the stoopid ones.

== Are they planning to abandon us to our fates? ==

Okay, we’ve seen several types of traitors in this essay. Those who are avidly and actively helping foreign tyrants to bring down our Great Experiment… those who have been suborned or blackmailed into it. There’s also the classic duo of the Confederacy. Zillionaires who want a return of aristocracy and the populist-idiocrat millions who are in it for tribal reasons… no amount of heinous behavior is intolerable, so long as the Fox-confederate media tell them it’s okay. And especially so long as it galls the damn liberal or “fact” elites.

But what about those fact elites?  Are they necessarily on our side? Or might they also be conspiring against the West?

In “Survival of the Richest,” Douglas Rushkoff assumes the worst… that the betrayal of human civilization by aristocracy has two parts.  The dullard troglodytes of the right, who aim to topple our enlightenment in a microcephalic dream of restoring feudalism… and the smart billionaires, who are giving up the fight and fleeing for sanctuary.

Ah… sanctuary: as in the movie “Logan’s Run”?  We’ll return to that.

But first Rushkoff talks about interviewing a number of rich techno-transcendentalists (my term) who support things like life-extension, mind-uploads, mental augmentation and other ways that humans might move beyond present limitations. I have known a lot of these fellows for a long time. So has Rushkoff, so let’s hear what struck him:

        

“That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape....”

“They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.”

== Sorry, it’s not that simple ==

Look, I like Doug Rushkoff. But this oversimplifies out the wazoo. Sure, anyone can see that large swathes of oligarchy care only about the re-establishment of 6000 years of feudalism. Hence they use lavishly-paid propaganda-shills to demonize every single fact-using profession (name one exception), from science and journalism to the FBI and officer corps. 

And yes, many of them know they are risking planetary genocide and ecocide, and many are plotting their safety bolt holes.  I know several of those guys, and their favorite spot is… Patagonia, where land prices have spiked from poverty to resort levels, as they buy up everything from ranchitas to whole mountain ranges and watersheds, stocking them with arms and helicopters and bullion. 

(One fellow asked: "I have one problem that keeps me awake at night - if civilization falls, how do I keep my guards loyal?" In fact, I do know how. But the guy balked at my consultation fee. Fine. Go without sleep! The thought makes me smile.)

By comparison, the techies buying citizenship in New Zealand and financing “seasteading” experiments are actually kinda mild, even endearing.

Doug Rushkoff finishes his interesting (if hyperbolic) essay with an ultimate truth: “Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.”

Absolutely. It will take a flat-open-fair civilization - like this utterly unique one - to get out to the stars. That shared dream will see some creative types a tad richer than all the other rising boats, and that's fine.

Alternatively, if that wonderful civilization is stolen from us, there is no place -- on Earth or off -- where the thieves will be able to hide.

Hidden factors in the rush to immigration reform

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I favor immigration reform, under the general outlines that have been proposed both by President Obama and the recent bipartisan committee in the US Senate.  After a shellacking at the polls, Republicans now seem ready to join in resolving an array of issues.  Still, I'm less interested in discussing this consensus than factors that the public may not know about.

Four years ago, I made this topic #11 of my "Twelve Suggestions for the New Administration." At the time, I pointed out a number of ironies in: Control the Borders. Then, in October 2011, I offered a detailed appraisal of the immigration debate: the place for you to go for facts and figures and depth that I am not presenting here. Today, we'll concisely get to the heart of it.

First off - Republicans have always talked tough about controlling U.S. borders and reducing illegal immigration. while democrats are known for bringing up compassion, amnesty and all of that, implying a gentler border stance.  In practice, when they take power, each party tends to act in ways diametrically opposite to its  polemical position.

In 1993, as one of his first acts upon entering office, Bill Clinton doubled the number of field agents in the Border Patrol. In sharp contrast, one of George W. Bush's first endeavors was to savagely undercut that service, citing "budget reasons." (In fact, he did this tellingly, lowering our guard before the attacks of 9/11.) What did Barack Obama do, after taking the oath in 2009?  Exactly the same as Bill Clinton. Across the entire first Obama Administration, border enforcement was pushed hard, almost equalling economic factors in accounting for a steep drop in illegal border crossings.

It all sounds counter-intuitive, of course. Why would the parties say one thing, for appearances, yet do the opposite? The reasons are simple. Democrats like legal immigration, which results in lots of new voters and new union workers, while illegals drain resources, get embroiled (normally against their will) into crime, undercut union labor and prevent domestic programs from achieving full effectiveness.

On the other hand, Republicans -- well, not your neighbors, but some influential people near the top of the party -- like access to pools of cheap, undocumented labor that won't talk back for exactly those same reasons. Only when border state citizens began getting riled did the GOP start offering tough words on immigration. And words, for the most part, is all they ever supplied during the long eras when they operated the entire government. Where it comes to border security, GOP presidents going back to Reagan counted on their partisans to pay attention only to words, never actions.

This is what I predicted, back in 2009: "I fully expect the same political factors to apply under Barack Obama. Watch for a serious attempt to increase cross-border trade and legal human contacts, but to crack down on illegal crossers and smuggling. This change of emphasis also happens to be a good idea for enhancing homeland security. And those who are offended by this illustrate that "liberal" and "leftist" really are different terms that apply to different sets of political passions that are only allied part of the time. We must not assume that the former have to always cater to the latter."

== The Panorama in early 2013 for Reform ==

So what are we seeing in the new proposals for Immigration Reform?  Most attention goes to the "path to legalized status and then citizenship" and left-right arguments over details, like how easy the path should be and how big should be the fines that undocumented folks pay for having broken our laws... on the way toward becoming welcomed neighbors and fellow nortamericanos. 

I am interested in all of that, but fairly content with the bipartisan consensus we see forming. Indeed, it is wondrous to once again view pragmatic argument and negotiation take place.  Perhaps congressfolk will acquire a taste for it.

Regarding border security, I cannot suppress a giggle over watching the GOP being forced to actually vote for the very measures they have long loudly screamed for - even though in practice they spent decades blocking improved border security with every trick they could muster.  This victory for the Democratic Party (and unions) won't be viewed that way by the press or public, but it has to be galling to the top lords of conservatism, who strove for so long to keep the U.S. border weak and porous.

What is missing, however, is much public attention to legal immigration.  I have always found this strange, since legal immigration has been vastly more responsible for the ethnic changes taking place in the United States across the last generation. While Red America has fulminated against undocumented entries, those with perfectly good documents constituted the main flood, in the greatest influx of new faces to America since the 1890s. Why has this not been raised much in arch-conservative circles? Perhaps because to do so would lay bare some of the deeply racist and intolerant attitudes that underly fear of a changing America.  (Again, see my 2011 article for a detailed appraisal of population trends and why the parts of the U.S. who are most angry over immigration ignore the kind that actually affects numbers.)

Now, at last, a few aspects of legal immigration are being discussed. Especially a long desired ability to keep some of the wonderful students who get post-graduate tech degrees here, then were kicked out when they asked to stay and put those skills to work in the U.S.. That lunacy may end, at last.  Likewise there might be more visas for the world's smartest people to come to the U.S. to do research or start businesses.

As I said in 2009: "Let there be no mistake, I am proud of America's heritage -- and present-day status -- as the world's leader (by far) in offering opportunities to hope-filled people from all over the globe. Diversity is our greatest strength and immigrants often give far more than they take. 

"Nevertheless, as a nation, we have a right to have immigration be orderly and legal, at a pace that doesn't overstrain services. So long as we continue to be generous and prudently open, overall, immigration can even be tuned to benefit America in directly tangible ways. For example, by restoring somewhat of a merit system, especially when it comes to skilled workers that our industries desperately need, or allowing some of the foreign graduate students who we have (expensively) trained to stay and add their brilliance to our stew. After all, half a million people is half a million people. There's no rule of honor or nature that says we can't look for some of them to enter as a win-win deal."

Sound prophetic, for something written in 2009?

== Where Obama gets it wrong ==

One area where I sharply disagree with President Obama is his proposal to increase the number of people who immigrate through family sponsorship.  That may make me sound callous and unsympathetic!  But please pause and ponder before you judge. Yes, by all means re-unite parents and minor children or minor siblings.  Beyond that though... you start a chain cascade in which the newly admitted uncle then brings a wife who brings her sister who brings her husband, whose brother... it becomes completely arbitrary, a chain of entitlement without end.

It isn't even fair in a humanitarian sense! Note that families here can already send home remittances, or provide other means of immigration help. So those relatives already have tons more luck than their neighbors in the village, back in Guiana or Togo or Timor. They are already benefiting more than other folks overseas who don't have cousins in the U.S.

What about those other people in the old countries, not lucky enough to already have US resident cousins? Don't they deserve a chance, too?  Shouldn't the millions of others get to roll the dice?  Must luck be kept limited to arbitrary family chains? Isn't that just another form of inherited privilege?

Frankly,  I see no reason why other traits should not factor in, like industriousness, eagerness, cleverness, or attributes that indicate a real possibility of leveraging sudden luck into enriching both the new and old countries.  Heck, I'd deem a worldwide essay contest, or art or performance competition, or para-olympics, to be far more fair. More likely to benefit both America and those competing, whose vigor would prove them truly American in spirit.  Indeed, so long as the numbers stay the same, who is anyone to call my proposed method of choosing less compassionate?

(Ponder it almost through a sci fi lens: an avidly watched television show, in which 10% of our immigration slots go to those who present world audiences with something - anything(!) - extraordinary or excellent. From juggling to a tear-jerking lamentation of poor luck, to an ethnic song or dance, to a poem that tears our hearts out, to acts of goodness that transformed their home villages. And that world audience votes! And the prize is something coveted... that ALL the finalists win, after all. A home in the Land of Opportunity. 

(What an underlying message! One that could not be conveyed by a trillion dollars of propaganda. After all, how bad can the Evil Empire be... if everyone wants to go there?)

America deserves plaudits for being the nation of fresh starts. It is a moral claim that can never be taken away from us. Together with Canada, we take in more than half of the world's immigrants and it has been our glory.

But we have to use some basis to choose among those wanting in, doing so in an orderly and rational way -- one that is both generous and in keeping with our own best interests. Always look for the positive sum.  The win-win...

==
See also: Political Idea Bomb: Re-jigger the Immigration Debate  

Political Idea Bomb #1: Rejigger the Immigration Debate

What can any sensible American citizen do about the present political climate? (Wait... not "climate." Let's use a less divisively fraught word. "Environment?"  Aw hell.)

Rebuilding an optimistic, pragmatic, problem-solving, scientific, brave and world-valuable United States will be hard. The skill I'm paid for is looking at things from quirky angles - perspectives that hardly fit our tiresome cliches. So here's the first of several "political idea-bombs."

== The Immigration "Debate" ==

I've mentioned this before. Everything you think you know about immigration is probably wrong. For example, U.S. immigration rates have fallen during the world economic decline. And - as many point out - the jobs that are "lost" to undocumented immigrants are almost never filled by American citizens, even when the work goes begging.

So where does all the anger come from? Consider that the "white" category became a minority group, for the first time ever, in U.S. census figures.  Sure, it's the largest minority, by far. Even so it is inflated by the fact that many Americans of Hispanic background check "white."  Hence, the image of a multi-colored United States has millions writhing in discomfort, even if it delights  liberal intelligencia.

One visceral root of culture war, then, is understandably psychological.

What is the biggest driver of this rapid change in the makeup of the U.S. citizenry? Listen to the rage, and you'd think that it was an invasion, a veritable tsunami of wetback illegals. But facts speak otherwise. The driver of demographic change in America, over the last generation or so, has been legal immigration.

When ethnic quotas on immigration were removed in 1965, the number of first- generation immigrants living in the United States quadrupled, rising from 9.6 million in 1970 to nearly 38 million in 2007.  In 1990, George H.W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990, which resulted in an increase in legal immigration to the United States by 40%.

The United States admitted more legal immigrants in the most recent decade -- ten million legal immigrants settled in the U.S. Still, this represents an annual increase of only about 0.3% as the U.S. population grew from 249 million to 281 million. A lot of people. But remember  this isn't new. By comparison, the highest previous decade was the 1900s, when 8.8 million people arrived, increasing the total U.S. population by one percent every year. Specifically, "nearly 15% of Americans were foreign-born in 1910, while in 1999, only about 10% were foreign-born.

So why has the lion's share of attention gone to the smaller flow of undocumented aliens coming to the U.S., many of whom are only here temporarily? Well, part of it is a purely visceral matter of fairness and perception of equity. Take this, from The Public Agenda web site:

"In surveys, the public consistently makes a sharp distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. In general, the public looks more favorably on immigrants perceived as "playing by the rules." Illegal immigrants are viewed with much less sympathy. Half of those surveyed by Public Agenda say giving the government the power to detain legal immigrants indefinitely in the war on terrorism "goes too far," but six in 10 say illegal immigrants who are detained "don't deserve such protections because they are here illegally." What's more, six in 10 also say illegal immigrants should be deported immediately after being caught, without recourse to the courts. The distinction is strong enough that caution should be taken in reporting survey questions that do not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration or those that combine these elements."

Part of the fixation on illegal immigration, then, comes from the simple fact that it is disreputable and potentially embarrassing - even racist-sounding - to go after the larger flows of legal immigrants. Railing against illegals is more than sufficient.  In a movement whose goals are purely emotional, never practical, culture warriors spare nary a thought for the legal variety.

== A Pause for Perspective ==

Besides, the United States has so clearly benefited from immigration across the last 200 years that anyone who thinks otherwise must either be very ignorant or... well... a Native American. (Can't blame them, after all.)  Indeed, together with Canada and Australia, three countries account for nearly all of the legal migration around the world, a fact that (among other things) should give us a certain moral cushion, when outsiders complain about some of the mistakes made by Pax Americana. Study after study has shown that our vigor as a nation grew out of this tradition.

Indeed, there is a sci-fi kind of eugenical twist to all of this. Since we are all descended from people who came... albeit some of those ancestors arrived involuntarily... might that restless spirit underlie some of America's accomplishments? And its continuing potential for the future?

== Ironies Abound! ==
I'm not here to give a lengthy analysis of immigration law and its consequences.  I am no expert and don't claim to be. What gets my dander up, though, is the way that partisanship causes people to glom onto positions that often bear no relationship at all to facts.

For example, the notion that Republicans are harsh defenders of the border, while Democrats are wimpy pushovers.  In that case, how does one explain the fact that one of President Obama's very first acts in office was to boost the number of "boots" at the national boundaries and to demand a major rise in funding for the Border Patrol? This is no anomaly. Remember Operation Gatekeeper? It got a lot of play, back in 1993, when Bill Clinton virtually doubled the Border Patrol and began constructing new barriers along our then-porous borders?

In contrast, President George W. Bush, cut the BP in his first year. (Though, in fairness, Congress restored that funding in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, leading to a rise in staffing across the last ten years.)

These facts provoke cognitive dissonance, because they don't fit our preconceptions of left-versus-right.  But there really are logical reasons, if you pause and manifest that greatest human gift -- curiosity.

For some years, I thought the explanation was pure and simple. Why should Democrats like illegal immigration? No reason at all! Sure, touchy-feely niceness to newcomers can play well to the left wing of the party. Moreover, kindness and investment in kids who already live here makes sense, both morally and in purely practical terms.

But after saying all of that to the Democratic base, the politicians have to think about their top constituents - labor unions and urbanites. And those core groups have no reason to like floods of cheap labor. They prefer legal immigration - people with green cards who can join unions and who have good prospects to become new voters.

Supporting evidence: since 1986, Congress has passed seven amnesties for illegal immigrants, converting one kind of immigrant into the other.From the kind that are easily exploited by predatory employers to those who might vote and pay labor dues.

This explanation still seems pretty valid, even after qualifying it with this inconvenient fact: that Republican President George H.W. Bush signed that 1990 immigration law, accelerating legal immigration. Moreover, in 1986, Ronald Reagan signed immigration reform that gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in the country. Clearly, my pat division of motives merited some qualifiers, and I am willing to learn from facts.

Still, Democratic Congresses played a large role in boosting legal immigration, and they have always gone along with hikes in the Border Patrol. Those facts won't go away.

What about  Republicans? They go on and on, endlessly complaining about illegal immigration as a horrid betrayal, because that kind of red-rhetoric speaks to their base. But please dig it: they controlled the United States of America, top to bottom and every branch of government all through the first decade of the 21st Century, and nothing much was done.

Why? Because the folks who actually pay the GOP's bills have their own agenda. And a cynic can quickly see how many of them benefit from floods of immigrants who cannot complain or join unions or demand the minimum wage.

Can I prove these ironies? Only circumstantially; but shouldn't they provoke you to ponder?  The parties are rife with situations like this -- in which the public stance of dems or goppers can differ markedly from the actual policies that the party enacts, when it is in power.

(But this should come as no surprise.  The Republican values-base has never received anything that it really wanted, other than lip service, from the GOP. Again, the Republican Party had complete and absolute mastery of the Presidency, Congress and the judiciary, and gave the base nothing during all that time, about abortion or any other hot topic.  Only the aristocracy got what it wanted. Every time.)

== University America ==

Americans tend to self-flagellate over our "horrid education system." Elsewhere I ask - "if our schools are so bad, why do we have 85 of the 100 best universities on the planet?

The answers (several of them) are rather complex and never discussed in public... but the one reply I always get is "the best students are all foreign!"

In fact that answer is wrong. But even if it were true... so? Just think about that flood of foreign kids, flooding our colleges. Swarming in to learn, to better themselves and their homelands, and then - 90% of them - returning filled with new, wider values. What a deal! Especially when you note that they are paying for the privilege! It is the greatest investment in future peace and ensuring that the world's leaders are generally friendly to their second home - America.

But it goes deeper.  That 10% who remain here consists often of the very best, skimmed off the top and given visas, then citizenship. Envision this scam in its awesome majesty! Draw the world's best over here, teach them, infect them with new values, and keep the best? And they pay us for this? (Chuckle; hand-rubbing glee...)  Of course this has changed a bit. Chinese and Indian scholars now scurry back home because there's vast money to be made there. But the overall program still works.

It's an example of a win-win-win game. We used to be really good at finding them, before culture war imposed zero-sum thinking.  This particular one suggests some new directions for immigration policy.


== More Surprises? ==

Actually, there are issues that run beneath issues here, and they merit your consideration. Take the criteria that the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department have been required to follow, when doling out legal immigrant visas.

For decades, the top consideration went to re-uniting family members. And at first sight, that does seem a compassionate and just basis to allow people into the country, instead of keeping folks separated from those they love.

Except... isn't that just rewarding the lucky with more luck? And when you admit a legal immigrant's brother, then does the brother's son come along? Of course the son's mother (his wife) is next.  And then... her brother too?  And that brother's kid and wife... and so on...  Isn't it clear that there is no place to clearly draw a line?

There should be a way to say: "This here clan has had a lot of luck.  Let's pause for a while and let some of that good fortune go to the millions of others out there, who have their faces pressed against the glass."

Indeed, shouldn't we try for a positive sum game here? If we're limited in the number of people we can absorb per year, and can only take a small fraction of those who are both deserving an eager, then why not have a fair number of those slots go to those whose arrival will benefit us all, in clearcut and immediate ways? Are they any less deserving, just because they happen to be instantly useful?
Indeed, won't the increased prosperity they help generate here allow us to be more generous to others, in the future?

Canada and Australia and the U.S. all issue a certain number of Employment-Based visas. And a strong case can be made for increasing this number, along with slots for inventors and company builders and major investors. It has even been proposed to solve our current housing crash by giving a green card to anyone who immediately buys a home with $500,000 or more in cash.

(All right, that's rewarding the lucky, and it won't play well on the left. But those of you who follow my "contrary" swings know that I am perfectly happy aiming jabs in that direction! Sure, the right has gone completely bonkers with its War on Science and every other knowledge profession. But that doesn't mean their opponents are always correct, not by a long shot.)

== Listen Up, Rick Perry! ==

In fact, let me couch this as advice to a man I don't especially admire, and dislike in many ways... but a fellow who on occasion has actually intrigued me with the unconventional words that slip out of his mouth, from time to time.

(Example: the Texas Governor is the only other person I know who has publicly declared an obvious fat -- that the first phase of our ongoing American Civil War began in 1851, with southern oppression of northern states! Okay, I admit it; I'd buy him a beer, because to me interesting compensates for many sins, and I enjoy challenging disagreement more than I like parroted sameness.)

Okay, so right now Rick Perry has a problem regarding immigration. So crazed has the Republican base become that he must backpedal furiously from actions and positions that were completely mainstream in the GOP, during the era of Ronald Reagan.  It should be blatantly obvious to anyone with a mix of compassion and practicality that immigrant kids need health care and education... and we need them to be both healthy and educated. Duh? Well, the obvious becomes deniable, in times that Robert Heinlein called "The Crazy Years."

(Perry reminds me of the "good German" Oskar Schindler... who was a low-life scoundrel by the standards of a normal-calm nation, but who, when all his friends and neighbors went mad, refused to sink below a certain level of insane turpitude. Who then exhibited surprising heroism. We'll see if my comparison proves apt.)

Is there a way out for Perry?  Well, I can suggest one. Turn the focus toward legal immigration. A judo move. Get people talking about the larger flow, instead of the smaller. Get them talking about fresh ideas, like visas for investors and home-buyers and inventors. Take a lead there, making people talk. Heck, even blame the democrats for something they actually did for a change! (Increasing legal immigration.)

And lay it out as a bipartisan given that the border will be better policed, with new technology. Indeed, make technology a topic for optimistic talking points. (Remember Reagan?  Optimism can be good politics!)

Who knows, maybe some Republicans will even respond if you defy the Fox-propelled mad-lemming rush and actually say something good about science!  Yes, that may be too brave to ask of any GOP candidate.  Still it would set you aside from the pack...

== Shake it up! ==

What's my real point here?

Immigration, like most other policy issues, is far more complex than the simpleminded politics of this benighted-lobotomized era. An era when the sheer notion of the positive sum game is anathema... and so are people of the kind who use words like "anathema."

We could negotiate positive sum, win-win solutions, to this and a myriad other vexing dilemmas.  But it would have to start with accepting that complexity ain't evil. And neither is negotiation. And that is why I'll keep tossing these "idea-bombs."

Because some of you out there really want to live in a civilization that's worthy of the name. And together, maybe we can persuade enough of our neighbors to want it, too.