"Know-Nothingism" is a perennial trend in American politics. It's a convenient tool for drumming up baseless fears and turning those fears into money and votes. Unfortunately, even a few Libertarian candidates for public office have yielded to the temptation to exploit it.

Unlike my opponent, US Representative Todd Akin, I decline to cater to the politics of fear. I support the most "open border" policy possible. Peaceful individuals should be able to cross the border "through the front door" at any port of entry with no more scrutiny than you or I receive when we board a bus or enter a bank (which, if you think about it, is considerable scrutiny -- surveillance cameras are endemic to American society now and facial recognition software linked to databases of known criminal suspects is becoming more and more common).

The facts are indisputable. Let's talk about the things the fearmongers don't want you to know.

- America's economic vitality has historically been inextricably linked with the least, not the most, restrictive immigration policies.

- Labor protectionism is bad economic policy. Even if it succeeds in driving up wages -- which it seldom does because it's virtually unenforceable -- it also drives up the prices of goods paid by the wage-earners it supposedly benefits. And those same workers are the ones who pony up billions of dollars to make the scheme "work."

- No, immigrants are not a "drain on government services." According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, immigrants pay more per capita in taxes than native-born Americans. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, immigrants consume fewer "social services" per capita than native-born Americans. To top it off, many of them, by virtue of being forced to work under false identities, pay income and payroll taxes for which they never claim refunds or benefits. Far from draining government's coffers, immigrants subsidize "social services" for America's middle class, while simultaneously bringing down the prices of the goods and services that same middle class consumes.

- And, by the way, the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports say that immigrants are slightly less likely than native-born Americans to commit crimes.

- Restrictive immigration policies subsidize and enable terrorism. Because millions of Latin American workers are legally forbidden to enter America seeking work, they enter illegally, creating a huge undocumented, transient population in which terrorists can easily hide themselves. Those workers hire "coyotes," cross-border guides, to help them successfully navigate entry into the US. If al Qaeda and other terror organizations want to infiltrate the US via the Mexican border, it is that industry -- an industry entirely created and powered by US immigration policy -- to which they will turn for assistance.

- Although the enrollment of millions of young men in the armed forces for WWII made English a more nearly universal American language, to this very day there are neighborhoods in America where one can walk for blocks and hear only "foreign" tongues spoken. Fears of "cultural balkanization" aside, America has always been a multicultural society. Immigrant populations do in fact "assimilate" -- but they also retain some of their their previous cultural identities, and bring the best parts of those cultural identities to their new country as a gift of enormous value.

As your representative in Congress, I pledge to work for an end to immigration ceilings and quotas, a general amnesty for undocumented workers currently residing in the United States, a "pathway to citizenship" open to all, and a "border security" system which focuses on actual threats of a military or terroristic nature rather than acting as a drag on our economy and a threat to the civil liberties of millions of immigrants and native-born Americans.