Immigration

 

Well. That's awkward. I solved the immigration crisis. I previously advanced the argument that liberty trumps property, and there have to be public roads to get from A to B, which is a leaky boat of political philosophy that adds to our difficulties, instead of fixing things. Don't fret. I have another brick in the border wall. It was implicit that no newcomer or stranger can cross fenced property lines, which exist in profusion on both sides of the public road, aside from churches, hospitals, schools, police stations, and other institutions that talk to paupers routinely and extensively. Everything takes several hours in an E.R. or days in a jail cell. Religious institutions are notorious slow. But strangers are welcome to witness head scratching and low energy among those who engage in public assistance. I did some of that when I was younger and more generous with my time. Young people do it to gain experience.

 

So should penniless immigrants. We solved their plight during the earliest stage of colonial America's development, and I think it was a halfway fair procedure. Few were forced into it. After six or seven years of indentured servitude, a contract was satisfied and the signatory became a free citizen of the state. Georgia was almost exclusively populated by indentured servants. Not good public policy to go overboard on this particular arrangement. Formerly enslaved indentured servants thought nothing of owning African slaves. The indolence and cruelty of antebellum abuse of African slaves was mostly the low moral superiority of former indentured servants somewhere in the family tree. In modern America, both of my grandfathers worked for no money during the Depression and succeeded in amassing an extensive network of property interests, in collaboration with farmers, bankers, and regional bigwigs. Both grandfathers belonged to relatively similar Protestant church congregations that extended their reputation for circumspection and honesty, which takes a lifetime to cement. Marriage is a merger of the economic strength in two families. Most parents are suspicious of suitors and glib smiles. One thinks of vacuum cleaner salesmen and door to door supplicants for a fake charity, children recruited to beg with simple innocence. Oh, well, free market shenanigans. Best to see the humor in it. As a youngster I sold magazines, seeds, and greeting cards door to door, a future Maxwell Smart in spirit, learned a lot by knocking on doors, especially the magic carpet of knocking on the doors of commercial enterprises. Two outcomes I was surprised to win by knocking on doors: I encountered men and women of considerable prominence nationally and worldwide, and I was given exciting opportunities.

 

All children begin their lives as indentured servants of their parents, with little choice in the matter, paupers at birth, unable to produce much during the first few years of life. Not such a bad deal in most cases, do what mom and dad say, try to be helpful on the farm or the family home. There are always chores to do, from frame house to urban penthouse. Kids are student workers, and the implicit deal between generations is reciprocal, when parents become grandparents and need help in dealing with a society that they scarcely understand, so unlike their experience as young adults 50 or 60 years ago. I made the remark yesterday to a woman of my generation that I missed the Bell Telephone desk set with a nice heavy receiver and Touch Tone dialing. Our telephones existed at the office, which made offices active and purposeful. We didn't carry telephones around all day. Offices kept business hours, usually a trusted secretary in charge. My grandfathers went to see people and discussed matters in person.

 

Donald Trump did it, and he baffled his White House staff and thoughtful observers by working long hours in the Oval Office and elsewhere, entrepreneurial discipline that required a lifetime of effort and learning to achieve. Amusingly, the thing to be learned is independence and alert individual assessment of opportunity. For instance, when I made a movie it was preceded and made possible by a whole lot of personal assessment of potential opportunities and communities. Golly. It boggles my mind how far I traveled to get a movie off the ground, frequently broke, willing to take an indentured service gig again. I got room and board in exchange for devoting my full time skills and abilities when I was a handsome youngster. Youngsters of all races are attractive and usually willing to devote their loyalty if you feed and shelter them and show them how to do stuff. I was offered apprenticeships and did a few for no money, gaining knowledge that propelled my career as a filmmaker. How I directed the course of that career might have been handled differently by another sort of person. I aimed at art.

 

That's how to handle immigration. Address them as children or indentured servants who can earn their place in society. Some will make better decisions than others. Crime should be punished summarily by private parties who are threatened by it, basic Second Amendment preparedness, augmented by living in a secure community where neighbors know each other and attend church together, or in somewhat similar Protestant congregations, Catholic parishes, or a synagogue. Islam was never an important force in American society, and Sharia law is unconstitutional on its face. England, France, Germany, Belgium, and Scandinavia have been profoundly burdened and bloodied by Islamic immigrants. America is toying with explosive tinder by sheltering Islamic migrants from Afghanistan, Syria, and the Horn of Africa.

 

Governments always do the wrong thing. What matters most is private choice with a decent regard for reason, security, and adult responsibilities. I've traveled a great deal and met some hundreds of people of all ages everywhere. A few were dangerous. I was ready to kill or be killed, a self defense policy that all peoples and all nations have understood since the dawn of man and is likewise understood by most sentient animals. If you're nice to a dog, feed and shelter him, he will follow you loyally and defend you. Children require more effort, and it's uncertain if children will behave reasonably past age 16. The rule of thumb is no. At age 16, their indentured servitude is completed and they're free to sell their labor. Contract labor and personal service agreements are limited by California law to seven years.

 

All work constrains liberty to some extent. I had to fill out beaucoup forms, make representations, and submit to drug tests for certain jobs, with tons of passport, visa, and insurance hurdles. I know what it means to be poor, sick, and humbled. I experienced all of them, falling from great heights of privilege to crash on Skid Row several times. At some point, you have to stand up straight and tall, get cleaned up, and start over as a matter of devotion to the tremendous gift of life, not to be forsaken. I don't diss the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I was no different.

 

A contract of servitude, whether private or military, is an appropriate opportunity for paupers age 16 and older. In recent decades, 150,000 noncitizens have earned U.S. citizenship via active duty combat military service, obedient to cruel officers. They had to learn English pronto.

 

Boys should be directed by honest, dignified men, the girls employed and guided by women. The free market is not always so nicely organized. Smart kids will learn to escape perverts and bullies. Others will be aided by public institutions if child abuse is detected. Many immigrants are young men in their 20s, a difficult cohort to wrangle. The key to their success is contract employment. Construction, landscaping, factory work, and the ugly business of meat processing become benevolent and instructive institutions by welcoming illegal immigrants. We have to reform our laws to relax the rules of private sector contract employment regardless of a worker's immigration status. Union stewards are stubborn and maddening. I rolled my eyes at union fussiness and got yelled at when it was break time, both as a union worker and later on as an employer. Workplace regulations are good policy. Employers are usually eager to promote safety for liability reasons. Injuries are legally actionable.

 

Four million Americans quit their jobs in August, another 4.4 million in September. U.S. employers are frantically seeking to hire 11 million people and can't fill those jobs. Put wetbacks to work on long term contracts as indentured servants with room and board, pocket money, health care, and union safety rules, to earn state citizenship in six or seven years, thus eligible to sit a U.S. naturalization exam.