Implicit And Explicit Guarantees

I want to talk a bit about explicit and implicit guarantees, using a policy debate other than the banking problem. I'd called it an analogy, but we all know that analogies are fraught with danger, while elucidations, aren't. So let's call what I'm giving an elucidation.

Take illegal immigration. It's illegal. Yet, some people believe that we have given illegal immigrants an implicit guarantee that we will not deport them. Obviously, the government will deport a few, here and there, but based on the last immigration bill and the way that the government and the private sector have dealt with illegal immigration, one could conclude that there is an implicit government guarantee not to deport most of them. Some people would even call this guarantee explicit, given how long some immigrants have been here.

In other words, the government's and society's actions are as important as what each says. I believe that an implicit guarantee becomes explicit when it's clear there's no turning back. So, based on my analysis, even though there are some who want to deport all the illegal immigrants, the practical hassle and explicit guarantees will preclude that happening. Eventually, when we have immigration reform, the illegal immigrants will be allowed to stay.

At that point, we can have another debate on illegal immigration, just like we did in the eighties. As well, when we get through this mess, we should have a debate on and a clear decision about government guarantees to banks and other financial entities.

As to the name libertarian Democrat, to use another elucidation, it's a lot like a griffin. It's easy to understand what a griffin is, but somewhat harder to actually run across one. However, here's a try.

Libertarian Democrats believe:
1) In a robust form of negative liberty, and a weak form of positive liberty. Most libertarians don't allow positive liberty at all.
2) As a concoction, it's about one third Rawls and Gewirth, two thirds Nozick and Hayek.

Finally, as an example of such an idea, I would argue that the negative income tax or guaranteed income qualifies as such an idea.

If you ask why Milton Friedman was a Republican, while I'm a Democrat, I'm not sure either of us could give a satisfactory answer. But, since he was an economist, it might be that he might have cared more about economic issues, while I, a novelist/philosopher/blogger/flaneur, care more about social issues. It was worth a shot.