DISQUS

Australia has a long and sometimes sordid past of drastic childhood interventions. They had disturbingly limited success, and frequently were carried out with alarming brutality.

There were two problems:

1. Children failed to benefit from a supposedly enriched environment.

2. The state provided a dreadful environment.

On the one hand, this long and horrifying past provides ample evidence that the swiftly reproducing poor really are genetically inferior, on the other hand, it also provides ample evidence that government bureaucrats are even worse for children than incompetent and neglectful parents.

Too soon to know that it is a true divergence. Might be a trend to colder winters combined with a general cooling trend. The sharp uptick suggests a regime change, which may render short term measurements of anomaly meaningless.

"given the claims I’m getting from some of you, these places ought to be nightmares. But instead they are … really nice places to live!"

Because the constitution commands free trade between the states, there is a limit to how much a merely state government can muck things up.

Cross from San Diego to Tijuana, everything turns to shit. If the state government could control trade between the states, we would see people fleeing California the way they flee Mexico.

Obviously Mexicans and suchlike should be free to come here and work, but the problem them is coming here and voting. Mexicans vote for Mexican institutions, and if we had Mexican institutions, our living standard would resemble that of Mexico - observe Argentina as an example of place that voted itself from first world to third world, and continues to do so.

If we restricted the vote to people who were literate, had good credit rating, and own significant property, it would not be a problem. If we did that, we could, and should, open our borders. Universal sufferage, however, creates a problem.