"Libertarian Hispanophobia"

By The Daily Dish

by Patrick Appel

Bryan Caplan dismantles the argument that we should stem Hispanic immigration because such immigrants tend to be more Democratic:

Almost 70% of American voters under the age of 30 voted for Obama. Why isn't anyone calling for the deportation of America's youth, or limits on fertility to raise our average age? The reason, presumably, is that people realize that this would be a grotesque over-reaction. Even if young voters are making America a little more socialist, the "cure" of mass exile is far worse than the disease. Libertarians should view arguments against Hispanic immigration in exactly the same way. Even if Steve Sailer were completely correct about the political consequences of Hispanic immigration, they're a small evil compared to the massive injustice of immigration restrictions.

Ilya Somin has more:

Bryan's co-blogger Arnold Kling worries that Hispanic migration might create a "one-party state" in the US because "ethnic bloc voting" will make it impossible for the Republicans to woo this group successfully. There are many problems with this argument. But one big one is that the Hispanic vote is not and has never been monolithic. George W. Bush won about 35% of the Hispanic vote in 2000 and 40% in 2004, two very close elections. Even in 2008, a terrible year for the party that got saddled with the blame for the economic crisis, John McCain managed to get 31%. These figures represent a big edge for the Democrats. But they certainly fall well short of monolithic bloc voting. In the 1970s and 80s, the Republicans learned to successfully compete for the votes of Catholics and "white ethnics," groups that were once overwhelmingly Democratic. There is no reason why the Republicans can't be equally effective in wooing Hispanics.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/05/-libertarian-hispanophobia/201491/