Ron Paul on immigration


Presidential candidate Ron Paul has been getting a lot of publicity for being the only Republican candidate who opposed the war on Iraq.



Ron Paul was once a Libertarian presidential candidate, is known for opposing most government programs.



However, Ron Paul wants more restriction on immigration, which will make government bigger & intrusive.



Stuart Hayashi sent me a great email on this topic



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I remember the good old days, when U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said that he wanted to eliminate federal expenditures on wasteful government boondoggles like Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere.



"Yet Dr. Paul voted in favor of the ridiculous "border fence."



As Penn & Teller demonstrated, the border fence won't even be able to keep Mexicans out of the United States; they can easily scale over it, burrow under it, or even burst through it. (Uh, not that I mind the fence's inability to keep Mexicans out.)



Since the border fence won't even be able to fulfill its explicit purpose, it will serve as a deterrent against Mexicans illegally entering the country in no manner other than sending the implicit message "You're Not Wanted Here."



So, basically, Dr। Paul and the other Congressmen who voted for this bill have committed to spending hundreds of millions of dollars to . . . make a rude gesture.



This is a much more wasteful boondoggle -- a far more deplorable white elephant -- than some Bridge to Nowhere. It's a fence in the middle of nowhere that doesn't keep peope out.



Of course, it could be much worse -- I would be much more incensed if all this money were spent and it actually *succeeded* in keeping the Mexicans out.



As HPU Reason Club veteran Pablo Wegsend (2000-2005) [that's me ] put it, "In other words, Ron Paul wants to propose big government! After all, government would need to expand to find out who's illegal? That means more regulations on business, more regulations on human movement, mandatory ID cards, etc."



That's true. The exact same Ron Paul who accuses other Republicans of supporting fascist measures that trample on civil liberties for some imaginary increase in national security, is actually implementing the exact same program against undocumented Mexicans.



Ostensibly for the sake of preserving American security, Dr. Paul is abrogating the lives, liberty, and private property of Mexican aliens, not on account of their initiating force against anybody's life or private property, but simply because they are in this country without his permission.



But aren't the Mexicans trespassing on Americans' land? Not when they're working on some private site for really low "sweatshop" wages.



America -- "our" country -- is not public property. It is an assemblage of privately-owned plots of land that are adjacent to one another.



I think of America as being like a jigsaw puzzle. A puzzle piece is a private plot of land. The edges of the piece represent the boundaries separating one private plot from another.



You can peaceably do what you want with your own private plot of land, and I peaceably do what I want on my private plot.



You do what you want on your puzzle piece, and I do what I want on my puzzle piece.



So if Dr. Paul doesn't want Mexicans on his land, he doesn't have to invite them onto it.



But he doesn't have the right to exercise government force -- backed by guns -- to prevent Prof. Schoolland from peaceably inviting consenting adult Mexicans onto the Schoolland Estate.



And since this is all peaceful, why should Prof. Schoolland and the Mexicans first have to get a Permission Slip from Dr. Paul and the State before they go through with this?



If Dr. Paul believes that he is right to have the State punish Prof. Schoolland for peaceably inviting Mexicans onto his own land, without first getting the government's permission, then, essentially, he's arrogating to himself the moral right to dictate over other people's private property.



If the government can dictate over whom you can or can't peaceably invite onto your own real estate, then the government is implying that your land doesn't ultimately belong to you; it belongs to the government.



That is the nationalization of real estate. It's Land Socialism.



The exact same Ron Paul who balks at the nationalization of health care and the steel industry would, in practice, himself nationalize land in this country.



And the argument that "Mexicans shouldn't be allowed into America freely until welfare is abolished for them" is utterly fatuous.



Is it true that no new X's should be freely allowed into America until all public expenditures on X's are abolished?



Farms and corporations get welfare, too.

If it's true that no new Mexicans should be allowed in America without facing a ridiculously cumbersome approval process, until welfare for Mexicans is banned, then wouldn't it also be true that no new farms should be allowed to exist in America without facing a ridiculously cumebersome approval process, until welfare for farms is banned?



Yet Dr. Paul says that the government already makes it too hard to start a new farm or new business in this country.



That's a double-standard on his part, especially since the conservative Heritage Foundation (another opponent of open immigration) actually admits that more money is spent on welfare to corporations and farms than is spent on the poor (including poor illegal aliens).



So when Dr. Paul votes for increases in federal spending to prevent greedy corporations from "exploiting" undocumented immigrant laborers, and to stop those Mexicans from "stealing" our jobs, he is voting for Big Government and Statism.

Kam Bowl

Kam Bowl's is closing down this coming week.


http://starbulletin.com/2007/06/06/news/story03.html

Kam Bowls was one of my favorite eating places , which is across the street from Kam Shopping Center (both places named after King Kamehameha) and right down the mountain from (drumroll, please) Kamehameha Schools.

(what an irony, my previous post criticized King Kamehameha!)

ANYWAYS!

Kam Bowl had a bowling alley and a restaurant (Kapiolani Coffee Shop).

While Kam Bowl was famous for it's oxtail soup (my dad's favorite), I really, really loved it's fried rice & scrambled eggs.

While many people prefer a fancier place to eat with their families on their birthdays, I always chose to have my birthday meal at Kam Bowls.

Unfortunately, on my birthday (October 15th) last year, there was an earthquake, so I wasn't able to go to Kam Bowl.

Because Kam Bowl is about to close down, I won't be able to have another birthday meal there!


So it means my last birthday meal @ Kam Bowl's was my 25th birthday in 2005.

End of last year, Tower Records closed (see my 12/21/06 post) and Kam Bowls is going to close. It makes me wonder what other favorite business of mine would close in the near future?

I'm going to miss Kam Bowl and it's fried rice & scrambled eggs!

Kamehameha Day

I remember back in 2001, I was going to write an article on Kamehameha Day for Ka Leo (U of Hawaii's newspaper). However, the whole thing was delayed by the editor, who claimed to want a longer editorial. I was hoping that it would be run right before Kamehameha Day, but by the time I got the article ready, it was too late.

I wonder if then-Opinions editor (Jeremy Pippin) really wanted a longer, clarified article, or if he was too much a chicken-boy to run a controversial editorial.
Anyways, here's the long delayed article from my email archives!

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Every June 11, the state of Hawaii celebrates Kamehameha Day. This holiday honors King Kamehameha I, the man who is credited for uniting all the Hawaiian islands.

But what are we celebrating on Kamehameha Day? Is it just the unification of Hawaii. Most people would say so. But there is a darker side to all this, a dark side few would admit because of the fear they would be called a "racist" or "anti-Hawaiian", if they're not Hawaiian, or "sellout" or "acting haole" if they are Hawaiian.

You see, Kamehameha united the islands by invading the islands through military conquest. Kamehameha took over Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Oahu in 1795 thorugh violence. Though Kaui and Niihau came under Kamehameha's control peacefully, that didnt erase the fact that he took over the other islands through force.

And what motivated his conquests?

King Kamehameha I had a lust for power. The same lust for power that motivated Hitler to "unite Europe", Saddam Hussein to "unite Iraq and Kuwait", white colonizers to "unite America and Hawaii".

Not only that, there was no democratic reforms, no freedom of religion or expression. We currently condem third world nations that refuse to allow elections or the freedom of expression or religion, yet silent when the same happened during Kamehameha I's reign.

It's ironic that many in Hawaii get upset when they hear that in Japan, the Japanese troops of WWII are look at heroicly, when we in Hawaii look at Kamehameha heroicly. We are shocked when the Japanese education system deny the atrocities commited by Japanese troops during WWII, when we aren't even discussing whether Kamehameha's invasion was ethical.

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(that was the end of my old editorial)


It's also ironic that there is so much anger towards Sanford Dole and Lorrin Thurston for overthrowing Queen Lilioukalani in 1893, meanwhile there isn't so much anger towards Kamehameha for overthrowing the chiefs of Maui and Oahu!

I guess some people just feel better being brutalized by those of the same race!

There was also anger towards William McKinley for being the US President who made Hawaii a US territory.

My high school was named after William McKinley. Some Hawaiian activists wanted the school to change it's name. Nevermind that there's a large private school named after King Kamehameha, who violently colonized Oahu, Maui, Lanai and Molokai.

It is Kamehameha Schools that has an ancestry-based (read: race-based) admissions policy. Meanwhile, McKinley High School is a public school that has students who come from various parts of the world!

The Hawaiian activists like to bring up that Punahou was started as an all-whites school. They dont' even bother to deal with the fact that Punahou is now an integrated school with some Hawaiian students!

Punahou's alumni includes Barack Obama & Michelle Wie. So much for Punahou being "whites only"

As one friend mentioned in an email "So between Punahou and Kamehameha, which decided to rectify past injustices, and which has kept its blinders on? Which has chosen to step forward with social progress, and which has yet to enter the twenty-first century?"