let’s be adults here

A letter I sent to the New York Times:

In a New York Times editorial on May 21st titled “Limits of Libertarianism” you published, “It was only government power that ended slavery and abolished Jim Crow, neither of which would have been eliminated by a purely free market”

The government abolishing Jim Crow and Slavery were incredible steps forward for our society; however, hailing these laws as miracles of government is like saying, “sorry I ran you over with my car, but now everything is okay because my bumper is no longer smashing your face.”

Immigration reduces crime…

…or evidence of Bryan Caplan’s anti-foreign bias.

Futurity.org links to a University of Colorado-Boulder study and an Arizona Republic article which seems to suggest that, at worst, immigration has led to no rise in violent crime or, at best, has actually lead a society with less violent crime.  From the UC-Boulder study:

“Cities that experienced greater growth in immigrant or new-immigrant populations between 1990 and 2000 tended to demonstrate sharper decreases in homicide and robbery,” Wadsworth writes. “The suggestion that high levels of immigration may have been partially responsible for the drop in crime during the 1990s seems plausible.”

…

Wadsworth’s research suggests that, controlling for a variety of other factors, growth in the new immigrant population was responsible, on average, for 9.3 percent of the decline in homicide rates, and that growth in total immigration was, on average, responsible for 22.2 percent of the decrease in robbery rates.

Polls have shown that sixty-one percent are in agreement with the SB 1070 legislation; however, the data seems to go against the populous fervor against immigrants the country seem to hold.

Cross posted at Trying Liberty and Students for a Free Economy.