cold war

The East German Immigration Model

by Ryan Young on October 19, 2010

in Economy, International, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual

A U.S. Senate candidate in Alaska thinks that the U.S. should follow East Germany’s example when it comes to immigration. GOP nominee Joe Miller told a town hall audience, “The first thing that has to be done is secure the border. . .  East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow.  Now, obviously, other things were involved.  We have the capacity to, as a great nation, secure the border.  If East Germany could, we could.”

He’s darn right “other things were involved.” See CEI’s video on the Berlin Wall for details. What a terrible choice of example.

Miller also forgets that East Germany’s 858 miles of fence weren’t meant to keep people out. That fence was meant to keep people in. Against their will. On pain of death.

It’s almost certain that Miller doesn’t really want the full-on East German border enforcement model. It was probably just a tasteless slip of the tongue. But he clearly favors a border fence. Which, of course, he should oppose if his goal is actually to reduce illegal immigration.

Many undocumented immigrants only stay in the U.S. for a few months. Get a job, make some money, go back home and share it with family. A border fence will keep a lot of people like that out, yes. But it also keeps current undocumented immigrants in. Unwillingly, in many cases.

If Miller wins his election, there is a lot he can do to reduce illegal immigration. Building an American version of the Berlin Wall is not one of them. As Alex Nowrasteh and I wrote, “The immigration black market only exists is because the government has made the legal market as cumbersome as it can.”

Miller should make legal immigration less cumbersome. People will come to America, no matter what. That’s what happens when you have one of the freest, richest, most dynamic nations on earth. That’s a fact of life that our broken immigration system does not take into account.

Neither, apparently, does Joe Miller.

Friday Regulation Roundup

by Ryan Young on June 4, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Regulation, Stimulus to Nowhere

-$1.6 million in stimulus money to be used to irrigate a golf course in Texas.

-A new study by Susan Dudley and Melinda Warren finds that regulatory spending grew 31 percent under Bush. Regulatory staffing grew 42 percent.

-Selling shellfish to the Department of Veterans Affairs? There are regulations for that.

-It is illegal to possess pliers in the state of Texas.

-The federal government’s Integrated Nitrogen Committee is having a public teleconference on June 8.

-In Virginia, it is illegal to take a bath without a doctor’s permission.

-Government programs never die. One Cold War relic is the Federal Radiological Preparedness Coordinating Committee.

-The federal government’s Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is holding a public workshop June 14-15.

-$300,000 of stimulus money to pay for floating toilets.

Twenty Years have Passed: The Fall of the Berlin Wall

by Fred Smith on November 9, 2009 · 3 comments

in Culture, Features, International, Zeitgeist

On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came crashing down. Today marks the twentieth anniversary of that great day – one of the greatest in the history of human freedom. Communism in Germany finally collapsed, setting off a domino effect that would reach Moscow within two years. Families torn apart for nearly three decades came together in tearful, happy reunions as the world watched. The Cold War was finally, mercifully, ending.

Many historians cite World War I as the twentieth century’s opening act. Sixteen million souls died in that war over nothing. Two of the nations it toppled became the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Communist and fascist governments would combine to kill more than one hundred million people over the next seven decades. Those needless deaths are the twentieth century’s legacy, every bit as much as the transistor or rock ‘n roll.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was that short, bloody century’s coda.

November 9, 1989 was also the start of something better. It was a nation’s way of saying that it was ready to move on to better times. To a new world defined not by oppression, ideology, and servitude, but by freedom. Sweet, precious, fragile freedom. Seeing the footage on the news was like witnessing something being born. The hope and potential that surround every birth were glimmering in people’s eyes. It was beautiful.

What Berlin’s people did on that day also inspired half a continent to send the same message to their leaders. What a noble achievement. How worthy of commemoration, now that twenty years have passed.

What a shame, then, that this milestone has been treated more like a millstone by the media. Reporters more concerned with today’s news cycle are giving at best perfunctory attention to a day that showed us all that is good about humanity.

To partially right that wrong, CEI has produced a short video commemorating what the Berlin Wall’s fall symbolizes. I hope you will watch it and enjoy it. Of course, it is hard to convey in a few short minutes what the people living in that Wall’s shadow went through for 29 long years.

So put yourself in their shoes. Think what they thought. Look right in the eyes of those separated families as they try to catch glimpses of each other over that wall. And the people who risked their lives escaping. And the soldier carrying back the body of someone who didn’t make it. What was going through his mind as he carried out his grisly task? That might give you an idea of what the Berlin Wall meant.

We all need to remember the Berlin Wall. We need to say to each other, “Never again.” And we have to mean it.

Cold friendship

by Tatiana Kryzhanovskaya on July 15, 2009

in International, Odds & Ends, Politics as Usual

It has been almost 20 years since the end of the Cold War yet the agenda of the U.S.-Russia summit remains unchanged. In the middle of a global economic crisis, the two leaders discussed many important military matters, but neither broached the subject of the economy. Presidents Obama and Medvedev have signed no less than six different documents, none of which addressed economic cooperation and development. No trade agreements or investment initiatives were even discussed.

Unsurprisingly, U.S.-Russia trade relations are much worse than U.S. relations with other, less developed countries. For their next meeting, Presidents Obama and Medvedev should make time to consider worthy economic initiatives like reducing trade barriers and eliminating visas to encourage tourism in both countries. It’s time to change the tone of negotiations and turn our backs on our Cold War past.

Wasteful Cleanup

by Angela Logomasini on May 18, 2009

in Energy, Environment

What is more dangerous: Radioactive waste from a former government nuclear weapons facility or a rotting wood floor? Apparently, it’s the floor. One is hard pressed to show that radioactivity as such sites poses a serious public health threat, but as, the Washington Post reports, a worker at one of the federal sites recently fell through a rotting floor, prompting a safety review at such sites and costing the federal government about $781 million or more. The post story also reports a history of wasteful spending and fraud associated with the cleanup program.

The federal government is in the process of cleaning these sites as part of the “economic stimulus” package. It’s surely not much of a stimulus to clean these sites given the federal government’s overly expensive approach to such things. Several years back, CEI published a paper offering more affordable and environmentally sound approaches for dealing with the waste at least some of these sites. Maybe it’s time for the feds to take a good look at it and consider the fact that cost-effective solutions are better than bloated “economic stimulus” policies.

Image: Department of Energy image of cleanup at Hanford site.