0:00

Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated

0:02

to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight

0:04

and encouragement you need to live a rich

0:06

and meaningful life now while building a plan

0:08

for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

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My name is Joshua Sheets. I'm your host

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today on the show. I want to talk

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about something with you that is going to

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sound more political. It does have personal finance

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implications and

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an impact. The basic concept that I'm going

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to drive out from a personal finance perspective

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is that as you build

0:29

wealth, your sense of security

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and your actual security of

0:34

your person, your effects, etc, your

0:36

home, these are fundamental things. As somebody builds

0:38

wealth, one of the first things that they

0:41

will do in applying this

0:43

wealth is to move from an unsafe neighborhood to

0:45

a safe neighborhood because security is

0:47

of primary importance. This is a good

0:49

use of money. That's the

0:51

personal finance angle that I'm going to

0:54

use to tie this into appropriate content

0:56

for Radical Personal Finance. But I do

0:58

confess up here and up front that

1:00

this episode, that that connection

1:02

is looser than I usually

1:04

will permit. And that's because

1:07

this episode is coming from a request

1:09

from a listener. And listener

1:11

writes in and sends me a couple

1:13

of articles, which I'm going to read

1:15

to you and comment on and asks

1:17

for my commentary on this subject specifically

1:20

regarding immigration. We see

1:22

in the United States significant issues

1:24

regarding immigration, an enormous battle taking

1:26

place. The listener wrote to me

1:28

and talked about the arguments

1:30

between Texas Governor Abbott and the Biden

1:33

administration about the the ability and the

1:35

right of the Texas guard to secure

1:37

the border with Mexico by placing barriers

1:39

to stop the flow of immigration. We

1:42

see immigration as a primary political topic

1:44

all across Europe, all across the world,

1:46

etc. And so I feel

1:49

justified in talking about it today with you.

1:51

And I think that those of you who

1:53

are interested in thoughtful, nuanced discussion on difficult

1:55

topics will enjoy this show. However, those of

1:58

you who are looking for just stay. standard

2:00

personal finance fair, you'll want to skip

2:02

this episode and move to a different

2:05

one because there'll be more of just basic

2:08

nuts and bolts of finance. The other reason

2:10

I'm doing this is that I've been buried

2:12

in finishing up my consulting appointments and

2:15

also preparing for a new live

2:17

event which I'll be announcing hopefully the next day or

2:20

two and I can do this topic

2:22

fairly straight off the cuff ready to go

2:25

without a ton of preparation. It's

2:28

been over a week since I've been on the

2:30

microphone. So let's begin with

2:32

this. I'm going to begin by reading

2:34

the article that my listener wrote to

2:36

me about and asked me

2:38

to comment on. And this article

2:40

was written in 2014 by now dead Gary North. The

2:45

article is called Immigration Control, Federal Social Engineering.

2:48

I'm going to read the article without

2:50

comment and then come back and comment upon

2:52

it. Federal

2:55

planning by the federal government is officially

2:58

opposed by conservatives until you

3:00

show them a marker that says United

3:02

States on one side and Mexico

3:04

on the other. Then

3:07

Congress needs to build a fence. The

3:10

believers in fences offer many arguments. Some

3:12

of them say this, those people want to

3:14

get free government welfare. We cannot afford it.

3:17

The defender of liberty replies in two ways.

3:20

First these programs should be abolished.

3:23

They are based on government planning

3:25

and coercive wealth redistribution. They

3:27

are the main problem, not any immigrants

3:29

who may sign up. Second

3:32

the sooner they go bankrupt the better. Let immigrants sign

3:34

up. The problem is this. Most

3:37

conservatives approve of these welfare programs

3:39

in theory and practice. The

3:42

big ones are Social Security, Medicare

3:44

and tax funded education. Conservatives

3:46

do not want these programs defunded. They

3:49

see them as part of the American way of

3:51

life. And the

3:53

conservative says this. These

3:55

immigrants will undermine our social way of life.

3:58

They are just too different. way

4:00

of life cannot survive open immigration.

4:02

Change will overwhelm the American way of

4:04

life." The defender

4:06

of liberty responds, The free

4:09

market changes America every day. Innovations

4:11

undermine our way of life moment

4:13

by moment. Innovation makes our lives

4:15

better. Second, he replies, Why

4:18

do you think Congress can pass a

4:20

law restricting freedom of travel and freedom

4:22

of contract and thereby preserve the

4:24

good parts of our way of life? Why

4:27

do you trust the federal government's good

4:29

judgment in matters social and economic? Why

4:32

have you become an apologist for

4:34

central planning? Why have you

4:36

become an advocate of social engineering

4:38

by federal politicians and bureaucrats? Conservatives

4:42

remain silent. They

4:45

have never thought of this and they don't want to

4:47

have to rethink what they say they believe in, namely

4:49

that Congress cannot safely be trusted

4:52

on matters economic. They

4:54

are saying that Congress can provide a

4:56

Goldilocks solution, not too much social change

4:58

but not too little. The

5:00

defender of liberty asks, When has

5:03

Congress ever legislated a Goldilocks solution?

5:06

When has the federal bureaucracy ever

5:08

enforced it as written, let

5:10

alone as justified by members of the

5:12

voting bloc in Congress that passed it? Third,

5:16

the conservative says this, immigrants

5:18

will get jobs here. They'll take jobs

5:20

away from Americans. I

5:22

want to focus on this argument for it

5:24

is the most common one. It

5:26

invokes nationalism over liberty. It

5:29

equates nationalism with restrictions on the

5:31

freedom of contract. It says,

5:33

not everyone should have the legal right to

5:36

bid on jobs inside our borders, only those

5:38

who are legally inside our borders already or

5:40

who will be born to those already inside

5:42

our borders should possess this right. It

5:45

says, our ancestors got here before

5:47

there were any immigration laws. We

5:49

deserve the right to bid. Outsiders

5:51

don't. It's first come, first served.

5:55

May we help? This

5:57

attitude is in direct opposition to

5:59

both Christianity and the free

6:01

market. A fundamental principle

6:03

of Christianity is the principle of

6:06

service to God by service to

6:08

our fellow men. This

6:10

is made clear in Matthew 25, Verily

6:13

I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have

6:15

done it unto one of the least of

6:17

these, my brethren, ye have done it unto

6:19

me. The

6:22

context is the final judgment. The

6:24

principle of service is also basic

6:26

to free market economics, which teaches

6:28

that income derives from service to

6:30

the customer. This goes back

6:33

to Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations,

6:35

1776. But

6:38

man has almost constant occasion for the help

6:40

of his brethren, and it is

6:42

in vain for him to expect it from their

6:44

benevolence only. He will be more

6:46

likely to prevail if he can interest their

6:48

self-love in his favor, and show them that

6:51

it is for their own advantage to do

6:53

for him what he requires of them. Whoever

6:55

offers to another a bargain of any kind

6:57

proposes to do this. Give

7:00

me that which I want, and you shall

7:02

have this which you want, is the meaning

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of every such offer, and it

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is in this manner that we obtain from

7:08

one another the far greater part of those

7:10

good offices which we stand in need of.

7:13

It is not from the benevolence of

7:15

the butcher, the brewer, or the baker

7:17

that we expect our dinner, but from

7:19

their regard to their own interest. We

7:22

address ourselves not to their humanity,

7:24

but to their self-love, and never

7:26

talk to them of our own

7:28

necessities, but of their advantages. Nobody

7:31

but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon

7:34

the benevolence of his fellow citizens." The

7:38

fundamental economic principle of immigration

7:40

control is that service must

7:42

be made illegal in order

7:45

to protect the above-market incomes

7:47

of producers inside a nation's

7:49

borders, thereby reducing the availability

7:51

of services to customers inside

7:53

the borders. The job

7:55

holders form a cartel with a

7:57

goal, to keep out competitors, thereby

7:59

keeping their wages above market. The

8:02

jobholders prevail on Congress to post this

8:04

sign facing outward on the border, No

8:07

Help Wanted. Not

8:09

Wanted by whom? By members of

8:11

the Jobholders Cartel. It

8:14

is now illegal for customers to post this sign,

8:17

Help Wanted. The

8:19

earliest manifestation of this mindset in America

8:21

was the retailer's hostility to Chinese

8:24

immigrants in California. It

8:26

started with the gold rush of 1849, the year after the

8:30

federal government completed President Polk's

8:32

theft of one-third of Mexico,

8:34

which included California. Chinese

8:36

workers worked long hours at far

8:38

lower wages. They were price competitive.

8:41

This hostility by retailers got worse over

8:44

the next quarter century. The

8:46

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was

8:48

the first example of a federal

8:50

law excluding specific nationals. It

8:53

was not repealed until 1943, when

8:55

China was an ally in the

8:57

Pacific War. The president

8:59

who signed the 1882 bill into law

9:01

was by far the most appropriate president

9:03

in American history to have done so,

9:06

Chester Arthur. Before becoming

9:09

vice president and then president

9:11

after the assassination of Garfield,

9:13

Arthur had been the head of

9:15

the Port of New York, the

9:17

government's most lucrative customs house. It

9:20

was known at the time as being a

9:22

major source of political kickbacks to the Republican

9:24

Party. The stink got so bad

9:26

that President Hayes removed Arthur from the position.

9:30

We are not taught the following in history

9:32

courses. Not until

9:34

1948 was it legal in California

9:36

for whites or blacks to marry

9:38

Asians. The California State Supreme

9:40

Court overturned the law. The vote

9:42

was four to three. That

9:45

was the first state to overturn laws

9:47

against interracial marriage, by one vote.

9:50

We look back and we are amazed.

9:52

Why would anyone have believed that state

9:54

politicians had the wisdom to

9:57

assess accurately the collective social benefits

9:59

and liability? abilities of interracial marriages.

10:02

This was social engineering by

10:04

state politicians. Most

10:06

conservatives today, but not in 1947, reject such a suggestion.

10:12

Yet most conservatives believe today that

10:15

federal bureaucrats can be trusted with

10:17

this same power with respect to

10:19

immigration. Conservatives

10:21

quote Ronald Reagan, quote, a nation that cannot

10:24

control its borders as not a nation. In

10:27

conclusion, from 1788 to 1882, the United States was

10:29

not a nation. Silly

10:36

isn't it? Then why do conservatives

10:38

quote it? This historically

10:40

silly slogan assumes that passing the

10:42

law is the same as achieving

10:44

the law's official goal. We

10:46

have immigration laws on the statute books today.

10:49

We also have 10 million illegal aliens,

10:51

maybe 20 million, maybe 30 million. The

10:54

government cannot even count them. It would cost

10:57

at least $23,000 each to deport them. Each

11:00

case must be tried in a court. It

11:02

would tie up the U.S. court system. They

11:05

cannot, will not be deported.

11:07

Fact, the USA does not control

11:10

its borders. This control

11:12

is only symbolic, a token

11:14

to placate the voters. Are

11:17

we therefore a token nation? Should

11:20

we trust social engineering by politicians?

11:25

Why? Borders, badges, and guns, a

11:27

brief history. Federal

11:30

restrictions on immigration in 1917 applied

11:32

to various kinds of social behavior. But

11:35

immigration restrictions from 1882 up until

11:37

World War I mainly had to

11:39

do with keeping Chinese out of

11:42

the country. The Immigration Act

11:44

of 1924 extended this to many nations.

11:47

Wikipedia summarizes, quote, the Immigration Act of

11:49

1924, or Johnson-Reed Act, including the

11:54

National Origins Act and Asian Exclusion

11:56

Act, enacted May 26, 1924. was

12:00

the United States federal law that limited the annual

12:02

number of immigrants who could be admitted from any

12:04

country to 2% of the number of people from

12:07

that country who were already living in the United

12:09

States in 1890, down

12:11

from the 3% cap set by the Immigration

12:13

Restriction Act of 1921, according to the census of 1890.

12:18

It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The

12:22

law was primarily aimed at

12:24

further restricting immigration of Southern

12:27

Europeans, Eastern Europeans. In addition,

12:29

it severely restricted the immigration of

12:31

Africans and prohibited the immigration of

12:33

Arabs, East Asians, and Indians. According

12:36

to the U.S. Department of State Office

12:38

of the Historian, the purpose of the

12:40

act was, quote, to preserve the ideal

12:42

of American homogeneity. Congressional

12:45

opposition was minimal. End

12:47

of Wikipedia quote. The tradition

12:49

of immigration control lasted from 1924 to 1968, when

12:51

Teddy Kennedy's Immigration Act

12:55

of 1965 was signed into law

12:57

by Lyndon Johnson. A sign

13:00

of freedom prior to World War I was

13:02

this. There were no

13:04

passports anywhere in the West. Wikipedia

13:07

says, quote, a rapid expansion

13:09

of rail travel and wealth in Europe

13:12

beginning in the mid-19th century led to

13:14

a unique dilution of the passport system

13:16

for approximately 30 years prior

13:18

to World War I. The speed

13:21

of trains, as well as the number

13:23

of passengers that crossed multiple borders, made

13:25

enforcement of passport laws difficult. The

13:27

general reaction was the relaxation of passport

13:30

requirements. In the later part of

13:32

the 19th century and up to World

13:34

War I, passports were not required,

13:36

on the whole, for travel within Europe,

13:38

and crossing a border was a

13:40

relatively straightforward procedure. Consequently,

13:42

comparatively few people held passports.

13:46

During World War I, European governments

13:48

introduced border passport requirements for security

13:50

reasons and to control the

13:52

emigration of citizens with useful skills. These

13:55

controls remained in place after the

13:57

war, becoming standard, though controversial. personal

14:00

procedure. British tourists

14:02

of the 1920s complained, especially

14:04

about attached photographs and physical

14:06

descriptions which they considered led

14:09

to a quote, nasty dehumanization,

14:12

end of quote and end of Wikipedia

14:14

quote. Your papers please.

14:17

World War I brought us that grim phrase.

14:20

The conservative tradition in America, 1788 to 1882, was open

14:22

borders. So

14:27

was the liberal tradition. The

14:29

constitutional tradition in America was

14:32

open borders. Only in

14:34

1882 did this begin to change. It

14:37

escalated in 1924. If

14:39

you listen to the proponents of

14:42

immigration restriction today, you would think

14:44

that George Washington and James Madison

14:46

in 1787 persuaded the Constitutional Convention

14:49

to authorize congressional restrictions on immigration.

14:52

You would think that this was part

14:54

of the American constitutional tradition. But

14:57

the U.S. Constitution has no reference

14:59

to any such restrictions. Anytime

15:01

somebody says that there have to

15:04

be some sort of social criteria

15:06

beyond non-criminal judicial status

15:08

in order to gain residence in

15:10

the United States, he is saying

15:13

that politicians in Congress and permanent

15:15

tenured bureaucrats in the executive are

15:17

competent in understanding what America needs

15:20

today and what America will need

15:22

in the future. Congress

15:24

don't believe this in many areas of life. But

15:27

with respect to two things,

15:29

imported goods and imported people, they

15:32

believe that Congress knows better and

15:35

the tenured executive bureaucracy knows best.

15:38

This is the default mode of thinking for

15:40

most conservatives. They believe with

15:42

all their hearts that Congress can be

15:45

trusted and tenured executive bureaucrats protected by

15:47

civil service laws are in effect a

15:49

kind of priesthood. These

15:52

people know what America needs. Why

15:55

should anyone believe this? Hispanics

15:58

are going to break up America. Recently,

16:00

I was sent this email, quote,

16:02

it's true that for much, perhaps

16:05

even most of our history, we

16:07

had practically no immigration restrictions at

16:09

all. We also had a nation

16:11

consisting of a landmass begging for

16:13

inhabitants, workers, farmers, inventors, educators, etc.

16:16

But we insisted, if not legally, then

16:18

as a practical matter, that these new

16:20

arrivals learned our language, conformed to our

16:23

laws, and considered themselves citizens of their

16:25

adopted nation. End quote. Who

16:28

were we? How

16:30

did we do this? By

16:33

letting people alone, judicially speaking. The

16:36

federal government said nothing. The federal government was

16:38

not regarded as having any say in the matter. Continuing

16:41

now, the quoted letter, quote, a

16:43

few could not and sometimes return

16:45

to the old country, but most

16:47

stayed and became passionately loyal Americans.

16:50

What's profoundly disturbing is that many

16:52

of the new arrivals, particularly the

16:54

Hispanics, appear to have little or

16:56

no intention of assimilating, and in

16:58

some cases of even learning or

17:00

using our language. If continued, this

17:02

will become a surefire formula for

17:04

societal disaster, most likely in the

17:06

form of the country simply breaking

17:09

up, just as did the seemingly

17:11

impregnable old USSR. I'd

17:13

bet more than even odds that this will

17:15

happen in the fairly near future. Once it

17:18

starts, it'll proceed with the speed of a

17:20

massive seismic shift. End

17:22

quote of the letter. What

17:24

the author of the letter did not say is the following. I

17:27

trust the Congress of the United

17:30

States and the permanent civil service

17:32

bureaucracy employed by the executive to

17:34

make decisions regarding social stability in

17:36

the United States today and in

17:38

the future. If he

17:40

had been willing to do this, I would

17:42

have acknowledged that at least he had thought through

17:44

the implications of his position. At

17:46

least he was willing to say what is

17:49

implied by his view of immigration. He

17:51

believes in congressional social engineering with

17:54

respect to immigration. He

17:56

also believes that the federal bureaucrats have

17:58

both the ability to and

18:01

the moral responsibility to make decisions

18:03

about who should live here, and

18:05

under what circumstances. He

18:07

is saying, inevitably, that federal

18:10

bureaucrats have the ability to

18:12

make accurate social forecasts about

18:15

how specific non-criminal and physically healthy

18:17

immigrants are going to affect American

18:19

society in the future. I

18:23

do not share his faith. He

18:25

doesn't trust Hispanics. He thinks

18:27

Hispanics are going to speak Spanish all their lives.

18:29

He thinks they won't integrate into

18:31

the country. Where

18:33

is the evidence that Hispanic kids who were born

18:35

in this country, and who have attended public schools,

18:38

and who watch American television and listen to

18:40

rap music cannot speak English? They

18:42

can even speak rap. I don't speak

18:44

rap. I cannot understand what those

18:47

people are saying. But Hispanic teenagers

18:49

are fluent in rap. I guess

18:52

we can call them trilingual. I

18:55

don't notice that Hispanics riot very often. People

18:58

in La Raza march in groups carrying

19:00

placards with slogans, but they're smart

19:02

enough to have the slogans in English for the

19:04

television evening news. The fact

19:06

that Hispanic parents, some of whom do not speak

19:08

English, demanded and

19:10

got their own high school in Los

19:13

Angeles right next door to all-black Jefferson

19:15

High should come as a surprise only

19:17

in this sense. The school board voted

19:19

for this. That the parents

19:21

demanded a dress code is also no surprise. It

19:24

is called Nava College Preparatory Academy.

19:27

All the students speak English. Most

19:30

of them speak rap. Three

19:33

generations. Most immigrants who came

19:35

from Eastern Europe and Central Europe in the late 19th century

19:37

and the earliest 20th century could not speak English. We

19:42

don't know what percentage of them learned to speak English, but

19:44

there were whole sections of New York City in 1900 that spoke

19:47

Yiddish and

19:49

other Central European languages. But the children learned.

19:52

They mastered English. They did the

19:55

translating for the parents. There was nothing odd about

19:57

this. There is even a

19:59

sociological pattern about it. immigrants. The

20:01

recent immigrant parents want to maintain the

20:03

old country's traditions. They want the

20:05

children to maintain these traditions, but they also

20:07

want them to be successful. Their

20:10

children steadily abandon the parents' traditions. They

20:12

want to be integrated. They want to

20:14

be like their friends at school. They

20:17

want to be seen as Americans. Their

20:19

children assimilate even more completely. It

20:21

is difficult for people over 12 years old to learn

20:24

a foreign language if they never have before. A

20:26

few adults have the knack, but most people don't.

20:29

There is nothing odd about this. It

20:31

is probably genetic stages of development.

20:34

Small children master languages at incredible

20:36

rates, meaning incredible rates for older

20:38

people. Multilingual children who grow

20:40

up in multilingual environments are common. My

20:43

father, who was stationed in Egypt during World

20:45

War II, said that boys in the streets

20:47

could speak German, Italian, and English with ease.

20:49

They've been selling services to various invading

20:51

armies, and they got along just

20:54

fine. People adjust. They

20:56

respond to incentives. If

20:58

there are economic incentives and opportunities

21:01

to assimilate, the children of immigrants

21:03

do. Eight

21:05

words that define America. There

21:08

are eight words in the English

21:10

language which generally define Americans, as

21:12

long as they are not in

21:14

Congress. These eight words

21:16

are central to understanding the American

21:18

character. They have been

21:21

basic to the American character for over

21:23

300 years. Here they

21:25

are. Live and let

21:27

live. Let's

21:30

make a deal. When

21:33

civil governments get involved in the affairs

21:35

of men, then these two sentences get

21:37

compromised. The anti-immigration forces are

21:39

opposed to this one. Live

21:42

and let live. The protectionists are

21:44

opposed to this one. Let's

21:46

make a deal. Quite frequently

21:48

we find people who are committed to both

21:51

positions, and they call

21:53

themselves conservatives. Conservatives love

21:55

to see customs houses.

21:58

They love to see customs. them

22:00

agents. They love to

22:02

see immigration control officials. They

22:05

trust Congress. They trust the

22:08

bureaucracy, but only at national

22:10

borders. In other areas of

22:12

life, they insist that they believe in

22:14

the principles of limited government, but show

22:16

a conservative a national border and he

22:18

abandons his principles. He substitutes trust in

22:20

the federal government as soon as he

22:22

sees a national border. Keep

22:24

this in mind, residency is not

22:26

the same as citizenship. Conservatives

22:29

confuse the two concepts. Americans

22:31

did not begin making this

22:34

mistake until World

22:36

War I. Thus

22:41

concludes my reading of the article. In

22:43

the original version, linked in the show

22:45

notes, there was an additional paragraph

22:47

with a commentary linking

22:49

to a YouTube video, but the YouTube video has

22:51

been removed and I don't know what it was.

22:54

There is also a link to Gary

22:56

North's detailed study of immigration theory called

22:59

The Sanctuary Society and Its Enemies

23:01

published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1998.

23:03

If you were interested in those,

23:07

follow the link in the show notes. Thus

23:10

concludes Gary North's article. What I always

23:12

appreciated, I learned an enormous amount from Gary

23:14

North over the years. I first stumbled upon

23:16

him with regard to his commentary on economics

23:19

because I was interested in his biblical

23:21

commentaries on economics, but I just enjoyed

23:24

his writings on social theory, etc. I

23:26

always found them so thought provoking that

23:28

I was always having my ideas challenged

23:30

by him. I was a subscriber to

23:32

his website for many years until his

23:34

death and just really appreciated how he

23:37

always challenged my ideas. There

23:39

was one thing that was always true with North is that if

23:41

you were going to tangle with him, you better

23:43

know what you believe and why you believe it and

23:45

be able to defend it. That makes you a stronger

23:49

person. He was a formidable opponent.

23:51

When you disagreed with him, he was just a

23:54

formidable guy in every way. Let's

23:57

now turn to the issues of the day. It

24:00

would be my guess that no more than, say,

24:03

2 or 3% of the listening audience

24:06

would agree with everything that

24:08

North has written in that article

24:10

or the implications of what he

24:12

stated. Because in

24:15

general, the US society,

24:17

as well as most societies

24:19

around the world, are firmly

24:21

and completely split on

24:23

these two issues. And

24:26

North's position is that one or both of

24:28

these things has to fall. Now, I've defended

24:30

this myself. I broadly agree

24:33

with North, with his

24:36

commentary. But as

24:38

I see it, a society can have

24:40

two things in existence. Excuse me, have

24:43

one of these two things in existence.

24:45

Either a society can have what we'll

24:48

call for now open borders, which

24:50

we'll define in just a moment, or

24:52

a society can have a welfare state. But

24:55

I do not believe that a society

24:57

can have both of those things and

24:59

function. And a society is going

25:02

to choose which of those things it's going to

25:04

have. As for me, my

25:07

preference is to have a society that has

25:09

open borders and no welfare

25:11

state. But I seem

25:14

to be in the extreme minority on

25:16

that preference. And in general,

25:18

most of the societies in which we

25:20

live have chosen to have a welfare

25:22

state. And

25:25

then to restrict immigration, although

25:28

until now that is basically

25:31

disappears. Let me explain why

25:33

I believe this is at the heart of the issue,

25:35

at least in the US American context. I

25:38

do not believe that, broadly speaking,

25:40

that most Americans are in any

25:42

way racist. And I'm going to

25:45

use the traditional version

25:47

of that term, not the modern Ibram

25:49

Kendi version of that term, or definition

25:51

of the term racist. What

25:53

I mean is that in the modern

25:55

society, especially US Americans, US

25:57

Americans do not care about the world.

26:00

about the race of someone with whom

26:02

they are interacting. They don't care about the

26:04

color of the skin. They don't care about

26:06

someone's ethnic heritage, their

26:08

cultural background, et cetera. Americans broadly

26:10

believe in live and let live.

26:12

They don't really care. What they

26:14

care about is service. What they

26:17

care about is convenience. What they

26:19

care about is service one to

26:21

another. And so when

26:23

Americans criticize people,

26:27

they don't criticize

26:29

based upon the color of someone's

26:31

skin. They criticize based upon the

26:34

expression of someone's culture. And

26:36

there are certain cultures that are

26:38

extremely distasteful to Americans,

26:40

which they tend to criticize

26:43

quite broadly. But it's not

26:45

due to any outward appearance

26:48

or due to any ethnic

26:51

background. It's due to a

26:53

culture that does not fit

26:55

well with the American culture,

26:58

broadly speaking. If

27:00

you ask most Americans, especially the

27:02

most anti-immigration Americans, if they care what

27:04

color of skin their next door neighbor

27:06

has or what

27:08

color of skin or what ethnic background

27:11

the mayor of their town has, broadly

27:13

speaking, they don't generally care as long

27:15

as the person is not trying to

27:18

force it upon that individual American. But

27:21

when you bring the welfare state

27:23

into it, now it drives that

27:25

frustration very, very high. The

27:28

welfare state basically says, listen,

27:31

what I'm going to do is I'm going to

27:33

steal money from you because you are a producer,

27:35

you're a worker. I'm going to steal money from

27:37

you. And I'm going to give it

27:39

to other people who need the money more than

27:41

you do. And when there

27:43

is a system where the need is

27:46

clearly defined, so for example, if your

27:48

average American working man sees that his

27:50

money is being stolen from him in

27:52

the form of taxes and it's going

27:54

to support an old folks home that's

27:56

kind of a community outreach where he

27:58

can see that, look, these people. are

28:00

broken, indigenous, and if they weren't there, they'd be on

28:02

the streets, etc. He's not

28:04

going to resist too harshly. But

28:06

when you bring immigration into it, and when

28:09

you paint the idea in his

28:11

mind, regardless of its truthfulness, that

28:13

those people are coming in here,

28:15

and those people are taking advantage

28:17

of our free healthcare and our hospitals,

28:19

and those people are coming in here,

28:22

and they're taking advantage of our free

28:24

government schools, and those people are coming

28:26

in here, and they're being handed debit

28:28

cards, etc., that makes the average American's

28:30

blood boil pretty significantly.

28:33

And so, as I see it, you can have one

28:35

or two of these things. If you got rid of

28:37

the welfare state, I think, and

28:40

there were no redistribution of wealth, but

28:43

rather Americans were reminded that, hey, what

28:45

you make is yours to keep, we're

28:47

not going to steal it from you.

28:50

There may be some small tax system to

28:52

support a national military or something like that,

28:54

but no welfare taxes. What

28:56

you make is yours to keep. You got

28:58

a deal. You got to go out into the

29:00

world to make it, and all those immigrants that

29:02

are coming in, they're doing exactly the same thing.

29:04

There's no welfare state for them. They're not being

29:06

given free debit cards. They're not being given free

29:08

healthcare. They're not being given free education

29:10

or anything like that. They got

29:12

to make it. Then, generally speaking,

29:15

it's my instinct as

29:17

a born and bred American that most

29:19

Americans broadly would be willing to accept

29:21

that deal. I have

29:24

tested this theory in person with

29:26

many of my friends, the most

29:28

ardent Trump supporters, the

29:31

most ardent anti-immigration people, and

29:33

also my liberal left-wing friends.

29:37

In general,

29:40

I have not yet found anyone to

29:43

whom I have made this proposition who would reject

29:45

it. Again, the most anti-immigration

29:47

people with whom I've interacted personally, when I

29:49

have said to them, listen, would

29:52

you be willing to have

29:54

open borders if you

29:56

knew that you were not having money stolen

29:58

from you in the form of taxes

30:00

to give any kind of handouts

30:02

to other people. But in

30:04

fact, all of those immigrants are coming of

30:07

their own dime and they're just coming to

30:09

compete honestly in the labor force with you.

30:11

They're not getting any handouts. Would you accept

30:13

that? To this day, I

30:15

have not had any person to

30:17

whom I've had this conversation reject

30:20

that scenario. So I believe

30:22

that, however, when you have

30:24

a welfare state, I don't

30:26

think you can have open borders because

30:28

it creates such an enormous conflict

30:31

of interest for people coming to the country.

30:34

So not only do you get people who

30:36

want to move to a country for the

30:38

opportunities, but rather you also get people who

30:40

want to move to the country because

30:42

they can get an easy life, a free

30:44

and easy life in the country. And

30:47

so you have the problem of who the immigrants

30:50

are. It changes the basic character of the immigrants

30:52

when they know they're going to get free stuff.

30:55

And then secondarily, it changes

30:57

the experience of the people

30:59

living in that country. And

31:02

so I believe you can either have a country

31:04

that has open borders or you

31:06

can have a country that has

31:09

a welfare state, but you cannot have

31:11

both for the long term. And

31:14

ultimately, a country that has both is

31:16

going to make some enormous change in

31:19

one direction or another. Now,

31:21

I have a few more points I want to make on

31:23

this and then we're going to move to personal finance application.

31:25

But before I do so, I want to define the

31:28

term open borders. You will notice

31:30

that, or an astute listener would

31:32

notice a couple of specific

31:36

restrictions that North

31:38

and his essay passed. And I believe

31:41

that these potential restrictions are

31:43

important. So what does open borders mean?

31:45

Does open borders mean that a country

31:47

has no checkpoints

31:49

or security control at its

31:51

borders? Does open borders mean

31:54

that a country doesn't have fences, that

31:56

a country doesn't have Immigration

31:59

at its airport? etc. My answer

32:01

that might, but it's not strictly

32:03

necessary. So there are two things

32:05

that North pointed out. He said

32:07

non criminal immigrants and he also

32:09

said healthy immigrants or non ill

32:11

immigrants And these are two things

32:13

that I think up completely compatible

32:15

with open borders. so he would

32:17

be an example of the kind

32:19

of system that I myself would

32:21

be happy to to support if

32:23

it were feasible. And any world

32:25

which it's not in today's world,

32:27

any world I can find may

32:29

be Mars. Or something like that. Or maybe the

32:31

world had century from now. But it's not feasible. Is.

32:34

It ok for a country to have

32:36

some form of checkpoint control because one

32:38

of the things that North didn't address

32:40

in his essay that you often hear

32:42

modern anti immigration or anti illegal illegal

32:45

immigration people Harbor they won a style

32:47

themselves talk about as well. All the

32:49

terrorists are coming in, all the criminals

32:51

are coming in. I think of be

32:53

perfectly reasonable for a government to have

32:55

some system in place of checking. For.

32:58

A person's criminal. Criminal

33:00

background. As I see it,

33:02

I do not believe that

33:04

any government in the world

33:07

has the right to control

33:09

the physical movements physical geographical

33:11

movements have any non criminal

33:13

person. So I do

33:15

not believe that the state it Lasalle live

33:17

in the state of Florida. I do not

33:19

believe that the government of State of Georgia

33:22

has the right to control my access to

33:24

the state of Georgia from the state of

33:26

Florida across the state line as long as

33:28

I am a non criminal person. In.

33:31

The same way, I do not believe

33:33

that the state of that the the

33:35

Government of the United States, or the

33:38

Government of Mexico has the moral right

33:40

or authority to control the physical geographic

33:42

movement of any non criminal person. People.

33:45

Can travel around the world as they

33:47

want and as long as someone is

33:49

not a criminal person, I do not

33:52

believe that a government has control over

33:54

their body. Why should they? Why should

33:56

any government have control over someone to

33:59

believe in? The To Believe in

34:01

tyranny and absolute tyranny. To say

34:03

that a government can arbitrarily decide

34:05

who they control. Know what

34:07

is this? The and into who can Go

34:09

Were on the World. It's insane is an

34:12

insane concept that has become utterly normal in

34:14

our modern society. But it's crazy when you

34:16

actually stop and think about why should any

34:18

government have the right to control the physical

34:21

movement of a non criminal person and look

34:23

at cove it as a perfect recent example

34:25

of what the world experienced. How stupid was

34:27

it to believe that government had the right

34:29

to say you have to stay in your

34:32

zone, You can't go out what's your dog?

34:34

You can't go to the state park and

34:36

ride your. Your skateboard and dump

34:38

it. Run a dump it full

34:40

of say utterly ridiculous They arrested

34:42

people on the beach I'm insane.

34:45

Tyranny everywhere and even there was

34:47

more justifiable and in case of

34:49

of of a public health emergency

34:51

and an infectious disease pandemic which

34:53

will go to and a moment

34:55

of does have a diseased person

34:57

so blessed your criminality first Who

34:59

does. Government. Have authority

35:02

over. My. Answer is

35:04

government has authority over criminal

35:06

persons. That is the basic

35:09

central role of government. Gauzes

35:11

appointed the existence of government

35:14

on Earth to deal with

35:16

the behavior of criminal person's.

35:19

A government has one task

35:21

and that is to constrain

35:24

the evil doer and to

35:26

eliminate evil from the earth.

35:29

Evil people who commit evil.

35:31

Axis must be removed. From

35:34

Society and that is the basic

35:36

function of governments. Now there are

35:38

enormous and extremely important restrictions on

35:40

the exercise of that right By.in

35:42

the Powers are there must be

35:45

multiple witnesses, There must be a

35:47

legal system There must be abundant

35:49

evidence to must be due process.

35:51

There must be presumption of innocence

35:53

et cetera of a an accused

35:55

has the right to face his

35:58

accuser et cetera to the. Can

36:00

be no kind of nighttime raids by

36:02

suggs and helmets and bulletproof vest to

36:04

swoop in in the early morning and

36:06

arrest people out of their beds. No,

36:08

not a chance there can be no

36:10

secret court rooms with no cameras. It's

36:12

sad or us all, judicial proceeding should

36:14

be public and there should be a

36:16

presumption of innocence in there should be

36:18

due process at all judicial proceedings. But

36:21

at it's core, the basic function of

36:23

government is to restrain the evil doer.

36:26

And there is a component as an

36:28

expression of that whereby a government official

36:30

could do this he in the context

36:32

of open borders and so would it

36:35

be allowable to have a government that

36:37

has opened borders and say there's a

36:39

government official to whom you have to

36:42

present on your identity documents, to whom

36:44

you have to present a a federal

36:46

background check have some kind or a

36:48

law enforcement Sackett Cetera to make certain

36:51

that's a country or a city or

36:53

a states is not allowing criminal person's

36:55

into. Their midst. My. Answer is

36:58

I would be okay with that.

37:00

I would be willing to accept

37:02

that of but here we see.

37:04

The other fundamental flaw in the

37:06

modern immigration debate is that simultaneous

37:08

with the enormous flow of immigrants

37:10

across the border without any meaningful

37:12

checkpoints are restrictions. Simultaneous with that

37:14

we have the enormous and the

37:16

police movement. And while I'm sympathetic

37:18

to a lot of the arguments

37:20

of the Be know, the defund,

37:22

the police movements and the. The.

37:25

Broadly speaking, these are two things

37:27

that I do not believe can

37:29

coexist because as people are finding

37:31

more and increasing criminality expressed in

37:34

their community. Fear is

37:36

rising and that one of

37:38

the basic ways that a

37:40

government retains its power and

37:42

it's authority in society is

37:45

to maintain security is to

37:47

maintain peace. Yesterday.

37:49

In my children's home school we were

37:51

talking about feudalism. Were talking about the

37:53

feudal system, futile structure of society and

37:55

feudalism and how it worked and as

37:58

sick as often. mistaken by

38:00

people who are broadly sympathetic to the serfs

38:02

working for the lord of the manor etc.

38:05

is the basic reason that this

38:07

structure existed in the first place

38:10

which was due to attack by

38:12

roving bands of marauders across Europe.

38:15

And so what the lords and the serfs did in the

38:17

feudal system was they made a deal. The

38:19

deal was this, the lord of the

38:22

manor and the lord of the countryside

38:24

would develop a private army of knights

38:26

and dukes and earls etc. nobles. This

38:28

private army would defend the people and keep

38:30

the peace. That way the peasants,

38:33

the serfs could till their land in

38:35

peace and not worry about being murdered

38:37

and raped in their beds. Not

38:39

worry about having their harvest stolen by

38:41

bands of marauders. And the portion

38:43

of their harvest that they had to turn over to

38:46

the lord and the serf in the form of, sorry,

38:48

the lord of the manor, the dukes and the earls

38:50

etc. the nobility system. The portion

38:52

of their harvest that they turned over

38:54

in the form of taxes was a

38:56

better deal than having their produce stolen

38:59

by bands of marauders. If

39:01

you look back at the history of humanity, there

39:05

were societies in which people hunted and

39:07

gathered for themselves. But the

39:09

instant you had a transition to a

39:12

stable farming society, then you

39:14

had rise to increased levels of violence

39:16

because people who didn't want to do the back

39:18

breaking work of tending to their

39:20

own farm and keeping their own crops etc.

39:22

realized I can go over to my neighbor

39:24

there who he's doing the work all the

39:26

time and I can just show up at

39:28

harvest time and with a sharp spear or

39:31

bow and arrow or my own physical size in a

39:33

club or whatever tool of war I

39:36

happen to have, I can intimidate him and I can

39:38

steal his crops and I can steal all of them

39:40

from him. And so you have

39:42

increased needs for security to protect crops and

39:44

this makes an enormous difference in the history

39:46

of nations and the history of

39:49

individuals as well. So whenever

39:51

there is insecurity in a

39:54

society or even

39:56

perceived insecurity, the people will

39:58

call out and respond favorably

40:01

to somebody who can

40:03

provide that security. Let

40:05

me tie in now a modern event. Over

40:08

the past few days the

40:10

president of El Salvador, President

40:13

Naib Bukele, won his presidential

40:16

reelection campaign in an absolute landslide.

40:18

I don't have the specific figures

40:20

of his initial victory, but as

40:22

I recall it was a close

40:25

election. When he came

40:27

into office he faced significant opposition,

40:29

but over the course of his

40:31

most recent presidential term, he has

40:33

taken certain actions in the country

40:35

that resulted in him receiving an

40:37

absolute landslide of the vote, something like

40:40

85% of the vote.

40:43

And it's one of the most stunning victories

40:46

by any political candidate,

40:48

at least in my lifetime. Now

40:51

what led to that? Well if you

40:53

don't follow that in American politics you

40:55

might have at least some idea of

40:57

the fact that historically speaking El Salvador

40:59

has been an extremely unsafe country in

41:01

Latin America. El Salvador was

41:03

the one country in Latin America that

41:05

I myself was scared to go to

41:07

in the past. I've traveled a lot

41:09

in Latin America, the one country I

41:11

never went to and I was scared

41:14

to go to was El Salvador due

41:16

to an absurdly high murder rate in

41:18

the country. Putting

41:20

the story very short, Bukele came into

41:23

office, he mulsed the

41:25

military forces, built an enormous

41:27

prison, built an enormous prison, went

41:30

out of the streets and arrested

41:32

on a wide scale, arrested

41:35

all of the gang members in

41:37

the country, identified by their having

41:39

gang tattoos primarily,

41:41

imprisoned them all in an enormous

41:44

prison complex, an enormous prison complex,

41:49

created cinema quality advertisement,

41:51

you know promotional materials

41:54

for this movement and

41:56

cleaned up the streets of El

41:59

Salvador in a completely unprecedented way,

42:01

leading to over the course of a

42:03

couple years, something like that, El Salvador

42:06

going from the country with basically the

42:08

highest murder rate in the world to,

42:10

if not the lowest

42:12

murder rate in the world, a lower

42:14

statistical murder rate than the United States

42:17

currently speaking. And this

42:19

has had an absolutely transformative effect

42:22

on the El Salvadorian society,

42:25

on the country, on

42:28

the commerce, the business, etc. Previously

42:31

in El Salvador, due to the

42:33

gang control and gang warfare happening

42:35

across the country, you didn't

42:38

let your children go to the park, family stayed

42:40

in their homes, you didn't go to that next

42:42

block over because it was controlled by a rival

42:44

gang, etc. Well today, the

42:46

country is totally transformed, the people feel safe,

42:48

they go out and they play and what's

42:50

happening is there's enormous flows not only of

42:52

money to the country and there are other

42:54

things as well. He's embraced various

42:57

things, he's working hard to build the

42:59

infrastructure in the country and improve the

43:02

highways, he's made radical moves

43:04

such as embracing Bitcoin as an official

43:06

currency, etc. But

43:09

enormously also due to

43:11

the increase

43:15

in safety, there is an increase in

43:17

tourism to El Salvador but more importantly,

43:19

there's an increase in El Salvadorians who

43:21

are from the diaspora who had gone

43:23

abroad now returning home more regularly to

43:25

visit their friends and families and looking

43:27

and saying, how could we bring money

43:29

back? How could we invest into this

43:31

country? It feels like a new country.

43:34

And so at its core, the

43:36

basic point I want to make

43:38

is that when a politician can

43:40

create peace in the streets and

43:44

can create a society

43:46

of comfort and sorry, of safety,

43:49

of what I'm saying is that as a

43:51

politician, the people who are driving out of

43:53

comfort are not only actual safety but perceived

43:55

safety, that politician will receive broad levels of

43:57

support. allows

44:00

increases in crime, increases

44:02

in insecurity, for

44:04

example, homeless people camping on your front

44:07

lawn, things like that, which may or

44:09

may not be associated with crime, but

44:12

it certainly is associated with perceived insecurity

44:14

and kind of perceived decay. If

44:17

a politician cannot see to that basic order,

44:19

the politician or the political party or whomever

44:21

is gonna lose support, but if the people

44:23

feel secure, then they will have support. And

44:26

everything else is secondary to that. So if

44:28

you go throughout political history, and you look

44:30

at the feudal system, or you look at

44:33

the modern world, you look and see what

44:35

is the mafia in a certain, why

44:38

do the mafia have control? Why are the

44:40

Taliban so popular in Afghanistan,

44:42

et cetera? Well, the answer is they see

44:44

to the needs of the people. And ISIS

44:47

can come into your village, but if ISIS

44:49

can get to clean water and secure streets

44:51

for you to walk around, et cetera, then

44:53

people are gonna wind up supporting ISIS, because

44:56

at its core, that's what we want from

44:58

government. We want government to work, and the

45:00

core basic function of government working is get

45:02

rid of the criminals so that honest people

45:05

can live and not be in fear of

45:07

their life. Now, interestingly

45:09

also, what

45:11

does the US society do? Well, here

45:14

is an editorial from

45:17

today in the New York Times, guest

45:19

editorial by Dr.

45:21

Will Freeman and Lucas Perello,

45:23

or Peri-yo, whatever. I

45:26

never know how to pronounce things in the Spanish accent

45:29

or English accent, I go back and forth. Why

45:32

Naib Bukele's anti-crime model for El Salvador

45:34

won't work in other countries? Here are

45:36

a few paragraphs. Voters in El Salvador

45:38

this week gave their tough-on-crime president a

45:40

sweeping mandate. Keep going. While votes

45:42

are still being counted, President Naib Bukele claims

45:44

he won re-election by a landslide with more

45:47

than 85% of the vote. If

45:50

those results hold when the official count

45:52

is announced, not even Latin America's best-known

45:54

populist presidents like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez or

45:56

Bolivia's Evo Morales will have come close

45:59

to winning a- election by such margins.

46:01

Mr. Buchelli's unparalleled rise comes down to

46:04

a single factor, El Salvador's stunning crime

46:06

drop. Since he took office in 2019,

46:09

intentional homicide rates have decreased from 38 per 100,000

46:11

in that year

46:14

to 7.8 in 2022, well below the Latin American average of 16.4 for

46:16

the same

46:21

year. The crackdown Mr. Buchelli

46:23

has led on organized crime has

46:25

all but dismantled the infamous

46:28

street gangs that terrorized the population

46:30

for decades. It also exacted a

46:32

tremendous price on Salvadoran's human rights,

46:35

civil liberties, and democracy. Since

46:37

March 2022, when Mr. Buchelli declared a

46:39

state of emergency that suspended basic civil

46:41

liberties, security forces have locked up roughly

46:44

75,000 people. A

46:46

staggering one in 45 adults is

46:49

now in prison. Other leaders in the neighborhood

46:51

are taking notice and have debated adopting many

46:53

of the same drastic measures to fight their

46:55

own criminal violence. But even if they wanted

46:58

to make the trade-off that Mr. Buchelli's government

47:00

has, making streets safer through methods that are

47:02

blatantly at odds with democracy, they aren't likely

47:04

to succeed. The conditions that enabled Mr. Buchelli's

47:07

success and political stardom are unique to

47:09

El Salvador and can't be exported. And

47:12

it goes on and talks about how how,

47:14

I'll just read it, walking the

47:16

streets of the Capitol, San Salvador,

47:18

in the days before the election,

47:20

we saw firsthand how families with

47:22

children have returned to parks. People

47:24

can now cross formerly impassable gang-controlled

47:26

borders between neighborhoods. The city

47:28

center, which for years was largely empty by

47:31

sunset, is now lively late into the night.

47:33

But El Salvador, which transitioned to democracy in

47:35

the 1990s, has veered off

47:38

that path. Mr. Buchelli now

47:40

controls all government branches. The nation

47:42

of 6.4 million is run as

47:44

a police state. Soldiers and police

47:47

officers routinely whisk citizens off the streets

47:49

and into prison indefinitely without providing a

47:51

reason or allowing them access to a

47:53

lawyer. There are credible reports

47:55

that inmates have been tortured. Government critics told

47:57

us they have been threatened with prosecution. and

48:00

journalists have been spied on. Even last

48:02

Sunday's vote is under a microscope after

48:04

the transmission system for the results of

48:06

the preliminary vote count collapse in a

48:09

highly unusual manner." And they

48:11

go on and talk about things in Ecuador and

48:13

what was unique about El Salvador, etc. The point

48:15

is that what I find fascinating

48:17

about that paragraph is there are a

48:20

lot of people of basically any country

48:22

in the world. The United States, the

48:24

country I know best, but many other

48:26

countries who, if I read that paragraph

48:28

and simply transposed the

48:31

name of my own country, my own native

48:33

country to that, then it wouldn't

48:36

be too far off the mark. Now

48:39

I don't, I think that a lot

48:41

of that is just perception rather than

48:43

reality, but perception is ultimately what matters.

48:45

I have friends who have been whisked

48:47

off into prison, and they

48:49

were ultimately provided with access to a lawyer,

48:52

but they were in prison with no charges

48:54

made for an enormously long period

48:56

of time. And all of us

48:58

are now in the United States accustomed to

49:00

finding out there's some early morning raid. We're

49:02

accustomed to having closed courtrooms where we don't

49:04

know that the, we can't see what's happening.

49:07

We don't know what's happening in the argument.

49:09

We can't even see who the jurors are.

49:12

Even when we

49:14

can find a camera feed from

49:17

a courtroom, which obviously doesn't happen in federal courtrooms

49:19

where they really need them the most, at least

49:21

in most many state courtrooms we have camera feeds

49:23

now, but we can't even find out who the

49:25

jurors are, which is insane.

49:28

And so the voting process under

49:30

a microscope for unusual results

49:33

when the preliminary vote count collapsed in

49:35

a highly unusual manner, these

49:37

are the things that are common to many

49:39

of our experiences. And so as

49:42

I see it, no political

49:44

system can stand if

49:47

it doesn't provide for the basic needs of the

49:49

people. And that was true

49:51

about feudalism. It's true about modern democratic

49:53

systems. If modern democratic

49:55

systems can't provide these basic

49:57

needs of the people, security,

50:00

If our communities do not feel

50:02

safe and they're not actually safe,

50:04

then it erodes trust. The

50:07

problem with democracy is that

50:10

for those who are in the minority,

50:12

if their needs are not met, it

50:15

feels just as tyrannical as

50:17

if your country is run by a dictator.

50:20

If you go around the world and you look at different

50:22

political systems, a government that is

50:24

run by a noble

50:26

tyrant, a nobly-minded

50:29

dictator, is often an

50:31

extremely attractive form of government. You

50:33

see that in a place like

50:35

Singapore, one of the most incredible

50:38

transformations in modern

50:40

society, one of the most successful

50:43

advanced modern states, etc., was run

50:45

by an extremely powerful, extremely heavy-handed,

50:47

I'm not insulting him to say

50:50

it, but quasi-dictator. And we

50:52

see that around the world, is that I would

50:54

be happy to live under a dictator if the

50:56

dictator's interests are aligned with my own. That

51:00

experience is far preferable to

51:02

living under control by a

51:05

tyrannical mob whose interests don't align

51:07

with my own. And they

51:09

control my life exceedingly, and yet I'm

51:11

in the minority, it doesn't feel any

51:13

better than it does to live under

51:16

a dictator whose interests are aligned with

51:18

my own. Hear

51:20

me clearly, there is another way, and

51:23

that's what we've been trying to work

51:25

on for a long period of time.

51:27

And that, I think, was the beauty

51:29

of the American system, which was a

51:31

system where the interests of,

51:33

sorry, the control of government was

51:36

restricted to the local level where

51:38

democratic expression is

51:40

more appropriate, and the

51:42

power of the state on any level

51:44

is severely weakened, just to the most

51:47

essential of elements. But I don't want

51:49

to go any further into political theory,

51:51

it makes me sad to see what

51:54

my own country has become. But

51:56

let's deal honestly with some of the issues. And

51:58

so, let's... Let me bring clarity

52:01

to a few of these points. Number one, when

52:04

you're dealing with an immigration issue, an

52:06

immigration crisis, as the United States is

52:08

clearly dealing with, you have

52:10

a choice between open borders or a

52:12

welfare state. And the fact that the

52:14

United States is currently embracing a welfare

52:17

state, a very broad welfare state,

52:20

and open borders is

52:22

poisoning the conversation enormously.

52:25

I see no solution to this problem, by

52:27

the way. I have no solutions whatsoever. I

52:30

don't believe that Americans are ready to give up on

52:32

either of those things at the moment. Ironically,

52:35

even those who have voted, for

52:38

example, for immigration controls, many

52:40

of the voters who voted for President Trump in

52:42

the year 2020, when was he elected 2020?

52:47

A prime issue of

52:49

their voting forum was to end

52:51

illegal immigration and to build a

52:53

wall. As I

52:55

understand, according to Peter Zihan, what

52:57

is ironic about that effort is

53:00

that previously the United States had

53:02

a fairly effective wall on

53:04

its southern border, just like it had a

53:06

fairly effective wall on its northern border. The

53:09

wall on much of the northern border is an enormous

53:11

wilderness. On the southern border, it's an enormous desert. And

53:14

that desert was famously very difficult to

53:16

cross until the construction

53:18

of a border wall, which required the

53:20

installation of roads for the contractors to

53:23

be able to build the wall. And

53:26

so now there's a network of roads

53:28

crossing a previously impassable desert, which makes

53:30

it easy for people who are transporting

53:33

immigrants to drive them most of the way, and then

53:35

they just have to walk a little bit and get

53:37

picked up by another car. Whereas previously,

53:40

there was a natural defense of a

53:42

desert. I find that an

53:44

interesting analysis, as far as I know it's true,

53:47

but I have not been there to walk the wall

53:49

myself to see exactly what happened to the extent of

53:51

its truthfulness. So

53:54

it's just ironic that here's this thing

53:57

that's supposed to reduce immigration, building a

53:59

wall. wall, and

54:01

meanwhile it winds up enabling

54:03

easier immigration across

54:06

the border because of the construction methodology.

54:09

Similarly, of course, there's plenty of places where the

54:11

wall is climbed over and it's cut through, etc.

54:13

Just a dumb idea. It doesn't work, didn't

54:16

work, no point in it, etc. But

54:19

we're in an insolvable crisis. I don't see

54:21

how these two things can be reconciled. So

54:23

as best I can tell, things are going to

54:26

continue as they are, back and forth, back and

54:28

forth, until we see some kind of broad scale

54:30

collapse of the system. Second point

54:32

I was making is that you

54:34

could have a version of open borders while

54:37

also having some form of checkpoints,

54:39

identity verification, criminal verification,

54:41

or verification of non-criminality, etc.

54:44

And then related to that, you could also have verification

54:48

of healthfulness. So let's say

54:50

that what I would

54:52

love to see would be, I would

54:54

love to see all visa restrictions abolished

54:57

so that anybody who wants to move to the

54:59

United States could move to the United States. All

55:02

they have to do is come. But

55:04

when coming, I would love them

55:06

to have to bring a certificate

55:08

from the police background

55:11

of their own state and

55:13

present that certificate of non-criminality.

55:16

Here's a federal background check that shows that

55:18

I'm not a wanted criminal, etc. This is,

55:20

by the way, a standard procedure for all

55:22

immigration programs. Every time I get

55:24

a residency or apply for some kind of government

55:27

thing, I have to bring a federal background check

55:29

from the FBI, etc. So that's a standard procedure.

55:31

There's a well-proven system

55:33

in place for that. And then

55:35

also a medical check showing

55:37

I don't have any infectious

55:39

diseases run by a doctor,

55:41

etc. And again,

55:43

this is also a standard part of many countries' immigration systems

55:45

that you have to have a certificate of

55:47

health. And so this kind of thing,

55:50

to me, would be great. I

55:52

would be thrilled if somebody would

55:54

do this because this is the point I think

55:57

that most conservatives miss, the point that North made

55:59

quite strong. only is that why

56:01

do you think that a government

56:03

bureaucrat can somehow figure out how

56:06

many workers we need for an XYZ

56:09

visa class? How many tech workers we need? How

56:11

many farm workers? How many of this worker? How

56:13

many of that worker? You don't have a clue.

56:16

What I find fascinating is that one

56:19

of the great challenges that every

56:21

businessman I know including

56:23

many in very menial trades in

56:26

agriculture, etc., as well as many in

56:28

tech and kind of high level businesses,

56:31

they can't get enough workers. They

56:34

have to go through all these quota

56:36

programs and apply for a certain number

56:39

of workers, etc. It's an enormous problem

56:41

with paperwork. If the United States would

56:43

simplify this system, may eliminate any restrictions,

56:46

then the country would have an enormous competitive

56:48

advantage and would be able to attract some

56:50

of the world's greatest immigrants,

56:52

which would be an incredible boon to the

56:55

country. It would be an incredible

56:57

boon to the country's economy. More

56:59

people makes for a much

57:01

more vibrant economy. It would lower the average

57:03

age in the country, which would lead

57:05

to increasing vibrance. I think

57:08

that for all of the problems that the

57:10

United States has, I think the United States

57:12

is better at assimilating immigrants into the nation

57:14

than any other country in the world because

57:17

our culture is one of

57:20

a creed rather than an

57:22

ethnicity. Our culture is

57:24

very, very inclusive of anybody from

57:26

any place as long as they

57:28

buy into the national creed, the

57:30

basic set of beliefs that compose the

57:33

civil religion of the United States. If

57:35

those people buy into that, then

57:37

we accept them as Americans no

57:39

matter what. This is why it's

57:42

very common for Americans to have

57:44

a friend who just moved over from

57:47

the UK or Somalia or Japan, etc.

57:49

Two years later, an American will

57:54

make a comment like, man, you're an

57:56

American through and through. You're totally American.

57:58

It has nothing to do with immigrants.

58:00

immigration status, the person may or may

58:02

not have a visa, the person may or

58:04

may not be a US citizen, it

58:06

has to do with culture. Because if

58:08

somebody embraces the American culture regardless of

58:10

accent, regardless of language, etc., then Americans

58:12

accept them. This is very

58:14

different than other nations that are primarily

58:16

a nation due

58:19

to an ethnic identity of some

58:21

kind or your

58:23

family's history here, etc. So

58:26

I think it would be an incredible boon

58:28

to the country to have that kind of

58:30

system. I understand that people want

58:32

to protect their

58:37

stuff. It always seems better to go

58:39

and form a cartel to protect your

58:41

industry and protect your occupation. The

58:43

free market ultimately systematically tears those

58:45

things down. So not only is

58:47

it morally repugnant to me

58:50

to build cartels, to protect your industry

58:52

from outsiders just so you can get

58:54

all the money, but

58:56

it's just philosophically dumb. It's

58:59

a dumb way to live and it

59:01

hinders human progress and human advancement. Those

59:04

would be some expressions of what I would

59:06

love to see as an ideal system, an

59:08

orderly system. I would be fine with checkpoints,

59:10

etc. I think it would be a great

59:12

benefit to the country. What do we think

59:15

about the current system? Well, it's

59:18

absolute chaos and it is

59:20

fundamentally horrific what has

59:22

been happening right now. The

59:25

mass transfer

59:28

of people across the

59:30

southern border with very few

59:32

checks and the checks that

59:34

are happening are fake.

59:37

As far as I see it, I

59:40

try to be careful with the use of the

59:42

word immoral, but they are really,

59:44

really bad and it's bad

59:46

for multiple reasons. I believe that the

59:48

current crisis

59:51

is bad for all three parties. First

59:54

and foremost, the current crisis is

59:56

bad for immigrants. The reason it's bad is because

59:58

it's not bad for immigrants. because they

1:00:00

are heading into a situation

1:00:02

that is going to be

1:00:06

terrible for decades. What

1:00:08

I mean is, the system I described that

1:00:10

I would love to see happen doesn't exist

1:00:12

in the United States. It

1:00:15

doesn't exist and it's not going to exist as far as

1:00:17

I can tell for a very long period of time. And

1:00:20

so, when immigrants are coming

1:00:22

to the United States, they're primarily coming

1:00:24

in because they're applying for asylum. We're

1:00:26

not exercising any kind

1:00:28

of significant checks as

1:00:31

to the claims of fear that someone makes in

1:00:34

their demand for asylum. We're just broadly handing

1:00:36

out court dates. And these court

1:00:38

dates are years in the future. And

1:00:41

right now, for every

1:00:43

immigrant that I know to

1:00:45

the United States system, the

1:00:47

entire US immigration system is

1:00:49

completely ... I

1:00:54

don't even know what adjective to use. It's just

1:00:56

totally screwed up. It doesn't work. It's

1:00:59

terrible. I have friends who are going

1:01:01

through the system, have followed every law,

1:01:03

have tried to do everything

1:01:05

and they just sit in limbo forever.

1:01:08

And the court system here and it

1:01:10

gets kicked out there, et cetera. So,

1:01:12

going into the US immigration system is

1:01:14

a nightmare where you just sit and

1:01:16

sit and sit and sit. And there's

1:01:18

no serious attention being given to the

1:01:20

lives of the people who are sitting

1:01:22

there. And so, I

1:01:24

would never want to get involved with the

1:01:26

US immigration system if I

1:01:28

didn't have to. It's not

1:01:30

that it can't be done. There are some

1:01:32

people and if you can have a highly

1:01:34

desirable job and your company can afford a

1:01:37

great lawyer, et cetera, they can grease the

1:01:39

skids and get something resolved. But you will

1:01:41

spend years just waiting and waiting and waiting.

1:01:43

And so, all of these people, poor people

1:01:45

who are coming into the United States trying

1:01:47

to build something for themselves,

1:01:49

they're going to be stuck

1:01:52

into a system where they're second

1:01:54

class citizens and they can't get legal

1:01:56

status, they can't get legal standing, et

1:01:58

cetera. And this is terrible. also

1:02:00

for their children. If

1:02:02

their children are not born in the United

1:02:04

States, it puts their children into enormous limbo.

1:02:06

And if they leave the United States, they

1:02:09

can't come back because of the very restrictive

1:02:11

system that the United States has on travel.

1:02:13

The only way to come in and out is

1:02:15

to cross the border illegally because the whole system

1:02:18

of getting into the United States with a highly

1:02:20

restrictive visa system is utterly

1:02:22

screwed up. And so I

1:02:24

believe that it's a moral wrong

1:02:26

to create these expectations for the

1:02:29

impact of immigrants. Number

1:02:31

two, it's a moral catastrophe for

1:02:33

the existing citizenry of the United

1:02:35

States because what they are seeing

1:02:37

on a day-to-day basis is chaos.

1:02:39

And let me just do the

1:02:41

third one next. It's a

1:02:43

moral catastrophe for the government itself. What

1:02:45

you have right now in the United States, forgive

1:02:47

me if I'm ranting, I know I'm ranting, but

1:02:49

if you're listening, I assume it's useful to you.

1:02:55

The current system of the United States and

1:02:58

what the government is doing to itself

1:03:00

is a catastrophe because when

1:03:02

I, as a law-abiding citizen, see

1:03:04

that the government is not enforcing

1:03:07

its own laws in any meaningful

1:03:09

way and it's clearly visible with

1:03:11

hordes of people walking across a

1:03:13

river and that the

1:03:15

border patrol is non-functional

1:03:22

in terms of actually – I mean,

1:03:25

that's poor guys. I have a friend of

1:03:27

mine who I talked to about this sometime,

1:03:29

former border patrol agent. I cannot even imagine

1:03:31

trying to work in that government agency. It's

1:03:33

got to be the lowest morale across any

1:03:36

government agency right now. And

1:03:38

so you're creating a system in

1:03:40

which you are watching people flout

1:03:42

your laws and that

1:03:44

is a bad pathway to go

1:03:46

down because as

1:03:49

law-abiding citizens watch you as

1:03:51

the government. Allow,

1:03:53

Be permissive of people flouting

1:03:55

your laws, disobeying your laws

1:03:57

with impunity. Hurry

1:04:00

to get. In. Every

1:04:02

way possible. The that

1:04:04

causes ordinary law, ordinary

1:04:06

law abiding citizens to

1:04:09

ah. Say why

1:04:11

am I taking the trouble to follow the

1:04:13

laws. Why? Am I doing that?

1:04:15

And then instead of having a citizenry that

1:04:17

is. Highly respectful of the

1:04:19

law and police them who police themselves

1:04:21

based upon their respects to the law.

1:04:23

You are breeding discontentedness and disrespect for

1:04:26

the law, which is going to make

1:04:28

your job as a government much more

1:04:30

difficult in the future. Because people say

1:04:32

why should I obey ally That he's

1:04:34

not obey I would I would wreck

1:04:36

I would compare to this. I haven't

1:04:38

seen this personally, but I've heard this

1:04:40

described by couple of people. but let's

1:04:42

say that it's opening morning of fishing

1:04:45

season. And. What I've heard

1:04:47

fishermen say sometimes would say that

1:04:49

fishing season for X Y Z

1:04:51

fists opens at eight o'clock am

1:04:54

on in June one and you

1:04:56

be down the river and it's

1:04:58

It's seven forty five am and.

1:05:01

Every. One is sitting there, waiting. they're

1:05:03

all lined up. You can see all your

1:05:05

fishermen. Seven forty five and everyone's waiting and

1:05:07

waiting for eight o'clock But then around say

1:05:09

seven fifty four. You. Know Joe Shmoe

1:05:12

tosses a line in the water and all

1:05:14

of a sudden the guy next to Joe

1:05:16

says london A do It and he tosses

1:05:18

his line in the water To and at

1:05:20

seven Fifty seven everyone's got their lines in

1:05:22

the water except for the ten percent of

1:05:24

like highly committed stuff Law abiding people they're

1:05:27

going to wait til eight o'clock or to

1:05:29

the weight that extra thirty three three minutes.

1:05:31

Meanwhile they watch all their friends poor the

1:05:33

fish out and they feel why am I

1:05:35

the sucker I'm a sucker for sitting here

1:05:37

obeying the law. Why am I the sucker

1:05:40

as bid something for years. That has bothered

1:05:42

me enormously is that I I aspire

1:05:44

to be a law abiding person. I

1:05:46

aspire to be a model citizen. I'm

1:05:49

always, but I'd say I want to

1:05:51

be that as I would compare to

1:05:53

things like welfare programs like I have.

1:05:55

My aspiration has never been has always

1:05:58

been to be somebody who is. Not

1:06:00

on welfare suit to always be somebody who

1:06:02

is a producer not a consumer. I want

1:06:04

to help my neighbor. I want to be

1:06:06

a supporter I what that's those athletes that

1:06:09

ideals and the civic virtue to which I

1:06:11

aspire and half the time I live my

1:06:13

life as a sucker as they were wells

1:06:15

the taken advantage of that program one at

1:06:17

you and when you look around and you

1:06:19

see all the immoral and on her unethical

1:06:22

people getting rich it makes it very very

1:06:24

hard for you to say to do to

1:06:26

stand up and save know I believe this

1:06:28

even though the doesn't. And when

1:06:30

you create that kind of society

1:06:32

that makes things really bad, and

1:06:34

that's where we're at. the government.

1:06:38

The So it's You know, a government that

1:06:40

that does it this way. To

1:06:43

pursues illegal means to get it's

1:06:45

end. I have zero respect for.

1:06:48

Be. Straight about what she wants, speak

1:06:50

the truth about what you want, be

1:06:52

willing to stand behind your convictions and

1:06:54

do it properly and the public view.

1:06:56

And if you say this is what

1:06:59

we'll do than say it so the

1:07:01

people can vote on it. If you're

1:07:03

gonna believe in democracy or at least

1:07:05

do it, don't do it by spice.

1:07:07

hidden this advice, not enforcement, etc. because

1:07:09

you destroy trust and confidence in the

1:07:11

in your governments. and I think that

1:07:14

is what is happening to the Us

1:07:16

government. And finally I mentioned it's it's

1:07:18

immoral. To the citizens of because

1:07:20

what they're getting is not what

1:07:22

they voted for. And

1:07:24

you could say what. People get what they

1:07:26

vote for. President Biden won the presidency. So

1:07:28

people should have known. Yeah, but President Biden

1:07:30

didn't say this is what I'm going to

1:07:33

do. At least I don't know. Bright, the

1:07:35

maybe did. and I despise ignorant. Ah, but

1:07:37

I'm not aware of him saying I'm going

1:07:39

to eliminate all imposition of law so that

1:07:41

people can so tens of thousands of people

1:07:43

to cross the border illegally. We're going to

1:07:45

destroy the definition of what it means for

1:07:47

asylum seekers. We're not going to ask for

1:07:49

any verifiable evidence. What we're gonna do is

1:07:51

we must give people a court date This

1:07:53

a few years down. and get as many

1:07:55

people into the country is possible that there is no

1:07:57

way you can look at the current system and and

1:08:00

see that it's anything except intentional. But it

1:08:02

was not stated by candidate Joe Biden when

1:08:04

he was running for president, nor was it

1:08:06

stated by anybody else who was doing it.

1:08:08

It's all being done. And so

1:08:11

this is immoral to the citizenry because

1:08:13

the entire point of a democratic system

1:08:16

is that the people can

1:08:18

vote for what they want. And

1:08:22

so the politicians say, here's what we'll do

1:08:24

for you. And then the people vote for

1:08:26

that. And so when you have that,

1:08:29

it makes people feel like their voices

1:08:31

are heard. Okay. And this has been

1:08:34

fundamental to the American fabric

1:08:37

of society. All right. I

1:08:39

lost. I lost on that issue, but that's

1:08:41

okay. It was a free and public vote.

1:08:43

Uh, the majority has it or the plurality

1:08:45

has it, whatever the case may be. Uh,

1:08:48

I lost. That's okay. I'm happy to lose. And

1:08:50

after all, we're all Americans here and I can

1:08:52

go along and I'll just fight next time in

1:08:55

the political system. But you

1:08:57

see that that confidence and trust is

1:08:59

breaking down. So is it

1:09:01

a temporary thing? Is it a permanent thing? I

1:09:03

have no idea. I hope it's just

1:09:05

temporary, but it makes me sad because the

1:09:07

current chaos is

1:09:10

deeply immoral.

1:09:13

Um, it's at least counterproductive.

1:09:15

And I think it's, it's wrong. It's

1:09:17

wrong. Uh, it's not the way that

1:09:19

it should be done on any level. It's

1:09:21

not an honest debate and it's going to lead to

1:09:24

increasing levels of, of unrest,

1:09:27

increasing levels of, of

1:09:29

discontentedness, increasing levels of

1:09:32

vitriol, I

1:09:34

don't see a solution in the political space

1:09:37

that is going to have an impact, all

1:09:39

the rest of the stuff. You know, there's minor things

1:09:41

about terrorists are coming. I don't, that's all that stuff

1:09:43

is dumb. Um, if a

1:09:46

terrorist tries to sneak into the

1:09:48

country, cross the southern border and blow up the

1:09:50

bomb, you shoot him. Like we're a

1:09:52

country of gun owners. We just shoot people.

1:09:54

It's no big deal. You, there's

1:09:57

no, no meaningful risk of terrorism

1:09:59

or. If you know

1:10:01

Chinese infiltrators, etc, it's an enormous benefit.

1:10:03

You know that the last com and

1:10:06

I want a moot kind of a

1:10:08

personal application personal finance, but the last

1:10:10

comment is simply that. As

1:10:12

Kristen I. I.

1:10:16

Am amazed. So so I'm trying to

1:10:18

present the deal clearly. what I'm describing

1:10:20

comes from from. Theological

1:10:23

conviction I don't have opened borders,

1:10:25

what I advocated for, etc and

1:10:27

then care for people. But on

1:10:29

the whole I'm just amazed that.

1:10:32

The Cursed. In the United States broadly

1:10:34

speaking and are paying attention to what's happening,

1:10:36

there's an enormous fear that people have that

1:10:38

while the immigrants going to come to United

1:10:41

States and they're gonna train her away with

1:10:43

those you know this go back to the

1:10:45

Russians had to Russian spies are going to

1:10:47

come in and are gonna so problems there

1:10:49

get changed that the society the Russians couldn't

1:10:51

keep any their spies employed descent of the

1:10:53

United States knowledge spies would the sacked and

1:10:56

says the same thing right. The boot camp

1:10:58

can barely hang onto their Muslim identity when

1:11:00

they go United States and and people from

1:11:02

all around. The World A kid. The American

1:11:04

culture is so strong in this enormous

1:11:06

opportunity. It's ah, it's and I wish

1:11:08

that. It's to personal thing

1:11:11

guess I just wish that person is

1:11:13

open up and pay attention as far

1:11:15

as I'm concerned. Got a sending the

1:11:18

entire world masses to the country which

1:11:20

is a lot easier to engage in

1:11:22

good missionary service and evangelism with your

1:11:24

neighbors around the block on it is

1:11:27

to pay to send people overseas and

1:11:29

in precarious situation or and so kind

1:11:31

of the broad anti immigration stance of

1:11:34

have so many evangelical churches drives me

1:11:36

nuts and I think they should be

1:11:38

considered. Couldn't. affirming what i

1:11:40

have said about the firming that

1:11:43

the chaos is unacceptable and that

1:11:45

it's hurting people it's hurting as

1:11:47

i said the immigrants themselves it's

1:11:49

hurting the ah the americans who

1:11:51

are already in the country and

1:11:53

it's it's hurting the government and

1:11:55

the chaos is unacceptable but the

1:11:57

broad kind of anti immigration stance

1:11:59

on That is to me crazy but

1:12:02

that's probably the most inflammatory thing I've said so far.

1:12:05

Let's move now to the personal applications of this and

1:12:07

I want to make two applications. Number one, if

1:12:09

you are an immigrant or considering immigrating

1:12:12

to the United States, don't have too many

1:12:14

of those in my audience or

1:12:16

if you are already living in the United States

1:12:19

and you don't have legal status in the country, what

1:12:21

should you do? Well, first of

1:12:23

all, I

1:12:25

think that generally speaking most people should

1:12:27

not use this pathway to try to

1:12:29

immigrate to the United States. This is

1:12:31

a bad pathway. So recently

1:12:34

on a Q&A show, I had a caller who called in

1:12:36

and said, I think it was German, said I'd like to

1:12:38

move to the United States. You

1:12:40

cannot be even as tempting as it may be

1:12:42

to say I'm going to fly to Mexico and

1:12:44

I'm going to sneak across the border and make

1:12:46

an asylum application. I do not see any fruitful

1:12:48

benefit there in that. When

1:12:51

you are an illegal immigrant to

1:12:53

the United States, you are a

1:12:55

genuine second class citizen. Everything

1:12:57

is closed to you. I

1:13:00

guess I should have said you are a metaphorical

1:13:02

second class citizen because you're not a citizen. You're

1:13:05

a second class person. Everything is closed to you.

1:13:08

There are a few places. You can get a driver's

1:13:10

license, etc. But you will spend all of your time

1:13:12

looking over your shoulder. Now you

1:13:14

don't have to worry generally about

1:13:16

an immigration officer sweeping you up.

1:13:19

What you have to worry about is you

1:13:21

have to worry about an employer not

1:13:23

being able to hire you. Because

1:13:25

this is what governments do is

1:13:27

they use functionaries to enforce their

1:13:30

rules. So let me give you

1:13:32

an example. Why does everybody

1:13:34

go across the US border with Mexico

1:13:36

instead of flying into New York City?

1:13:39

The reason is due to the American

1:13:41

visa system. There are

1:13:44

only 30 something countries that have – there's

1:13:47

one country's citizens

1:13:49

who can travel to the United States

1:13:51

without a visa and without prior authorization.

1:13:54

That country is Canada. So Canadians can travel

1:13:56

to the United States without a visa. officers

1:14:00

still can turn away

1:14:03

Canadian citizens of course and they routinely

1:14:05

do if they find any

1:14:08

intent to immigrate to the United States.

1:14:11

And so if you show up at the Canadian border with

1:14:13

your car packed full of gear and you're going

1:14:16

down to quote unquote spend some time with your

1:14:18

girlfriend in Los Angeles, you're probably not going to

1:14:21

make it into the country because US immigration

1:14:23

officers would view that as intent to

1:14:25

immigrate unless you have an immigration visa

1:14:27

processed in advance, not going to happen.

1:14:31

Other countries of the world who

1:14:34

come from a list of whose

1:14:36

citizens have a generally high acceptance

1:14:39

rate for tourist visas can

1:14:42

travel to the United States with an electronic

1:14:44

travel authorization. So if you're from the UK

1:14:46

or from France or from Germany or from

1:14:49

Japan, etc., then you can travel to

1:14:52

the United States using the ESTA program,

1:14:54

the electronic, was it a secure traveler

1:14:56

act or something? But it's

1:14:58

an electronic preadmission. And as long as you have that

1:15:01

done, they'll let you board the plane and then again

1:15:03

you'll probably be able to get into the country. The

1:15:05

immigration officers will still turn you away

1:15:07

at the airport if they think that

1:15:10

you have intent to immigrate

1:15:12

to the United States and you don't have an

1:15:14

immigration visa pre-existing. Everyone

1:15:16

else around the world has to apply for

1:15:18

a visa to travel into or

1:15:21

even to pass through the United States.

1:15:23

And that visa system is

1:15:26

extremely onerous. The

1:15:28

visa cost I think is $160 US. You

1:15:31

have to pay it regardless of whether

1:15:34

you are accepted or denied. It's just a

1:15:36

payment no matter what. You have

1:15:38

to bring a mountain of paperwork and

1:15:40

basically you have to prove to the

1:15:42

immigration officer in the US embassy abroad that

1:15:44

you don't have immigrant intent to the

1:15:46

United States, that in fact you are highly

1:15:49

connected to the place that you live

1:15:51

and you don't have the intent to move

1:15:53

to the United States and overstay your

1:15:55

tourist visa. And it's quite

1:15:57

an onerous process. Even all of the formalities of

1:15:59

getting getting the appointment are often difficult. Some embassies

1:16:01

you can't even get an appointment for a year

1:16:03

or two. And then you say, well,

1:16:05

I want to move to the United States for some kind

1:16:08

of immigration visa. Good luck. They are

1:16:10

very, very difficult to get unless

1:16:12

you are highly sought after. And so

1:16:14

what is the solution? Well, the solution

1:16:16

for many people around the world who

1:16:18

have zero hope of proving to an

1:16:20

immigration officer that they can pass these

1:16:24

checks, etc., is to go to the physical border

1:16:27

of the United States, to come in across

1:16:29

a sea border on

1:16:32

a boat of some kind and land on the

1:16:34

beach or to come across the southern border. And

1:16:36

so that's what people are doing, largely from Central

1:16:38

and South America, using

1:16:40

the walking in some cases through the

1:16:42

Darien Gap, using the bus system and

1:16:44

local transportation, getting transportation to the border,

1:16:46

then walking across the border. And they

1:16:49

are doing it because they can gain

1:16:51

easier access into many of these countries,

1:16:54

even if they have limited documentation. They at least

1:16:56

have visa-free access if they have a passport or

1:16:59

they accept their sedula or whatever it happens to

1:17:01

be, and then they cross the border across from

1:17:05

Mexico. And they

1:17:07

can do that. So what I'm saying though is

1:17:09

that you shouldn't do that if you're listening to

1:17:11

me. Because once you're in the

1:17:13

United States, sorry, to make the point,

1:17:16

in flying to the United States, the U.S.

1:17:18

uses that visa system to

1:17:21

restrict the access of

1:17:23

immigrants, potential immigrants.

1:17:26

But they're not doing it with U.S.

1:17:30

border officials. Yeah, there's immigration officials at

1:17:32

the airport, but they're doing it with

1:17:34

airline employees. The airline employees won't let

1:17:36

you board the plane if you don't

1:17:39

have the appropriate visa. So they're

1:17:41

using a system like that to keep you out.

1:17:43

Now, the same system applies inside

1:17:45

the United States is that the United States

1:17:47

won't penalize you as an illegal

1:17:50

immigrant for working if you don't have

1:17:52

work authorization. They will penalize your employer

1:17:55

for hiring you, and the penalties can

1:17:57

be steep. And so what the customs...

1:18:00

and customs enforcement agency does is

1:18:02

they do some high profile raids

1:18:04

routinely and they basically instill fear

1:18:06

in employees. And so if you

1:18:08

go to the United States, you're not going to find

1:18:10

that it's a land of flowing with milk and honey.

1:18:12

You're going to find that you have

1:18:14

very limited employment opportunities if you

1:18:17

don't have proper

1:18:19

employment authorization with a genuine

1:18:21

immigrant visa opportunity. You

1:18:24

have very limited employment opportunities. And then

1:18:26

when you pass into those limited employment

1:18:28

opportunities, you are going to be taken

1:18:30

advantage of, broadly speaking, and you're going

1:18:32

to be abused because

1:18:34

unethical employers who are

1:18:37

willing to hire undocumented workers know

1:18:39

that they can get away with

1:18:41

greater forms of abuse than if

1:18:43

they are hiring documented workers. And

1:18:45

while all people have legal rights in

1:18:48

the United States, you will

1:18:50

be very embarrassed to

1:18:52

exercise those rights due to

1:18:54

your status of nonbelonging. When

1:18:57

I'm in the United States, I can throw my

1:18:59

weight around freely. Cop walks up to me on

1:19:01

the street, asks me questions. I turn to him

1:19:03

and say, officer, I don't answer questions. When

1:19:06

I pass through immigration in the United States, this didn't

1:19:08

turn out well one time, but I did it. I

1:19:11

did it. When I travel

1:19:13

to the United States and an immigration official

1:19:15

starts asking me questions about where I've been,

1:19:17

I just say, I'm sorry, officer, I don't

1:19:19

answer questions. And I can

1:19:22

routinely throw my weight around because

1:19:24

I'm confident not only in my

1:19:26

citizenship status, but

1:19:28

I'm confident in my knowledge

1:19:31

of the culture, my knowledge of the law. I

1:19:33

know what laws the police are under, et cetera.

1:19:36

When you travel as an illegal immigrant to

1:19:39

the United States and you're interacting with a

1:19:41

police officer, you will have

1:19:43

none of that confidence because the structure of

1:19:45

legal requirements in the United States is very

1:19:47

different than where you're from, and you're going

1:19:50

to feel extremely vulnerable. So you feel vulnerable

1:19:52

to everybody, which makes you slower to go

1:19:54

for help, which means that when somebody robs

1:19:56

your house or steals your cash or whatever

1:19:58

it is that they... Take

1:20:00

from you, you don't go and file a police report

1:20:03

because you're scared of them calling ICE, the

1:20:05

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. You're worried about how the

1:20:07

cops are going to treat you. You're worried about all

1:20:09

this stuff and so you live your life as a

1:20:11

second class citizen. This is true

1:20:14

even if you have linguistic skills and

1:20:16

unfortunately you probably don't. Well, I guess you're

1:20:18

listening to the show, you do. But

1:20:22

there's a lot of people who get abused because they

1:20:24

don't learn the language. And so

1:20:26

they wind up living in a completely

1:20:29

different reality. And can it

1:20:31

work? Sure it can work. It's

1:20:33

just really, really brutal. And

1:20:36

all across the United States this is

1:20:38

true. And so you're going to be a second class citizen

1:20:40

and it's not going to be fun. It

1:20:42

might be better than where you're from. If

1:20:44

I were of Venezuelan, I would be

1:20:46

in the United States as an illegal immigrant. Doing

1:20:49

everything I could to feed my family back home, sending

1:20:51

money back home in remittances and doing everything I could

1:20:53

to get my family with me. Not

1:20:55

a question in my mind. If I were from Haiti,

1:20:58

I would absolutely have gone in through Brazil.

1:21:00

I would have emigrated up across the Darien

1:21:03

Gap. I would absolutely have gone to the

1:21:05

United States as an illegal alien.

1:21:08

Absolutely no question in my mind that I would do that. But

1:21:12

if you have any kind of professional capacity, if

1:21:14

you're understanding the words that I'm speaking to you

1:21:16

right now as whatever we're

1:21:19

an hour and 20 minutes into a very

1:21:21

detailed, very kind of

1:21:23

high level philosophical conversation in English,

1:21:26

then you shouldn't do

1:21:28

this because you'll have better opportunities elsewhere.

1:21:31

And if you come to the United States, you have

1:21:33

to come on a legal pathway so that you can

1:21:35

have some chance of things working out in the long

1:21:38

run. I

1:21:40

have known a few people who have made it in

1:21:42

the United States as illegal aliens and then went abroad.

1:21:44

I have some friends of mine who lived in the

1:21:46

United States. They lived there for about 15 years.

1:21:49

They invested in real estate in the United States.

1:21:51

They became wealthy. They little by little

1:21:54

got their money, about three quarters of

1:21:56

a million dollars, about half a million dollars,

1:21:58

their life savings. that they made

1:22:01

primarily with real estate investment. They

1:22:03

little by little got it out of the country,

1:22:05

and then they left the United States, moved abroad,

1:22:07

where they did have citizenship status, and basically they're

1:22:10

barred from ever going to the United States again.

1:22:12

That's the best I can imagine. That does not

1:22:14

happen frequently. And so I don't think

1:22:16

people should take this pathway to the United States. If

1:22:19

you're in the United States illegally, I'm gonna

1:22:21

give you here the same advice that I've

1:22:23

given, is that I

1:22:25

think you're wasting your time, unless

1:22:27

you are a very low level worker, which

1:22:31

you're not, because you're listening to me right now for all the reasons

1:22:33

I said, then you're wasting

1:22:35

your time in the United States. And

1:22:37

this insecurity of sitting around and waiting,

1:22:39

you're gonna wait another decade to wait

1:22:41

on some political change, that somehow they're

1:22:43

gonna pass a bill that gives amnesty

1:22:46

to illegal immigrants or to the children

1:22:48

of illegal immigrants, et cetera. The U.S.,

1:22:51

I see no way that happens in the

1:22:53

next decade. Too polarized, and the both camps

1:22:55

in the political system have, they're not willing

1:22:57

to listen to each other, could

1:23:00

some kind of compromise bill be worked out? Like

1:23:02

I said, would I, myself vote,

1:23:05

if I'm in Congress, would

1:23:08

I vote for a bill that gives open borders

1:23:10

and automatic amnesty to all illegal immigrants in the

1:23:12

United States in exchange for ending the welfare state?

1:23:15

I would, I'd vote for that. And

1:23:18

it's laughable to think that that has

1:23:20

any chance of happening in the next

1:23:22

10 years. We all got our

1:23:24

heels dug in way too deep on any of this

1:23:26

stuff. And so remember, I'm out here in, I

1:23:29

don't think it's philosophical, La La Land,

1:23:31

but it's purely philosophical, what I'm saying.

1:23:33

It has zero practical impact. There's no

1:23:36

feasible structure in which any kind of

1:23:38

this thing happens. And that's why my

1:23:40

entire life as

1:23:43

paying attention to politics, it's about mid-90s,

1:23:47

it's been exactly the same thing,

1:23:49

a never-ending debate, and nothing

1:23:51

changes about it because the positions are

1:23:53

too locked in. The

1:23:56

Republicans have decided to be

1:23:58

the anti-immigration Party. And

1:24:00

they the couch it in rule of

1:24:02

law. That's why were opposed Amnesty bills

1:24:05

and we're not gonna in institute meaningful

1:24:07

immigration reform. And the democrats have dug

1:24:09

in their heels and are unwilling to

1:24:11

listen to the Republicans concerns on any

1:24:14

issue. And so they just fight. And

1:24:16

they fi. Then they fight. And they

1:24:18

fight. And the government is impotent. So

1:24:20

would you stay in the United States

1:24:22

in that status? you? You're not gonna

1:24:25

get ahead the way you could if

1:24:27

he went back home. Wherever you have

1:24:29

legal status, And started over again. And.

1:24:32

If you've got money than use that

1:24:34

money to restart your son for legal

1:24:36

status. Somewhere where you can use money

1:24:38

to buy yourself a residency, visa, by

1:24:40

yourself, citizenship, etc. start over. America is

1:24:42

no longer a country. America, the

1:24:44

ideal has spread around the world, and there

1:24:47

are a lot of places outside of the

1:24:49

United States that are far more American, even

1:24:51

in the country of my birth. And so

1:24:53

we're living in the age of digital revolution,

1:24:55

digital connectivity, and you don't have to be

1:24:58

in the United States to make it rich.

1:25:00

If you're listening to my voice, you have

1:25:02

the skills succeed in any corner of the

1:25:04

world. And so if I were the United

1:25:07

States and the that status. And

1:25:09

I were no longer kind of the penniless

1:25:11

immigrant who does had nothing but manual labor

1:25:13

to offer the world than I would make

1:25:15

as much money as I could in a

1:25:17

short period of time and I would make

1:25:20

a plan for a new place to go

1:25:22

where I can exercise that's And I would

1:25:24

go there because I'm convinced that there's plenty

1:25:26

of opportunity around the world for smart until

1:25:28

to people even to access the Us economy

1:25:30

without being physically. They're spending your life in

1:25:32

limbo. And now the final point I

1:25:35

will make and this is where it gets very

1:25:37

financial. Recognize

1:25:41

always that your security

1:25:43

matters more than anything

1:25:45

else. If

1:25:47

you not feel secure. And

1:25:51

if you are not actually secure. You're

1:25:53

going to spend all your money to try to get

1:25:56

security. so

1:25:58

if you're living in a neighborhood right now and you

1:26:00

don't have, and there's crime increasing in your area, and

1:26:02

you haven't figured out how to get your police department

1:26:04

to do their job, et cetera, you

1:26:07

need to move to a gated neighborhood. You

1:26:09

need to start spending more money on your security. You

1:26:12

need to get guards on your block. You need

1:26:14

to increase your security. You need to start changing

1:26:16

your living patterns so that you yourself are not,

1:26:18

don't face a crime wave. I'll

1:26:23

skip some of the many stories I could

1:26:25

say, but recognize this as your

1:26:27

primary priority. If you

1:26:29

do not have economic opportunities where you live,

1:26:32

recognize that this is gonna be a primary

1:26:34

thing. And so you

1:26:37

wanna make sure that you're never put in

1:26:39

a situation of being an illegal immigrant. And

1:26:42

so cultivate the economic opportunities

1:26:44

that you have, and then cultivate some

1:26:46

more for your children in other places.

1:26:49

This is one of those things why I've

1:26:51

done my international stuff. Looking

1:26:53

at a country that seems to be unraveling at

1:26:56

the seams, optimistically, I

1:26:58

hope that we

1:27:00

can pull it together. I hope it's just a

1:27:02

temporary time of difficulty, but

1:27:04

I don't live my life on hope. Hope

1:27:07

you miss dumb. I live my life on plans.

1:27:09

And so make some backup plans for other places

1:27:11

that can be gone to, et cetera. And

1:27:14

recognize, don't ever allow yourself to be in a situation

1:27:16

in which you can't feed your family. About

1:27:19

half of the audience, when I said a

1:27:21

few minutes ago that if

1:27:24

I were from Haiti, I would absolutely go

1:27:26

to the United States and illegal immigrant, you

1:27:28

probably sucked your breath in. Joshua,

1:27:30

I thought he was a conservative guy. Why wouldn't he obey

1:27:32

the rule of law? Are you

1:27:35

telling me that you would obey a

1:27:37

stupid law saying

1:27:39

where you can and can't go if

1:27:41

your children are dying of starvation? I

1:27:45

mean, most of us would become thieves. Only

1:27:49

a tiny percentage of us, I would love to

1:27:51

think, I would hope that I'm in that percentage,

1:27:53

but I'm not that confident in my own ability

1:27:56

to not even be a thief. We would steal to feed

1:27:58

our children, let alone. Some

1:28:00

imaginary line on sand saying you can or

1:28:02

can't work I

1:28:05

have first of all, I

1:28:07

have no moral repercussions about it. I encourage

1:28:09

illegal immigrants United States to work Without

1:28:12

any fear of failure because what's the

1:28:14

alternative to work stealing? You're

1:28:17

gonna force a man to be a thief because you won't let

1:28:19

him work who Would

1:28:22

ever grant a government the right

1:28:24

to say that you can or

1:28:26

cannot work I'm

1:28:28

somehow supposed to not be able to

1:28:30

work to feed my family

1:28:32

to feed myself and feed my family

1:28:35

I'm not gonna go out into the to the

1:28:37

to the marketplace and and Voluntarily

1:28:39

negotiate with people for wages for a

1:28:42

day's labor So that I can

1:28:44

have food and a place to live and a safe place

1:28:46

to be at night out of the cold that's

1:28:48

an insane law and Immoral

1:28:51

laws should be disrespected and

1:28:53

disobeyed because they are immoral and so

1:28:55

immigration restrictions on a man's right to

1:28:57

work, etc should be Disobeyed

1:29:01

by all people because they're immoral. You don't

1:29:03

have the right to tell a man that

1:29:05

he can't work That's like

1:29:07

the flip side of the immorality of

1:29:09

slavery You neither have the right to

1:29:11

steal a man's labor from him by

1:29:13

enslaving him Nor do you have

1:29:15

the right to steal a man's ability to labor

1:29:17

by passing a law saying that he can't work

1:29:20

Both of those are immoral and they're wrong a

1:29:22

man has the right to go out into the

1:29:24

world Make a voluntary free exchange with someone of

1:29:26

labor for income in whatever form it takes now

1:29:28

The government can make it difficult and they can

1:29:30

pass, you know do that stuff But my point

1:29:32

is to put yourself in that situation if those

1:29:34

are your convictions You say no, I would obey

1:29:37

the law and I wouldn't go where it's illegal

1:29:39

for me to go Put

1:29:41

yourself in that situation. Do you really mean to

1:29:43

say that you would? Not

1:29:46

work if your family were in need if you

1:29:48

were suffering violence where you're from Of

1:29:51

course you would So

1:29:53

that's the personal fine. And then the third thing

1:29:55

is just recognize how a country could change the

1:29:59

country of the The United States today

1:30:01

is not the country of my birth. And

1:30:04

so your country also can change. If

1:30:06

you're listening to me from France, there's a good

1:30:08

chance that you look around and say, the nation

1:30:11

of my birth is not the nation of today.

1:30:14

And change is going to happen. I prefer to

1:30:17

embrace it. I want to embrace it. But

1:30:19

I also want to recognize sometimes change can get out of hand

1:30:21

and it may not go in the direction that you want it

1:30:23

to go. And so as a sovereign

1:30:25

individual, you owe it to yourself to be prepared

1:30:27

to thrive in any kind of circumstance. And that's

1:30:29

what you can do. So see to

1:30:31

your physical safety. Live in a safe

1:30:33

place. If you're living in a dangerous neighborhood, move. If

1:30:35

you're living in a dangerous city, move. If

1:30:38

you're living in a place where you don't have economic

1:30:40

opportunity, move. Because at

1:30:42

the end of the day, it's this kind of physical

1:30:44

movement really is one of the few things

1:30:46

that governments ever listen to. And

1:30:49

that's what's happening in the immigration

1:30:51

scenario. So I would assume that

1:30:53

I've said enough in this show to find

1:30:57

some area of agreement with you and some area of

1:30:59

disagreement with you. And I

1:31:02

think that this show probably still, if it's

1:31:05

not too much personal finance in this particular episode, at

1:31:07

least we can reclaim the moniker

1:31:09

of radical, at least in some of these

1:31:11

things. I fully acknowledge that

1:31:13

these are interesting philosophical discussions. I don't

1:31:15

have any practical application of any of

1:31:17

this for what I have, other than

1:31:19

what I have ended the show with. I

1:31:21

can't tell you how to vote. I don't want to vote for Republicans

1:31:24

or Democrats. I understand if you vote

1:31:26

for likely Republican candidate, Donald

1:31:28

Trump, I understand. I get you. You

1:31:31

don't have to defend it to me. If you vote for

1:31:33

likely Democratic candidate, Joe Biden,

1:31:35

I understand. You don't have to defend it

1:31:37

to me. If you vote for someone

1:31:39

else or you don't vote at all, I understand.

1:31:42

I don't have any kind of practical

1:31:44

Democratic outworking of this for

1:31:46

reasons that are probably obvious at this point in time.

1:31:49

I can't tell you any way that I

1:31:51

see this resolving. Someone else's crystal

1:31:54

ball may work better than mine, but to me

1:31:56

these things are just too far removed

1:31:58

to see much. change and while people

1:32:01

can change on some things, I

1:32:03

only see it happening kind of if there's a

1:32:05

philosophical imperative and as I see it, most

1:32:09

people are stuck on the horns of

1:32:11

a dilemma caused by their own philosophy. So

1:32:14

the Republicans, I don't need to go into politics,

1:32:16

you get it. But the point is we're on

1:32:18

the horns of a dilemma and we can't, these

1:32:21

things are irreconcilable. And so my

1:32:23

best guess of the future is that

1:32:25

basically we muddle along until

1:32:28

we see something different. So

1:32:30

my guess is that no political change is

1:32:32

really going to happen on immigration but I

1:32:35

think the flow of immigrants is going to

1:32:37

dry up. The

1:32:40

world of Latin America just probably doesn't

1:32:42

have that many young people to contribute

1:32:44

anymore and anybody who wants

1:32:46

to immigrate to the United States using

1:32:48

this cross border crossing

1:32:50

is probably there by now or

1:32:53

at least is on the way.

1:32:55

And so that process of flying

1:32:58

from Uganda to Brazil and then walking

1:33:01

and busing your way up, that's a multi-month

1:33:03

process but at the end of – it's

1:33:05

not a two-year process. And

1:33:07

so I don't expect an enormous hoard

1:33:09

of immigrants to continue. I think

1:33:11

that what you're seeing right now is whatever

1:33:14

was pent-up demand caused by various issues and

1:33:16

it's probably about at its limit. And

1:33:20

so I would expect – just my best guess, we'll put

1:33:22

it here in public so I can come back and check

1:33:24

on this in five or ten years but my

1:33:26

best guess is that it'll probably just die down. Maybe

1:33:30

it'll be a political movement for a while

1:33:32

but there's not going to be any significant

1:33:34

resolution. The US Congress basically seems incapable of

1:33:36

legislating anymore even on important

1:33:39

issues where they should be legislating and so gridlock

1:33:43

it is. And as Gary

1:33:45

North himself was fond to say, highlight gridlock because

1:33:47

at least they don't get in my way. I

1:33:50

don't think it's always good but unfortunately

1:33:53

that's the situation. And people

1:33:55

will continue to be upset about things and

1:33:57

then probably 15 years from now, most

1:33:59

of this will have – It kind of slid

1:34:02

into the dustbin

1:34:04

of history, kind of like duck and cover

1:34:06

and Russian spies and all

1:34:09

the propaganda of the past as well. That'd be my best

1:34:11

guess on what happened. In the meantime, you've got to see

1:34:13

to yourself, you've got to see to your family, and

1:34:16

you've got to make good decisions so that you

1:34:18

don't wind up in a vulnerable situation. I

1:34:21

would just simply say, I guess, is what

1:34:23

I would prefer to share my heart

1:34:25

on in a closing manner is this. Laws

1:34:30

that exist do

1:34:33

not need to affect your

1:34:35

personal actions. I

1:34:40

would beg you, if there

1:34:43

are immigrants near you, especially

1:34:45

illegal immigrants, especially recent illegal

1:34:48

immigrants, please help them. These

1:34:52

men, primarily men, some

1:34:54

women, but these people face enormous

1:34:58

difficulties in life. You

1:35:01

have no concept of

1:35:03

the world in which these men live. I was

1:35:05

talking to a friend of mine recently who worked

1:35:07

in an airport, and he was telling me about

1:35:11

the African guys who work at a lot of

1:35:13

the airports across the United States. He

1:35:16

didn't have much money, he had to fly recently, and

1:35:18

he said to me in passing, he had to go

1:35:20

sleep in the airport before an early morning flight. He

1:35:22

said, well, I just went and found all the African

1:35:24

guys and laid down with them. Basically,

1:35:28

as he told me the story from his

1:35:30

experience, is that you have all these guys

1:35:32

from Africa, at least the ones

1:35:34

around him. All these guys come over

1:35:36

from Africa. They get a job

1:35:39

working at the airport. Usually they get two

1:35:41

jobs on two different shifts, so an early

1:35:43

morning shift with one restaurant and a late

1:35:45

afternoon shift with another. They

1:35:49

live at the airport. At

1:35:52

night, generally speaking, they don't go home

1:35:54

because they don't really have a home.

1:35:56

They're here by themselves. Their family is

1:35:58

back home. They work these days. two

1:36:00

jobs and they go and they sleep in

1:36:02

the airport every night and then

1:36:04

go to work. And then when

1:36:06

they have a day off, there's usually

1:36:08

one apartment that somebody has rented that's

1:36:10

basically the apartment. And they go

1:36:13

to the apartment, they lay down a sleeping bag and

1:36:15

sleep next to whoever happens to

1:36:17

be off that day and you have 30 guys who

1:36:19

will sleep at that apartment when

1:36:21

there is a day off. And

1:36:23

I just want you to imagine you

1:36:25

living that lifestyle. I want

1:36:27

you to imagine yourself being

1:36:30

that guy. Imagine

1:36:35

you've got a wife and children at home, you've moved

1:36:37

across the world, you're working

1:36:40

a fairly low paying wage. Thankfully,

1:36:43

it's decent financial planning for those guys

1:36:46

in the sense that they basically limited

1:36:48

every expense except food. They

1:36:51

wind up spending an enormous amount of money

1:36:53

on food because they have to buy all their

1:36:55

food from the airport concessions which is high priced

1:36:57

and then generally unhealthy which of course

1:37:00

creates health issues. But

1:37:03

other than that, they've limited all their other expenses.

1:37:05

They can send significant amounts of money home to

1:37:07

support their wife and their children with a dream

1:37:09

of being reunited with them someday. But

1:37:12

just imagine that you're living that lifestyle. Imagine

1:37:15

that you're working two eight-hour jobs, working

1:37:17

16 hours a day and that

1:37:19

you sleep on an airport floor, on an airport bench

1:37:21

in a little corner back in the middle of nowhere

1:37:24

at night. What

1:37:26

would you give for somebody to come along and

1:37:29

give you an encouraging word? What

1:37:32

would you give to be invited to someone's

1:37:36

Thanksgiving dinner? What would

1:37:38

you give for someone to help you

1:37:40

to connect with the culture that you're living in but

1:37:43

not really living in? What

1:37:45

would you give for a friend? What would you

1:37:47

give for someone to invite you to church? What

1:37:50

would you give to

1:37:53

make a difference in someone's lives? The

1:37:55

fact that someone has crossed a border does

1:37:58

not make anyone less human. Any

1:38:01

more than the fact that someone has stolen a

1:38:03

loaf of bread makes them

1:38:06

less deserving of care and consideration.

1:38:10

Go back and I would

1:38:12

say read, but it's a hard book to read, watch

1:38:15

Limiz by Victor Hugo for

1:38:17

one of the ultimate

1:38:20

wrestlings with this. Go

1:38:22

and read Count of Monte Cristo, my favorite novel.

1:38:25

Go and deal with these situations

1:38:30

and don't harden your heart to

1:38:32

people just because you think

1:38:34

well that guy doesn't deserve my love and attention

1:38:36

because he doesn't speak my language etc. I

1:38:41

would assume that there's

1:38:43

probably, I don't know, who

1:38:46

knows, maybe there's 50 terrorists who

1:38:49

have come into the United States. There probably are. I

1:38:51

don't have any idea. But

1:38:53

every single immigrant that I have

1:38:55

interacted with personally

1:38:58

on a personal basis in the United States

1:39:02

has been

1:39:04

the kind of man that I would be proud to have

1:39:06