The US public arena has been in an uproar about "illegal aliens" entering the country. This is a political hot potato that has been tossed around with great anger during the last 18 months, coinciding with economic depression, job losses and reduced wages for citizens and immigrants.
The standard responses are to enforce immigration laws, to stop "illegals" at the border, and so forth.
What if we did something completely different?
To begin, allow anyone in who arrives at the door. (We may choose to exclude known terrorists and those few categories of felons and disease carriers who are presently excluded, even if otherwise qualified.)
So, a person arrives at the border crossing. All he needs to do is to identify himself, without needing documentation, and have his photograph, fingerprints, and DNA taken. In return he gets a smartcard ID, and his photo and information are encoded on that card. Unless he is one of the excluded categories above, he gets his ID card within minutes and can go on with his visit.
All people entering the country would go through this process (though we may want to allow American citizens with documentation to bypass the process). If he already has a card, it just goes through a card reader and his thumbprint is scanned for a match with the information on the card.
Should he not have a card, he simply goes through the process again. It does not matter if he even gives the same name as before. Once his information--photo, fingerprints and DNA--are in the system, they will be flagged when he comes through again.
What does this give us? First, we will know exactly who is entering the country. We will have fingerprints and DNA to match any crime scenes. Further, with the DNA, we can now determine biological relatives, and thus highlight many criminal associations which are predominately formed from related individuals. Having that information, we can trace activities of groups of individuals from their countries of origin, through their paths of migration, to their communities within the US.
This immediately substantially reduces the costs of border guarding. Most money will just be for welcome centers where individuals will go through the ID process. Remaining money can be used for projects to improve economic opportunities in the countries sending us many migrants. These would include improved education, infrastructure, legal changes to encourage economic development and creativity, and so forth.
All of the information collected from the migrants will be available to US Federal, State and Local law enforcement, as well as for various medical and academic research programs. Among the DNA possibilities, would be establishment and routine use of "near miss" DNA matching, now done in the UK, to allow law enforcement to see if crime scene DNA came from a relative of anyone in the immigrant database. (Which would likely provide ways to track and apprehend the guilty party.)
While on the surface this shift to easier entry into the USA will seem to open the door to unpleasant rises in criminal activity, or other negative consequences of free immigration, its longer term consequences will be greater understanding of and control over criminal behavior. This especially applies to criminal gangs, who will no longer be "under the radar." Their associations will be highlighted through these new tools.
Lalia
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Viewing the Law as Expressions of the Memes
Hi Again,
The Meme, in the sense used by Beck and Cowan, is a whole conglomerate of ideas and values that self-perpetuate and cling to each other in a somewhat consistent worldview. Individuals begin life in a primitive or Archaic meme, and grow through the Tribal and Warrior memes as they mature in developed nations. Adults are mostly at the Traditional meme, the Rational/Modern meme, or the Pluralist/Post-Modern meme. Some have advanced to the Integral meme or higher.
When a group of people is at a given meme level, they tend to associate with each other and create institutions that perpetuate their meme. This is true in the area of law as it is in other systems of life.
The Traditional meme sees the world as pretty black and white and wants everyone to live by the rules. They tend to favor religious institutions of law. It is easy to observe in other cultures, where we can point to Sharia (Islamic) law for example. However the remnants of this religious worldview are present in most American courtrooms today. (And courtrooms elsewhere that I've seen depicted.) Just sit in a courtroom, or look at a picture. Erase the people. Then look at the room. You have the altar, the chancel, the altar rail, the pews... Yes, in all but name, it is a traditional Christian church! And after seeing the architecture, it should be no surprise to recall the fervor over posting the 10 Commandments in Courthouses, and other inclusions of Christianity.
(While looking for an image to accompany this blog, I came across this interesting syllabus which focuses on the transition from the Traditionalist to the Modernist meme, http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://academic.shu.edu/honors/James%2520I.jpg&imgrefurl=http://academic.shu.edu/honors/2103.html&usg=__8fAkSqviDTbGJaiDF01d_GAIYTs=&h=450&w=330&sz=25&hl=en&start=97&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=hs7U_I3axYIbaM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=93&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlaw%2Bimages%2Bfree%26start%3D80%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-US%26rlz%3D1I7GPEA_en%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1 )
The Modernist/Rational meme sees all the downside of allowing religion to be in charge of civil affairs--including law. Here the emphasis is on having rules that are independent of religion and stand on their own. The US Constitution was created by Modernists. However, there are also downsides to the Rational view. Among them is the adversarial nature of the law. Having Capitalism as their economic model, with an implied economic darwinism, it was natural to again favor competition as a model for legal disputes.
Enter the Pluralists. While Traditionalists are satisfied with God having predetermined rules and judgments, and Modernists want the parties to compete, Post-Modernists want the parties to be satisfied with the outcomes of legal processes. This is a driving force behind mediation, but the Pluralists do not limit themselves to mediation. Basically Pluralists maintain that everyone deserves respect and input into their outcomes, even if they are the admitted guilty party.
As a reader, I hope you can see how one worldview/meme grows into the next. The Traditionalist view--putting God in charge--really is superseded by the Modernist view, allowing impartial judges and juries to determine the outcome of the legal fight. Both are smaller than the Pluralist ideal of having all parties grow and gain from the dispute.
Today there are so few people operating above the Pluralist/Post-Modernist level that I cannot say what social systems, including legal systems, will be coming in our future.
Lalia
The Meme, in the sense used by Beck and Cowan, is a whole conglomerate of ideas and values that self-perpetuate and cling to each other in a somewhat consistent worldview. Individuals begin life in a primitive or Archaic meme, and grow through the Tribal and Warrior memes as they mature in developed nations. Adults are mostly at the Traditional meme, the Rational/Modern meme, or the Pluralist/Post-Modern meme. Some have advanced to the Integral meme or higher.
When a group of people is at a given meme level, they tend to associate with each other and create institutions that perpetuate their meme. This is true in the area of law as it is in other systems of life.
The Traditional meme sees the world as pretty black and white and wants everyone to live by the rules. They tend to favor religious institutions of law. It is easy to observe in other cultures, where we can point to Sharia (Islamic) law for example. However the remnants of this religious worldview are present in most American courtrooms today. (And courtrooms elsewhere that I've seen depicted.) Just sit in a courtroom, or look at a picture. Erase the people. Then look at the room. You have the altar, the chancel, the altar rail, the pews... Yes, in all but name, it is a traditional Christian church! And after seeing the architecture, it should be no surprise to recall the fervor over posting the 10 Commandments in Courthouses, and other inclusions of Christianity.
(While looking for an image to accompany this blog, I came across this interesting syllabus which focuses on the transition from the Traditionalist to the Modernist meme, http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://academic.shu.edu/honors/James%2520I.jpg&imgrefurl=http://academic.shu.edu/honors/2103.html&usg=__8fAkSqviDTbGJaiDF01d_GAIYTs=&h=450&w=330&sz=25&hl=en&start=97&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=hs7U_I3axYIbaM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=93&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlaw%2Bimages%2Bfree%26start%3D80%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-US%26rlz%3D1I7GPEA_en%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1 )
The Modernist/Rational meme sees all the downside of allowing religion to be in charge of civil affairs--including law. Here the emphasis is on having rules that are independent of religion and stand on their own. The US Constitution was created by Modernists. However, there are also downsides to the Rational view. Among them is the adversarial nature of the law. Having Capitalism as their economic model, with an implied economic darwinism, it was natural to again favor competition as a model for legal disputes.
Enter the Pluralists. While Traditionalists are satisfied with God having predetermined rules and judgments, and Modernists want the parties to compete, Post-Modernists want the parties to be satisfied with the outcomes of legal processes. This is a driving force behind mediation, but the Pluralists do not limit themselves to mediation. Basically Pluralists maintain that everyone deserves respect and input into their outcomes, even if they are the admitted guilty party.
As a reader, I hope you can see how one worldview/meme grows into the next. The Traditionalist view--putting God in charge--really is superseded by the Modernist view, allowing impartial judges and juries to determine the outcome of the legal fight. Both are smaller than the Pluralist ideal of having all parties grow and gain from the dispute.
Today there are so few people operating above the Pluralist/Post-Modernist level that I cannot say what social systems, including legal systems, will be coming in our future.
Lalia
Critical Thinking Exposed
I've always been a bit taken aback by the term "critical thinking." After seeing yet another piece bemoaning the internet generation's lack of critical thinking, I have arrived at why I abhor the term.
Critical thinking is an educational term used to describe a methodical, logical, rational approach to the world which consults known authorities in the respective fields of knowledge. Thus, a critical thinker, wanting to know more about sinus problems, would consult the National Institutes of Health website--a source of respected information that comes from accepted scientific studies.
While that is not a wrong way to look at the world, it is a meme-specific way to look at the world. Since it is closely tied to the Rational/Modernist/Orange meme, it is something we grow in to and subsequently grow out of! And we have (among adults in the developed world) high populations of Traditionalists/Amber/Blue meme, Pluralists/Postmodernists/Green meme, and a developing group of Integralists/Yellow/Teal meme. The Pluralists and Integralists both hold "higher" ways of assessing the world than the critical thinking espoused by the educators.
I am taken aback by anyone who sees "critical thinking" as the highest way of assessing the world and see the complainers as lacking in meme development themselves.
What do you think?
Lalia
Critical thinking is an educational term used to describe a methodical, logical, rational approach to the world which consults known authorities in the respective fields of knowledge. Thus, a critical thinker, wanting to know more about sinus problems, would consult the National Institutes of Health website--a source of respected information that comes from accepted scientific studies.
I am taken aback by anyone who sees "critical thinking" as the highest way of assessing the world and see the complainers as lacking in meme development themselves.
What do you think?
Lalia
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