Sebastian – Page 458 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The H1B: Our Modern World’s Indentured Servitude

I’ve always thought, when it comes to the highly skilled, our immigration laws poorly serve the country. If someone has in demand skills, we should be doling green cards out to them like candy. Instead, what we have is a modern day equivalent of the indentured servant, known as the H1B Visa program.

For those of you not in the tech industry, H1B is basically where a company sponsors an immigrant to be in the country for a specific job. If that person loses that job, they are out of the country, essentially. They have to find another company willing to “sponsor” them if they want to stay, and within a fairly short amount of time, or face deportation.

This is essentially a license for the sponsoring company to mistreat employees, knowing the only other place they can turn is other companies willing to sponsor an H1B. It is a modern day indentured servitude, and we should be appalled as a country our immigration laws are allowing this. If someone has skills that could contribute to the economy, they should be a given a green card and thrown into the labor pool to compete along with the rest of us. If they choose to go back to their own country because they can’t cut it, that’s their business. But if they can succeed in America, we should welcome and embrace that.

So why does the H1B program persist? Because a lot of large corporations like crony capitalism. They like being able to bring skilled labor in from other countries, mistreat them, pay them poorly, and know they don’t have too may other options. Personally, I’d rather compete against these folks on a level playing ground. There are many brilliant H1B workers who deserve to find a permanent place in this country, and we’re doing them a horrible disservice by continuing this program.

Gun Wielding Buddhists

That one of the most popular gun blogs is even talking about this is full of win. In less stable parts of the world, the value of being able to defend oneself is not lost.

The Importance of Women

When the Ballon Goes Up speaks of the importance of women in the gun culture. While I have no real evidence to back my hunch up, if I had to put my finger on the cultural phenomena that’s driving the normalization of gun ownership, it’s the fact that women are, more and more, beginning to understand its importance. This is not surprising given that in modern culture, women are delaying marriage and family, and living on their own in greater numbers.

Remember, in a self-defense situation …

… if you use a gun, you’ll just end up getting that gun taken away from you. Like this robber did. How come the only occurrences I ever hear of this happening involve criminals getting a gun snatched by the victims?

Also, another rich neighborhood getting whacked by violent, armed individuals. This is probably the consequence of the disintegration in Philly heading out into the suburbs. Expect more of this.

That Old Tome …

You know the one, right? Guns from states with lax guns laws end up in the hands of criminals in states with strict gun laws?Â Apparently that causes gun violence, and the only solution is restricting the law abiding.

Limiting Gun Rights for Illegal Immigrants

A U.S. Court of Appeals rules that illegal immigrants aren’t among the folks protected by the Second Amendment. I’ve always found the logic for this a bit dubious, even post Heller. If the Second Amendment really is about the inalienable right to self-protection, then why is an alien’s right to this any less than mine?

I can accept that someone who is in this country unlawfully, perhaps could be deprived of certain rights after due-process of law, but to me, if you want to restrict unlawful immigrants of any constitutionally guaranteed right, you better convict them first. So I would argue the option of convicting an unlawful immigrant of firearm possession ought not be able to proceed until you’ve first convicted them of being in the country illegally. You should have to establish the first fact as a matter of law because you can establish the second.

What’s Your Diversity?

SayUncle shows his carry assortment. I have the requisite collection of holsters that never worked, but I only have two carry pieces. I tend to think everyone needs at least one “carry when you can’t really easily carry”Â option, and one “carry when you can actually conceal well” option.Â Beyond that I think it’s just getting too complicated, unless you get to the range enough with your carry rig to be proficient with all the options.

I have a Ke-Tec P3AT for very discrete carry, and a Glock 19 for when I can actually conceal. I sheepishly admit that I’ve never been big on carrying a spare magazine, so I actually have no holsters dedicated to that purpose.

What’s in your carry mix?

Houston ATF Chief, Retiring, Calls for More Gun Control

He’d like you know he’s gone up against a wide variety of criminals in his career, including Tim McVeigh (glad he was on top of that one, people could have gotten hurt). Now he’s saying we need to make changes to our laws to stop Mexican trafficking. Keep in mind that this gentleman ran a tight ship. A true American hero, we have here. A true champion for our opponents, no doubt.

Not Feeling it for Newt

Newt Gingrich is not a fan of judicial review, and thus takes up one of most insidious conservative crusades I just find utterly lamentable. If anything, I believe the courts don’t do enough to reign in the other two elected branches of government. Keep in mind the courts have no power to make law, only to interpret it, which includes the Supreme Law, known as The Constitution. Unfortunately, over the course of the post-New Deal period, the Court has done much to undermine its own legitimacy. Professor Glenn Reynolds notes:

On the other hand, who can seriously argue that the constitutional law that comes from the Supreme Court is in fact very closely related to the text of the Constitution itself? I mean, if the Court were doing such a great job, would we seeÂ strange bedfellows arguing for a constitutional reset?Â Indeed, I was talking to a fellow lawprof the other day, and one whoâ€™s certainly no right-winger, who said heâ€™d hate to have to teach Constitutional Law because of the hash the Supreme Court has made of things over the past 50 years or so. I was surprised to hear that, but it suggests a certain shakiness to current foundations.

I also agree with his conclusions of Gingrich as a candidate. He’s just the latest anti-Mitt. That doesn’t mean he’s got winner written all over him. Glenn Reynolds also notes:

FDR could get away with this because he was much more popular than the Supreme Court. No politician or official today is more popular than the Supreme Court. I doubt a President Gingrich will be either.

This is certainly true, and I consider that a good thing. There’s been several pundits who have called for a “House of Repeal” who’s sole job it is to repeal laws that just don’t make sense, or who are overreaching. I hate to say, it but that’s suppose to be the job of the courts. Since the new deal, they have largely abrogated their responsibility in this realm.

Letter From Lincoln

Dave Hardy made a recent trip to the National Archives in Washington D.C. to do some research, and uncovered a previously unpublished hand-written letter from Abraham Lincoln. This is extremely cool, but I have to admit to being unable to read the letter. Sometime in elementary school, I can remember being forced to adopt handwriting, and by Junior High, teachers abandoned this crusade, and let students write however they were comfortable. I’ve always preferred printing to handwriting, so that’s what I went back to. I admit to being unable to read all but the most modern handwriting.

Bitter and I recently had a laugh when she challenged me to write out a love letter to her in longhand, and I was utterly unable to do it. I spend so much time typing these days that I can barely print legibly, let along write anything, other than my signature, out longhand.

I feel handwriting will be a lost art in a generation or so. How long before you have to seek out experts to translate a letter like Dave has brought into the digital age? How long, in an age of digital signatures, will kids even be able to write their own name out longhand? How long before we go back to illiterate times when “making your mark” was enough?

Speaking of dead skills, how many people alive can still understand shorthand? Although, like most people who were raised pre-texting/pre-IMing era, I lament the younger generations use of texting speak, I can’t help but think it’s just a variant on an old historical habit.