So This is Goodbye

This Saturday, I will officially make the transition from professional student to career professional. Okay, that’s not quite true. I actually plan to prolong my misery by spending one more year in Syracuse, New York, pursuing my master’s in television, radio and film.

As my short-lived career as a Joplin Globe blogger comes to an end, I’ve decided to reflect on the many things I have learned while floating about in the blogosphere:

• First and foremost, check your facts, check your facts, and then check your facts. I should have learned this lesson a long time ago when I would argue with my father and his only rebuttal was to ask me to “cite my sources.”
• It’s human nature to form an opinion, and then seek out facts/information in support of that opinion while ignoring contradictory evidence; “What’s that? I can’t hear you — la, la, la, la!”
• Bloggers are arrogant.
• Our opinion really doesn’t matter.
• People like political identity — it makes them feel safe.
• Mainstream media lies (OK, I already knew this one).
• Generational discrimination, although subtle, is more rampant than gender discrimination.

And there you have it: My quarter-of-a-century years’ worth of wisdom.

Peace and Liberty.

National Sovereignty vs. the Anglo-American Empire

“Every nation has a right to govern itself internally under what forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its own will; and externally to transact business with other nations through whatever organ it chooses, whether that be a King, Convention, Assembly, Committee, President, or whatever it be. The only thing essential is, the will of the nation.” –Thomas Jefferson

Conspiracy theorists are often berated for warning about the coming “New World Order.” But the global government is not some scheme cooked up by Ron Paul nut jobs. On the contrary, the concept of establishing a “new world order” has been referenced by the likes of George Bush Sr., Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama.

Really, we already have a partial “new world order” — better termed the “Anglo-American Empire.” Basically, the Anglo-American Empire describes the already existing global power structure seated in Western Europe and the United States.

Policy-making think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations and The Trilateral Commission already exercise excessive global sway. And institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations and International Criminals Court already function/govern at a global level.

Ultimately, the goal of these intuitions is to lessen national sovereignty and further global governance. CFR President Richard Haass has openly advocated to such goals:

“State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era.

Our notion of sovereignty must therefore be conditional, even contractual, rather than absolute. If a state fails to live up to its side of the bargain by sponsoring terrorism, either transferring or using weapons of mass destruction, or conducting genocide, then it forfeits the normal benefits of sovereignty and opens itself up to attack, removal or occupation.

Globalization thus implies that sovereignty is not only becoming weaker in reality, but that it needs to become weaker.

Moreover, states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function.”

But is trading national governance for global governance a wise idea? To be sure, most nations’ governments are corrupt and many oppress their people in one form or another. But would a more centralized, powerful form of government guarantee the “liberty and justice for all”?

Immigration and human capital

“Free trade is a lot like technology. It lowers the price of things for consumers, expands markets for businesses and provides jobs.” — Drew Carey

“Illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from hard-working Americans.” The claim is repeated often — but is it true?

Some fans of a Facebook page created “for conservative Americans” apparently think so. While perusing the discussions tab, a thread titled “Top Ten Myths About Immigration” caught my eye. The title seemed oddly out-of-place for a conservative group.

The creator of the discussion simply reposted information from the Justice for Immigrants website. Basically, the post attempts to debunk popular myths about immigration. One reoccurring falsehood is that undocumented workers are flooding the workforce with cheap labor, thus stealing jobs from American citizens.

But an understanding of simple supply and demand economics renders this argument void.

The fact is, immigrants would not be able to come to this country and work if it weren’t for market demand. And the market is controlled by consumers, so ultimately, it is American consumers who create job opportunities for their Mexican neighbors.

The argument that somehow an increase in population depletes the number of available jobs is completely illogical. If this were fact, the reverse argument — that a decrease in the population makes more jobs available — would also be true. Job availability has nothing to do with population. It has everything to do with the condition of an economy.

Human beings are not a burden, they are a benefit. Labor, or human capital, is a valuable resource for an economy. And an economy that has jobs available for labor to fill is a healthy one. Robinson Crusoe author Daniel Defoe thought so:

“People are indeed the essential of commerce, and the more people the 
more trade; the more trade, the more money; the more money, the more 
strength; and the more strength, the greater the nation…All temporal 
felicities, I mean national, spring from the number of people.”