Capitol Ideas/Scuttled Masses
Bethell, Tom
"Capitol Ideas/Scuttled Masses" some tanks and short-range ballistic missiles. At the end of every Olympiad the IOC President in accordance with the IOC ritual asks the youth of the world to reassemble in four years....
...must provide "them" with a living, as though " t h e y " were unable to help themselves--as though immigrants were mere legtess and armless torsos that had to be fed and clo.thed...
...Immigrants, he believes, " c r e a t e new burdens" on government...
...But that the fault somehow lies with us...
...C A P I T O L I D E A S SCUTTLED MASSES by Tom Bethell The recent influx of refugees from the police state in Cuba has put the topic of immigration back in the news once agai n . As usual, poor and longsuffering Americans have been subjected to a barrage of ignorant comment from their nominal leaders...
...It is one more demonstration that, within a context of political and economic freedom, the wealth of a population is limited only by its individual human capacities, and not by its natural environment...
...One suspects here that Senator Huddleston, not having experienced anything else Tom Bet~veil is The American Spectator's Washington editor...
...One reads on, curious...
...This lie exists as a kind of hidden premise lurking behind many a policy made in Washington...
...It is triply pernicious because it manages simultaneously to denigrate the hardships and hard work of our forefathers, to deny the crucial role of a wisely constituted government in encouraging national wealth, and to provide a convenient rationale for denying admission to newcomers now knocking at the door: the resources are no longer abundant...
...the taxpayers...
...Others go to the U.S...
...This was rather insultingly posted right where the refugees could see it--on the op-ed page of the Miami Herald...
...He seems to think that "we" (the government...
...Further, the percentage of Florida's population on welfare has declined by 18 percent since 1970, while it has grown by 31 percent in the nation as a whole...
...It is depressing to consider that there are about 60 others like him in the U.S...
...There is no worse slander against the United States than the claim that its material prosperity can historically be attributed to "abundant natural resources...
...This welfare assistance will not terminate quickly, but will go on for many years to come...
...The "massive exodus" from Cuba demonstrates that "the immigration policy of the United States is out of control," Huddleston begins...
...Instead, he adopts a .position so common in Washington today: that expenditures are immutable ("uncontrollable" is the word often used...
...The HEW inspector general has found that refugees compete for scarce housing in many areas," Huddleston writes...
...Brookes is surely one of the great unsung columnists in America today...
...Senate...
...How refreshing by contrast to read Warren Brookes' recent column in the Boston Herald-American...
...Accordingly, Huddleston and his fellow incomeredistributors on Capitol Hill, to assuage their consciences, have long since grown comfortable with the notion that a sizeable portion of the U.S...
...the U.S...
...Senate...
...Has it occurred to him, I wonder, that the refugees could help to build new houses...
...After two or three generations, the well-off grandchildren of hardworking immigrants go to Harvard, some of them, and learn to hate America...
...He seems to have in the back of his mind one of those old southern plantations, on which, for all I know, he may have been reared...
...Of course "resources" (the word itself brings to mind an Institutefor Policy Studies seminar) hve never been anything but scarce, and it is a measure of our deluded state to believe otherwise...
...Brookes further points out that since the Cubans began arriving 20 years ago, Florida's personal income and jobs "have consistently grown twice as fast as the nation," and its unemployment rate fell sharply during the period of highest immigration...
...Words worthy of being carved into Walter Huddleston's Senate desk, I should say...
...Once again people--malcontents, you understand~are Castro's problem, their absence his redemption...
...Americans are generous, but if the Senator believes that HEW officials waiting at the jetty, eagerly luring immigrants into government programs, are a sign of generosity then he should think again...
...Naturally, Cuban immigrants are thought of in the same way...
...Senate...
...Castro will be even more securely in power once he is rid of these discontented people who threaten his regime...
...We as a nation have been extremely generous in our efforts to assist these unfortunate people," Huddleston writes...
...When resources are abundant (grains of sand on the beach) they are valueless...
...How come...
...As far as immigrants are concerned, generosity shouldn't mean giving people things...
...Why "have to...
...First the huddled masses survive Castro's police state, then they brave the sea in open boats, only to find, nailed to the golden door, some derogatory observations by the senior Senator from Kentucky...
...Before the development of an industrial infrastructure, most materials are useless...
...It would be good if we could invite all the repressed of the world to come to the United States and provide them with a decent standard of living...
...The notion that the United States is now "full up" is a monstrous lie promulgated by those who are comfortably off and anxious to ward off further competition...
...Senators in Washington spend a large and increasing proportion of their time taking money away from some people and distributing it to others...
...The taxpayers of this country already have spent billions of dollars for refugee assistance," Huddleston continues...
...He points out that the U.S...
...When they acquire value, they become scarce by definition...
...Of what use was crude oil to the Red Indians...
...The THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1980 5 useful role that Huddleston could perform here would be to stop entangling the construction of new houses in regulatory red tape...
...As for Emma Lazarus's poem on the Statue of Liberty, the Senator shamefully believes that "it must be applied in accordance with the realities of the world today and not in 1885...
...Unfortunately, material prosperity has a way of softening up those who inherit it...
...There is plenty of land upon which to build new houses, as the Senator would be able to determine for himself.by looking out of the airplane window the next time he flies from Washington to Louisville...
...More distressing is a recent article by Senator Walter Huddleston of Kentucky...
...Incentives to work will be duly undermined...
...it should mean allowing them to make things for themselves...
...Nothing handicaps the able-bodied more rapidly than unearned cash...
...The truth of the matter is that the only real wealth a nation possesses is its human capital, and by and large the best source of this throughout American history has been immigrants...
...The idea that people are still capable of working hard and remaining independent of government is one that he does not seem to grasp at all...
...Although the immigrants certainly do not regard themselves as " u n f o r t u n a t e , " this is partly true...
...Brook,s argues that " t h e nation" as a whole may well be suffering [today] more from r e s t r i c t e d immigration than benefitting from i t . " Less than 30 percent of Our population growth today comes from immigration...
...The Senator here seems to forget that he is himself a lawmaker, and so is unusually well placed to change the law...
...How much use has Zaire made of its material abundance ? How much have Japan and Taiwan suffered from a lack of some raw materials...
...6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1980...
...He obediently defers to the zero-sum trend: "If one group of people succeeds in this country at the expense of another, that success is not only empty, it is costly to society as a whole...
...economy was built by immigrants, and adds: "Americans would do well to remember that this nation's greatest economic growth took place from 1880 to 1930, when we took in 37 million immigrants who, with their offspring, accounted for fully 60 percent of our huge population growth in that time...
...It makes people suspect that they are "victims" of something or other, which sows the seeds of grudge...
...Huddleston forges ahead with the observation that, as a result of our "lack of policy," taxpaying citizens, "through their federal, state, and local governments, will have to shoulder a growing financial burden...
...The attitude revealed here is one that permeates current liberal thought: People are the problem, to which government (albeit hard-pressed by so many people) is the solutionl According to this way of looking at the world, America before the Pilgrims was a green and pleasant land because there was no inflation, no unemployment, no profiteering, no p o l l u t i o n . . , no people...
...But it is not possible . . . . Our economy and our political system simply could not stand the strain...
...I n other words," says Brookes, "the Cubans have 'brought their wealth with them,' in their energies, ambitions, hopes and qualities of thought, with which they have created their own economic progress, despite the fact that they came here without the English language, and with only the clothes on their backs...
...Huddleston here sounds more like a World Bank bureaucrat than a Senator from Kentucky...
...Hesburgh is chairman of the President's Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy, in case you were wondering who asked his opinion...
...This activity is more likely to seem justifiable to legislators if they believe that the recipients are unable to help themselves...
...May they display cheerfulness and concord," he booms, "so that the Olympic torch may be carried with ever greater eagerness, courage, and honor for the good of humanity throughout the a g e s . " After the games, I hope Lord Killanin will read this glorious statement in every Afghan village, once the poison gas has cleared...
...The Senator is thinking paternalistically here...
...Instead of trying to reduce the flow of welfare dollars, Huddleston would prefer to reduce the flow of refugees...
...Not, mind you, that Fidel Castro is out of control, or that the United States thus demonstrates itself to be an attractive place...
...Statism is paternalism updated, and Huddleston has been captured by the statists...
...The Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, muscular Christian, perennial activist, and president of Notre Dame, was quoted recently as saying: "When you've got 8 million unemployed, I think it's idiotic to take more people in...
...population is helpless...
...like so many native-born heartlanders), does not fully appreciate the attractiveness of a pofitical system that allows most voluntary transactions between individuals to take place...
...Huddleston makes this point unconsciously when he insensitively notes that taking in Cubans can hardly be justified on the grounds that it will hurt Castro...
...A year or two of such treatment and they will be not immigrants but "minorities," complete with entitlements and setasides...
Vol. 13 • September 1980 • No. 9
