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Agricultural states which, in the Medieval or Early Modern eras, fended off or emerged from nomadic invasions, had to develop large land holdings, centralized bureaucracies, efficient large-scale taxation, and huge armies– eg, the Russians, the Ottomans, the Mamelukes, and (this part I’m not as sure about) the Qings and Mogus. Even when they’re not fending off invasions, states generally hate nomads within their borders, and try to settle them so they can be taxed. In return, the nomads raid commerce and push peasants off the land, inhibiting industrialization and forcing the militarization of overland commerce.And nomads are ubiquitous. In the early modern period, Anatolia has Kurds and Turkomen, the Ukraine has Cossacks and Tatars, North Africa has various Arab and Berber groups, Arabia has Bedouin, Iran has Qashqai, Central Asia seems to have nothing BUT nomads, and presumably China and maybe India have their own groups.

But there’s one big exception: Europe, which didn’t have nomads, aside from arguably the Gypsies/Romani, who anyway don’t seem to have played much of a role in Western Europe. This seems pretty important for the development of European feudalism (apologies to Dr. Moye), states, empires, commerce, and industrialization. So why didn’t Europe have nomads? Is it geographic?

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Illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries are 50% less likely than U.S.-born Latinos to use hospital emergency rooms in California, according to a study published Monday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.The cost of providing healthcare and other government services to illegal immigrants looms large in the national debate over immigration.

In Los Angeles County, much of the focus of that debate has been on hospital emergency rooms. Ten have closed in the last five years, citing losses from treating the uninsured, and those that remain open are notorious for backlogs.

By federal law, hospitals must treat every emergency, regardless of a person’s insurance — or immigration — status. Illegal immigrants, who often work at jobs that don’t offer health insurance, are commonly seen as driving both the closures and the crowding.

But the study found that while illegal immigrants are indeed less likely to be insured, they are also less likely to visit a doctor, clinic or emergency room.

Story here. Overestimating the costs of illegal immigration is pretty easy to do. Even pro-immigration types can succumb to inaccurate biases.

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…but this is just ridiculous. He dropped his drivers-licences-for-illegal-immigrants plan today, saying:

“I’ve concluded that New York state cannot conduct this program on its own…It does not take a stethoscope to hear the pulse of New Yorkers on this topic.”

Most governors, realizing their constituents were against them, would back down. But not Eliot Spitzer. No, he went to Capitol Hill, hoping to get Congress to impose something like this on the whole country–not much hope for federalism in the US when a governor, in order to defy his own constituents, asks Congress to overstep its authority. This is a clever way for Spitzer to avoid paying the political price for his position, while still posturing for the Hispanic vote and the unions. But I’d expect nothing less from Eliot “180 on the LSAT” Spitzer, who, as Attorney General, brilliantly usurped legislative power to cast himself as a defender of consumers. Now he’s abusing his position as governor, asking the feds to usurp state power in order to cast himself as a defender of immigrants. I’m sure he hopes he can ride this issue into the Senate, just like he rode his sketchy lawsuits into the State Executive Mansion.

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From the LA Times:

A multimillion-dollar human smuggling enterprise is bringing thousands of Cubans to the U.S. on high-powered speedboats at a price of up to $10,000 a head, and the flourishing business has increased the number of Cubans illegally entering the U.S. by double-digit percentages in each of the last three years.

I guess they haven’t heard about our inferior health care system.  Also interesting:

“We don’t know at 3 a.m. when we see a ‘go-fast’ boat running without lights if that’s migrants seeking a better life or terrorists coming here to blow up a nuclear power plant,” said Zachary Mann, senior special agent and spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.

The problem with our current immigration policy is it actually makes our borders less safe.  It allows terrorists and other bad guys to piggyback in on a network established to help people who simply want to move to the US.  The more open the borders are to legitimate immigrants, the fewer options available to terrorists for sneaking in under the radar.

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On Tuesday Lou Dobbs had a special on immigration and aired parts of interviews with Ben Powell (formerly of SJSU and my boss at the Independent Institute) and Alex Tabarrok. They were chosen specifically for having signed this open letter calling for an open borders policy. After giving both economists a lengthy 3.2 seconds apiece to state their case, Dobbs spends 3 minutes engaging in that time honored rhetorical tactic that earns him the big bucks from CNN: name calling. Because nothing says “argumentative superiority” like responding to a clip (that you edited and selected) with accusations that your opponent is an idiot and a jackass. Well played, sir.

3rd grade playground strategies aside, the “consequences” that Dobbs refers to actually support Powell and Tabarrok’s position. Every time an American purchases an immigrant’s services, be they anything from lawn care to back surgery, it is because that individual feels he will be better off than if he employed the services of an American for the same task, or refrained from having that job done at all. Otherwise he wouldn’t engage in the exchange. The same logic goes for every situation where an American takes an immigrant’s money in return for goods or services. If Americans did not benefit from immigrants we wouldn’t engage in commerce with them and they wouldn’t have any incentive to come here in the first place. It is precisely because Americans benefit from immigrants that immigration is an issue. If Mr. Dobbs spent a little more time listening to the “reasonably well educated” professors and less time formulating how to best call them stinkyface poopheads he might know this.

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It’s intersting to note that the US had almost no immigration laws in the 19th century. But we also didn’t have Social Security then, or the draft, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, income taxes, driver’s licenses, affirmative action, and so on.

Basically I’m just saying I really don’t understand those organizations which simultaneously (implicitly) support unrestricted immigration and the welfare state.

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