Debunking Immigration Myths
Debunking Immigration Myths
The latest installment in my case for open immigration
This Sunday, I’ll be airing an encore of my interview from earlier this year with the Independent Institute’s Benjamin Powell on immigration myths.
Powell is author, with Alex Nowrasteh, of Wretched Refuse?, which explores the political economy of immigration and institutions.
In over a decade as an AM talk radio host, I’ve covered immigration more often than any other topic. It seems to never leave the headlines for more than a few months, nor do we ever advance anything resembling a solution to the perpetual crisis at the border.
The objections raised to allowing more immigrants to come legally are many, but few of them hold up to scrutiny. Using edited transcripts from dozens of shows, I’ve been compiling a series of short essays that take my callers’ objections one-by-one, and show them to be founded in emotions – not facts.
You can find the latest installment, which looks at the so-called welfare objection, here:
ICYMI… Abolish the FBI?
Last week, civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate joined me to discuss the dangers of the corrupt federal police force known as the FBI. He says we should abolish the agency altogether and replace it with something else. Find out why below, or read the entire transcript:
“Culture is Everything”: Why Abolition is the Answer
Bob Zadek: ‘Abolish' is mighty strong language. Why are you trying to persuade the country to abolish a revered (by many) institution, which has been around for a long time?
Most Americans would say, "We're kind of happy we have an FBI, it protects us."
Harvey Silverglate: Any Congressman voting against the FBI is thought to be “soft on crime” – not that good on law and order. Congress is afraid of the FBI because they can pin a crime on virtually every congressman – I’m not saying congressmen are all corrupt, I’m saying the federal criminal system has these vague broad statutes that can indict a ham sandwich, and the ham sandwiches are afraid of the butcher.
So, the FBI basically terrorizes the people who in theory are supposed to be controlling it, and it has its own institutional power that even has presidents nervous because, of course, presidents can be investigated because of the same ham sandwich problem. The presidency is an incredibly complicated job. Arguably, a president commits three felonies a day, and it's the FBI that decides which felonies to investigate. So, it is an institutional problem here.