Angle pulls out the racist card

This is the very ugly, very racist tirade of Sharron Angle the so-called Tea Party candidate in Nevada. Any libertarian who is still defending this disgusting movement has either not been paying attention or is brain dead. The Tea Party is anti-liberty. They are bigoted against immigrants and gays and are actually worse on social liberty than your normal Republican. Surveys show that the Tea Party is mainly the most reactionary element of the Republican Party.

Angle, who is also a staunch anti-gay bigot, of course, claims that "waves" of Mexicans are coming to America. Actually immigration flows are way down because these people came looking for jobs and when jobs dry up they go back. But in Angle's fevered, bigoted, little brain these people are not coming to America for work but for the explicit purpose of "joining violent gangs, forcing families to live in fear."

Is this true? Are millions of Mexicans flocking to America to join gangs? For answer I turned to the National Gang Threat Assessment published by the FBI and various police agencies who deal with gangs.


The first problem with Angle's slander against Mexicans is that millions of them can't be joining gangs. The NGTA report indicates that the total number of gang members in the US, of all races and nationalities tops out at 1 million. And of these over 100,000 are in prison. So Angle's estimate of illegal immigrants in gangs exceeds the total number of all gang members in the country

So Angle's main claim is impossible. Another problem is indicated when we look at which regions of the country report gang activity. In the Southwest, where most illegals come into the country, 63% of law enforcement report gang activity. This is lower than the Southeast region, or the Bible-belt where 68% report gang activity. The national average is 58% so the region with the most Mexicans is barely above the average. For instance the region include Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming came in at 58%, yet this is not a region known for having large numbers of illegal immigrants.

We should also look at what fueled the rise in gang numbers in the US, and it wasn't immigration, legal or otherwise. It is the war on drugs that creates massive profit opportunities for gangs to deal in drugs. The report notes:

During the 1980s, gangs that engaged in drug
trafficking in major cities began to expand their
drug distribution networks into suburban communities
influenced by local gangs. The larger
gangs controlled drug distribution in city drug
markets; they were motivated to move into adjoining
communities to generate additional income
by capitalizing on burgeoning powder cocaine and
crack cocaine abuse. Large urban gangs generated
millions of dollars from trafficking illicit drugs in
urban and suburban areas; this income enabled the
gangs to recruit new members and to force smaller
local gangs to either disband or align with them,
thereby increasing their dominance. To enhance
profits from drug trafficking and other crimes, large
urban gangs also deployed members to locate new
drug markets throughout the country, including in
suburban and rural communities. As various gangs
attempted to expand nationally, they often were
met with initial resistance by local gangs. This resistance
resulted in an increased number of homicides
and drive-by shootings in suburban communities.

Gangs expanded in the US during the last few decades for the same reason that the Mob expanded during Prohibition. Government stupidity pushes up the profits in offering an illegal substance that are desired, rightly or wrongly, by a large percentage of Americans. The profits are artificially high because the drugs are illegal. Given the violent nature of the drug warriors themselves it makes sense that over time more and more of the distribution of drugs will be handled by individuals who are just as violent, if not more so, than the police agents who enforce this law.

Gang members who do migrate illegally to the US do so to take advantage of the drug trade or because they work with the drug cartels who have been created by the prohibition of drugs. But there is no evidence that a significant number of undocumented workers in the country are here for gang activities. Drug prohibition is the main source of gang income. According to NGTA: "Gangs earn the profits essential to maintaining their criminal operations and the lifestyles of their members primarily through drug distribution." However, the crack down on the border has pushed many gangs into the people smuggling business. As usual prohibition fuels criminal enterprises.

Since millions of illegal immigrants are NOT fueling gangs how many are involved? Here is an estimate based on the NTGA estimates of the major gangs with Hispanic members, not all of whom would be illegal:

18th Street Gang: 24,o00 to 40,000 members who are assumed illegals.
Almight Latin King: Has 20,000 to 35,000 members but is open to "individuals of any nationality." No mention of significant illegal immigrant membership.
Florencia 13: about 3,000 not all of whom are illegal.
Fresno Bulldogs: 5,000 to 6,000 not all of whom are illegal.
Sureños and Norteños: No membership figures but these are gang members from other gangs that are numbered. These are members of other gangs imprisoned and working in the prisons. So these figures are included in other figures.
Tango Blast: Formed by Hispanic men in prison as protection against other gangs such as the Aryan Brotherhood.
Barrio Azteca: around 2,000 many illegals not all.
Hermanos de Pistoleros Latinos: around 1,000.
Mexikanemi: around 2,000 members.
Mexican Mafia: about 200 members.
Neta: Hispanic but mainly Puerto Rican not Mexican.

That is a list of the major gangs that are listed in the report which have Hispanic memberships of any significance mentioned. Their totals are around 90,000 or so and not all of them are illegal.
Many were actually born in the United States.

The gangs in America certainly are growing and as long as the drug warriors have their way these gangs will get bigger and bigger and more and more violent. Violent drug warriors encourage increasing violent drug dealers. The war on drugs won't stifle the demand for drugs and as long as demand remains high the drug war will offer massive profits to anyone willing to take on the cops. And who is willing to take on the cops: violent gangs.

Add into this mix the new profits being offered because of the border crackdown and the federal government is literally handing millions in artificially high profits to the gangs. Now, will Angle do anything to help encourage "legal" immigration or to end the war on drugs? No, just the opposite. It is Angle and people like her who are creating the very conditions that fuel the gangs.

The Bottom of the Republican Barrel

Jan Brewer is the governor of Arizona, she is a Republican, and she is an absolute moron. She is living proof that politics is like a septic tank: the big chunks float to the top. This woman is so insane as to be almost unbelievable. I have covered some of her stupidity in the past but you need to see these excerpts. Brewer is a bigot against immigrants and has publicly lied about the immigration situation in Arizona numerous time, appealing to the worst attitudes of voters, especially Republican voters. She previously claimed that virtually Mexicans coming into the US without bureaucratic permission slips are under the control of drug cartels. She had zero evidence for it, it was just another lie meant to pander to bigotry.

Then she made the claim that headless bodies were cropping up in Arizona as a result of the nasty Mexicans. That too was a pure invention. She claimed: "Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that have been beheaded." She said "there are people all over Arizona living in fear."

But watch what happens when she is asked to retract the false statement. She evades, evades and evades. Asked to repudiate the lie she stares for a second and then changes the subject. And then she just refuses to answer. I'm not a great fan of Democrats but I would vote for the Democrat just because Brewer is so incredibly stupid. Now, consider if she is this stupid then how much dumber must be the Republicans who are likely to nominate her?

No headless bodies have been found in Arizona. Brewer later tried to claim that she never said it was in Arizona and then went on to claim it was in Mexico. But if that is what she meant, then our were "our law enforcement agencies" finding these bodies in another country? Arizona's law officials don't patrol Mexico.

The problem is that one tends to make absurd statements like this when one is appealing to the most bigoted of prejudices, which is what Brewer is doing. She has to repeatedly make remarks stoking the xenophobic views of the American Right in order to keep their support.

Brewer has been utterly incompetent and was headed for defeat due to mishandling of the state budget and her promotion of tax increases. She then jumped on the hate-the-Mexicans bandwagon and saw her popularity among Republicans increase dramatically. But hate is like a drug, one can become used to the dose and need a strong dose to elicit the same high as before. So the hate has to be continually magnified. That is what Brewer is trying to do, the problem is that she isn't smart enough to do without sounding utterly ridiculous.

Republican says law can use "sixth sense" to finger illegals

I continue to stand by my view that the Republican Party is the party of organized hate in America. The Democrats may be in the clutches of the greedy, unions of government employees, who are helping bankrupt America while giving us lousy service, or unnecessary service, but general speaking the bigots are attracted to the GOP. Once the Republican Party embraced the fundamentalist Christians it was bound to head down the bigoted road on numerous issues. I have long noticed that someone who is bigoted against one group tends to be bigoted against several groups.

The odd thing about haters is that people who dislike people for being black are more likely to dislike people who are Jewish, or people who are gay. They are more likely to see women as inferior to men. They tend to be more authoritarian, even if they pretend they support "less government."

Listen to Republican Congressvermin Steve King justify police using racial profiling to target "illegals" by comparing it to a taxi driver giving him a ride. The taxi driver saw King leave a government building, tapped his horn to see if King wanted a ride and King responded positively. That proves we are "profiled" all the time.

What King neglects, and which too many politicians neglect, is that there is a world of difference when government acts in this way. The taxi driver does not have a legal monopoly on the use of violence and force against others. He is not the State. Police agents are government, not private individuals offering services, but individuals who have the power to use force against other people.

I remember standing on the platform of the U-bahn in Berlin when the tracks were being repaired and the trains were being diverted. I saw a couple who looked very confused and were speaking English to one another. They had American accents and I assumed they were confused by the changes that were implemented. So I walked over and explained how the trains had been changed and asked them where they were going. I was getting off at Zoologischer Garten, and they had to go a couple stations further so I suggested they follow me. When I got off the train I explained they had to go two more stops for the station they wanted.

In a vague senses that was profiling. But I have no ability to restrain people. I couldn't violate their rights, only offer them assistance. When the power to violate rights, which is inherent in policing, is linked to entirely non-objective traits, such as King's "sixth sense," you have removed all concepts of the rule of law from the policing system.

Imagine a police officer stopping a man on the street because his "sixth sense" tells him the man is some sort of criminal. The officer demands ID based on his sixth sense. Legally speaking we are supposed to still have the right to walk the streets sans government paper. So assume our man is without ID. He tells the officer his name, as required and even volunteers that he is a citizen. But the officer's "sixth sense" is working, or maybe the suspects the man wears shoes that show he is "illegal" or has the haircut of an "illegal" (this is really Twilight Zone thinking). So, using his new powers under the Arizona law he takes the man into custody.

The man has done nothing! He has not violated any law. He has not assaulted anyone, or transgressed on the rights of any other person. He is peacefully minding his own business and a police officer, using King's justification, merely "senses" that the man is suspicious. No objective standard now exists. Officers are free to harass and grab people on the streets merely because they don't like a haircut, a pair of shoes, or because they just get a "feeling" about the person.

This is big government at it's worst. Big government is bad under all circumstances, in my opinion. But massive government without the restraint of objective definitions of criminal behavior is total tyranny. No armed agent of the government should be able to stop people and restrain them merely because he "senses" something. That is the complete annihilation of the rule of law. It also illustrates why I consider the xenophobic, anti-immigrant hysteria on the Right to be one of the biggest threats to Constitutional freedoms around today. And what is really disgusting is that the morons pretend to be doing in the name of the small government.

The "charming" morons hired by Immigration

A friend of mine, who is Canadian, lives there with her American husband. The husband's father recently died and they have had to come to the U.S. a couple of times to settle matters of the father's estate. Having just returned from one of those trips she told me what happened as they were driving down to the U.S.

At the U.S. border they had another one of the insufferably long waits that Immigrations now routinely inflicts, discouraging millions in revenue for the country. These waits have basically killed off the previously thriving industry of Canadians coming to America to do shopping.

At the border they were approached by a Immigration thug who shaves his head and wears military sunglasses—a look I suggest is consciously thought through to make a statement that is supposed to be intimidating. I still contend that many people attracted to this line of work are actually petty thugs and bullies who are attracted to the job because they like to order people around—perhaps it is to compensate for small dicks, I'm sure it is to compensate for small brains, however. The productive marketplace, that is non-government employment, does not have much demand for bullies, especially dumb bullies.

The border thug demands to know why they are visiting the U.S., remember the driver is a U.S. citizen and the Canadian is his wife. The husband informs the curt skinhead that the trip was to settle his father's estate. Having looked at the passports, that is government permission slips given to "free" people allowing them to do what they did for millenniums without permission, the skinhead knew very little, but enough for his next question, so he thought.

He then asks my friends, "What is the status of the father?" A truly odd question if you think about it. After all they just told him they were going to settle the father's estate. The husband was so baffled by the question he sat there trying to figure out what the skinhead was talking about.

My friend, the wife, was startled by the question because it seemed so patently absurd to her as well. She responded: "He's dead."

That was sufficient to "set the guard off. He tore into me with a lecture about how [her husband's] father needed a status to have a residence and an estate in America, etc., etc., etc."

Actually, owning an estate is entirely independent of having "a status." And by status it was now clear that the skinhead was demanding to know if my friend's father was an illegal alien. So, what would trigger that line of questioning?

One thing, and one thing only. His surname is Hispanic. Remember he is a U.S. citizen, born in the U.S., his father was NOT an illegal alien. His only crime was having a Hispanic surname. Racial profiling and skinheads go together, and only the government gives the skinheads authority like this. Normally when they engage in racial harassment it is illegal, but not when working for government.

I am sure that the surname was the reason this sort of profiling was done. I also suspect that there was a second factor: the skinhead didn't know what it meant to "settle the estate." Given the intelligence level of people attracted to government employment I suspect he gave the term no consideration at all. All he heard was "father" and "estate" and then wants to know the "status" of the father, without realizing that normal people don't equate the word "status" with having permission papers from the federal authorities.

When my friend blurted out, rather surprised by the question, that the father was dead the skinhead realized he made a stupid assumption. Actually he made two stupid assumptions. First he assumed that having a Hispanic surname would mean the father could be an illegal alien. Second, it didn't dawn on him that the father was not living in the U.S., but was dead and buried in the U.S.

The reason he "tore into" my friend so heavily was because he was trying to cover up his own ignorance. But why bother? Surely the skinhead-military-sunglasses look already revealed the kind of ignorant moron that he clearly was. Opening his mouth only confirmed the obvious.

Yes, assuming a Hispanic name means "illegal" is stupid, but government policy encourages that sort of thing. But having a name assumed to be Hispanic doesn't mean one is either Hispanic or an alien. I remember one incident where three people I knew well all received solicitations to subscribe to the Spanish edition of Time magazine. All three had surnames that are widely assumed to be Hispanic, none were Hispanic and none could speak or read Spanish. Such false assumptions, in the private sector, are just amusing anecdotes with no harmful consequences possible.

Such assumptions, when made by morons with guns and the authority to use them, have very bad potential consequences. For example, remember the case of the man in Chicago, who was incarcerated for days because the morons didn't realize that Puerto Rico is part of the United States, not that it should be.

The skinhead mentality is alive and well, and it is always unpleasant. In the private sector when it exhibits itself the law is supposed to restrain it to non-violent acts. But when the mentality is backed by government power it becomes quite dangerous and potentially lethal. And while my friends on the Left would applaud much of what I say here, I want to remind them that it is the concentration of state power that makes this a problem. Skinheads acting privately are restrained by the law, skinheads with government "authority" are set loose on the public. The same disgusting mentality is magnified when combined with big government.

Too many advocates of centralized power on the Left assume that only "good guys" will have that power. That is a very bad mistake to make. Reality shows that eventually the "bad guys," regardless of how you define them, will get that power and use it as they see fit. If you want to protect minorities and civil liberties you have to work for smaller government. Otherwise you do get skinheads running immigration policy and fundamentalist "abstinence" types teaching sex education. In the private sector both are jokes, endowed with state power they are a danger.

US Citizen detained, looks Mexican

Eduardo Caraballo is a natural-born American, born in the US colony of Puerto Rico. He even had legitimate ID on him when he was arrested because police thought he was involved with a car theft, something he denies. When he was being released on bail Immigration showed up, apparently someone thought he looked "illegal." In other words, he looked Hispanic, i.e. Mexican.

Under the new presumptions of the immigration hysteria one must prove one's innocence. For instance, the Arizona law requires individuals to prove they are legal citizens any time a police officer stops them if he "suspects" they are illegal. The law says that they can't take race into account, but all that means is that police have to write their arrest records saying that they had other reasons to stop the person. Included in this category, by the way, is that the person "looks nervous." That sort of subjective definition is a blank check for cops to harass people for looking Mexican, provided the police simply lie and say they "looked nervous" instead.

How will this work? First, the cop pretends the individual they want to get failed to completely stop at a stop sign. No evidence is necessary for this. The cop will claim he pulled the person over for some minor infraction. The kind and nice officer can claim that he merely intended to give the driver a verbal warning. But, lo and behold, the driver of the vehicle acted nervous arousing the suspicions of the nice policeman who never thinks anything forbidden by the law. So the office demanded the driver "prove" his U.S. citizenship.

Of course, the authoritarians who support these laws, claim that the law allows the citizen to "prove" his innocence—a reversal of the usual requirement that the state prove one's guilt. Now Mr. Caraballo did that. He provided ID and even managed to show them his birth certificate. That didn't matter, the feds held him anyway. After all, he looked Mexican, so they assumed the documents had to be forged. It took three days, of federal incarceration, before the feds realized that the evidence showed he was actually a citizen. Until they could do that Mr. Caraballo sat in detention for looking Mexican.

More Immigrants, Less Crime?

The xenophobic Right, which loves to verbally bash immigrants, has repeatedly pushed the canard that immigrants cause crime. They claim that there is a crime wave hitting American due to immigrants and repeat claims that crime in border states is particularly bad. What they don't do is show crime statistics. These are the kind of people, so ignorant of evidence, that they think an anecdotal story suffices.

Let us go to ground zero is the immigration debate: Arizona. It is there that Republicans pushed through an infamous anti-immigration bill that has many people shocked and concerned. So what has happened in the Arizona border towns? Not much actually, as the Arizona Republic found when it talked the police chiefs in those towns.

Nogales, Arizona shares the border with Nogales, Mexico but the Arizona town says it doesn't know what the anti-immigration crowd is talking about. Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez says: "You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America."

The Republic says that they looked at the FBI Uniform Crime Report and statistics provided by local police agencies which "show that the crime rates in Nogales,Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade..." They also found: "Statewide rates of violent crime also are down."

Politicians, mainly, if not exclusively Republican, have made speeches about crime along the Arizona border. But Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, from Pima County, says: "This is a media-created event. I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure." In Cochise County the "crime rate has been 'flat for at least 10 years, the sheriff added."

The Republic reports: "While the nation's illegal-immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2004, according to federal records, the violent-crime rate declined 35 percent." If illegal immigrantion causes crime then shouldn't crime rates rise with more immigration,not fall? In Arizona the violent-crime rate "dropped from 512 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 447 incidents in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available."

This decrease in crime in "crime-ridden" Arizona—if you believe the hype about immigrants—continues to show up in the most recent statistics as well. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Arizona's major cities all registered declines" in crime and:

In Phoenix, police spokesman Trent Crump said, "Despite all the hype, in every single reportable crime category, we're significantly down." Mr. Crump said Phoenix's most recent data for 2010 indicated still lower crime. For the first quarter of 2010, violent crime was down 17% overall in the city, while homicides were down 38% and robberies 27%, compared with the same period in 2009.

Sure there is crime related to drug smuggling and it is growing in many ways. But that is not illegal immigrants by any means. Your typical undocumented worker can't afford cocaine to smuggle, they are lucky to afford the cost of getting themselves across the border. The violence we see is drug war related and as long as drug profits are high, which is a result of the war on drugs, then smuggling will be associated with violence. And the more violent our drug warriors become the more violent the smugglers will be. But this is not related to immigration: legal or illegal.

Sociologist Robert Sampson looked at crime trends in the US and compared them to immigration patterns. More immigrants didn't lead to more crime, which is what should have happened had there been a direc link between the two. If you look at the chart here you will see the time line shows American crime trands from 1990 to 2004 (this is from a 2006 article). You see crime rates dropping as immigration rates increased. Around 1998 crime rates stagnated for the most part, but immigration fell. So as immigration rates were increased crime fell, and when immigration fell crime rates stopped falling.

Sampson wrote:

Yet our study found that immigrants appear in general to be less violent than people born in America, particularly when they live in neighborhoods with high numbers of other immigrants. We are thus witnessing a different pattern from early 20th-century America, when growth in immigration from Europe was linked with increasing crime and formed a building block for what became known as "social disorganization" theory.

In today's world, then, it is no longer tenable to assume that immigration automatically leads to chaos and crime. New York is a magnet for immigration, yet it has for a decade ranked as one of America's safest cities. Border cities like El Paso and San Diego have made similar gains against crime. Perhaps the lesson is that if we want to continue to crack down on crime, closing the nation's doors is not the answer.

Professor Tim Wadsworth, from the University of Colorado read what Sampson wrote and decided to test it. The University press release reports what Wadsworth found:

Drawing from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and U.S. Census data, Wadsworth analyzed 459 cities with populations of at least 50,000. Wadsworth measured immigrant populations in two ways: those who are foreign-born and those who immigrated within the previous five years.

Wadsworth focused on medium and large cities because about 80 percent of violent crime takes place there. Wadsworth said distinguishing legal and illegal immigration is difficult, as the U.S. Census does not track those numbers, but he notes that immigrant citizens and non-citizens often live together in the same communities.

He tracked crime statistics for homicide and robbery because they tend to be reported more consistently than other crimes. Robberies are usually committed by strangers -- which increases the reporting rate -- and "homicides are difficult to hide," he said.

Wadsworth looked to see if crime rose as immigration rose and fell as immigration declined. Instead he found the opposite: "cities that experienced the largest growth in the population of foreign-born and newly arrived immigrant populations experienced the largest decreases in violent crime between 1990 and 2000." Wadsworth's conclusions corresponded with those of Sampson, and instead of showing a rise in crime because of immigration, the records showed that crime dropped.

How nationalized health care victimizes immigrants.

Evangeline Stanner is a victim of nationalized health care. As is her husband and two children.

Evangeline, 35, was born in the Philippines. She is married to Richard Stanner of New Zealand. The couple, who met over the internet, have been married since 2006, together they have two children, a two-year-old and a six-month old infant.

After her marriage in 2006 Evangeline was given a work permit in New Zealand so she could be with her husband. That work permit was renewed twice but is due to expire in January. You would think that as the legally married spouse of a Kiwi that she'd be able to stay in New Zealand. And Kiwis are allowed to sponsor their spouses for citizenship—something Evangeline and Richard have put into motion.

But the Stanners were told that Evangeline must leave her home, her husband and her children and return to the Philippines. Evangeline says: "Immigration is tearing our family apart." But she is wrong. It isn't actually immigration that is doing it, it is nationalized health care.

Evageline's only crime was that she got sick. New Zealand has a nationalized health care system and immigrants are not allowed into the country if they might impose costs on the system. It doesn't matter that Evangeline only became ill while in New Zealand. Immigrants are allowed in provided they fund the system, as Evangeline did with the taxes she paid from employment, but they must not collect from the system into which they are forced to pay. Their only purpose is to keep the system funded for aging Kiwis who don't have private insurance, thanks to the crowding out that happens when government provides this care.

During her first pregnancy, with son Josh, she developed a slight kidney problem. With the birth of her second child the condition became much more severe. Her application as the mother of two Kiwi children was scrutinized by medical bureaucrats who wrote her "that you do not meet the acceptable standard of health... on the basis that you are likely to impose significiant costs or demands on New Zealand's health services."

Evangeline has until January 10th to be with her children and then she will be exiled for the crime of being ill.

Immigrants going into New Zealand are taxed for the health care system. Many immigrants simply can't afford to purchase private insurance on top of the heavy taxes they pay for the "free health care" which they better not use. So, if they use the national health system they may end up getting deported, but they can't purchase private care either since the national health system eats up a good portion of their income. Its a case of damned if your well, double damned if your sick.

On top of kidney problems Evangeline has to cope with the stress of being exiled from her husband and children just so the illusion that "nationalized" health care is cheap can be kept alive.

Evangeline, and other immigrants, are not allowed to forgo the nationalized health system, the purpose of such a system is to guarantee "equality" not improve people's lives. So while many would find a better life in New Zealand, even without the socialized health care, they aren't allowed to have it. That would undermine the real principle at work, equality of outcome. So to pretend that the system grants equal access to health care, anyone who might get sick is deported.

You will also find that older people are also routinely discriminated against by New Zealand Immigration, even if those people are quite capable of funding their own health insurance. The system is set up so that nationalized health care trumps everything so anyone who could conceivable use that care is forbidden from moving to New Zealand.

Oddly this has nothing to do with a Kiwi fear of people taking advantage of the welfare state. People can immigrate and join the welfare rolls, that isn't the problem. The problem is that health care is a more precarious situation. Most Kiwis will never be on welfare, so the government can tax them to pay for those people who are on the system. But everyone eventually needs health care and the Kiwi system, like all socialized systems is costly with demand exceeding supply. So anything that strains this already over-strained system has to be cut out.

The result is the rationing which I have spoke about on numerous ocassions. Some medines simply are forbidden. Some procedures are simply banned. Hospital beds are rationed, as are doctors and health care in general. And, some people are simply banned from having health care. If you ban enough people then you can offer "universal health coverage" albeit not very honestly.

Evangeline Stanner had the misfortune of becoming ill under nationalized health care before her residency was approved. So, for that, she will be deported. Chances are also good that she will die in the Philippines because of her illness. She did pay into the health system for three years, her husband paid in for his entire life, but under socialized health care rationing takes place. Nameless bureaucrats decided where to draw lines over who is, or isn't allowed to have care. They drew the line and Evangeline was on the wrong side of it.

Of course, it is possible that lots of negative publicity will ge the politicians to step in and change the ruling. But that won't change the system. All it will mean is that lots of other people, good people who won't get the publicity, will still be excluded because the national health system is only looking for immigrants that can be plundered, not immigrants who may need health care.

In a rational immigration system health, in the sense of communicable diseases, may be an issue. But Evangeline posed no threat to the health of others. I would suggest her presence, with her children, would lessen risks they may have in life. But she was a "liability" not an "asset" to a system that she had no choice in joining.

National health care systems impact on freedom in more ways than meet the eye. It won't just be the reduction of freedom of choice in medical care, and it won't be just a reduction in the amount of the wages you earned which you are allowed to keep. It will also mean greater restrictions on freedom of movement between countries. Nationalize health care makes it harder for would-be immigrants to find a better life. And that means that they, and everyone else, is made poorer because of it.

Under nationalized health care immigrants are an invisible victim of the system. Evangeline is one of those victims, albeit one that has managed to received some publicity.